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He he.

Refrain from obvious (or not so obvious) comments about the heading.

The Jobless Elite

Textile designers are a rare species. They’re not like MBA’s or doctors that you pick up a random rock and find them swarming over each other. There are only four institutes that offer an undergrad degree in textile design in Karachi; KU, Indus, AIFD and the Textile Institute of Pakistan. AIFD doesn’t count because (haw!) nobody really goes there to study textile design, and the other three places each release an average of 30 grads every year to toil away their existence in the sethiya mills of this country. So, on average, around 100 designers graduate each year…and on average around 85% find jobs within 5 months, leaving the 15 leftovers to form a unique bond which not many other professionals will understand. The bond of un-hireability.

Khair anyway, today, at the ungodly hour of 9 30 A.M I was standing outside the Nippon paint factory in my lucky interview clothes (called so because they’re the only things I own that aren’t pigment stained) with my portfolio and resume, when I noticed another girl get out of her car and wave at me. I recognized her from one of my previous interviews and she recognized me because I was wearing the same outfit . Haye the mortification.

Anyway, interview began; hers was first. She came out in about two minutes. We exchanged cell phone numbers and a vow that we would tell each other about every job opportunity that came our way (us novelties must stick together) and then I left her to enter the den of the Boss.

Well, they didn’t look at my portfolio. Nope. They looked at…wait for it…my driving license. Which, by the way, reminds me that I have to post about how I managed to get myself a license. It’s pretty funny.

Back to the topic, so you know how in an interview they’re supposed to ask you questions about what you do? How much you know?  This wasn’t an interview, it was a mission call. They scared the living daylights out of me. I felt like a contestant in Fear Factor. One guy kept saying “yeh buhat khwaari wala kaam he”; “Khijal khwaari wala kaam”; “Har koi yeh job nahi kar sakta”etc. Any minute now I expected him to morph into Uncle Sam and recruit me in the army. The other guy kept asking questions like:

“Can you drive?”

“Can you work late hours?”

“Can you sell our paint?”

“You don’t plan to get married, do you?”

WTF?

I applied as color consultant, not Samurai door-to-door-salesman Jack. Correction. Saleswoman.

Sigh.

So then I came home, walked around miserably with that same filthy handkerchief for a few hours, and finally decided I needed comfort food for iftar. Attempted Pasta Alfredo. Murdered it. Survived on pakoray.

Man, what a day.

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Filed under Countdown, interview, lameass hira-pan, potential insanity, torture