Issue date: 2/11/09 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: James Cavin [Click to enlarge]

Well it's getting to that time of the year when graduating seniors start getting overly concerned with their futures. Everybody is scrapping for a job. What they all seem to be forgetting is that "job" is in fact just a synonym for "work."

I've never understood this transition. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've spent the last seven - err I mean four - years in college, which means I've basically spent the last four years strenuously training to avoid work in any way possible. Case in point: I actually wrote this article three years ago and just resubmit it every time the opinion editor changes. So to take professionally trained slackers such as ourselves and expect us to go straight into employment seems a bit illogical.

Perhaps I'm just overly cynical because employment is not a choice for us liberal arts students. (Art and English majors, start looking for the good refrigerator boxes now.) "What?" you ask, "How can you make a gigantic generalization about the employability of an entire school?" Just ask yourself this simple question: "Do I enjoy what I do?" If the answer is yes, you can't make a job out of it. OK, smart alecs, I'll get to prostitution later. Think about it, all the money is in the stuff nobody wants to do. If I actually enjoyed emptying the dishwasher myself, I wouldn't pay my little brother to do it. And by "pay my little brother" I mean try to subconsciously program him to do it by whispering "the dishwasher needs to be emptied" over and over when he falls asleep on the couch. Sometimes just to mix things up I whisper, "Mother never loved you."

If you fall under one of these unemployable categories, fear not! I've compiled a comprehensive list of all the things you can do rather than find a job:

Die.

Donate blood. This seems to be a favorite among students, as evidenced by those awful television ads with the "students" who wave and smile at the camera lobotomy-style as if donating blood is the single most relaxing feeling the human mind is capable of experiencing. And then they start chipping in with all the things you can do with your blood money. "I use mine to help pay for textbooks," says one. "I use mine to support my Valium addiction." "I use mine to buy more blood so I can donate again." "I just like bleeding, wheeee!"

Continued...

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