I met this guy named George the other day. I went to him because he is the pharmacist at Walgreens on Main Street. My question to him was about getting ear drops for my ear because it was hurting. I thought I would either get a “Yes I have some,” or a “No you’re going to have to go to the doctor” (I did get the second answer). After that, I was trying to leave because I had nothing left to ask from George, but I guess George had some other ideas on how this conversation would go. He stopped me and gave me some life lessons that he must have thought I really needed.   

The first was that you can’t kill bacteria with herbs—which I can only agree with to a degree. I think there is a certain kind of herb that can not only help relieve the pain in my ear but also maybe help loosen up the mind that is pounding from the St. Lawrence curriculum. He might have thought that the herbs from the earth could not do as much good as the harder stuff that he is filling in the pharmacy, but for me, I would rather not be on any medicine if I don’t have to be. So, when he told me that I could be fine with two Tylenol pills and a shot of vodka, I decided to take the rest of what he said with a grain of salt.   

However, the conversation that I had with him next was something that made me think. His second life lesson was about “The Golden Hammer.” The Golden Hammer was described as what we are getting out of attending St. Lawrence. This is the degree that we are receiving for the specialty that we have been working on for the last four years. With this, we become the “Golden Hammer” that every company is going to want. It helps us be set apart from the regular guy from the street that has no training or understanding of how to do that job. We now have that one step up because we may not know how to do the job exactly, but we do know what things in that field should look like and the way they should be done. Now, what do you do when you have the “Golden Hammer” and the job you now have? Well, that creates “screw you money.”  

“Screw you money” is the extra money that you make from your job that doesn’t include your bills. This money is the left-over from the paycheck that you might spend on new clothes or get a puppy with. George told me that we need not to spend this money on dumb stuff, but we need to invest it in stocks. Now he told me an exact one to invest in, but if I am being honest at this point, I was shocked that he was telling me all of this and I kind of really just wanted to leave. I did catch what he said at the end about when we get to spend this money. When you have had just enough of your job you go and grab all of your “screw you money,” tell your boss to “kiss your ass,” and you leave for Europe and buy an apartment where you live for the rest of your life.     

Thoughts of the day… I think George said a lot and some of it was questionable, but I do think we all can agree that what we are doing here at St. Lawrence will help us out to find the perfect job. I hope that no one hates their job as much as George does but I do think that for many of us the “Golden Hammer” is coming soon to our possession, and we just need to stick through these hard times so that the good times are even better.