The lazy person’s way to find work with amazingly little effort: make an excellent contact accidentally on the street, allow him to introduce you to all sorts of important people, and go for interviews until everyone involved is blue in the face and someone, somewhere, knows someone who will give you a job.

In this way I found myself sitting for the sixth of seventh time in the waiting room of the Employment Bureau, struggling palidly against a new bout of food poisoning, waiting to talk to the secretary. In the past to weeks I had been in to see the undersecretary, his secretary, a number of women whose job it was to find a job for me, and another random man working there who seemed to know who I was, although I hadn’t a clue who he was. The secretary himself was elusive, and today he was keeping me waiting. I’d already been there and hour. To distract myself I read for about the hundredth time the signs plastering every available wall and proclaiming: “The Bolsa de Trabajo is committed to providing a workplace free from laboral and sexual harassment, without distinctions or discrimination.” Very nice, I thought, nice to see they’re making the effort, since Mexico doesn’t exactly have the best reputation in that field.

Finally I was ushered in to see the secretary, who proved to be in direct conflict with all of those politically correct little signs. A true “viejo verde” as the Spanish say, or dirty old man. He expressed his delight that I wasn’t married, wanted a list of qualities I required in a partner, followed me around his grand spacious office stroking my arm and repeatedly tried to kiss me… on the cheek, mouth, hand… he was impossible to escape. Meanwhile he promised to find a job for me.

I eventually extricated myself and fled back along the few streets to my house profoundly depressed, but knowing that if a job was offered, I would go back to see him… provided the job did not turn out to be as his personal secretary.