Or not.
Today is the career fair at my school. I've been getting prepared for ages, it seems. I get the suit, the shoes, decide on accessories, acquire appropriate foundation garments, have a tailor alter the suit slightly so it fits better, and on and on and on. Girl clothes have way too many rules. This morning I get up bright and early and get around to printing up some resumes, distribution of said resumes being the whole point of the suit and shoes and on and on and on. Adjust a comma here, update a little there, and ages later I have a folder of resumes. Then I dress and I'm ready to go on time, except I can't find a lipstick. I didn't bother to buy a new lipstick because I was pretty sure I had some old, petrified ones in the linen cabinet where I keep my medicine cabinet overflow. (Yeah, nasty old lipstick, but if you put chapstick on first, the lipstick goes on okay.) But I couldn't find one. "Maybe it's in one of those purses?" I run around the house looking into the little old purses I only use on the one or two times a year that I have to wear high heels and no lipstick there either. Back to the linen cabinet where I finally find a lipstick jammed beneath a q-tip box and unidentified toiletries of archeological significance.
I get to school without further mishap and run into Mountain Girl, wearing her black interview suit, outside the engineering building.
"Hey! We match," she calls.
More or less. Her shirt is cream colored and mine is electric, LED green (I'm trying to send subliminal messages to the recruiters), but otherwise, yes, we match. We walk over to the Commons building where the career fair is being held and up to the check-in desk, bypassing the employer check-in area, much to the surprise of the people working that desk.
"No, we are students," we explain. We only look like we have jobs.
"Way to go, ladies!" the employer check-in people say.
After we check in, we run into Cruise Ship Guy (who is wearing a name tag, so now I finally know his name!). He is all suited up and when MG compliments him even though he doesn't match us, he says how he got the suit at Goodwill for US$20 and tailored it himself. (I don't know why, he's got suits already, but anyway…)
"You know how to do so many things," MG admires.
"Well, I am from Jamaica. In my country we have to be able to do everything," he says.
Once they let us into the ballroom, we schmooze around with the three or four employers who are looking for engineers. Actually, they are looking for interns more than they are for full time employees, which is kind of scary for MG and me, but less so for CSG who still needs to get an internship in order to graduate. Also unnerving is that we have to explain what a computer engineering major is to recruiters who were ostensibly looking for computer engineers. Still, we get through it and even pick up a few leads.
Can employment be far behind?
541 words | February 9, 2005 11:43 PM | Ivory tower