Laying Blame
It has now been a full five months since I graduated from college, and I still haven’t found a job. Many of my friends are in the same boat. My friends are smart people, and they know that the blame doesn’t lie with them. Four years of college have taught them that there are larger forces at work in the world, so they understand that it’s the recession, or Henry Blodget, or President Bush who is to blame. Not I, however. I believe in personal responsibility. Specifically, I believe in my parents’ personal responsibility.
My parents have two children, born ten years apart. Is it mere coincidence that both my sister and I graduated from college under a Bush Administration and in the midst of recession? An outsider might naively presume my parents’ innocence, but I know better. These are people who tell total strangers about my fussy eating habits while on line at the supermarket. These are people who sing off-key along with Bob Dylan while my friends are around.
These are people whose sole pleasure in life is watching me squirm.
So no, this is no case of poor family planning, as my parents protest. Nor is it even a case of gross negligence, as my sister, kind-hearted as she is, allows. My unemployment is not a case of bad luck - this is the work of two malicious geniuses.
Oh, but they are tricky ones, my parents. To look at them, you’d never realize that they are the authors of my failure. They let me live at home, and cook me meals, and offer me encouragement. They tell me that I’m a bright kid, and that one of these days I’ll find a job. But all the while I sink further into a dependent state, unable to carry out even the simplest tasks for myself. They will kill me with kindness, if I let them.
But I have seen this game before, and I have learned from hard experience. Where once I appreciated their support for my studies in history, now I wonder why they didn’t tell me to major in computer science. When they allowed me to play guitar instead of mowing the lawn, I thought my parents were pretty cool. Today, everywhere I look I see employed gardeners and unemployed guitarists.
Where is the SEC investigation into this case of gross negligence by management? Where is Eliot Spitzer? Sure, he’s aggressive when a CEO lies to inflate the current value of his stock options. But if my parents tell me things that will keep me happy while I am young, but ruin my life once I’m no longer their responsibility? Then Eliot Spitzer is silent.
It just goes to show you - the little guy can’t win.