Spine straight, breathing regulated, eyes scanning for important points. I'd already taken a second to familiarize myself with the buttons on the phone that I had borrowed, and I was reviewing the histories of the people I was about to dial.

One Monday, five half-hour telephone interviews, to determine wisdom and personability levels, to evaluate the fits. The only common theme I could distinguish among the resumes provided en masse from our source - all degrees were earned on a continent not my own.

Even after all these miles, I am unalterably midwestern, with a tendency to take accents with a "whut?" Throw in some partial deafness, and I'm sure I'll be awful on the phone - it was another day that played to none of my strengths.

Still, my coworkers and I, we all take turns in this particular barrel, and there was no questioning that this questioning was mine to do. A cherished client had a need, and we sought bodies to fill the opening. With velvet hat or without, honor required I find the best.

See the number and the name, rehearse pronunciation of the latter as I dial the former. Straighten spine again while it rings, hear the click and off we go.

It's not as if I never do this - we pride ourselves on expertise, and are unashamed in asking for it. We consult - our people come to you - generally only permitted in after an interview more grueling than I can stand to give. I tell myself as I launch into the setup spiel that I'm the friendliest voice they'll hear all day.

The phone does fine the first time, but there's a disconnect. Experience as plainly written on her page should have made these questions simple, but I seemed to have some trouble being understood. The only tone that was notable was a tone of professional panic, as she tried to find a point to make and a way to get it across. I struggled to parse the lilt of her, and took her off every hook I could.

Those questions should have been simple, and it's not her fault they weren't. The middlemen lack understanding, and arrange conversations on any thin excuse. I keep from my voice the realization that we're in a numbers game for someone else - as if singles bars had brokers who were only paid by the fuck. She didn't really appeal; that's not her fault.

I find a graceful ending, press the stud that lets her go, and note the time before I dial again. Somewhere around ninety seconds to get the next sheet in my head, tap on borrowed buttons, make the call. Fifteen of them go to a reminiscence I'm not going to shake any other way.

[Slumped at a table, with a friend across, griping at the things that make me me. "What is it about me? Why does everyone immediately tell me all their stuff?" Her appraising eyes leveling at mine for just a moment, before she spoke the absolute truth. "You don't judge, Frank, anyone can say anything to you because you will not judge them."]

I take a few more seconds, jotting judgments of her worth. Save that as an outline - dial again.

The interview that follows has the problems of the first. Receiver jammed into my ear, I try to hear him better, thinking all along it must be me. I'm reading on the paper that he's done a certain thing - asking him about it draws a blank. Rephrasing and re-asking does a modicum of good, but still I think I cannot mark him high. No sentence that I say can go without a new repeating - his accent has me missing most of his. It's clear that he and I will not be speaking in the future. Best thing I can do for him is stop. We hang up at the time that was agreed.

The third shows flashes like we understand each other briefly - and I wonder if I'm forcing that on him. Wondering if I grade now on just noises that he's making, willing to like a man that's not correct but with a clue. Wondering if there were times and other places when he was me. I get interviewed myself from time to time.

The remainder seem less likely, and I finally hang them up. The only tones I recognized were eagerness to please. I know that times are hard, I know that that's what they must do. I was not raised to let that go for naught.

I write some notes about them, then just mumble at the ceiling. It takes some extra minutes, but let's face it, I must tell. Velvet hat or no, I owe them that.

I walk out from my borrowed desk, and over to my boss. I've worked for him for years, and cannot pronounce his last name, and he doesn't really encourage anybody to try - it screws up scansions. At least for anyone who looks like me. On the last presumably secret feedback I offered for his review, I said he was the only guy I'd want to do his job, and mean that just as honestly now.

He looked up from what I was doing as I dropped myself in his visitors' chair. Posture not unlike my reminiscence.

"I've been doing interviews all day, and I feel stupider than when I started. It's like nothing that I say makes any sense. Answer me this question - am I just goofy wrong?" And babbling on like that into his quite impassive face. At this point, I'm willing to get my ass kicked, just so I can get past this, and know what's for the best.

When I finally run down, he breathes in through his nose and nods. I can tell he'd not prefer to say what's next.

"This particular contact fluffs the resumes they send." He told me that flat out, face carved from teak, voice quite controlled. "We've had to screen the ones they send us, hard. You didn't catch that episode, the time we all were wrong..." Then on into the story I won't tell.

When the story ended, he looked at me directly, finding ways to say what must be said. "I don't talk to people through that place - I haven't for a while. I used to, but it wasn't for the best." His face changed its expression for the first time at that point, as he raised a shaking fist up to his ear. "My ears are tuned to hear them, and I get them differently. That hasn't worked out for us in the past. People that I liked confused our clients on Day One." And then he stopped to let me get just why.

I blinked into his eyes as he shrank slightly in his seat. I saw he'd reached a bit to set me free. For a moment there I flashed back to the way I'd ended talks, the way I'd left the thought they weren't to blame.

So many different ways that all are true, and all can work. So many ways we hear each other speak.

I nodded, squared my shoulders, and resolved to live with that. "I guess I'm better suited - I guess that I'm your boy. I hear things like our clients hear them said."

He'd swiveled toward me earlier, and now he turned away. "The last time, I liked only one in five."

A deep breath, then I nodded, once again, as that was best. "That was what I heard from them today."

We moved to other matters, not for consequence, but peace. Speaking just to end it on a key that would resolve. I noticed I'd been doing that all day.

I have to check again the secret feedback that I gave.

Next time, I must repeat it word for word, so all can hear.