Darla's Fishy Job Fair
Why is it so hard to find a fishy sitter?…
When I was a kid, my brothers and I liked to play a drawing game we called “Animal, Activity, Feeling.” The game was simple: one of our parents would give us an animal, an activity, and a feeling, and the three of us would then draw our representation of that.
This game was always a great way to challenge our creativity, so I decided to adapt it to the event industry as a way of flexing my creative muscles. So a few weeks ago I gave my friends a series of choices:
Train station or spa
Job fair or funeral
Darla Sherman or Python Nu Kappa
Well, the results came in and it turns out that my friends wanted me to design a job fair for Darla Sherman at a train station.
At first this combination was a bit intimidating. Not only do I know very little about Darla Sherman as a character, but I also had to come up with a reason she’d be at a train station and why she’d need to host a job fair in the first place.
But then it hit me: she needed to hire a fishy sitter.
You see, there’s nothing Darla loves more than her pet fish. She might not be so great at keeping them alive but she definitely loves having them, and when her parents announced that they’d be going on a trip for a few weeks she knew she had to find the perfect person to take care of her fishy friends while she was away.
But she couldn’t trust just anybody — after all, what did her friends know about taking care of her precious fish? None of them have fishies! No, what she needed was a grown-up — someone who’s old and boring and has nothing better to do than keep their eyes on her fish at all times.
So she went to work with her dad one day. As a ticket taker at Southern Cross Station, he meets tons of grown-ups every day who are just looking for something to do with their time. Armed with a bundle of handmade signs, some peanut butter sandwiches (as payment), and a few fishy balloons her mom helped her make, Darla set up her own job fair in the hopes of finding the perfect fishy sitter for her beloved aquarium of fishy friends.
Inspired by the lemonade stands you see popping up around your neighbourhood in the summertime, Darla’s job fair is just a little bit messy and extremely sparkly.
In other words: exactly what a kid thinks is professional!
With some whimsical elements like hand-tied balloons and pet store decor and the added charm of messy science fair boards, there’s no way that Darla’s table wouldn’t get a few visitors throughout the day.