Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
All original content by me is licensed under the CC BY-NC 3.0 License
cranky, sleepless gf observations.
This is one of those posts I’m probably going to take down in a few hours’ time. BUT.
I’ve noticed that ever since Ben joined Apple, a myriad of acquaintances from his high school era are popping up from the woodwork to be present in his social networking sphere. [Yes, people who not only aren’t personally in touch, but even went dark on the social networking channels.] I’m not talking about real friends here; This is about the kind of people who’ve been all but absent for the past 3 years. 3 years during which, no exaggeration, Ben has accomplished so much that competes with employment at Apple.
There’s been more than a few of us who’ve bothered to stay in touch regardless of who his employer was or where he worked. So where were you? And, he might be too polite to say anything about it, but he’s not stupid - Don’t think he hasn’t noticed your timely reappearance either.
Oh, and the asking-for-Apple-swag-but-don’t-actually-want-to-meet-up thing? Sorry, but you’re an awful person. My boyfriend is not a coupon book.
![Okay, no. While I do understand the “higher ed. is a near-corrupt institution” point behind this person’s picture/essay (text version here), and I respect that their opinion is especially qualified due to their experience in attaining their Ivy Ph.D, it’s hard for me to read “i am the 99%” at the bottom without facepalming.
Everything has its context: To be fair, this essay is part of a collection written so that we can see that people of all walks of life belong in the 99% of people getting screwed by Wall Street.
HOWEVER, as an Ivy League graduate who did get in, who did manage to secure the scholarships and jobs to get you to where you are, you are miles above many folks who couldn’t attain the same for various reasons. Not only that, for every company who hates hiring Ivy kids because of their “sense of entitlement and superiority”* there are at least 10 who’ll welcome you with open arms and kick someone out on the way. Why? Because you a) have a degree, b) it’s from an Ivy, and c) you’re relatively young and don’t expect the kind of high salary needed to support both a family and your parents, like older employees do.
If you’re willing to bust your chops in the real world like you’ve done to attain your Ivy League status, you WILL get a job. Lean back on your Ivy credentials and expect that your hard work thus far will grant you immunity from the buttfxck that is today’s job market, and you won’t. No one has a job just waiting for them. If it’s any consolation, I promise you as someone with a degree in a technical science your future job will pay you very nicely. Congratulations, you [will] deserve it.
So yes, nice points about higher education. However, you are NOT a part of the 99% - And if you do, you’re floating in the cream at the top. And your higher education [mine as well] kind of was a privilege. You are blessed with a good brain, a good family/support system, the ability to work, and now a wonderful degree from a wonderful school. Cherish it. You are as lucky as much as you are a hard worker.
* A once-manager’s quote - Said out of personal experience or bitterness from an earlier rejection as a high schooler, I don’t know.
** Having walked both sides of the fence as someone who attended public school and then an elite private school, then attended an expensive-but-good private college while many of my classmates attended Ivies and then other friends community college, I’ve met so many different kinds of people: Those who deserved their place at Pingry/Ivy League. Those who maybe didn’t. Those who should’ve had a place but didn’t because of one small factor. Those who worked hard to get where they were, those who didn’t as much. And among them, those who understood how blessed they were, and those who felt they were still deserving of so much more. There are honestly scant few in that last category - Partially because my friends and acquaintances in the Ivies tend to be those who are humble and worldly, but also because there are only a handful of cases in which I could say that an Ivy Leaguer did not get less than they deserved and honestly earned themselves. If you are at an Ivy [or any higher ed institution, really], it means you have the potential to do whatever in this world that you want to. Your school is but an impetus - It’s still up to you to do what you need to achieve what you want to.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsg3i8jFiY1r25y9yo1_500.jpg)
Okay, no. While I do understand the “higher ed. is a near-corrupt institution” point behind this person’s picture/essay (text version here), and I respect that their opinion is especially qualified due to their experience in attaining their Ivy Ph.D, it’s hard for me to read “i am the 99%” at the bottom without facepalming.
Everything has its context: To be fair, this essay is part of a collection written so that we can see that people of all walks of life belong in the 99% of people getting screwed by Wall Street.
HOWEVER, as an Ivy League graduate who did get in, who did manage to secure the scholarships and jobs to get you to where you are, you are miles above many folks who couldn’t attain the same for various reasons. Not only that, for every company who hates hiring Ivy kids because of their “sense of entitlement and superiority”* there are at least 10 who’ll welcome you with open arms and kick someone out on the way. Why? Because you a) have a degree, b) it’s from an Ivy, and c) you’re relatively young and don’t expect the kind of high salary needed to support both a family and your parents, like older employees do.
If you’re willing to bust your chops in the real world like you’ve done to attain your Ivy League status, you WILL get a job. Lean back on your Ivy credentials and expect that your hard work thus far will grant you immunity from the buttfxck that is today’s job market, and you won’t. No one has a job just waiting for them. If it’s any consolation, I promise you as someone with a degree in a technical science your future job will pay you very nicely. Congratulations, you [will] deserve it.
So yes, nice points about higher education. However, you are NOT a part of the 99% - And if you do, you’re floating in the cream at the top. And your higher education [mine as well] kind of was a privilege. You are blessed with a good brain, a good family/support system, the ability to work, and now a wonderful degree from a wonderful school. Cherish it. You are as lucky as much as you are a hard worker.
* A once-manager’s quote - Said out of personal experience or bitterness from an earlier rejection as a high schooler, I don’t know.
** Having walked both sides of the fence as someone who attended public school and then an elite private school, then attended an expensive-but-good private college while many of my classmates attended Ivies and then other friends community college, I’ve met so many different kinds of people: Those who deserved their place at Pingry/Ivy League. Those who maybe didn’t. Those who should’ve had a place but didn’t because of one small factor. Those who worked hard to get where they were, those who didn’t as much. And among them, those who understood how blessed they were, and those who felt they were still deserving of so much more. There are honestly scant few in that last category - Partially because my friends and acquaintances in the Ivies tend to be those who are humble and worldly, but also because there are only a handful of cases in which I could say that an Ivy Leaguer did not get less than they deserved and honestly earned themselves. If you are at an Ivy [or any higher ed institution, really], it means you have the potential to do whatever in this world that you want to. Your school is but an impetus - It’s still up to you to do what you need to achieve what you want to.
C on a paper, icing on the cake.
My professor thinks that I’ve plagiarized a paper (ie. not written down the source to crucial points made) that I wrote about the motorcycle industry. She commented this throughout the paper, but snarkily summarized at the end, “Did you intern in a leadership role that gave you the first-hand vantage to know all that you narrated? If so, that should be in the references – if not, you should have cited the source you used.” It was her first and main complaint, and reasoning behind my grade.
First of all, the APA itself recommends that one does not cite or reference first-hand experiences, and also condones the use of experience and opinion in academic papers. I correctly did not use the first person to describe my opinion; I prescribed it.
Second of all, I didn’t freakin’ intern in a “leadership role” - I AM a leadership role. I’m not taking business courses for shits and giggles here, I’m here to apply what I know and what I’ve done to real business theory. On the flip side, when you tell me this course relies much on sharing personal experience, I’ll do so for you, so don’t be so surprised that I know and reference some in-depth stuff about what I do.
Now, if you teach at Northeastern, you should know your students are probable and likely to hold/have held jobs now that you didn’t til after you graduated from undergrad or even grad school. In the beginning of the year, you made our 50-person class go one at a time and introduce ourselves, our major, our year, our knowledge thus far on ORGB, and our WORK EXPERIENCE. That took a hell of a long time - Are you saying it was for nothing? Did you forget what I said about working in the motorcycle industry? You were writing notes.
I take you seriously as a professor, you take me seriously as a student and businesswoman. It’s a matter of respect.
Love this professor and the class, but I’m dismayed that she doesn’t realize her allegation can easily 1) fail me out of the course, 2) get me kicked out of school. Not only that, she is going to look like a fool if she brings it up against the board when I have a slew of people in the industry who have seen me week after week in their conference rooms with yes, other people in “leadership roles”, and will vouch for not only my position but my knowledge that I used in this paper.
Seriously, now? Ugh. Why the hell am I in school?
In the age of the 707
This isn’t to chew out the OP, so let me just say that now, but I have some serious issues with this post. There’s nothing wrong romanticizing eras past (I personally have some serious love for the 50s and 60s in a lot of ways and am often nostalgic despite never having lived it) but there’s something REALLY wrong with romanticizing a) masculinity as anti-femininity and b) flight attendants as proud “sexual revolutionaries”.
Those were the good ole days. Pilots back then were men that didn’t want to be women or girlymen. Pilots all knew who Jimmy Doolittle was. Pilots drank coffee, whiskey, smoked cigars and didn’t wear digital watches.
1. I would venture to say that there are already a small minority of pilots today who are trans, gay, or queer and who actively wish to be women or “girlymen”. And for those that are, so what. I don’t give a fuck about the gender or sexual preference of who’s flying my plane - They’re all qualified, they all busted their chops to get there. What’s the point of romanticizing straight, white, English-speaking men with certain alcoholic and respiratory habits flying planes? Do you REALLY want to romanticize having to fit a stereotype just to be called a man? How many of you guys today truly even fall on the “60’s manly man” end of the gender spectrum, and how many of you guys even want that for yourselves? Gender should have nothing to do with occupation. Period.
All the Stewardesses (aka.Flight Attendants) were young, attractive, single women that were proud to be combatants in the sexual revolution. They didn’t have to turn sideways, grease up and suck it in to get through the cockpit door. They would blush and say thank you when told that they looked good, instead of filing a sexual harassment claim. Junior Stewardesses shared a room and talked about men…. with no thoughts of substitution.
2. Back in the 60’s, being a flight attendant/stewardess was one the very few ways to escape the gender sphere of the time - housewife, family, husband, and kids - with little social repercussions. But the cost was that your employer was just as patriarchical as the society on the ground. You couldn’t marry and you were forced to retire at 32-35. The ONLY way in which these women were sexually liberated was in the fact that they were employed.
These women, while they DID challenge stereotypes by having a job at all, weren’t all conscious feminists challenging society by voluntarily being pretty, single, and “sexual”. Their sexualization came from marketing departments behind patriarchical companies and labor unions. And, yes you had a job, but only if you could put up with being treated as a service, seen as an object, and forewent any notion of getting any recognition as a professional. That’s not to ignore the Stewardesses for Women’s Rights, a group of feminist flight attendants who DID focus on these issues, but only less than 3% of FAs ever joined.
I suppose there’s nothing wrong with thinking or hoping the FAs on your next flight are pretty, but don’t wish for the misogyny of the 60’s and say that it was a good time for all if only because those girls were free-as-birds feminists - My hope is that the upcoming Pan Am television series won’t forget that. It’d take 9/11, decades later, for many to see FAs as professionals who are guarding your safety with the additional BONUS of providing your comfort. Not the other way around.
Also, your FAs aren’t there to aesthetically please you (and in fact they never were, even in the 60s) but even if they do have piercings or tattoos you don’t like, they’re required to be hidden anyway, so… Shouldn’t be an issue if someone’s got one or not.
i don’t usually think it’s okay to single someone out over their accent, but.
Today while I was taking photos in Montmartre, some creepy souvenir vendor grabbed my arm, pulled me to face him, and shoved a metallic purple plastic Eiffel tower in my face, clearly enticing me* to buy his tourist knicknacks.
I yanked my arm out of his grip and seethed in English, “DON’T. TOUCH. ME.”
He replied with a very French accent-infused “Fuck you.” (bad comeback, amirite?)
But before I could even consider or give a damn that he wouldn’t understand, I shot back, “If you’re going to retort with ‘fuck you’, at least fucking pronounce it right. “Feu’k y’où”?! No, it’s FUCK YOU. Get your fucking shit straight.”
Yes. I went full-blown Midori hulk-rage on this guy; So much so, I’ve ended up surprising even myself. In the end, I know I didn’t need to rage or insult like I did, but I really just want this put on record:
Hey, creeps. Don’t ever assume the woman** you’re about to bother will take your shit lying down, especially if your shit includes touching her without any permission whatsoever. Second, don’t stare at me like you’re surprised that I went batshit on you for grabbing my arm and accosting me. It makes me even more mad to think you went and underestimated your actions and my reactions.
/rant.
*EXTREME sarcasm.
** Obviously this can apply to any creep bothering anyone else of any other gender, but the vendors here in Paris always target women to push their shit on to.
