i went to "hot magazine jobs: the premier job fair" today. intimidating is an understatement. i walked in and immediately fought the urge to walk right out. imagine: hundreds of professionals (mostly older) with portfolios in tow, filling a huge room with booths of 16 of the largest magazine publishing companies lining the wall. whoa.

going into it, i expected something along the lines of what NYU throws every semester, but this was hardly that. instead, each company had a massive line of job-seekers waiting their turn to speak with the HR representative. some of the lines stretched around the room and according to one girl, took up to an hour. it's worse than great america.

i walked around aimlessly for awhile, slapping myself for trying to think i belonged. then i took a breath and asked around for what line was for what company. i started in line for time inc. lost patience and just handed my resume to some chick and moved onto hearst. still impatient, i left another resume and finally settled in line at bertelsmann. it cost me $10 to get into the fair, i had to get my money's worth. so with a long wait ahead, i formulated questions. when i finally got to speak to an HR rep, she said, 'we're not taking resumes, just check out our website.' great.

wandered around a bit more and decided to pursue the smaller companies and where did i line up next? you guessed it boys, playboy enterprises, inc. there were a surprising amount of girls in line for jobs there (and no, not as models). anyway, the HR rep said there are no job openings but i submitted my resume anyway since i have a few months to spare. then i looked at the stack of resumes that had already piled up and boy was that discouraging.

finally, my adventure ended with a visit to the booth of weider publications. (they make shape and men's fitness and are based in so.cal.) keep your fingers crossed. i hope something i did today starts a ripple effect. if not, at least i got a free issue of playboy.