Arthur left the mass of candidates in the waiting room. This one, unlike the first, had enough chairs for everyone to sit but very few of them did, presumably wanting to stretch after sitting down for two hours.

Though the average employee will have to remain seating for far longer than two hours at a time. Even the aloof Natalie Yamnson was standing, her posture rigid and perfect. This is truly an irregular assessment day Arthur mused as he strode along the corridor to the interview room, how will the candidates react to this interview panel?

He opened the door and entered the interview room, which was occupied by a few figures behind a desk. At the far left sat Edward Chupton, chief executive officer of Extech. The highest employee on the Extech ladder before reaching Coca-Cola directors. His hair was grey but, when Arthur first faced his assessment day all those years ago, had once been bright red. To the far right of the desk was an empty chair, Arthur’s chair. Arthur himself knew that he would not have a chance to sit down, they had two hundred interviews to perform in less than an hour, but it was a nice, if empty, gesture.

There were two figures standing up, arms clasped in front of them, behind the man in the centre seat. The man was, naturally, Isaac Yamnson. Most years the centre seat would be occupied by Edward Chupton but he could not take priority over the head of the parent company. Arthur suppressed a sigh. The umbrella Extech existed under had grown rapidly when Amazon had been acquired by Coca-Cola earlier in the year. Even by the standards of major business negotiations, the tension had been high. No one could quite believe their eyes when Isaac Yamnson took on Amazon Prime in single combat. Amazon Prime was a robot built by Jeff Bezos to continue running the company after he was gone, and Isaac Yamnson had fought the machine mano a mano in the Wall Street Coliseum. Under the rules of the contest, Amazon Prime was not allowed to use any of its extensive weaponry but even without wrist mounted rocket launchers (apparently considered vital by Jeff Bezos) the robot was still a seven foot tall wall of carbon steel. It was this carbon steel that shattered under the pressure of Isaac Yamnson’s fist when he punched straight through the torso of his mechanical opponent. The lights in Amazon Prime’s eyes faded and it collapsed to the floor, that stupid smile still printed on its face. And that was that, the moment Amazon Prime computed its last all the assets of Amazon became the property and intellectual property of Coca-Cola, including Extech.

“Are you ready to start?” Arthur asked the two men sitting.

“Yes, send them in.” Isaac Yamnson smiled in a way that suggested he had far too much money to care what people thought about him. Edward Chupton simply nodded.

Arthur left the room and closed the door.

“Are you ready, Arthur?” a woman asked him. It was one of his team, Emily Zam.

“Yes Emily, please start sending them in.” Emily trotted off in the direction of the waiting room, from where she would start sending candidates through for their interviews. As he, Edward Chupton and Isaac Yamnson had to interview all two hundred candidates they had to move quickly. Each candidate would be asked a single question which they would have to answer within ten seconds. It was a simple question and once the candidate gave their answer the three on the interview panel would decide there and then if the candidate would be rejected.

It was slightly cruel, honestly, as even if a candidate made it though the interview stage they might still be rejected based on their written and technical assessment scores.

The first candidate approached, a young man called Julian Port, and Arthur opened the door to the interview room to let him enter. This was a motion Arthur would perform approximately every eighteen seconds for the next three thousand and six hundred of them.

Julian Port entered the room and, upon seeing that there was no chair for him to sit on, stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. The shock on his face to learn that Isaac Yamnson was the head of the interview panel was plain to see.

“Hello Mr…” Isaac Yamnson began.

“Port.” Arthur finished.

“Yes Mr Port, welcome to the interview.”

Julian Port had little to say, though his eyes were uncomfortably wide. He was panicking. He had already failed.

“We have a single question for you Mr Port, and you will have ten seconds to give us an answer. If we do not like the answer you will be asked to leave. If we like your answer then you will go on to the next stage of the assessment day.” Isaac Yamnson didn’t even bother waiting for a reply or affirmation from Julian Port. It seemed that he, like Arthur, had already judged this candidate unworthy. Or maybe he just didn’t care. Regardless he asked Julian Port the question.

For a moment it looked like Julian Port would be unable to give any answer. He stammered a few times but finally some words came out. Unfortunately for him they were the wrong words.

“Are you serious?” he managed to say, “I uh… that’s a… that’s a big question.” Isaac Yamnson was looking back at the notes on his desk, a list of all the candidates. He’d already lost interest. Edward Chupton’s gaze was set unbrokenly on Julian Port but there was nothing but the slightest hint of disdain in those eyes. Julian Port somehow reached an answer.

“I would say that uh that is not something you can err quantify.” he said. Isaac Yamnson smiled and Julian Port flinched. Arthur could see why. There was no warmth in that smile.

“Now now Mr Port did you not listen to my speech?” Isaac Yamnson began, “If I asked my employee a question and they came back to me and said that there wasn’t an answer… no, if they came back to me and told me that it was wrong to find the answer to such a question, what do you think I would do? Do you think I would give them a raise? A promotion? Maybe just a pat on the back and a firm handshake in recognition of their moral fortitude?” Julian Port was visibly shaking now that Isaac Yamnson’s attention was fixed so firmly on him. “No of course not. If an employee came back to me and told me that they could and would not find an answer for me, well I would have them fired of course. That’s what happens to people who cannot do their jobs, Mr Port, they get fired.” Isaac Yamnson paused a moment for effect. Arthur wondered if he was planning on doing this for all the candidates. They would surely overrun if they did. “So what do you think Mr Port? I asked you a very simple question and you came back to me, after some dithering, and told me that you couldn’t come up with an answer and that you shouldn’t come up with an answer. What do you think is going to happen now, Mr Port?”

Julian Port did not answer.

“Out, Mr Port.” Arthur opened the door once more and let Julian Port out. The next candidate was already there, they’d taken too long with this first interview.

The interviews continued. The first few candidates gave answers of a similar nature to Julian Port and were swiftly rejected. One even said that the answer could only be given by God. Rejected.

The first candidate to pass the interview was the huge man, Hugh Jaman, who had to duck slightly to enter the interview room. He gave no reaction to the presence of Isaac Yamnson and didn’t flinch when he was asked the question.

“The answer to that,” he began without hesitation, “is decided by how much a person contributes, financially, to their company and to their company.” Isaac Yamnson smiled his first genuine smile.

“Impressive.” he said, “Congratulations Mr Jaman, you will go through to the next stage of the interview.”

Hugh Jaman nodded, “Thank you Mr Yamnson.” despite his size and somewhat brutish manner he apparently knew when to be polite.

Arthur looked at his watch. While the speed of the interviews had picked up they were still on track to overrun. Isaac Yamnson saw Arthur checking the time.

“Don’t you worry about overrunning.” he said, his voice containing a joviality that his expression failed to communicate. “These lot don’t need a lunch break. We can go straight to the final stage once the test results come through.”

Edward Chupton looked over at Isaac Yamnson for a moment, then looked away again. That was that, no lunch for the candidates, regardless of how successful they were.

Successful candidates included Donald Rugg. When he was asked the question he tilted his head to the side and thought for a moment before saying. “How much the give back to the world compared to how much they take.” A similar answer to Hugh Jaman, he passed.

The young woman Millicent Lute was a surprise case.

“I would say it is decided by those they are connected to.” She said, “A powerful man is powerful but surely the friend of many powerful men is even more powerful.” Isaac Yamnson raised an eyebrow at this but gave her a pass.

“You have some interesting candidates this year, he murmured.”

Most of the successful candidates had answers similar to those of Hugh Jaman and Donald Rugg, saying that the answer was dependent on how a person contributes to a company, to a society, to a country, to the world.

Arthur checked his watch again, as he had been doing so regularly. 13:37. They were only halfway through. Even with Isaac Yamnson’s abolition of lunch they were still in danger of overrunning. The next candidate to enter the interview room was the elegant and cold Natalie Yamnson. She strode to the centre of the room and faced her father, no signs that she expected anyone other than him to be in that chair. There were no pleasantries, Isaac Yamnson simply asked his daughter the interview question.

“This is your idea of a question, father?” Natalie Yamnson shook her head, “I of course know the answer to this. Nothing but the iron in their blood, the calcium in their bones, and the salt in their nerves.”

“A perfect answer.” Much to Arthur’s surprise he found that he couldn’t read the expression on Isaac Yamnson’s face.

Arthur opened the door and let Natalie Yamnson out. On her way down the corridor she passed the next candidate walking the other way towards Arthur. Arthur felt the candidate’s intense gaze upon him. Norman Pearson approached Arthur Cessman and the interview room, unaware that the next eighteen seconds would decide his fate.