Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [64]
As I clicked through the listings, several keywords kept coming up over and over again. “Wall Street.” “Financial Services Industry.” “Sales and Trading Division.” “Funds Management.”
To make money, you gotta make money. Well, no shit.
My whole idealistic approach to college had been one colossal error in judgment. Learning for the sake of learning? Pursuing my passion for psychology over a more practical, employable major? What was wrong with me? Why didn’t I major in economics? I could have just as easily majored in economics. My brother-in-law majored in economics at Rutgers, and he’s a goddamn troglodyte. A troglodyte pulling down seven, maybe eight figures. I’m certainly smart enough to have majored in economics…only I was too fucking stupid to major in economics.
I probably would have signed up for a temp agency if Professor Mac hadn’t put me in touch with his former colleague Robert Stevens, editor in chief of Think. I got the (quasi) job based on Mac’s recommendation alone, and I remember feeling guilty about it. Not everyone was lucky enough to have taken a summer writing course with a future National Book Award nominee. I felt like I had somehow cheated my way into this position, that there were other unconnected applicants who might have been more qualified. I said as much to Mac, who rebuffed my worries.
“Most people get ahead through the connections they make along the way,” he said. “What’s wrong with that?”
“It doesn’t seem fair,” I said.
“Do I need to quote a better writer than I am on the subject of equanimity?”
I told him he need not bother. And I got over it, mostly because I counted on Think as a temporary thing, until I got my “real” job, which I hoped would happen before Think’s funding ran out.
Finding more lucrative employment seemed highly unlikely until last week, a day or two before you arrived in Brooklyn, when I received Dr. Katherine Seamon’s divine e-mail in my inbox. And by divine, I mean it in the miraculous, near-religious sense, and not in the way insincere fashionistas use to gush over overpriced stilettos.
* * *
To: jdarling@columbia.edu
From: kseamon@ilulab.com
Subject: New Media Job for Psychology Majors
Date: 8/28/2006
* * *
I almost hit Delete without opening it. First of all, the words “New Media” implied that this e-mail had been bottlenecked on the information superhighway since 1999. Furthermore, the employment promise of that subject heading seemed about as legit as the guaranteed 100 percent herbal way to add six inches to my penis. Finally, the sender’s surname, with its ejaculatory connotations, certainly didn’t help boost credibility. But I’d been looking for a permanent position for eight months, and I was starting to feel desperate. I clicked the message and read on.
I found out about your work with the CU Storytellers Project in the most recent issue of Columbia College Today. As you may have heard in recent weeks, I’ve just launched iLoveULab, a new research-based interpersonal networking provider that is the first to blend new media and neuroscience.
I’m hiring graduates who have a background in psychology as well as strong writing and interviewing skills. All positions with iLoveULab provide a competitive starting salary and benefits. I prefer meeting job candidates in person, and will be conducting business in New York City during the first week of September. Please contact me if you’re interested in learning more.
Sincerely, Dr. Katherine Seamon, CC ’95
The doctor’s name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. And I was certain that I had never heard of iLoveULab, a name that connotes heart-shaped boxes of chocolate wrapped in shiny cellophane and tied up with a big red bow. I was in the middle of fact-checking a Think piece titled “Mom and Pop Psychology” about the return of Freudian psychoanalysis, so I made a mental note to Google Dr. Katherine Seamon and iLoveULab when I had the chance.
Later that afternoon while Marin and I were drawing pictures of our favorite scenes from Grease 3, I