The Curse of an MBA

You spend a fortune and an incredible amount of time, agony and energy to get a Masters of Business Administration. You get a piece of paper for all that, and that is supposed to make you a very marketable commodity and assure you a good salary and lifestyle. Oh sure, but what no one tells you is that forever after, all that training will stalk you mercilessly. You are doomed, doomed to spend your life calculating cost/benefit analyses!

Want the luxury of having your hair done weekly? Forget it. The best you can hope for is $35 without tip at the local beauty school. Let’s see, hmmm, $35 X 52 weeks X 75 years = $68,250. OMG, I can’t afford it. Why multiply by 75 years? My family genes loom over me, but okay, make it 20 years at $18,200. Ouch! I bought a hair cutting kit for $20. My husband cuts my hair; and that is only fair. I have to cut his. You have less time too to do all this because that bit of university parchment means the boss expects more responsibility and more hours.

Fingernails? Are you kidding? I have a friend who spends $82 to have her nails glued, filed and painted. She broke one and ripped it off. It cost $12 to redo that nail.  I would have done it for $8 if she hadn't ripped the nailbed. Ooooo, it hurt to look at it.  I had my nails done professionally once, for my high school reunion. Otherwise, it's just me and my best friend, Sally Hansen.

Blast that piece of paper!  Personal luxuries are just the tip of the cost/benefit analyses iceberg. If you know how to do something or you can figure out a manual, you are doomed, doomed to paint the house, doomed to rebuild the kitchen, doomed to recover the worn upholstery, doomed to do yardwork. They don't tell you these things in graduate school. Be careful what you learn.