Pre-departure blues

A few days back, I found myself at the airport again, at the smoking lounge again, sipping over-priced coffee again, wishing I didn't have to get on that flying tin can again. It's a sad, sad situation. (Getting more and more absurd?) Consolation was that I'm not alone in finding myself trapped in such a dreary predicament. The lounge was filled with frequent flyers, salesmen, businessmen and the like. Some working feverishly on their laptops reading or composing emails, others busy talking to clients and bosses on their mobile phones, and others, myself included, just staring into the bottom of our coffee cups, zombie-fied.

I was still recovering from lack of sleep, and about to light another cigarette, when all of a sudden a couple of fellow travelers enter the lounge, boisterously declaring how excited they were to go on vacation. They looked like they were off to some beach, clad in shorts, flip-flops and designer sunglasses. They sat down, ordered some fancy coffee-based concoction, and started taking pictures of themselves. They looked so happy, I hated them. Well, everyone seemed to hate them as well in the lounge. Everybody stopped what they were doing and took a long hard look at the spectacle these lucky bastards had become.

At that very instant, everyone hated their jobs just that tiny bit more.

*****

Still at the airport's smoking lounge, I bumped in to a classmate of mine back in college. He's waiting for his flight as well, so we both grabbed our second cup of coffee and talked shop until boarding time. The first five minutes of the conversation, I kinda realized this might not be a great way to boost my ego. Apparently, he's one of those few lucky ones who managed to make use of whatever he learned in college for his current profession. He's even taking up further studies, ensuring the perfect synergy of education and on the job experience.

Midway through one of his stories, I zone out and try to figure out if my job and degree have anything to do with one another, as expected, zilch.

Now, this presents a valuable insight, did I really need my degree to do my job well? In some minute way, it probably made some tasks a bit easier, but in general, I could've probably dropped out of high school and still be doing the same thing I'm doing today. But what if I chose a job that was related to my education, will that guarantee success in such chosen career? From what I'm hearing out of this guy, the answer seems to be a resounding yes. More options, more opportunities, and a chance to really stand out.

Maybe this guy picked up on my thought bubbles, because the next question I hear from him was if I found it difficult working in a job that was totally unrelated to what we finished in college. So I thought about it, and said no. I wasn't sure if I was lying, but in the first place, I never really worked in a field that was somehow related to what I studied for.

During the flight, I thought about the topic a bit more, and looked to how some of my friends were doing. Apparently, only a small percentage of my friends got into careers that was somehow related to the degrees that they received, but despite it, most of them, if not all of them, were doing alright. I now grow suspicious if college was indeed a waste of time.