Everyone knows it’s important to look professional when you’re a member of the working world. After all, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Furthermore, the clothes make the man. Or woman. Okay, I’m finished hurling clichés at you. I’m talkin’ about dress codes, man.
The summer after my sophomore year I worked at a Hallmark store. ‘Twas the summer of the paper cuts, as I lovingly remember it, and it’s really quite amazing that I didn’t end up with some sort of lethal greeting-induced blood infection. One time I cut myself on a ‘get well’ card… I almost choked on the irony of that. And I’m almost positive that approximately half of the smell receptors in my nose have been permanently disabled thanks to the candle room, a.k.a. Nasal Assault and Battery. What’s that you say? Nine hundred candles, each with scents strong enough to fill a warehouse, gathered together in a room with no ventilation? I like the way you think- make it so. [Insert evil laugh here].
The dress code at Hallmark was fairly straightforward: no flip-flops and no jeans. Since we were on our feet all day, either catering to or avoiding customers, depending on your individual sales technique, sneakers were the obvious choice for footwear. Slap on some khakis and a tee shirt to prepare for the inevitable air-conditioner breakdown and I was ready to go. We were also required to wear aprons. No, I don’t know why. Apparently a nametag with a brightly colored bow on it was not enough to indicate that I was, in fact, an employee.
On one hand, the aprons did have rather large pockets, which were useful for carrying small items that you needed or wanted to keep with you, i.e. stray greeting cards, jelly beans, hamsters. On the other hand, they were aprons. I was doing nothing related to getting dirty or baking. Although it would have been nice to have a wooden rolling pin to perform some durability testing on the countless ceramic figurines we sold. What? No, I didn’t leave Hallmark with any neuroses. Certainly not any involving collectable figurines [nervous tic] or the cretins who collect them.
My next place of regular employment was Kohl’s. This stint pretty much solidified my long-held conviction that I am not meant to work in retail. However, when you’re stuck in a small town for the summer, you gotta go where the cash is. And also where your roommate can give you a glowing recommendation. Kohl’s showed a whole training video about dress code, but when you deduct the bad writing and cheesy actors, it basically boiled down to no sneakers, no jeans and no sleeveless shirts. I worked at POS, which does not stand for what you think it does, although it should. POS stands for point of sale, and that means I was a cash register monkey for those of the non-retail persuasion.
Working at Kohl’s hot and boring, complete with angry customers, standing for eight hour stretches and minimal bathroom breaks: a lot like I imagine hell to be like. I got paid to be there, but that’s really the only difference that springs to mind. I understand the whole professional image thing, really I do. But when my job description is to stand behind a counter to be berated by customers who don’t want to pay twenty two dollars for a pair of cute baby overalls, what does it matter what I have on my feet? At least there were no aprons. And our nametags were upgradeable: you could earn different colors and stars based on positive customer comment cards. Yes, it was a psychological ploy straight out of kindergarten, but I fell for it. Sadly, I left Kohl’s with the same nametag with the same number of stars I started with: bronze plastic and zero. Yeah, I don’t know why either. Huh. I also left with my very own Kohl’s charge card and probably about half the money that I earned… these two facts may or may not be related. I left because as it turns out, “working at Kohl’s” and “taking organic chemistry” are mutually exclusive states of being. Thus ended my retail experience. I hope. I really, really hope.
Now that I’ve graduated from college and entered the real working world (at least on a temporary contract basis), I can report that dress codes thrive here as well. However, there is some leeway. For my interview, I played the young urban professional role. Apparently I didn’t screw anything up too badly, because here I am, employed. I wasn’t entirely sure of what to wear once I started working, so I played it safe with my good ol’ khakis and a sweater. I hadn’t seen anyone wearing either jeans or prom attire, so I went for the middle of the road and hoped I wouldn’t be flattened by the fashion police.
As it turns out, there’s sort of a caste system clothing spectrum here. At the ‘my boss’ level , people wear business casual. Traveling down to the other end of the scale, we come to the ‘lab rat’ category, which is where I fit in. If I had to categorize the attire that I see people in the lab wearing, the descriptive title would be ‘this is what I woke up in and/or found at my feet this morning.’ Pretty casual. For example, the guy who trained me generally wears basketball shorts and a tee shirt, as well as some lab shirt that is supposed to discourage static electricity but doesn’t.
I decided to ask him what the dress code was during one of our many periods of down time. He looked at me, slightly accusatorily, and then down at his outfit. “Why?” he asked. “Are you trying to tell me something?” I assured him that his dye-stained cotton shorts looked fine, and that I was just curious. And also that I figured I’d like his answer better than my Docker-clad boss’s. I did. His speech could be summed up in four words: wear pants and shoes. Beyond that, it apparently didn’t matter.
I had been wearing sweaters with two to three shirts underneath them. To say the lab is cold would have been an understatement back when they kept the doors to the outside closed. Now, though, the lab is under construction and doors are opened for half of the day. They must be building the new section out of ice blocks, because I can’t think of any other reason for it to be so cold. Let’s put it this way… if they made clothing that you could plug in, I would buy it and wear it, fire hazards and burn risks be damned. My new favorite accessory is my headphone ear muffs, which help to block out the frostbite and the noise – the construction workers have evidently signed a contract requiring them to work at a noise level of 140 decibels or higher.
Mostly I just follow my co-worker’s leads. The day I saw a guy wearing a hooded sweatshirt was a very happy day- and possibly the beginning of the end. I’m just waiting for the green light to bring in a 100-foot extension cord and a space heater to wear around my neck. I don’t dress to impress. I dress to survive.
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Mornings: My Arch Nemesis
It’s official. After a seven-month hiatus, I have been unceremoniously dumped into the working world. I started working in January when my recruiter (or ‘The Vindicator of the Unemployed,’ as he is known by people, like myself, who enjoy assigning unnecessary yet impressive titles) gave me a call. “Jobs!” he cried enthusiastically, if only for the purpose of this narrative. So I set up an interview at an automated laboratory equipment company, and began shuffling my morals, ethics and core beliefs in preparation for my first real-world interview.
I shouldn’t have worried. Topics discussed during the interview included dogs, Cambridge, and my ability and/or willingness to perform repetitive tasks. I should have been suspicious about that last one, though, because it was touched on several times. Repetitively, one might say. However, the scent of a possible paycheck had numbed my mind. A few days later, supposedly after some other candidates had been interviewed, I got a call. The job was mine if I wanted it.
I actually had to choose between three jobs: validating automated laboratory equipment, sorting corn, and testing wastewater. Just like being a kid in a candy store... only instead of candy, the store is full of glass shards and red-hot barbed wire: take your pick! It was about this time that I began to seriously question my decision to be a biology major. Ha, ha. Just kidding. I’ve been questioning that decision for months now. Anyway, I made my decision based on a few factors. For one, the hours - "sorting corn at 6 a.m." is a little lower on my list of Stuff I Want To Do than “melon-balling my left eye out.” Thus, the corn would go unsorted. By me, at least. Another factor was the money – it’s a material world, baby, and I am a material girl. Also, I don't even want to contemplate what 'wastewater' encompasses for more than one millisecond, let alone test it for eight hours a day. Add all these factors up and you get me, going for the highly repetitive, highly paid temporary job.
My mom said they were probably lying about having other people to interview. Initially, I preferred to think that I won out against numerous highly qualified foes with my sparkling personality and impressive resume. But when I think about it now, I wonder if 'won' is really the most appropriate word to use- considering what I do day in and day out. Let me fill you in on what my biology degree entitles me to do, before the suspense overtakes the both of us.
I work in the glitzy and glamorous field of automated laboratory equipment. Try to contain your envy. To put it in layman's terms - the machine I work with is like one of those claw machines in grocery stores. You spend $10.00 to grasp at and ultimately fail to pick up a 2 oz. stuffed animal that has approximately the same value as a postage stamp. Fortunately for the suckers who fork over $45,000 for one of these marvels of modern technology, these are a little bit more accurate. And in addition to a claw, it has pipettes - basically a set of highly accurate basters for turkey fetuses. Or gerbil-sized squirt guns. Whichever makes me seem like less of a loser. These - say it with me now - pipettes move liquids into assays. An assay is like a tiny ice cube tray that could make 96 itty-bitty ice cubes.
These machines are, in my mind at least, used at some point during processes such as cloning dinosaurs, or any number of projects thought up by the licensed mad scientists in the country. This way, I can tell myself that I am in a small way a part of the scientific field I like to call "Friggin' Cool Science," instead of my quite obvious association with what we know as "Lame-Ass Science." Let's put it this way- Michael Crichton's never gonna write a book based on me or anything I do at work. Not by a long shot.
The first day of work, it was like having a new robot toy. Ten minutes later, the novelty had worn off and I was over it. There's really only so much fun you can have moving water around. The discovery and implementation of some food coloring managed to capture my interest for another five minutes. I definitely feel that the true potential of these machines is being overlooked: breakfast making machines.
Clearly, the need exists. Hollywood has proven it. I can think of numerous- well, several- okay, at least a few movies that feature these devices, and this only confirms for me that this is a very human aspiration, transcending time, language and religion. The first breakfast machine is featured in a film called "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and has been invented by a brilliant but misunderstood scientist. Primarily featuring a flying, sentient automobile, a small cameo is made by an albeit slightly antiquated breakfast making machine. If memory serves me correctly, it made toast and eggs and then sent the meals to the family on rolling plates. Even in 1968, the dream was alive.
Then, again in 1985, we see yet another mad scientist character, Dr. Emmet Brown, who is desperately striving to meet the world's demand for automatically prepared breakfast foodstuffs. The movie features, as a side project, a car that can travel through time. Obviously, a case can be made for some sort of relationship between cars with heightened functionalities, MAD SCIENTISTS, and breakfast making machines. The aforementioned machine reflects apparent advances in technology by adding a dog-feeding feature, demonstrating state-of-the-art technology. The breakfast automation knowledge base was advancing by leaps and bounds.
Other movies to feature breakfast making machines include Casper, Flubber, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. I feel this technology is ready for the inevitable step from the big screen to a kitchen near you and me. And I feel obligated- no, that's not strong enough- I feel bored enough to explore the feasibility and potential for this technology.
The machines I work with now will need some obvious adjustments if they are to be competitive in the cutthroat world of today's automated breakfast machine market. For example, the scale is much too small. A 'pancake' function would ideally create a plate full of pancakes 5 to 6 inches in diameter. Current settings, however, would only allow for the creation of 96 dime sized pancakes. Which, now that I think about it, has its own friggin' awesome potential right there. Baby pancakes eaten with a spoon! Pancake shaped cereal! Miniscule pancakes so numerous in number could surely solve at least half of the world's major problems.
Today's laser, computer and egg technology could create new, higher standards for perfect toast, un-runny eggs (or runny, if you like 'em that way. I'll make a setting for that) and tiny pancakes. But it doesn't have to stop there. French toast, fresh squeezed orange juice, bacon and sausage, even more tiny pancakes: all this could be waiting for you when you wake up, while your breakfast making machine flashes a good morning message to you on its high-definition touch-sensitive monitor. It's time for humankind to wake up to the dawning of breakfast automation technology.
So, in summation, my job sucks and I still have to make my own breakfast. For now.
I shouldn’t have worried. Topics discussed during the interview included dogs, Cambridge, and my ability and/or willingness to perform repetitive tasks. I should have been suspicious about that last one, though, because it was touched on several times. Repetitively, one might say. However, the scent of a possible paycheck had numbed my mind. A few days later, supposedly after some other candidates had been interviewed, I got a call. The job was mine if I wanted it.
I actually had to choose between three jobs: validating automated laboratory equipment, sorting corn, and testing wastewater. Just like being a kid in a candy store... only instead of candy, the store is full of glass shards and red-hot barbed wire: take your pick! It was about this time that I began to seriously question my decision to be a biology major. Ha, ha. Just kidding. I’ve been questioning that decision for months now. Anyway, I made my decision based on a few factors. For one, the hours - "sorting corn at 6 a.m." is a little lower on my list of Stuff I Want To Do than “melon-balling my left eye out.” Thus, the corn would go unsorted. By me, at least. Another factor was the money – it’s a material world, baby, and I am a material girl. Also, I don't even want to contemplate what 'wastewater' encompasses for more than one millisecond, let alone test it for eight hours a day. Add all these factors up and you get me, going for the highly repetitive, highly paid temporary job.
My mom said they were probably lying about having other people to interview. Initially, I preferred to think that I won out against numerous highly qualified foes with my sparkling personality and impressive resume. But when I think about it now, I wonder if 'won' is really the most appropriate word to use- considering what I do day in and day out. Let me fill you in on what my biology degree entitles me to do, before the suspense overtakes the both of us.
I work in the glitzy and glamorous field of automated laboratory equipment. Try to contain your envy. To put it in layman's terms - the machine I work with is like one of those claw machines in grocery stores. You spend $10.00 to grasp at and ultimately fail to pick up a 2 oz. stuffed animal that has approximately the same value as a postage stamp. Fortunately for the suckers who fork over $45,000 for one of these marvels of modern technology, these are a little bit more accurate. And in addition to a claw, it has pipettes - basically a set of highly accurate basters for turkey fetuses. Or gerbil-sized squirt guns. Whichever makes me seem like less of a loser. These - say it with me now - pipettes move liquids into assays. An assay is like a tiny ice cube tray that could make 96 itty-bitty ice cubes.
These machines are, in my mind at least, used at some point during processes such as cloning dinosaurs, or any number of projects thought up by the licensed mad scientists in the country. This way, I can tell myself that I am in a small way a part of the scientific field I like to call "Friggin' Cool Science," instead of my quite obvious association with what we know as "Lame-Ass Science." Let's put it this way- Michael Crichton's never gonna write a book based on me or anything I do at work. Not by a long shot.
The first day of work, it was like having a new robot toy. Ten minutes later, the novelty had worn off and I was over it. There's really only so much fun you can have moving water around. The discovery and implementation of some food coloring managed to capture my interest for another five minutes. I definitely feel that the true potential of these machines is being overlooked: breakfast making machines.
Clearly, the need exists. Hollywood has proven it. I can think of numerous- well, several- okay, at least a few movies that feature these devices, and this only confirms for me that this is a very human aspiration, transcending time, language and religion. The first breakfast machine is featured in a film called "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and has been invented by a brilliant but misunderstood scientist. Primarily featuring a flying, sentient automobile, a small cameo is made by an albeit slightly antiquated breakfast making machine. If memory serves me correctly, it made toast and eggs and then sent the meals to the family on rolling plates. Even in 1968, the dream was alive.
Then, again in 1985, we see yet another mad scientist character, Dr. Emmet Brown, who is desperately striving to meet the world's demand for automatically prepared breakfast foodstuffs. The movie features, as a side project, a car that can travel through time. Obviously, a case can be made for some sort of relationship between cars with heightened functionalities, MAD SCIENTISTS, and breakfast making machines. The aforementioned machine reflects apparent advances in technology by adding a dog-feeding feature, demonstrating state-of-the-art technology. The breakfast automation knowledge base was advancing by leaps and bounds.
Other movies to feature breakfast making machines include Casper, Flubber, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. I feel this technology is ready for the inevitable step from the big screen to a kitchen near you and me. And I feel obligated- no, that's not strong enough- I feel bored enough to explore the feasibility and potential for this technology.
The machines I work with now will need some obvious adjustments if they are to be competitive in the cutthroat world of today's automated breakfast machine market. For example, the scale is much too small. A 'pancake' function would ideally create a plate full of pancakes 5 to 6 inches in diameter. Current settings, however, would only allow for the creation of 96 dime sized pancakes. Which, now that I think about it, has its own friggin' awesome potential right there. Baby pancakes eaten with a spoon! Pancake shaped cereal! Miniscule pancakes so numerous in number could surely solve at least half of the world's major problems.
Today's laser, computer and egg technology could create new, higher standards for perfect toast, un-runny eggs (or runny, if you like 'em that way. I'll make a setting for that) and tiny pancakes. But it doesn't have to stop there. French toast, fresh squeezed orange juice, bacon and sausage, even more tiny pancakes: all this could be waiting for you when you wake up, while your breakfast making machine flashes a good morning message to you on its high-definition touch-sensitive monitor. It's time for humankind to wake up to the dawning of breakfast automation technology.
So, in summation, my job sucks and I still have to make my own breakfast. For now.
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