We were warned about this when we were children, it’s in Aesop’s Fables. Fortunately due to our crippling debt we’ll never have families.  There is always the chance of a contraception mishap but now that I’m on the other side of 30 I don’t really see that happening. But I digress.  The Tortoise and the Hare.  The way I read this story now is that we are Hares, the Tortoises are our idiot peers who coasted through high school and their state University of choice, only to end up managing us after we went into debt earning useless degrees that don’t land us jobs in this economy. I mean when you think about it, these ignoramuses who can drink a keg and not fall over are the epitome of “slow and steady.”

But seriously, let’s look at the Economics of this. In addition to reading children’s picture books I also have read the Wall Street Journal as of late. The article pointed out that the number 1 indicator of future success is the state of the economy your first 2-3 years of working. Kids who enter the job market in a recession NEVER recover to the point of other classes no matter how good they are or how fast they run.

So while you were borrowing 30k+ a year to go to grad school your idiot neighbor with a BA in political intrigue (because it makes him sound like a spy) was already earning 42k a year, which was 60k with no debt by the time the economy slid into the toilet.  Meanwhile you graduated to nothing with six figure debt.  3-5 years later, you consider yourself lucky (at first) to be getting 40k a year which isn’t even the STARTING salary of your idiot friend with none of your credentials, and by now he’s making six figures, thanks to the 15% raises he kept getting even after the economy sunk because by then he had “experience.”

For your own sanity’s sake my first recommendation is that you disassociate as much as you can socially from the idiot drawing six figures.  I know its tough if the individual REALLY IS your boss, but to the extent possible try and avoid looking at their smug, ugly, condescending face. Oh and drink. Otherwise you’ll find yourself planning an office shooting.

For those of you who are not completely broken, there is…well, hope is a strong word.  You have a chance, let’s put it at that. Just remember a couple of things 1) this idiot is still an idiot 2) stop playing their game 3) the secret to success is non-wage based income.

First, your idiot friend is still an idiot.  And he lives in a completely different world than you.  There was no recession for this kid. He will still borrow heavily to buy the perfect house.  He has car payments. He won’t pick up a tab at a bar and he’ll charge you $20 to chip in for alcohol at his house, but all the expensive toys you just spent $20 and an evening you’ll never get back to look at…the gym equipment he never uses and the music equipment he hopefully never uses, that’s all him.  Let’s not forget the idiot spouse and did I mention this fool has kids on purpose? Things might just even out due to the miracle of Regular debt.

Second, you need to stop playing their game.  This means two basic things.  First, you are never going to have the trappings of a middle class life, such as home ownership, a car seven years old or less, children, or savings. Second, you are not going to get promoted at your current job or get a better job similar to the job you have (in terms of utilizing the same skillset). This means if you are working hard at your day job, you’re doing life wrong.  Your new motto needs to be “do what it takes not to get fired.”  Do this and watch other smart people like you get fired for embarrassing their idiot boss, emerging as a threat, or just constantly being in high risk situations.

Third, non-wage based income. Continue to live like a filthy student, decide once and for-all if you are going to aggressively pay down your debt or default, and then sink every penny you make into some kind of investment, whether its buying a fleet of food trucks, flipping houses, or selling junk you find on e-bay. It’s the only way really.

Our nap was called “grad school” and it proved fatal in this race.  For the rematch the now wealthy tortoise has paid his goons to do a number on our legs with a crowbar.  Now the only way to win is to take a traditionally thought of as risky path now that the tortoise is all risk-averse because he has something to lose.

But please for the love of god people, don’t go back to sleep.  Another degree is not the answer.

So I have been pretty busy over in the politics section but I thought I would pop back to the main page to point out an obvious truth: you don’t have any friends. No, it’s true. If you were to marry your non-existent significant other the only people standing next to you would be siblings of the same gender at least one of which you hate or resent. But whatever.

Most of your former friends were of the same background education wise. Some of them succeeded where you failed and some failed right beside you. But every failed man is an island. There is no joke about two unemployed people entering a bar because there is nobody to pick up the tab.

Yeah despite what sitcoms and wedding toasts would have you believe this happens. This is life. People walk in and walk out of our lives. Imagine if you had to bury everyone you ever cared about who died before you?

Next, don’t try to make friends. It is a futile exercise until you are in a better place lifewise. However if you insist on trying to make friends remember how you made every other friend you ever had: through shared experiences that usually involve acquiring a skill or a right of passage.

Sit tight champ. I won’t say things will get better but you’re not done meeting people and there is still a chance to be about something.

So apparently My sexual escapades are not fitting for blog entries. Now, any sensible person will tell you that your choice of life partner has more effect on your financial well being than any other BUT since certain of those among us who are celibant against their will are hating…let’s try a new topic, the art of casual conversation.

When I ask you, peon in Debtor’s Prison, how your day was, how you are doing, etc, the correct answer is “fine.” I don’t care if you just got your arm amputated and your puppy died in a vain attempt to save your mother from a burning building.

Next if I ask you a question you should immediately identify how I am trying to seguay into a conversation about myself. Obviously I don’t care what you think. If you just stare blankly I will eventually launch into a monologue that will amount to talking to myself without the stigma BUT you can create the illusion of dialogue with phrases like “I don’t know what do you think?” I could ask for your frikkin name and that is still the best response you can give.

Next if I ask “Are you around at [such and such time]” the correct response is no response simply wait for me to tell you where to be at that time. Of course you are around, you’re unemployed or underemployed. You have no money therefore no worth therefore no life. But for the pathetic sound of your voice a thank you might be in order.

The point is you are a non-entity. That’s why people talk over you, cut you off or treat your latest contribution to a conversation as if it never happened. The sooner you learn this and start playing by the rules the sooner your life will start to make sense albeit in a tragic sort of way. But buying into the rules has it’s advantages. It’s like hazing. Play by the rules, believe in the rules, work to get to the other side of the coin.

I haven’t written much lately.  I go to the statuesque bf worth missing sleep over.  That’s about all I can handle.  Unfortunately I have friends.  Friends who have alot more time on their hands than I do.  Friends who make demands on my time.

The sad phenomenon I am noticing is that when I do see a friend it’s not the friend I wanted to see most, but the friend guilts me into it, usually through pity.  Consequently I am distancing froom people I care about and confiding in people whose death would rank on par with a patient’s who I’d spent a total of about 10 minutes with, was old, and had family there.  I have always taken for granted that the average person values what I do and understand how long it takes.  benito and his new best friend Latrine always lament that just because they are unemployed and underemployed respectively that everyone thinks their time is worthless.  I for one do, but not because of their employment situation but because 1) I know Benito and 2) Latirne is called latrine because he seeks to maximize the amount of time he spends on the toilet.

But not everyone respects my time.  I met a girlfriend for dinner because she was in town and had just got dumped by a balding, deli employee who probably hadn’t seen his genitals without the aid of the mirror in a decade.  Like I said, pity. So of course she gets lost even though I chose a place within walking distance of her hotel and I lose two hours I’ll never see again.  Meanwhile a better friend wants to get together because she has “news.”  She’s not pushy so of course it never hapens.  Four months later Simon puts a save the date magnet on the refrigerator and there my friend is staring back with her Adonis-looking fiance.  Guess who didn’t get the bridesmaid nod? Yup, and I don’t blame her.  Well, yeah I do.  I took a huge day off to be at her father’s funeral – and by “huge” I meant I got a bad write-up for doing it.

The point is, if we let life happen, we are there for all the good times with acquaintances and only see our real friends during times of tragedy.  We spend the balance of our lives mad or resentful at our real friends, complain to the person on the bar stool next to us about them, and then tragedy strikes, our friends are there and the supporting actors of our lives fade to the background where they belong.

This is for my peeps who are pimps first and professionals second – the type of slick mothers who can hop on a plane to a country where they can’t speak the language with only the clothes on their back and spend three months with the type of women suicide bombers dream about.

This is also in response to Sweet Hot Justice who wrote a piece “Biglaw Bros: Why Slam Pieces DON’T Want You.” The article can be found here

http://www.sweethotjustice.com/2011/03/01/biglaw-bros-why-slam-pieces-dont-want-you/

and reposted on ATL here

http://abovethelaw.com/2011/03/biglaw-bros-why-slam-pieces-don%E2%80%99t-want-you/

Basically SHJ says that dimes aren’t interested because at the end of the day even the most successful lawyer doesn’t make shit compared to a finance guy and law just ain’t sexy.  And you know what? She’s right.  But dimes want you anyway.  Why? Let me explain.

Basically it comes down to this: having an angle.  Think Owen Wilson from “Meet the Parents.” He didn’t present himself as an investment banker or whatever the hell he was.  He presented himself as a carpenter or some kind of artist or…I must admit, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen that movie.  The point is you don’t sell yourself as a lawyer, you sell yourself as a cowboy, athlete, musician, actor, writer, etc.  Then once she’s interested you might let it drop that law is your day job, and then the beamer the valet brings around fills in the rest of the blanks for her.

No disrespect to women, but they are dumb and predictable.  A woman wants love first and security second.  That’s why you present sexy/poor and then let it drop that yeah, actually you can pay the bills.  This is actually what most girls want because women have it ingrained in them at an early age that to make a man’s income the DOMINANT factor in whether they go out with, date or engage in relations with, makes them a whore.  Again, believe it or not, most women do not want to FEEL LIKE whores.  Even the extremely hot ones.

SHJ presents the stereotypical gold-digger who also happens to be a dime.  She doesn’t give you the time of day because your buck sixty ain’t shit compared to the kid who plans to be a millionaire next year.  She also acts like she doesn’t care that her behavior makes her feel cheap.  Surely, the lowly lawyer has no shot at this gal right? Wrong.  Here’s why.

A gold digger wants to MARRY the finance guy.  That’s what a gold digger is.  They don’t just dig up the gold to look at it, or take a few gold pieces and put them in the bank just to get a taste of the good life.  The gold digger wants to marry the finance guy.  Now, being smart, and SHJ insists that she is, does she sleep with the finance guy right off the bat? No.  Otherwise he will think she is what she is, whorish and cheap.  Now, enter the law guy.  She can spot a lawyer by now, mostly by the conversation and their tendency to spend more time checking email with their phones rather than taking calls.  Definitely no gold, only copper.  But copper will do for a night.  At this point whether the lawyer does or does not go home with the girl depends on only two things 1) how physically attractive she finds him and 2) him not fucking it up by talking.

But I haven’t even gotten to the best part.  Let’s look at our competition, the finance guys and the doctors.  Dudes, these people have to work for a living.  The BEST thing about us and our MOST VALUABLE advantage is that we’re not measured by some objective end result, like portfolio performance or lives saved.  We’re measured on hours we bill, arbitrarily and inconsistently reviewed.  We actually have TIME to become the moderately decent musicians, the supporting actors in independent films and the fledgling writers that make for good bar conversation.  We have the TIME to be interesting.  And we have the TIME to go to the gym so we can at least look respectable.

After all, women are just people like us.  And at the end of the day people have sex with sexy.

Life is not fair. Nobody has pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. You against the world = your mom was forced to abort you. If you’re alive, competent and yet don’t have your 3500 sq ft wife and Lexus then you are proof of these obvious axioms.  I look down on you (literally, not necessarily figuratively) from my office window and I want to help you.  Is it really so hard to believe? Why do you think I have written for this blog for close to a year now? It sure as hell doesn’t get me any ass.

Ok, let’s start at the beginning.  You’re young, smart, well educated but unemployed and in debt.  What to do? Obviously your biggest problem is the debt.  Why? Because the debt makes you desperate, and like a virgin on spring break debt makes what should be a very natural process of hitting that money suddenly a very awkward, self-conscious process.  I apologize to everyone, particularly the bros who read this and think my advice is akin to a manual for how to walk.  I promise my next entry will be about hitting a slam piece.

First, you never ask a friend directly for a job.  You ask your friends to ask THEIR friends for a job.  If you’ve stumbled upon this blog you obviously spend alot of time online so let me put it in terms you can understand.  Your first degree connections on Linkedin =/= job.  Your second degree connections = job.  This is good news! You have a lot more second degree connections than first degree connections and there are few living hells like working for or with a friend you did not meet in the context of the workplace.

Now let’s think about this.  Why not just ask friends/family friends if anyone where they are is hiring? Well first, this puts them in a very awkward position.  People ask me for jobs all the time, and no matter how casual they are about it or how jaded they are from endless rejection, its awkward for me and slightly humiliating for them.  It’s even WORSE if the person you are asking actually cares about you or cares about how you view them.  Say you have a buddy who is very proud of his job, has the good life etc, and then you ask him for a job.  Almost without even realizing it, you’ve challenged him.  You’ve basically said “Hey, if you’re so much the shit why don’t you toss your pal a bone? You selfish bastard.” That’s not a good look.

Now try this.  “Hey man, you know anyone who works at [fill-in the blank]? I was checking them out online and I think I’d be a great fit for y department because of x. Say, don’t you know so and so? Doesn’t she work for [fill-in the blank]?” See? Now instead of asking for something straight out, its more like you’re having a conversation.  Your friend feels like they can say no.  More importantly, when your friend asks THEIR friend about hiring that person feels almost no pressure whatsoever.  It’s also easier for this person once removed to vouch for you because all they know about you is the complimentary stuff your actual friend told them.  They’ve never actually seen you in all of the compromised positions any friend worth his salt would have seen you in, all this poor smuck is thinking about is how much of a recruitment bonus he is going to make off you.

The other thing you need is an angle.  You should never be unemployed for resume reasons.  Volunteer for some cause.  Start your own business – all it takes is a website.

Please kids.  Help me help you.  I tried to help one person after I told him my firm wasn’t hiring any IT folks but if I recalled correctly a friend at a peer firm mentioned something about an opening along those lines, but my comment was met with a blank stare.  I’d lost him as soon as he heard “wasn’t hiring.”  He then stared shame-faced at our four dollar tab (or receipt rather) at Dunkin Donuts.  I waited.  Eventually, as the line increased behind us, he fished out some change at which point I made a big show of rolling my eyes and taking out my platinum card.  I then snatched the change from his hand and put it in the tip jar.  And because in retrospect I kind of feel bad about that, I decided to write this post and explain why I did what I did.

Look, I get it.  When you’re 12 it’s no big deal to ask Uncle so-and-so for a job raking leaves or being a gofer or page in his office.  But those days are long gone.

Benito is trying to find an under employed writer for the blog.  He hasn’t as of yet and for what it’s worth I don’t think he will.  Not because there isn’t an army of over-educated under-utilized talent out there but because to experience real under-employment is so violently traumatic that it’s hard not to store away what’s left of your soul and just remain dead on the outside. Even when you do this there is one thing that no matter how jovial a dance-for-the-man performance you put on on the outside you still can’t protect yourself from the knowledge of how you’re regarded by bosses who hold your livelihood in their hands…not to mention friends and family.

At least you have a job. Your job is easy. You went to so and so school for how many years just to become a [blank]. So and so is younger than you and he only has x degree from y school and he’s your manager’s manager’s boss? You better feed his cats while he’s in Hawaii and to hell with the fact that you live 35 miles away. That’s just for starters.

Eventually you become a pitied sideshow. Everyone regards you as a perpetual child with some defect that will never allow you to reach “independence” because even if these people shit on you every day or facilitate other people shitting on you IN THEIR MINDS they are providing for you and you’d be lost without them. Trust me, it’s a very special kind of living hell.

It’s even worse if you knew these people outside of work and worse still if their existed a point in time where there was some kind of mutual respect between you.  And here’s the kicker: it’s inevitable. No matter what the strength of character of the person who is over you, this WILL happen it’s just a question of how long. Then the relationship will never be the same.

I could go on and on about this but it really is just too painful. It also destroys relationships but again that’s another door I refuse to open. It is suffice to say that before this experience I never understood the concept of hari kari or death before dishonor. Is it really worth killing yourself over? I can’t say for sure, I don’t know what it’s like to die or to be dead but I can say that Dante’s Inferno ain’t got nothing on looking an old friend or an ex-fiancée in the eye and seeing your own reflection as something beyond failure, beyond loss of personal dignity, beyond regression to childhood…as something that somehow lacks personhood. You are a shadow, gone with the source of light. You are the reflection in the puddle that disappears when the person walks away. You can’t die anymore because you never lived. You are an amusing, pathetic illusion.

I rarely go out. When I do I try and see as many people as possible. So I invite a buddy I haven’t seen in awhile to a fundraiser and he agrees to go, but warns me he is broke. Ok, whatever who isn’t. Then he asks if it will be an open bar. Now have YOU ever been to a fundraiser with an open bar? That an unemployed person invited you to?

As he explained the particulars of his circumstances, something about a lag between paychecks because he switched counties he was working in, all I could think about was the fact that he was essentially asking me to spot him, and this kid drinks like a fish.

Then a funny thing happened and I saw things from his perspective for a second

My buddy was experiencing a hiccup in finances aka he was not going to get money he was expecting. Although I am out on my ass at least I can plan accordingly. Second, most unemployed people are not givers of charity. He probably figured if I had cash to give away then things couldn’t be that bad for me. And if I could afford to take care of some people I didn’t even know then surely I could buy a round for a buddy.

The point is that it’s easy to become obsessed with one’s own problems when in Debtor’s Prison. But things could always be worse and there is no minimum income or employmentlevel required to give a shit about others. I’m not saying go out and change the world or implying that as a group we tend to feel sorry for ourselves. I am just saying look up once in awhile.

I know it’s 2011. I have loans in 2011.  But 2012 is eleven months 4 weeks and several days away. Or it is at the time of my writing this.  I could have no loans in 2012.  But first let’s recap:

I get a call from Triforce complaining about this 3-D TV he wants and he wants to talk to ME about paying off his loans. So I talk about cutting spending, jobs that have loan forgiveness, and rolling up his non-dischargable student debt into dischargable debt like a house. He then stated that he was determined to do it by next Christmas.

So I hear about this and the first thing I think of are all the lame blogs where kids with 200k in debt beg for money. I told him that we definitely weren’t going to do that. We then began to shoot down each other’s ideas. My first idea was to get a book published, maybe make the year’s worth of entries into a tiny book, something you’d buy at Urban Outfitters. Triforce asked If I had learned nothing from my “Tales of an Unpublished Author” series.  So that was out.

Triforce suggested we add a dating option to the site or create another one called “Dating for Debtors.” No wining, no dining, no problem. I vetoed pimping out our readers.

Ideas decreased in quality on both sides if that was even possible.  We came to no solid conclusions and the meeting ended with my asking the others to weigh-in on the feasibility of the proposal and any specific ideas they might have.

A year is pretty much shot once it becomes tainted with the sourness of reality. The best years are ladled with hope beyond the Horizon or myth and nostalga. But 2012 could be my first loan free year.

So I am out at a restaurant with SG and some of her doctor friends. The night is a waste. All but one of the male doctors came in their scrubs which is a non-starter and the only one who didn’t removed his until then welcome hand on my knees when his buddy not so subtlely let it slip that he was engaged. The tool then turns his conversation to Egypt where he had recently vacationed with said fiancée and turns out half the table had been. I hadn’t said anything in awhile so I make some cliche crack about rich doctors.

The table goes silent. They look indignant. They say that as residents they make “nothing” and that I make more than anyone at the table. They then proceed to nominate me to pay the bill. I am speechless.

For a split second my half-lawyer instinct kicks in and I drop plastic. They proceed to order drinks and after dinner appetizers. Yes, they ordered more food after their entrees as soon as it became free to them. I had to sign the name of one of those douche bags and report my card stolen and I hate using Mike Triforce tricks.

SG here. Yeah. That just happened. First, in my profession’s defense it’s not like Erin has never seen Scrubs and doesn’t know Medical residents resent their low pay COMPARATIVE TO LEVEL of EDUCATION. Nevertheless I’ll admit the situation is akin to the rich kid with a paper route lamenting his economic situation based solely on his income from that endeavor. I can personally atest to the fact that no one present at the dinner actually has to live solely on their residency wages.

Look, doctors are not economists. If they were they’d have chosen finance.  Benito and Alpha Man have written endlessly about the inter-generational transfer of wealth and Erin wrote “my rich friends make less than my poor friends” so it’s sort of understood what we mean when we say we’re poor. It’s not that we have a low wage necessarily or a high one with alot of debt we mean that we lack the current and foreseeable economic means to provide for our basic needs without running afoul of the legal system. Doctors don’t understand that like Eskimos don’t understand the rain forest. It’s just too far removed from their perspective.

So what is the doctor’s perspective? A young doctor considers his or herself to exist within their own bright future’s history. They know in 20 years they’ll be telling stories about how they built themselves up from nothing. They believe their own shit before they’ve even eaten the meal. But let’s get off doctors before I’m labeled a turncoat. The problem is not doctors after all, it’s America.

Building something from nothing is the most popular American legend. In fact the ability or right to do so, as opposed to a. system of aristocracy or slavery was at the heart of our greatest wars. But the fact that that right exists does not mean that it’s practice is common if for no other reason that those who are successful at doing so necessarily deprive their children of the chance for doing so by providing for them. It’s called the middle class.

Now I know this post was long before I even began talking but here is my point about student debt. It deprives families of that middle-classness by creating a black hole for funds that would have been down payments on first houses or a used car after school or a loan to start that small business. Rather than any of those things kids get a piece of paper worth less than the crumbled newspaper homeless people use to insulate themselves against the cold. Doctors are given much but feel they are independent and self-made. The broken debtors give everything and borrow to give more and receive nothing…but feel they are dependent internal infants sucking at society’s bottle.