Career Alternatives

Now that's what I call lawn trim!

Every year our fine colleges and universities churn out millions of liberal arts majors who eagerly seek the half dozen or so jobs in their fields that are currently open. Almost all of these job searchers are of course doomed to disappointment. Fortunately, our capitalist economy has the elasticity needed to accommodate all these frustrated job seekers, although not always (and by that we mean “never”) in the fields they aspire to work in.

America’s millions of would-be writers, musicians, artists, and thespians go forth each year and mow lawns, wait on tables, make telemarketing calls and flip burgers, exchanging the unwanted and unneeded abilities they have spent four years honing to a keen edge with simple physical labor.

Ah, the glories of capitalism.

But the wannabe artists, musicians, actors, etc., are hardly the worst cases. There are some liberal arts majors who stretch the elasticity of capitalism to its ultimate limit.

The students who choose to get degrees in such fields as poetry and philosophy not only lack marketable skills (there being absolutely no market for their skills) but they are constitutionally unable to do any useful thing. They are often not aware of where they are or what they are doing, making it hard to assign them tasks.

Even with the best will in the world on their part, when asked to do something they rarely remember to do it, lost in the realms of enigmatic pentameter or Hegelian deconstruction. Fortunately, capitalism has a place even for these job seekers: living lawn ornaments. The living lawn ornament candidate is stripped (because it‘s fun), bound (so they won’t wander off or harm themselves) and gagged (cuts down on the noisiness of the mumbling) and staked to a place on the lawn (once again, so they won’t wander off). Then it’s just a matter of reminding them to eat something after four hours and freeing them at the end of their shift and pointing them toward home, hoping they will somehow get there.

Why yes, I do hold a liberal arts degree.

Bitter? Me? Whatever gave you that idea?