For three years after college graduation, Daniel Seddiqui struggled to land a job. So he shifted gears and went after 50, one in each state, for one week apiece.

It’s a tall order, made taller earlier this year when he worked at Universal Orlando as a stilt walker. The Florida theme park was his 33rd stop on the journey that began in August.

Seddiqui has pulled shifts as a border-patrol agent in Arizona, a rodeo announcer in North Dakota and with a maple-syrup maker in Vermont. “It smelled really good,” he said. His goal is to work in a wide range of occupations and absorb the diverse cultures of the United States.

Besides stilts duties, he has been a greeter at the Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios and a “grouper” — as in “How many in your party?” — at the Incredible Hulk roller coaster at Islands of Adventure.

Read all about his adventure!

Vineet Nayar, the highly respected CEO of HCL Technologies, one of India’s hottest IT services vendors, was speaking this morning in New York City to an audience of about 50 customers and partners when he related a recent experience with an education official in a large U.S. state.

The official wanted to know why HCL, a $2.5 billion (revenue) company with more than 3,000 people across 21 offices in 15 states, wasn’t hiring more people in his state. Vineet’s short answer: because most American college grads are “unemployable.”

Many American grads looking to enter the tech field are preoccupied with getting rich, Vineet said. They’re far less inclined than students from developing countries like India, China, Brazil, South Africa, and Ireland to spend their time learning the “boring” details of tech process, methodology, and tools–ITIL, Six Sigma, and the like.

Read more about how American students are unemployable…

It’s Wednesday afternoon, and I feel like climbing back into bed, pulling up the covers and sleeping for as long as life will let me. But I can’t. Like most of you, I’m at work, sitting in front a computer, clicking away the hours, with heavy eyes and a case of mild irritability. So to beat away this everyday fatigue, I’ve decided to try 5-hour Energy for the first time.

To add some context: I rarely drink soda and only occasionally drink coffee or energy drinks – the caffeine is often too much for me to handle, sending my heart racing, which in turn makes me feel like my life is falling apart for no reason. Now, as I peel off the red protective plastic, I’m hoping that won’t happen. From what I’ve heard it’s everything from completely useless to the perfect pick-me-up. We shall see…

2:45 PM: Opening the tiny “lemon-lime” flavored liquid. The damn thing was expensive – should be called “5-dollar Energy”…

2:45 PM: It tastes like a weird combination of artificial sweetener and the smell of Resolve carpet cleaner – oh right, I mean “lemon-lime”.

2:46 PM: The label is telling me to “drink one half (1/2) bottle for moderate energy” or “one whole bottle for maximum energy.” I’m worried about feeling like a freak with too much caffeine, but who wants “moderate energy”? F**k it, I’m downing the whole thing.

2:47 PM: Done. Supposedly I’ll “Feel it in minutes.” The timer starts now.

2:51 PM: This is funny.

2:53 PM: Hmmmm, I think I am actually feeling a bit peppier. My head feels a little less like it’s jam-packed with cotton, but my eyes are still wanting to close more than normal.

3:03 PM: To be honest, I’m not really used to paying this much attention to my body. Usually it’s just, “Am I awake? Yes. Am I drunk? A little. Ok, cool.” Doing this makes me feel like a vegan or some other such nonsense… (more…)

Though we’ve all heard that there are future employers, spouses, and murderers who are going to look us up on Facebook to stalk our past indiscretions, how many of us can truly say that our Facebooks are rated PG? While I remember myself painstakingly deleting every picture with the slightest reference of alcohol before I entered college, once I arrived at Michigan, it seemed that every person I knew was tagged in some sort of waterfall or beer pong picture. Slowly, I stopped being so anxious about what went up in my albums; a shot glass here, a beer bottle there, etc. Sure, I still de-tagged pictures of myself chugging bottles or double-fisting shots, but it never occurred to me that the mere mention of alcohol in an album would hurt my good name. (more…)

For the stoner sect, working on a pot farm must seem like the equivalent of a fat person winning one of those contests where they get to stuff their shopping cart with as much food as they can in one minute. But I–your faithful blogger—have actually worked on a pot farmer in Mendocino County (part of the Emerald Triangle) and the fantasy isn’t always the same as the reality. So here are 7 truths and fictions about working on a pot farm: (more…)

Facebook went from an exclusive college thing, to a billion dollar operation in about five years. That’s probably a pretty good business plan. Now that the world has Facebook, Facebook has the world. Just like in the real world where good friends and good times are mixed with creepy guys and drive by shootings, Facebook brings a new flair to the internet stalking scene. So we decided to divulge into a Stone Phillips-like look at the creepy world of Facebook, and the guys who dominate the landscape. (more…)

I work in a sh*t-hole on the verge of bankruptcy, and I love it. I’m currently employed by a locally owned sandwich shop/late night drunk food emporium. If it’s 2:30 in the morning, you’re hammered and you need a hot dog that’s been warming on rollers for three hours we’ve got you covered. I make just above minimum wage, but for the work I do it’s almost robbery. Almost.

There’s nothing better than a summer job that requires no real thought, almost no work, and a boss who smokes a lot of pot. For the past three summers, I’ve worked for the maintenance division of a national park. It was a lot of physical work outdoors. I made great money, but I had to do a lot of work. This summer I make almost no money, but I don’t have to do anything. And as sad as it is, I actually prefer making and doing nothing. As a bonus I work with a bunch of college drop-outs and stoners who’ve never had real jobs and complain about what little we’re expected to do. Since I don’t complain, and work whenever it’s necessary, I look great. My boss absolutely loves me. (more…)

The first day of summer has just come and gone, meaning you have an open schedule for 90 days to accomplish anything you would like until fall arrives and classes begin.

Sure, you could booze your days away by the pool–but if you want to do something more significant with your life and start this fall semester a better person, take a look at COED’s “90 Days To A Better Life.”

With hard work and dedication, all these things can be accomplished before September 21st.

COED’s 90 Days To A Better Life after the jump! (more…)

College is a great place to learn and have fun. But let’s not kid ourselves, some degrees are as useless as the plot in a Michael Bay film.Here’s a list of 10 degrees that may be interesting, but do jack sh*t for you in the real world. [Holy Taco]

What (Not) to Wear to Work

I draw the line at flip-flops. The prevailing dress code at my office and those of many white collar workers in the U.S. could be defined as business casual–if any of us knew what the heck that meant. My employee handbook offers no guidelines, so I’m left with my own interpretation: no nylons (like 39% of American women, I haven’t worn a pair in more than a year). But then again, no flip-flops (because I respect my colleagues enough to shield them from my unsightly toes).

As 1.5 million new college graduates start streaming into the workforce this month, it’s no wonder they’re not sure what to wear. Even longtime workers still flounder at the wardrobe, because almost two decades since the term first appeared in corporate dress codes, our understanding of business casual remains far from uniform. [Time]

Taunting Signs From This Years College Baseball World Series

[Via The College Baseball Blog]

If you find yourself constantly putting tasks on the backburner, you are not alone.

According to Joseph R. Ferrari, a psychology professor at DePaul University in Chicago, seven out of 10 of you, a.k.a. ‘academic procrastinators,’ put off doing your schoolwork or doing it at all. Twenty percent of students, referred to as ‘chronic procrastinators,’ are those who always – always – wait…and wait…and wait. Sound like anybody you know?

Such were the results of Ferrari’s study, which also revealed that the higher the selectivity of schools, the higher the rates of procrastination. At better schools, where the work is tougher, students find the assignments daunting or belittling, if they fail to measure up. As expected, stress is a huge factor in avoiding important assignments. No shocker there. (more…)