Baguette Express and the Potato

I saw something which really made me think today, and that doesn’t happen very often. As I went past the lurid green Baguette Express and hesitantly considered a cheese sandwich, I saw a poster over the counter:

“Create your own…potato.”

On the one hand, it’s a really disappointing end to that sentence. On the other, it’s quite magical. Create your own…potato!

My next job interview was this morning, and it passed in a whirl of competency questions. And all I could think of was creating my own potato.

“Can you give me an example of a time when you’ve dealt with a difficult customer?”

“Where do you see yourself in ten years time?”

“What motivates you?”

Hmmm, I’m hungry. Funnily worded slogan, that. What does it mean, exactly? Are we just talking being creative with choice of filling – cheese, tuna, olives, haggis? Or maybe various kinds of potato – King Edwards, Golden Wonders, Maris Pipers? Succulent and soft, melting with butter. Crispy on the outside…

“What motivates you?” she asks me again.

“I like teamwork,” I reply flatly. Somehow I feel that I’m becoming rather formulaic.

BAM. That’s how it’s done, folks. Thanks must go to Baguette Express and their enlightening advertising campaigns, and to whom I am indebted for my new position, speaking German in a contact centre. Let’s say contact centre and not call centre: it sounds so much better.

P.s. Screw the cheese sandwich, I know what I’m having!