The RGIS office was located in a 2 story building that housed several other businesses, including 3 or 4 radio stations. To get to the RGIS office you had to pass by a Spanish talk-radio station that always left their curtains open, so you always got treated to an exciting view of a couple of guys screaming something scary and unintelligible into their microphones. Just beyond them was RGIS, and when I opened the door and walked in a young Asian man came out of an inner office and said hello. I told him I was there to apply for a job and he handed me an application and an aptitude test. He told me to sit down at a conference table there in the outer office, and when I was ready to begin the test to let him know, as he would be timing me.
The aptitude test was incredibly easy. A moron could have finished it in no time flat (again, moron perfectly describing much of RGIS' personnel). It consisted of simple addition problems and drawings of piles of blocks, which you were supposed to count and total up. It was a very simple and stupid test, and when I finished it I told the Asian man I was through. He seemed surprised when I told him this, so either I must have had a really retarded expression on my face when I walked in (entirely possible) or he was just used to dealing with imbeciles who had trouble adding 2 + 2 (very probable).
The Asian guy took my test and application and handed me a business card with 'RGIS Inventory Specialists' printed on it (Another example of the company's idiocy was their corporate name. 'RGIS' stands for 'Retail Grocery Inventory Specialists', so their actual name was Retail Grocery Inventory Specialists Inventory Specialists). Below this was the guy's name, Jeffrey, and handwritten on the back was a time and date. Jeffrey (or Jeff) said that I should show up at the appointed time next week and I could begin my paid training.
As I took the card I noticed two things about him. One, he had absolutely the tiniest eyes I had ever seen on a person. Two, I noticed that Jeff had the longest fingernails I have ever seen on a man. I mean, they were beautifully shaped into long ovals, extending well past the fingertips and looking as though he had just come from having a clear polish manicure. Immediately upon seeing those nails a bizarre thought popped into my head. This guy's a transvestite! He dresses as a man in a white business shirt and tan chinos during the day, but at night he goes out in drag. Maybe in a black strapless evening gown with a pink feather boa or something. Of course, he needs the long nails to complete the picture. It was an extreme assumption to make, but the sight of those long nails on a man really shocked me. Even though I ended up working for RGIS for several years, and got to know Jeff fairly well, I never did find out why he wore his nails so long. I never heard anyone else mention it either, so I guess I was the only one weirded out by it. Maybe he did like to dress in drag, I don't know. Jeff did have some girly aspects about him. I mean, he was this really big womanizer at work (lots more about that later), but he also liked to cook and sew. And when I say sew (say so?), I don't mean just mending a tear or something. I mean he told me once that he knew how to use a serger sewing machine, which is a little more complicated than a regular sewing machine. And with the cooking, Jeff said that his mom was always playing cards or Mah-jongg with her friends, and they would always ask him to cook some snacks for them. A real Renaissance man, I suppose. Or maybe he was bisexual.
So my first impression of RGIS was as follows:
1. Good help wanted ad
2. Easy and stupid aptitude test
3. Retarded corporate name
4. Possible transvestite working in their office
Quite an interesting afternoon, and I still had the paid training sessions to look forward to. Oh Boy!
(Coming soon: RGIS' lame training sessions, where they weed out the retarded from the semi-retarded.)
