Photo attached?

The school where I work is in the midst of hiring new teachers, and something very, very . . . unusual happened today.

I should preface this by explaining that the hiring process in Argentina is a little different than it is in the U.S. While at home it is either illegal or simply unbecoming to consider a candidate based on marital status, exact age or number of children, these are basic facts that go right at the top of every CV that has passed through our office, right next to the awkward-looking photograph of the potential teacher.

My boss and I get a good laugh out of the photographs, many of which resemble that emo picture you have of yourself in the seventh grade, the one you revisit every few years just to remind yourself how awkward you were way back when. I often wonder what possesses some of these candidates to send photographs that look like they were taken with a polaroid camera after a really rough night at a boliche. Faces cut off, deep sunken eyes, unbrushed hair, tank tops, impossibly dreary pouts, bad flashes, horrible lighting, ripped clothes. You name it, I´ve seen it.

Or so I thought. Today, Carolina, one of my coworkers, opened her email account and began reviewing one of the CVs in her inbox. One potential teacher -- let´s call her candidate number 8 -- had a very nice resume, with lots of experience. She had included all the details -- minus one very important item. For some odd reason, she is not wearing any clothing in her photograph, and she had provided Carolina with an artfully posed full-body closeup.

This of course, elicited some speculation in in the office. Was this a joke? Did she upload the wrong photograph and press send without checking? Does she actually think this will get her a job? (I have not quite ruled this one out yet . . .)

So of course, after some contemplation, we took the only logical next step. The director of my school called candidate 8, and she will be arriving for an interview tomorrow at noon. Roli, our doorman, wants to know if she´ll be wearing any clothes.

Updates tomorrow . . .