152. Your Trip to Boston Part 2

You are playing catch-up all day long. You take the metro to South Station, and feel a bit regretful that you cannot explore downtown today due to the urgency of the Career Forum. You see tents for Occupy Boston nearby, but you also do not have time for them. Your suit jacket flaps in the wind as you walk toward the convention center.

From afar, the place looks like Makuhari Messe in Tokyo, and up close, it feels even more so: There are only students and businessmen of Asian background walking about. Everyone is suited up in the darkest black and whitest shirt. You, on the other hand, have decided prior to the trip that you would not appear too serious by wearing a grey shirt. You wonder if you are leaving a bad impression on the recruiters almost immediately after you enter.

There are 6-7 rows of booths, but the far end rows are not open to the public. They are for interviews for selected individuals. You take a package of information but do not find the map. You wander aimlessly, stealing glances at company signs, looking for the one or two you have looked at before leaving home. Most booths are full: they are showing introductory videos; the speakers are making presentations. In these 2m x 3m booths, somehow, 8 applicants could be seated, including the monitor and speaker. It was a total classroom setting.

You remind yourself that the suited-up people around you are your peers, people who may be less qualified than you; no, most likely to be less qualified than you. You strut forward with confidence, as if you were a person who already has a couple of offers in tow. Suddenly, you run into an old friend from Japan. He was there for a degree program, and is now back in his home of Singapore. He seems down. He tells you that the company that told him to come to Boston for a third interview has just turned him down. He feels the trip has lost its purpose.

You try to cheer him up with your normal cheerfulness. You also try to learn the layout of the booths from him and hopefully some advice, too. You remember that you were feeling down about having to pay $200 extra for the trip on ticket change, but your friend's worse circumstance makes your situation more bearable.

After your friend leaves, you begin to follow his advice of forcing your resume on companies that are willing to take them. You attend a couple of intro seminars, and make notes on the seminars the next day. Soon you are bored.

You leave the convention center hating all the elements present: The expressionless, soulless walking suits; the whiteness of the booths; the ambivalence of companies; the drone of the building; the lack of oxygen, the emptiness created by the ceiling; the hopeless redundancy of the job selection process that will ultimately not pick you.

Good thing you have your friend, who after you return, decide to cook lobsters at home. You enjoy a wonderful dinner of pasta, lobster and wine. You remember that the trip is more about discovering how your current self fits with the old lifestyle, or, rather, a possible lifestyle in New England America.

Join me next time when you visit your old home.

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Written by micr0q, copyright 2011. Image found during research and is used only for visual context. No infringement intended.