Team Struggle vs. College Education!

Jenn B.:

The other day, I was sitting in my personal “office” at work, blankly staring at my computer screen when I had an epiphany.  Ok, so two things are wrong with that statement.  I don’t have an office, but I like to refer to my cubicle as one so that I can feel more important when speaking to people who are obviously higher up in the social caste system.  The second thing is the epiphany- I don’t think I had one of those, but I definitely had a realization that many people my age have had or will have eventually.  When it comes to the corporate world, I am a complete waste of space.  Yes, a worthless sack of human excrement. 

If you’re reading this, and you’re about my age, you may be in the same predicament that I find myself in.  You wake up at the same time every day, Monday-Friday, put on your big people clothes, and arrive at a job that you most likely would choose chewing gravel over attending.  You probably agreed to the job position solely based on the fact that you were told that “there is so much money to be made,” or “there is a lot of growth potential with your go-getter attitude.”  Well, now you’re a little pissed off because you’re not making shit for money, and the only place your go-getter attitude has landed you is the never ending labyrinth of miserable cubicle mongers.    

This is the only time in my life where I may admit to ever being jealous of Eric Prae.  He was once a part of the corporate land of misery, but decided to take the leap and make a change.  Now he is irritatingly happy, finds it completely acceptable to be drunk at 11am on a Tuesday, and somehow still manages to make ends meet.  Eric is in no way jobless, he actually works very hard.  But he somehow found a way to work hard doing jobs he wants  to do (coaching, writing, stand up, etc).  I still wonder if he strips, or gives happy endings for cash.  Either way, he has a smirk on his face when I come home whining about my long day at work, probably because the only damper to his day was the fact that Tux the Puppy ate his favorite lip balm, or that he didn’t get enough sun block on his pasty white ass while writing at the beach last weekend. 

One thing that my favorite red-head and I have in common: we both have great college degrees that are about as useful as the pull out method.  Our whole lives, we played a sport that we were very good at; Eric played football, and I played golf (I’d appreciate if you kept the butch jokes to a minimum).  We were well known around the city we grew up in for those respective sports, and we each ended up with some sort of scholarship because of our athletic inclinations.  I obtained my B.S. in Physical Education, and Eric has a B.S. in Corporate Finance, or as I refer to them as “Bullshit Degrees in Career Fields You Will Never be Affiliated With, Past The Day You Sport Your Cap & Gown.”  They have also been known as a B.S. in “Hey Dad, you dumped half your retirement fund into my bank account on a weekly basis, just so I could afford to help pay the electric bill at the liquor store.” At least if I was going to waste years of my life and thousands of dollars in trade for a piece of paper, I did treat college as a social buffet line.

I went to college to become a Physical Education Teacher, and again, I would appreciate you keeping the lesbian comments to a minimum.  I’m sure you’re adding all of this up in your head: played golf, gym teacher, and throw in the fact that I drove an SUV?  Yea, all I needed was a set of Yosemite Sam mud-flaps on that thing and I was a shoe-in to be the president of GLAAD.  For the record, I am in no way against lesbians; lesbians prefer innies, while I prefer outies.  No big deal.

I chose Phys Ed because I liked kickball so much as a kid, and sweatpants were already a staple in my wardrobe.  This career path seemed like a no-brainer.  I neglected to think about how I, the Queen of No-Filter-Land, would be responsible for shaping the minds of the Nation’s Youth.  I also neglected to realize that no human being with responsibilities, or a need to eat on a regular basis, can survive on a salary of $27,000 per year.  I would have inevitably become a hooker.  After school hours, of course, but I still think administration would have looked down upon that.  I was up shit’s creek without a paddle, with that degree.

To this day, I can’t believe I was actually awarded a degree that declared I was ok to teach children.  Don’t get me wrong, I love kids, but I am in no way in the right mindset to teach them the difference between right and wrong, or not to punch someone in the face who calls your mom fat.  To me, that is a logical solution to any problem.

I guess my point is that; unless it is in a highly specialized area like Orthopedics, a college degree doesn’t do much for most.  What does it do?  It adds to the never ending stack of bills piling up on your coffee table, under all the beer cans and Popsicle wrappers.  If you feel that your college degree was a waste of time, like the great Michael Jackson once preached, “You are not alone.”

 

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Eric Prae:

I have a really cool degree in corporate finance.  After college I was lucky enough to get a great job with a solid corporation, doing something corporate finace-ish because my daddy was a vice-president there.  At the age of 22, I was making money, owning crap and making decisions.  I was living what most people call “the American Dream”.

The real difference between Jenn and me: acceptance.  I have accepted that I won’t ever play for the Lakers.  I have accepted that I won’t ever have a 9 inch penis.  I have accepted that my college degree is an $80,000 constant reminder that I once traded five years of my life for a piece of paper that I can’t afford to frame.

Deep down I am a deaf beach bum that would rather spend money on another tattoo than eat in a fancy restaurant. I’ve come to terms with it.  I’d rather eat canned fruit and drink beer between beach volleyball games than be promised a promotion.  I can stand on a stage in front of a few hundred people, spot light in my eyes, telling jokes for as long as the club will stay open; but cold calling the suburbs embarrasses the crap out of me.

The business world just seemed to me like a lot of tall white people selling shit to other white people that they didn’t really need.  Over and over again, I found myself working for more money so I could buy the next trinket and keep up with the Joneses.  Then I needed money to pay for the insurance on that trinket.  Then I needed money to feed that trinket with fuel.  Then I would realize that there weren’t enough hours in the day after working to afford the trinket, to actually enjoy the trinket.  So fuck it.

 

You were better off doing something stupid…

 

You think that’s bad advice?  I could give you examples of people like Bill Gates.  He is the richest man in America and he dropped out of college.  But, people like Bill are really smart, and also really boring to write about.  I am going to make the assumption that Bill would have been successful even with a college degree.  I could show you the Forbes Top 10 Richest Americans list, which is just full of old white people who started Wal-Mart, Bloomberg and Oracle (1).  I could reference a lot of professional athletes that never graduated, but they are extremely gifted.  This is a comedy website, let’s have some fun.  I give to you:

Top 5 Struggle Bus Celebrities That Are Way Richer Than You Will Ever Be, While Also Being Way Dumber Than You!!!!!

I’m not ranking them in any order of money or stupidity, because I don’t give a shit about order.  Just know that everyone on this list will make you feel really bad about having a college degree.


#1 Mike “the Situation”- from MTV’s Jersey Shore:

Really this spot could go to anyone on the Jersey Shore, but we are going to use the Situation because he has turned himself into a millionaire.  I can’t find any information about one day this moron spent in a college classroom, yet he is reporting personal earnings of $10 Million this year (2).

You laughed at him on MTV?  This midget hit the gym, gave himself an alter ego, acted like a total d-bag, and is worth millions.  You paid for a college education. Who’s laughing now?    By the time season 5 of Jersey Shore comes out, Mike will be able to own his own college.  That’s probably the only way he could get a degree.  He makes more in two episodes of Jersey Shore than Jenn and I made combined  last year. 

Mike Sorrentino- 1; you and your college degree- 0.

 


#2  Kim Kardashian- from every magazine you have ever seen on the grocery store shelf:

Again, we could use any Kardashian here, but I like to research Kim the most because I have “studied” her sex tape 32 times.  Did Kim attend college?  Here is what I found on the internet: “Kim Kardashian attended Santa Monica city college at least for a few classes...I sat next to her in a summer school class in 1999 or 2000” (3).  If that doesn’t want to make you beat your old biology professor with the $200 book he made you buy, then nothing does.

What are Kim’s talents?  Ummmmm, pretty much what she did on her sex tape.  Her website says she has “entrepreneurial business skills.”  I am about to take my college degree, hug it to my chest, and jump of my apartment building.

 


#3  Wishbone- the Dog:

Wishbone the Dog has his own television series.  He is a fucking dog.  He has won four Emmy Awards and never took one college class.  Just by being a human, you are smarter than him, yet much, much poorer.  If you politely put your college degree on the floor, Wishbone will shit on it for you.

 


#4  Paris Hilton- hotel heiress, cocaine trafficker, and all around waste of air:

Paris Hilton has a GED.  I am officially nominating her as the least talented but famous “actress”, “singer” and “model” that I can think of.  She has a net worth of millions/billions; I cook a $12 Campbell’s Soup dinner for my girlfriend.

“But Eric, that’s not fair!  She was born into mass amounts of wealth; you can’t compare her immense income and educational failures to our meager income and educational successes!  We are on a different playing field!”

That’s my point!  Instead of piling up college loans, you should have been looking for richer parents!  Or take Jenn’s approach and try to get knocked up by professional football players!  No one cares how smart you are or what your degree is in.  They would rather watch the Simple Life re-runs.  Stupidity is alive and well my friends.  Your college degree would be worth ten times what it is now if you just took it out of its frame and had Paris autograph it for you.

 

#5  Spencer Pratt and Heidi the Plastic Doll-  televisions best couple:

If these two don’t convince you that going to college was dumb and doing something crazy and stupid would have made you millions, then nothing will.  I can’t tell you one interesting thing about these two besides that Heidi’s plastic surgeon’s life’s motto is: bigger is better!  I’ve never seen one episode of the Hills, because my IQ is higher than 80.

But if it wasn’t, I’d probably be a star…

Jenn loathes Spencer’s flesh colored beard.  I loathe the fact that he could buy everything I own for $50.

 


So whether you use your college degree to sit in a cubicle all day like Jenn, or you use it to hold up the low end of your book shelf like me, just know that someday those college loans will be paid off.   Someday you will no longer be in massive debt.  After a few more years of corporate servitude you will probably change your name and move to some island where the loan officer will never find you.  Or you can just do something stupid and make millions.

Thanks for reading my something stupid.


Sources Cited (aka- Shit I used)
1- The Forbes 400
http://www.forbes.com/wealth/forbes-400
2- NEWSWIRE:  Jersey Shore's The Situation will make $5 million this year by Sean O’Neil
http://www.avclub.com/articles/jersey-shores-the-situation-will-make-5-million-th,44475/
3- Kim Kardashian’s Website
http://kimkardashian.celebuzz.com/bio/
 
 


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