Satire | Why you should indefinitely delay graduating and never join the job market

Jobs suck. Everyone knows it. I hate my job, as did my father and his father before him. The American Dream is surviving this crap long enough to finally be allowed to quit in honor, or “retire,” as they call it. But with inflation, rent and everything other than federal minimum wage rising, retirement is as foreign an idea to most people as France. So, if you’re a soon to be graduate, or a student in need of cash, here’s reasons why you should never work a day of your life, and instead, try one of the following solutions. If you’re poor — forage for food in the woods and be a drifter. If you’re in the middle class — become a monk. If your parents are rich —  just stay in school perpetually, picking up major after major until you’re the very model of a modern major-haver. If none of those options sound appealing, try the alternative more and more people are taking each day, according to Fox News, and just stop working entirely! If this sounds intriguing, read on. 

Read below for a list of reasons why you should simply never join the job market: 

1. Jobs take up all your free time, especially if you’re a full time student with a part time job. Then, when you finally have a day off, you have to spend it getting groceries or taking your cat to the vet or some shit. It’s awful. 
2. Your employer doesn’t care about you at all, only about profit. It’s like they only care about making money or something. Where’s the love? Where’s the silly goofy? 
3. Half of the managers I’ve worked for have been evil people deep down. I have multiple jobs, and I think I’m actually one of my current manager’s arch-enemy. Like, he’s told me he hates me to my face, it’s insane. But I love money, so I’m trapped there for the time being. I just dream about the day I’m a rich and famous writer and I never have to talk to a customer ever again, or serve food, or make a coffee, or take an order or get yelled at by someone I can’t yell back at. 
4. Managers love taking out their bad days on their lowly underlings. Time and time again, I see a manager yelling at someone for absolutely no reason. Generally, if you try to gentle parent them, they just get madder, but sometimes there’s a human somewhere deep down inside of them, and they’ll apologize. But this is rare. 
5. I want to die every time I even think about my job. 
6. Co-workers are often not your friends. Tons of my co-workers are my friends, but a lot of them also are so mean for no reason. Maybe they just want attention? Or a little bit of entertainment while at work? But just ignore them, because they only get worse if you engage. 
7. No amount of money is worth the degradation dealing with customers provides. One in every five customers is an insane Karen. When there’s a full moon, it’s one out of three. And the things they say to you — they’re maniacal. Just don’t put yourself through that. 
8. Any time off request is unreasonable. Oh, it’s your birthday? Denied. Oh, your mom died? Denied. Oh, you have Covid? Come in a mask, it’ll be fine.
9. They don’t care about your time. They’ll ask you to work a six-day week, then cut your hours the next week and only have you come in three days. 
10. It’s all a conspiracy to fund their super-secret-after-work-side-project, which is either an illegal dog fighting ring or model trains in their basement.
11. Managers will say anything to get you to do what they want. For instance, I was told if I washed dishes for the night, I would get $50 on my paycheck. I have yet to receive this, despite my constant begging for it. One day I’ll get my $50, though, as it was promised. 
12. Lots of managers commit wage theft, too. I had a job in high school where I was told I would get $10 an hour, but instead got $8 an hour. And there was no way for me to clock in, so the manager claimed to have all the times in his head, which were of course under-reported. None of this I found out for ages because he was tearing off my pay stubs before I got them. And I was 15. Imagine being an adult man and ripping off a child like that, and that’s his entire business model. Jobs are evil. 
13. They’ll fire people at the drop of a hat. One girl got Covid and called out for a week because she couldn’t come in. They fired her. Illegal? Of course. But what’s she going to do, sue? With what money? Exactly. 
14. It’s so boring.
15. I’m convinced that “If you can lean, you can clean” was thought up by Satan himself to destroy the hearts and minds of poor employees everywhere.
16. How the hell is the national minimum wage still $7.25 an hour? Did the government forget that people need to eat? And pay rent? And utilities? And insurance? I think they must have. 
17. If you have fun at work, you’re goofing off. So you’re not having fun, but they still want you to smile? Make it make sense. So you’re supposed to constantly act happy, even though you’re miserable. You’re already being paid the lowest amount they can, and now they want you to act full time too. You’re not making anything close to what Ryan Reynolds made from Deadpool, so what’s the point? 

I could think of at least seventeen more reasons why you should never work a day of your life, but this writing job gives me a strict character limit, so I’ll spare you all of that. “So Alaina,” you might be asking, “how am I supposed to pay rent and buy food and everything else I need?” Simple. Become a TikTok influencer. Or get an OnlyFans. Anything that ensures that you don’t become a slave to capitalism and Jeffrey Bezos, which are the same thing. As long as you’re famous and beloved, you’ll have work and be rich, which is why that’s my five-year plan, and should be yours as well. You’re welcome. 

Alaina McCall writes things. They are going to be a famous writer very soon. Or they’re going to cry. You can reach them at mccallalaina@gmail.com