So there I am, sitting at a grey conference table across from two gentlemen, one wearing a business suit and the other wearing a "Disco Sucks" T-shirt. And everything's going great -- the job interview is just breezing along. They've had this position open for weeks, and my skills, as well as my experience as an intern, were a perfect fit. But then the guy in the suit left for a moment to go get some coffee.

All of a sudden, the dude in the Disco shirt leaned forward and lowered his voice. He asked me if I ever play Asheron's Call. He asked me if I was hooked on EverQuest. He asked me if I ever played online roleplaying games and sold my character for money. I was confused, and I said so.

So then he pulled out this chart, a huge organizational chart that he had drawn by hand. He explained to me that for the past year he has done nothing but play Asheron's Call at work. Then he pointed to different colored boxes on the org chart and explained that through Meticulous career maneuvering he'd been slowly weeding out actual employees with people who would also play games all day.

Finally, he removed a 12-page business plan detailing how, if he continually replaced key administrative people with hardcore game addicts, the company could still maintain its current client base using only two insomniac tech support guys and A couple clueless cretins in client services. With income stabilized, he could maintain over 32 employees who did nothing but play multiplayer RPGs every day. If any problems came up, they could simply sell off their characters or valuable items on e-Bay for extra income.

Then he asked me, "So are you in or what? Half of middle management and two VP's are into it already. We've got a whole guild." And of course, I said, well no, I wasn't really interested, because I only play Windows Solitaire and I was really hoping to gain some valuable career skills.

He said that was fine, and carefully rolled up his org chart and tucked it away. For a few minutes we sat in uncomfortable silence. Then, moments before the other guy returned, he dumped a fish-bowl on my head.

"We can't hire this freak!" he screamed, pointing to my glass head. "He's wearing our fish bowl!" I tried desperately to answer for myself, but only burbled water helplessly. I think I swallowed something.

I didn't get the job.