Adventures in renvoi

I have a unique problem that most recent law school grads don't face: I don't (yet) know anyone in the area I'm searching in. Connections are everything anywhere, but that seems especially true in this town...

C. got a lead on understaffing in the Boston City Law Department (to whom I had already sent a resume), so I tried calling them again today. When I asked if there was anyone I could speak to regarding employment possibilities in the department, I was forwarded to (where else?) HR. HR asked if I was responding to a specific job posting; I was not. So back to the Law Department.

"You just called here, sir." When I told her that HR had sent me back to her, she gave me a number to try. That number, of course, was Barbara (see "Nominal Fun," infra) at HR again. (Law dorks will recognize this is as a textbook example of the old double renvoi mess.) Just as she was about to send me back to the Law Department, I asked her if there was anyone outside of this little binary loop I could speak to about this.

"Well, not unless you know somebody who knows somebody," she said.