Personally, when I think of people that might need personal assistants, I think of movie stars, huge business managers, and CEOs. I never once thought of a student needing one. (Unless it was a joke in a kids' movie or something- you know the ones with the bully and his follower minions? I guess those are kind of like personal assistants...) Anyway, this Charley Cooper kid set up an ad on his university's employment website, advertising his need for a personal assistant to do "some of [his] everyday tasks." These included picking him up and dropping him off at class, putting gas in and providing maintenance for his car, doing his laundry, and scheduling appointments.
Upon reading this, I immediately judged Charley Cooper as an obnoxious rich kid who doesn't want to have to do his own work. But after reading about his background, class load, part-time job and the illness that he's dealing with in his family, I realized that there probably are many students out there who need a personal assistant.
I know from experience that high school (especially here at New Trier) can be an unbelievably competitive and stressful experience. While it can be fun, there are some times when I just want to forget about all of my classes, say "f*** it" to my homework, and go home to get some actual sleep. I'm sure all of you have felt the same way. You're in a four-level class, it's bound to happen. And it's probably even worse at college!
Now think about how much easier your life would be if there was someone there to take care of all of your insignificant tasks; to drive you places, pick up things when you needed them, help you manage your time and your schedules. I would LOVE that. Thinking about this in depth, I have gained a new respect for Charley Cooper. He's not obnoxious, he actually has a really good idea.
Could school be structured in too stressful a way for us to get everything done on our own? Or does Charley Cooper just have too much on his plate? What do you think?
2 comments:
I think today a lot more constraints are put on a person's time, due to the type of work people have to do, and the new methods of communication we have, perhaps.
One of my teachers was talking about how, now that email has become so widely used for educators/students as a great convenience, it also adds hours of additional work (email responses) on an already-large workload. Teachers are certainly not the only ones subject to this (students are similarly beckoned constantly by beeps from email/texting, or from interesting unopened internet tabs), and email is not the only reason our time is constricted. Hobbies and different media of entertainment also contribute to this (balancing educational material with books with movies with television shows with friends with art/hobbies with sleep/relaxation, etc). There are a lot of other things I could say, but I thought mention of how modern technology has that effect I thought was a particularly interesting point.
I think Cooper's decision shows how in some ways some people are expected to do "super-human" sorts of things. A lot of the work we do (our schedules in particular) contradict our biological clock, our body's needs, and our time limits. There are never enough hours in a day.
The part that struck me the most was the fact that he was dealing with an illness in the family. My thinking is that today, when proper medication and treatment can be so expensive and unaffordable for people, Charley Cooper should be considered a hero. I think that even though his image might, upon hearing about his personal assistant, change to "just a rich kid," the ends definitely justify the means.
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