The Glade 4.0

If she's fluent in Mandarin and French, has a remotely tolerable personality, and an acceptable work ethic, then I can get her a $85,000 a year in 15 minutes.

_________________

You're most likely asking an awful lot.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

She doesn't sound very resourcful, that's for damn sure. Seems to be a case of spending too much time complaining about what she doesn't have, opposed to marketing what she does.

_________________

Ezekiel 23:19-20 

That was what clued me in. If you can't land a job speaking the language of the most populous country in the world and the language of quite a bit of international diplomacy and interaction plus English.. well, there's got to be a good reason. Chinese isn't exactly easy to learn, either.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That's kind of my point ...

But, more specifically, there's at least one St. Paul based company I know about looking to expand into China with a significant presence in France already. And they need translators ...

_________________

But who wants to live in Minnesota? She's in Boston, why should she have to move to a frozen liberal hellhole just for employment?

_________________

Holy shitsnacks!

Apparently, you haven't been to Boston. She'd fit right in, with a funny accent.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Hay guys I gots my masters in Galapagos turtle breeding why can I no find job here in Minnesota?

_________________
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Fixed

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Sorry, yeah, DE. I was speaking from the locals' perspective.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Ye were? Oh jeepers! We cen't heve them foony Bostonians commin up here! They wouldn't care fer our tapioca, eh?

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

^ There is something intensely creepy about that, but I can't figure out why.

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Are you smarter then the protestors! Just scanning they got on average one question correct

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/10/oc ... _quiz.html

_________________
"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

I knew this female lieutenant once who was from Minnesota. She talked exactly like that, right down to saying "Jeepers!" every time something surprising or unfavorable came up.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'll see your posters, Mr. Sky and raise you:

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

I think this is the key to understanding at least some of the anxiety among unemployed college grads, and frankly, I think it highlights a significant failing in our current higher education system. I would wager this girl has no idea how to find that $85k job, or any other decent job in which her skills might be useful. Her entire life has been lived on rails - class schedules, grades, organized sports and extracurriculars, etc. She has no idea how to chart her own course or to find opportunities that aren't laid out in a student handbook. And while I agree she would be better off recognizing that and doing something about it rather than complaining, I think it's worth noting that she did everything the establishment told her would lead to success, and now she's discovering that there's no end-game to it; they just cut you lose when you graduate, and there's no clear path laid out from there. That's pretty disillusioning and more than a little scary if she's saddled (as she probably is) with a buttload of debt. Now that I think about it, it's sort of like when Brooksie got out of prison in The Shawshank Redemption - he'd become "institutionalized" and had no idea how to function in the real world. Same goes for a lot of college grads.

In my view, one of the big-picture lessons this girl's situation illustrates is the need for colleges to do a better job of transitioning students from classroom to workplace - e.g. internships that are more than just resume fluff, networking and career-search counseling services that actually teach people how and where to find jobs on their own rather than simply hosting some on-campus interviews and handing out pamphlets, etc. Also, I think it highlights the fact that college in general just isn't that great at preparing people for life, and many folks would be better served by a few years out working and/or apprenticing after high school rather than going straight from one institutional setting to the next.

To be honest, I can empathize with her situation, since I'm the same way. I have no idea how to find white collar jobs (which is all I'm qualified for) outside of law. Indeed, the straight-line career path of the legal profession was a huge factor in my decision to become a lawyer - you go to a good law school, attend on-campus interviews, get a job with a big firm, surrender your every waking moment to that firm, make partner after 8-10 years, earn lots of money, then retire or have a heart attack somewhere along the way. Nice and simple. Outside of that, though, I still have no idea how to translate a non-specific skill set (i.e. not a doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc.) into a well-paid job. Short of just mailing one's resume to hundreds of HR departments (which is pretty much useless), I would be every bit as clueless as this girl, though at this point I realize such cluelessness is a correctable deficiency on my part.

So we are comparing voluntarily borrowing nearly $100k to go to college, presumably with some goal towards a career afterwards, to being incarcerated in a federal prison for half a lifetime?

And blaming the colleges lack of an adequate placement system for her inability to get a job?

Gotcha...

I could just as easily blame my college, the military, or whoever for my relative lack of the knowledge of how to go about getting a job in anything other than the military or law enforcement.

This really isn't a failing of the "higher education system"; if anything, we don't put people on rails; we allow people to try to study whatever they want, useless or not, and we don't really start stratifying people by ability and willingness to work until high school at the earliest in most places; we insist that everyone can succeed academically.

The failing of the "establishment" to the degree that there is one, is in telling people "education is the key!" with no thought whatsoever as to what to do with that education, which leads to people getting an "education" in either A) something utterly worthless (not the case here) B) something easy and overpopulated or C) something they really don't care about.

Not being taught how to plot a course for her life, however, falls far more at the feet of her parents than anyone else. Is she totally unaware of opportunities that exist in linguistics? Did they never ask her hard questions such as "what the hell do you plan to do speaking French and Chinese?"

I suspect that this girl was just another kid who, despite being smart, lived her entire life thinking herself sophisticated and worldly and disdaining practical experience and schooling, thinking fancy vacations substituted for life experience. She stumbled into a useful education only because it appealed to such "worldly" and "sophisticated" tastes, and she expected a job to simply plop into her lap for no better reason than that she had a degree and speaks 3 languages.

She reminds me distinctly of all too many of my high school classmates. "Something is wrong with the world because I can't get a job despite doing a good job in school!" No, nothing is wrong with the world at all; it's just that now that you're not in school anymore, being the teacher's pet is no longer an advantage.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

How about Spanish? Teach me Mandarin...I'll learn!

_________________
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Everyone needs a good plan A, plan B and plan C. I'm not talking about a "goal", I'm talking "plan" as in "getting from point A to point B" kinda plan.

Nobody taught me that. If I waited to be taught anything, I'd not be where I am today.

_________________
In time, this too shall pass.

Language lessons are $150 an hour. As for Spanish, well ...

The best language to pair with Catalan is Russian. Because of the relationship between the USSR, Cuba, and several Central American states during the Cold War, Spanish is quite frequently the second language of choice among Russian natives. Likewise, post Gorbachev, Spain happens to be one of Russia's largest export and trade markets.

_________________

Guh. It all makes my head hurt. Its funny how they think things are actually going to change.

_________________

Holy shitsnacks!

Why is this video worth watching:

A) A guy dropping the F bomb on live TV (oooo shocking!)
B) Yet more idiots incapable of articulating why they are there.
C) Anything with Geraldo is worth watching
D) Listening to the guy at 2 minutes in saying "this is preposterous!" over and over.

Language NSFW

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/occupy-wall- ... -fox-news/

Scroll down to video

_________________
“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2011/10/ ... epage=true


Occupy Oakland.

_________________
"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."