Occupational Studies

By Jeff Namian

So what do you do?

How many times have you been asked this by a complete stranger? My father's standard response was "I herd sheep."

He didn't think it was anyone's business. Next they'll want your academic credentials and GPA. It's assumed everyone goes to school to manifest their life. Not so. Education opens your brain so you can think for yourself. Then you're ready to start the real project. You, not what you do.

I held some crazy ass jobs. Many were in higher ed where I saw the story behind the scenery. The ability to benefit is a guideline for students to see if the cost of a degree correlates to a viable salary. It also measures the candidate's access to resources needed to complete the program. Long story short. That ain't happening. Higher education is big business. The cost of a Bachelor's Degree from Columbia University is $278,754.

Occupational Studies navigates pathways that lead us somewhere we never imagined. The twists and turns of my career did in fact shape me, but they're not who I am. Most of the time I spent in higher education exposed me to some shenanigans. The ability to benefit didn't necessarily pertain to a student's success as much as the school's wallet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798890613103

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Introduction

Odd Jobs

Let's Beautify the World

Give Til it Hurts

Community College

How Are You Feeling?

The Conservatory

Shotgun AA

Odder Jobs

Why People Do What They Do

The Aftermath

About the author

cover.jpg

Occupational Studies

Jeff Namian

Copyright © 2023 Jeff Namian

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-89061-309-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89061-310-3 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Introduction

I retired from the nine to five grind the second I turned sixty. It's the earliest people in higher education can start a draw on their pension. You never see grandiose salaries in higher ed, but the payoff commences once you leave.

After thirty or forty years, everyone's ready to jump ship.

During my career, I worked at a variety of institutions:

Inner-city community college (grass roots of higher ed)

Graduate school of social work (a worthy contribution)

A posh interior design school (day care for rich wives)

School of nursing (motivated by a great job market)

A conservatory (venomously brutal American Idol)

Another nursing school (corrupt)

Each school's focus determined the complexion of their students and administration. While social workers were concerned about the world, interior designers were fluent in chintz. One would tend to think the atmosphere at a music conservatory would be creative and inspiring. You wouldn't expect the anxiety, competitiveness and serious mental health issues that prevail. While most schools have academic advisors, a conservatory employs full-time psychiatrists. Truth.

Occupational Studies puts higher ed under a magnifying glass to see if an ability to benefit is attainable with today's outrageous tuition and stringent admissions policies.

Do you really need to go to college? There is a huge student loan debt problem in this country. I think there's going to need to be a drastic change in how these universities work. And I also think we've lambasted the trades for way too long. You can make six figures as a welder.

____ Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of Reddit

Odd Jobs

I started working when I was ten up until about two hours ago, as long as pulling weeds counts.

Delivering newspapers. My poor customers. Some days I'd be so late I delivered Tuesday's news on a Wednesday. I learned to clean suede by carefully scraping it with a knife at a dry cleaner. I got to clean Ellen Burstyn's suede jacket just a year after The Exorcist, so she was at the top of her game. I sold women's shoes in a department store during the holidays. Talk about vain and needy.

I've always been a seven, insisted Miss Calculated as I shoved her meaty hoof into a golf hole.

I babysat two completely outta control kids whose parents were bartenders. I did this in between semesters when I was home in Connecticut. I often slept overnight when their 2:00 AM curfew turned into a heavily fueled dusk arrival. Lots of apologies and hush money tips stuffed my Christmas stocking.

Neither of their kids were toilet trained even though they were eight and five. They'd start squirming in their chairs, and I'd scream RUN TO THE BATHROOM NOW, then watch 'em slush through a pile of their own making trapped in a deep white shag rug. Clean up on Aisle Shitsville. Bring a clothespin (for your nose).

Once the kids were in bed, I'd sneak around their parents' bedroom and find lots of fun stuff: pot, poppers, pills, blow, hand cuffs and what I now know to be a dildo but at the time assumed to be a beating stick. I experimented with most of the goods, minus the beating stick. I usually had a lot of time to kill. Then I'd boogie on down to the basement and dance the night away to the Bee Gee's.

*****

Back on campus, I found a job posted on the job board in the student union. Her name was Evelyn and she had a spacious apartment on Central Park West. She was about eighty. Very well kept and smart. I'd take the train down after my last class then walk her dog, eat dinner with her and maybe screw in a lightbulb or line a cupboard shelf.

She loved hearing what I learned that day, which would lead to conversations that helped me digest the material more clearly. We'd watch Merv Griffin at 8:00. She'd wind down around 9:00 and I would study. It was understood that if for any reason I didn't want to take the subway back to the Bronx, there was always a spare bedroom for me. I think she preferred when I stayed. Great job. Very cool woman who was instrumental in helping me mature into a personable young man.

She also introduced me to a higher societal level I never would have experienced. She attended openings at museums and galleries, charity events, auctions and the like. To pass as a proper escort, she brought me to a tailor, who measured me and tailored a custom suit and dress shirts. I was eighteen or nineteen so it was a lot to absorb. What I wouldn't give to fit in that suit today. The finest tweed, silk-lined pants, single vent and notch lapels.

White linen French cuff-linked shirts. Cufflinks from Van Cleef & Arpels. Kensington Oxford semi-brogue shoes crafted from French calfskin. Again, eighteen or nineteen!

We spent many nights talking about old Manhattan, her glory days. She had two husbands. She truly loved the first but he died just three years after they married. She remarried partly to remain in the upper echelon she was accustomed to. Back in her day, most women didn't work. They provided their husbands with a home to entertain in and of course children to complete the family photo.

But she wasn't in love the second time around. She was lonely, especially once her kids left for college.

We talked about my aspirations (quick subject as I had less than zero at the time) and familiarized me with the finer spots in Manhattan I would never have been able to get in on my own. So this wasn't really a job, not like most of my other classmates had.

They smelled like French fries.

I did this gig for a couple of years. Toward the start of a new fall semester, I checked in with her only to find out that she'd passed over the summer. Her sons sold her apartment and all its contents, including the suit with my initials embroidered inside the silk lining.

So that cushy job was over and done with.

During my previous networking as a non-sexual escort, I made a few connections. Malcolm was a party planner with an exotic flair. He was regularly written up in the New York Times.