First Job

I SIT DOWN in my department director's office. He rises fro his executive swivel chair, takes four steps to the door and slowly closes it. As his right hand twists the knob, I feel uneasy.I've never done this before. I don't know how to tell you this. But due to the tremendous budget crunch we've been facing, we're going to have to . . .My cheeks burn. My palms grip the armrest tighter, grow sweaty. I gulp like a condemned prisoner awaiting the inevitable, fatal bolt.We've decided to terminate your position.

For many new college grads it's time to learn a skill that will serve them throughout their careers - negotiating a salary. Yes, even those seeking entry-level jobs might be able to squeeze a little more out of a prospective employer by playing their cards right. An improved job market favors new graduates. A few years ago, they were lucky to get any offer. Now some are getting more than one. And competing offers put job seekers in an even better position to negotiate, says Brian Krueger, president of CollegeGrad.

Lamar Wooten, 17, took the morning off from school, dressed in his Sunday best -- a tie and a crisp white shirt -- to show his freshly pressed resume to prospective employers at yesterday's summer jobs fair. A senior at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School, Wooten was one of 250 young people intent on interviewing with 27 potential employers yesterday at the city-sponsored YouthWorks 2000. One was United Parcel Service, which seemed to be the most popular employer -- for males, anyway.

I suspect I have a different relationship with oranges than do most people. My father always placed one in the toe of our Christmas stockings, as was the old Depression-era custom. Then, an orange given for Christmas was a rare and wonderful gift -- a burst of sweetness in a grim diet of oatmeal. My father carried on this tradition and so our stockings would droop with the weight of this instructive gift. There were many such instructive gifts, and sometimes our shoulders drooped with the weight of them.

Jennifer Prosa stood patiently in a line of at least 300 people, with each person waiting just to get inside a job fair Wednesday at the Baltimore Convention Center. "I probably should have gotten here earlier," said the 27-year-old Severn resident as she surveyed the hundreds of hungry job-seekers ahead of her. If there is any telltale sign of growing unemployment woes in this deepening recession, look no further than recent job fairs across the country and in the Baltimore region. Many have drawn thousands of laid-off workers and others in search of limited job openings.

Rick Mosley, 20 months sober, returns every day to the nadir of his life, to the downtown streets where he once spent his time cadging spare change for bottles of cheap wine. Now he visits the panhandlers he left behind, offering them information about drug and alcohol treatment, tips on social services, sometimes just blankets and sandwiches.The one thing he won't give them is change."They still ask me," he said with a grin. "Even though they know me, they still ask."But Mr. Mosley, an inept panhandler in his day, believes that the quarters and dollars pressed on panhandlers add up to a bad deal for everyone.

One on One is a weekly feature offering excerpts of interviews conducted by The Evening Sun with newsworthy business leaders. Sunna Kalis is executive director of the Jewish Vocational Service. Q. Can you tell me how old the agency is and why it was created?A.The agency was established 51 years ago, primarily in response to the needs of people coming over from Europe who were having difficulty getting employment.Q. What type of services did you initially provide?A. Well, in 1939 the needs were really not that different than today.

Jackie Carter had it all mapped out. She would attend college year-round and graduate early, land a job in criminal justice, start paying off student loans, move into her own apartment and invest in her first smartphone. But the 22-year-old Towson University graduate has seen her life after college veer off course. Carter, who graduated in December with a degree in sociology/anthropology with a criminal justice concentration, is living with her parents in Fallston, working as an intern and wondering whether her original goals are forever out of reach.

Your first job as a Maryland electricity shopper is to sign up for a good deal at a good price. I'll remind you how to do so later in the column. Your second job is to make sure you don't get switched to a bad deal once the good deal expires. Thousands of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. households have taken one- or two-year contracts since electricity prices began falling a couple years ago. Now that many of the terms are coming to an end, inattentive consumers risk being rolled over to a lousy new rate.

Tamara Dobson, the Baltimore-born model-turned-actress best known for her leading role in two films as kung fu-fighting government super-agent Cleopatra Jones, died Monday at Keswick Multi-Care Center from complications of pneumonia and multiple sclerosis. She was 59. One of four children of a beauty shop operator and railroad clerk, Miss Dobson was a graduate of Western High School.