Tuesday afternoon I went to a job fair at the Seattle Center. Even though I ‘pre-registered’ two weeks ago, it wasn’t until that morning, while rewriting my resume for the third time, that I decided to go. On the one hand, it didn’t seem like the place to find the kind of jobs I was looking for. On the other hand, it didn’t seem like my online application strategy was finding me any jobs at all.

Weighing my responsibilities and the total lack of leads, I began to wonder if it might be time to focus less on my dreams and more on what is obtainable. Again.

It took an hour to get ready. I put on a skirt and blouse, my favorite black heels and curled my hair using a flat-iron trick I learned on YouTube two nights ago. With twenty double-sided resumes in one hand and my camera in the other, I hopped in my truck and headed downtown, practicing all varieties of interview answers along the way.

Forty-five minutes and a side trip to the bank later, I pulled into the EMP lot. Four years in Seattle and I still never think to bring parking cash. Which as it happened, I could have gone without, because just as I approached the pay station a woman flagged me down with parking stub overpaid by $14. Happy just to see it put to use, she handed me an entire day’s worth of parking and returned to the task of cramming a ginormous stroller into the back of her SUV. I gave her what cash I had and walked toward Key Arena as a heavy wind whirled above.

With my hair whipping around my head and my skirt flapping at my knees, I kept my eyes on the path and the park grounds, empty except for a single elementary school class leaving the Children’s Museum, and a woman in a red blazer walking just ahead of me to the same destination. All the while, being stalked by two park workers on a golf cart who, when I turned to locate the motor noise directly behind my left heel, were within two feet and staring right at me.

Watching for a second as my two mutes streaked away in the opposite direction, I continued up concrete stairs to a corridor of meeting rooms. Out of the wind and cold, I passed a gentleman in a business suit balancing an accordion-like briefcase, filing papers with one hand and talking on his cell with another. A woman in a blue skirt suit and a red scarf chatted loudly on her phone, congratulating the person on the other end.

I walked up to the check in table and was greeted by a very tall, professional-looking man. “Pre-registered, here you go.” He handed me a green flyer and motioned to my right. “Everyone who’s here is listed. Go on in.”

Now, there were logos and company names and job categories plastered all over this handout. Looking at it, you’d think there were 50 companies in there. I turned to go in and I saw that it was more like 15.

“It’s just this room?” I asked the greeter. “Yep.” He said and turned to the next entrant.

Advertised ‘Job Titles’ on the event Web site and awesome green flyer included an impressive list of roles that ranged from account executives and data entry to medical staff, security, auditors, analysts and customer service. Which I instantly could see was complete and total bull.

This was Monster.com personified – not a single, non-pyramid job scheme in sight. With the exception of a casino, King County Public Health and one staffing agency, the room was nothing but a recruiting circuit for insurance, sales and collection agency jobs. Oh, and the Navy was there. They looked a little lonely.

According to Seth Godin, by the time an opening hits the job fair, it’s a job you don’t want. And by the time someone like me gets to the point of going to job fairs, it might be too late to find a job that’s worthy. I really should have taken him at his word and saved myself the trip.

Because whatever I pull out from the job hunting toolbox next, it’s not going to be this.