It was only when Nate in my alternate TV universe mentioned his father's alma mater of Dartmouth that I finally snapped out of my pessimistic stupor and realized that I should probably find something productive to do, considering Life after Dartmouth = Upper East Side. That, and I was running out of DVDs.
The job search was rough. In a two-week time span, I applied to forty places. Red Lobster told me to contact them when I dropped out of college. The Dollar Store offered to let me be their night watchman on the spot, but nightmares of getting murdered for cheap utensils prevented me from taking that position. Abercrombie & Fitch told me they weren't hiring (I wasn't hot enough). Ouch.
For the next week, I stood by my phone waiting for callbacks and kept busy by practicing my runway walk while watching America's Next Top Model. To the relief of my family, I was finally hired as the hostess and cashier of an upper-class diner. For a while, the job went well, as I was so excited to be a working woman that I didn't even notice my surroundings. When I was finally accustomed to how the job worked though, I slowly started noticing the mannerisms of many of the customers.
For one, many talked down to the wait staff. While this bothered me from afar, it wasn't until I experienced it first hand that I truly understood how it felt to have degrading comments thrown at you. At first, the rude comments started about my less-than-quick math skills. Several elderly people commented about how "kids aren't as smart as they used to be," just because I wasn't able to count out change in my head fast enough for them. Then there were rude comments by businessmen in suits, asking if it was past my bedtime at 11 p.m. and insisting that I was no older than 15 even when I told them I was in college. Despite these impolite comments, the real thing that got to me was when adults who wanted to brag about their children's acceptance into selective colleges would condescendingly ask me where I went to college, assuming it was to community college, if I went to college at all.
Each person I talked to gave me the same startled expression when I answered them. "Dartmouth? But ... why are you working here?" Then their demeanor completely changed. One of the elderly gentlemen who had accused me of being bad at math several times before now started being friendly and wanted to know more about me. Why did I work at the diner, the customers all asked me. Well, I wanted to make money over the summer, and this job gave me good hours. Why would I not work there? Did going to an Ivy League college somehow make working at a diner below me?
Of all possible internships I could have gotten, I think that my $7 per hour job at the diner taught me more than I ever could have learned in some prestigious company that would sound good on my resume. I saw how many people judge others' entire value based on their college or their job, and treat others whom they deem to be of lower class negatively based on preformed assumptions of their character. In the homogeneity of both Hanover and the standard internships toward which many Dartmouth students gravitate, it is hard to understand fully the extreme class differences in American society that I was able to observe through this experience.
I have nothing but respect for the waiters I worked with during the summer, who every day must suffer through demeaning comments by pretentious people who believe they are entitled to more than others. Most of the wait staff were middle-aged immigrants who had moved to America in hopes of making a good life for themselves and their families. They were hard-working, strong people who managed to keep a smile on their faces every day, despite the struggle they faced to make ends meet.
It's ironic that at the start of the summer, all I aspired to do was mirror the wealthy and glamorous people on Gossip Girl. When I re-watched some of the episodes at the end of the summer, I remember thinking more about the other, less glamorous characters, like Blair's maid Dorota. Sure, it's funny that she helps Blair in her evil plotting, but only while Blair is rude and bossy towards her. How have class differences become so ingrained in society that instead of working towards mending them, we now seem only to poke fun at them instead? Something to think about.
So to the '13s looking for what to do over the summer, I suggest you go off the beaten path. Do something that's not what a Dartmouth student "should" do.
