Venting

I just noticed that something weird happened with my banner. I'll have to play with my template this weekend.

But that, dear readers, is not what I'm venting about. Instead, I am venting about people who refuse to grow. the. hell. up.

There is a blog I read on a pretty regular basis. I found this guy because I enjoyed reading his fan fiction. And while many of you may be saying that is in and of itself a sign of immaturity...shut up.

Anyhow, when I first started reading this guy's blog, he was a graduate student and a TA. I think it is perfectly fine for such a person to be just doing that, and sponging off his/her parents while doing it, if the parents can afford it (and his can).

But he has since graduated. He spent a year after graduation basically sitting around his parents' house doing nothing, then he decided he wanted to move to large midwestern city (think of one with two baseball teams). So he did, with no job. Mom and Dad paid his rent for a while. Then he took a temp job, which he quit because he didn't like it. So then he bummed around for a few more weeks before finding a job in a theater box office. He lost that job because he mouthed off to the boss because she wanted him to do something he thought was beneath him. So now he has an unpaid, part time internship, with Mommy and Daddy supporting him.

Where do I begin?

First of all, almost all of us who have graduated with a degree in a usless, liberal arts field (his is theater) have had to take jobs we hate to make ends meet. Do you think I enjoyed doing data entry or being an administrative assistant? No, but I had bills to pay on my own. I didn't have a mother and father to sponge off of, and even if they had been alive, I wouldn't have done it, except to maybe live at home. But I still would have contributed to household expenses. Sometimes it is part of being a grown up to suck it up.

Second, along those same lines, every adult I know has been asked to do something that they think is beneath them at work. I hated it when my boss at my last job sent me to pick up her lunch, or drive something out to her house (which was about 50 miles away) because she didn't feel like coming into the office. But I did it, because sometimes you have to put up with some...crap to stay gainfully employed. Most of us just don't have the option to say, "take this job and shove it," because we don't feel like running an errand for the boss.

Third, and unpaid internship? At nearly 30? I know the theater is hard to break into, but still. I would be embarrassed and humiliated to take a job like that and depend on my parents at that age. But this guy, he uses their money to buy completely frivolous things, gourmet food, plane tickets to visit friends, lets them buy him plane tickets home, etc. And they allow it, and even encourage it!

Oh, he claims to feel guilty, and he complains about their involvement in his life. Well, they are financing his life. I'd expect to be involved as well. But he continues to accept their money and their gifts (including a new iPhone) freely and willingly.

Maybe I just don't understand how the other half lives. My parents didn't sponge off of their parents, and in fact took care of them when they were old. Not that there was any money to do any sponging, anyway. I just don't know if I could do that if my parents were alive and had money. Doesn't some developmental psychologist say that separation from your parents is an important milestone?

I don't know. Maybe I'm being unfairly judgmental. I probably am, in fact. But it irks me every time I read this guy's blog and see him talking about his unpaid internship in one breath and the new toy (or fancy food or plane ticket to wherever) he his buying in the other. I should stop reading his blog for the sake of my sanity, but where is the fun in that?

Boy, is that a twisted statement!