Russell has been trying to find a job for months. The problem isn’t that he can’t get interviews. Russell worked as a project manager for a few years before getting laid off, so he has a little experience, and as such, he can get interviews. The problem is that when Russell is at the interviews, he gets extremely nervous, and when this happens, he ends up saying things that don’t make any sense. For example, when the interviewer inevitably asks Russell to talk a little bit about himself, you know, to give the elevator pitch that Russell has carefully planned out and practiced repeatedly, Russell’s mind goes berserk, and he’ll say something like, “I’m a person just like you. I like to do things.” Russell has just come from yet another botched interview, and he’s sitting on a park bench, berating himself, when a small white dog with brown spots comes trotting up to him. After sitting there for a little while and just looking at Russell, the dog finally says, “I can’t stand to see you beating yourself up like this, Russell.” As you can probably imagine, the dog starting to talk gets Russell’s attention, and now that the dog has Russell’s attention, the dog goes on to say that he’s the leader of an alien civilization. “While they might not appreciate you here on Earth,” the dog/alien leader says, “in my culture, we think people like you are the best, and I truly believe that you would be much, much happier if you quit torturing yourself and just came to live with me and my people as our honored guest.”
Russell is so surprised that instead of asking what makes him so special, all he can think to ask is if his mother can come too. The dog/alien leader says that unfortunately, Russell’s mother would not be able to come because, as the dog/alien leader explains, his civilization has a strict policy that they only take one earthling at a time. This is a problem for Russell because although the prospect of living in a place where he would be appreciated is very appealing, Russell knows that he wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt of abandoning his mother, who is getting older and is starting to need Russell’s help more and more often. So, he tells the dog/alien leader that he (Russell) is extremely flattered, and he’s really very sorry, but he’s going to have to stay on Earth. After saying what he’s just said, Russell starts to worry that the dog/alien leader might simply abduct him, but it’s as if the dog/alien leader can read Russell’s mind because the dog/alien leader tells Russell not to worry. The dog/alien leader tells Russell that he (the dog/alien leader) has no intention of making Russell do anything that he doesn’t want to do. “In fact,” the dog/alien leader says, “I’m going to help you.” The dog/alien leader tells Russell to go see this guy named Lionel who works at the library. “Lionel owes me a favor,” the dog/alien leader says, “and he’ll give you a job.”
At the library, though, things don’t go as planned. Lional, who looks like a pretty typical middle-aged guy, meaning that he’s overweight and balding, initially welcomes Russel into his office, but when Russell tells Lionel what the dog/alien leader said about the job, Lionel gets really upset and starts yelling at Russell. “Yes, I admit,” Lionel says, “at one point in time, I owed him a favor, but take my word for it.” Lionel puts his hand on his chest, as if he’s about to begin reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. “I have more than made good on what I owed him,” adding, “And besides, I can’t just hire someone out of the blue. That’s not the way things work around here.”
Russell, who’d assumed the whole thing was basically a done deal, was feeling pretty good when he’d arrived at the library, but after getting yelled at by Lionel, which feels like yet another humiliation in a long line of humiliations, Russell is right back to feeling completely demoralized again. Watching the transformation seems to calm Lionel down. “Look,” Lional says, putting his arm around Russell’s shoulders so that Russell is forced to smell Lional’s horrendous breath. “I would like to help you and our friend, I really would, but I just can’t.” When Russell tries to pull away, Lionel holds onto him. “But I don’t want you to feel bad. Here,” Lionel says, handing Russell ten bucks. “Take this and go to the sandwich shop on the corner and get yourself a nice sandwich. It’s what I do when I’ve had a bad day, and you know what?” Lionel doesn’t wait for Russell to say whether or not he knows, Lionel just says, “It always makes me feel better.”
Since Russell doesn’t see any harm in it, he takes the ten bucks from Lionel and goes to the sandwich shop on the corner and gets a toasted-veggie sandwich. The sandwich is pretty good, and as Lionel predicted, Russell is starting to feel better. But when this guy with two black eyes walks up and asks if it’s all right if he sits down at Russell’s table because the place is crowded and there aren’t any other open seats, Russell assumes that things are about to take another turn for the worse. Russell is completely wrong though. The guy with two black eyes is all right, just a little talkative. For example, he starts by saying, “I’m Jesus, like the real one,” then goes on to tell Russell how he (Jesus) has just gotten out of jail because he’d ran into another guy who also claimed to be Jesus, which, as Jesus explains to Russell, is obviously false because there can only be one Jesus, and the two of them had started arguing and had ended up beating the shit out of each other. Russell doesn’t know what else to say, so he says, “That sucks.” Jesus just shrugs and tells Russell that it wasn’t all bad because he (Jesus) met a guy in jail who is also committed to helping people live their best lives, and now the two of them are planning to start a self-betterment podcast together.
After telling Russell about the podcast, Jesus sits back in his chair and just looks at Russell for a few seconds, before saying, “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but is everything all right?” Given everything that Jesus has just told him, Russell doesn’t see any point in lying, so he tells Jesus everything, including what happened with the dog/alien leader, and as Russell speaks, Jesus slowly nods his head. When Russell has finished, Jesus continues slowly nodding his head, and then after just sitting there and nodding his head for a little while, Jesus takes a deep breath and says, “So, if I understand correctly, you want a job, right?” Russell confirms that that is correct. “Okay,” Jesus says, still nodding his head slowly. “Do you like animals?” Russell says that he loves animals, adding that watching animal videos on YouTube is one of his favorite pastimes. “Okay,” Jesus says. “Okay, good.” He tells Russell to finish his sandwich, and then they’ll go see this woman he knows who manages an animal shelter.
At the animal shelter, the woman, who’s wearing an eye patch, introduces herself as Sheri and quite reasonably asks Russell if he has any experience taking care of animals. As previously mentioned, during interviews, Russell usually gets so nervous that he ends up saying things that don’t make any sense, but in this particular case, Russell, who finds being at the animal shelter with all the animals to be extraordinarily calming, simply says that although he doesn’t really have any experience, he’s a very quick learner. This is when Sheri says, “I’ll make you a deal.” She motions for Russell and Jesus to follow her, and she leads them out of her office and into a room at the end of the hall and points at this chinchilla that has its face buried in the corner of its enclosure. “Mr. Smithers is depressed and has stopped eating, but if you.” Sheri points at Russell. “Can get him to start eating again. I’ll give you a job.”
Russell figures that he doesn’t have anything to lose, so he decides to give it a try. Normally, when Russell is feeling especially down, he’ll just keep singing Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” to himself, and that’s what Russell does at the animal shelter, he starts singing “Shake It Off” to Mr. Smithers. And it takes a little bit, but Mr. Smithers eventually perks up and starts to eat a little food from the dish that Russell has placed in front of him. Under Russell’s care, Mr. Smithers is healthy and thriving again in no time because as it turns out, when it comes to taking care of animals, Russell is a natural. He even starts letting the animals at the shelter out of their enclosures, so all the dogs and cats and skunks and lizards and hedgehogs and ducks and rabbits and birds and chipmunks and hamsters and raccoons and snakes and chinchillas and goats and guinea pigs and ferrets, only rather than running amok, the animals all follow Russell around the shelter as he does his work, as if he’s the grand marshal of a glorious unofficial parade.