If summa cum laude ran the world.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this postI graduated from college summa cum laude.
Today, I learned that I'd been punching my time card in wrong for years.
"Why does everyone switch to the red side of the card?" I asked. My card was the only green-faced one in the rack.
"We're on the second half of the month," my co-worker answered. "Today is the 16th, so you punch in on block 16 on the red side."
Ooops.
"Um....I've never done that. I've always started each card on block 1," I said.
"You're kidding," she said.
"No. I figured new card, you start on one, which is where you start because if you're not on one it's not really starting." Now I felt dumb. So I blundered on. "Starting not on one is more like middling, not starting."
What -- I thought there were ever going to be 31 days in one pay period and that just because I was a part-timer that that would explain why I never got around to using the red sides of the time cards?
"You know. One. If there were a zero, and if we weren't in a culture that didn't understand the concept of zero -- say, pre-Babylonian -- I'd probably start there. On zero. Though that might be less a start than a kind of vague, nebulous existence."
My co-worker looked at me with a great deal of disgust. I was an idiot, clearly.
There are two key points to this story:
- Graduating from college, summa cum laude no less, doesn't mean you won't have a job punching a time card.
- Summa cum laude is mainly just fancy Latin words and little else. Great on paper, but it doesn't account for distracted, absent-minded, and oblivious people.
I don't know how I manage to successfully operate a vehicle and drive to work sometimes.
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 1/16/2008 10:39:00 PM
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4 Comments:
Summa cum laude=some come later.
By 
, at
17/1/08 14:43
I bearly gardulated coledge but I got me a job were i just sign in. Its grate.
By 
TimB, at
17/1/08 21:43
It's impossible to read this post and not love you.
By girlfriday, at
18/1/08 11:33
The high school version:
Some friends of mine wrote up "A Freshman's Guide to Georgia Tech" (my alma mater). One of the items was, "Nobody cares that you were valedictorian. So was everyone else here."
By Brendt, at
21/1/08 11:23
