Pls Hndle Thx: Too Good for $10?

Ed. note: Have a question for next week? Send it in to advice@abovethelaw.com

ATL,

I wasn’t going to send this in to ATL until I saw a post that informed me that some other schools will actually pay employers to try out their students post-graduation. Here at Northwestern U, graduates lacking jobs get insulting offers of $10/hr “for as many as ten hours” per week working for professors, which I presume is being done only an effort to avoid sinking NU’s post-graduation employment percentage. I don’t have a job…but should I take this $10/hr gig?

Fries With That

Dear Fries With That,

During the year and one month I was unemployed, I had rent to pay, a dog that required $120 haircuts called “The Trojan,” and a host of other expenses (waxing, highlights, youth serums, Lexapro, alcohol, etc) necessary to maintain my fierce looks and fresh personality….

Since my parents don’t support me financially or emotionally and my adult adoption by Oprah has not yet gone through, I had two choices: join the cast of Hookers at the Point or blog up a storm for paltry wages. I didn’t want my number to get too high so I chose the latter. And I assure you I made less than $10/hr.

You, too, are faced with a choice. You can either take the $10/hr and pocket “as many as” one hundred dollars a week, or you can tell the school to take its stinking free money and shove it while you troll Craigslist for hot leads and used coffee tables. If you turn down the $10/hr gig, you’ll be just like one of those homeless people who throws the pennies back at the cheap, passive-aggressive people who give them out. Giving pennies to bums or $10/hr gigs to law school bums may be a jerk move, but beggars can’t be choosers. Take the money and run.

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Your friend,

Marin

Once you start down the long road of sacrificing your pride and dignity for a few bucks, it can be pretty hard to go back. Not only are you contemplating selling out, you’re contemplating selling out on the cheap.

Up to $100/week isn’t going to make or break you. You can’t pay rent with it, you can’t pay your bills with it, you can’t afford to take Marin out on a date with it. It’s functionally useless as a sole source of income.

Instead of spending ten hours a week making pocket change, why don’t you spend ten hours a week trying to creatively come up with an actual career plan? Clearly the plan of “law school, ???, profit” didn’t work out so well. That’s not your fault, but what you do next will be.

Whatever you do, don’t be like your Baby Boomer parents. Don’t sell out. Risk the poverty, risk being uncomfortable. Spend your time trying to come up with a career for yourself, instead of sacrificing your pride for $10 an hour.

And if you slightly screw Northwestern’s attempt to juke its U.S. News numbers, so be it.
— Lieutenant Daniels.


Earlier: Prior installments of pls hndle thx

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