Getting a job the Erdos way
Mon Oct 11, 2010 2:17:26 pm

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1) At a school Job Fair, I spoke about graphic design work with the owner of an audio store. I told him that I had no prior employment in this area, but it was a hobby of mine. He said that would be OK if I brought samples of my work. Many other people spoke with him at that event and he forgot about me.

A few days later, I had assembled some samples of my best work and was ready to show it to him. I tried calling the store, but he never answered the phone. One of the salesmen answered every time, and he started to recognize my voice. The store was only a few blocks from my home, so I decided to just bring samples of my work and leave it there for the owner to see.

When I entered the store, the salesman who had previously answered my phone calls recognized my voice. I asked for the owner by name without explaining why I was there. The salesman went into the office and they discusses something about my presence, but I did not know right away what they said. The owner asked me to come into his office. He looked at the samples of my work and asked me a few questions. He hired me right away.

As I was leaving, I discovered what the salesman had discussed with the owner. Due to a misunderstanding, they thought I had a previously scheduled job interview that the owner forgot to put into his appointment book. I discovered this when he apologized for forgetting and told me he almost left for the day. I did not correct him.

2) I was at NewLife Expo. This was back when there was more legitimate alternative medicine and less totally obvious quackery. One of the exhibitors was selling massage tools. I am not very social and rarely have lengthy conversations with random strangers, but he was somehow easy to talk to. We got into a discussion about trees. He was a former drug addict who realized that he had to quit drugs while hugging a tree in a drug-induced psychosis. I told him about how I had also recently hugged a tree for a totally different reason. I was studying a type of Chi Kung called Zhang Zuan, which includes a posture called "Embracing the Tree". It's more commonly done without a tree, but it can be done with one, and I had tried it.

We eventually got to the topic of the manufacturing process of the massage tools. He told me that he needed an assistant, because he was an actor and was starting to get a lot of gigs. He didn't have time to manufacture the massage tools. I had recently quit my job at the audio store, because they relocated to NJ and the travel time was 3:30 in each direction. I had no prior experience in sculpting wood or manufacturing massage tools, but he was willing to let me try because he felt that we had some type of spiritual connection. I quickly mastered the sculpting and stayed at that job until he closed the business when he got an acting gig in Costa Rica.