Commentary
Friday, February 3,1995 Page 5
How to spell rejection? J-O-B
I decided recently that I’m going
to stay a junior forever. The college
life is for me. No worries, no fears
and most of all, no rejections.
Friends of mine, recently
graduated and/or graduating in
May, have been enduring the
rejections that my staying in college
for eternity would help me avoid.
I’m speaking of the dreaded job
hunt.
I’ve seen my friends’ rooms and
apartments. The crumpled want-ads
strewn across the floor, the dozens
of applications waiting to be filled
out and the bulletin boards camou
flaged by a collage of Post-it notes,
all scribbled with illegible phone
numbers. And in the middle of it all
sit my friends with their sad little
rejected faces.
They were once optimistic,
confident, hopeful. Then they spent
five months attempting to find jobs.
How do you spell rejection? Can
you type that? At 60 words per
minute? Start up the mental-health
van; we’re going for a ride.
Nothing can kill a person’s self
jsteem like a heaping spoonful of
'ejection. And there’s no better way
o get a dose than trying to find a
ob. Oh, they try to sweeten the
mixture with polite letters trying to
et you down easily and phone calls
saying they were quite impressed,
aut dam it, they just found someone
‘a little” more qualified. Well,
bank you oh-so-very much, but is
hat going to pay a phone bill?
It seems the “lack of experience”
ine has been quite popular among
my friends. “Well, we’ve looked at
^our application, and we’re very
impressed, but it seems we’ve found
someone with a little more experi
;nce. But we’ll keep your applies
Heather Lampe
tion on file in case a position would
become available.”
Words on paper just don’t do the
above line justice. My luckiest
friends will hear it on the phone.
The words are spoken with that
distinguishable accent of pity. After
they hear the “not enough experi
ence” line, it’s time for some
Academy Award-winning acting.
“Oh, that’s all right. I under
stand,” my friends say. “Thank you
anyway for considering me.” This,
when they really mean, “Die, scum
dog. I didn’t want your stupid job
anyway. I hope your office building
bums down.”
All I really care to know is how
a person is expected to gain
experience to get a job when no one
will give you the job to get the
experience. Let me ask that again,
“How are you expected to gain
experience to get a job when no one
will give you the job to get experi
ence, because you have no experi
ence?”
My friends do have job experi
ence. Unfortunately, it’s the kind
that’s acquired from part-time,
menial crap jobs that one gets to
pay for textbooks and macaroni and
cheese.
When you’re trying to find a
professional job after college,
experience at a movie theater
selling greasy popcorn and Milk
Duds is not going to do it for you.
Most Fortune 500 companies
looking at prospective applicants
don’t equate a qualified person with
someone who can whip up malts
and chili dogs.
But I think these companies
need to take a second look. People
who have babysat and spent
countless hours attending to sticky
little children (who at age 4 still
can’t conquer the concept of a
toilet), I consider hard-working.
And people who’ve worked in
restaurants, cutting onions and
tending to lard-dunked french fries,
I consider dedicated.
Interviews tend to be frightening
also. I’ve read article upon article
on interviewing tips. Always be on
time, they say. Yes, always be
prompt so you can sit and wait for
an hour for the pompous jerk in the
big office.
There are other tips: look the
interviewer in the eye, speak
clearly, dress neatly, ask questions,
smile, etc. Interviewing seems to be
much like dating —just a lot of
kissing up, smiles, cologne and the
possibility of rejection.
Nope, not for me. I’ll continue to
tell my parents excuses like “my
adviser really did tell me that
Clogging 101 would go towards my
major. Gee, Dad, I’m sorry. I guess
that means I have another semester,
but this time I’m positive that
History of Cheesemaking 400 will
work as a elective.
“Come on, you know I want to
graduate.”
Lara pc Is a Jailor news-editorial and
English major and a Daily Nebraskan col
amaist
Bumps and flab not in vocab
I, Cindy Lange-Kubick, being of
sound mind and flabby body,
hereby vow to disassociate myself
forever from my cellulite.
I will no longer assume personal
responsibility for any of the fatty
deposits on my backside.
The next time I bend over while
wearing tight shorts and my
daughter wrinkles her nose and
says, “Uh, Mom, your legs — they
look like prunes,” I will graciously
accept her remark as a compliment
of sorts.
And this summer when my son
again informs me that my bathing
suit isn’t covering my derriere and,
that instead of getting a different
swimming suit, perhaps what I
need is “a new butt,” I will not run
into the bathroom in tears and then
snarf down a 16-ounce bag of Lay’s
potato chips (as if that’s going to
make my fanny smaller).
Today I promise — with all 10
of my loyal readers as my witnesses
— never to buy another loofah
sponge. Never again will I stand
shivering in the shower rubbing m>
thighs raw with a stiff piece of
dried-up sea life.
I will not do it. Instead I promise
to love and cherish the dry, dead*
bumpy skin that covers my lower
extremities.
Starting today, I refuse to discus
body fat on long-distance phone
calls with my sister.
“How ya doin’?”
“Oh, I’m fat, I am soooo fat.”
“What do you think about the
balanced-budget amendment?”
“Oh, I’m fat. I am soooo fat.”
I’m pretty sure I had a perfect _
P.S. Write Back
Cindy Lange-Kubick
body in my last life, and that this
transient physical form that I am
now manifesting is just a bad case
of karmic retribution for the
unabashed vanity I exuded during
my incarnation as the Venus de
Milo.
Anyway ... from now on I will
attempt to profess the integral
beauty of my flawed physical
1 humanity in a daily ritual of
affirmations, proclaiming, “My
body is beautiful. I am perfect as I
am.
Of course this technique only
works if you go nowhere near a
mirror in your underwear.
(Actually I believe cellulite is a
manufactured phenomena, a joint
. venture between the diet and fitness
industries. Cellulite-forming
molecules are deposited in all low
calorie foods, creating the need for
5 Thigh-Masters and the Buns of
Steel video series.)
Today, in a womanly rite of
freedom from fat obsession, I will
bum the Miracle Thigh Cream card
that I found on my windshield last
fall. And I will include in the pyre
any and all references to weight,
calories and the ideal woman that
may be lurking around my home.
r
So next week when the long
unanticipated Sports Illustrated
swimsuit issue arrives in my
mailbox, I will hermetically seal it
and deposit it in a locked metal
box, lest I am tempted to preview
the suits and risk a full-blown 34A
cup-induced depression.
I refuse to again come down
with a case of Ellephobia — a rare
but growing mental disorder, the
symptoms of which include a
person’s refusal to leave the house
in the summer for fear of running
into Elle McPherson or someone of
her ilk wearing a thong bikini at
the neighborhood pool.
My normal technique for dealing
with the start of bikini season has
been to frantically begin attempting
to tone and sculpt my body about
the first of April.
111 spend several weeks stair
stepping, leg-lifting and bun
squeezing only to give up in despair
after seeing no visible results by the
summer solstice. And then I spend
the rest of the season wrapped in a
striped beach towel, trying to
convince my children of the joys of
moonlight swimming.
“No, we can’t go the pool now,
but the sun will be setting soon.”
This year is going to be differ
ent. This year shall be the year of
cellulite acceptance, saggy breast
exaltation and big-butt bravado. An
official proclamation by the
governor or his proxy is in order.
See you at the pool.
Lange-Knblck Is a senior news-editorial
and sociology major and a Dally Nebraskan
columnist
The Daily Nebraskan wants to hear from you. If you want to voice your
opinion about an article just write a brief letter to the editor and sign it (don't
forget your student ID number) and mail it to the Daily Nebraskan, 34
Nebraska Union, 1400 R Street, Lincoln, NE 68588-0448, or stop by the
office in the basement of the Nebraska Union and visit with us.
Save term limits for
private sector
Some years ago, I enrolled in
the Founding Fathers’ School of
Citizen Politics. Believing that
it’s a good idea to rotate people
in and out of public life, I signed
up for term limits.
Well, maybe it’s a perverse
streak. But just as the whole
country has come to favor this
plan, I’m having second
thoughts.
I’ve begun to suspect that the
term-limits law is just another
entry on a growing list of
mandatory items — the bal
anced-budget amendment, the
three-strikes-and-you’re-out laws
— that are taking over public
life.
With these laws, people
believe that they are taking
power by taking away the power
of representatives, judges and
even other voters to use their
own discretion. It’s as if we trust
no one, not even ourselves, to do
the sensible thing.
The congressional debate is
being led in equal measure by
long-term incumbents and brand
new freshman. The incumbents
apparently need a rule to make
them leave. The freshmen seem
to believe — despite the evidence
of their own election — that
voters can’t do-it-themselves.
Meanwniie the citizens who
approve of term limits include
that majority of Americans who
don’t even vote. Their only act of
citizenship is registering an
opinion in a poll — not going to
a polling booth.
So the main argument these
days is between those who are
saying 12 years and you’re out
and those who are saying six
years and you’re out. But the
argument in my own head has
switched from politics to life. It’s
not just an argument about when
people should be forced to leave,
but about when they should
choose to leave their post, job or
role.
I’ve often wished that drug
companies would develop a
home-testing kit for burnout.
Perhaps we need a CAT scan to
discover the lesion that develops
when the most important part of
a job has become keeping the job.
Surely there ought to be a blood
test to know when we have lost
the enthusiasm, the willingness
to take risks, that may have
launched a career in the first
place.
There are many people outside
the Capitol sitting in jobs they’ve
outgfown, seats they’ve outworn,
fighting to keep work they no
longer want — out of fear. Many
of us are like actors between
roles, absolutely sure we’ll never
work again. Along with job
insecurity, there’s a bottomless
Ellen Goodman
supply of personal insecurity.
I have a colleague who once
took a job as an editor and wrote
a list of five things she would
never do. When she had done
three of them, she left. That’s a
wise list for anyone to write
down at the moment of hiring or
inauguration.
About three years ago, when a
buyout was offered at my own
workplace, some took the money
and ran. But everyone who was
eligible had to rethink his or her
own life.
Watching people leave was a
bit like watching friends get
divorced. It was a challenge to
our own commitments. The rest
of us had to consider why we
were staying. Out of fear? Stick
in-the-mud-ness? Or was staying
right for us? Was there more we
wanted to do?
These are questions that
occasionally stump a politician
during an interview or debate.
Why do you want to be re
elected? But these are questions
that everyone should ask in their
own job review. Even when they
are surrounded by people who
regard them as lucky, they may
come up with a surprising
answer.
It’s absolutely true that
members of Congress in so
called safe seats can lose touch,
grit and energy. It’s also true that
some get wiser as they get older
and more secure.
Public servants don’t get
tenure; we already require the job
review called an election. But
term limits? I don’t know too
many workers — public or
private — whose loyalty and
Eerformance would be enhanced
y the promise that whatever
they do they’ll be fired.
So as the prospects for
mandatory term limits grow, my
enthusiasm for this blunt
instrument withers. I would
prefer a more discreet tool. What
would happen if every office
holder who was burned out got
out? That would be the turnover
of the century.
(c) 1995 The Boston Globe
Newspaper Company
iiiSfcymnMw, —-~~T -- ^
Mike Luckovlch
■*••■.:• • .4. *;• •• •<.■■■* •« S-^x -ti.-i;; fc * , ;