The Twins at the Interview

Fenna has two interviews on her calendar for Thursday, one at nine and one at half past ten. She needs someone for the operations desk, a job that has already worn out two people in a year. She is not optimistic.

The first candidate arrives early, wearing a green tie and carrying a folder with colored tabs. He talks about spreadsheets with real affection. He has a plan for his first ninety days, and the plan has subheadings.

"Impressive," Fenna says to herself when he leaves. "A bit rigid, though." She writes "methodical" on her notepad and underlines it twice.

At half past ten, the second candidate walks in, and her first thought is that the first one has come back for another try. He has the same face, the same haircut and the same way of tilting his head. The tie is blue now, the folder has disappeared, and his hair is slightly less tidy.

"You've changed your tie," she says. "And you told me an hour ago that you love spreadsheets."

The man blinks. "I haven't been here before," he says. "Honestly, I would rather draw a map than fill in a spreadsheet."

A long, strange pause follows. Then he asks, very carefully, whether the earlier candidate wore a green tie and carried a folder with tabs. When she nods, he puts his face in his hands.

"That's my brother," he says. "My twin. I told him I had a dentist appointment this morning."

Fenna pulls the two application forms out of the pile and lays them side by side. They list the same home address. She should have noticed that on Monday, but she had been sorting a hundred applications, and the forms had arrived in different weeks.

The interview carries on, mostly because neither of them knows how to stop. On paper, the second twin is nothing like the first. He is quick, he improvises, and he admits mistakes with a shrug. Fenna asks about a failed delivery, and he describes it so honestly that she laughs. By the end, she has decided that both brothers are good. Annoyingly good.

She walks to the window. A man in a green tie is still sitting on the bench outside, rereading his notes with great concentration. Fenna waves, and he comes inside.

Now the two of them sit across the desk from her in identical postures, with different ties. She tells them that the operations desk has always been too big for one person, which is why the last two people left.

"If I hired only one of you, I would always wonder what the other would have done," she says. "So I'm offering one job, split into two part-time jobs. One of you is methodical and the other improvises. You'll have to agree between yourselves who is which."

The brothers look at each other with exactly the same raised eyebrow.

"Do we get one desk or two?" asks the one in the blue tie.

"One," Fenna says. "You'll have to share."