Backup Plans for Jobless PhDs

[mmcgeach at csail.mit.edu (Michael McGeachie)]

GSB's Variety Editors are pleased to bring you another installation of our
runaway success series: Backup Plans for Jobless PhDs!  

Have you graduated and found the job market is not what you expected it to
be?  Feeling overqualified for positions most in need of staffing?  Or maybe
you're not done yet but you're running out of support for your indentured
servitude?  Received too many threatening letters from the department head
asking for your thesis/thesis proposal/RQE/immediate vacation of the
premises?  This week we consider how your graduate student experience can be
an asset applying for StarBucks(tm) Barista positions.

The StarBucks(tm) Experience(tm) provides a number of benefits former
graduate students will appreciate.  StarBucks(tm) Experience(tm)
Participants can expect 

1. opportunities for promotion
2. a free meal for each shift you work
3. free parking for cars and bikes
4. higher pay for employees who work after 9pm
5. a workplace close to residence halls
6. to be part of a successful team
7. make new friends*

With these benefits, I don't know how this job wouldn't appeal to graduate
students.  I don't know about you, but I haven't been promoted in 7 years.
And who wouldn't like free food?  Maybe #3 means you don't have to park your
bike on top of your computer any more.  Pay increases after 9pm?  Who even
gets to work before then?  And benefits #6 and #7 may appeal to you if your
current friends include only Shakey, Cog, and Kismet, and aren't meeting all
your emotional needs.**


But how can you be sure to land the job?  Let's go over questions employers
frequently ask:

What skills do you bring to StarBucks(tm)?

Foraging skills honed from years of free-food scavenging translates into
ability to adapt to new situations and circumstances.  Ability to sustain
oneself at the height of frugality lets me be as cautious with StarBucks(tm)
money as my own.  

What is your relevant work experience?

For the last few years I've spent a lot of time reading.  Doing some
occasional data entry.  Developing time management skills for an independent
work ethic.  Also building robots less complicated than the average espresso
machine.

Do you have any important interpersonal skills?

Ability to treat persons looking like homeless people as though they might
be important millionaires/geniuses/professors.  Further, we're well trained
in the strategic and defensive use of "Excuse me? Can I help you?"


If this doesn't convince you, maybe you'd rather have a career running
future installments of...




            +-                                                  -+
              girl scout benefit -+-  5:30 pm  -+- 32-G9 lounge
            +-                                                  -+

               For those coming from elsewhere: Building 32 is
                <http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection=32> 


*this list taken from actual application at:
http://www.uky.edu/DiningServices/employment.html
**Kismit is intended to fulfill the emotional needs of infants and young
toddlers, not the (arguably) more esoteric needs of 20-something
misanthropes.