| This was an email sent to me by someone who has read my web site. It was comforting to get contact like this, that I wasn't the only disenchanted soul out there.
Hi Laura,
I tripped onto your web page this afternoon after entering
"English...majors..shit..jobs" in google.com, hoping to gain some perspective on why 9 months after graduation I was in debt up to my ass and working at a Kinkos as a delivery driver. Most of what I read of your writings were a year old, so if you've changed your perspective since then, I might seem a little jaded and disenchanted. Right now, after 9 months of "would you consider a management oppurtunity here at Staples Office Superstore?" and other career paths that push me to the verge of physical sickness, I am pondering a move to Denver with $500 and a fancy English degree, with a case of "the grass is greener" syndrome. Grad school. When I saw the horrors (forgive the overdramitization) that awaited me after four years of cheap beer and bong rips, I wanted to run of to grad school.
Drop another 20,000 in student loans and try to remember what I loved about Sublime's 40 oz to freedom. Problem is, I don't know what the hell I'm going for. The thought of an MBA makes me cringe. But that's where the money is. I want to wear a suit and enjoy Wednesday happy hours at T.G.I. Fridays.
This is my reality right now. Last month I had to borrow rent money from my grandmother in true vagrant style, before my roomate kicked me out. He's an engineering major. I used to laugh at him as he hunched over what I considered ultimately dull drafts and diagrams as I headed over
to get shit-faced at a friend's apartment. Now he's the one laughing.
It's really a shame I didn't pick a practical major. It's a shame I haven't paid a student loan payment for three months. It's a shame three beers a night now makes me an "alcoholic." What used to be fun now is considered a demon. But I've never been a fan of clean living.
I don't know you, and it's odd to vent via e-mail to a stranger. But the story is pretty much the same, as I see it. My sister has a degree in Biology; she's
been working at a costume shop for the past five years.
As naive as I am, I thought just having a degree would keep me from wearing a nametag to work. I wasn't owed anything, but the reality soon replaced the internal fantasizing. I was never as bitter as I am now till the health insurance premiums suddenly replaced bar tabs.
Who knows, maybe someday those pretentious business majors we always made fun of will be the ones we ask "Can I help you?" from behind the counter at The Gap. I guess what goes around comes around, karma, the whole cliche. Maybe I wanted to stay in college forever, wearing sandals instead of dress shoes. Then suddenly, maybe I'd realize I was 35 and trying to pick up freshman girls at the bar. Fortunately, I'm only 27, so maybe I can last a few more years before it gets embarrasing.
Anyway, just take this little rant for what it's worth, just know that you're not alone. I'm surrounded by friends getting home loans and setting up their 401k plans at age 22. Suddenly we're all 45. Maybe I'll join a hippie commune, maybe I'll go teach English in Japan. Maybe this maybe that, I just wish I could find something that didn't make me sick.
Take care.
Jeremy
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