Job Interview 2: Return of the Job Interview and the Three-Inch Golden Lotus

That's right folks, it's Thursday. And a new day brings a new job interview.

But I was not running late for this one. In fact, I was so troubled by the sweaty events of my last interview that I arrived one hour early.

You can do a lot in an hour. I observed that this company loves youth; it's a recent college graduate sweat shop with business casual flair. I heard a lot of "blablabla happy hour" and "same story, different day."

At this company I was interviewed by not one, but TWO of the sweat shop employees. All in all I'd say things went well. There was none of the overt sweating/bloody feet/interviewer with an eyelash in her eye debacle of last week. Yet, that debacle did still score me an offer.

There were a few periods of awkward silence. Young Interviewer would finish explaining something about the job and then blankly stare at me while I beamed back. Finally she would quizzically ask, "don't you have any questions about that?" This struck me as odd because her description was something as simple as "kittens drink milk." Unlike the last interview where I got the feeling that she just wanted me to shut up, I felt that these interviewers just wanted me to talk forever. Concise, wordy, short, long, eyelashes, sweatshops... I just want to get it right!

Don't worry, high comedy ensued when Older Young Interviewer gave me incorrect directions to the metro. This led to much ambling around and profuse sweating. Of course, even when I found it and finally reached my apt's metro stop, this only led to the incredibly fun jaunt up the mountain.

Sure, the apt has the best view of the city... but at what cost! I completely sweated through my button down shirt like a nasty plumber. And, my favorite and yours, the feet were once again bloody.

I tried on every pair of high heels in two stores before settling on the pair that I bought. Obviously there was some mistake. I thought that foot binding was largely a thing of the past in China, but I suppose we adopted a watered down version of it here in the States. Foot binding is one of the worst things I can think of... having all the bones broken in your feet from the time you're a young girl and having to walk on those broken bones every day. Mankind has had some pretty disgusting and deluded ideas about fashion and beauty.

"If you love your daughter, bind her feet; if you love your son, let him study," or so goes the old Chinese saying.

Sounds lovely... three inch golden lotus my ass. The name sounds great until you realize that the three inches relates to a foot being three inches. Fine, high heels are not an attempt to break all the bones in my foot and reshape it into a three inch golden lotus (so they say...), but I still don't trust them. Say what you will about communists, but at least they banned foot binding in China in the mid 1900's.

Wikipedia says that a form of high heels were invented for men for the purpose of making riding boots. Then some dumb bitch had a cobbler craft a female version for fashion and to increase her stature. Some websites say that da Vinci invented them. This website has a timeline that basically says similar things to the riding boots theory.

So, the history of high heels isn't nearly as riveting as I had hoped it would be, and I still don't understand why they're necessary for job interviews and why so many women love them. Last time I was examining my bloody, high heel clad feet on the metro a woman turned to me an said, "Mmm, girl... the things we women do to look good."

Bah humbug!