As a college teacher for the last 22 years, I find myself giving students career advice from time to time. But what about the student who is determined to be miserable and lost? Here is one such student:
Business
major? No way. Ninety percent of business majors who get jobs out of college
have to do cold-call sales.
Marketing? Immoral. You spend all your time probing people’s brains so
you can manipulate them into buying crap they don’t need. Economics? Are you
kidding? It’s the most popular major in America. There’s a glut of econ majors
waiting in soup lines. Teaching? Forget about it. You don’t even teach. Ninety
percent of it is disciplining morons and doing boring paper work. Social work?
Hell no. The average lifespan of that job is two years before social workers
get burned out. Those who stay any longer go crazy. Nursing? No way. I hate
blood. Positively makes me faint. Engineering? I have no aptitude for it.
Besides, it’s an up and down industry. No job security. Nutritionist? Spend the
rest of my life telling pig-faced idiots to eat more fresh fruits and
vegetables? Not interested. Counseling? You’ve got to be kidding. I don’t want
to talk to people with problems like mine. I won’t make my patients feel
better. They’ll just make me feel worse. Now that’s depressing. Journalism?
What a joke. The industry is getting smaller and smaller. Newspapers and
magazines are being sucked up by giant conglomerates and advertising revenues
are being lost as readers prefer free online content. I’m not so stupid as to
pursue journalism. Law? And be the butt of evil lawyer jokes? Work a hundred
hours a week and be unhappy as most lawyers are? Not on your life. Culinary school? I’m afraid of knives,
open flames, and splattering grease. Acting? Ninety-nine percent of all actors
don’t act. They wait tables. Interior designer? Can’t. I’m color blind. Yoga
instructor? Lowest paying job in America. Can’t even pay for rent. I’ll be a
homeless yoga instructor showing my students how to find inner peace. The peace
of poverty. What a fraud. Bioresearch? And spend my life handling the Ebola
virus and other lethal microbes? No thanks. Philosophy? I’ll be unemployable.
If I’m lucky I’ll get a job at Baskin Robins. That’ll be fun. I’ll have a PhD
in Philosophy and I’ll be able to talk about Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence and
Schopenhauer’s Will to Power with the customers while putting sprinkles and
chocolate syrup on their ice cream cones. How about being a garbage man? I can
see it now. I’ll be at a cocktail party with a bunch of professionals and some
beautiful woman will ask me what kind of job I have and I’ll have to tell her I
make my living lifting people’s filth from the gutter. No thanks. How about
winning the ten-million dollar
lotto? Can you imagine? I’d lay out on a tropical island all day, drink mango
nectar and eat exotic meals made by my personal chef. I’d be in a perpetual
state of pleasure. Meanwhile, my brain would turn into mush. I would be a
complete vegetable. It sounds hideous.
I’m not stupid. I know I need some kind of meaningful work to be happy.
But I’m lost. Completely lost.
You have dismissed many fields based on flawed assumptions and shallow analyses.
How about "angry stand up comic". Looks like you have the material for your first show right here...
Posted by: Demetri | August 20, 2009 at 04:34 PM
Many flawed assumptions indeed. The poor student, who might find his skills well suited for comedy, is determined to be miserable. He is, alas, addicted to sadness and nihilism.
Posted by: Jeffrey McMahon | August 20, 2009 at 04:44 PM
What about a firefighter? put out fires live in a station and hangout untill theres a call while making over 100k a year w out overtime. :)
Posted by: Pedro Benitez | September 21, 2011 at 02:27 PM
Firefighters have no crisis of meaning, Pedro. Do it.
Posted by: Jeffrey McMahon | September 21, 2011 at 02:58 PM