Some kind of business

After scraping by for four years in a series of dead-end jobs, I decided to take the plunge and pursue my MBA. My biggest fear was that I’d give up my already meager income for two years and graduate without a single offer. My friends all pooh-poohed this notion (“An MBA is the most marketable degree there is,” “It’s not like getting a liberal arts degree,” “You need more education to do the kind of work you want to do,” etc.)
Two years later I graduated at the top of my class from Emory University’s MBA program – without a single job offer. Oh, there were excuses (“The placement office is going through a transition,” “The economy is still reeling from the stock market crash,” “You’re so unusual!”). But the reality was, I had earned the world’s most marketable degree and had no job to show for it. I temped for over a year in a series of jobs that did not require an MBA, and worked with a parade of placement specialists – the au courant term for employment agencies.
My favorite placement specialist was the woman who said [insert southern drawl here]: “I see you just got your MBA, and you got it in some kind of business [italics mine].” She had a position I’d be perfect for, because the woman I’d be replacing “got her MBA in English.” The job turned out to be selling textbooks to universities. I didn’t make the cut. If only I had earned my MBA in English.