[Rowan]

[radio_gaga]

Job interviews suck. Hell, even making it to the job interview at all sucks. Robin sort of can't believe it, but after a morning full of less than stellar job interviews, she actually kind of misses Hawkins in 1985. Scoops had been so easy. Show up, prove she had two working braincells to strike together, and wash her hands and she'd gotten hired.

Today is the culmination of turning in so many job applications into some mysterious internet sorting system, having to take multiple choice behavioral tests (Rate if you agree or disagree: If a customer turns out to be a man you've sworn vengeance on, you will not retaliate while clocked in), only a fraction of them called her for an interview.

An even slimmer number of those interviews felt successful and Robin has a bad feeling she's going to end up back where she started, slinging ice cream in the mall. Thoroughly bruised, she lets herself take a break in the food court, morosely nursing a Not-Quite-Orange-Julius while crossing out completed interviews in her planner.

"Maybe," she says, next to the interviews that felt successful. "Definitely not," she says, frowning at the ones she knows she tanked. "Bummer. Bummer. Bummer."

Comments

[scythe_lucifer]

Rowan is not having an easy time of it either, though comparatively he hasn't tried as hard. His needs are minimal, and with the stipend and room the city gives him naturally, he hasn't had a pressing need to get out there and get a job. Do anything with his life.

He's already wasting it away at night, so why bother with the day?

Part of him balks at the idea of working for Tangerine Julian, but it's a good way to observe the mall and see what everyone's up to. So it's after turning in an application to the kid behind the counter that he turns and sees Robin.

"Hey," he says, approaching. "What's a bummer?"

[radio_gaga]

"My last three job interviews," Robin says with a heavy sigh. She closes her notebook and scoots a little bit sideways, inviting Rowan to take a seat. "Honestly, the other five over the last few days didn't go so great either."

Glancing around, Robin points in the direction of a macaron stall and then a store called Create-a-Cub. "I have two more interviews tomorrow and then it's time for a fresh wave of applications." Robin does nothing to hide the lack of thrill in her voice.

[scythe_lucifer]

Rowan does sit down, but immediately feels out of his depth and like he should run away.

"Shit, that's a lot," he says, clearly marveling at her... dedication? Madness? Something.

"I have, like... three applications out and haven't heard about interviews so far," he admits. "But I'm... I've been lazy. And I don't have much experience in terms of back home and my former boss is gone from Darrow, so my references page is extremely shaky."

[radio_gaga]

"My dad always told me that I have to go knock on doors, pound the pavement, blah blah blah," Robin says, rolling her eyes expansively. "Like, maybe that would have worked in 1985. But here? I asked for a paper application and someone looked at me like I was a dumbass."

It had been incredibly shitty for her pride. Robin likes to think she's gotten pretty good at the whole internet thing but having things that are real and on paper, that get handed to a real-life person, feels so much more solid.

"The only job I had before this was an ice cream shop. And then the mall turned out to be a Russian front."

[scythe_lucifer]

There's a whole lot to what Robin's saying that Rowan only has a loose grasp of. Of course, he grew up in a world that didn't believe in using paper applications either, so he's ahead of her in that respect. But his father never said anything about pavement, he's never knocked on doors. Getting a job was always a matter of preference, not requirement. If you wanted to live a better than average life, you got a job. Otherwise, you did what you wanted to do; the Thunderhead provided.

He's about to say something to that effect when he's cut short by confusion.

"I'm sorry, a Russian what? Front of what?"

[radio_gaga]

She can see him building toward saying something before his eyes go a little wide. Robin can't help taking the smallest amount of pleasure from that. After having seen what Rowan can do, it's nice to be the one with the surprises for once.

"They ever teach you about the Cold War in your future world? Or is that ancient history by then?" Robin asks. It's hard to imagine growing up in a world where there isn't at least the faintest, ever-present threat of mutually-assured destruction hanging in the air but she knows now that it's long over.

"We had these Russian scientists trying to do some nefarious evil shit. So they built this huge mall as a front. It is exactly as weird as it sounds."

[scythe_lucifer]

"Ancient history," Rowan replies, because he vaguely remembers the name, but not the actual conflict. (Because, of course, if you call it a war, there's going to be fighting, isn't there? He doesn't remember the details of this one, only that Russia was involved which probably made it very cold indeed.)

"Why a mall? Why not just--" He cuts himself off with a shake of his head.

"You know what, I'm never going to understand that. I don't understand why they'd be up to nefarious evil shit in the first place."

[radio_gaga]

"Believe me, if I knew the answer, I'd tell you. I think they knew that no one would ever suspect it."

On a superficial level, she has to admit it's kind of brilliant. The mall had been busy all the time with people going in and out and always, always pushing their luck on closing time. Who was going to notice a few surly deliverymen or security guards or some other anonymous knucklehead in a jumpsuit? Definitely not her. Robin had never paid the Lynx delivery guy a second thought until her impromptu Russian lesson.

"It turns out I come from a really weird town. Especially weird, even for weird towns."