In September, I came back to San Francisco with a response to their search for a Placement Specialist. They recommended I build up my youth development experience by volunteering with them and they'll reconsider me in June.
Which is how I ended up... at their Career Exposure Event,... as the sandwich lady.
The event featured speakers in five different fields: Law, Engineering, Creative Arts, Health, and Business/Politics. After sandwich duty, I was assigned to fill the sessions with few people (the rain cut the attendance from 80 to 25!) I first sat through the 45 minute session about Law. We sat with women from: the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, the Public Defenders Office, and a Paralegal for a firm specializing in paternal custody battles. They went over their career paths, the type of work they do, the difference between civil and criminal law, and as always, stressed that the field of law is not limited to only becoming a lawyer.
It was a cool classroom environment, we sat in a circle so the discussion could flow naturally. There were only four students to the three speakers. I found the woman from the Office of Civil Rights to be the most unexpected speaker because I suppose I too am guilty of, one, never thinking about civil law and two, never seeing its place in the education! She said they battle discrimination in school policies. The most interesting question of the evening came from this sloppy young man in the nice kicks. He asked how she felt about privatization of education, since its a right not a privilege. I was taken aback by the question, but she handled it honestly - later discovering this kid was one of the very few YouthWorks participants that attends private school. Hard to believe.
I got the opportunity to chat it up with the speakers in between sessions - a High School passing period if you will. I was most interested in this woman because she did reintroduce the idea of law school. It wasn't until the second session, Business and Government, that I really put my mind back into it. I did want to slide over to the woman from the Public Defenders office, running the intern program there is a good connection to make. But I found no such opportunity, returned to my sandwiches and decided, I would not be so hesitant to network in the next round.
As I walked to the second session, I saw one of the speakers, sitting on the staircase on the phone. I thought she did not want to be there with such a small turn out. The session began without her and the other two women, younger, both mention that there was some subject matters that the outside woman could answer much better than they. The first woman, a talker, told her story about successfully managing a million dollar property, not wanting to go to college, and then hitting the glass ceiling. She went to SFSU, studied anything for a B.A. and now is a political consultant, or something like that. She says that anytime you see people on the street asking you to sign a petition, she put them there (really? thanks!) The next woman's story aligned with my thoughts, talking about the fears of following a path that you think you should stay on because you're on it and doing it well. She dropped everything and went to law school with no intention of becoming a lawyer and, really that's how I feel. But if you aren't becoming a lawyer, what on Earth are you doing? She serves on the legal counsel for the Greenlining Institute, helping people of color and immigrants with such issues. She's doing what I'm imagining - taking something that you can do well and doing it for good.
The last lady rolled in and opened with explaining her phone call - a woman and child were put on the street because of domestic abuse, and as Executive Director of the Commission on the Status of Women, she comes to the rescue. Her story was very odd; a lot of different types of school, her dad wanted her to be something and she was on that track for a while, she worked abroad and in the White House. Her words of advice... "Give yourself 10 years" really vocalized what I had been thinking all along. There are so many different jobs/positions out there for so many different industries, I don't believe that all of those people in positions we've never heard of could have foreseen being such. I've never heard of a lot of these positions or thought about how roles differ by industry. For example, we've heard of "consultants" as a job title... but there are so many different kinds of consultants to meet each industries needs. Anyway, if not 10 years, why not more... I'm comforted in the fact that I don't need to know. right. now.
I approached her after the session with a maybe rude but direct question. "You have no background in Women interest groups... how did you get appointed by the mayor to serve such a high ranking position?" She mentioned her work in DC, her network, people knew of her interest... I told her about my consideration in government, especially in our local government, my mom's role in the Mayor's Disability Council, asked if she served on such a council and moved up... I told them all about my distressing job search, freelancing, and my ultra loaded resume. It was enough to strike the special attention of one woman, get on the job board email list of another, and schedule three meetings.
As I thanked YouthWorks for letting me help them, the director approached me with a proposition. Temporary part-time administrative assistance to JCYC. I happily accepted anything that would keep me in their consideration. The money will be enough to get me to Los Angeles and back once in a while.
In conclusion, networking - what a magical thing.
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