“In my day job at a major technology company, I mentor a lot of young adults. Most of them are college-aged interns and recent graduates.

You’ll be shocked—shocked!—to learn that my mentoring sessions are popular because of their “no bullshit” vibe. If we’re getting coffee for thirty minutes, we’ll spend two of them introducing ourselves and making pleasant chit-chat about the weather. That leaves twenty-eight minutes for me to break the speed of sound delivering my very best general adulting advice.

I live for the moment when these young folks realize I’m here to talk straight to them. They go from having no questions (because they’re terrified of looking unprepared) to having dozens.

One question I get asked a lot is, “Should I go to grad school?”

I always say the same thing, without any hesitation.

“No.”

The last young person I was mentoring specifically asked if he should go on to grad school to get his master’s degree in Marketing Operations. Which did get me to change my stance a little bit.

“Fuck no.”

22-Year-Olds Don’t Belong in Grad School: Bitches Get Riches

“Time for another exciting edition of Mz. Mannerz!

Hi.

Who would have thought such a little word could inspire so much rage?  I mean, I would have thought that, but I fly into rage over someone misquoting lines from Caddyshack, so I’m a bad gauge of what’s rage-worthy.  You should probably talk to someone who doesn’t have a vein semi-permanently bulging out of their forehead if you want calm and well-thought out commentary on the matter.

I mean, goddamn it.  If you’re not gonna get the quote from the movie right, then don’t quote it.  You can’t just replace Bill Murray’s line “Big hitter, the Lama” with “The Lama is a big hitter” because you will have ruined the line.  RUINED IT.”

Mz. Mannerz: Hi Seems To Be The Hardest Word: RomComDojo

“There’s a vacation photo of me, all grainy and saturated like the best ’80s snapshots. My messy red ’fro is damp, my smiling face is half in shadow, my feet are dangling in glistening water that spreads to the edges of the frame, and my skinny 8-year-old ass is bending the middle of a blowup raft with a huge Confederate flag on it. This picture sums up my youth: a mixed-race black kid alone in the middle of a lake, cluelessly floating on the whitest thing possible.”

Robert E. Lee’s Horse’s Ass Made Me Black: Chris L. Terry, America. In Black. on The Root

“The United States government has no plans to vaccinate migrant families against the flu ahead of this year’s flu season. Doctors are urging efforts to fight the flu infection among those being held in the detention camps, particularly children — three of whom have died, in part, from symptoms of the flu in the past year.”

U.S. Government Refuses Migrant Families Flu Shots In Detention Camps: Cassandra Stone, Scary Mommy

“If you haven’t read my initial post about my college journey, I suggest you start there before continuing on. In short summary, I am the first to attend college in my family and my transition didn’t go well. There were a lot of mistakes made and I could have used some guidance from another black adoptee who had gone through this process. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the means of connecting with people like y’all do now, so I went in blind. Lucky for you all, I’m here to be your fairy godmother and share with you some of the things I had questions about and I found out the hard way, you should probably keep in mind while choosing a school.”

A Couple Things For Adoptees To Consider When Choosing Colleges: OnlyBlackGirl, Musings of a Transracial Adoptee