The opposite of the elevator pitch

And the hopefulness of small interactions

This semester I’m teaching senior seminar, our capstone course for the major. It’s one of those strange classes I’m never sure exactly what to do with. In the past few years, I’ve tried to use it as an opportunity to talk about career prep—writing resumes and talking to alum about their post-college lives. I have mixed feelings about this strategy. After 3-4 years of telling them in all their classes that capitalism is one of the greatest evils of human history, now I’m going to help them prepare to become cogs in the capitalist machine?

There’s one assignment specifically in which I have them come up with an elevator pitch to describe what sociology is. Out in the ‘real world,’ they will be asked what sociology is because no one much knows. It’s an interesting exercise to hear how they interpret what lies at the core of the discipline.

But I have to confess that, at least this year, the assignment also weirds me out. The elevator pitch demands that you distill complicated concepts and experiences into one sentence. Tell me who you are in 1 minute or less. Tell me the premise of your novel in one sentence. Tell me what you bring to this company and make it a haiku.

Photo by Derrick Treadwell on Unsplash

We are, of course, all more complicated than what can be conveyed in one sentence or one minute (maybe a haiku has the punch to do it, I’m not sure). The idea of the elevator pitch is that you should be prepared to sell yourself at any given moment. You find yourself in the elevator with someone powerful and important. You’ve got one shot to catch their attention, land the job, change your life. Ready, set, go! Is that really what I want to leave my students with the last semester of their senior year?

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This week I’m at a writer’s conference in Florida. I know a few people who were at the conference last year, but otherwise, I’m on my own. I have a hotel room all to myself. Yesterday I had lunch alone in Gulfport, a veggie eggs benedict. I was outside, under an umbrella which didn’t quite protect me from the pop-up downpour. The waiter came to check on me, probably a little worried that I’d be pissed off about the rain.

“At least it’s not cold,” I said. Which led to a conversation about where I was coming from and the discovery that he had lived in Indianapolis. We talked about how much Indy has changed since I visited when I was in grad school twenty years ago and how worried he was as a gay man moving to Indiana, right around the time of Mike Pence. He told me how much better he found the queer community in Indy compared to St. Pete, where people are fairly transient. I paid my check and went on my way. At no point did either of us distill our lives into one sentence, but I learned something about St. Pete and he got a big tip.

This week, I’ve spent quite a bit of time engaged in fleeting interactions like that with the waiter. Like what happens when you ride an elevator. I’m on the sixth floor in my hotel. It takes a while to get there. I’ve had quite a few conversations in those elevators. Go figure, I’m much chattier when I’m by myself, spending a significant amount of time alone. Which, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy. But also, it’s nice to break it up with a little chit-chat now and then.

On the elevator this week, I’ve talked a lot about the weather. A mother from Iowa had just got out of the heated pool into the Florida air that is not really quite warm. We chuckled at all the Floridians, huddled in their puffy coats and winter hats as its in the low 60s. A woman from North Carolina told me in the elevator that the clothes she brought with her weren’t warm enough. We talked geography and Bloomington, the other town in Indiana most people have heard of.

Sometimes the elevator conversations were no more complicated than wishing each other a good evening or a good morning. Regardless, at no point did anyone tell me about their business plan or their novel. I did a lot of riding on elevators and not a single pitch happened. Mostly we just stood together, going up or down, asking which floor we needed, enjoying the random encounter that is riding in elevators with people you do not know.

When I feel despair for the world, I often remind myself of these simple truths—people still mostly talk to each other on the elevator. It’s not just awkwardness that makes them turn and smile at their fellow passengers. I want to believe it’s a natural response when you put humans in a close space together. They talk to each other. It’s who we are. It’s what we do.

We are not commodities to be sold to each other. We cannot be summed up in one sentence or one minute. No, okay, not even in a haiku, as delightful as it might be to try.

What I want to do in my senior seminar class is to spend the time convincing my students that everything will be okay when they graduate in May. At least, relatively so. They will find their way, even if it might be a bumpy ride in places. I want to ever-so-gently suggest that the bumpiness might also have value. I want them to know that they don’t have to have everything figured out now or in May or in five years or ever. I certainly don’t have everything figured out. How boring that would be.

What I want to do is just hang about with a group of students I’ve come to know and love, before they scatter to the winds. Before they step out of the elevator and go their  own way.