Despite my aforementioned series of discouraging setbacks, on that first day of training, I was hopeful. I had filled all of my holes and was back where I needed to be. My trainer wasn’t too hard on the eyes either. A petite little American born Korean spark plug who would occasionally forget what she was saying mid sentence, and then start giggling as a flush crept into her cheeks. She was cute, energetic, compact, and some would even say quirky. Very charming.
I had been warned training week would be intense, but I was ready for that. Hell, I had procrastinated my way through many a college finals week, so five straight days of homework didn’t seem like anything to sweat over. On the first night, I worked until my eyes began to drop; and although I was still staring down the barrel of 5 more hours of prep, I passed out. I assumed that starting us off with such a high volume of content was a test: a psychological ploy designed to weed out the high functioning pot heads who were just there looking for a vacation. No human could properly complete such a demanding workload–at least not without a heavy dose of amphetamines, of which I had none–so my trainer would understand if I was a bit under-prepared, right?
Wrong. Dead fucking wrong. I got reamed. But I blame myself, really. I had naively assumed that my trainer would be operating with a reasonable level of human decency–you know, being a person and all. So, that one’s on me. The next day, I ate faster, slept less, and worked harder. Same result. On Wednedsay afternoon, after once again taking a hot shit all over my 14 hours of hard work, my trainer told me that I was probably going to fail, and thus lose my contract. It was about that time, as I stared into the coal black eyes, set shallow in that sexy little peanut head of hers, that it hit me.
“Oooh! I get it now! The whole ditzy and adorable thing is an act! You’re the devil!”
Even then, as I sat contemplating my newly discovered adversary, I refused to lose. There was no other option than to roll the dice and let this hot little Korean Hitler decide my fate. What else could I do? Turn back? Fuck that. This was my redemption story, brah. My Rocky IV. I refused to believe that my best wasn’t good enough (it wasn’t), or that this company would fly a stranger halfway around the world just to torture them for a week, then strand them in a foreign country with little more than 20 bucks and a “sorry, bro” to see them on their way (they totally did).
In all honesty though, that’s not the part that really bothers me. I’m not bitter (not true). Nor do I hold a grudge or have any hard feelings toward my trainer (also not true–bite me Chong*). This wasn’t a public school, after all. These people were running a business. The part that bugs me is that no one ever told me this was a possibility. I mean, I’m sure idiots get rejected all the time, but I didn’t consider myself to be that inept. Throughout the entire recruiting process, nobody ever said, “Hey, you might want to have a back-up plan, because this could go south on you.” And just like that, as soon as I was getting back on track, that pint-sized psychological sadist shot-gunned my game plan across the back wall like the back of Cobain’s skull.
Footnotes:
*Her actual last name–not me being racist.