Um, hi, Obama, the economy is still refusing to hand me a job on a silver platter. Weren’t you supposed to fix everything? It’s been days! I watched that free Jonas Brothers concert — and saw the awkward hug between Nick and Miley afterwards — so I know you got inaugurated. Where’s the change Steve needs?
That’s it. I am not going back to my job at Build-A-Bear Workshop after graduation. I have a lot of expensive habits — monthly visits to Disneyland, reckless driving without insurance, refusing to drink any water not bottled in Norway — and the part-time mall thing isn’t going to cut it. It’s time to put dreams where they belong (in your self-published memoirs you’ll write when you’re 70) and get realistic. And by “realistic,” I mean it’s time to sell out. Luckily, I learned the Comm School’s application deadline isn’t until Monday!
Now I might be at a teeny tiny disadvantage because of the whole fourth-year thing. (Ed. Note: Other disadvantages include the incompetence thing and the questionable morals thing.) But OMG diversity — love it!
Obviously, I’m going to abuse all my power in this cutthroat admissions process. So while my lame competition is submitting application essays online via some bureaucratic conformist form like we’re supposed to or whatever, I’m not having any of that. My essay is published! Eat it, you second-year chumps!
“Why I’m Perfect for Comm School.”
My business acumen was developed at a tender age, when I’d often be found tearing up the Monopoly Junior board, kicking people off properties from the second I sat down and investing in hotels like a Hilton. And while that might show my natural quantitative skills and healthy competitive streak (don’t even get me started on how awesome I was at Candy Land), what about my goal-setting and project-implementation skills?
For instance, when mumsy and daddykins wouldn’t get me a Power Wheels for Christmas, did I steal the neighbor’s? No, I just stole its battery and broke off a side view mirror. Or did I work hard and put in an honest day’s work until I reached my goal? No, I slopped together some Country Time and outsourced my job at the lemonade stand to a cuter kid down the street. Then I got bored saving for my new ride and bought a Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine.
I know what you’re saying, McIntire application-reader person. If only you had discovered my young talent as a precocious vandal and put me on an accelerated path through business school, maybe I could have been partly responsible for an economic crisis or two by now! Well, y’know what they say, hindsight is 20/20. Unless you’re my competition, then chances are I broke your glasses, because I’m in it to win it, Four-Eyes.
But as I’ve aged, I’ve developed even more soft skills to offer. For instance, I’m a people person. Technically I’m a gossipy Facebook-addict, but I’m working on my marketing skills, so now I say “people person.” The Comm School is a perfect place for people, people like me what with all the group work, don’tchaknow. For instance, where else can I hang out with a bunch of people wearing North Face and J.Crew and still call it work? Technically, if you worked at The North Face or J.Crew, you’d call it work, but now that I’m on the six-digit fast track, I don’t waste my priceless thoughts on the plebes who spend their shifts counting down the minutes until their break so they can get a Cinnabon.
But hey, Commies do more than work in groups and dress like upper-middle class suburbanites! They also play softball. And that’s going to be a problem. Ever since I was scarred by teeball in summer camp, I found my life mantra: “If at first you don’t succeed, deny ever trying.” So I was done with organized sports, except for that brief time when my parents put me in the soccer league, the kind where you’re not allowed to keep points and everyone gets an equal turn. My parents were apparently trying to quash my competitive side (I swear Mikey fell off the stage during fifth grade musical auditions). But I’m happy to be softball team manager and not just because it’s going to look great on the ol’ resHOOme.
I’ve covered my accomplished past and team-oriented present, but what about my future? Obviously, I see myself at a premier investment bank or consulting firm — whichever offers the coolest name to put on my resHOOme and fails to notice I still use my fingers to count. After I clock in a few years, I’ll go back to business school to learn how to boss people around even better. (It’s a skill I have long since mastered by sassing the baristas at Starbucks every time they mess up my simple, simple order of a non-fat triple grande quarter-sweet, sugar-free vanilla, extra-foamy caramel macchiato at exactly 140 degrees — a few degrees is so noticeable, who do they think they’re fooling?)
Then I’ll clock in a few more years until I reach the C-level. (And avoid noticing the irony that the highest goal of a business career is to reach the C-level — I got that in Orgo without even going to class!) Oh, also, I forgot to mention business ethics, value-added work, sustainable business practices and some more hip buzzwords whose meaning no one really knows.
In summary, I’ve sold out family and friends (even worse than that time in “High School Musical” in the library when Chad was doing all the talking but he totally told the librarian it was Troy), but now I’m ready to sell out myself. Comm School, here I come! Besides, if I still want to be a zookeeper, I can just buy my own zoo after hitting it big in business — much like reputable businessmen Michael Jackson and Hugh Hefner did.
Steve’s column runs weekly Fridays. He can be reached at s.austin@cavalierdaily.com.
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