Diary of a Working Girl (7 page)

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D a n i e l l a B r o d s k y

color it was, the type of cut, what she’ll pair it with, and when she’s thinking of wearing it), I say I am ready to take my tests now.

“What do you think all of these other people are waiting for? To get to the pearly gates?”

Okay. A simple “you’ll have to wait” would have been just fine, but I smile and take my seat in the sweetest way possible. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, Joanne’s voice says in my head.

Perhaps I should just ask some people here about their feelings regarding job hunting through a recruiter, to get a bit of research for a possible article. I might as well pitch the story to one of the daily papers. What’s the worst they could say? Lord knows I’ve heard that
N
word before. I look around the room at the job hunters to find one that would be a good candidate for the story. To me, a good candidate is the kind of person who will see things the way I do. Perhaps this is not the best way to go about writing a story, but if they don’t say what I think they will, then the piece won’t work.

The first thing I do is look at shoes. I see a pair of scuffed up stack-heeled Mary Janes—cute, but unfortunately, very obviously plastic. I mean, you can’t very well hope to get a job if you come to an interview wearing plastic shoes. It’s all about impressions, which is why I am wearing the black leather pants I purchased for my last job interview at
Jane
, paired with a smart black and white tweed blazer, which I also bought for that interview. So, I didn’t get the job. But I looked the part. I really did. I shift my gaze to another corner of the room and spot a very stylish pair of natural-colored, point-tip stiletto boots, peeking from beneath a smart brown pantsuit. There’s my girl.

“Hi. How are you?” I ask, a bit too cheery-voiced for this particular waiting room. I’m like a clown in the ICU unit of a hospital.

“O-kaay,” she says hesitantly, probably wondering exactly why I am talking to her.

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“I am researching an article and I’m wondering if I can perhaps ask you a couple of questions about using job recruiters.”

“For which publication?” she asks.

Shoot, a smart one. I hate this part, because now I have to explain that I don’t exactly have the assignment, but that I would like to pitch it to the daily papers in the city, and her input would really be helpful.

Normally, when I’m trying to get together information for a beauty or fashion story without actually having an assignment, big companies cut me off here, and explain that they don’t have time to speak with someone who may or may not be writing an article for some publication or another. But in this bleak environment, where the only other form of entertainment is a thoroughly dog-eared, two-year-old issue of
Biography
or an even more abused cov-erless issue of
People
, it’s an easier sell.

When I’m done with my spiel she says, “Sure. I’m Samantha, by the way. What would you like to know?”

The words just come to me. I am a natural. “This office seems so sober to me. Everyone is wearing a frown. Does this have any effect on you?” I ask, sounding rather professional. “I’m Lane, by the way,” I add as an afterthought.

I begin jotting down notes as she says, “I’m so glad that you said that. This is the third place I’ve been to in the past two weeks, and they’re all like this. And then, after waiting for about two hours, you take these awful tests which are, like, the most difficult things in the world, and then after you fail miserably, some woman behind a desk says with the most high and mighty tone you’ve ever heard, ‘Sorry.

We don’t have anything for you.’ And then you feel like the biggest loser in the entire world, and even though you graduated from college with honors, you don’t think you’ll ever find work anywhere.”

I’ve made Samantha cry. Her head is convulsing in all of these 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 48

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tiny jerks and her mascara is quickly making its way from highlighting her lashes to highlighting the bags under her eyes. I run to the receptionist (still on the phone) and grab the tissue box from her desk. “It’s okay, Samantha. We all feel like that,” I say, starting to get worried for myself. She doesn’t sound all that different from me. I hope I can pass the tests.

I rub her back, looking around the room, and notice that most everyone there is shaking their heads in agreement—even the girl in the plastic stack-heel Mary Janes. And some people begin vocal-izing their views. This seems to calm Samantha down, and she goes on to tell me the rest of her story. It seems that the people who work in the recruiting agencies don’t always consider your skill set properly, and so make you feel like a moron because you can’t balance accounts in Excel—even if you were the valedictorian of your class. After I’ve finished interviewing her, and we’ve exchanged telephone numbers to grab a drink together some time (misery does love company), other people begin approaching
me
to participate in the story. Whether it’s the five minutes of fame, or the us-against-them force that has everyone excited, it doesn’t matter one bit to me. People are fired up about this story. And so am I.

By the time I am called in for my test, I have practically penned the entire article. Lane Silverman, star reporter. It does have a certain ring to it.

I can’t quite get my head around how everything happened to work out so well at the recruiting agency (despite the fact that Ms.

Banker is, in person, as nasty as she was on the telephone), but I am beaming by the time I get home.

And, I am radiant in my new camel-colored overcoat. I probably shouldn’t have used my Saks card, but I just had to start my new executive life with a new executive look. And the sling-back chocolate croc pumps were just the perfect corporate shoes. I wore 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 49

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them both on the way home, just to break them in (okay, really because I couldn’t help myself). I stuffed all of the tags and boxes inside my new attaché case. It was on sale, okay?

The job Ms. Banker is considering me for is in the Mergers and Acquisitions department of Salomon Smith Barney. It is the one I’d seen advertised in the paper. My duty would be to support one of the Managing Directors. I can do that! No problem. And after we’d spoken about how glowingly perfect I am (according to my resume and alleged computer skills), I’ve almost forgotten that I have to take the tests at all.

“Before you run into the testing center,” Ms. Banker explains in a wide-eyed manner, “I’d like you to meet the man you’d be reporting to. He actually just came in to meet with me about his particular requirements, and I asked him to stay for a moment to meet you. Please do not embarrass the Financial Professional Recruiting Agency or yourself.”

I am glad at this opportunity, because I’m always great with interviews—I do this for a living! As I glance at her thumbtack-hung posters—waves crashing off pointed rocks under a crystal blue sky, above the word, “Success;” another depicting a skier doing the downhill underneath the word, “Compete,”—I wonder why, if she thought she was helping people so much, she felt the need to act like a mean know-it-all. Fingering Ms. Banker’s Precious Moments figurine of a girl wearing glasses at a desk, which seemed almost sinister, given the situation (you know, resting on the desk of a mean cow), I picture the balding, stout man, stuffed into a cheap-looking suit, sporting a record-breaking comb-over, who would most likely walk through that door. He’d probably take one look at a young, pretty thing like myself and hire me on the spot.

“Thomas Reiner, meet Lane Silverman,” says Ms. Banker as she came back into her inspiration-filled office with him. I stand up to 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 50

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shake his hand, noting that he is not, in fact, old at all. My guess—

about thirty-two. His full head of soft brown hair is neatly shaved at the back and sides and just the right length up top. He looks like someone you would glance at, but never look twice at in a bar; the sort of man you would describe as “nice.” His female friends probably tried to fix him up all the time, selling him with phrases like, “He is the nicest man I know and so smart!” I feel a wave of pity for him.

We both take the vinyl seats on the interrogation end of her desk, and Ms. Banker props herself up, back perfectly straight (straighter than when she’d met with me, I note) in her own high-backed Staples special, hands folded in prayer position.

“So, Lane, Ms. Banker tells me your computer skills are excellent, and I see you’ve graduated from NYU and spent lots of time as a freelance writer. All very impressive. Writing skills are highly regarded for positions like this. But, I must ask why you are choosing to switch careers at this particular time?”

“Well, I just want to meet men, really,” I say, smiling to show it was a joke. A joke. Of course, it’s a joke. Of course. Ms. Banker’s brows scrunch up so tightly, they virtually disappear. But when Reiner’s face breaks into a gleaming smile (he has very white teeth) and he begins laughing, she lets them ease back into two separate entities again and even manages an under-her-breath laugh/sigh to show she is obviously in agreement with popular opinion—her important, paying client’s popular opinion.

“Obviously, you have very good interpersonal schmoozing skills,” he says. “Is that what you studied in college?”

“Well, that was my minor, but English was my major.” I try to communicate levity with my eyes rather than my hands in the spirit of smooth calm. Nevertheless, of their own will, they make half gestures in my lap that could have gotten me confused with a sign language translator.

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“You’d never tell from where I wound up, but I actually studied literature in my undergrad days as well. Big American lit fan, too?”

“Sure, I love Faulkner and Hemingway,” I say. This is my standard reply. That was the only course I actually took that went into any lengthy detail on authors. They were all right, but probably not really my favorites. Those would be Sophie Kinsella, Helen Field-ing, Jane Austen, the Brontës, anyone who writes about love and provides a happy ending and fodder for my M&M search. Hemingway’s male love interests always get thwarted, have sexual dys-functions or get freaked out when their wives transform into men—not really my cup of tea.

“Big bullfighting aficionado?” he replies—in complete mastery of the eye levity thing, hands statue-still over one knee—and continues, “Anyhow, let me tell you a bit about the position. You’re obviously more than qualified.” And then, as if only to please Ms.

Banker, he adds, “You do know what mergers and acquisitions is, right?”

“Well, sure, it’s when two companies want to m-erggge (I bent my head a bit here as the word slid slowly out. His eyes followed until it looked as if our heads would crash. And in a flash it came to me.) to put their . . . assets together to . . . to . . . increase profits.”

Tada! It sounds like common sense to me. I look over to Ms.

Banker to pooh-pooh her lack of confidence in me, but she isn’t smiling. In fact just the opposite. I get that awful body-floating-off-to-sea feeling that so often accompanies shoe-in-mouth syndrome.

“Ha, ha,” I snicker, in case what I said is more appropriate as a cute little joke and readjust my hair behind my ear.

“Yes, on a small scale, that’s it exactly. Basically, mergers and acquisitions are just one product area in investment banking that we offer clients as strategic advice. If we see that a certain industry is 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 52

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consolidating for any number of reasons, we will present our best ideas to specific clients regarding what we feel makes sense as a long-term growth plan for shareholders. For a company to hire
us
rather than a competitor takes years of building relationships and credibility.” That’s what he says.

What I hear is, “Yes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Was that even in English?

I don’t worry about the heretofore-unmentioned “foreign language” requirement. I remember from my college temp days, it didn’t really matter if you understand what’s going on when you’re an assistant. As long as you can type and ask questions when you aren’t sure if something makes sense the way you’ve typed it, you’re fine. When you’re not really a key player at a company and realize that from the menial tasks you are asked to perform every day (“Lane, can you find out if this notebook comes with the spiral
on top
, rather than on the side?” or “While you’re at it, can you pull all of the files out and stamp each with

‘FILED’ and then put them back exactly the same, except retype the tabs in Courier New ten point?”), it’s easy to get depressed about your worth.

One day you step back and wonder exactly how you’ve gone so far off track that you are torturing yourself over mistakenly having chosen “standard” manila over “nouveau” manila folders and that’s when you start implementing Third Reich nicknames for your superiors, maintaining a steady habit of bringing up things like the cost of your education and the honors you were granted at graduation, and adopting a bad case of finger-waving-hand-on-hip syndrome during “happy” hour over five-too-many margaritas.

Although those wonderful olden days were flooding back in Ms. Banker’s fuzzy corporate presence, this time at least I know I 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:04 AM Page 53

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am returning with my own stable of goals. And so I hope going from master-of-my-own-domain to underpaid, underappreciated, I’ll-show-you (by hoarding, at home, every last number two pencil, rubber stamp, and novelty Post-it flag set I can get my hands on) status wouldn’t set me back too far on the emotionally-prepared-for-a-high-school-reunion scale.