Jul 16, 2008
What does your high school clique say about you?
Was just reading this article about how your high school persona affects the industry you work in and your salary range.
Their categories included:
- Cheerleaders
- Jocks
- Geeks
- Student Government
- Teachers Pets
- Honor Society
- Drama Club
- Class Clowns
CareerBuilder, in a survey, found that cheerleaders were more likely than any other group to be a vice president of a company. Teachers pets and student government members are more likely to be directors or team leads. Geeks tend to work in engineering or retail and class clowns seem to gravitate more to manufacturing.
They also found that honor society members and student government members (ie: overachievers) were more likely to make six figures; more specifically, almost 50% of these groups make $50,000 or more. (Are we surprised by this, really?)
Hmmm, I don’t really fit into any of those categories. I was one of the uber-cool kids in the corner of the classroom making fun of the losers in class and cracking jokes about why everyone else sucked. Everyone wanted to sit on our side of the classroom. It was where all the fun happened. Teachers loved me; its funny how teachers don’t really mind if you are loud and a little disruptive if you make good grades and don’t mind helping others, and generally bring out the best in your classmates (yes, I’m tooting my own horn 
)
The eclectic, the unusual, the self-expressive all flocked to me and I loved it. I could be found chilling with the comic-book readers, the blue haired skateboarders, the artists, the readers, the Latin club kids (super-duper weirdos). Come to think about it, I collected all the people that didn’t fit in anywhere else and I was able to feel comfortable in disparate groups of people.
So maybe that says more than I think about how I ended up a misunderstood Philosophy major that could do anything and nothing. Maybe that’s why employers really want to hire me, they really like me, they know I’ll fit into their organization but they just weren’t sure where to put me.
Just maybe my high school persona has a little something to do with why I’m so interested in diversity and community building. Maybe I’ve being training my whole life to help people figure out where they belong and to create the space for everyone to be themselves-together.
Hated the uber-cool kids. They always went out of their way to prove their superiority by persecuting anyone who wasn’t.
I did get my revenge on some of the uber-cool girls who made my life hell by using squirt gun filled with a weak acid solution, and laughing at their nylons melted and ran down on their shoes. But talk to me privately about the boobytrapped washcloth and Miss-So-Uber-Cool-You-Must-Worship-Me-with-Praise-and-Money.
I was a geek, but I didn’t fit in with the geeks. I was a high school All-American athlete, but I never fitted in with the jocks. So I was pretty much a loner all through school. Never got the hang of the social scene, and until I was diagnosed as an Asperger, thought I was defective.
In the end, I came back to my 25th reunion as the CIO of a growing company, and the uber-coolest kid at school was a thrice-divorced dad with 15 kids to support, working as a 3rd night manager at a 7-11.
@ Random: Hmmm, funny how life can smack some of us on the back of the head, and others of us end up flat on our asses.
And just so you know, I wouldn’t have been mean to you
Thanks. Hopefully it’s because you’re a basically decent person, and not because of the boobytrapped washcloth.