D  e  s  e  r  t     E  x  p  o  s  u  r  e     September 2005

The Post-Undergrad Life

My brilliant career in the fitness-club business.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that college is where you learn the most out of life, or fool yourself with that book about how all knowledge needed is learned in kindergarten. What a load of crap. OK, people, it is mid-August, I got my BA from Vanderbilt in political science with a double in American and Southern Studies in May. I may have been a social-sciences kid but even I know that that is only uh. . . wait, gotta use my fingers here. . . uh. . . um. . . three months. I think I've gained more life knowledge in these three months than in the previous 21 years of my life.

As narcissistic as it is, here's what I've learned: Sometimes you've got to look out for number one first. I know I'm an awful person and that statement is probably going to send me straight to hell, I'm sure there are plenty of things that we've all done in our undergrad years that have already earned us a seat at that table down below. Now, I'm not a trusting person (that is a long story that I've explained to many a therapist, who all come to the same conclusion about my trust issues that I had already concluded, which is rather frustrating and can be the source of another column if necessary, and no it has nothing to do with my parents, whoa big sidetrack). Where was I? I don't trust people easily but I am also way too accommodating and like very much to take care of people. If you had asked me eight months ago where I would be now, I would have told you that I would be in Austin, Texas, with my boyfriend (now former). Why? Because he had a job there and I was going to go too. Who the hell cared where my future career would find me a job? I was going for him.

Not anymore. I probably lost a lot of job possibilities post-graduation because I had focused my search on such a small and specific area.

So he and I went splitsville, nothing bad, just sort of fell out of love and just into friendship (one of the few exes I can say that about, by the way). I decided to go to and was accepted into grad school at Vandy. I found out the day before graduation that I was accepted, so it was nice to tell people when they asked what I was doing after graduation. I had a plan. I was going to grad school for a master's that I didn't really know if I wanted--a masters in education in Organizational Leadership. It focuses a lot on higher education and non-profit work, but at the time I was unsure if that was where I wanted to be.

That was May 13. I had moved into a fabulous apartment and by the end of May I had found myself a job at a local fitness club working front counter, making a non-bill-paying eight bucks per hour. I had weird hours and plenty of time to make purses and other crafts with the money I didn't really have.

I was planning on keeping the job through grad school, picking up shifts to save up as much as I could--you know, my newfound outlook of looking out for number one. Then the president of the company asked me to be his personal assistant. I got a raise to $11 per hour and health care, which was music to this asthmatic's ears (although it had to be filtered through all the wheezing, as the heat and humidity here this summer in Nashville is atrocious). So I took the job --this was a no-brainer, or so I thought (cue the ominous music now).

Two weeks in, the president of the fitness company talked me out of grad school. I asked for a deferral. Three weeks in, I was officially his b-i-t. . . you know the rest. I was house-sitting for his dogs (which I never got paid for, might I add!); I was running errands all-over town; I was picking up his lunch. Now come on, y'all know me well enough through my columns to know that I am not the type of girl who takes orders well. This was so going against my "watch out for number-one" plan unless number-one was my boss. By week four he called me "immature" and unable to be "tasked" and I was like, "Um, what, excuse me, repeat, are you kidding?"

After a few more days of him questioning my character, I quit. I could not take another day of not making a difference. Not only was I insulted, I was bored and any job that has you that focused on one person is not for me. Plus, as ironic as this is, I gained weight sitting at a desk all day, which is insane since it was for a fitness club!

This quick turn of events made me do a lot of thinking, and crying, and I decided to go back to school after all. I had to do what was best for me and in the long run what would be best for me to be able to provide the best for those whose lives I want to improve. Ironic, isn't it? I have to be selfish to help others.

After I quit, the craziest 12 hours began. I had to un-defer my deferral. I had to put my financial aid into play. I had to get all my books and take care of all that fun (and expensive) school stuff and I had to find some way to pay my bills. I called everyone, I mean everyone, I could think of, looking for work on campus. There was only one graduate-student worker position open and it was clear that they had someone else in mind. I found all of this out between 10 a.m. when I said I was quitting and 1:45 p.m. when I left to go to the dentist (and I never went back to the fitness company, by the way). So it is 2:30, I'm at the dentist, I'm high on a cloud because I'm on nitrous, a man is shooting me in the jaw with Novocaine and then drilling in my mouth, I felt like he was looking for oil in there. So it's 3:00, I have no job, I'm about to enter into a year and a half of debt and the entire right side of my face is numb, swollen and just downright painful.

At 4:00, a little fabric shopping for a commissioned purse. It was fun to try to ask for measurements with half a working mouth. At 4:45 I'm pulling into the parking lot of my chiropractor (oh, yeah, during my time as a personal assistant I found out the my spine is corkscrewing up my spinal cord and my neck has no elasticity--no wonder I was in so much back pain). The phone rings. It's one of the deans; she has made up a graduate-student worker position just for me! How crazy is that?

Here's the Cliff's Notes on this column. Sometimes, as hard as it is and as awful as it may sound, you have to have your own back. Bowing down to some crazy little leprechaun just to earn a buck probably won't benefit you in the long run. Sometimes you have to take care of yourself to ensure that you can take care of others. Sometimes you just have to have nitrous at the dentist office. Sometimes life just gives you those little signs that you've made the right decision, like offering you another, better-paying and more up your alley job in less than 12 hours after you quit your god-awful one. So I'm going back to school. I'm going to get that master's degree I was unsure of, but now I'm so excited I've started my reading already and class isn't in session yet!

I thought that my column "Away at College" was over, but I guess it is just morphing into "Away at Grad School" till I graduate in December 2006. I hope my post-graduation column then will not be so cynical about the "real world."

Courtney E. Fryxell's parents publish Desert Exposure.

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