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Keenos


John

John Tomlinson graduated last summer from Nottingham University, where he initially studied for a highly-employable degree in economics, before changing to politics when he discovered the course had even fewer lecture hours than he did. He has yet to get a proper job.

There's got to be something wrong with hard-working students who know what career they want, hasn't there? John reckons so.

I generally disapprove of people who do better than me in exams, but I realise that there are many who are brighter or work harder, and I don't really begrudge them their success. However, there is one sort of high achiever that I really despise, and I can't help but think about them at this time of year when talk turns to exam results. After I've collected my results, a certain type of person invariably approaches me, trying to find out how I've done. You know the type - absolutely obsessed with results and status and never satisfied with just doing well - they have to be the best. 

At school, we used to call them 'Keenos'. They would use five different coloured felt tips to underline their notes, and then still copied them up neatly when they got home. At the age of 15 they were already desperate to become a management consultant, lawyer, or investment analyst. What sane person even knows what a management consultant is at that age, let alone wants to be one? (I'm not sure I really know even now).

But what annoys me most about Keenos isn't that they work far too hard, but that they have such a narrow view of the world. They seem incapable of understanding that there might be a bit more to life than just exam results, and that not everyone else necessarily views the world, or measures success the way they do. Often they're not any more intelligent than the rest of us; they do better because they try harder. But even though, unlike them, I realise that exam marks aren't the measure of man, it still irritates me when they patronise me just because they've done better in some stupid test.

"What sane person even knows what a management consultant is at 15?"

I thought things might improve when I got to uni, but they actually got worse. There seemed to be hordes of them forming cliques, hanging around in the library and holding revision 'parties'. On the rare occasions that I attended lectures, I'd watch in disbelief as they pulled out of their bags, not felt tips, but laptops. When the lecturer put some figures up to demonstrate a point, they would open Excel and produce a pie chart. Afterwards, they would go and pester the poor lecturer with questions. 

Come the summer 'holidays' they would be off to their placement at a merchant bank or accountancy firm. By contrast, I spent most of my holidays in bed. You see, I realised that there's a lot more to life than just money and status. I've never wanted to work in the City, I'd much rather do a job that I enjoy even if I earn a bit less money. In any case, I always assumed that employers would have the sense to see through these people; to employ someone with a bit more personality even if they have slightly lower exam results. But apparently not, I'd forgotten that these people go to work for firms filled with people just like them. 

I might not be that obsessed with money, but still, there doesn't seem any justice that Keenos should earn so much more than I do. It is all very well saying that I'd rather do something I enjoy, but I am currently taking home a pittance as an office monkey in a boring temping job, while they are already earning 10 times as much in 'mergers and acquisitions'. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I should have revised a bit harder, and spent my summer holidays doing something other than sleeping and watching television.

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