So now that you're a few years out and you're probably a few months into the rest of your life I think it's an appropriate time to look back. The conversation starter for this post is things you wish you knew as a freshmen in college; and might tell to someone about to enter college life.
While you're actually swimming in the kiddie pool that is Freshman year, your life is all about meeting people, living on your own, probably performing a make-over on your life, and exploring the boundaries of your personality. But something that I wish I knew is that Freshmen year, like the other 3 years, is also about classes and results. As freshmen year is 1 of 4/5 years of college it's probably about 25% of your grades in college. If you screw the pooch in classes during your freshmen year there is little that you can do to elevate the average of all of your grades in college. While, I feel that this average has little relevance in daily life, it comes up. Like any other grade, it's a way to objectively rank a 22 year old with 0 experience. Have no fear, you will have to tell someone your GPA. So my first lesson is, do whatever it takes to ensure that you get at least moderate grades. Since I don't want you to miss out on a few sessions of Sunday drinking or spontaneous Monday night pajama-jammy-jams, Shoot for B's. You can improve on B's.
When you are out of the library meeting new people you'll probably be drinking a few brews, and sometimes you'll drink too many. This excess drinking is fantastic, but it leads to hangovers, which are not fantastic. It's the hangover that leads former high school athletes to become current college fatties. Even if you aren't recruited to play basketball at Duke, you SHOULD remain active. When you graduate and start the rest of your life, you're going to want to get away from your cubicle from time to time. If over the last 4 years your soccer-legs have become slow-walker-legs, getting away from the desk becomes quite a daunting thing. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what you do, just keep some form of activity in your life and fresh air in your lungs. Your athletic abilities probably are not so natural that they will be there when you want them in 5 years. Also, if you weren't very athletic in high school, college is a wonderful place filled with teams/clubs/people that require limited athletic ability or prior experience. The right fit is there.
Once you graduate, drinking doesn't go away. In some respects it's actually more intense after college because your tolerance falls off a cliff, so learning how to stay active AND party with your friends is extremely valuable. Don't become one of those people who crumble when they are hung over. This is no way to live your post-college life. A hangover is not an excuse to cry.
College is all about exploring. Take some zany internships, go to Europe with no money, meet the "other" people. But remember to pull some grades, stay remotely fit, and learn how to live a good life.
Quit talking about Obama and talk about this with your friends. Post-up some of your lessons.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Your Theme Song
This weeks conversation starter is bold. I mean, this baby is heavy. So maybe you want to go read something else for a second, get a little warm up, I don't want you tweak after reading on this space.
Ok now that you're back from blog warm up laps. I'll hit you with it.
Pick your theme song. The song will be played every time you walk into a room, work included. Before you get crazy, there are a few rules. If you walk into a room with more than one person, the most appropriate song will be played. This rule is known as the "how cool are your friends rule". If your friends are cool enough, a totally inappropriate song should play almost every time you walk into a room. This will happen because you've all chosen such ridiculous songs that the mechanism that chooses will be befuddled by the lack of taste in your song choices. Also, you can change your entrance song twice a year. I believe that everyone should go through phases, such as the "spandex base layer - every day" phase, or the "adding -eze to all words" phase. Having a temporary theme song will assist you phase your way through life. "Remember when i was in my competitive-eating and 'Crazy Train' phase!!"
Right off the bat you should rule a few songs out: 'Black Bird' by the Beatles, or any of the other touching covers that exist. This beautiful, melodic song is too tasteful. People will assume you are really deep and tasteful, and you'll surely disappoint them. Also, the entire Creed library of songs should be out. There is almost no way to recover from an entrance to "With Arms Wide Open."
Some good options are: 'Why don't we do it in the road' : why even go to a bar? The ladies will get the message. Also, '...Baby one more time' by Britney Spears says your nostalgic for the good ol days when craziness was hidden behind pure hotness and personal issues were handled in private rehab offices.
So let me know what you'd chose as your temporary theme song. I also suggest asking your friends and coworkers.
Ok now that you're back from blog warm up laps. I'll hit you with it.
Pick your theme song. The song will be played every time you walk into a room, work included. Before you get crazy, there are a few rules. If you walk into a room with more than one person, the most appropriate song will be played. This rule is known as the "how cool are your friends rule". If your friends are cool enough, a totally inappropriate song should play almost every time you walk into a room. This will happen because you've all chosen such ridiculous songs that the mechanism that chooses will be befuddled by the lack of taste in your song choices. Also, you can change your entrance song twice a year. I believe that everyone should go through phases, such as the "spandex base layer - every day" phase, or the "adding -eze to all words" phase. Having a temporary theme song will assist you phase your way through life. "Remember when i was in my competitive-eating and 'Crazy Train' phase!!"
Right off the bat you should rule a few songs out: 'Black Bird' by the Beatles, or any of the other touching covers that exist. This beautiful, melodic song is too tasteful. People will assume you are really deep and tasteful, and you'll surely disappoint them. Also, the entire Creed library of songs should be out. There is almost no way to recover from an entrance to "With Arms Wide Open."
Some good options are: 'Why don't we do it in the road' : why even go to a bar? The ladies will get the message. Also, '...Baby one more time' by Britney Spears says your nostalgic for the good ol days when craziness was hidden behind pure hotness and personal issues were handled in private rehab offices.
So let me know what you'd chose as your temporary theme song. I also suggest asking your friends and coworkers.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Get Yourself a Ring Tone
So I decided to write this one about me. Yea suckers, that’s right…
But you get to participate.
I was asked to identify a skill that I can do better than the average room of 100 people. The thought of which is worthy of significant consideration. Imagine this: you, wait... imagine me standing in a hotel conference room with carpeted walls and a disco ball over-head, with 100 randomly selected people from the worlds ever growing population. A suited gentleman, i can only assume is the organizer of this fandango, stands before us with a mega-phone and tells us "that every material and prop ever invented is on hand in the next carpet-walled conference room and that we (the people) will be asked to perform a skill that we feel we can perform more better than the other 99 people in the room. However, should one of the other 99 people prove that they can perform the skill better than you; you have to actually perform a task from the book 'Would you Rather.' The task will be selected at random, and there will be no negotiations, you'll have to actually chose one and do it." Given the world of opportunity presented by this challenge, I've taken some time to consider some things that I'm really fuckin good at.
The first one that came to mind was attending large parties that I'm sure I know fewer than 2% of the people in attendance. Knowing that I don't know anyone at a party literally guarantees that I'm going to have a total blast. (The skill here is my ability to Rock It at a party alone). I'll dance with old people, talk with the manly crowd, mingle with the young ladies, and try to lick the ice sculpture before the night is through. However the thing that makes me so damn good at this is that I know I'm not being judged by anyone. If there were even a possibility that someone were having a better time (the would be victor of the challenge) than I would definitely not try to lick the sculpture. Too risky.
Then I thought, I really kick ass at inventing games never before seen by the human race using only primitive materials used as building materials in modern society. I once created a game where we'd throw pieced of asphalt at bee hive that was perched on a tree next to a road (made of asphalt). The only rules of the game were that the first person to get stung by a bee lost the round (at the time only one round needed to be played as the loser was guaranteed to start crying uncontrollably and begging for mommy). The skill of the game was to stand as far away as possible and still be able to nail the bee hive, so that one of your less accurate friends would inevitably get attacked by a swarm of bees. The skill of 'inventing a game never before seen by the human race using only primitive materials used as building materials in modern society' is easily derailed by someone from a developing country simply lying about the fact that said game had been played for years in their homeland. Assholes.
After racking my brain for a few seconds, I was distracted by a escalating beep a few feet from me in my cube. An alarm immediately went off in my head and my right foot instinctively raised off the ground. The alarming beep sounded exactly like a radar detector I once used on a road trip to Vermont. This awoke my senses and also made me realize the thing I can do better than anyone else in a random room of 100 people. I can identify sounds, be it songs, grunts, clanks, cranks, or smacks, I can almost always put a sound to an object or action. So bring it on 99 randomly selected people from the worlds growing population. I dare you play 3 seconds of a Neyo ring tone and identify it faster than me... You can't.
This is where you come into play. Stop thinking about other people or your stupid job for a second and ask yourself what your skill would be if you were in that room. Leave it on the message board. Maybe someday we'll all be in the same room and we can challenge each other. Or just randomly when we're on the street you can "throw down." (i just did it, i just created a game out of no where...)
But you get to participate.
I was asked to identify a skill that I can do better than the average room of 100 people. The thought of which is worthy of significant consideration. Imagine this: you, wait... imagine me standing in a hotel conference room with carpeted walls and a disco ball over-head, with 100 randomly selected people from the worlds ever growing population. A suited gentleman, i can only assume is the organizer of this fandango, stands before us with a mega-phone and tells us "that every material and prop ever invented is on hand in the next carpet-walled conference room and that we (the people) will be asked to perform a skill that we feel we can perform more better than the other 99 people in the room. However, should one of the other 99 people prove that they can perform the skill better than you; you have to actually perform a task from the book 'Would you Rather.' The task will be selected at random, and there will be no negotiations, you'll have to actually chose one and do it." Given the world of opportunity presented by this challenge, I've taken some time to consider some things that I'm really fuckin good at.
The first one that came to mind was attending large parties that I'm sure I know fewer than 2% of the people in attendance. Knowing that I don't know anyone at a party literally guarantees that I'm going to have a total blast. (The skill here is my ability to Rock It at a party alone). I'll dance with old people, talk with the manly crowd, mingle with the young ladies, and try to lick the ice sculpture before the night is through. However the thing that makes me so damn good at this is that I know I'm not being judged by anyone. If there were even a possibility that someone were having a better time (the would be victor of the challenge) than I would definitely not try to lick the sculpture. Too risky.
Then I thought, I really kick ass at inventing games never before seen by the human race using only primitive materials used as building materials in modern society. I once created a game where we'd throw pieced of asphalt at bee hive that was perched on a tree next to a road (made of asphalt). The only rules of the game were that the first person to get stung by a bee lost the round (at the time only one round needed to be played as the loser was guaranteed to start crying uncontrollably and begging for mommy). The skill of the game was to stand as far away as possible and still be able to nail the bee hive, so that one of your less accurate friends would inevitably get attacked by a swarm of bees. The skill of 'inventing a game never before seen by the human race using only primitive materials used as building materials in modern society' is easily derailed by someone from a developing country simply lying about the fact that said game had been played for years in their homeland. Assholes.
After racking my brain for a few seconds, I was distracted by a escalating beep a few feet from me in my cube. An alarm immediately went off in my head and my right foot instinctively raised off the ground. The alarming beep sounded exactly like a radar detector I once used on a road trip to Vermont. This awoke my senses and also made me realize the thing I can do better than anyone else in a random room of 100 people. I can identify sounds, be it songs, grunts, clanks, cranks, or smacks, I can almost always put a sound to an object or action. So bring it on 99 randomly selected people from the worlds growing population. I dare you play 3 seconds of a Neyo ring tone and identify it faster than me... You can't.
This is where you come into play. Stop thinking about other people or your stupid job for a second and ask yourself what your skill would be if you were in that room. Leave it on the message board. Maybe someday we'll all be in the same room and we can challenge each other. Or just randomly when we're on the street you can "throw down." (i just did it, i just created a game out of no where...)
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Interns
An intern story
As our country celebrates another year of independence from warm beer, and taxation without representation many work havens open their doors to bushy tailed college students who take their first wobbly steps in the corporate world as interns. Some of these interns come from prominent families, and top schools while others have inherited a hard working, "this is a chance of a lifetime", cannot-blow-this mentality, while others, I'm quite convinced, arose one morning dawned some pleated pants and tasseled loafers and decided "yea sure, internship!?"
Without exception every college-aged intern brings to the office a youthful perspective on the stuff that has otherwise become mundane. Suddenly the understocked and dusty supply room becomes an arcade of excitement as interns bounce from the bin of over sized erasers to the shelves of multi-sized legal pads to a plethora of highlighters and paper-clips. Smiles dance across their faces as if they've found gold in the kitchen when shown the free coffee and water jug. And what once was the quiet (productive) hour between 9:45am - 10:45am is filled with hydraulic explosions made by adjusting the height of ones chair. These are things that you cannot hate an intern for.
With their naive wonderment and joy, interns also bring other gifts to the work place. First and foremost are the ancient secrets passed down among the successful generations of their family and friends: "The O'Mally Rules to Success in Business". This set of rules, not specific to the O'Mally clan, is sure to fire some people up. One report of an intern in London, has a father telling his son that successful bankers talk and scream at/to their computers. Since successful bankers have done this in the past, the intern has chosen to do this today. No doubt, the boss will hear various points of the conversation and draft a job offer.
Another good lesson from the family guide to success is the inherited executive stubbornness of their successful mothers/fathers. It is true, that many interns come from powerful families who have worked incredibly hard to attain a certain status. BUT, the interns job title is not CEO - it's just intern. As such a common gripe of interns is the classic scenario of "I did not go to school for this". When in fact the interns statement is false. This is exactly what the intern went to so school for. It's a job where you use your finger tips more than your biceps, so pile it on.
Finally, many interns subscribe to other success guides in addition to their own families. Peter Lynch, Jack Welch, Warren Buffet - the list is very impressive and all of their books are certainly worthy a gander. The age old intern adage of "'first on the floor, last to leave" is tied to books like these. I implore interns to work efficiently, and ask for more work, work until 10 every night if there is work there. But sitting at your desk reading espn.com articles for 6 hours doesn't seem to be an efficient use of time. But that's just me. Honestly, it stresses me out knowing that Joe Intern kills himself to get to the office just to sit around.
Something to consider discussing with your interns (or if your an intern yourself), is that fact that every guide to something is created by someone that is already successful. What worked for them probably wont work exactly the same for you. For instance, screaming at your monitor doesn't make you look busy or important - unless you are actually busy and important.
No one writes a success story until their done. Isn't it possible that they've glossed over most of the details in order to be perceived as more successful? People want lists, and checks, people buy certainty and that is what successful people can provide... a list of things that they did. But buying their biography only ensures one thing, you'll know where they've been. Be successful (and happy by the way) by keeping your head up, being consistent to the people around you and being open to people and ideas.
Leave a good intern, work story on the message page.
As our country celebrates another year of independence from warm beer, and taxation without representation many work havens open their doors to bushy tailed college students who take their first wobbly steps in the corporate world as interns. Some of these interns come from prominent families, and top schools while others have inherited a hard working, "this is a chance of a lifetime", cannot-blow-this mentality, while others, I'm quite convinced, arose one morning dawned some pleated pants and tasseled loafers and decided "yea sure, internship!?"
Without exception every college-aged intern brings to the office a youthful perspective on the stuff that has otherwise become mundane. Suddenly the understocked and dusty supply room becomes an arcade of excitement as interns bounce from the bin of over sized erasers to the shelves of multi-sized legal pads to a plethora of highlighters and paper-clips. Smiles dance across their faces as if they've found gold in the kitchen when shown the free coffee and water jug. And what once was the quiet (productive) hour between 9:45am - 10:45am is filled with hydraulic explosions made by adjusting the height of ones chair. These are things that you cannot hate an intern for.
With their naive wonderment and joy, interns also bring other gifts to the work place. First and foremost are the ancient secrets passed down among the successful generations of their family and friends: "The O'Mally Rules to Success in Business". This set of rules, not specific to the O'Mally clan, is sure to fire some people up. One report of an intern in London, has a father telling his son that successful bankers talk and scream at/to their computers. Since successful bankers have done this in the past, the intern has chosen to do this today. No doubt, the boss will hear various points of the conversation and draft a job offer.
Another good lesson from the family guide to success is the inherited executive stubbornness of their successful mothers/fathers. It is true, that many interns come from powerful families who have worked incredibly hard to attain a certain status. BUT, the interns job title is not CEO - it's just intern. As such a common gripe of interns is the classic scenario of "I did not go to school for this". When in fact the interns statement is false. This is exactly what the intern went to so school for. It's a job where you use your finger tips more than your biceps, so pile it on.
Finally, many interns subscribe to other success guides in addition to their own families. Peter Lynch, Jack Welch, Warren Buffet - the list is very impressive and all of their books are certainly worthy a gander. The age old intern adage of "'first on the floor, last to leave" is tied to books like these. I implore interns to work efficiently, and ask for more work, work until 10 every night if there is work there. But sitting at your desk reading espn.com articles for 6 hours doesn't seem to be an efficient use of time. But that's just me. Honestly, it stresses me out knowing that Joe Intern kills himself to get to the office just to sit around.
Something to consider discussing with your interns (or if your an intern yourself), is that fact that every guide to something is created by someone that is already successful. What worked for them probably wont work exactly the same for you. For instance, screaming at your monitor doesn't make you look busy or important - unless you are actually busy and important.
No one writes a success story until their done. Isn't it possible that they've glossed over most of the details in order to be perceived as more successful? People want lists, and checks, people buy certainty and that is what successful people can provide... a list of things that they did. But buying their biography only ensures one thing, you'll know where they've been. Be successful (and happy by the way) by keeping your head up, being consistent to the people around you and being open to people and ideas.
Leave a good intern, work story on the message page.
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