Valentine's Day

While Jimmy "Nums" is out living the young professional lifestyle in Chicago, interviewing and networking professionally. I'm holding down the home base making sure things stay extra classy in the Steel City.

Briefly, I think it is important to tell you how a young professional should handle a day like today. This day is currently presenting me with a couple of exciting opportunities. First of all, it's my day off. In the professional world, the day off is your time to read Kafka and watch reruns of Law and Order. It is your time to go to the market and buy rich brazilian coffee grounds and exotic pacific fish for dinner, paired with a chablis or a chardonnay by cucumber melon candlelight. HOWEVER, as a YOUNG PROFESSIONAL, you do not spend your days off like regular professionals. Regular professionals are the old guard, they are outdated, and they will die off. You will take over. If you spend your days off as young professionals eating vitamin enriched soy steaks and drinking pomegranate juice (pomegranate is really hot right now) you'll never be ready to crush people at your feet as a professional. So, you're all wondering. "Hey! Guts! What do I do on my day off from work if I'm an aspiring young professional?" Well I'll tell you.

YOU GO INTO WORK, that's where I am now, and where you should be if it were your day off.

That's right. The young professional does not tire. He does not need days off. ESPECIALLY during the week. If you really want to live the right way you do more work than is asked of you and you do it quickly. If they cannot produce enough work for you, then they are no longer your boss.

Disclaimer: Working tirelessly is as much a sign of kissing up as it is of incredible ability. Remember to continue to crack jokes, make sarcastic comments, and generally look like you really don't want to be there. Wear jeans on your "non-day" off and make hilarious sexual references to colleagues because HEY! it's your day off, they can't fire you if you aren't really working. And if they try and fire you, remind them that you came in ON YOUR DAY OFF.

Now that I've dropped that bit of knowledge on you, it is time to hit the other major opportunity that this particular day presents. It is Valentine's Day.
Ah, love is in the air. High school sweethearts will exchange flowers and feel up each other's bras. Married couples will go to casinos and gamble away their kids' college funds. But whatever will the young professional do.

GET ENGAGED!

Young professionals love... getting engaged. They relish the opportunity to almost whole heartedly commit to another person. It doesn't make sense to marry someone right away, otherwise the young professional would have thousands of wives. Thats why engagements exist. They exist so we have something consistent for our friends who aren't professional or may be semi-professional to be jealous of.

The young professional on Valentine's Day should find a girl who is smitten with him and engage her. Not just in conversation, but in almost-matrimony. For every young professional, there are 7 or 8 secretaries who want to date young professionals. At least they think they want to date, but really, they want to get engaged. You're either engaged or you're a loser in the young professional world. It's Valentine's day. Go out, find that girl who has some feelings for you and ask her to marry you. If it doesn't work out, so what? get engaged again, get engaged as often and as fast as possible because you never know which one might be the perfect trophy wife.

If you're just getting used to the whole young professional lifestyle, and you don't think you can really jump to that kind of "commitment" you should go out and get some champagne, or Miller High Life, and find a girl who just looks good, or even smells good that you can hang out with for the night. Talk to her about how much you work and how since V-day falls on a thursday this year, you have to go into work early tomorrow. Remind her how much money you will inevitably make.

You just might find, that after a few drinks, she'll be ready to get engaged.


There you go, the Valentine's Day gifts that keep on giving, and no Little Timmy from Redmond, Washington, I'm not talking about herpes. I'm talking about knowledge.

Take care.