Potomac Plums

They float like flakes of giant confetti across desks, and cascade from the shopping carts used by desperate mail clerks to handle the haul. Every day, applications flood in--an estimated 30,000 so far--for jobs with the imminent Reagan Administration. Many of the suitors are trying for one of the 2,700 jobs in the federal bureaucracy that can be filled by political appointment and that range from Secretary of State at $69,630 (although few unknowns apply) to chauffeurs at about $12,000. But a lot of the applicants are after anything that might be available, anything at all.

Although the job seekers include a variety of professionals such as real estate brokers, chefs, museum directors, ex-CIA agents, some fall back on flashy ploys to get attention. They submit their resumes in bright vinyl binders and extoll their merits for 20 pages or more. One advertising executive attached red tassels to his application; another hopeful sacrificed his autographed photo of Ronald Reagan in an attempt to impress.

Some applicants outline proposals for reforming society. In a one-page resume, a high school student cited her grade average and a burning desire "to be a moral leader." For others, a job is a job. A husband and wife offered themselves as a team entry "in any capacity." A man wrote that he wanted to apply for the ambassadorship to Great Britain because on his two-week visit to England he "had no trouble communicating with the British." At least a dozen people have applied for jobs entertaining at the White House; most are piano players. Others want jobs looking for UFOs.

One woman billed herself as a portrait painter and foot reflexologist. She sent a loose-leaf binder filled with art samples, the marriage announcement of her son, a snapshot of a 1976 television appearance and the message: "I hope you shall remember me if you choose to have a portrait painted."

Members of Reagan's personnel staff are not even safe from the onslaught away from the office. At night Scott Faulkner finds his mailbox stuffed with resumes, and someone pressed an application into his hand while he was in line at McDonald's. "People keep coming out of the woodwork," says Ed Stuckey, another Reagan aide. "They call and say something like, 'I'm the tall one who was standing in the corner at that party you were at--can you get me a job?' I didn't realize I had so many friends."

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