Fair Play

In my ceaseless quest to avoid my internship debacle of last spring, I recently attended the Employer Information Fair hosted by our helpful Career Services office.

I mean no offense to those well-intentioned souls, but unfortunately the place was like a meat market. Not the blessedly refrigerated and hygienic place where they sell nice steaks, ribs, and ham hocks wrapped in plastic, but the dirty underbelly of our nation's stockyards and slaughter houses. There were students jostling here and there, anxiously standing in line to be inspected, viewed, evaluated, maybe even hired by corporate recruiters.

Here, however, the bovines were not grimly anticipating their grisly transformation into pot roast and sirloin and bratwurst. Over a period of minutes, I began to sense that there was meat on both sides of the tables. At this fair, the jobs were a commodity just like the students. And considering today's job market, it took a lot of ego-stroking to score:

"Oh, yeah, I've always been interested in portfolio risk reduction. Here, have a look at my resume. See where it says 'Studio Arts Major?' Try finding an economics major who's half as experienced in managing a portfolio as I am. Ask my major advisor -- not a single paper cut for three years. Yep, I would say that I am the U.S Treasury bill of portfolio risk."

Firms were there to find as many students for as few jobs (or internships) as possible. The work environment descriptions seemed to blur into one another. Each and every one of the recruiters promised a low stress, casual, highly compensated job where they gave the interns "meaningful duties" and the boss never made you do anything that didn't develop your personality. Boy, if I had a yard of cloth for every time I heard that "we treat the interns just like our analysts/associates/actuaries" I could sew together a balloon and float away on all of the hot air.

Meaningful duties. A raggedy rat's patootie.

I predict that the more "meaningful" my future duties as an intern are, the less "meaningful" my pay will be. And -- here I'm really going out on a limb -- I bet that my future boss will find nirvana-like significance in the aura of Xeroxing, the Zen of typing memos, and the Feng Shui of coffee preparation.

Fortunately most of the firms decided to distinguish themselves in the quality, shape, and type of plastic used in their executive desk toys.

Here's my top 10 list of all the promotional items that were given away, in order of decreasing usefulness. You'll notice that I've removed the names of the firms whose products received less than adulatory reviews. This is so that I can be protected from their recruiters' wrath if, God forbid, I should be forced to apply for work there in a year.

Without further ado, here's my

TOP 10 USELESS PROMOTIONAL ITEMS:

1. Pens. Gotta love the Bank of America pen. Unlike the CIA pen, the Bank of America pen is soft to the touch and large enough to fit a man's hand. I'm saving that sucker for final exams.

2. Travel mugs. Boston Consulting Group was kind enough to give away high quality travel mugs, perfect for cocoa on a cold winter's night. I'll be thinking of them.

3. A business-card sized CD-ROM from Adams, Harkness, and Hill with a company description that plays if you stick it in your CD-ROM drive. Nothing but info here, but it's just so cool. And here I was beaming my resume by Palm Pilot to everyone who walked by!

4. Beverages. A great thing to give away when the top of the Hop is 85 degrees due to the College's forward-looking policy of only air conditioning two buildings on campus. Kudos again to Bank of America for quenching my thirst. Too bad every single firm's employees took thedrinks too. This is what happens when thepromotional item is not on the same table that the recruiters are behind.

5. Rubber Squishy balls. These things are useful for relieving stress in two ways: providing a therapeutic non-violent workout for the fingers and a convenient projectile for disciplining errant managers or co-workers. Fantastic! Not only that, it works well as an auxiliary flotation device or bra-stuffer, in the unlikely event of spontaneous transvestitism.

6. Mousepads. Who would have thunk it? Students who use computers already have mousepads. We're not satisfied with skidding the mouse around the table. Browsing the Internet requires serious point and click power. We've already taken steps to remedy that situation by purchasing non-logoed mousepads, thank you very much.

7. A tiny lapel pin with the CIA logo and URL on it in a small plastic bag labeled "Made in China." I guess the boys from Langley are immune to irony.

8. Small credit-card shaped containers filled with mysterious white "mints." No thanks --I'm not interested in the new way to carry Ecstasy. I'm interested in a job.

9. Candy. What is this, Halloween? Give me candy or I don't work at your firm? Ha! How's that for a trick, eh? Or are we supposed to scare these corporate recruiters? I'm your worst nightmare, an ambitious college student ready to change the world! Are we that scary? Maybe everyone who works at this consulting firm is so ugly that it's like Halloween every day of the year.

(Drumroll please) I'm pleased to announce that the most useless promotional item given out by any firm recruiting at the Employer Information Fair was

1. A tiny plastic beach ball. I'm happy to say that this item set a record for Shortest Time Spent Contemplating a Promotional Item, narrowly edging out the Endless Linked Plastic Chain and the Non Functioning Radio that Resembles an MP3 Player but Cruelly Dashes your Hopes.