by Dave Tomar
“Mrs. Klein? What’s wrong? Is everything OK?”
“David? Nothing’s wrong. Everything is fine. I just … I have a funny question for you.” She sounded uncomfortable. Nothing new there. She always sounded a little uncomfortable.
“Oh. OK?”
“Umm. Hmm. OK, are you still writing the papers? Do you still do that?”
“Uhhh, yeah. Of course.”
“OK. My friend’s daughter … I’m not sure how to put this … but her daughter is a little silly. And she likes to put things off until the last minute. Anyway, now she’s overwhelmed with exams and papers, and she’s just basically trying to get into colleges now, and that’s taking up a ton of her time. So I was telling … well, her mother heard about what you do and wanted to know if you could help …”
Heard about what I did? Right.
I’m sitting here thinking, You’re out there telling your friends about me, I’m sure in the nicest possible terms, and where the hell were you when your husband was ripping me a new one? That’s cool, though. It was all just business. Because I cut out the middle man when working directly with the customer, I could charge double my normal rate. I normally earned between fifteen and twenty dollars per page during finals, but without company policy holding me back, I could charge thirty-six dollars a page.
“Sure,” I told her. “I can help. Have her e-mail the assignment to me.”
The girl’s mother—the one who would be paying for the assignment—she meant well. You will rush to judge her. And I don’t blame you. My parents wouldn’t have tolerated that crap. The way I was raised, you did your own dirty work.
This mom, she just wanted what was best for her kid. But her kid was so far behind. This mom was watching other parents in her affluent suburban development send their kids off to college, and she wanted that so badly for her kid. She was a good kid, she tried hard, and she had genuine learning deficiencies. And the lure of the university was too strong, its sociological importance too pronounced. This mom would do anything to walk her kid right up to the doorstep of the university, maybe even come in with her, hold her hand, and whisper encouraging things to her while she adjusted for the first four years or so.
This kid would soon be eligible to vote, smoke, and be tried as an adult, but the odds that she would be able to live on her own in the years immediately after college were slim.
And she was not alone. Not even a little.
In 2005, the New York Times reported that as of 2003, sixteen million American families were living with an individual over the age of eighteen. This was up seven million families from 1995, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Housing Survey, meaning that the number had nearly doubled in less than a decade.1
According to the Christian Science Monitor, a 2010 Pew Research Center poll revealed that one in seven households had experienced the return to home of a grown child in the previous year. The CSM also reports that according to the AFL-CIO, one in three young workers lives with his or her parents. This does not, of course, account for those from the current generation of recent graduates who are not employed. According to the CSM, this is a fairly significant population. The paper reports that “a smaller share of 16-to 24-year-olds are currently employed—46.1 percent—than at any time since the government began collecting data in 1948.”2
Of course, there are a lot of reasons for this. The economy, the high cost of education, and shifting cultural tendencies all factor in. But it would be remiss of us to overlook the impact made by Mom’s crushing embrace.
My customers—years in this business reveal—have been made half brain-dead by the suffocating proximity of their mothers.
Credit cards are the new umbilical cord, and they allow childhood dependencies to stretch grotesquely into college and beyond. It makes for a client base frequently prone to emotional instability. So say the frantic e-mails that have often greeted me after a nice evening out with the boys or an afternoon in the park.
I’ll finish a paper, submit it to the customer, and go on with my day, only to learn that something has gone wrong, horribly horribly, wrong.
The citations aren’t correct! The pages haven’t been numbered!! You failed to hyphenate words that should have been hyphenated!!!
You’d be amazed at how often customers ask for revisions rather than insert the page numbers or hyphens themselves. I understand. My customers are just used to having things done for them. Hope’s mother surprised me with her call, but I was hardly shocked by the request. This was something I had seen many times, actually.
I remember the first time I came into contact with a “cockpit mom.” A 2011 article on the Huffington Post describes the phenomenon of cockpit mothering as the logical parenting model for one who views the “helicopter mom” approach as slightly negligent. The article explains:
Cockpit parents did more than hover. They sat right in the pilot’s seat of their child’s life, charting the course and navigating all of the twists and turns. And they often remain there well into their child’s adulthood. The result is a trend of 20-somethings who are having trouble thriving as independent adults.
Cockpit parenting does come from a place of love. However, this intrusive and often controlling way of child rearing has caused many 20-somethings to be unequipped for life outside of the nest (which is why so many never leave or move back home after college). It is the children of cockpit parents who most often fit the stereotypes of Gen Y: sense of entitlement, consistent need for validation, non-self-starters, mediocre work ethic and a general lack of soft skills.3
A customer of mine whom we will refer to as Jub-Jub exhibited exactly that set of symptoms. Jub-Jub ordered a thirteen-page paper on human resource management on a Monday afternoon in late June. Again, contrary to the Thanksgiving rush, work is scarce in the summer, so I take on as much as I can even when the pay is not so great and the deadline is short. Jub-Jub needed his paper the next morning by nine a.m. I was down the shore, staying at a friend’s house, but I needed the money, so I took it on. I figured I’d ask for an extension, get up early, and work on it into the afternoon. At thirteen pages for $150, Jub-Jub was getting a good deal; the least he could do was give me a twenty-four-hour lead time.
I grabbed up the assignment and immediately sent an e-mail to the customer requesting an extension to two the next afternoon.
I heard nothing from Jub-Jub. I have a smartphone that I keep on me at all times. I brought it to the beach and awaited the verdict. If Jub-Jub couldn’t give me the extension, I could just e-mail the customer service supervisor and ask him to repost the order on the board.
The evening came. We watched the Phillies game. I took Hope out to the casinos. We ate, drank, gambled, and did inappropriate things in public. I didn’t make much loot in the summers, but I had my freedom. No word from Jub-Jub. If it was urgent, I figured, I’d have heard from him.
I set my alarm for six-thirty a.m., was up by seven, was showered, caffeinated, and writing by eight. I wrote at a shore-town pace. A little sleepy. A little hungover. Under a summer gauze of laziness. I like writing this way. I heard nothing from the customer, and I felt no pressure to speed through the assignment. I took my time. I read sources. I thought out my sentences. I wrote a halfway-decent paper.
I submitted it at two p.m. I heard from the customer less than an hour later.
I just read over the essay … I think the writer is not answering the topic at all… my god… i have been waiting for this essay for so long, I was expecting an essay at least match the topic. I know there is a rewrite service… but how long does it takes? Moreover, I requested Harvard Referencing System, but the writer did not follow this. I’m looking forward your reply. I need this within 24-hours
I responded immediately, “I will review the essay and do my best to address those concerns by this evening.”
I had lunch and a Frisbee toss on the beach. Two hours had passed when I received the following message:
Dear Writer
May I know how is the essay goes?
May I know when it can be done.(it is already 2 hours after the due time)
Thank you very much!
Yours Sincerely.
I responded immediately, telling Jub-Jub, “As promised, I will have your revisions completed by this evening. Your patience is very much appreciated.”
Jub-Jub responded immediately.
Dear Writer Tomar
Thank you very much for your reply.
I really appreciate your help on my essay.
I’m looking forward to hearing the good news about completion from you.
Thank You!
Regard!
Moments later, I received the following e-mail:
Dear Tomar
After I read all the pages, I found the whole essay is not answering the topic which I required.
The essay is discussing about “Strategic Human Resource Management Theory and Practice” from the introduction to the content then conclusion… the topic which i gave is “Examine the extent to which Strategic Human Resource Management Theory and Practice is differently applied during period of significant economic recession from times of rapid growth”
i can not find anything to talk about “during period of significant economic recession from times of rapid growth”.
moreover, I required “Introduction: not required” but the essay still have the introduction…
besides, i required fully Harvard Referencing System. I think the referencing is not according to this.
to conclude, there three major area for re-write
1. please emphasis “during period of significant economic recession from times of rapid growth”, which the main discussion should be this, but not “Strategic Human Resource Management Theory and Practice”
2. please use Harvard Referencing style
3. please do not write introduction
I would hope, before re-write the essay, please take read the topic completely, and also take a look at the requirement which i wrote.
Thank you very much!
Yours Sincerely
Ummm. OK. I had thought we had already settled the matter. Whatever. I sent a message back immediately, indicating that “upon reviewing the essay, it does seem apparent that I have addressed matters relating to economic recession and rapid growth. I think upon a closer review of the essay, you will find that though this exact phrase was not used, the topic was discussed extensively. As agreed upon earlier, I am still more than happy to revise the citations. As I proceed, I will also try to clarify the language where appropriate. Thanks so much.”
Without a hint of protest, Jub-Jub responded.
sorry, just now forgot to mention, as i said in the requirement/ Instructions before,
“please use: theory + example + further discussion + elaborate in detail.”
I responded, “I will take that under advisement.” Whatever it meant. I’m no good at math.
Jub-Jub responded, “Thank you Tomar!”
A mere fifteen minutes later, another unprompted message:
Hello Dear writer
Could you do me a faver to meet my essay’s topic and finish it before 7pm to night.
It is the deadline for me!!!!!!!!!!!
Please understand me!!!!!!!!!! I am so, so anxiously waiting for it right now!!
Thanks very much
Jub-Jub
What the hell? Was I being punk’d? What the hell was Jub-Jub’s problem? All right, I told myself. Stay calm. Be polite.
Jub-Jub,
As I indicated to you in our earlier series of conversations, I will have the assignment revised by this evening. Though we typically avail a 24 hour revision policy, I am making all arrangements to have this work submitted to you by 7PM EST. Your continued patience and understanding are very much appreciated and I am confident you will be pleased with the final product.
Moments later:
Hello Tomar
I have to tell you that I am Jub-Jub’s mother, some replies were not from Jub-Jub, but from me, I am sorry that I wrote something looks “funny”.
Anyway, I hope you will finish the ordered essay in a good quality and hope Jub-Jub will get it from you as soon.
thanks very much
Mrs Jones
What a relief. I had thought I was writing for somebody with multiple personality disorder. Turned out I was just writing for a kid who would live in his mother’s basement until he was forty.
This paper was for a senior in college. So presumably, this was a 22-year-old student. Do you know that the average life expectancy in Swaziland is 39.6 years? This guy would have been a tribal elder there. He would already have been more than half dead. Something told me this guy wasn’t ready to lead the tribe.
I felt bad for this kid. I really did. He’d never had a chance. What a life it must be, to have your mother helping you cheat. How long did she plan on holding his hand? How long would she shield him from the wisdom to be imparted by failure? How long would she embrace his baffling impotence?
I didn’t know him personally, but I imagined Jub-Jub as a harness kid. His mother had leashed him in public and given him a helmet and a three-foot playing radius. Jub-Jub hadn’t been potty trained because his mother had a deathly fear of swimming. She couldn’t have Jub-Jub drowning in his own house. Jub-Jub had had a colostomy. It made for less time that he had to be separated from Mom. It just made sense. They had gotten a two-for-one surgery deal by having a LoJack installed as well.
Jub-Jub had always performed well in school. His mother’s lawyer was number two on the speed dial, behind the doctor who got Jub-Jub his learning pills. Anytime Jub-Jub got a C, the lawyer got a call. This was usually enough to get Jub-Jub a B or better.
Jub-Jub’s mother had raised a sponge. She had raised a loofah. She had raised one of those revolting coconut-marshmallow Peeps. Jub-Jub was soft, squooshy, and destined to be eaten alive.
It’s possible I’ve taken some liberties with Jub-Jub’s story. All I really know about him is that he was most likely of a legal age to have died fighting for his country four years earlier, and his mother was still helping him just to correspond with the guy he’d hired to help him cheat through school.
Jub-Jub’s mother meant well. She just wanted what was best for Junior. And she would bite the head off a live chicken to make it happen.
Jub-Jub was not a bum for no reason. It had been enabled. It had been encouraged. And it was the only thing he knew.
I remember thinking earnestly about it when pressed by Hope’s dad that Thanksgiving Day. Was I to blame for America’s future of incompetence? There was no denying it. I was part of a broken system, and one that I despised. But I was just the obvious part, the trash pile in the dumpster out back. Until you’ve been inside the system the way I have, you don’t know that the halls and the classrooms and the administrative offices stink of industrial waste.
8
Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City
Hope and I broke up. It was a matter of inevitability. I needed to focus on my work… is what I told myself as I descended into a sexual drought of epic proportions. So I did exactly that. I threw myself into my assignments, sublimating all of the resentment I had for school, family, and my ex-girlfriends into resentment for my customers… not that they didn’t deserve it.
I was disconsolate and surly, sarcastic and vindictive, openly condescending and brimming with smart-assery. I hadn’t developed the type of thick-skinned stoicism that makes a superior customer service agent. On my darker days, and there were quite a few at this time, I really let the customers get to me. The constant hum of ignorance vibrated in my ears.
Let’s get past the idea that there are a lot of students in colleges and graduate schools who are incapable of completing the work assigned to them. This is a fact. Too many students simply arrive at colleges lacking the basic academic skills necessary to conduct empirical research, to write competent essays, or to grasp the comple
x ideas required to satisfy university-level course objectives. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment survey, which ranks the performance of OECD member nations’ educational systems, in 2009 the United States ranked twenty-fifth in math, seventeenth in science, and fourteenth among all surveyed nations in reading.1 On the combined reading scale, therefore, we were outperformed by Korea, Finland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan, Norway, and Estonia. We’re in a dead heat with Poland and Iceland.
But hey, at least we don’t live in East Timor, right?
Well, of course, those struggling students don’t just get better or go away. They have become so significant a portion of the student population that we have no choice but to manage them. This is why many of my customers don’t simply lack the skills necessary to complete the assigned work. They even lack the skills necessary to competently give the task to someone else. Many of these students just have no idea what they’re doing at school. None whatsoever.
Quite a good number of my customers, I learned early, didn’t know how to ask for what they needed until they didn’t get it. It was just an idiosyncrasy, I suppose, but I’ve always been a bit volatile. This kind of thing did not sit well with me.
My customers constantly pushed me to the edge of civility with their incessant e-mails, their furious demands, their critical expectations… their insults. My writing was subject to a new kind of indignity. I found satisfaction in doing this work—and doing it well when possible—even though I wasn’t getting any real credit for it. But that feeling quickly wilted when I had to endure the scholarly scrutiny of a dissatisfied customer who misspelled his own name on the order form.
And the stupidity, the sheer, incalculable, and inconsiderate stupidity, a kind of dumb that bordered on antisocial and made me, frankly, really nervous about this nation’s liberal distribution of guns, cars, computers, and other weapons of midrange destruction; this kind of stupidity just flooded into my angry little life and made my stomach churn with hopelessness.