COLUMN: How to survive in the real world
As the end of the semester approaches, so does graduation for those lucky and successful seniors. I say lucky because I am a senior, but I most certainly will not be graduating this semester.
In fact, this was probably a bad time to make this discovery, but I just found out that apparently they require that all your credits aren’t randomly selected but are actually focused in on a “major.” Who comes up with this stuff?
Keeping this in mind, I have a feeling that by the time I am able to graduate, and thus rid myself of the “senior” title, I’ll be old enough to retire and become a senior citizen. Which means, of course, that in one way or another, I’ll be senior for the rest of my life. Not that it won’t have its benefits. I’ll go straight from having a student discount for everything to having a senior citizen’s discount. But that’s a small reward for a lifetime of college.
However, this article is not intended to help those who, like me, are permanent students (fortunately for them, they’ll be reading my column for the rest of their lives). Instead, I hope to help those who are now going out into the real world, taking only their degree and a bumper sticker saying “I graduated from USU.”
I myself have had a few brushes with (shudder) the real world, and I won’t lie to you – it’s not pretty. You see, people in the real world expect you to actually work for money. They expect you to fend for yourself. And people in the real world very rarely watch Saturday morning cartoons.
How can anybody survive in such a harsh environment? It certainly isn’t easy, but I will do my best to help.
Probably, the best solution I’ve found for surviving in the real world is to stay in college forever, obviously something I have mastered. Of course, if you are graduating this semester, that won’t help you. So the next best thing you can do is be quiet. Say as little as possible. The reason I say this is because of an experience I had in the real world.
One of my real-world bosses told me to take the paper from the paper shredder and hand rip every single piece into fourths. When I asked him why he would want me to perform such a menial task for no apparent purpose, I was quickly fired. So the best defense for the real world is to say nothing.
Yet, even after taking the greatest precautions in the world, there will be times when you will not be able to maintain your silence, like when your employer asks you a question. If you are ever put into this situation, you may feel your short stint in the real world is over. But do not despair. I have something that will rescue you from even this most dire of circumstances.
First of all, let’s get one thing straight. Anytime someone from the real world asks you a question, they most certainly are not looking for an answer. They would never jeopardize their reputation by making it look like they didn’t know something. So remember, when a real world person asks you a question, you are immediately being led into a trap (similar to the famous question by women, “Does this make me look fat?”).
It is in this instance that you should make use of something that, while used often in our society, I feel is extremely underrated. I am referring, of course, to the use of those wonderful quotation marks.
I sincerely hope that you’re not one of those people who mistakenly believe you can only use quotation marks when you are writing.
Because you should very well know that you can convey the same punctuation in speech by simply extending two fingers from both hands and motioning them downward, somewhere in the vicinity of the word or phrase you’re claiming to “quote.”
I obviously had no real reason to put quotation marks around the word “quote,” but that’s the beauty of it all. You can quote “anything” you “like,” whether it makes sense or not, and automatically make it sound as if you’re “intelligent” – one of the many hidden wonders of this world.
Plus, quoting everything defers any “blame” you might get if someone were “offended” by what you say because, obviously, you’re quoting.
For example, if your real world employer asks you if you would ever consider using a company car without permission to take an important client to the hospital (an obvious, no-win question), you can simply answer by saying you appreciate the question and you think that your boss is “a self-serving, low-life, worthless jerk.”
You didn’t answer the question, and you just called your employer a jerk, but it was all in quotations, so your boss won’t think twice.
If you don’t believe me, just watch and see how often your professors do it.
Quoting will get even the most helpless students to survive in the real world, and I “encourage” you all to give it a “try.” Of course, if it doesn’t work, don’t try to blame me … I’ve been quoting this whole article.
Marty Reeder is a “senior” majoring in English “education.” Any comments or desires for real-world “advice” can be sent to martr@cc.usu.edu.