Recent years have seen popular articles degrading my peers as suffering from "delayed maturity." Experts have painted a pathetic picture of my generation as video game playing, basement living, single, unemployed, under-educated menaces to society. Perhaps the stereotype is fair.
However, I've just spent a weekend on mancation (a vacation of only guys doing guy stuff) with some of my best buddies from my college years; and my friends are anything but pathetic and stereotypical. In total there were nine of us. One of my friends just graduated from a top 25 MBA program and got a job in the Salt Lake City Area as a project manager for Adobe. He's headed directly to NYC after our mancation to manage projects with Ralph Lauren and NBC. Another friend has been working for EMC - a Fortune 500 high tech company - in Boston as a marketing manager. He's headed to Brazil immediately following our mancation to manage some projects down there for a couple of weeks. Turns out he's fluent in Portuguese. Friend 3 is attending dental school at University of Washington, one of the top programs in the nation. He's married to an incredible woman and they are expecting their first in a month. Friends 4 and 5 are learning Arabic and Farsee, respectively, at the Army's elite language training program in Monterey, CA. Friend 6 is a territory manager for Herseys in San Diego. He brought all of the candy so we could stay up late. He's also married to a fabulous woman...way out of his league. He's been put on the executive fast tract because he's so impressive. Friend 7 teaches high school math and also coaches high school football, soccer and baseball in Arizona. Friend 8 had the hardest career choice of all: Microsoft creating video games or Pixar creating the coolest movies ever. He chose Pixar because of the free breakfast every morning and now lives in the San Francisco area. He just finished working on a new movie coming out called Brave and was recently assigned to Monsters Inc. 2.
I forgot to mention that all of these guys are honest, selfless, humble, moral and ethical individuals who try really hard to make the world a better place. My friends are exceptional...and apparently exceptions as well.
However, I've just spent a weekend on mancation (a vacation of only guys doing guy stuff) with some of my best buddies from my college years; and my friends are anything but pathetic and stereotypical. In total there were nine of us. One of my friends just graduated from a top 25 MBA program and got a job in the Salt Lake City Area as a project manager for Adobe. He's headed directly to NYC after our mancation to manage projects with Ralph Lauren and NBC. Another friend has been working for EMC - a Fortune 500 high tech company - in Boston as a marketing manager. He's headed to Brazil immediately following our mancation to manage some projects down there for a couple of weeks. Turns out he's fluent in Portuguese. Friend 3 is attending dental school at University of Washington, one of the top programs in the nation. He's married to an incredible woman and they are expecting their first in a month. Friends 4 and 5 are learning Arabic and Farsee, respectively, at the Army's elite language training program in Monterey, CA. Friend 6 is a territory manager for Herseys in San Diego. He brought all of the candy so we could stay up late. He's also married to a fabulous woman...way out of his league. He's been put on the executive fast tract because he's so impressive. Friend 7 teaches high school math and also coaches high school football, soccer and baseball in Arizona. Friend 8 had the hardest career choice of all: Microsoft creating video games or Pixar creating the coolest movies ever. He chose Pixar because of the free breakfast every morning and now lives in the San Francisco area. He just finished working on a new movie coming out called Brave and was recently assigned to Monsters Inc. 2.
I forgot to mention that all of these guys are honest, selfless, humble, moral and ethical individuals who try really hard to make the world a better place. My friends are exceptional...and apparently exceptions as well.