The Coffee Machine at the RAI

Anouk had a strategy, and the strategy had three parts: talk to twelve people, mention her master's degree in the first minute, and never say the word “unemployed”.

The conference was two days of talks about water management at the RAI in Amsterdam, and she was there for free, because her old department had booked a table in March and then forgotten about it. Her primary aim was simple: leave on Friday with one real conversation.

The first man she spoke to worked for a global engineering company. She mentioned the degree in the first minute, exactly as planned. He said, “Right,” and then talked for eleven minutes about a policy document she hadn't read. When she asked whether his team was hiring, he said the arrangement with their partners was complicated at the moment, and went to get a coffee.

The second, third and fourth conversations were shorter versions of the first. By three o'clock she had learned that “we're currently reviewing our resources” means no, that “send me something” also means no, and that the free lunch offered a narrow range of sandwiches, all of which she consumed.

At four, the coffee machine in the main hall stopped working. Anouk had spent two summers behind a counter in Utrecht, so she opened the little door at the side, pulled out the wet tray, and put it back the right way round. The machine made its noise again. A queue formed behind her, and a man thanked her directly, as if she had some authority over the coffee.

A woman near the front of the queue watched her do it a second time. “Are you staff?” she asked.

“No,” Anouk said. “I'm the person who used to work in a café.”

The woman didn't run a water company. She ran the conference — this one and five others, in four countries — and in September she needed somebody who could stand in a hall full of engineers and fix things without waiting for permission.

Anouk started on the first of September. On her second day, a man at the registration desk asked her what her degree was in. She told him. He said, “Right,” and went to get a coffee.