Please Want My Help

Hi, remember me? I worked for you three years ago. I mouthed off in your class six years ago. Tall girl? Short brown hair? I once made that really inappropriate joke... I once burned the hell out myself making you coffee... I broke the copier that one time? Yeah! That's me. Um, so how are you? Great, great. Listen, I need to ask a favor of you. I'm applying for another job in yet another state. I'm thinking about applying for graduate school... still. Could I please give your number to a string of total strangers? I'd appreciate it if you could tell them I'm not a douchebag, and if they ask about specific skills or strengths of mine, could you maybe ask what they're looking for and then say I'm good at exactly that? That would really help me out.

The job search. It always seems coincide with the times when I'm really doubting my worth as a human being, and suddenly I need to update this slick-looking document with proactive verbs and examples of my own brilliance and efficiency. I've never lied on a resume, but I am sorely tempted to douse mine in a bath of acidic sarcasm every now and then: "Winged it for a year, managed to sound bright every now and then, was never found out." "Successfully disguised soul-crushing post-collegiate ennui while revamping vendor files."

So, I've compiled a list of jobs from local wants ads that I could do if I abandoned all sense of career continuity and instead embraced my appreciation for the absurd:

* Dating Agency Spokesmodel: they need someone to look regular and yet more attractive than average (which I could manage with professionally applied make-up and a soft-focus lens) to appear in commercials and spout off the advantages of hooking up online. I would also have to create a profile on the site, but I wouldn't be required to answer inquiries. The old bait & switch.

* Prisoner Transporter: I would need to drive a van to and from detention centers and be responsible for feeding the prisoners fast food en route whilst compiling receipts for food and gas. The ad doesn't say anything about what you're allowed to play on the van stereo, so I'd make a perplexing mix tape of my favorite Tupac songs interspersed with foreign children's folk songs and snippets of wacko conservative talk radio. My passengers would be the first to get shiv-happy upon arrival at their new destination.

* Tomato Quality Control Specialist: pretty self-explanatory. Pick out the moldy and deformed ones. I'd take this job as an opportunity to inspect the produce at friends' houses and deliver inappropriately long sermons on their poor decision making skills.

* Homeland Security Airport Screener: This one's just sad. Do you know how much they get paid? Almost nothing. No wonder they have no sense of humor.

* Human Billboard: you've seen these. The job pays remarkably well, seeing as how the only requirement is to stand on a street corner with a giant sign hung around your neck. I saw a girl in Florida do this every weekday for several months and the only difference is that the headphones she wore all day got flashier and flashier. If I had this job I might go topless under the sign. Or occasionally flip the sign over to the back where I would have written something universally inflammatory. Or just stand there bawling and see if anyone noticed.

* OB Tech: Seriously. You need no nursing experience to do this, you just set up all the sterile baby-catching equipment, stay out of the way during the delivery, and then mop up afterwards. For sheer wow-factor this job beats out all the others. I bet you don't have to see that many births before you've got some pretty great stories, and then I could see in advance how battle-hardened OB nurses and doctors become just like any other profession when it comes to serving patients/customers, which is to say jaded and full of sanity-saving insulting jokes.

Actually, until I get a forklift driver's license and a back-up certification in dental hygiene, the job search might be kind of slow. Seems all the positions for neurotic word nerd smartasses are full up these days.