The things we do for money

Gary Cecil III
The Signal
Have you ever seen one of those oddly dressed guys dancing on the street with a sign promoting “gold for sale” or some other sort of advertisement? Has it occurred to you that people actually choose to do this?

I personally have thought to myself, “I would like to do this.” But I get the feeling that this puts me in the minority. One source, wishing to remain anonymous, claimed that he or she (not even going to give away gender here) had quite a bit of fun dancing and twirling his or her sign, and he or she said that if he or she could, he or she would do it again. Which certainly brings a bit of irony to his or her request for anonymity.

Although we may not twirl signs, most of us are still in no position to judge. As college students, we need money, and we need to work to get it. Surely, most of us have done something a little “out there” during hard times. Bearing in mind that we all live in a glass house; let us refrain from throwing stones as we take a look at a select few embarrassing moments for our kind.

Allow me to start tame with dog walking. Mariska Pope, Marketing and Management major, reports having walked dogs for some extra gas money. There is nothing particularly inexcusable here.

“It was walking dogs here or there or giving baths,” Pope said.

No one likes that undignified moment when a dog suddenly decides to do his business on someone else’s lawn or shakes unexpectedly in the middle of a bath. Embarrassment factor: not high.

Dog walking’s equivalent is selling old clothes, shoes and accessories that you no longer wear. While selling back used textbooks is an age-old college tradition, today we can “hawk” almost anything. For some of us, it can get a bit embarrassing when you take a moment to look at just what you used to wear. And that only increases when you realize that whomever you are selling to is probably judging you and your ridiculous taste.

A very nice young woman working at a resale shop, who would like to be listed only as Kathryne, cited having seen someone try to sell some shoes that were incredibly flashy and “bedazzled” like “Lady Gaga.”  It only goes to prove there’s something for everyone.

“In addition to selling back textbooks, I pawned my DVD player, CD’s, and DVD’s; but it didn’t get me too far,” said Ashley Smith, UHCL alumna and copy editor/page designer for the Daily Sentinel in Nacogdoches.

Still, every little bit helps, and she did ultimately earn her degree. Keep trucking there, all you students who follow in Ashley’s footsteps. “Journey of 1,000 miles,” and all that.

Stepping into the silly here: one female student reported having made a deal with her parents’ housecleaner to do her job for a day in exchange for her day’s earnings. This one is not exactly embarrassing, per se, it earns an honorable mention simply for its originality. The concept that a person can get paid indirectly by her own parents demonstrates some degree of critical thinking. Oddity factor: medium.
Higher on the oddity scale is selling your special little swimmers for science.  Though it’s something people do anyway, getting paid for it somehow makes it significantly more embarrassing, especially in a less private than usual setting.

Even without an audience, what was private is now a performance. On the plus side, the closer you get to a college degree, the more you get paid. Apparently college-educated swimmers are more special than non-degree seeking swimmers.

Speaking of genetics, time to take a few steps back down the evolutionary ladder into ape-man territory. We have a testimonial someone gave for getting paid to sit in a tree dressed like a monkey. I have no further details on this, but it might just be better that way. I am not so much curious as to why someone would agree to do this as I am about why anyone would need someone else to do it badly enough to pay for it. “What-the-heck?” factor: way up there.

As far as I’m concerned, at this point you might as well make some real money stripping. All of us are familiar with the tale of young women stripping their way through college. Fortunately, today, males are given the same opportunities. As a stripper, you would be significantly less covered, but immensely better paid.

In the end, you have just as many eyes on you. The big difference is that in one case, you bring joy to the hearts of the people around you and will have made their day all the more joyous for your actions. In the other case, you are dressed like a monkey.

Jobs that offer hours flexible enough to accommodate class schedules are fewer than those who need them. This mathematical misfortune at least allows some of us to land “respectable” work but, even so, sometimes just one non-embarrassing job might not be enough. So we end up following up on those ridiculous jobs advertised in the school newspaper that masterfully target we who need them.

Illustrated here are just a select few examples of the work wanted ads targeting college students. There’s plenty more. There is even a website called seekingarrangement.com that pairs “sugar daddies” with “sugar babies” for “mutually beneficial relationships.” It is apparently legal for someone else to pay your college tuition in exchange for “unmentionable services,” as long as cash itself is never offered. That would be different somehow. But no judging.

To see some more creative ways college students make money, click here.