As an off-campus student, a good portion of my day is spent waiting for the bus. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a problem if I picked up a bus schedule. It would be even less of a problem if bus picked up one of my schedules and started waiting on me, but neither of these are likely to happen.

Fortunately, I have grown fond of the time I spend waiting for the blue bus to pick me up. It gives me time to collect my thoughts. As you may have guessed, this is a very short process. I spend the rest of my time staring at stuff.

This “stuff” is more accurately described as “people.” People are fascinating, especially when they do interesting things such as trip on the sidewalk or stick their heads in garbage cans or both (which is extremely rare, yet highly comical).

I consider seeing a can man a real treat. It’s a breed of man that I was never exposed to in Minnesota, where there is no need for a can deposit because Minnesotans are special people who are so environmentally aware that they recycle instinctively.

For me, watching a can man scrounge is not merely a source of amusement – it’s an education. I study his technique. I take notes on the types of clothes he wears, the plastic bags he uses, and the fingerless gloves he owns.

When I came to this university, I expected to leave with skills and credentials necessary to land a good job. Instead, I’ll be walking out of here in December with an LAS degree and bad credit.

This is why I’ve taken my study of can men so seriously. Despite its competitive nature, it may be the only career my degree qualifies me for, and I want to be prepared.

With graduation looming, I find myself thinking more and more seriously about getting a job. Consequently, I am getting more and more headaches as this is the first time my brain has focused on anything resembling a serious thought in over 21 years.

Regardless of my mental efforts, I still haven’t found a job. Some people might blame this on the fact that I haven’t really looked. But I don’t think I should be required.

I was talking with my good friend Mike the other day, who will be graduating in the spring. This week alone he has had five different companies approach him with job offers. Next week, he is being flown to California for another interview.

Mike has somehow managed to have the top corporations in America wetting themselves just for a chance to hire him, thought he never applied for a job. He is also dating my twin sister, which is weird but irrelevant to today’s discussion.

Granted, he is one of the top computer engineering students at Princeton and smarter than a cage full of monkeys, but I’m still a little jealous of the treatment he’s receiving (from the employers, you sickos, not my sister)

I asked him why potential employers were beating down his door to hire him (and if he ever considered just leaving the door open to save on repair costs) while they wouldn’t even return my phone calls. His response: “Can you design a microprocessor?” My response: “Can you write `my friend Mike is a big wiener’ in the newspaper?”

Advantage: Borchers. Unfortunately, it’s hard to build a career around insulting your friends in the newspaper. But I’ll try: Casey, you smell!

Still, Mike’s right. I can’t design a microprocessor, and I know that is the reason why employers are so eager to hire him. He has what employers refer to as “skills.” Because of this, people are willing to pay him a lot of scratch, or “money.”

In majors such as science or engineering, it’s easy to distinguish who has the skills and who doesn’t. If their bridge stands, they have the skills. If their bridge crumbles, sending dozens of innocent people, including a bus-load of nuns, to their watery graves, they don’t have the skills. There isn’t a whole lot of gray area there.

In advertising, it’s all gray area. Determining who has the skills is hard. In fact, because most of us were either too lazy to try or failed out of the “real” majors, the odds are good that none of us have the skills at all.

So I am guessing this is where the industry’s reluctance to hire us comes from. Even if we make a few good ads to put in a portfolio, there’s no guarantee we can do it again. This column is proof of that.

So even if I beat the odds and find a job in advertising, my salary will be low or possibly nonexistent. On an hourly basis, I’d do better collecting cans.

Maybe my best hope is for Mike to marry my sister so I can have a rich brother-in-law who can loan me money. In the meantime, I have a bus to catch. Maybe I’ll find a can or two while I wait.