Having ushered me into his office and made the perfunctory small talk, my interviewer is now sitting at his desk with his back to me, squinting at his computer screen. We are on the 20th story of a Midtown skyscraper in his windowless, bare-walled office. He is saying things like “Hmm” and “Really?” and “Oh right, I see.” Once or twice, he chuckles. On occasion, he throws a seemingly arbitrary question at me, though he never turns around. “Are you following the Petraeus scandal at all?” or “Where did you spend election night?” or “Did you celebrate Thanksgiving growing up?”
