Book examines post-college life with humor

All Things Literary

Call me a big dork, but all my favorite Christmas presents this year were books. Mom and Dad obviously spent quality time picking out reading material they thought their bookworm daughter would enjoy.

As I took a closer look at some of the titles, though, I began to question their motivation for choosing some of the books they did…

One of the books was a collection of short stories and life lessons compiled by mothers for daughters as they grew up. I thought it was sweet — my mother was trying to pass on her own wisdom and guidance to me, her baby girl who still has a lot of growing up to do.

The next book was called "Not the End of the World." After reading the synopsis on the back, I realized it was about trying to find direction and meaning in life. OK, I thought — another book offering me advice, always good to have.

The book that really made me wonder what my parents were thinking, though, was Ariel Horn’s "Help Wanted, Desperately." All I could tell from the cover was this story revolved around a college student desperately seeking any employment offer before she graduated.

I sat on the carpeted floor beside the Christmas tree and stared with a puzzled expression at my stack of books. What on earth were my parents trying to tell me? Isn’t the whole "get your life in order, find a job and get some direction" speech a bit premature? I’m only a junior. I’m not getting a real job or life for at least another year.

Feeling the slightest twinge of panic thanks to my new collection of "motivational" books, I decided to read "Help Wanted, Desperately" to see what it really was all about.

Alexa Hoffman is an English major four months from graduation at the University of Pennsylvania, and feels as directionless as she did when she first arrived at college.

Faced with the looming decision of what to do in post-collegiate life, Alexa frantically searches for a job — any job, that is — in New York City to avoid moving back in with her parents in New Jersey. But a girl who considers fortune cookies a valid source of career advice is sure to run into some obstacles along the way.

From auditioning and singing jingles for cat-inspired television programs to signing up for clinical sleep studies for cash and sniffing new deodorants in a laboratory, Alexa has more than her share of strange and ridiculous interviews. As she says herself, her attempts to be a seductive phone sex operator sound more like a congested, 60-year-old smoker.

In the short, few months that Alexa is searching for employment, she learns that the real world may not hold the perfect job for her, and that whatever job she does have may not bring her the satisfaction she envisions.

Once she begins to understand that she wants to work to live and not live to work, her life suddenly begins to fall into place.

That’s the kind of advice I can handle from my parents because I know they understand that I’m not nearly as crazy as Alexa in her career aspirations. As long as they have a sense of humor about my future employment, so will I.