entitlement and wasting education

[muses_nightmare]

I have this friend. She recently finished hair school at a very expensive school, and moved right back to our hometown before she even wrote her final exam (she came back for a week to finish). She did have a job at one of the salons in town, she was an apprentice and was learning more and trying to get better, well, she recently up and quit that job. She said it was because she felt she wasn't learning anything, which would be fair enough if there was another place in town for her to go, but there isn't and she doesn't want to move back to the city.

She was asking me whether or not I thought she should just buy a house in our hometown and work at the other job she has, which is basically just a "pay the bills" type of job, or if she should try and do something with the hair thing. I told her I thought it would be wasting the time, energy, training and the money her dad paid to just decide to work a some other random job.

She also seems to have this sense of entitlement about her, she kept saying how she felt like she was on the bottom of the food chain, and how her life wasn't working out the way she planned, and so on. She also said that she'd have to work 5+ years in hairstyling to be making the same as she makes at her other non-hair job. Frankly, she's had it easy her whole life, her dad pays for everything, he paid for her tuition, supplies, any living expenses and anything else she wanted while she was in school. Pretty much every place she's lived in has been paid for or was owned by her dad. I think she expected to come into town and work whereever she wanted because she had gone to a good school, and was surprised to find that she'd actually have to work for something for once, and that she wouldn't just be handed what she wanted.

I tried being honest with her about the fact that I thought she was throwing away a career for a dead end job that she doesn't even enjoy, but she doesn't really listen unless things fit into her little world. *sigh* I don't even know why I talk to her, her whole world view annoys me most of the time.

[Andara Bledin]

Ah, the plight of the poor little rich kid who reaches adulthood and learns that not everything is going to be handed to them on a silver platter.

This is one of those situations where all the advice in the world won't help as much as a healthy dose of reality.

^-.-^

[Racket_Man]

Ah, the plight of the poor little rich kid who reaches adulthood and learns that not everything is going to be handed to them on a silver platter.

This is one of those situations where all the advice in the world won't help as much as a healthy dose of reality.

^-.-^

no the "dose" of reality does not work either. their parents just "make" them get a "job" for a few weeks "just to teach" them what the "real world" is like for the "peasents".

I worked at /managed a WHOLE restaurant full of them in a really rich St. Louis suburb. most of the kids "tolerated" the "job" cause Daddy threatened to cut off their weekly "allowance" (meaning more money than I made in a month or two). most of them only lasted a month or two at best.

[muses_nightmare]

The sad thing is her family isn't actually rich. Her dad has pretty much gone broke supporting her through school and such. Her jobs seem to mainly be for her own fun money though, I do think her dad is pretty close to cutting her off since he's already poured a lot of money into her life.

She's always been someone who feels she is entitled to things, and that she is always right. She practically drove one of her exes crazy because she's the way she is. And even after they broke up and he moved back to the town he was from two hours away, she bitched that he hadn't paid her some money he owed her for rent. Which is a laugh because at the time they were living in her dad's warehouse apartment, furnished by her dad, everything was paid for by him. I don't even remember if she had actually asked the ex for rent ever or what, this was 4 or 5 years ago now. Not to mention he had given her $1500 towards her car! I actually told her to leave him the fuck alone and get over it, but of course she had some other friend telling her the exact opposite, which was what she wanted to hear. I think she did eventually lose contact with him thankfully without ever getting on cent out of him.

She complains about how hard her life is, and she has no idea what hard really is. I'll admit that I've been fairly lucky in that I haven't been dirt poor or anything like that, but I've had to work for every dollar I've gotten, and I'm not exactly living the good life here. I usually have to really think about spending $20 on something I want, while she was visiting here she easily spent $300 on random clothing, things like corsets and a tutu, in 2 days.

I think her entire time in school was just happy fun time to her. It wasn't about working towards a career, it wasn't serious for her because she never had to work to pay for it. I think that's the part that irks me the most, because I had to fight to go to school, I have $16 000 in student loan debt to pay off. Sure my mom did pay for me, but I had a hard time even accepting that help. Throughout my entire time at school I had the fact that I might not be able to finish hanging over my head. She never had to worry about that, ever, hell even in high school she'd skip and her mom would write notes.

*sigh* she's one of those friends that's been around so long you can't really get rid of them, you know? It's a good thing we don't live in the same town anymore

[Lace Neil Singer]

Sounds like someone I know vaguely; they're not a friend, just a person I see now and then in the pub.

Let's call him Sam. Now, Sam has a degree in media studies and is currently on the dole. What annoys me is the fact that a) he had a job for a while, and chucked it in purely cuz he doesn't like having to get up early and b) he thinks that retail/food jobs are beneath him, just cuz he went to university.

My brother's currently looking for work having fairly recently moved back to England from abroad, and it really annoys me when someone who was lucky enough to get a job just throws it away for a stupid reason. Sam lives with his parents and cadges money off them, too; he spends most of his money down the pub or on weed.

[blas87]

This is why I have a burning hatred of people who just throw college away (ESPECIALLY when someone else or even better, the state is paying for them to go there) and treat it like it's a pair of shoes that don't fit anymore or a shirt that went out of style.

I know of countless (as in, way too many) kids who went to college on scholarships or with mommy and daddy's money (or a few girls that got knocked up and got free college from the state) and flunked out because they couldn't/wouldn't stop partying, or be like one of my uncles who kept repeatedly college-hopping just because he didn't "like it there". Or like one of my co-workers, who got to go to a college out of state with all of mommy and daddy's money, and he didnt even finish it because he didn't "like it there". He loved to party and lay out in the sun all day, but man that college sucked. Aww, poor baby!

Someone like me can't even get much for fiancial aid and college is a far away dream, and these spoiled rotten and entitled buttnuggets get a free ride and waste it away.

Fucking brats.

[telecom_goddess]

Yeah what blas said I agree with that 100 percent.

[protege]

I've heard too many stories like that. It's always someone else's fault that they failed out of school and the only job they could get (and I'm *not* trying to slam fast-food employees, OK?) is a fry cook at McDonald's. How is it "someone else's fault" ("the man," "the school," "my parents") that you chose to fuck around and/or drop out of school? Last time I checked, *you* made that decision. Quit bitching and trying to make everyone else feel guilty because you're an idiot and a lazy piece of shit. Grow up and deal, otherwise...shut the fuck up.

Several months back, I got to hear my cousin whining a similar story at my grandmother's funeral. This guy, who is only a few months younger than me, is pissed because he failed out of college after barely a semester, had problems with the law (both the campus police, and the "real" police), bounced around from job to job because he "didn't like it there" (reality: he'd work his way up to manager...but would bitch and moan about how he had too much to do)...and then can't understand why nobody will hire him, or why he has to work multiple jobs to take care of 3 kids and to put food on the table. I already knew the story of his fucked-up life, so I kept as many people between the two of us as possible, lest he pissed me off, and I had to throttle him. It should be illegal to foist that much stupidity on society

I can understand having hardships--having to care for a sick or dying relative/spouse, losing one's job, or landing oneself in the hospital due to an auto accident. People in those conditions are *exempt* from what I said earlier. It's not their fault--shit happens to good people. However, the ones who have *every* opportunity given to them, and watching them waste it...just piss me off. If you're in that category, you have *no* right to bitch about anything. You made your bed, now lie in it.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I think her entire time in school was just happy fun time to her. It wasn't about working towards a career, it wasn't serious for her because she never had to work to pay for it.

Aw shit, you're going to make me talk about my first-year-at-4-year-college roommate again, aren't ya?

Guy was an Asian, from Vancouver, family was rich as shit to the point where he had his own apartment WITH A MAID. He moved into our on-campus apartment early with his uncle. On the day I moved in, the uncle left for Vancouver and handed my parents his card and told them "If there are any problems, call me."

Oh, there were problems all right. Like him never going to classes. That was about his most redeeming quality. Guy stayed up all night partying or playing his loud-as-hell computer games or his loud-as-shit music and slept through the mornings into mid-afternoon or so. I used to get phone calls from the academic advisers, the people who keep you from flunking out, telling me he'd missed classes or meetings, and it was because he just just slept through them.

And then he said he was going to apply to the University of Nebraska. Yeah, okay, sure, whatever, you're flunking out of a glorified high school FFS; what makes you think a big state university is going to accept you and your 0.002 GPA?

And if they saw his "housekeeping," they'd run away even faster. Smoking wasn't allowed in the apartments, but he smoked in there anyway and his desk was just covered in a film of spilled soda, food and cigarette ashes. All he ever ate was fast food or Banquet chicken--which he'd heat up in the oven on my cookie sheets without washing them first. He just kept them in his room so I couldn't even wash them. I had to throw them away. It's a wonder the accumulated grease and debris on those things didn't start a fire.

I also had to throw away half my dishes. He used those multiple times too, without washing them.

I tried to get him to clean up after himself but gave up quickly when nobody else in the apartment would back me up. The guy who shared a bedroom with him was hardly around, and the guy I shared a bedroom with told me it wasn't worth getting worked up over because "he's basically a little kid." He was right.

And he destroyed his window screen because he and his friends like to lob snowballs at the windows in winter. One of those hitting the window was enough to scare the shit out of me.

And then there was the wild party one weekend while I was back home, and it got busted by the cops and people were jumping out the living room window and that screen got damaged.

And also somehow he got a hold of my cell phone and was making calls to casinos and some people who I think were bookies. Boy howdy, that was a fun time explaining that to my parents, who paid my bill and were questioning all these strange calls. When I didn't have my phone on me, I had to lock it away in my personal safe.

At the end of the year, when we had to have the apartment completely cleaned out before we left for summer, my bedroom-mate and I said we didn't want to be held responsible for any cleaning charges from roommate's room. The RA told us it wasn't her call. As I recall, I didn't get charged for anything, or if I did the amount was so small it isn't worth remembering. That is such a relief, because I thought the way he let that room get, they'd have to completely strip it and start over.

All this because he never had to work for anything, never wanted for money, never had to pay for anything, never had to take responsibility for himself.

[linguist]

or be like one of my uncles who kept repeatedly college-hopping just because he didn't "like it there".

"College hopping" because you don't like it at a particular institution is not always a bad thing. How comfortable you feel is going to be a big indicator of your academic success.

When I started college, I first went to the TooBig University. It was a great school, and I could have gotten a great education there, but it was enormous (one of the biggest public universities in the country), and I felt swallowed up. I struggled the whole time I was there, and then transferred to TooSmall College. The size was much more to my liking,but honestly I took harder classes in high school, and I didn't feel I was getting a quality education, so I transferred again to my current institution, JustRight University. It's the perfect happy median between my two former schools, and I'm thriving, getting a 4.0 in the most challenging classes I've ever taken.

Sometimes it just takes some time to find the right fit.

[Ginger Tea]

As you can see from my location I'm in one half of 'OxBridge' and unless you are at CRC or Anglia Ruskin 9/10 you are at Cambridge only cos you can afford to go, not cos you are smart enough to attend, I've not compared against other cities, but, I've alwasy been led to belive that they arn't the best educators, but most would hire a barely passing OxBridge over a flying A's Manchester or Liverpool student due to any Old school ties, especially Eton.

I don't go to the same pubs as they might so I don't interact with any students and I've only met a few and those were once only (during a Lou Reed Metal Machine Trio gig) save for a guy I took an evening class with (who flunked out of university due to personal issues), but none of them are there on their own dime, always daddy's.
The students I met in a rock club in Manchester always seemed more level headed and were working to pay their way and rarely paying for a fluff course.