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Instead they ditch school, and hang out in the streets.

Sometimes I think I should have become a welder or something. Some practical field, with a job tied directly to it, that other people trained in other things can’t even break into because its too specific, too laborous, too difficult. But I didn’t.

I love the education I have. College was a good time, not just because of parties and what have you. I actually didn’t have the luxury of partying all of the time, because (especially in my junior and senior years) I was commuting and working around 30 hours a week, mostly on weekends. Sure, it would have been nice to go out on weekends, but bars are expensive, booze isn’t that great for you, and anyone who tells you doing that isn’t monotonous after a while is lying.

I had a good time overall in college because of the cool small group of friends I had, the activities I did (and put off doing), and getting to think about French and sociological theory all the time. Culture, identity politics, group think, words people around me didn’t understand but sounded neat…it was all pretty cool. I miss school.

Now, I work at a school. After my 2.5 year tenure as a freight broker for a Fortune 500 company, I packed up and moved to Kansas City (as mentioned in previous articles). Things are great…except for my job. The college isn’t quite like the one I attended, or even one I ever would have looked at. I’m not trying to say it’s a bad place - it definitely isn’t. It’s not a fly-by-night certificate-issuing, non-accredited rip-off. I promise.  It’s a real school but focuses on degrees that actually have set career paths tied to them. It’s a great idea. But it’s a for-profit institution. And to me, that just feels weird. Most of the time, people don’t gravitate to the school as much as we have to go out and find people. It’s just different in almost every way than a traditional school. Valuable, but different.  At the end of the day, colleges are all businesses. This one is just very explicit about the fact that it’s a business.

That being said, I work with good people. The philosophy of changing people’s lives for the better through career education and degree programs is great. I want to help people, and that’s what we do. But when you hop on the phone and dial through a list of people requesting “help,” it turns out that most of them really don’t seem to want to be helped. Taco Bell may not be a career path to you and I (I said career path, not job for now), but it seems to be to some people. Having several kids would normally motivate people to get a better job and support them, so you would think. But in this realm, you get a first-hand account of just how unmotivated people are. Why go to school when you could hang up on someone and keep working part time at Taco Bueno? Why work on becoming a nurse with great benefits who makes $16+ an hour when you can keep making $7.25 an hour at American Eagle? I don’t know anyone who’s that excited to keep living with their parents past the age of, oh, 18. Much less 26. Or higher. So they just hang up. Or act completely disenchanted. Or just never pick up the phone again.

The moral of all of this? If you really want to stay at Taco Bueno that bad, just pick up the first time and tell me you don’t want to go to school. Tell me that when you were on the internet the other day and decided to let the world know you were interested in IT, or criminal justice, that you didn’t actually mean it, because you’re really satisfied with your budding career in taco assembly and sour cream application. The smell is great when you leave, you’re rolling in cash, and doctors are lining up to take the insurance you’ve got on your family.

If you don’t want to change your situation, that’s your perogative. Just don’t be an asshole about it. I want to hear you say, out loud, that you don’t care. Because it isn’t my life, isn’t my family, isn’t my pile of debt. None of this keeps me up at night like it does you.  What does bug the piss out of me, however, is your complete lack of courtesy.

Other than that? I’m just tired of hunting people down. In a traditional atmosphere, you largely deal with people who know they’re going to school and just need to pick where. They’ve got more of an ear. They know what to expect. If they’re horribly unpleasant, there’s more where they came from.

How’s that NIN song go again? “This isn’t meant to last…this is for right now…”

Thanks, Trent. It’s true. This was a job meant to get me down here until I could a) find something better or b) get into school. FAFSA runs June to June, and June 1st, I’m filling it out.

*fin*