[ WP ] After a bizarrely grueling interview process , you 've finally been hired at the local shop ... on your first day you find out the real reason for the screening .

I still could n't believe some of the questions they'd asked me in the interview. 
 
 Was I fluent in multiple languages? Of course, any self-respecting American growing up in Beijing knew three: Mandarin, English, and Russian ( Chinese television is indecipherable by Americans, so we watched Russian cartoons ). 
 
 What was my closest brush with death? My three-month coma after a BASE jump was interrupted by a rude pigeon. 
 
 It did n't make sense, but I'd passed the interview and been hired. As I walked in the door, the man who hired me walked up and motioned me to follow him into a room. Inside was a fantastically large array of needles and vials of liquid. 
 
 `` Left or right?'' The first words I'd heard spoken since I entered, and they were spoken by the man sitting beside the needles. 
 
 `` Beg your pardon?'' 
 
 `` Dominant hand. Left or right?'' 
 
 `` Left.'' 
 
 `` Good, now sit down. You will repeat after me, until I finish speaking. Then we will mark you.'' 
 
 `` Mark me?'' This was really beginning to sound like more than a job at a cleaning service. 
 
 `` Yes, child. Mark you as a member of the Keepers.'' 
 
 `` Keepers?'' Definitely not the name of the cleaning service. My short-term memory may not have been the best, but even I could remember that. 
 
 `` The Keepers of the Library. While we are n't in any way in charge of it, we keep the wrong people put, keep the Library asleep.'' 
 
 As I began to repeat the oath, I decided that while I had no idea what was going on, I'd never forgive myself if I never found out. 
 
 `` I swear loyalty to the Keepers, and to the continued sleep of the Library...''
