Alumni, School of Hard Knocks — Thank You Very Much

Last night while we were making dinner, the BF and I got to discussing Enterprise Rent-A-Car. More so, we were discussing Enterprise’s policy of requiring a bachelor's degree in order to be in management in the company.

Seriously, if you have a bachelor's degree in say, music composition, or zoology, you can become a manager for Enterprise. But if you start working for the company when you are 18 and show up every day on time and work your ass off and eat/sleep/breathe the car rental biz for the next 20 years of your life, you ain't goin’ nowhere in the company. Unless you also finished college along the way.

WTF?! In fact, what is up with any company that has this cockamamie policy? How on earth does any business think that merely going to college makes a person more capable of managing their business verses a loyal employee who has proven themselves in the business and gained experience relevant to the position? It makes no sense to me — or the BF, BTW.

Quite frankly, I'm not sure how I'm going to tie this into nails, now that I think of it. I guess I figured it would be a subject that many of us have come across by way of our clients. Maybe some of us have even encountered this along the way to our current careers. Maybe some of us encounter this peculiar brand of discrimination as a result of having chosen careers in a field that does not require — or necessarily favor — higher education.

I know many of my colleagues have college degrees hanging over their nail licenses. I know that's what I was going to do with mine. But as the years go by, I find myself with less and less patience for arrogant professors who feel that I am supposed to set aside my career to make their class a top priority. Particularly the professors of general ed subjects who have the audacity to say, "Ms Franklin, if you expect to get a better job ..." HOLD IT RIGHT THERE BUDDY! And that's where my personal college education has stalled. But that's just the point. Not everyone is cut out for all those tests and homework assignments — and I think it's a much better idea to reward people for proving themselves in the field rather than assuming that the ability to do homework has anything to do with the ability to excel in any given job.

It's nice to work in field that rewards based on skill. Whether you have a degree in a frame by your nail license or not, this is an equal-opportunity industry where success is determined by determination — not education.

But then again, how do you define "success?"