I am here to interview for a job

I spent so many years in college hoping to get over the blues. My parents were well off and I did not need to be in college. I had a trust fund and my future was secured. It only was with my friends begging me to join them that I started to realize that there was more to college than I previously thought. I met many good people and I wrote many good papers to justify my presence in higher education.

I also surprised my parents because I became a very good student and took the surprise factor from them. They worried that I would become a drug addict or waste away with the useless and the lazy. I did none of those predictions. Instead I immersed myself in schoolwork and became viola! a bookworm.

That is the surest easiest way to lose friends. Because I was no longer partying all night or making long calls to my girlfriends asking them to give it up, I became a has been. A lot of my friends thought I was in prison to be honest. It was such a drastic change that it was not easy to attribute that change in character as a result of listening to the professors retelling what they spent years rehearsing in front of a curious student body.

By my Junior year, I even had the desire to try employment for size. I interned for one of my professors who was in the researching group of the department. They estimated the rules of nature and biometrics, whatever that is bro! All that I did for him was to wash his beakers and fill out forms with observations that I had to read in the computer which blasted numbers like lightning.

By the end of my internship I had managed to make a name for myself because smart people started to feel 'comfortable' talking to me. It was then that I met Sophia, a wonderful, a wanderlust of my soul, I should say. She was whimsical and hopeful and wanted desperately to convince me that she was in love with me not in lust with me. I look very pleasing to the eye, I should say. Anyway, I had to be careful not to hurt her feelings but still I wanted to say to her: "hey babe, chill, you got me!" We loved to take drives on the weekends and camped off campus just to be able to spend time together.

By my senior year, I was hooked and even made plans to save money in order to buy a home for us. I even looked into getting a job, not with my family but with anyone who was willing to give me a chance not as my father's son but as a man.

I was a year ahead of my girlfriend and I graduated first. It was a Saturday of the month of June. I remember well because I woke up thinking that we were going to drive to the beach like we always did. We used to set aside Saturdays as the day when we drove out of the city to be alone together!

On this particular Saturday I woke up with my girlfriend sober and dressed in panty hose with my clothes on the hanger and her waking me up to give me a phone. My parents who hardly knew about her were on their way up our apartment. I was mortified! They had already spoken to her surely they by now knew that I was with woman and lived with woman.

Whose temper first? Which of them will let me have it. We had spoken about everything else about school but nothing about Sophia.

I woke up and rushed to the bathroom to take a bath wondering if all shall be well by the end of the day. My mom knocked on the door and she was first to enter our apartment which was littered with books and left over fast food wraps. She cleared the room the first thing she entered the apartment. My dad was standing up by the door unsure if he could sit on any of our furniture. I remember well telling Sophia that we ought to buy leather couches because they do not absorb anything. I feared my dad. He was very clean, very lucid. I did not want to be judged by him. When my mom finished clearing the apartment she asked Sophia to help her with the dishes in the kitchen. Thank God Sophia was dressed up because by then my mom would have dismissed her as a local unimportant girl that I was temporarily taken by. Sophia is very nice in general and that did not challenge her in any way. By the time I was dressed up and ready to leave there was no need for introductions. We headed to the stadium where all students and parents were to assemble for the very last time in my college unless I was to return for my Masters, which I knew I could but did not want to, I was frightened to try my luck. I had to know what my parents planned for me because I wanted to be on their good side for my trust fund and also for the name of the family which by the way weighted a lot in the community.

As I was walking towards my parents and Sophia and her friend carrying my diploma, I was stopped by my former professor whom I interned for.

"Hi, I was going to call you at home. I am glad I caught you" he said

"Oh hi Professor, how is it going?" I extended my hand to shake his.

"I am fine, do you have a minute? I want to ask you something." he said

"Oh yeah, they can wait." I said

"Actually, I wanted to ask you how you would like to join our research team as a paid staff member. Our prototype was accepted and we have more funding. It would be a pleasure if you came aboard plus you might want to invest in this." he said with a smile on his face.

"Oh sure, I had no immediate plans. Infact, I did not even apply for graduate school because I wanted to check with my parents to see if they had plans for me." I said

"Alright, how about this, ask your parents and find out what they think and then give me a call with your answer." he said

"Alright, what is your number?" I said feeling very important.

"213 296 7088, try calling me in the morning because I have to drive my kids to school and I have other things to do in the afternoons." he said

"I will, thanks again for thinking of me for this. I have to say that I am flattered. I had even forgotten that I interned for you." I said.

"Okay I hope to hear from you tomorrow. Consider yourself hired!" my professor said

When I told my parents what had happened they were happy for me and in some sort of way I think that they were worried that I might not accept their offer to work for them. In any event, what was an opportunity for me became a solution for all concerned. Even Sophia was happy with my decision. I called the professor and I had a start date. The only disappointment was that my office was not located on campus. I actually was going to work in a corporate office away from campus and it was a real deal.

Generally professors as famous as they are, one does not associate them with wealth only if they also publish books and sell them. When I was told what my salary would be I had to take a second look at my benefit package. When the pay period ended indeed I made that much money. It was such a surprise that everything was coming together in such a mysterious way and none of it was planned.