Post Grad Problems Blog » post grad

                          

1.     Your co-workers are not your enemies, no matter how much it seems that way.

2.     Hope you like Jos. A. Bank emails.

3.     Eating lunch alone in your car is as depressing as it sounds.

4.     People don’t like cursing as much as they did in college.

5.     An early lunch is never a good idea.

6.     A long lunch is a privilege not to be abused.

7.     Starting to drink coffee is much like when you started drinking beer. You acquire a taste for it over time.

8.     Ambien.

9.     You’re never going to use that gym membership.

10.  Yes, health insurance is bullshit and ridiculously confusing. Yes, you still need it.

11.  Never forget your headphones at home.

12.  You don’t have to understand what the hell your 401k is all about, just pretend to.

13.  Instagramming that picture of the dinner you made for yourself is only going to make people worry about you.

14.  You get one Throwback Thursday picture per week. One. That’s it.

15.  Buying a dog is cool. Adopting a rescue dog is cooler.

16.  Your Spotify activity feed says a lot about you.

17.  You’re never too old to sleep on a friend’s couch.

18.  It’s always a good idea to have a tab open on your browser with something that makes you look busy.

19.  You’re going to have to ‘like’ those baby pics on Facebook, whether you want to or not.

20.  You are starting from the bottom, but that doesn’t mean that “Started from the Bottom” is your anthem.

21.  Being an usher at a wedding isn’t as glamorous as it sounds.

22.  The two greatest words in the English language are “expense account.”

23.  A good ‘90s playlist can be a life saver.

24.  Make sure you dust off those Insanity DVDs before inviting friends over.

25.  Always remember to laugh before hanging up on the kid asking for a donation to your alma mater.

26.  Think of every weekend as a great time to work on your wedding dance moves.

27.  Being single and getting laid on a weeknight is an act of God.

28.  Every person you date will be viewed as a potential spouse by your friends and family.

29.  Don’t buy life insurance. Not yet, anyway.

30.  It’s always a good idea to have friends that are accountants.

31.  Your first job probably won’t be your last job.

32.  The trip back from a weekend visit to your old college will be the most depressing part of your month.

33.  You don’t have to respond to texts from friends still in college.

34.  Football season tickets in the alumni section are a great investment.

35.  Blacking out on weeknights on purpose is no longer acceptable, but accidents happen.

36.  Allot some space in your monthly budget for cab fare.

37.  It’s perfectly fine to ask your parents for rent money. Be prepared to hear “no” a lot.

38.  LinkedIn stalking is the new Facebook stalking.

39.  Personal days and vacation days aren’t the same thing.

40.  Your hangovers will become debilitating.

41.  Sunday funday is the slipperiest of slopes.

42.  You’re going to end up enjoying soft jazz at one point or another. Just let it happen.

43.  Most frequent flyer programs are rip offs, unless your company pays for it.

44.  Cool it with the political Facebook statuses.

45.  Never find a roommate on Craigslist.

46.  The company Christmas party is either the best or worst night of the year.

47.  It is no longer acceptable to wear jerseys to sporting events, not that it already was in the first place.

48.  People are going to be doing grown up shit every day. Buying houses, getting married, having kids. It is going to terrify you.

49.  Mattresses are more expensive than you think.

50.  You’re still a kid for a few more years and can get away with doing dumb shit (that doesn’t ruin your career).

 You might think you have one of the worst bosses in the world, but your supervisor pales in comparison to the worst bosses to ever grace the silver screen.

Mr. Ducksworth - The Mighty Ducks 

                                             

Ducksworth had one of the biggest hotshot lawyers in the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul metro in Gordon Bombay. After Bombay’s DUI arrest, Ducksworth got him out of any possible jail time and bailed out his star employee, cutting a deal with a judge to force Gordo to coach pee-wee hockey. Bombay turned around District Five and led them to the playoffs. Bombay added some muscle at the end of the season, poaching star forward Adam Banks due to a districting technicality, but unfortunately, Banksy’s dad was a friend of Ducksworth’s. Ducksworth, Banks’ dad and Bombay’s nemesis, Coach Jack Riley, cut a deal with the pee-wee league to let Banks stay with the Ducks’ main rival, the Hawks. After Bombay protested, Ducksworth fired him.

Famous asshole line: “Gordon, I’m going to make this very clear. Are you prepared to lose your job over some kids? Some game?”

Tony Perkis – Heavyweights

                                

A former overweight, tormented child with severe daddy issues, Tony Perkis bought a fat camp with his trust fund, overtaking the former utopia for fatties and turning it into a factory of pain and suffering for overweight grade schoolers. Perkis seemed jovial and passionate at first, but soon devolved into an evil villain, trapping kids and camp workers in fitness hell, eventually being imprisoned by his minions after a six-mile hike gone awry. 

Famous asshole line: “Attention campers: lunch has been canceled today due to a lack of hustle. Deal with it.”

Colonel Jessup – A Few Good Men                                     

                                          

Besides laying power move after power move upon Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee during Kaffee’s courtroom questioning of Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, Jessup is one bad guy. He forged a phony transfer order to bail himself out of being charged with murder and ran a military operation in Gitmo that might rival the Nazis in 1940s Germany. Jessup forces one of his subordinates to forge the transfer order of a murdered marine, in turn causing the subordinate to commit suicide before he has to testify against Jessup in court. What a dick.

 Famous asshole line: “You see Danny, I can deal with the bullets, and the bombs, and the blood. I don't want money, and I don't want medals. What I do want is for you to stand there in that faggoty white uniform and with your Harvard mouth, extend me some fucking courtesy. You gotta ask me nicely.”

Gordon Gekko – Wall Street

                                     

A wheeling and dealing Wall Street yuppie, Gekko embodied the spirit of the 1980s. He acquired publicly traded companies and got rid of the waste. He was really good at it too. He didn’t give a fuck who he had to fire when he took over a company. He took the young Bud Fox (great name) under his wing and tought him the ropes of the cutthroat world of the stock market. Mergers and acquisitions. Eventually, Bud and Gekko were at odds over Blue Star Airlines, and Bud ended up screwing Gekko out of millions of dollars. Gekko showed Fox the way, and his protégé screwed him over. But what really makes Gekko a terrible boss is that he agreed to be in Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.

 Famous asshole line: “Lunch is for wimps.”

Bill Lumbergh – Office Space

                                

He is the epitome of the awful boss in the post-modern corporate world. Micromanaging constantly, condescending towards his subordinates and obsessed with doing what’s right for the company. But his view of doing what’s right for the company consists of filling out TPS cover sheets and putting up redundant banners in the office. He plays favorites in the office and steals staplers from people. Then take into account that he has no problem with making people come in on the weekend and his voice is more annoying than nails on a chalkboard. Bill Lumberg is the penultimate horrible boss.

 Famous asshole line: “Is this good for the company?”

John Milton – The Devil’s Advocate

                                                    

He’s the devil. No, he’s literally the fucking devil in the flesh. Al Pacino’s character of John Milton played the ultimate mind fuck on Keanu Reeves in this classic ‘90s thriller. Reeves plays a talented southern lawyer, Kevin Lomax, who has never lost a case, representing child molesters and other undesirables along the way. Milton seeks out Keanu to join his high-powered, multinational New York City law firm. Lomax soon comes to find out that there’s some truly shady shit going down in Milton’s firm and is swallowed whole into the seedy underbelly of Satan’s law practice. Lomax’s wife is driven completely batshit insane from living in New York City with you know, the devil, and eventually kills herself in front of her husband. In the movie’s climax, Milton reveals to Kevin that he is in fact his father and that Lomax is the spawn of Satan. Then Milton wants Kevin to have intercourse with his half-sister to procreate the antichrist to bring about the end of the world. Try working for that guy.

 Famous asshole line: “Call me dad.”

Miranda Priestly – The Devil Wears Prada

                                    

In the realm of female-centric cinema, The Devil Wears Prada takes the cake as the ultimate girly-girl movie. Anytime a movie has Stanley Tucci playing either an in-your-face kind of gay man or an effeminate companion of the main character, you know no man with a working set of twig and berries should willingly watch this movie. Anyway, at the center of the story is Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief of Runway magazine, the biggest fashion magazine in the world. She hires Andy Sachs, played by the sometimes tolerable Anne Hathaway, as her secretary and we see the torment that Miranda puts Andy through on a daily basis, giving her impossible task upon impossible task. Whether it’s her ridiculous daily Starbuck’s order or finding her kids a copy of the newest Harry Potter book just hours before they leave on vacation, Miranda is a real bitch. Don’t think I could make it in the New York fashion scene. Good thing I don’t want to.

Famous asshole line: “Details of your incompetence do not interest me.”

Warden Norton – The Shawshank Redemption

                                    

As if going to prison wasn’t soul-crushingly depressing enough, imagine your warden was also a corrupt, money laundering, pious murderer. Warden Norton took Andy Dufresne under his wing as his personal accountant, freeing Andy from the laundry and away from rapists that had tormented him in prison. Dufresne gained the favor of the warden by washing his dirty money, but when Andy found a break in his case that might prove him innocent, the warden had the witness murdered. Prison politics. But old Andy got the last laugh, escaping from the prison, stealing all the warden’s money and exposing his crimes within the prison, leading to Warden Norton’s suicide and the best ending to any movie ever.

Famous asshole line: “Put your trust in the Lord. Your ass belongs to me.”

 

 

1. Getting A Job

Congratulations! You’ve managed to become a contributing member of society! Even if it’s just a temporary job at Best Buy to boost your résumé until you find a real job that suits your skillset, and you graduated a year and a half ago, at least you’re getting paid. I mean, the job market is still brutal. Most people would be more than happy to dish out facts about flat screens at Best Buy. Yeah. Keep reminding yourself of that. More than happy.

Whether you’ve started your career, or are just passing the time with hourly pay, the fact that you’re employed tells people that you are, at the very least, slightly motivated to survive. It’s still brutal trying to bring home girls from the bar when your parents are your roommates, though.

2. Moving Out Of Your Parents’ House

You’ve finally managed to save up enough dough to move out of your parents’ house. Sure, your one bedroom apartment is a shithole, you still regularly need assistance from your parents to pay bills, and you don’t own any furniture so you use a computer chair as a dinner table, but at least you’ve finally got your own place. All you have in the refrigerator is a three-week old gallon of milk and an empty pizza box, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. Now you can watch porn whenever you want, and no one can take that away from you.

Securing your own place of residence tells the world that you are at least making an attempt to appear to be an adult, and attempting to appear to be an adult is half the battle.

3. Becoming Financially Independent

You’ve either finally been cut off by the parentals, or gotten a pay raise that allows you to break the shackles of financial dependence. And to think you graduated just three short years ago. It’s funny, but you never realized how quickly things like car insurance and cell phone bills can add up. You’re probably going to have to cut down on unnecessary expenditures, and take a hard look at your cable bill that features every premium channel, but post-grad life is all about making sacrifices.

Don’t get a big head. Your dad still does your taxes. However, being financially independent is still a big step toward being taken seriously by friends and family.

4. Getting A Pet

The loneliness that comes with a quarter-life crisis finally got to you, so you made an impulse purchase and got a dog. Congratulations, you are barely mature enough to take care of yourself, and now another life is in your hands. You had a dog growing up, so you thought this would be easy, but you were wrong. Prepare to smell like piss and shit for months. The little bastard will probably eat your dinner table (computer chair) too, so you’ll need a backup place to eat.

Having a pet, and keeping it alive, tells people that you are probably a caring person, and might have a normally functioning brain.

5. Learning How To Present Yourself

You’ve delayed the inevitable for as long as possible, but it’s time to take the next step into the American business world. You’re a professional now, so you need to start looking like a professional. No longer will that half-assed bowl cut you’ve been rocking since the eighth grade pass as an acceptable hairdo. You find yourself a barber who has two good eyes and a full set of fingers, and cough up $50 twice a month for a dominant hairstyle that screams, “I make deals.” Now it’s time to pack up all your collegiate clothing, and drop that shit off at Goodwill. No, it’s not okay to save your favorite frat tee from 2006 and wear it to the grocery store. What if you run into your boss? Nobody takes the guy who wears an Office Hoes and CEO Bros t-shirt seriously. You’ll be the laughing stock of the office. Hit Jos. A Bank and buy yourself some acceptable business casual that fits into your pathetic budget.

Looking like you’ve got your shit together tells everyone you’re ready to leave college life behind, and become a real boy.

6. Getting A Girlfriend

You’re sick to death of every relative asking when you’re going to settle down with a nice girl. One-night stands are becoming a thing of the past with every passing year, and closing on strange isn’t the easy task it used to be in college. Women in the post-grad world demand to be taken seriously, or at least taken out to a reasonably priced dinner before disrobing so that you can poke around in their proverbial cubicle. So you nut up and start dating. When she asks why you don’t have any furniture, and you’re eating your meals off a computer chair, just lie and say you just moved and your breathtaking collection of antiques is in storage.

Having a girlfriend tells the world that you’re capable of successfully dividing your attention between your professional and personal life. Everyone is proud of you.

7. Purchasing A Car

That Tahoe your parents bought you in 2009 gets the job done, but it still stinks like beer and puke from that road trip you took for your football team’s bowl game during senior year. It’s time to up the ante. Odds are you’re going to get yourself into a lease that doesn’t quite fit into your budget, but fuck it. Everyone is in debt, right? What the hell is the point of all those credit cards if you can’t floss a little bit? Grab yourself a nice Toyota Camry with leather interior and satellite radio, and let all the bitches on the block know that you’re a man of means.

Purchasing your first car lets people know that you’re not afraid to let the bills pile up, and join the debt-plagued dregs of society.

8. Getting Married

Ah yes. Marriage. The ultimate sign of adult conformity. You found yourself a partner of the opposite sex (or the same sex, not that there’s anything wrong with that), and you’re ready to take the everlasting plunge of monogamy.

I think Alec Baldwin said it best in The Departed:

9. Purchasing A Home

You’ve made it. You’re living the American dream. You’re buying a fucking house. No longer will your meals be consumed in a dark apartment off a computer chair while watching reruns of 30 Rock on Netflix. You’re a man now, and men live in houses with wives and kids and animals running around and shitting everywhere.

Purchasing a home tells people exactly how much money you make.

10. Producing Offspring

Maybe it was on purpose, maybe it wasn’t. It doesn’t really matter, because you’re having a baby. If you could ask the 21-year-old version of yourself if you’d have kids before you were 30, he would respond, “Are you out of your fucking mind?” and then shotgun another Keystone Light. None of that matters now. Brace yourself, because shit is about to get real. You thought cleaning up after that pet you got was a pain in the ass? You’re about to have a miniature human being on your hands that you’ll be one hundred percent responsible for.

Having a kid tells people that you’ve successfully made the transition into adulthood. Your days of never-ending Halo 4 marathons, binge drinking, and peaceful sleep are over. I’m praying for you.

For the record, I've only done 5 of the 10 things on this checklist, so I don't know what happens after you've completed them all. I assume you just die. Be careful out there.

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 Stage 1: Denial

You’ve been living this life for nearly the better part of a decade now. All of the sudden, with one fell swoop of tens of thousands of dollars of your parents’ money, and a fancy piece of paper, it’s been taken away from you. There’s no way it could end this quickly, right? This life felt like it was going to last forever. No, it can’t be over. You’ll think to yourself, “I’m still going to enjoy the company of my best friends every day and drink my weight in Rumplemintz every night, right? RIGHT?! They can’t take this away from me. I won’t let them. I’m not even 23 yet and the world is expecting me to become an adult?” You almost made yourself believe this day would never come, but it did.

Common symptoms:

-Randomly showing up in your college town on weeknights.

-Moving back in with your parents.

-Refusing to hold a job.

-Enrolling in grad school where you got your bachelor’s degree.

Stage 2: Anger

Now that it’s ended, you’re upset. Your life has been totally shell-shocked. This is the way the world works and you refuse to accept it. You’ve gotten so used to late night pizza runs, five-day benders and spur-of-the-moment road trips on a Wednesday. Now those have been replaced with 10 o’clock bedtimes, morning meetings, job interviews and trying to figure out how the hell a health insurance deductible works. You’re frustrated with the everyday minutia that comes with being an adult. You were a fool to think college was real life. You’ve never felt this unprepared for a challenge before.

Common symptoms:

-Lashing out at friends and co-workers.

-Road rage.

-Excessive grunting at the gym.

-Blacking out at happy hour.

Stage 3: Bargaining

At this point, it’s probably a few weeks after you’ve graduated and you’re just trying to figure out ways to get it back. You start looking at grad school programs or maybe even going back to get another degree. Unfortunately, you’ve been officially cut off by your parents, and you’ve seen the interest rates on student loans these days. Maybe just a quick visit back to campus this summer will cure your woes? Nope. If anything, that’ll just make it worse. You’d trade just about anything to go back to school. You’re irrationally blinded by separation anxiety that your life is not nearly as bad as you’re making it seem to be.

Common symptoms:

-Concerned friends.

-Obsessing over old Facebook photo albums.

-Drunk dialing ex-college flings.

-Ordering several drinks at lunch.

Stage 4: Depression

There’s no telling how long this stage may last. It might haunt you until your mid-20s, maybe later. Your body can’t handle liquor the way it used to, and that makes you sad, because being drunk is the best.  Drinking responsibly used to seem like a joke to you when you heard it in commercials, now it’s a creed you fervently believe in. You start showing up for work early, find yourself working later and distancing yourself from your friends. The peaks seem shorter and valleys seem deeper in your life as you begin to try and erase the memories of the past with work. You inexplicably start enjoying morning radio and are becoming skilled at the art of cooking dinner for one. This is what your life has become. Your journey into normalcy has begun and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. You feel totally helpless.

Common symptoms:

-Eating lunch by yourself in your car.

-Drinking by yourself.

-Increased eye rolling at weddings.

-Noted increase in willingness to be the designated driver.

Stage 5: Acceptance

It happens for everyone at one point or another. You can’t live life as a college kid anymore. You have bills, a career and people who depend on you. You don’t have to like what your life has become, but you must realize that like it or not, you’ve become an adult. Your Peter Pan syndrome will melt away a little more with each passing day. You realize that while it’s not appropriate to drown yourself in Jim Beam at the bar every night, it is acceptable to cut loose on the weekends. This is the price you pay to be a self-sustaining adult. You have to live on coffee, pay bills, make small talk at the office and your body will no longer be able to handle the abuse you once put it through. Just accept it and don’t be that person who thinks they’re still in college.

Common symptoms:

-Paying bills on time.

-Knowing your limits.

-Having a good credit score.

-Enjoying soft rock.

                               

1. Getting down on one knee would only flare up an old golfing injury.

2. The only ring that three months salary will get you can be found at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box.

3. Thinking about seeing yourself in a staged engagement photo is enough to make you punch yourself in the face.

4. A single two-minute, non-emotional phone call to your mother per week is sufficient. No reason to needlessly work her into hysterics.

5. Your first instinct for the wedding registry is “shit ton of paper plates.”

6. You can’t be expected to pick a wedding date without knowing what your future schedule holds, namely, how well your alma mater’s football team will be doing in two years, and you guys had a strong recruiting class this winter.

7. Women tend to frown upon eating Hot ‘N Readys during important date nights.

8. Bachelor party strippers haven’t been the same since you saw the trannies in Hangover II.

9. Changing your relationship status on Facebook is too much work since Zuckerberg changes the layout every nine minutes.

10. You’re still hugely afraid to meet her old man.

11. And you’re not meeting her mom until your funeral, either.

12. The only baby names you can think of are inspired by your favorite characters on Scrubs.

13. Mila Kunis is still a possibility.

14. A strict “in-bed-and-sleeping-by-9:00-pm” honeymoon policy sounds amazing.

15. Every day in your cubicle, you spend eight hours in the same box. Why spend each night doing the same?

16. All those women gathering for a bridal shower will attract bears to your living room.

17. When your buddy asked you if you’ve tied the knot, you assumed he meant a noose around your penis’ freedom.

18. You’re not ready for the self-esteem blow that comes with a free gym membership as a wedding gift.

19. Your court-ordered ban from Vegas doesn’t expire for another five years.

20. Engagement ring. Wedding ring. Suffering.