temp-agency blues

I got turned down by a temp-agency today. It seems I don’t have enough experience in clerical work or factory work though I have worked at a distribution center and as a pseudo janitor before. It made me realize something. Graduating from a prestigious four year university where I specialized in three very different fields of study plus years of volunteer work and community involvement have somehow left me with zero marketable skills.

I’ll tell you what I’m good at now that I’m done with college. I am absolutely awesome at having to pull two all-nighters in a row. I’ve learned to fall asleep absolutely anywhere and am no longer queasy about cleaning public toilets. I’m pretty good at basic logic (I know this sounds like a good thing but we’re talking philosophy logic that uses a computer program and Ps and Qs and is a lot more like doing math in a foreign language). And I now realize that multiple choice tests are much harder than essays you can BS your way through.

They don’t teach you how to be successful in life. They teach you how to be an intellectual. What’s the point in reading when you can’t afford to feed yourself? Sometimes I think about what would’ve happened if I just didn’t go. I’d be much richer that’s for sure (yeah I know some of that money was financial aid). But I think more than that, I might’ve actually been happy with myself. For doing what I wanted to do and not what other people expected of me. For not throwing away years of my life. For not being in the position I'm in now. I could’ve learned something real. Something about life.