2014-08-17

A tall multi-panel comic drawn in flat purple-and-green tones. A job interview between a man (interviewer) and a woman (applicant) shown in profile facing each other. The interviewer asks standard interview questions and the applicant answers each one in cold, robotic, transactional language. He asks her greatest strength; she says she is willing to perform services in exchange for currency. He asks her greatest weakness; she says she requires shelter and calories to maintain existence, so she must perform services in exchange for currency. He asks why she wants to work there; she says the company pays currency in exchange for the performance of services. He asks where she sees herself in five years; she says performing comparable services in exchange for more currency. Frustrated, she says, 'You know what? Let's start over, okay?' A panel labeled EARLIER then flashes back: the interviewer leans in and says, 'Now, just be honest in this job interview,' and she replies with mock surprise, 'Oh. Wow. Really?' Votey (a black-and-white bonus panel): the woman, now drawn with wide alarmed eyes, gestures and says, 'This is actually for an internship,' and the interviewer erupts with a huge shout: 'MONSTER!' The joke is that brutal honesty about work being purely a transaction is treated as monstrous, made worse because it's only an unpaid internship.