Rob Hiaasen: Talking about a dream job at the University of Maryland

This past week I was in the company of young people. You know the type.

Young.

People.

And they were all over the place at a career fair for the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

There was an intern recruiting task at hand but like the best of us, my mind wandered to that distant land the brochures call Memory. For not only was I in the company of young people, I was in the company of their youthful eagerness, earnestness, shyness, boldness, handshakes and resumes.

A few words about resumes in 2017.

These artful platters of accomplishments give us older types Freudian levels of resume envy. Although it does warm the heart to know students still stick to one page, their resumes devour the white space leaving a take-no-prisoners transcript. After reading one stellar resume after another, they meld into one skyscraper of heaping accomplishment. At the rate some of them are going, they will have had 56 jobs by retirement. One of which will be your boss.

This is neither the time nor place to discuss my college resume by way of comparison. Today’s college students, however, do not have the hardships I faced (girls, beer, free concerts on the lawn, Burrito Brothers, Frisbee). Like I said, there’s no need to elaborate here.

Now about today’s handshakes.

Some border on acts of violence; you could press charges for the gripping assault you just experienced. We get it: You’re young and strong. Calm down, hand. And because this hasn’t changed either, there still exists what I call the mystery handshake. This requires you to suspend the fact you know you’re shaking a human hand and allow yourself to entertain harrowing possibilities. Why, I must be shaking an athletic sock I found wedged behind the drier. Or, am I shaking a poor limp creature my dog excavated from the backyard?

Mostly I encountered quality handshakes — but there is room for improvement, young people.

There is something surreal (if not subversively comical) about finding yourself the adult on the other side of the table. All these young faces looking at you as if you know something they don’t. When it’s time to open your mouth you say things believing you know something they don’t. Five hours later you get in your car and ask yourself, “What in the hell was I yammering about?”

Maybe something stuck, maybe something you said was worth the parking garage fee. Honestly, probably not.

Then you remember what someone told you when you weren’t yammering. It sprang from a question you asked after crippling fatigue set in as it invariably does when given a grown-up chore. Don’t you remember? You asked that one college kid:

“So, what is your dream?”

And without hesitation and without consulting his resume, he said, most earnestly and eagerly:

“I want to be a great dad.”

You wanted to but you couldn’t reach across the table and hug the kid or the career fair police would have revoked your parking and handshaking privileges.

But talk about a dream job.

Rob Hiaasen is assistant editor at The Capital. He can be reached at rhiaasen@capgaznews.com.