From Burden of Self, Spring of 2010

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Khakis and Corporate America

Posted by Katie

After further examination of the 'seam' I spoke of briefly last week, I have realized that it started much sooner than my khaki buying experience. My senior year as an Undergraduate student I began realizing that I would soon be released to the wolves, and was bombarded with the question any student loathes after hearing it 9000 times--'So, what's next?'. My lack of attention span in college left me at the end of my sophomore year wandering into academic advising hoping to come out with a plan. I was incapable of deciding on a major. I wanted to take classes that sounded interesting, not just whatever was next on the list for said major. My academic advisor suggested that I do Liberal Studies, that way I can take the Art and English classes I would like, and be able to integrate them into something that I wanted to do. Ah-ha! Genius! I spent the next two years creating for myself an academic environment that I could actually care about and be interested in. Up until that point it was just what I was supposed to do, what was assumed of me.
My last year of college presented me with an insecurity that I did not suspect would surface. Family members or friends would ask 'what type of job do you get with a Liberal Studies degree?' Each time I was asked this question I would laugh nervously and wasn't quite sure. Oh, jeez, job? That's right, I'm supposed to be marketable! This instilled in me such a fear that I wouldn't be able to get the same type of job as someone who had studied Communication, or Management, that I became hellbent on finding a corporate job. I've made great money working as a server, or professional painter, but suddenly as I stood on the precipice of that little piece of paper that says I've completed my Bachelors degree those jobs were suddenly less to me. I was now better than that.
Some girlfriends and I moved to Minneapolis a few months after graduation, and that August I started my great corporate job. I wore khakis every day, and had my name embroidered on my shirt. I had a great starting salary, health, vision, and dental insurance. I had a 401k plan that was matched dollar for dollar 30 days after I started. I had an employee stock purchase plan. I was placed as an Assistant Manager at a 2.3 Million dollar store, and helped open huge national and local accounts. I was damn good at my job, and for a while it consumed me. I sat at the corporate headquarters with the CEO of the company and asked what plans the company had globally. I started in August, and by late October I began realizing that everything that I had worked for and made for myself I didn't want. I looked in the mirror, examining the reflection of my embroidered name and khakis, and it looked as if someone photoshopped my face on someone elses body. I thought to myself 'this is not me'.
I no longer did crossword puzzles. I no longer read the newspaper. I was incapable of holding a conversation without it starting 'ohmygod today at work this contractor... today at work... this one account...' I had turned into work-obsessed-word-vomit-girl. I have seen and encountered these people before and they scare the shit out of me. I realized I needed out, but at this point I knew that part of my facade that I had built for myself would come tearing down.
My parents and family were incredibly proud of me. I had my Bachelors degree and was entrusted with a huge amount of corporate responsibility and had just turned 22.
I missed the challenge that classrooms gave me, and to be perfectly honest I didn't take school seriously until this past year. Up until then it was somewhere I was supposed to be, what I was expected to do. For the first time in my life I made the choice as to where I studied, and am persuing the education I am for no one but myself.
I work as a server and bartender at a locally owned and ran brewery and mexican restaurant, those jobs that were 'so beneath' my college degree.
My closet and dresser are now khaki free.
Side note: It's not that I have anything against khakis. They're nice pants and all, I just don't like them on me. When I wear them I imagine the feeling I have is similar as to what a guy would feel like wearing a skirt. It's just uncomfortable.