You know this entitlement thing has to end. People seem to think they are entitled to everything from social security to health care. Well Trina Thompson thinks she’s entitled to a job. Of course she hasn’t found one in the whole three months she’s been searching so she’s doing what most people seem to think is logical and suing.
That’s right this lady is suing her college, Monroe College in New York, for $72,000. Her tuition was $70,000 and she’s adding another $2,000 to the bill to compensate for the stress she’s been experiencing in the three months she’s failed to find a job. What does this fine lady have to present an employer? Well a bachelor or business administration degree and a grade point average of 2.7. Oh yeah I also forgot to mention her solid attendance record.
So she’s competing in a market with high unemployment with thousands of people with work experience and much higher GPAs who have been laid off. After three months of searching she’s found nothing and it’s the school’s fault. That’s what she says:
They’re supposed to say, “I got this student, her attendance is good, her GPA is all right — can you interview this person?” They’re not doing that.
I don’t think Ms. Thompson’s current unemployment has much to do with the school. It probably has a lot to do with her attitude, subpar GPA, and her rather generic degree. I’m sorry but your college isn’t responsible for getting you a job, they are responsible for educating you well enough that you can got out and get a job. And (as of 11:42 CST on August 4th, 2009) currently the unemployment rate is at 9.7%.
I’m sure math isn’t Ms. Thompson’s strong suite but that means for every 100 people 10 are unemployed. The (as of the same date mentioned above) current population of the United States is 304,059,724. That means there are roughly 30,405,972 unemployed persons in this country. Many of those people have degrees which they obtained with a higher GPA and years of work experience, which in of itself is far more valuable than the degree or GPA.
Another issues I don’t think Ms. Thompson is considering is she’s probably going to have a much harder time getting a job in the future now that this story has gone public. See employees don’t like liabilities and hiring somebody who is willing to sue a college for not finding her a job is probably going to sue any company that employes her for any number of reasons. Really she’s probably not going to win this court case (then again this is in New York) not only because this suit is stupid but because she’s representing herself (a good setup for failure when going against an entity with lawyers). On top of that she’s also making herself undesirable due to her behavior and willingness to admit she feels entitled to things she’s not.
Further Research
The court filing. (PDF)