The Joys of Joblessness

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating when I say that I don’t have a summer job, but to me, it certainly feels like that’s the case. Though I technically work part-time for a well-known retail clothing chain and volunteer at an elected official’s re-election campaign where I do exciting tasks like writing formulaic letters and addressing envelopes, I still feel that there is no true purpose to my summer.

When asked what they are doing for the summer, many of my fellow students reply with one or two words that sum it all up: banking, consulting, summer school, journalism, and so on.

But when I am asked about my deeply rewarding and intellectually stimulating activity, I am forced to reply only with an awkward explanation of my part-time shenanigans. My friends, who have what you may call more “serious” jobs than I, take pleasure in pointing out my omission of the fact that I work in a retail clothing store known for its tough looks-based hiring practices.

“We’ve got ourselves a pretty boy here,” they say.

Yet I’d like to do something more time-consuming and intellectually challenging—and, dare I say, more monetarily rewarding—than two part-time jobs, one of which doesn’t even pay.

You may call me lazy because I didn’t prepare soon enough. Or you may call me an over-achiever for wanting to do something that one could describe as “noteworthy” after finishing my freshman year at Harvard. But either way, I have spent the last few months bothered by my summer choices.

While discussing the problem that is my summer with a wise friend of mine, I was effectually told to quit bitching and enjoy the free time that this break provides while I still have it.

Well, she’s one to talk—she has a high-paying internship at the New York Mercantile Exchange. Lucky brat.

But then it struck me: I’m blatantly jealous. When my friends drop the fact that they went for drinks with some of the full-time traders at their banking jobs or had free lunches with powerful lawyers in their firm, I am just wishing I were in their position.

However, I have come to realize there will be a time for the internship seeking, résumé building, and social networking that define the lives of many Harvard students—namely September. For now, I plan on spending my time on myself, discovering new Broadway shows, visiting New York’s rich collection of museums, and doing just about anything else fun I can find. Though I won’t have any standout lines to add to my résumé by the end of this summer—unless licking envelopes has suddenly become a desirable skill—I have two more summers to do that.

And so, when I return to Harvard this September I will be proud to say that I didn’t spend my summer doing any one specific thing but rather an eclectic and satisfying mix of activities that I might never again have the chance to do.

And besides, I can at least go to the beach whenever I want.

Alexander H. Greeley ’08, a Crimson news and business editor, is a biology concentrator in Currier House. He has gotten a job since writing this piece.