Once I graduated from Temple I began preparing for interviews, so I needed to go shopping and buy interview-appropriate clothing. I had a few decent pieces I could wear but I really needed some nice shoes. At the time my favorite place to buy shoes was Saks Fifth Avenue OFF 5th. There I found two pairs of really cute BCBG pumps both with a sweet kitten heel. One pair was a true pump the other had a little strap that went around the ankle. I tried them on and walked around the store with them feeling confident that they would be fairly comfortable for walking around New York City with my portfolio. Boy was I wrong.
One of my very first interviews was with a headhunter located near Madison Square Park. I went to New York for two days and stayed with a girlfriend who moved there a year before me, she lived in Brooklyn Heights. I had never been on the NY subway by myself so I left with her the morning of my interview as she was going to work so she could show me how to get to where I needed to go.
So we’re walking to the train and I’m pulling my portfolio on a little carrier with wheels (because it was way too heavy to carry by hand) when I realize my shoes, the pumps, are literally flopping off my feet. WTH! They were too big! My walk-in-the-store test tricked me because these shoes did not fit. We didn't know what to do, my friend was trying to help me but she also didn’t want to be late for work. It didn’t make sense for me to go back to her apartment because I didn’t have any other shoes to wear. I had to think quickly. For some reason I had a plastic bag in my purse. I took it out and shredded it into pieces and stuffed those pieces into the front of my shoe. I stuck my feet in and it was better but only a temporary solution. I would walk a few feet feeling okay and then my shoes would flop again, and then I would have to stop to stuff more plastic. The pressure of me walking pushed the plastic further into the front leaving me back where I started. It was horrible and it didn’t help that I was lugging this huge portfolio. {{Read more here.}}
