My offering today is a bit different to usual because it didn't come from the internet, but instead an actual conversation with a real person! I know, it's wild, but it gets results. It's this:
My work colleague Julie studied English and Theology at University.
Tenuous I know, but I did learn it today, and it's of particular interest because I do the exact same job as her, and I studied English and Philosophy, which is pretty similar. I should point out that my job has nothing to do with either English literature or Philosophy - I work for a Housing Association. Another odd thing is that she said 'ENGLISH... and theology' as she didn't want to make it sound like the pointless degree it clearly was, whereas I've become accustomed to saying 'English and PHILOSOPHY', to make it sound even more pointless than it was, which was very pointless indeed. The reason for this is simple: the world of work (some would call it the real world) is not kind to the humanities graduate; even as a student, every summer would be spent toiling in dusty warehouses being ridiculed by the permanent members of staff, perhaps envious that I didn't have to spend the rest of my useful life working there. Any mention of being a student would lead to a hoot of derision, followed by "We've got a clever one 'ere Dave" or "What's the capital of France?" and then I'd have to pretend not to know, just so I could escape to my lunch break.
After I graduated, I started working as a care assistant, where I learnt to accentuate the negative about my studies. Noticing my tender age, poor people skills and all-round bad attitude, the other workers picked up that I had just graduated, and would ask what I studied. I told them, English and Philosophy. Their not unreasonable response was invariably "Why are you working here then?" to which the spoken answer would be "I fancied a challenge" or "I'm keeping my options open" rather than the real reason, "I am a failure as a human being". I found, however, that if I said I studied Philosophy and English, then people didn't ask why I worked there. What else was I going to do with a Philosophy degree? It may as well have been called English and Arsewiping. I'm still glad I chose Philosophy though, it was an interesting course and maybe I wouldn't have started this project if it hadn't renewed my desire to ponder the unimportant at great length. Sure, I could have done Medicine, and been on 60 grand a year by now, but... sorry, I've just been overcome by a sudden urge to study Medicine.
I've got to go anyway, I've got to stick a light chicken supper in the microwave, do some dusting and then head off to watch Avenged Sevenfold lay waste to Brixton Academy. Middle class metal!
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