It's been a crazy fiscal quarter. First I decided I needed a new job, one preferably as different from my current one as possible. Then my job decided they didn't need so many people, and cut a whole bunch of 'em a few weeks before Thanksgiving. On the one hand, this was scary and sad, as these things are, but on the other hand, when it turned out that I can has new job, I only had to break the news to four people rather than nine. (The reaction from upper management: bafflement. The reaction from my team: apathy. This is because the people doing the work are more business savvy than the people running the business.)
Anyway, the day after 38 people were shown the door here, I got a call and did a 45 minute phoneterview which was followed by four hours of in-person interviews with nine people over two days. It was a good time, I like talking. At the end of each day though, I had no vocabulary left and started neurotically replaying each conversion in my head. (Did I actually say sales-people are 'little gifts from heaven'? Why did I reference Cerebro from X-Men? How did I convince everyone I'm an organized self-starter, when I'm a messy non-starter?) Thankfully they called me Wednesday night with an offer and I didn't have to follow the shame spiral into a vat of cheese fries.
To celebrate my good fortune, I rented my favorite movie about work of all time: Working Girl. I concluded after this, my fiftieth (estimated) viewing, that this movie totally effing rocks. Here are some things I noticed.
1. Melanie Griffin wears the most ridiculous glasses when she's pretending to be the boss. They have red frames and extend out past her face. I was completely distracted by them during the entire scene.
2. Harrison Ford's teeth look messed up. He's at peak hotness during this time, but in the scene where he's convincing Melanie to let him be a part of the deal while eating a gyro, his teeth looked really small and kind of grimy.
3. I would totally go gay for Working Girl era Sigourney Weaver. Well, maybe not really, but she is awesome.
4. Melanie Griffin is naked a lot. This is unremarkable. She is also basically way fat for a naked movie star, which IS remarkable. She could never get away with it today, and would have to use an emaciated body double.
5. Every 'working class' character wears at least 3 shades of eye shadow, usually purple, green, and pink. This is the color scheme I wore to my jr. high school best friend's bhat mitzvah in sixth grade. I thought I was the shit. It turns out, I was only the shit in Staten Island.
6. The engagement party scene is phenomenal. Nicholas Cage, having been caught cheating by Melanie G., asks Melanie to dance. They get close, and she knows it's a goodbye, while he believes they're taking up where they left off. Then he proposes, egged on by his friends, and she says "Maybe." When he questions her she says, "If you want another answer, ask another girl." It' s a brilliant moment where you see that while she still loves him, she doesn't mind twisting the knife, because she can forgive but not forget. She may regret losing her old life but knows she can't go back.
7. Every scene is as perfect as the above mentioned one.
8. Joan Cusack RULES. I heart Joan Cusack 4evR! "Sometimes I dance around singing songs in my underwear. Don't make me Madonna. Never will."
9. Every computer looks like a Kaleko. Black screen, green letters... what could they possibly be using them for? There was no internet. There was no MS Office. What on earth did they do?
10. I usually am not a Carole King fan, but I love the theme song for working girl. As a kid I always thought it was Sigourney Weaver singing it. It isn't. It's Carole. But it sounds like how Sigourney Weaver would sing, if she sang.
Let the river run, let all the dreamers wake the nation. Come, the new Jerusalem.
