2005-03-12 - 9:43 a.m.
On Wednesday, I went to the spring job fair (held in one of the more inaccessible buildings on campus). I�d arranged for a friend to come with me for moral support and balance issues should the need arise, but the Career Services people had been told I was coming and I was met by the usual assortment of well-meaning, annoying, overly-�helpful� types. Didn�t you want to come in through the elevator from the basement you don�t know how to get to? Here, this staffer will follow you around closely, neither of you really understanding his purpose. I guess keeping things low-key is no longer an option for me.
There was a rather motley assortment of recruiters there, companies ranging from obscure political lobbyists you�ve never heard of to Goldman Sachs. Their approaches to attracting applicants were similarly varied. The Microsoft booth was staffed by three pretty blonds, practically roping in candidates. I hung around the table for a social service organization that trained people with developmental disabilities, but there was no one there at first. When a woman showed up, she seemed vaguely annoyed and said any jobs they had now, they were looking to fill right now and post-graduation openings wouldn�t be clear until late April, so check their website then. Uhm, why are you here then?
Anyway, I really wanted to meet with this West Coast-based construction firm, which hired a lot of Brown alums. Everything happened so fast. I talked to them briefly and gave them a resume. I went to an informal info session at a pizza place that evening (which was kind of a project to get to, but that�s another story), where they talked a lot about their corporate culture (suffice it to say that they have in-office wine bars). They called me that night to arrange an interview the next day.
The interview went pretty well. We had good chemistry and they were excited to talk to someone who had some industry experience from a developer�s perspective. They were also intrigued by me as someone who�d gone back to school later to major in Urban Studies and learn more about how the built environment works and how it can reflect social contexts. They wanted to know how I�d gotten interested in green building (I�d expressed interest that they�d said many of their employees were LEED-certified). No, it was not something I�d learned about at Brown.
I laid it out for them. I used to do just the sort of job they�d been talking about � go down to the job site in a hardhat and deal with the vendors and subcontractors (well actually, since I worked for the developer, I mostly dealt with the general contractor). But I�m a gimp now; I can�t do that anymore. I�m still a smart guy, I still love making places, and I�m still a good problem-solver. Building things is nothing if not one damn thing after another, practical issues to be resolved.
In fact, my life with a disability is kind of like this now. Often what used to be simple, un-thought-of tasks are now difficult processes that I have to figure out how to negotiate. Working through practical problems is actually a skill that is rarer than you�d think. I know people who I think of as smarter than me who are utterly ineffective at real-world stuff. How many geniuses does it take to screw in a lightbulb? More than you�d expect. If I couldn�t run around anymore, surely there was still some role I could fill in their organization.
They called me that night. No, I would not be flown out to California for a second-round interview. They seemed apologetic. Of course they�d pass my resume and their positive assessment of me along, but they�d called their home office and they just didn�t have the authority to hire beyond the entry-level, run-down-to-the-job-site position they�d outlined.
This sort of backed up my suspicions. A lot of the jobs recruited for around here are geared towards bright-eyed, eager, young regular-age Ivy League graduates. You will be paid a good salary and treated well (wine bars). In return you are expected to work your ass into the ground. An info session I attended for a consulting company talked about their low-key culture: our work week isn�t too tough, only maybe 50 hours.
Fifty hours is quite a stretch for me these days. Furthermore, even if I could do it, as a function of age, I�m not sure I�d want to. At 22, you�ll agree to slave readily. The construction recruiters were there to find some eager young thing who won�t ask questions. Although I think I come across well in person, I look bad on paper. 31? MS? Uh, too much going on. Easier to get some regular kid we can mold.
Maybe I�m generalizing too much from a single interview experience. But I can�t help suspecting that I�m barking up the wrong tree with campus recruiting. I have an alternate plan. A growing urge to start my own business has developed, but I think that�s a story for another time.
� 2005 Geoff Gladstone
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