One of the most critical aspects of the work I do is the need for careful distinctions. For example, there is a distinction between having your own espresso machine at home and making a cappuccino in your domestic environment versus overpaying at a coffee shop for the same thing. Whilst you likely end up with the same result, the taste you get from having someone else prepare your coffee is not just caffeine-based but also laced with endorphins.
Similarly, in the business of evil, there is a distinction between corporate evil—which is my chosen career—and moral evil. But even within corporate evil, there are levels of success. For example, and my opinion is biased here, my aim to conquer the world through an entrepreneurial corporatocracy will likely lead to the creation of jobs and perhaps the perception of comfort for certain people. This is what allows me to persist in my goals and fills me with a small but essential caveat that helps me sleep at night.
However, there is one element of corporate evil that takes no prisoners and has never been able to hide behind any sort of veil of marketing. This beast of burden, this monstrous enterprise, this titan of pain, is none other than the world of recruitment agents. A necessary evil in every meaning of the word. A force so torturous and so cutthroat that it has been reported some of the most senior intergalactic empires have banned the practice due to the intense levels of chaos it instigates, disrupting whole organisations from achieving their targets. There are rumours that empires have crumbled while waiting for a recruitment agent to call back with a client’s response to fill an important administrative position.
The cruellest element of this mysterious domain is that the pain it inflicts is multifaceted. On one hand, you have the practitioners: men and women who have been trained from birth to offer comfort, politeness, hope, and recognition as a gateway drug—drawing in prospective clients, building their confidence, and giving them the optimism they crave. Suddenly, the agent will snatch it all away at a whim, sometimes by not answering the phone, leaving their clients confused before they slowly descend into a well of despair. Other times, they will relish the rejection they have to offer, delighting in crushing whatever hopes were being pinned on their ability to do their jobs.
Another grotesque pleasure they feast upon is convincing their prospective clients to hire a woefully unqualified candidate and then observing the havoc and destruction they cause.
These petty despots are a brutal sort, relishing in delivering their multifaceted indirect evil. But as with many necessary evils, we believe we can avoid them until we are faced with a lack of options. With great regret, after a brief, painful deliberation, I decided I would call upon this dastardly institution to support my first recruitment effort.
With my ongoing exploits, I realised I hadn’t been particularly good at publicising my adventures, and I became obsessed with recruiting a marketer. There were various ways I intended to capitalise on my evil career, but first and foremost, I needed a customer base. In the first instance, I wanted sponsorship, which in itself was also a particular shade of evil, but nonetheless, a revenue stream was a revenue stream. To get that sponsorship, I needed an audience, so off I went to recruit a professional marketer.
Initially, I thought I could manage without a recruitment agent, but I grossly underestimated the power of these mafia-like brokers. Like any responsible evilpreneur, I had tentatively advertised on some local notice boards, trying to do my bit to support the local community. I soon came to the realisation that masked, low-level recruitment operatives were working to sabotage any such efforts. Tampering with posters, trolling of internet adverts, and many other techniques were carried out to devastating effect.
Thus, not wanting to pit myself against another evil corporate behemoth, I decided to take the path of least resistance and found myself sitting on a bench outside a coffee shop for a meeting with an agent of recruitment. The representative had already delivered an impressive power play by arriving before me, not ordering a coffee, and expecting me to pay for both of our beverages. I should have expected nothing less from a profession that violates all etiquette, but it was still a blow to the ego.
The representative was a completely nondescript woman dressed in a black suit. After I reluctantly paid for our drinks, she steepled her fingers together and eyed me through the gap below them, further shifting the power balance towards herself.
“So what are you looking for, Mr Rendreary?” she asked, her voice as bland as her suit.
I took a sip of my coffee, trying to establish some sort of foothold in this strange meeting.
“I’m looking for a marketing expert,” I replied after I felt a sufficient pause had elapsed.
“Very good, Mr Rendreary. What field of marketing are you looking for?”
“I… um… don’t really know. I mean, I work in evil, so whichever ones are good at that, I suppose.”
She rolled her eyes. “I see, Mr Rendreary. You want an evil marketer. I assume someone who knows all the ins and outs of social media?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Someone who understands your target market and has a track record of delivering success and engagement?”
“Yes,” I said, pleased that she seemed to be guessing my intention.
“Someone who has experience in winning a narrative war against much bigger evil corporations, I assume.”
This time, she made sure I was aware of the contempt she was holding me in.
“…yes,” I said, wrong-footed again.
“Well, that sounds like some sort of unicorn, Mr Rendreary—and very expensive.” She blinked at me several times.
“When you say unicorn, do you mean very difficult to find?” I asked tentatively.
“No, not at all, Mr Rendreary. I mean that any candidate will likely have the metaphorical equivalent of a sharp horn that is just as likely to stab you as anyone else. These are evil markets, after all.” The thought of gruesome and violent harm afflicting my person seemed to cheer her up.
“Oh,” I replied. “When you say expensive, does that also have a less common meaning?” I asked hopefully.
“No,” she answered shortly, and then looked at me with grey, predatory eyes, awaiting a response.
“Well, how quickly are you likely to bring me some options if we come to an agreement?”
She flicked through some of the notes she’d brought with her until she found one with a table and some scribbles. She tried half-heartedly to conceal the title, but I managed to spot it at the top of the page. It said Corporate Bingo.
“Right,” she began. “Well, the market right now is tough.” She looked up from her notes to see my reaction. “I can’t give you a firm timeframe.” Again, she looked up. “There is a lot of competition right now.”
I frowned. “You can always choose to go with one of our competitors, but no one really produces results as we do.”
My frown deepened. “Can you give me an idea of the price?”
She looked at me with some exasperation now. These people were corporate ninjas; they were perfectly trained to make you feel as though you were beneath them, and that the fact they had even consented to meet with you was some sort of insult.
A few moments passed as I let my question linger in the air. I wasn’t bad at awkwardness myself. Finally, she rolled her eyes again.
“Fine,” she huffed. “I’ll get you some candidates, and we can talk price once you’ve had a look.”
“Excellent,” I said. Maybe I wasn’t bad at negotiating, I thought.
She rolled her eyes for the third time, stood up, and collected her notes. She looked me in the eye and very deliberately dropped the Corporate Bingo notes in front of me.
