Do the Limbo!

Limbo to some is a fun game where you get limber and get groovy with some sweet Rastafarian rifts, but for others is just a subtle, momentary temptation to sacrifice your lower back, pride, and tail bone in the name of impressing some girl in a hula skirt who you think is winking at you. But limbo is more than that. Way more.

For those of you who find yourself in between the years of 18-25(maybe older) and you haven't quite finished college yet, but are very close; you are probably very familiar with the other kind of limbo. It's the kind that enables you to get a less than sweet job, get exploited like a 5 year old Malaysian kid at a shoe factory, going with little or no pay, but bleeding your soul for your employer all the while. Yes, I speak of internships. Sure, you get a few perks, rub some elbows, maybe get some free Chinese food, but beyond that it's slave labor. And why are you so used? Well, simply put, you're a liability. If you were on the payroll, the company you intern for would be paying you to learn, and inevitably, falter. But, if they don't have to do that, why would they? Not only do they get their whole inventory marked, boxed, organized, and put in a multi-colored database spreadsheet format, but if you screw up, they don't have to pay you. They can chuckle and just give you a more demeaning task. Not to say that you don't get plenty of experience and contacts through internships, but realistically it is probably challenging to say the least to pay your cell phone bill, fill your car with gas, pay for public transport, rent, insurance, etc. So, ideally if you have an internship it would be nice if your family or institution covered your butt. Fortunately for many, they do. For you others, you have to get other jobs. Like maybe three other jobs, and then still scrape to get by. And then, on top of that you may not even go into that line of work.

That brings us back to limbo. If you go to an internship great! You gain experience and have your eyes opened. However, if you don't end up going to that company or career path, it might just be a whole lot of mucking through slop without a clean horse stall at the end. But, if life is for living, then, well, at least you lived it. Limbo can be good. A blessing and a curse. You don't want to shut the door on your options...but you don't want to end up in a career 10 years up the road that you despise. Do the limbo limbo lim, do the limbo limbo la....