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Five Years From Now
Nora is interviewing for a job she does not want and cannot afford to lose. The interviewer asks where she sees herself in five years. She decides to answer honestly, and the answer keeps going.
Characters
- NORA - mid 20s, smart, broke, in a borrowed blazer, and done pretending for the day
Setting
A glass-walled conference room at a mid-size company, a weekday morning, forty minutes into the interview.
A glass-walled conference room. A laptop, two bottles of water, a printed resume. NORA, 26, in a blazer that isn't hers, has been doing fine until this exact question.
NORA
Where do I see myself in five years.
(a smile, holding it together)
Great question. Really great. Okay.
So the honest answer, and I feel like you'd want the honest answer, is: not here.
(hearing herself)
Not in a mean way! Not here-here. This is a lovely conference room. The chair does the thing where it leans back. I mean not in this role. Or this building. Or, if I'm being totally real with you, Denise, this industry.
Can I say something? I don't fully know what this company does. I read the website twice and I think it's software for other software. Is that close? Don't tell me. It doesn't matter. I applied 'cause the listing said "competitive benefits" and I've been chewing on the left side of my mouth for a year because of a tooth situation that I just don't look at.
So. Five years. Here's what I actually see.
She leans in. She's gone.
I see a room. Not this room. A small room with a big window, and it smells like bread, because I'm making bread. Not for a job. That's just what the room is for. There's a dog. I don't know the dog's name yet, that's between me and the dog. And nobody in that room has ever said the phrase "circle back." Nobody's ever gonna. If somebody says it, the dog bites them. That's what the dog's for.
And I'm, like, thirty-one, and I'm tired, but the good tired. The bread kind. Not the kind where you sit in your car in the parking lot for eleven minutes before you can go in. 'Cause I've done that. I did that today. It was more like fourteen.
(beat)
Sorry. That was a lot.
(then, a new gear)
No. You know what? That's the pitch. That's my pitch, Denise. In five years I'm gonna be in a room that smells like bread, and the only way I get there is if somebody pays me for five years first. And I will be so good at this job. I'll be the best regional logistics coordinator you've ever seen, because I'm not gonna be looking for the next thing, I'm not gonna be networking in the break room, I'm gonna show up and do it and go home and practice bread.
You've got people out there who want your job. I don't want your job. I want your dental.
She sits back. Picks up the water.
Hire me. I'm out in five years. You'll never see it coming.
End of script