The Wrong Coffee — Yanlış Kahve

Zeynep had been looking for a job in Berlin for six months. She had sent more than forty applications, but she had only been invited to two interviews. Both of them had gone badly. "You're too nervous," her friend Lena told her. "Just be yourself." Zeynep didn't know exactly what that meant, but she promised to try.

The third interview was with a company that designed mobile apps for hospitals. It was exactly the kind of job she wanted. The interview was at ten o'clock, and the whole conversation would be in English. The night before, she wrote down every question they might ask and practised her answers until midnight. "What is your greatest weakness?" she asked her reflection in the window. "I work too hard," her reflection answered, and they both looked unconvinced.

In the morning she left home early, because she wanted to arrive calm. Near the office there was a small café, so she went in to order a coffee. It was very crowded, and the barista was writing names on the cups. Zeynep said her name twice, but the barista only nodded. A few minutes later he called out something that sounded like "Flat white for Zane!" Zeynep thought this was probably the closest he could get to her name, so she took the cup without looking at it. Just as she was leaving, a woman in a grey coat stopped her at the door. "Excuse me, I think that's my coffee," the woman said politely. "My name is Jane."

Zeynep looked at the cup again. Now she could see that the first letter was a J, not a Z. She went as red as a pepper and started to apologise in English, German and Turkish at the same time. "Özür dilerim... Entschuldigung... I'm so sorry!" The woman started laughing. "Don't worry. Three languages before nine o'clock is very impressive," she said. Zeynep insisted on buying her a new coffee and a croissant, and they chatted while they waited. She told the woman that she was going to an interview and that she was terribly nervous. "You'll be fine," the woman said. "Good luck."

At ten o'clock Zeynep was taken into a bright meeting room on the fourth floor. Two people were sitting at the table: a young man with a laptop and a woman in a grey coat. The woman was holding a coffee cup with the name "Jane" on it. "Hello again," she said with a smile. "I'm Jane Fischer, the head of the design team." Zeynep wanted the floor to open and swallow her. Then Jane asked her first question, and it was not on Zeynep's list. "Tell me, how do you usually react when you make a mistake?"

For a moment Zeynep said nothing. Then she remembered Lena's advice and decided to be honest. "Well," she said, "first I apologise in three languages, and then I buy everyone a croissant." Both interviewers laughed, and suddenly the room felt much warmer. After that, the conversation was easy, and Zeynep forgot all her prepared answers. She talked about her projects, her ideas and why she loved designing things that help people. Two days later she received an email offering her the job. At the bottom Jane had added a short note: "Your first task: learn how to read handwriting on coffee cups."