Being Dumb, Sweaty, and Unemployed: Pretentious People and Their Motives.

Going to a private university is pretty cool. People are always willing to help you, professors are completely open for communication, and there's a real community feel to the whole on campus experience. All for an affordable price of $47,000 a year.

The problem is, because Willamette is a private university, everyone is smarter than you. And if you don't ACT like you are smarter than them, they will smell blood, and devour you at their first chance. This can make for some very interesting interactions. I like to call them pretentious-offs, or smart-offs, for my non-private university readers. Aka mere mortals, aka idiots. Pretentious-offs are kind of like face-offs in hockey, except more teeth, no sticks, and the loser goes to state school.

I am 0 for 7 in pretentious-offs. Here's my latest defeat:

I am looking for a job. You know this because you read every one of my blog-posts, and have a deep interest in what I do with my life. Always.

I decided it would be best to go to the "Willamette Career Center" to find work, because it has the word "Willamette" in it, which is French for "Expensive education," and "Career" in it, which is English for "Find Me a F***ing Job K?"

APPARENTLY, the direct translation of "Willamette Career Center" is "You don't have a job? Or a resume? Or a 4.0 GPA? Why are you dumb? Get out of my office, you tall athlete who is inferior to me because you didn't use 7 big words in the first sentence we spoke."

I walked in to the "I am better than you, you mere mortal Career Center," and my conversation with the "Counselor," AKA "A$$hole" went like this:

"Hey, so I got promised a work-study job this summer, but now I don't have one, because I got screwed over. But I need money, and I have available work-study funds. Who should I speak with to get some advice?"

"What's your name?"

"Sean."

"Sean what?"

"Sean Dart."

(Other woman counselor-lady who looks to not want to devour my face opens her door)

"Do you have a resume?" she asks.

"No."

(eye-roll so loud that it hurt my ears.)

"Come in," she said, in the least inviting way possible. Kind of like the way that you answer the door when a door-to-door feces-salesman swears that it will only be 10 minutes, but 15 minutes later, you have poop all over your carpet, and you just bought a bag of $hit for $39.99. Kinda like that.

"Thanks for your help," I say, before I have received any actual help.

"Have a seat," she says.

I am reluctant to do so, because I just got done working out, and was water-logged in every sense. My shorts were literally dripping. I realized the seat was black-leather, and looked like it didn't want to be touched by Sweaty Sean Butt.

"I'm fine, thanks." I say.

"Sean. Sit." She demanded.

"Okay."

"How do you expect to get a job if you don't have a resume?" She asks.

"I don't know. Work for people that know me? Painting fences and shoveling can't require too much of a background, right?" I say, thinking 'check-mate, ass-lady.

"Cute. You know, Sean. You need to wake up. It's time to wake up" She says, preparing to breathe fire all over her poorly decorated office.

It is at this point that I realize my sweaty bottom is sticking to her nice leather chair, and the plaque next to me says "The only thing better than a good friend, is a good friend with chocolate."

Never trust these people. Anyone with clever stitched-pillows or welcome-mats are to be immediately be dismissed as insane, extremely rude, or at the very least, dragons. It is extremely weird to feel a need to purchase a decorative plate that advertises your fondness of chocolate. Everyone likes chocolate. Get over it, mean-career lady.

"Um...I mean. I am awake. I had a job all year, I just was promised work this summer, and they decided they didn't need me just this last week," I said, reiterating the fact that I am the one getting screwed here, and shouldn't be getting yelled at.

"Don't put your eggs all in one basket, Sean." Butt-head lady says, in that weird way that people use your name 2 minutes after learning it.

Example:

"Hi, I'm Sean."

"Nice to meet you, I am a$$hole career lady, and I look forward to belittling you for the next 15 minutes. This is my job. How do you like my horrible plaque, commemorating my love for chocolate, Sean?"

See? See what she did there? She used my name. Prematurely. This should have been the first red-flag. The second should have been when she asked if I smelled rotten eggs.

I wanted to reply, "No, that's just my body," but I decided leaving an over-sized bottom-stain of sweat on her seat was enough.

She then asked me what my skills are. Sitting here, I could type out my skills relatively easily. I am tall, sometimes I can spell words correctly, and I can tell you all there is to know about every single player on the Los Angeles Lakers' roster. See? Those are my skills. (Insert Napoleon Dynamite Outdated Joke Here.)

However, doing this in person, in front of someone that looks like they want to destroy you, is much harder.

"What are your skills?"

"Uh. Um....uggh, uh,"

"Public speaking? Hahaha," she joked, but she really meant, "why are you a blabbering idiot?"

She went on to use some words with a lot of letters in them to explain why it is important to have a resume.

"Look, it's like you're a product. And you want people to want your services. You need to promote. You need to advertise. You need to sell yourself," she said.

It is at this point that I went into an extremely inappropriate day-dream, in which this career-lady suggested prostitution as a Summer job for myself, then licked her lips, wiped her table-top clean, and offered to be my first customer.

I woke up from my daytime wet-dream to her snapping fingers, and trademark death-stare.

"Look, Shane. I think what your skills would be best suited for manual labor," she decided, which could, and should have been translated to, "you seem big and dumb. So big and dumb that I can't remember your stupid name."

At the conclusion of our extremely constructive meeting, I mean, once she was done passively-aggressively demolishing my fading self esteem, I walked out of there with 2 phone numbers, and a dampened sense of self-worth.

Also, she handed me a packet that read "Your Resume And You: Building Skills to Market Yourself...you IDIOT."

I considered this whole ordeal to be a draw. Sure, she tore me apart, but as I felt my shorts peel off of the leather, and as my dried sweat left the lingering stench of salty gym socks, I felt a sense of accomplishment.

I left my mark in that room. And by 'left my mark' I mean, I literally left a full-sized damp imprint of my gigantic bottom on her black leather seat.

I may be dumb with no resume, but I have a sweaty bottom. That'll show em.

Yeah...yeah it will.