The most awesome thing about having a resume or a business card or a collegiate degree is that I feel totally legitimate and like I have my life put together just for possessing those key tools. The fun reality is that all the work I dedicated to possessing those things means basically nothing unless I put even more work, using my previous work. Isn’t having a college degree like having a wishing stone? All my dreams are supposed to come true now! All I’m hearing is a lot of Work Work Work talk and it’s making me tired.

Basically, a resume is a list of things about you that you think will impress people. So, for example, while “Able to climb up doorways as an adult” may certainly be impressive to you, the adult who can climb up doorways still (something I myself admire, as I have recently tried and failed this), it is probably not impressive to “people.” And while “people” and what they think of us don’t generally matter (because “people” are the ones who roll their eyes when all a girl’s trying to do is demonstrate that I can juggle three apples while singing all the words to David Bowie’s Space Oddity), when it comes to paying the bills (and generally having funds to spend on goofy things like cacti and rocks and 3-D printers so you can print plastic apples to juggle in the comfortable privacy of your own home, which does not roll its eyes at you), “people” kind of have to matter. Sorry.

So a resume includes boring, professional things, like “Studied at Clown School,” and “Senior President of the Star Wars Laser-Blaster Sound-Making Club,” and “Certified in Cat CPR.” Like I said, a list of things about you that you think will really dazzle people. I would attach my resume as an example, but as you can imagine, it’s pretty dull.

Generally, there are a few different categories in a resume, like “Education,” “Work Experience,” and “Volunteer Experience.” If you have fancy certifications or have won any awards, then good for you. No I mean it, that’s just GREAT for you. Congrats on being so awesome. But, anyway, you can put those under their own categories, too. And the trick is to list the most recent items first under each category, because someone who’s looking at your resume is without a doubt skimming the whole thing and so anything you want them to bother to look at for .1 seconds you really need to put first. So like, lead the entire document with your name, of course. Like, put it in big, flashy letters at the top of the page. In fact, forget Microsoft Word. What you really should do is take a trip to Hobby Lobby–any craft store will do thought–and buy those foam glitter letters with the sticky backs, and use that to make your name really pop. They’ll be washing glitter off their hands for weeks and that’s how you’ll know it worked.

Because as much pressure as we put on resumes and how clean and perfect it has to look–it has to stand out but not be too “extra”–nobody is really going to put that much time into reading it. You spend years accumulating experience and good Samaritan type stuff to add to your resume and it all boils down to a casual glance. Talk about oppressive. We need to overhaul the entire resume process. Let’s dismantle resumes and the hiring practice, and completely restructure it from the ground-up. Eradicate resumes as we know them, make hiring fairer and easier, and we need to pay women equal wages as men, especially women of color who experience the gender wage gap as well as a race-based wage gap, and while we’re at it, let’s break into the education realm and begin an upheaval, completely rethinking the system of public education and how we believe students should learn, starting with paying our teachers respectably for the huge societal undertaking they accept, and moving on to more progressive teaching methods that value creative problem-solving and personal motivation.

Um… I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.

But anyway, it’s as easy as that. Or whatever I was saying.

Business cards are like resumes only they’re easier and more fun. Because the only person your business card will ever be EXCITING to is you, so when you run around showing all your friends your business cards, they’re probably going to be like, “Thanks, Steve, but we already know your email address and never use it, and also thanks for this tiny piece of paper I now have the burden of recycling. Welcome to the 21st century where paper means peasantry.” OR, you get all excited to show strangers your business card, and they’re like, “Thanks, Mr. Steven, but I don’t know you at all well enough to be happy for your personal accomplishments, but I might not lose this business card and in two months potentially email you some junk mail.”

They’re just so cute and mini! And all you have to know is your name, your phone number, and your email. You don’t even have to know your high school to have a business card! Which is a huge relief, because it’s quite an effort trying to rack through anything I’ve done that happened longer than a few hours ago. I have no idea how this cat got in here.

Lots of sites have business card designs already put together, too, so finding a cool template is pretty easy. Make sure you’re not accidentally on one of those business card websites that specializes in putting naked women on them. I went to Vegas once and all of the businesspeople there put naked ladies on their business cards and that’s just really unprofessional. I mean, I guess not, if the pictures are photographs they’ve taken and are examples of their work. Or if maybe the business card belongs to the lady, who’s just showcasing her best shot. But, generally, in the Midwest, as I am, putting a naked lady on your business card may be a bit over the top and is perhaps best left for your business endeavors in the West.

And having a college degree?

Yeah, I’m not even going into that. It feels absolutely the same as not having a college degree, only a thousand times better.

Anyway, I’ve got to figure out about this cat. And check on my 3-D printer to see if dinner’s finished.