Math, the Universe, and Everything

By Steve "Flipper" Shaw

Working For a Living Sucks

It is sometimes easy for students to forget just what awaits them after university. This is understandable, since it's not like you're exposed to real life too much during your years at university. Face it -- except for the occasional short co-op term, you're not even exposed to anybody with a real job. Look around -- do you really think the grad students and profs that you see every day would stand a chance in the private sector?

My Life Then

Step back and take a look at your typical day. Okay, so I don't know about your typical day as a student, but I remember what mine were like. I'd wake up with a hangover, promptly decide to skip all my classes, and go back to bed. Sometime around noon, I'd wake up and go to the Bomber for lunch. Sometimes, for a change, I'd go to Fed Hall.

(Ha ha! Just kidding! For you younger folks out there, Fed Hall used to be a big bar on campus that was well known for its bad music and bouncers that specialized in beating students up. Fed Hall, tragically, was burnt to the ground in the Good Taste Riots of 1995. At least, that was the plan.)

Anyway, back to my typical day -- I'd stay at the Bomber until there was no danger of me accidentally attending a class. I'd spend as much of time at the Bomber as possible trying to convince impressionable young frosh women that I was interesting and that they should have lots of dirty, dirty sex with me. And that would take up the rest of my day.

My Life Now

My life has changed drastically since then. It starts off much the same way -- I wake up hung over. However, since I have this medical condition known as "employment," it is impossible for me to go back to sleep. My job requires me to go into work in the morning, sometimes as early as 9 a.m. To make things worse, I have to go into "work" every day, and if I miss too many days, I'll be "fired." And as a final straw, I have to wear "pants." Every fucking day.

Furthermore, unlike co-op terms, it's not enough to show up at work and download as much pornography as is humanly possible. I actually have to do things, many of which involve talking to "co-workers," and, even worse, "clients," which are like co-workers but are, by and large, a lot less attractive and much more stupid. It's not until after I finish talking to other people that I get to download pornography. Count yourselves lucky!

Finally, I am also in danger of being "fired" if I try to convince any of my co-workers to have any kind of sex with me. Jeez, we burn through high-school co-ops every few months -- you think they'd let me have sex with at least a few of them.

Socializing is Hard

When I was in university, it was really easy to meet new people. Hell, I'd just go to the bar, and after drinking enough, I'd pass out, and people who would want to be my friends would come over and steal my wallet. Or sometimes the bouncers would come over and kick me in the stomach.

Seriously, though, at university it's never difficult to find somebody to drink with. You can't walk into the Bomber without seeing a table full of people you know. Plus, everybody at university is eager to meet new people because they think they might want to have sex with you, or they might want to have sex with your friends. All of them.

(People sometimes think I exaggerate the amount of time I spent in bars during university. These people, to put it politely, are on smack. I am still paying off my bar tab from university. This is not a joke. It's not an actual bar tab -- I used my student loans to buy my liquor, and I still owe 10K on those.)

In the real world, it's not quite the same. Part of the problem is that my job involves a lot of travelling, so a lot of the time, the people I go drinking with are work people. Don't get me wrong -- they're a fun bunch. But very few of them want to have sex with me.

Another part of the problem is that many of my drinking buddies have got married. Some even have kids. You'd think that having a squealing brat at home would make you want to go out and get liquored every night, but that's not the case.

And this whole marriage thing makes it a lot harder to meet chicks. Fewer and fewer women are single as I get older, and fewer and fewer of them want to have sex with me. Those that aren't married, want to get married.

Yikes! It doesn't help that I've gotten, if you can believe it, less attractive as I've aged and have even less hair than I did in university.

It's a good thing I make enough money to hire a lot of whores.

The Conclusion

It would seem that there's only one conclusion to make: stay in school.

Forever.

You'll note that some of the dimmer people are already doing this -- Brian Fox, for example, was my frosh leader back in 1990, and he was in his sixth year even then. However, the problem with staying in school is that it doesn't pay very well, which is why Brian has started selling his body for crack.

Actually, staying in school isn't the answer. Eventually, you become a bad joke, and people start making snotty comments about your ability to get a job. The answer is this: continue drinking beer and chasing frosh after you graduate. Since you have more money, you'll be able to afford imported beer, and will eventually be able to afford importing your own frosh from third-world countries.

I miss the groupies the most.

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When Flipper started writing for mathNEWS, he unashamedly ripped off from Douglas Adams. After a couple of years, though, he evolved as a writer and started ripping off Dave Barry. He has since matured further and he's now stealing from Norm Macdonald.