a Word of Advice to all you youngsters heading out into the world

[northzax]

when someone says "oh, c'mon, only one more game of Pong" and it's 3:30, you've closed the bar down already and you have to work in the morning, never, ever, allow it to turn into strip-pong when your partner is too drunk to stand up.

thank you, you may now return to your everyday lives.

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. I wish someone had told me that when I graduated high school

Can't tell you how I had to learn that one the hard way. Kids today are luckier, that they have a good batch of elders to give 'em good wisdom.

And I'll say that, if you are out with a friend at a cigar bar, and hadn't really eaten anything for dinner, and it's 1 am and you have to work at 8 am with the executive council of a major investment bank and your friend asks you if you want a fifth 10 oz. martini, say "no".

[northzax]

2. see? they never give you useful information

at graduation. this is the kind of stuff we really need to be passing on to the next generation. none of this "go out work hard and change the fucking world' stuff.

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. I agree

They should tell us stuff like "Expect to screwed over by at least one boss/manager and/or co-worker, but know that it won't be the end of the world. He's just an asshole. Move on to something new and better."

"You will work mostly for incompetent people. This is the truth. You will need to learn to deal with it and work around their incompetence to get anything done. Don't feel bad if you have to stab them in the back at some point in order to be promoted."

"If you find a competent boss, learn everything you can from him/her, and do all you can to stick with them until such time as that competent boss makes sure that you are promoted, because that's what a competent boss will do."

"That new paycheck will look mighty tempting. Feel free to go blow the first one in celebration, but make damn sure to start saving. 10% socked away each paycheck could leave you a retired millionaire by age 55. Pissing it away means working, most likely, for a moron until you're 65. Yeah, you'll have had a couple fancy cars and a house bigger than you need, but you'll end up dying in a government paid-for nursing home."

Lots of excellent advice that would have been far more helpful to me than "You're 18, you have the world ahead of you, go conquer it! You can do anything!!"

There's truth in that, but I wish they had told me that there's a metric fuckload of failed idiots stuck in middle-management, in college professorships, in college career counseling offices, and other areas who are hellbent for leather to make sure that no one else goes up where they couldn't go, and that we just need to give those people a big ol' middle finger and ignore them.

[geniph]

6. "a metric fuckload of ... idiots"

I think I need to steal that expression.

:D

I do want to quantify the precise quantity denoted by a metric fuckload, however.

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. SOteric was, AFAIK, the first user of the term

in this post here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=248164#248239

You'll notice it's a bit larger than an imperial fuckload.

[geniph]

8. Ah! 1.18 imperial fuckloads=1 metric fuckload

Noted for future reference! :D

[Rabrrrrrr]

9. If you search the lounge archives for "metric fuckload"

you'll get a number of threads in which the term appeared after SOteric's first usage (which was the link I gave you). It was bandied about for a while, then seemed to have disappeared as a DU meme.

Time to bring it back!

[afraid_of_the_dark]

3. You really should speak at high school or college graduations.

This is the sort of helpful speech grads need to hear, not the "world is your oyster" baloney you typically hear.

Sounds like a rough night... hope you took your "Chaser" caplets. :P

[Misunderestimator]

4. LOL

Thanks for the laugh... :)