No one's posted here in several days. Here's something to get some interest back in one of my favorite areas of English:
Being a college graduate today is not easy. Ask me. Hell, don't ask me. I'm still gonna tell you. Fresh out of Harvard, cum laude, Bachelors in Business Administration, and female on top of that. The world was my oyster, right. Wrong. Dead wrong. You know how you're told "Don't give up your day job"? Someone should have told me not to give up my night job. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. And what makes it worse is my first name! Dorah, believe it or not. But call me Dolly.
After six months of resume rewriting, sidewalk shuffling, inane interviews with insipidly lisping personnel types, I finally hit bottom--a headhunting service. No, that's not true, it was really a personnel agency, a la Snelling and Snelling. One where I might have to pay someone a fee to get a damned job. Ugh.
But the first student loan payments were coming due, and a woman does what a woman gotta do, so, dressed in my one good suit, charcoal grey, cream colored blouse, high-necked, accesorized with a very discrete pearl necklace, limited make up, several copies of my resume and transcripts, and I guess a bad attitude, I was ready for my initial interview.
"Ms. Dorah Bishop?" The first thing I noticed was there was nothing to notice. This guy would have made a perfect secret agent. He was grey through and through, so average he almost wasn't there, if you know what I mean. "I am Greg Entwhistle. Before we get started, may I say you have a very impressive resume. I am certain we will have no trouble finding you a suitable position, most likely one with the fee paid by the employer, though I cannot promise that. But first we will start with some standardized tests."
"Tests?" I replied, "What kind of tests? I'm looking for an entry level management job, not a clerical position."
"Of course, Ms. Bishop," he replied smoothly. "We take great pride in the success of our operation. This is not a clerical test, but a proprietary examination that maximizes our opportunity to place you in a job that you will be happy with, which is the most important aspect of any position, don't you agree?"
I nodded politely. Two hours later I was finished with a bizarre battery of tests, some of them like the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Interview, some of them what appeared to be weird questions randomly generated and answered directly into the computer, some eye hand coordination tests, a real mishmosh. A waste of my time, I thought, this is going nowhere. And did that turn out to be wrong.
The next morning I presented myself at Entwhistle's office for the verdict, which was how I was coming to look at it. "Well, Ms. Bishop, the results of your tests were indeed interesting. Oddly enough, you are perfectly matched to only one job,and that job has been our oldest unfilled position for some time now. Between you and myself, I am going to earn a very healthy bonus if you accept the position. But please do not let that influence your decision."
Immediately all the bells and whistles started ringing, gonging, screaming, and sirening. If the job was that hard to fill, there was something desperately wrong. Noncommittal time, Dumb Dorah, I told myself. With a smile on my face and dirge in my heart, I asked, "What can you tell me about this job, Mr. Entwhistle? I am particularly interested in why it has been open so long. Not to mention what has been the resulting damage to the organization of not having the position filled?"
"Well, the job is, according to our computer, tailor-made for you. The correlation between the job itself and your skills, knowledge, abilities, and proclivities scores an amazingly high 90 per cent. I personally have never had a client with that kind of a match, and it probably is a record for this agency. The job has been open for quite some period of time because the employer is very precise in his expectations of a successful candidate. And while this is something we do not normally do, in your case we have forwarded our package to the employer, and the job is yours if you choose to take it."
Interestingly enough, Entwhistle had not told me anything about the job itself, so I pursued my inquiry. "Mr. Entwhistle, this is all very nice, but I still do not know what this job really is."
"Oh, it is medical research. An African corporation has a contract to supply monkey fur for research. Not, pelts, just the fur itself. They have a breeding farm where they raise these monkeys and then shear them every so often. They've altered the monkeys genetically, and they have very long fur, perfect for whatever the research is, and the contract is very long term, so there is plenty of job security."
"Uh, Mr. Entwhistle, this is fascinating as all getout, but what would I be doing?"
"Well, of course, isn't it obvious? Running the monkey farm. You do have a degree in business administration and this is a business."
"You have GOT to be kidding. I don't know the first thing about monkeys."
"That's no problem, the company has good technicians, but they need a good manager. And they believe you are a good manager."
"I thought for a moment. "That's fair enough, and flattering too. OK, I'll at least go take a look. Can you give me directions?"
"Yes, stop downstairs in the post office and get a passport application."
"WHAT?"
"Well, of course, dear Ms. Bishop. The job is located near Timbuktu, in the country of Mali, in east Africa."
"I guess that tears that, then," I responded after finally digesting this amazing exchange. "What's the next job I'm qualified for?"
"Actually, there are none. This is it. Oh, did I mention how much it pays?" I shook my head, then sat in stunned silence at the price this unknown company was willing to pay to get me onto a monkey farm in Mali. Sounded almost like a joke. The odd thing about this is that it really was not the money that decided me. Not sure what was, but it was not the money, though the thought of paying off all my college loans (which were considerable) in 18 months was a bit compelling.
Three months later I was the head honcho in charge of this farm that breeds monkeys for their fur. I wondered what the Harvard Alumni Association would say, but to tell the truth I found it very interesting, rewarding (besides financially) work that taught me a whole hell of a lot about business administration that I never learned in college.
Then came disaster. The pharmaceutical company threatened to terminate our contract due to an unacceptable level of dirt in the monkeys. So we had to start bathing them every day. Ugh, what a nasty chore that was, monkeys being disagreeable creatures without a lot of thought to cleanliness. In fact, I think they prefer being dirty.
So dirty, in fact, that they would stain a stainless steel sink in a matter of two months, leading to contamination, leading to our having to replace the expensive sinks so often that the expense was cutting into our bottom line. Ever seen the quality of dirt that will stain stainless steel? You do NOT want to, trust me.
A year passed, with profits shrinking monthly, and with no solution (soap or any other kind) in sight. I could see my job slipping away with the dwindling profits, and it was only the chance to see my American boyfriend that convinced me to take a few days off and go into Timbuktu, where I checked into the Timbuktu Hilton. Bob was due in the next morning, so I filled the bathtub up with hot water and soaked my weary (and not-too-clean) body. When the water cooled I pulled the plug and was rewarded with a gurgle of water into the drain. Then EUREKA. I realized there was no bathtub ring. The tub was pristine white, not a mark, not a blemish, not a drip stain, nothing. Unlike Socrates I was able to restrain myself from running naked through the streets. Instead, suitably dried and dressed, I learned from the hotel manager that all the tubs were made of this special wood, grown only in the forests of Mali, and guaranteed to stay clean. No hidden clauses. They stayed clean.
So I arranged to have one of these tubs installed beside each monkey pen. Thus it was that I became known in history as the arranger of "The Unbrownable Mali Sink, by the Hairy Simian Corral."
