10 Signs You're Not Ready for a "Real Job"

Image via Complex Original

A real ass job (read: having an email footer) isn't just a way to get out from under one's crippling student loan debt, it's a lifestyle. Chiefly, it's a tortured existence in which your alarm goes off at 6 a.m.—every cot damn day—for the next 45 years. If you're staying up until 3 a.m. playing Call of Duty on the nightly and wake up just in time for the matinee airing of Maury, you are not ready serious employment. 

Excel spreadsheets are vexing enough when you’re not going through a violent Oxycontin withdrawal. If you’re using drugs, clubbing, or following Phish around the country in a used RV, then you’re 18 months of sobriety away from tolerating a performance review. The other members of your drum circle might be impressed with your ability to clear three-foot bong hits, but one’s ability to keep their feet after smoking a gram of Salvia is not something you can build a resume around.

If you have a dream, pursue it until your parents stop paying your cell phone bill. Your t-shirt line, rap mixtape, or, umm, freelance writing aspirations will almost certainly bomb anyway, but you can’t give your coke dreams the effort they require when they’re marginalized to an after-hours side hustle. That said, spitting 16 bars over the “Versace” beat and putting it on YouTube does not a grind make. If you’re not devoting 80 hours a week, every week to your hustle, then it actually is time to get a “real job.”

Getting a “real job” is an agreement to suffer endless humiliation in exchange for a benefits package, and there is a serious psychological cost to having healthcare insurance. You’re going to be accosted by middle managers, answer phone calls from furious clients, and have to share your morning commute with a filthy subway car’s worth of deranged hobos on bath salts. You’re the low man on the totem poll and, in case you forget, life will absolutely drive that point home to you on the daily. 

If you're taking style cues from Mac Miller videos and Russell Westbrook post-game pressers, then you need to tour Western Europe and find yourself or whatever because you're not ready for the Microsoft Outlook life, not even a little bit. For whatever reason, you have to dress like a Best Buy employee or waiter at Olive Garden to be taken seriously in a professional setting. If you trade in your collection of t-shirts that say "Trill" or "Dope" on them for some sensible Gap button-ups, you'll take an important first step towards adulthood.

When you get a “real job” the amount of time you spend outside is immediately cut in half. You won’t be able to take a three-day weekend without everyone in your department asking about your plans and, painfully, most of your waking hours will be spent in a 7 x 7 foot cubicle. If you want space, keep your gig collecting golf balls at the driving range. If you want a 6% company match on your 401k, prepare for life inside a storage closet. 

On bagels: In your first year of full-time employment, you will triple the number of bagels you've eaten in your life. Staying in shape is especially difficult at the workplace because you're surrounded by carbohydrates and the most active thing you'll do all day is spin in your desk chair. If you're more of a smoothie guy, keep your personal trainer position at LA Fitness.

On Microsoft Office: Have fun formatting graphs, fitting Excel columns to scale, and preparing PowerPoint presentations for the next four decades. You and Microsoft Office will become BFF.

On weekends: Nothing prepares you for how often you'll have to discuss "weekend plans" in the real world. It's nonstop, mostly because it's harmless small talk. Your friends are your friends because you have real conversations about things that matter. Your coworkers are your coworkers because you'll discuss the weather, office gossip, and vapid weekend jargon until you retire. 

It'll be a hard trainstion if you tweet every thought that pops in your head, because you'll have to put a lid on that mouth in the office. Sharing your life in the workplace is like talking about a crime without an attorney present, it can only work against you. If you get too comfortable, you'll end breaking the tension at a morning meeting with a "Two ducks walks into a gynecologist's office..." joke, and end up on a six week suspension. Keep your sex life, views on "Obama's America," and butt chugging exploits to yourself. 

Being a good employee is half as important as acting like a good employee, which is why you need to be an expertly trained bullshit artist to move up the corporate ladder. All of us—from company CEO to the lowly intern—have a million things we’d rather be doing than going to work, but guising that paradox is the key to a successful career. If you’re unable to convincingly claim that khaki and button-up life, you’re better off making ends meet by taking surveys on-line and donating plasma.

We know you think this is the logical next step, but, ironically, nothing handicaps your ability to be a grown-up like college. You've wasted the last 48 months plagiarizing research papers and butt chugging Milwaukee's Best. Watching an entire season of Homeland in one sitting while hungover—while impressive in its own right—doesn't do anything to help you flourish in the rat race. Not a damn thing.

Bottom line: life's been too good. You need to go out there on your bachelor’s degree swag and get a million doors slammed in your face. You need to end up delivering subs for Jimmy John's with six-figure's worth of student loan debt hanging over your head. Then, you need to drop off a Hunter's Club to the apartment of the hottest girl from your high school. You'll be embarrassed and make things worse by saying something like "Hi Amanda, I'm just—er—I have an interview at Groupon next week!" and she'll give you a $2 tip. That's the type of real ass humiliation that prepares you to become a responsible adult.