If you're under 30 and if you have a college degree...Good Luck!

Isn't this the fucking truth?

When I was hired on at the furniture store in January 2007, I started out as a lowly office associate. I answered phone calls, took payments, and scheduled appointments. I had just graduated from a nationally known four-year school with a Double Major. Still, despite all my education, I was relegated to entry level $7.50 an hour job. In fact, with the exception of the current Store Manager (who enjoyed golfing instead of working), not a single other employee had as much education as myself. I bit the bullet and worked the job that I felt was very beneath me.

Within two months the country club General Manager was axed, new guy with no college education to speak of was put in his place, and I was promoted to handle the calls of customers before they got to upper management (which effectively made me mid-management). I also got a whopping $1.00 more per hour raise. Over the next several months I dealt with other employees who felt slighted out of a promotion even though they had been there much longer than myself (the head office associate had been there around seven years...answering phones...that's right S-E-V-E-N years).

Rumors spread like wild fire. I was making $40,000 a year was one of them. Someone else heard it was a lot more than that. That goes to show you the uneducated really don't know a goddamn thing. They talk a lot and make shit up.

Let me tell you, $8.50 was not worth doing this job. All day long you had people call up, bitch, complain about their delivery or pick up that day (or from a few days ago...it just slipped their mind to call...uh huh). Most of the complaints seemed to result from not inspecting the delivery loads. I voiced my complaints to upper management and nothing changed.

Three months after that my performance was reviewed and I received another whopping $1.00 more per hour raise to put me at $9.50. When I was asked if that raise seemed sufficient my answer was a no. I said my work was much more valued than that, at least $11 or $12 an hour at the minimum. His response was there was no way he could do that. I replied that was fine, I'll take the raise but I would also have to start looking for a new job, I was making far below my educational value.

In no time at all one of the two top managers was fired and I received that promotion. I asked for $35,000 a year and got it. I wasn't living like a king but at least I could afford groceries and after I saved my money some, an apartment.

It wasn't like the promotion went over well with everyone but now, I didn't have to care. I was in charge when I worked and if you didn't like it, join the unemployed. No one ever knew my salary until I left my job. It was whispered I made close to $50,000, in fact most of the employees believed that. At least I was being valued correctly and fairly. I earned the respect of the employees over time and nearly everyone was on board with my promotion.

Flash foward, this GM leaves for Chicago, new GM comes in without a meeting with myself or the other assistant manager. Hell, we weren't even considered for the fucking job. Six months ago we held meetings about the company growing. Now we were losing money so no meetings anymore, the new guy will just show up and everyone will just have to like it.

I had figured out after working there for a little while that this was a company that promoted based on seniority when it came to the real money positions. If you took it in the ass for a relatively long period of time (four years or more...unless you're the owner's son) it convinced the company that you really wanted a decent paying job and you would kiss ass, turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to emotional abuse and stress then you deserved it.

Something most people will find out about General Managers of retail stores or restaurants is they're all a bunch of premadonnas and think the universe revolves around their little slice of the world. In order to acquire that position you have to do something extra, something unspoken. It's the equivalent of a bad hazing. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but it really isn't worth it.

I slaved over this store. I broke my back motivating sales associates, warehouse personnel, keeping the peace, closing sales, coaching associates. Didn't matter. It never would. You do a lot of the work, the guy in charge will get the credit. It's up to him (let's not fuck around here, it is almost never a her) to give you any credit, a pat on the back, or an atta-boy. One thing though, atta-boys don't cash at the bank. Atta-boys don't add inches to your dick. Pats on the back don't mean shit. Put your money where your mouth is...they never will. These guys won't forget their five-to-ten year hazing to make a decent living. They're not about to make it any easier for anyone else.

I'm starting to think this is why most companies don't hire college graduates. While it's already apparent to me that most of them think you have pay them more from the outset (which you do), they don't get hired because most people don't like hiring someone smarter than them. Or who has something they don't.

They'll never admit this nor will they admit that they're not as smart as college graduates. They'll make arguments for possessing more "common sense" (the retard's equivalent of an education...think about it) or having more "experience" in said area (translation: laying down and taking it in the ass for X number of years) but they know deep down that this person is just as qualified to run the place as they are, especially when they "learn the ropes."

I once applied for a job as a General Manager for a state-of-the-art movie theatre. I wouldn't be offered head honcho position there since I hadn't "learned the ropes" there or possessed "movie theatre experience." What was I thinking all these years? I could've skipped college and the huge cost associated with it, kept my brain in the stone age (also known as a GED or a High School Diploma), and just started out working as a movie theatre associate. I could've learned the trade every day...picking up trash, cleaning the seats, popping popcorn, pouring drinks, selling tickets, and carrying a flash light. Maybe after a while I could load the film or even better, make a schedule for the retard graduates. Why hadn't someone told me this before?

I was still being considered for a "supervisor position" which entailed watching the peons pour drinks, pop popcorn, and telling people "have a nice evening" after they shelled out half a day's pay for overpriced candy and soda. No wonder they don't sell beer at a movie theatre...you think it's overpriced at professional sports games? Hell, you'd spend your whole paycheck on booze watching movies!

Back to GMs taking it in the ass. For over a year I worked at a job getting yelled at by customers and figuring out "solutions" to problems I had already presented remedies to prevent from happening. Something else you'll find out...GMs don't like anyone else's ideas except their own. So what I had to deal with shitty people? If I quit, he'd be the smartest monkey in the zoo again!

Well, spending time away from the love of my life really started to suck so I transferred under a different position in Indianapolis after 17 months. All I wanted to hear from the GM? Don't go. I want you to stay, we need you here. That's all I wanted and that's when I discovered the worst part of GMs...they don't need anyone but themselves. So what if the whole store hates them? They run shit here! You just work here! (that's a modification of Denzel Washington's line at the end of Training Day "I'm the PO-lice! I run shit here, you just live here!"

After a week of being treated like a teenager and someone far too young to understand the definition of responsibility (even though the last 8 months I worked as the Assistant Manager/direct supervisor of the sales associates we were up 11% over the previous year) my new position was phased out. You can still work here as a pick up associates loading out merchandise though! Translation: take this job because there will be no severance package!

An almost maxed out credit card later (that figures, years of responsible credit history, bill paying, and early payments) I became a Branch Manager of H&R Block. A $35,000 year job would really be something now! I'm stuck, in a Wal-Mart...the one Wal-Mart where store management does not give a shit rather I'm here or not. Every other Wal-Mart H&R Block has a kiosk in? Store management loves them! They'll do whatever they can to help them out!

So not only did I graduate from a prestigious nationally known university, not only did I take the 69 hour tax course and passed with a very high score, not only have I excelled everywhere when most others would choose to fail, not only did I have a large hand in increasing sales at a furniture store when the economy has sucked and no one is buying furniture...I'm still having to prove my worth surrounded by retard graduates cooing and kawing and ooking that they bang on their drums the loudest in the fucking zoo! (translation for the slow: they run their little kiosk better than anyone)

I have never worked at Wal-Mart, nor do I ever plan to do so, and with good reason. Store management here thinks they have their own spot in the galaxy reserved just for them and their Hyundai in the parking lot (this one guy even shows his curly chest hair). All the other employees? They're miserable! They hate their jobs! I'm considering polling them to see how many of them share my misfortune and terribly bad luck.

On a side note, I found a Wii Fit here for the regular retail price! HA! Fuck you eBay and Amazon! Someone just ripped ass here too and screamed "Yeeeowww Boy!"

Oh yeah, most of the customers fit in with store management at Wal-Mart too (since Taco Bell manager's are WAAAAY higher in the food chain). Some fugly the other day was carrying her newly picked out pair of red and pink polka dot panties that could never fit over her blubbery legs. Didn't think to get a cart or maybe a basket and conceal that tasty vision so the rest of us could maybe fall asleep a little easier that night. Carried them around on the hanger, trying her damndest to maybe induce half a boner.

Anyway, maybe I'll get an interview for one of three jobs I applied at today! One of them actually included a phone number! I forgot what following up even is anymore, usually you just get reject emails in between all the insurance companies wanting you to be in an exciting and limitless industry.

Maybe I'll just go back to school and never finish. You don't have to make payments on loans as long as you're attending. At least I can take some satisfaction in the fact that my hiring practices and standards while at my previous job did not reflect those of every other GM I've known (except for when I worked at McDonald's in high school...they'll take anybody...well, except this one time these two guys that we're known drug addicts and dealers applied there, I let my manager know all about them and they were probably the first ever McDonald's rejects I've ever heard of...plus one of them really stunk, I wondered if he ever took a shower).

A few months before I left I had someone with a similar college education apply to be a driver. He had a communications degree from a good school. Still, that wasn't a free ride according to my GM. A grueling two hour interview determined that. He wouldn't agree with my assessment. He's got a college degree...from a good school...with no criminal history...at all...he can do whatever he wants to do here. "Well...we just need to make sure."

Make sure of what? Oh yeah, he's not an ass hugger, he has no felonies or misdemeanors, he's smarter than most everyone that works here. And until he's 30, he has no experience.

Add paranoia to the list of qualifications for General Manager.