Throughout a long and rewarding business career, I have often been asked, How did you get into public relations? Well, it’s kind of a funny story. Or it is now. Today, I can laugh at the litany of misadventures that characterized my first step into the job market. But for years, that innocuous question would hurl me into a flashback traumatic by a young person’s standards.

I was twenty years old—a typical clueless English major—when I applied for a summer internship in Boston before my senior year of college at Cornell University. Spending three months in the big city instead of my stifling, small hometown promised freedom and excitement, plus a chance to acquire marketable skills. If I was lucky, maybe I’d even figure out what to do with the rest of my life. In other words, I really wanted this position.

I cobbled together a resumé stating I sought a job in PR, publishing or advertising. I had no clue how the three fields differed or what each industry entailed other than some skill with words. (This was in the days before universities offered communications degrees.)

To my delight, I was offered an interview, but I had to get from Ithaca in upstate New York to Boston with little notice and as cheaply as possible given my meager resources. Enter People Express Airlines, a no-frills budget airline popular in the 1980s. I booked a flight from Syracuse to Boston for the next day, called my brother who lived in a Boston suburb to arrange overnight accommodations, packed my one nice blazer and matching skirt, and boarded a bus for Syracuse.

At People Express, punctuality and reliability weren’t in the mission statement. My flight was cancelled. No explanation. No helpful suggestions for alternatives. No hotel room for the night. Just one small, dingy, unwelcoming airport.

Unable to lie across the terminal seats due to their unmovable metal armrests, I hunkered down on the hard floor. Good thing I still lived in the world of college apartments and multiple roommates with different standards of cleanliness. I was able to ignore the stains on the worn carpet that was to be my bed for the night as I tried to get comfortable and gave myself a pep talk. I can make this work. Instead of getting picked up by my brother at Logan Airport and spending a relaxing night at his apartment, I’d just take the early morning flight, freshen up in the airport restroom, change my clothes there, and go straight to my interview.

Thankfully, the next day went according to plan. I managed to find my way from the airport to the nonprofit organization’s office in Post Office Square, and to stifle my yawns during my first professional interview.

As I was leaving, the director—a tall, gangly man with a wide smile and a drawl that evoked a cowboy hat and jeans rather than the suit and tie he wore—asked me to come back the next day to meet one of the Board members. The man he so casually referred to was Cornell alumnus Edward Bernays, the “father of modern public relations.” No pressure there.

I stammered, “Sure,” as my heart pounded wildly. They want me to come back! I have to stay another night! Can I wear the same suit tomorrow? No!

My brother’s girlfriend was enlisted to shuttle me to Filene’s Basement, where I bought a dusty-rose skirt and blazer for fifty dollars. Karen said pairing the pink suit with my black heels was a Fashion Don’t worthy of the back page of a women’s magazine, so I also left with cream-colored slingback sandals and cream-colored nylons. I felt so sophisticated in my first-ever pair of slingbacks!

The next morning after I showered, dried my hair and dressed, feeling pretty confident in my snazzy new suit, I dropped a contact lens. Down the sink. Never to be seen again, or certainly not in any wearable condition. I held back tears. I hated wearing my glasses; they were so heavy I could practically feel the indent forming in my skin when I wore them. But I was Mr. Magoo without correction of some kind. Glasses it was.

My brother dropped me off at the MBTA north of Boston and I took the subway into town, getting off at what I thought was the closest station to Post Office Square. Turns out I was off by about ten blocks. I walked. And walked. And I walked some more. I slung my blazer over my shoulder to air out my increasingly moist armpits—we all know how attractive sweat stains are on a silk blouse! I brushed my hair back from my perspiring neck, and hobbled in my new slingbacks. The back strap kept slipping, refusing to respect whatever law of physics suggested a sling could actually stay in position on the back of a rounded heel. (Maybe the inventor of the slingback failed Physics class.) I got tired of stopping to yank the strap into place every ten steps, so I let it droop and walked as best I could with no support in the back whatsoever.

After a few blocks, the strap began to rub the spot low on my heel where it had decided to hang out. The rub became a twinge, which became a burn. I hummed “Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Femmes to distract myself from the pain and continued walking, wincing and sweating.

Finally, I reached the office for my interview. In the building’s small lobby, I swiped my forehead with a crumpled tissue. I resisted the urge to reach inside my shirt and wipe my armpits, knowing if I did, that would be the moment the elevator doors would open and my potential boss would appear.

As I stepped into the elevator, pain stabbed my heel. I looked down at the offending slingback. Blood was seeping out from behind the leather strap and creeping across my cream nylons in a lovely crimson bloom. I tore a piece off the sweaty tissue and gingerly nudged it between the strap and my heel, hoping to stench the blood flow’s migration across my foot.

An hour later, I left the interview, thinking I did okay but not completely sure due to my sweaty angst, stinging heel and general ignorance of all things business.

Twenty-four hours later, I arrived back at my college apartment, where I regaled my roommates with the story of my nightmare trip.

“Let’s see the new suit,” they insisted.

I yanked the blazer from my bag, put it on and twirled around to show off my very adult purchase. The room went silent.

My eyes widened. “What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Um, Sue, you have tags on your elbows.”

I ripped off the jacket and sure enough, each elbow had a white square stapled to the fabric. To this day, I have no idea what purpose those tenacious tags served, other than to further my humiliation.

One of my roommates patted my shoulder. “Well, if you get the internship, none of this will matter.”

Amazingly, I did get the internship, despite my awkward interview and wardrobe woes. I learned that I really liked PR, and I was good at it. That internship set me up for my first “real” PR job after college. And that led to more and better jobs, and a decades-long career in public relations that encompassed agencies, nonprofits, and executive positions at a Fortune 500 company and a FTSE 100 global company based in London.

Equally important, I learned to always check new clothes for stray tags in unexpected places. And to avoid slingbacks.

-S.M. Stevens

S.M. Stevens began writing fiction during back-to-back health crises: a shattered pelvis and ovarian cancer. She writes contemporary novels designed to make readers laugh, cry and think. Her most recent novel, Beautiful and Terrible Things, was released by Black Rose Writing in July 2024. Her novelette The Wallace House of Pain won a 2023 American Fiction Award and a First Place CIBA prize in the Shorts category. www.AuthorSMStevens.com.