Joining the boys club*

November 7, 2007 | Filed Under Random 

I graduated with honors from DePaul, a good, but not exactly stellar, school.  I was on the Dean’s List two-thirds of the time and a member of two honor societies.  Attending was my decision, not my resort, yet I feel as though I may as well have nothing under my belt.  All these myths are perpetuated about the importance of education.  While I don’t refute the importance of being learned, I’m beginning to see the dark underbelly that makes people say “no thanks” to school.   I have a friend who graduated from one of the schools consistenly ranked as one of the best in the country, yet she feels the need to resort to erotic massage.  I’ve been job hunting for weeks and the only offer I’ve received was a retail job paying $8 an  hour. 

Where’s the fulfillment of the promise? I wonder.  Am I really supposed to be fool enough to shell out another $20-30,000 so I can earn $16 an hour?  Get real!  At this point, I’m not middle-class.  I’m a peasant with an education.  Just like the girl who dropped out in 8th grade, I seek to make a living wage.  My very emphatic and honest reponse to $8 an hour is “hell no!”  I’m working to curb the profanities in my language, but situations like this don’t necessarily bring out the peace in me.   At all. 

I remember job hunting in Chicago and experienced similar insulting results.  Philadelphia has some pretty expensive parts.  If you’re not paying $850 for a one bedroom, you’re paying $1200.  The people living in those apartments don’t make $8 an hour.  So what do they do?  Where’s the secret getting “in”?   What’s the problem?  It can’t be my grades.  Can’t be my ability to learn and implement information.  Can’t be because I’m sloppy looking or late to interviews or rude.  It could be my hard-to-read handwriting…but that’s just because I’m an artist.  So what is it?  I just want my pay rate to escalate from job to job.  $20 an hour is still lame when it comes to the bigger picture, but I want it.  $20+ if the employer’s nasty.  C’mon!  Give it to me!!!!
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* This has been a random rant.

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