Employment schlepping a Gov't Agency at Ye Olde Job Faire

I am about to graduate with a BS. So this means I need to start using my BS skills at the job fairs to try and get a foot in the door with an employer so I can start paying back those insane school loans I racked up over the past few years.

So the latest job fair had its usual list of local corporations I really was dreading going to when one employer stood out from the rest: the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In a previous post, I mentioned that Sis and I had a papa at one point. He was a Special Agent for the FBI working at a small satellite office of the Philadelphia office in the late 70's-early 80's. Small time gig, just a general-type agent working the Fraud Division. You pretty much just put in your 20 years, get a government pension, and then do security consulting and private investigation until you decide you gonna retire to your recliner. No big whoop. Of course, the lure of illicit profits derived from dabblings in organized crime combined with shall we say, a certain moral flexibilty (or non-existence, really), kept him from that career path.

Well, from what I remember of drunken conversations with papa when I was a teenager (where he was drunk as hell and I was trying to act nonchalant about tripping my ass off on a microdot), he recalled the glory days of what those golden times were like. One summer we didn't go camping to the bottlefly- and black bear-infested Adirondacks because they had to wait around all summer monitoring a tip on a beer truck that was going to be heisted. Darn. And then there was that agent, JS, who made fun of my sweaty dad's inabilty to follow dress code in the summer that insisted they wear undershirts, no matter how stifling the South Jersey humidity got. "Hey, Steve, you going bra-less again?" And on slow days, it was just like the good old frat days: they'd sit around lighting farts.

One of the few lucid thoughts I remember having had at the time was, "And these people are supposed to be protecting us?" To be fair though, they do protect us somewhat. From the CIA.

To boot, there is no way a farmboy from upstate New York would've ever sunk his sociopathic meathooks into my mother had that agency never stationed him with the Gary and then Indianapolis office. So I'm a little bitter about that, but let's keep moving on...

Sis and I go to the job fair. I hand out resumes to some of the less odious non-profits that I wouldn't feel like a total sell-out being in their employ. I mean, for chrissakes they are trying to hold up a piece of some culture in this town or keep the rats from overrunning it all NYC-style. Why wouldn't I want to be a part of it?

The irresistable draw of the FBI's table overcomes us. Sis gives me The Look while stifling a giggle. I know there is a chance of $5 or an all expenses paid lunch if I do it. So I casually walk over to the table where a fresh-faced agent of obvious midwestern farm stock and a Jodie- Foster-in-Silence of the Lambs-wannabe in a power suit are chatting with actually interested candidates. I peruse the "hot-action" literature (as Sis calls it) for a few minutes while they finish their canned routine with a few of mouth-breathers from a local Christian-affiliated college, up from the sticks. Suprisingly, I thought Clarice would've been the one to initiate the conversation, but it was Farmboy.

"Do you have an interest in becoming an agent?" he asks.

"Umm, well my dad used to be an agent. So for a while I thought I might like to pursue a career with the Bureau." Yeah, that was until the federal government sat on my family's sunglasses with their asses. And I took all those psychedelics in high school. Note to anyone wishing to pursue a career with the Bureau: They may say they're all cool about you smoking weed once or twice when you were young and experimental, but they really aren't. And don't think you'll hide it. They will find out about it, even if it was just that one time.

At this point I notice that even though we are in a chilly large facility, Farmboy has beads of sweat on his upper lip. Are his pupils dilated?

"So what made you decide you didn't want to?" he asks.

"Oh, I haven't really decided either way. Dad was an agent a looong time ago. I'm sure some things have changed since he was in the Bureau. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

He seems delighted in that creepy recruiter glad-handy way,"Sure."

Sis is off to the side trying to keep it together, trying to keep her grin supressed. Since she's looking down at the hot action literature, I can't tell if its Clarice, the brochure, or if she knows what I'm about to say that is giving her fits.

"Ok, so since J Edgar Hoover is long since gone, do you guys all still have to wear Botany 500 suits, or can you just pick up a 99 dollar jobbie from Men's Wearhouse?"

A small, unsure smile plays at the corner of his lips. "No, we don't have to wear Botany 500 suits."

"And uh," wait for it, wait for it, here it comes "do you guys still sit around lighting your farts on slow days?"

Farmboy's smirk twists into a grimace and as he's about to say something, Clarice comes over and snaps, "You think this is funny?"

I look at her as coolly as possible. "Look up the name [censored] out of the [censored] office. I'm sure you guys got access to records. That file's a f*ckin' laugh riot," I say flatly and turn to leave.

At this point Sis is beet red and can't supress her laugh anymore. The giggle comes out like a small bark. She walks over to me and grabs my arm. Lunch is on her.