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Letters from Tara · July: The Question at the Interview

The draft she did not send

Danya,

I'm still up here. I'm renting a second-year's room in a shared house near the park for July, because she's gone home and I wanted to stay and earn something before second year. It's £95 a week. The house has a garden with one deckchair in it, which everyone takes turns in, and a cat that belongs to nobody.

I've got an interview tomorrow. It's at a bookshop on the hill, the old one with the creaky stairs and the armchair in the window. They need someone for the summer. I walked in last week and asked, which you'll be proud of. The manager is called Niamh and she has very short grey hair and reading glasses on a chain.

If they offer it to me, I'm going to say yes straight away. I really want it. I'll find out the pay and the hours once I've started. It seems rude to ask about money at an interview, as if that's all I care about. They'll tell me eventually. It's a bookshop. It's not like they're going to

The draft stopped there, as all the drafts did.

Tara read it on the deckchair, at about eight in the evening, with the cat that belonged to nobody asleep on her feet.

She noticed something. It was a waiting plan again, but a sneaky one, because it looked like an eager one. Yes straight away. I'll find out once I've started. It meant saying yes to something without knowing what the yes was. And afterwards, asking about money would not be a question. It would be a complaint.

She looked at the sticky note inside the front cover. Six lines.

The cheapest time to say the thing is before there is a plan for it to be against.

Ask on the second day, not the last.

First chance, not last.

A no on the day costs a minute.

The first minute is the cheapest.

You don't have to be sure to ask.

The cheapest moment for this question was obvious. It was the moment before the yes.

She put the draft in the back of the notebook. There were eleven now.

The armchair in the window

The interview was in the back room, among boxes of second-hand paperbacks waiting to be priced. Niamh made tea in two mugs that did not match and asked Tara what she liked to read, and what she would say to someone who came in wanting a present for an uncle they didn't know very well, and whether she minded getting dusty.

Tara said history, and ask what he does on a Sunday, and no.

Niamh laughed at the Sunday one. She wrote something on a pad. Then she put the pen down.

"Well," she said. "I'd like to offer it to you. Can you start Monday?"

Tara felt the yes arrive in her mouth, fully formed, the way it always did. She held it there for a second.

She had practised the next bit on the walk up the hill, out loud, which had worried a man with a dog.

"Thank you," she said. "I'd really like to. Before I say yes, can I ask how many hours a week it is, and what the pay is?"

It came out plainer than she had practised. It also sounded completely fine.

Twelve hours

"Of course," said Niamh, as if it were the most normal question in the world, which it was. "Eleven pounds an hour. Twelve hours a week. Saturdays, nine till five, and Thursday mornings."

Tara did the sum in her head, the way she had done every sum this year. Twelve hours at eleven pounds. A hundred and thirty-two pounds a week. The room was ninety-five. That left thirty-seven pounds a week for food, and the bus, and everything else.

It was not quite enough. She had a little left from the deposit, but she had promised herself she would not touch that.

"That's really helpful," she said. "Is there any chance of a few more hours? Sixteen would make it work for me. I could do Thursday afternoons too, or a Wednesday."

She waited for Niamh to look disappointed.

Niamh did not look disappointed. She looked at her pad.

"Sixteen's fine," she said. "Thursdays all day. Actually that helps me. I've been doing Thursday afternoons on my own." She wrote it down. "Can I tell you something? The student I had last summer said yes the moment I offered. Didn't ask a thing. I'd only got him down for six hours, because that was all I needed then. He found out on his first payday, and he was too embarrassed to say anything, and two weeks later he just stopped coming in. I'd have given him more if he'd asked. I'd much rather know before."

"So would I," said Tara.

"Then yes?" said Niamh.

"Yes," said Tara.

The first Saturday

On her first Saturday a woman came in looking for a present for an uncle she didn't know very well. Tara asked what he did on a Sunday. The woman said he walked, mostly, along canals. Tara found her a book about the canals of the north with old photographs in it, and the woman bought it, and Niamh, who had been listening from the back, raised her reading glasses at her very slightly.

The Friday after, her first payslip came. Sixteen hours, a hundred and seventy-six pounds. She paid the week's rent, bought a proper bag of shopping for the first time since June, and did not touch the deposit money at all. It felt like a small, private victory.

That evening Tara sat in the deckchair and took out the sticky note and a pen. There was just room for one more line at the bottom, if she wrote small.

Ask the question before the yes.

The letter she sent

Danya,

I'm renting a room near the park for July. There's a deckchair and a cat that belongs to nobody.

This month I asked a question before I said yes.

I got offered a job at the bookshop on the hill. I wrote you a whole letter about how I'd say yes straight away and find out the pay and hours once I'd started, because asking about money at an interview felt greedy.

Then I realised I'd be agreeing to something without knowing what it was. And afterwards, the same question would be a complaint.

So when Niamh offered it, I said thank you, and before I say yes, how many hours and what's the pay? Twelve hours at £11 wasn't quite enough for the rent. I asked for sixteen. She said fine, and that it actually helped her.

The student before me said yes without asking, found out he was on six hours, and left after two weeks.

Seven lines on the sticky note now.

Tara

P.S. Eleven drafts. In this one I thought saying yes fast was the polite thing. The polite thing was asking first, so I could keep the yes.

The question for your own table

Is there something you are about to agree to: a job, a commitment, a plan, a favour? What would you want to know before you say yes, and what is the plain sentence that asks it?

Something to do

Next time someone offers you something, say "thank you" first, and then ask the one question you most need answered before you say yes. Notice whether they mind. Usually they don't.

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