Tomorrow is the career fair, the time of year every WashU Engineering student tears off their Linux t-shirt and blue jeans and stuffs themselves into an ill-fitting suit and tie for the annual schmooze-fest. It's funny how someone you see in class who you know is just a wrench short of a complete Toolbox show up at the career fair wearing a slick expensive suit and the naive companies just eat it up. It's funny but it's also scary, because the business world basically rewards you for being as completely fake as possible, and this toolbox who does ASCII art in his spare time will be the one working for a large corporation next year while you're living in a cardboard box on the Delmar Loop. I give you my proof in form of a short play:

[Act One: An Actual Interview]
Chris, our tragic hero, shuffles into the room uncomfortably in his suit that he only wears because everyone else is wearing one

Generic "Professionally-Attired" Businessperson: Hi [glances at sheet], Chris, I'm so happy to meet you! I'm bright and bubbly even though it is 8 in the morning!

Chris: [wipes his eyes and regrets not eating a candy bar to wake himself up] Hi, I don't know you and I'll probably never see you again, but I'm glad to meet you too.

Businessperson: I have just a few questions to ask you this morning! None of them have any relevance to any actual duties you'd be performing on the job at [insert name of consulting company barely staying afloat], but we find it's easier to just ask all of our potential candidates the same pointless questions and then just pick the winner randomly out of a hat! To start off, what made you decide to apply for a job with us?

Chris: Well, according to your webpage your company helps people and I...uh...also want to help people.

Businessperson: Excellent! [writes furiously on notepad] Tell me about a time you've worked in a group!

Chris: Actually, having gone to school for the past 17 years of my life, I've worked in many groups.

Businessperson: Great! Let's pretend you're in a group that isn't getting along, what do you do to make sure you still get the job done?

Chris: I'm in graduate school, I'm not five years old, I can usually get along with people well enough to do a project.

Businessperson: Wonderful! That's about all I have to ask you, do you have any questions about our company, keeping in mind that we just inundated you with brochures, flyers, insulated mugs, frisbees, CD-Roms, and posters?

Chris: Well not really, seeing as how this "ask us a question" time is really only meant as another way for you to judge me on seemingly-random criteria that have no real-world application.

Businessperson: [stands up] Fantastic! It was soooo nice meeting you today [looks at pad] Dave, oh wait, Dave is next, I mean Chris.

[Act Two: The Ideal Interview]
Chris strolls in at 2 in the afternoon wearing a Less than Jake t-shirt and cargo shorts

Down-to-Earth, Technically-Knowledgeable Employee: Hi Chris, glad you could make it. My name is Michael, but you can call me "Heavy Mike D" [gestures towards simian wearing people clothes] and this is Chum-Chum the chimp. Tell me about a software project you've worked on, and since I'm a technical expert and not just a business clone you can actually explain it to me without dumbing it down to a 3rd grade level.

Chris: [goes into brief but thorough explanation of interesting project, while Chum-Chum claps his hands and does summersaults in his chair]

Interviewer: Great, I'm not going to waste your time asking you stupid questions, I can tell from your resume that you've had a successful academic career without reading you BS questions. I can tell this because I am a reasonably intelligent person rather than a suit who got his job because his dad's friend once slept with an intern who also bedded the director of recruiting. They call this "networking". For the remaining 50 minutes of your interview, Brittany, our single and incredibly hot programmer who also listens to punk music and loves playing basketball, will tell you more about the work environment of our comapny while performing a striptease to the Reel Big Fish song "Sellout".

If I ran the business of tomorrow, things would be verrrrrrry different...