Betty Goes to Mykhaylo Castle

Mykhaylo Castle is hiring.  We are a full-scale resort gearing up for our first season; we’re looking for a bit of everything.

·         Kitchen staff

·         Bar staff

·         Wait staff

·         Cleaning staff

·         Lifeguards

·         Customer service representatives

·         Various artists

·         Guides

·         Receptionists

·         Landscapers

·         Maintenance personnel

·         Security

·         Ride attendants

·         Cashiers

·         Dancers

·         Massage therapists

·         IT

·         Programmers

·         Baristas

·         Estheticians

·         Barbers

·         Stable hands

·         Photographers

·         Film crew

·         Labourers

Why would you want to work for us?

·         Full medical, dental, and optical

·         Bedroom with ensuite, locking door

·         Three meals per day

·         Internet, wifi

·         Tablet

·         Personal storage unit

·         Training

·         Uniforms

·         Tips, commission, other compensation

·         No more debt

The catch?  There is no paycheque.  You work forty hours a week, and receive amazing experience and benefits.  For every $15 000 of debt we take from you, you sign a one year contract.  Only owe $5 000?  Still a one year contract.  Owe $16 000?  That’s a two year contract.  $31 000? A three year contract.  Not bad, right?

Betty Dupree read the ad three times before she believed what she was reading.  Three years after graduating University with a useless degree, she still owed forty four thousand dollars.  Flipping burgers just didn’t pay enough, and rent was expensive.  This job sounded great … except it was a little vague.  Still, she opened her resume and started adjusting it.  The job fair was tomorrow, and she wasn’t working.

            She continued fretting over her resume until midnight, then crawled into bed.  In the morning Betty wasn’t sure if she actually slept at all; she could only remember tossing and turning.  She stumbled through her shower, got dressed – and changed twice – before sitting down to a bowl of cereal.  She drooled toothpaste down her top and changed twice more before leaving without her resume.  She got back down to the bus stop just in time to see the bus she wanted pulling away.

            By some miracle, Betty arrived at the hall with resume in hand just as they were opening the doors.  There were only five others there yet, and suddenly Betty was glad she hadn’t gotten there earlier.

            “Hello!  Before I take a look at your resume, do you have any questions?”  Betty blinked.  A girl about her own age was looking at her expectantly.  She was wearing black slacks and a white blouse with the Mykhaylo Castle logo embroidered on the left breast.  There was no name tag.

            “Hello, I’m Betty.  I—”

            “Hi Betty, I’m Leanne.”

            “Hi Leanne.  I was wondering where Mykhaylo Castle is.  It is in Canada, right?”  Leanne nodded, so Betty continued.  “BC?  Alberta, Ontario … I am prepared to move, but the first thing I want to know is where it is.”

            “Oh!  I didn’t realize we left that out of the ad!  It’s here in Nova Scotia.  The lake it’s on is only about forty-five minutes from here, but it’s more like a two hour drive to the castle itself.  Have to take back roads to get there; they’re pretty much logging roads.  Anything else?”

            “Where would I be living?”

            “You would most likely live in the staff wing of the Castle.  There are other accommodations for some positions, but almost everyone lives in the Castle.  How about I take a look at your resume for an idea where you’d be working?”

            “Oh, here.”  Betty waited awkwardly while Leanne skimmed through her resume.

            “Hmm.  Yes, you would be living in the Castle.  It’s a furnished room, just a double bed with a dresser, mirror, desk, and a small closet.  Oh, a little fridge too.  You’d have a bathroom to yourself, but a shower stall, not a tub.  The rooms aren’t painted yet, so pick a swatch and we’ll have it painted that colour.  And feel free to decorate!  It’s your home.

            “Your resume suggests you’d be working in our kitchens, and I’m making a note of when you showed up, so you’ll probably get mostly morning prep shifts.  But that’s just a guess; you can sit down and take our initial test right now if you’d like.”

            “Test?”

            “Don’t worry!  It’s not a test you can fail.  It’s fun, and gives us an idea of where your strengths lie.  An application form, that’s what you can think of it as.  Or a game.  Here, just sit down here and follow the instructions on the screen.”

            Leanne waved Betty into a chair and pulled a tablet out of a box, turned it on and tapped the screen a few times before handing it to Betty.  The first questions were easy; standard interview and application questions.  But it moved on to personality questions, followed by math.  Then there was what Betty recognized as an IQ test.  After that it was bizarre random trivia, and Betty lost track of time.  It really was fun.

            It ended with a screen that merely said ‘calculating preliminary assessment.’

            “Oh, you’re done, are you?  Here, let’s see that.”  Betty looked up to see Leanne and was startled to see the hall was now crowded.  “Hmm.  It is recommending you for kitchen, bar, or wait staff and indicates you might do well as a guide.  I’ll have to look over your answers to make a better decision, but … you’re hired.  If you want the job.”

            “Really?  Just like that?”

            “Yes.  I’m a good judge of character; we need people like you.”

            “When do I start?”

            “Orientation and move-in is next month, but we’ll be in touch before then.”

            “Good, that gives me time to get out of my lease and current job.  What now?”

            “Sign here and pick a colour.”

            Leanne passed Betty the tablet back, and Betty clumsily signed ‘Betty Dupree’ with her finger.  Then a colour wheel popped up and she spent a minute picking a colour.  She held out the tablet for Leanne.

            “No no, that’s yours.  It’s full of information for you to read over, videos to watch.  It’s set up with your company email.  Here’s a charger for it, and we’ll talk more about your new career in a week or so!”

            Betty walked out to catch the bus in a daze.  That afternoon she called her landlord, who informed her that that worked out perfectly as her apartment had extensive work that needed to be done and she wouldn’t even have to look for someone to sublet.  Then she spent the rest of her afternoon putting furniture she didn’t want to keep on Kijiji and going through her closet.

            A week later she got an email from Leanne with pictures of her room and a move-in date.  Boxes and paper were dropped off a week before the move, and Betty packed up her stuff.  Then it was cleaning out the apartment and getting rid of the things she wasn’t putting in storage.  Which is when she realized how big a change she was making in her life.

            Betty was in a daze as she helped load her things into the cube van with the Mykhaylo Castle logo on its side.  They went to another building and a guy still suffering acne and not bothering to shave the bit of scraggly hair that grew on his face loaded his things into the truck and mumbled his name when he sat next to Betty.  He promptly turned on his tablet and ignored her.

            Betty watched the countryside slide by, full of spring growth and promise.  It was almost a shock when the van pulled up to a massive building that seemed out of place.

            “Storage units are down here.  We’ll get you unloaded, and then someone will be along to take you to your new home.”  It didn’t take long.  Betty was handed a key.  “You’ve got twenty-four hour access.  Here’s Leanne, so it’s time for me to go find more newbies.”

            “Betty, Matthias, lock up and come along.  Bring your bags, we’re going to your rooms, but you’ll have a chance to look for anything you need later.”  Betty shouldered her backpack and heaved her suitcase out of the locker, locked it and walked to Leanne, but she could hear Matthias muttering about his ‘precious’ computer and he took his time.

            Thankfully they took an elevator up to the third floor – from the second basement – where their rooms were located.  Betty was pointed into one room and Matthias another.

            “Go ahead and make yourself at home; I’ll be back in about half an hour to get you.  Oh, the wireless password … it’s ‘IWorkHere’.”

            Betty had her clothes put away and her toiletries set out in the bathroom within five minutes.  She found a set of white sheets and a white comforter folded on the bed, so she made the bed.  Not having anything else to do, she curled up on the bed with her tablet and brought up the castle map.  It didn’t take long to find her room and storage locker.  She started exploring and next thing she knew, there was a knock at her door.

            “Betty, time to come have dinner and meet the others.”  Betty got up and went out the door.  “Here, put this on.  There are over a hundred of you.  Oh, and I forgot to give you your key, here.  Wouldn’t want you to leave your door unlocked.”  Betty pinned on her nametag, locked her door, and waited for Leanne to lead the way.

            Dinner was a massive buffet in a huge dining hall.  Betty heaped food onto her plate and made her way to a random seat.  As the table filled up, she found herself with a shaggy guy on her left and a petite girl on her right.

The guy was pretty non-descript.  ‘Shaggy’ pretty well covered it, but so would ‘brownish’.  He was slightly tanned, his hair a generic brown, his face obscured by facial hair but not in an off-putting or memorable way.  He wore brown clothes.  He introduced himself as Mitchell.  He didn’t say much.

The girl was picking at a vegetarian dish.  She had long dark hair and smooth pale skin.  She looked scared.

“Hi.  My name is Betty,” she tried.

“Veronica,” was all she got back.  Veronica looked a bit panicked so Betty went back to her food.  Just then everyone’s tablet dinged.

An email had come in.  It was essentially explaining how to use a social networking app that had been developed for the employees of Mykhaylo Castle.  And challenging them to add everyone they met that evening.

Betty quickly filled in the basics of the profile and let it take a picture of her through her tablet’s camera, then turned to Mitchell.  “Hey, mind if I add you?”

“Only if I can add you.”  It took all of thirty seconds and the conversation died again.

“Veronica?  Can I …” Veronica was nodding and Betty’s tablet dinged with the incoming request.

The rest of Betty’s night was spent brushing off the advances of cocky guys and resisting the attempts of cliquey girls to assimilate her.  The drinks were flowing and her contact list was growing, but Betty soon found herself yawning and slipped off to bed.