Master of Ceremonies

He CAN be taught!

After enough time passed, I attained a college degree. 

Considering most of what was taught was obscure, inapplicable, virtually useless, and definitely not enabling you to become a professional, or even employed, I was very afraid.

What could I actually do? What did I actually know that was useful? All I had was a stupid paper saying I was qualified! They had given you a big graduation and stamped on your forehead the word "educated", but were you really?

I surveyed my options.

I started a little business with a few friends at my level. We named it after a programming construct. We mostly had "jackasses" for clients (where it concerned money), or "losers" bent on using us for our technological acumen. As long as the little cash was steady, I was happy.

While managing my little business, I got a call from elsewhere. There were people interested in hiring me. How did they even know I existed? Well, every year, the university invited prospective employers to meet with the "soon-to‐be-graduated" in a comfortable setting. Apparently, the crew that interviewed me was impressed. I had pretty much forgotten about all of that because the job interviewers took months to give me a callback. Considering I had recently attained a degree, I thought it was prudent to check them out. My little business wasn't really paying the bills, and the in-fighting was getting worse. I was curious what they would be willing to pay me.

During this time, I received an email congratulating me for getting into the postgraduate degree programme of my choice. Overjoyed, I realized that after lots of bad luck, and failing to meet my potential several times over, nearly ending up working in a supermarket as... whatever, I decided that I'd still run my business, and simply go to the inquiring job —to politely decline their offer. Imagine that! Me having the ability to turn down a job!

Upon speaking with the main interviewer, I was ambushed and engaged in a frank and open second interview. It was very technical. They orally tested how good I was at programming. The second interviewer in the room was obviously the taskmaster. He asked the "tough" computer science questions. After a grueling two-hour "interrogation", they told me that I got the job. The taskmaster grunted that he thought I was weak on databases. That was quite true. I have never been all that keen on database technology.

After that interview, I got a call stating my yearly salary etc. Politely, I turned down the post immediately. I just had much better things to occupy my time (like my new postgraduate degree programme). 

It is not to say that the salary was too small, that wasn't it at all. I just thought that it would be more prudent to attain more education before re-entering the job market.