Post Grad Problems Blog

Life around the office isn’t as relaxed as it was in your college life. Performance is always being evaluated, people are working hard, and stress is palpable. There are always going to be moments that are unbearable, as the most awkward moments in your postgrad life are usually going to outweigh the awkward moments you experienced in college. Waking up in a stranger’s bed or showing up to class with a magic marker dick on your forehead are no longer your worst nightmares.

Yet another morning meeting has begun at your office. Managers drawl on about time-filling nonsense, and you just want to get back to work. Finally, some concerns about your department arise. But you know your boss is wrong. You went over the numbers after staying late last night and sent them an email explaining the error this morning. You are frozen in panic. This could easily have been handled had they just checked their email before coming into work this morning. So you speak up and correct them. A painful silence overtakes the room as they begin to back pedal. The mood in the room becomes tense and there’s stifled laughter. Hopefully they take it in stride and don’t yell at you or fire you for being an insolent subordinate.

Most offices are filled with older folks who have just completely given up or don’t care about what their co-workers think about them. They sit in their corner cubicle, with a space heater turned all the way up, sucking the moisture out of the office air. You might catch them picking their nose and then eating it, cutting a loud fart, belching or hocking a disgusting loogie and then swallowing it. There’s a gross-out in every office. The problem is, this person is so beyond giving any fucks about what people think about them that they cannot be reasoned with. They will continue their atrocious behavior until the day they retire. But sometimes people just have to relieve themselves by any means necessary. Maybe they thought no one was watching and decided to go digging for gold, or pushed out a hot fart when everyone besides you was at lunch.

It’s Wednesday around 3pm and there‘s still some work to be done, but you‘ve had enough of slaving away for the day. Maybe you should take the initiative to make a few phone calls or send some emails, maybe plan out the rest of your week, but you just got the latest cat video that’s sweeping the internet. The cat video leads way to the Kate Upton Cat Daddy video, which leads way to you watching The Evolution of Dance four times. Little did you know that your boss was standing behind you the entire time you were researching your upcoming fantasy baseball draft. This will inevitably lead to the “Are you just in this for the paycheck?” speech from your boss, which in turn makes you lose sleep for the next month wondering about your job security. The “everyone else does it” excuse could apply here, but this isn’t the time or place. You are presented with two options: 1) Work harder. 2) Work harder on looking busy.

Now you’ve gone and done it. You’ve crossed into the danger zone. Office happy hour got a bit out of hand and you stepped over the line. You dipped your pen in the company ink. A sloppy makeout by the bathroom led to you two sneaking out the back of the bar and heading to your apartment where you engaged in consensual, adult passions. Shortly after a (hopefully) shared climax, the two of you realize your awful, inebriated mistake. You’re going to have to see someone that you had sex with, but don’t necessarily like, every single day. It’s hard enough seeing ex-hookup buddies at the bar when you’re shitfaced, now you’re going to have to act professionally around one of them at your job. Hopefully you weren’t planning on courting someone other than your co-worker/one-time lover, otherwise jealousy might give way to an explosive office outburst by your estranged lover, likely leading to a lengthy meeting with HR.

Scrolling through my Facebook feed on Sunday afternoon is one of my favorite pastimes. Recapping what kind of crazy shenanigans your friends got into over the weekend, and un-tagging drunk pictures of yourself. It’s really great.

Then I scroll up to the more recent posts and statuses and pictures about football and such start showing up, maybe a few patio grazers decided to grab a drink or two. It’s relaxing. Then, there it is. “Sunday Funday with mah GIRLZ!!!” followed by a picture of the shittiest looking pitcher of sangria I’ve ever seen. My heart begins racing. My anger rises and I want to throw my phone out of the window.

That’s not a Sunday Funday. That looks like a bad attempt at showing your friends that you can still have fun and your life doesn’t totally suck. Newsflash: It does.

Sunday Funday is a time-honored, respected tradition where I come from, not to be bastardized by your shitty fucking Sunday happy hour with goddamn sangria and spinach salad. I bet this is the first time you‘ve even drank all weekend. To me, there’s only one way to do Sunday Funday: hard, sloppy and weird.

Sunday Funday is your last chance to have some adult-centric fun before Monday strikes you back down to reality. You might wake up hungover from Saturday, shower up, get some food and maybe a bloody mary to help stabilize your toxin-ridden body and catch a game at a bar or restaurant.

This is where the real Sunday Funday begins. It isn’t some planned outing with friends. It’s spontaneous, wonderful and the sloppiest display of debauchery known to man. If copious amounts of hard liquor isn’t involved, just go home and read a book because you’re doing it wrong.

This is you and your friends out on the town, dressed like you don‘t give a fuck, trying to win the rage race between your liver and Monday. There shouldn’t be any reason for you not to go hard.

Sunday Funday isn’t a cute event just because it rhymes and there might be some subconscious association with Sunday and church and since you’re drinking on Sunday, you’re so very bad. Sinner.

You shouldn’t be eating artichoke dip out of a bread bowl in a nice little outfit. You should be eating a cheeseburger in the street at 3pm while you scope out the next bar to hit. Yes, this is degeneracy at its finest, but that’s what Sunday Funday is all about. The genesis of this storied tradition is to out-drink your hangover from Saturday. It’s not book club.

Some days, you’ll be lucky enough on Sunday Funday to join forces with fellow ragers out on the town, also looking to booze away their anxiety over the coming week and maybe squeeze in a little game of just-the-tip on the holiest of days. Dancing while it’s still light out is a surreal experience. Usually, you’re used to some dark, dingy dance floor, barely being able to recognize your inebriated dance buddy. Now, you’re in the light of day, in full view of everyone in attendance. Be wary, though. Drinking during the day does not afford you the beer goggles excuse the next day. You’ll likely terrorize some poor family out for an early dinner, but just shoot the kids a casual wink to let them know what they have to look forward to once they’ve left mom and dad with an empty nest.

Your body has been punished in ways that defy science, pushing itself to metabolic limits. The point of Sunday Funday is to get drunk fast enough to where you won’t be hungover on Monday morning, when your body has cleansed itself of your weekend transgressions during your 14-hour pass out after Sunday Funday, although you will may miss all of the fantastic television Sunday evening has to provide. God invented DVR and HBO GO for this very reason.

Sunday Funday is like the dark comedy of raging. The Coen brothers themselves would have a tough time capturing such indiscretion. The event itself is fun, but drinking away your worries is a dark, dark place. Then again, so is working 40 hours a week for a paycheck at a job you detest. Sue me for wanting to spend drunk time with my friends when I can.

The cozy confines of your bed will never feel better after a long, sloppy, successful day of raging on the Sabbath. The drunken slumber will re-energize your body for the new week in a strange, exciting, life expectancy-reducing way, while keeping your liver warm for next weekend, in yet another pursuit of fleeting youth.

Stay drunk.

I read this book for 2 reasons: 1) It was free; and 2) My friend wrote it. I'm usually all talk when it comes to books. I was supposed to start the first Game of Thrones book 11 months ago, and Killing Lincoln is somewhere with an old collection of Nintendo Power magazines collecting dust. Honestly, I knew I would enjoy this book after seeing there was a chapter entitled "Sorostitute Stories". This book really moved the needle for me. From the opening chapter, the TFM Book takes you on a nostalgic, drug and alcohol fueled ride down memory lane. The story of a college freshman's experience joining a fraternity and turning into a boozed up haas manages to outdo itself chapter after chapter. Disclaimer: If you can't relate to full blown zero fucks raging, then this isn't for you. Maybe you're thinking, "I've been out of college for a few years, man. I've moved past this stuff." Ok, maybe you're not into reminiscing about a time when road trips, benders, and comedic sexual encounters were the norm. That's fine, hypothetical skeptic, but I tend to think you should never turn down a good Bourbon Street story. (Spoiler alert: there's a "jiggling ass sandwich") This book will leave you sad that those days are behind you, but you'll probably find yourself throwing together a random road trip to give it Hell one more time. Great read. 

Buy it HERE.

Car Accident/Breaks Down

Usually you would call your parents and ask them for the number of a local body shop. Now you have your own auto insurance, and there’s no way you’re calling mom and dad to help you out. They’d probably just yell at you. Plus, this is your main form of transportation. You’ll have to carpool with a co-worker (hell) or take mass transit (seventh level of hell) until your car is ready. Shit sucks.

Someone You Know Is Having A Baby 

This is not “Oops he didn’t use protection and now she’s pregnant” pregnant, this is “Me and my spouse planned this out, had a whole bunch of sex and we are bringing a child into this world” pregnant. People around you are growing up at a frightening rate. 18 months ago, you were holding their legs while they did a keg stand on a balcony at the Holiday Inn in Daytona Beach. Nine months from now they’re going to be responsible for a small baby’s life. Terrifying.

Someone You Know Just Bought A House

Your inner dialogue will read something like “EVERYONE SLOW DOWN” when you see the Facebook picture come across your newsfeed. This fucking guy isn’t more than six months out of college, and he’s already bought a freaking house. I guess down payments just grow on trees these days, huh? Meanwhile, you don’t even own a proper dinner table.

Everyone Is Getting Married

Every Monday morning your newsfeed is flooded with engagement ring pictures, and “I asked and she said yes!” status updates. It’s enough to ruin your week before it’s even started. Congratulatory texts are sent out, and your finger is almost numb due to liking so many freaking engagement pictures. Hey, these people want to pay for an open bar to celebrate something that’s got a better than 50% chance of falling apart and ruining their children’s lives, they can go right ahead.

Your Ex Is Getting Married

This is perhaps the most panic inducing event that a postgrad can go through. Things didn’t end so well, and you might still spend an average of an hour each week going through old pictures of you two. Now, they’ve found supposed happiness and any chance at rekindling an old flame is gone. You probably laugh at their fiancé, because you’ve already beat that up and they’re just picking up your sloppy seconds…at least that’s what you’ll tell yourself.

Your First Weeknight Blackout

Work got you down, so you hit the bottle. Then you woke up 10 minutes before you had to be at work, then you were a half hour late, then your boss yelled at you and now everyone you work with thinks you’re an alcoholic. Fewer things are more terrifying than accidentally, or purposefully, getting too drunk and having it affect your career. I mean, that’s like a real sign of alcoholism, isn’t it? When your drinking actually affects your relationships, family and/or career? Whoa. Maybe it’s time to take a few days off from the sauce and get your life back in working order. Or just keep it under six drinks at happy hour next time. Moderation. That’s the key.

Your First Blind Date

This is horrible. You got set up on a blind date by your aunt. Maybe you hit the jackpot and will meet your future spouse. That happens, right? Of course it does. Starting and maintaining a conversation will be a struggle, seeing as you know literally nothing about this person except that they like Diet Coke and wore a coat when it was 60 degrees out. Also, have you ever eaten in front of someone you just met? It’s really weird. Normally you’re eating lunch with co-workers, friends or by yourself (sad face). A piece of food will undoubtedly find its way between your teeth or onto your clothes. The “good night” portion of the date is appalling. Maybe you like your date. You go in for the kiss, they go in for the hug and the awkwardness that ensues will be enough to ruin your month. In college this was easy! But you’re not completely shitfaced in a cowboy costume, and neither is your date. Taking shots of vodka while watching a Pixar movie isn’t exactly the protocol here.