The Elements of Style

If someone sat me down several months ago and told me just how hard it would be to get a job, I would probably have done one of two things: panicked, and signed up for the first post-graduate course that would take me, or laughed right in their face.

After all, with youth comes acne, sartorial misadventures, misguided, lost loves, a complete belief in personal infallibility, and a sense of idealism that would put Andy Dufresne to shame.

It is this very last quality that has left me completely unaware of the difficulties involved in finding a job that (a) I would like, and (b) would pay if not well, then decently. This isn't really saying much though. I am a writer, and we aren't really known for our 401Ks or whatever it is that the corporate kids talk about every weekend at the country club. Half our pay lies in the hackneyed, old cliche, "Do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life," I guess.

Lately, the hunt for a company that would take me from the realms of the unemployed led me to the offices of several networks and publishing houses. For the uninitiated, movies, television shows, and magazines are just about the pinnacle of glamour but, the reality is, where the images of style and luxury are created are decidedly the opposite. Where one expects to see a shiny indoor composition of steel and Lucite and leather, one finds instead a dense maze of cubicles, depressingly gray chairs on wheels, and mountains of cardboard boxes filled with hundreds of back-issues. All this opulence is, of course, lit by that most depressing and unflattering form of lighting, the white fluorescent bulb.

This is where this season’s It bag or must-have lipstick are chosen. This is where names like Galliano, McQueen, Lagerfeld, and Slimane are thrown around like they were friends about to drop by for coffee. This is where the decision between a skinny belt or a wide one is a matter of life and death. This is where blue is never really blue, but rather, cobalt, azure, turquoise or aquamarine. This is where the hours are long and unpredictable, where the pay is often bad, and where, when all the couture has been put away and the makeup washed off, nothing will ever be taken seriously if you haven’t squeezed it from the deepest recesses of your soul.

This is also where - despite the seemingly solitary purpose of superficiality and glorification of the ephemeral - I can and am allowed to make a difference, no matter how small. This is, despite knowing the sacrifice that the world of the perfectly arranged demands, what I want my future to be.

And to think I could have taken up business in school.