Jeff Lombardi: Integrated Language Arts

I got the itch recently to actually do what I went to college for, which is education. So, in an attempt to foster that itch and bring it to fruition, I had the lamest day ever yesterday. I went to a teaching job fair.

It was called TeachOhio and it took place at the OSU stadium. Allow me to run through my day.

So, I get there, all decked out. Tie, nice shirt, the works. I've got ten resumes printed out and I just plain look professional. I go upstairs to where the waiting area is, and see that there are about 500 other people there already. Between 7:15 and 7:45 is the check-in time, and at 8:00 is the time that we are to go to the tables where all the schools from around the country (mostly Ohio, but there is always someone from North and South Carolina, Florida and West Virginia there, because they're all uber desperate). Between the check-in time and the schedule interview time are a few minutes for announcements. The woman comes out, says a few things, mainly that at 8 she will get a signal and she will basically release us all to schedule interviews for the day. After her spiel she gets a question and she says she's going to go ask someone right away. When she leaves (mind you this is still before 8), all the candidates start bum-rushing the tables, and no one stops them.

From then on, it's a cluster fuck of people making a mad dash for their top 5 schools to try and schedule interviews with them. We have an hour and 15 minutes to schedule interviews, but basically if you haven't gotten your schools within the first 10 minutes, you're not going to get to talk to them. This is pretty shitty. I may be more qualified than half those people, but if I don't knock people over to get to the schools I want, the schools will never know it. I came in wanting to talk to nine schools. I got to interview 2 of them.

From 9:30 until 4 is the period of time where we get to do the interviews. They last 20 minutes and we have 10 minutes to get to the next interview. But, since I only got 2 interviews, and not until 11:30, I was glad to have brought a damn book. Everybody waiting is just sitting around, waiting for their turn to impress their schools. And the thing is, the people who run the job fair build up the candidates' hopes by talking about how "oh, it's totally possible to get a job today," and how we should keep our eyes on the message board because "slots open up because sometimes a candidate will get offered a job and cancel the rest of their interviews." But, honestly, that never fucking happens. They lie to us.

Oh, the concessions. Since there were no water fountains in the area we were, we had to buy water to drink. Which was $3 for a bottle of Dasani. Rip! and lunch? You could get a panini for $8. What the fuck? I paid $75 dollars to be there, and they want me to pay $11 dollars for water and a sandwich?

Lame.