I hoped he couldn’t hear my heart pounding. Do you think he could? He was looking at me as if he could. He didn’t smile very much – his face didn’t do me many favours in measuring my success. That, aside from this whole traumatic situation, was not reassuring at all.

I had first noticed the job advertised in the window of the Co-op during the after-school shop with mum the previous Tuesday. The moment I registered what I was reading – the words ‘Retail Assistant Required’ plastered across an A4 sheet in intimidating black, block writing – I panicked. And my panic was justified, because once mum read it, she declared that I simply must apply, because what was stopping me? I could feel my internal organs crumble at the thought, but when it came to mum, I had no choice; it was impossible to wriggle out of the grasp of her expectations. So, I got in touch with the email address on the poster and waited for a response. Meantime, I tried vainly to convince myself that it might not be as horrific as I’d made it seem. Did the thought of the interview make me want to tear my throat out? Yes. Was the idea of customer service on a par with going down a slide of razor blades and landing in a pool of rubbing alcohol? Yes again. On second thought, maybe this job was the stuff of nightmares, just as I thought.

A few days passed, my stomach constantly heavy with the rock of anticipation, and, while sitting in maths, my phone chimed proudly with an email notification sound. A million heads whipped round to stare at the criminal who had so incredibly rudely disturbed their work. Great. The teacher grumbled at me for not having my phone switched off and my cheeks glowed a glorious crimson as I apologised and reassured him that I would turn it off. But, as I went to click the little bell, all I could see was the notification from the email app. Oh, God, I thought. Reluctantly, I let my eyes move down to reveal the sender – the Co-op. Oh, God, I thought. Opening it made me want to die, but leaving it, not knowing what it said, made me want to die even more. So, I made the executive decision to open it, revealing the one word I hadn’t wanted to see.

“Delighted.”

I groaned a heavy, defeated internal groan and mustered all my will power to scan the whole sentence. “Thank you so much for your application. We would be delighted to offer you an interview.” How was I to escape this hellish situation now? I had been so sure that my pathetic, severely-lacking-in-experience CV would scare them off, and if not that, surely, surely, my dry, charmless cover letter would. And yet, no – they must have been hilariously starved of choice.

Eventually, the fateful day rolled around. I awoke with my stomach in burning knots, hands clammy, chest tight. I convinced myself I had some sort of life-threatening illness and ran to inform mum of my diagnosis, saying I had no choice but to miss the interview. “Come on, now,” my mother said, “You’re just nervous. Have some breakfast and you’ll feel better.” I hated to admit it, but she was probably right – I probably wasn’t dying; I just felt like I was. Her breakfast advice was a little redundant, but I poured myself some Coco Pops anyway because to mum, her advice was unfailing. So much so that she had picked my outfit for today. It was utterly rancid. I prayed to God I wouldn’t bump into anyone from school while wearing my mother’s green button-down blouse, orange work trousers and blue blazer. The outfit was genuinely horrendous, but, awful as it was, it was the absolute least of my worries. I sat in silence in the car, listening to my mum’s incessant chattering about what to say, how to smile, how to sit, how to give long answers, not short ones, to ask questions, and for goodness’ sake, stop fidgeting! She dropped me at the door, and there I was, two minutes away from entering the most uncomfortable situation of my life. I walked into the shop and shuffled nervously up to the counter, furiously wiping my sweaty hands on the thighs of the vomit-inducing yellow trousers. A girl of maybe 18 or 19 stood there. I told this potential colleague that I had come for an interview and, with an eye roll so discreet that it could have been easily missed if you weren’t paying attention, so tiny that it was clearly for her own satisfaction, she sighed and passed on the information (presumably to the interviewer) on a headset. ‘He’ would be up in a minute, she said. I hoped she was nicer than she looked, gnawing aggressively on a piece of green chewing gum, her eyes cold under layers of thick eyeliner and mascara. A little scary, I couldn’t lie. Before long, my interviewer emerged from the mysterious door next to the vegetable aisle – a short, bald man wearing Coke bottle glasses with thick frames. A very run-of-the-mill human being. The contrast between the girl at the counter and Craig (according to his name badge) was rather amusing.

He introduced himself, extending a hand for me to shake. He wasn’t overly friendly; not unkind, by any means, but not the type to make casual conversation for the sake of it. He led me through the mysterious door, revealing what felt like miles of corridor, lined with crates of orange juice, cream crackers and cleaning spray. I followed him closely, astonished that the little, friendly Co-op could secretly be so overwhelmingly huge. Eventually, he led me into a little room with two chairs, a computer and a screen showing the live security camera footage. I watched as a group of five or six teenage boys entered the shop, shouting and fooling around, picking things up and putting them down in the wrong places. My stomach churned at the thought of my life becoming an endless loop of stress and stocking shelves.

“So why would you like to work at the Co-op?” Craig asked me, poised with a pen in hand, ready to record every detail of my responses. I swallowed hard, trying to get rid of the lump that had been lurking there from the second I entered the shop. Again, I wiped my hands on my trousers and urged my brain to think quickly because there had been one too many ticks of the clock on the wall since he’d asked the question – seven, to be exact. “Well, I like the uniform.”

Are you joking?

That’s all you could think of?

I think I had meant it as a joke, but my brain didn’t work quickly enough to combine it with a laugh. So now Craig was thinking I was a complete and utter idiot.

“I also like the work you do for the community,” I stuttered, in an attempt to redeem my first failure of an answer. That was more like it. Bringing it back – maybe I still had a chance? In all honesty, I had no idea if they did anything for the ‘community’, but I seemed to recall a TV ad along those lines and perhaps it would make me seem interested.

“That’s great. It’s something we take seriously. What work have you heard about us doing in particular?”

Oh dear. Never mind. Out the window. I sat in silence, desperately trying to think of an answer. What an imbecile I truly am. Come on. Think of something, anything.

I believe I managed to babble something about charity fundraisers, but anything beyond that is a blur. I think the sheer embarrassment caused me to permanently block out the entire experience. All I can remember is the ticking of the clock, Craig’s incessant scribbling every time I spoke, and the deafening clunking sound of my soul crushing every time I opened my mouth to answer. So, as you can guess, I left the interview completely convinced I would remain sans-job. I went about my life again, trying to pretend it had never happened in order to preserve my dignity at least a little bit and managed to push it out of my mind….

…Until Wednesday, when the phone pinged and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up in anticipation. I anxiously picked my phone up, the screen already glowing, clicked on the notification, load, load, loading…

“Delighted.”