I wore a pair of khaki skaterpants to my first internship interview. Skater-pants, let me remind you, were a popular pair of pants in the late 90’s. They were like bellbottoms, except instead of just flaring out at the bottom, they kind of… kept flaring upwards to the waist. Disco had bellbottoms, Hiphop had hammer pants, pop-punk had skaterpants. So unfashionable-me wore them into the new millenium and also wore them into my internship interview because someone told me “you should be yourself”.

At the time I was still trying to discover this “yourself”. Was it defined by my peers’ opinions, my background, my self-expression, or was it through my beliefs? There was one tiny bit of certainty in the definition and it was that “it’s what’s inside that counts”. That meant that if I’m going to be hired, I wanted to be hired for me, not by how I look, dress, or act. I had no regard for professionalism, authorities, or rules. It was the punk rock way. Which is why I had to wear skaterpants.

I walked into my scheduled time and sat with the director of design in a conference room with a large table and some chairs. I presented my projects, in all of its shiny freshman glory. Okay, they weren’t really “projects” but more like exercises. The “interview” was more of a polite conversation and a friendly critique, some tips and sage-advice that was too soon for me to understand.

Thirty minutes later I pushed the chair back, and as I stood up to leave to thank him good bye, the baggy skater-pants caught the corner of the laminate on the table and as I continued to stand up, not realizing it was caught, ripppppppppped the laminate off the table, ending with a loud SNAP! Breaking the laminate right off. We both stared at the strip of wood gliding through the air and on to the floor. Without hesitation, I pointed to it and said “The first thing I’m gonna do if you hire me, is totally fix that!”.

He laughed.

I got the internship.