Resume Day

So yesterday, having wandered all up and down 7th and 5th Avenue, I discovered that there are coffee shops that are hiring this late in the summer, and that I just have to have a decent looking resume and smile at the right people to get an instant in. There's still not any kind of guarantee that I'll be a contributing member of society anytime soon, but I've got applications or resumes put in at three separate coffee shops and one shameless court TV station, and I'm feeling better about my chances every day.

Last night I went home and attempted to make my resume look less like it had been thrown together in NeoOffice at the last minute (which it had), and a little more like I have professional experience of any kind and am not an amateur at everything who's brand new to the city and still wide-eyed (which I am). My lovely friend converted the blog header into a letterhead, which was admired as being "very professional" by the people who I gave the resume to. The guy at Naidre's was especially impressed that I included "traditional machiattos" in my list of skills, and we had a moment bonding over how Starbucks has ruined people for the beauty of a double shot of espresso with some frothed milk on top. Considering how many times I've given this rant myself, it seemed like a great sign that R.J. and I could laugh about it. "You have perfect timing," he said, "because one employee just had her last day today, and I'm about to take off myself." He promised to personally give my resume to the owner when she came in later that night. How great would it be if I got a call tomorrow? SO great.

Also, while walking around this particular part of Brooklyn, I wish I would have found a sublet around here. It's a much younger crowd, I guess, and there are a lot of kids and dogs and cute looking houses and such. Lots of cute stationary shops, bookstores, and independent coffee shops at every corner, along with lots of wonderful looking restaurants of a hundred different varieties. I think this is the side of New York that I want to experience more - less of the Wall Street area (where the theater is), more of the young bohemian areas.

Printing my resume today was a bit of an adventure. First, I searched Kinko's or other copy shops in my area. None that were listed on Google maps. Then I searched the same in the 7th Ave. area. Still none listed. So I ended up going to the Financial District and going to the Staple's Print and Copy shop up on Broadway, about two blocks from the theater. Now I've slowly gotten used to the Kinko's way of paying and printing, but this was something else entirely, and the PCs they had (PCs? How long has it been since I've had to figure out how to use one of those things? They make no sense to me!) were outdated and scary looking. I went up to the counter and I'm like, "so . . . the fastest way to print something off my flash drive would just be to use one of the computers, right?" The girl was really nice and pointed me towards one. So I grab the flash drive and stick it in the only port I could find, which was tucked away on the back. Confusing. The girl walks by - "girl, you can sit!" I laugh and say something about how it's been so long on a PC, I'm confused, blah blah blah. She walks over, takes a look at it and says, "where'd you put the drive?" I pull it out. "Right here!" "Um, girl, you'll want to plug that into the tower," she says, and puts it on the tower that's underneath the desk. Oh. I'm a dumbass. This isn't a Mac, Rachel. This is a PC. You can't plug everything into the two pieces of equipment in front of you. She was super nice about it, and I was laughing even as I was forced into the realization that I'm an idiot (effing Honors College!), but it was still totally ridiculous.

I think I'm really fascinated by the way New York is such a juxtaposition of old and new; it's a place full of odd opposites that work together in ways you don't expect. I wouldn't expect the back patio of a coffee shop in Columbia to have a full wall of vines and rocks and a wood deck. There are tons of trees in Brooklyn, and the way you can walk down a street and see beautiful little houses on one side and shops on the other. Things are just closer together here, somehow, even though everything is simultaneously bigger and more exciting. Some parts of it are so old, and some parts of it are so new, but it seems like you won't just walk from an old part to a new part that's quite as delineated as that.