With the early spring showers over, at least for now, April was now officially underway. The MFUJSF band members gathered in the board room, which was really nothing more than a space no bigger than a Manhattan studio apartment with a dry erase board on the wall and a table with faux wood surface and recycled aluminum base . Brick, Tigerman and Slate were seated at the aforementioned environmentally friendly table as Shadow stood at the dry erase board commanding as much respect from the other three like a substitute teacher would on the last day of school before summer vacation.
Shadow cleared his throat as he pointed to what he had written on the board.
Act 2: Choosing the Right Job
“Well, class, you’ve all had plenty of time to work on your résumés.”
Slate raised his fingerless gloved hand in the air.
“Yes, Slate?” Shadow asked.
“Since when were we in a class? I thought we were a rock band?”
“Since you wasted the last of our savings on stocking up the snack machine with junk food rich in sodium and cholesterol, thus making us unable to afford next month’s lease payment.”
“Oh…huh?”
“We need to get jobs, moron?”
“Got ya…Carry on wayward ape.”
Shadow smacked his face with comical disappointment. He had not published so many quasi-successful self-help books and poetry anthologies just to end up lecturing these three screw-ups.
“As I was saying, you had the assignment to write up your résumés. I’d like to have a look at them.”
He walked around the table, starting with Tigerman on the left hand side.
“Let’s see what you’ve done, TM...” He picked up the paper and skimmed it. “Very nice. I love the formatting and how you highlight all the important information. It’s concise and powerful. A. You get a gold star.”
Tigerman happily clapped his paws as Shadow put the shiny sticker on his résumé. Shadow moved to his right over to where Brick was nervously wringing his hands. Shadow noticed his nervous look and all the sweat on his forehead.
“Brick, let’s see what you wrote…”
He looked inside Brick’s folder and took out a piece of loose-leaf with an outline scrawled on it in chicken scratch, I mean falcon scratch.
“What is this? Chapter 8? ‘…And the vampire-werewolf from Mars opens his mighty jaw and shows the crowd its fangs just as they began throwing their knives and pitchforks at his awesomeness…’ What is this tripe?”
“My…” Brick began but hesitated, recoiling like a flustered child being confronted by their parents.
“Your what?”
“My novel… I was working on chapter 8 of my novel instead of working on my résumé.”
“Seriously? You’re still working on the crappy third-rate piece of garbage-core fiction?”
“Hey! My novel is very important to me.”
“Trust me, Brick. The only way someone like you will get something published is if you ghostwrite Justin Bieber’s autobiography.”
“NEVER!” He shouted as he shook the table with his fist. “Oops. Sorry.”
“Well, Your résumé gets an incomplete. Your novel gets a D+.” He took a frowning face sticker and placed it on Brick’s handwritten novel outline, leaving him to weep in his own shame. Shadow walked over to Slate who ws busy looking at a girly mag, for the articles obviously.
“Well, what do you have to us today?”
Without looking away from his magazine, Slate simply replied “It’s on the desk.”
Shadow, hoping for a pleasant surprise after Brick’s terrible abuse of the English language, picked up the neatly typed document.
“Hmmm… 20 easy ways to please a woman… Goodness! What kind of rubbish is this?”
“Huh? Weren’t we supposed to write a Maxim article?”
“No! Résumés! I told you guys to write résumés!”
“Oops.”
“You get an F.”
“What? But I worked hard on that article!”
“I seriously doubt that the #1 way to please a woman is to, as you so eloquently say ‘stick it in her ear like a q-tip’.”
“Hey! What two consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedroom is their business…”
“When was the last time you even had a woman, Slate?”
“Well, uh, there was that chick back in Omaha…or was it that dame in Little Rock…or that broad from Frisco…”
“You’re just making people up now, aren’t you?”
Slate dropped his magazine, crossed his arms and started whining. “You know, you take the fun out of everything.”
“Trust me, Slate. Ladies don’t like that whole tattooed ZZ Top on acid look you have going.”
“Shut up, Tigerman!” Slate yelled. “Let’s just finish this info session, already.”
Shadow returned to the dry erase board at the head of the classroom, I mean boardroom.
“To be honest, I’m disappointed in most of you. I gave you a simple task and two out of three of you didn’t even try to do it. Let’s just get to the steps for finding the right job for you.”
Step 1: What is your area of expertise?
When looking for a job, it’s important to find something that you are both qualified for and interested in. What did you study in college? If you didn’t go to college, what are the skills you may have picked up in your life? Are you good at manual labor? Typing? Making phone calls to total strangers asking for money? Knowing what you like and what you are good at doing can help you find a job that’s suited for you.
Step 2: Be realistic.
Not everyone can be an astronaut, rock star or play the lead in the next remake of the Hulk. Sure when you’re young it’s nice to try to reach for the stars but eventually you’ll realize that some things are just beyond your reach. My advice? Find something in the related industry. Try being a stagehand or a casting director’s assistant. You might be able to claw your way into your dream job yet. But don’t be too disappointed if you don’t. You’re still a star in Shadow’s eyes. Except you, Slate. **** you!
Step 3: Research, research, research.
Before you apply make sure you know who it is you’ll be working for. Check their website. Check out their Wikipedia page. Check out news stories about this large, faceless, soulless corporation that you want to sell your soul to for the next thirty-forty years of your life (if only we could get that kind of job security in this economic climate). You wanna make sure you’re not working for the next Umbrella Corporation, unless of course you’re evil. Resident Evil.
Step 4: Contact the company.
It’s a ballsy move for sure, but you should get to know the place you might be working in ahead of time. Try to get a lay of the land, see who the alpha dogs, cats or apes are. See what you can find out by making some contacts on the inside. Give yourself the winning edge.
Step 5: Apply, dammit!
You’ve got a résumé. Send it along with the cover letter and whatever other bull they want from you. You can’t get a job if you don’t try... unless you’re an heir to some large family business. Well, then you pretty much have it made in the shade with pink lemonade.
“Well, that’s it for today. Now it’s time to choose the song for the ending credits. Tigerman, since you’re the only one who actually did the assignment, you get to choose.”
“Call me by Blondie” he said cheerfully.
“No way!” Slate protested. “Children of the Grave! C’mon, Brick! Back me up.”
Brick, still in a daze of self pity just mumbled: “Take me, Spanish Caravan. Yes, I know you can…”
Slate sat down again, arms folded, cursing to himself.
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