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Graduation parties. Graduation cards. Graduation corsages. Graduation balloons. They’re everywhere! They’re everywhere!

For many students this time of year is the culmination of years of hard work, whether high school or college. Some of our college grads will be going out into the “free” (as our local prison population calls it), to find real world, 9 to 5 jobs. There they will soon find that “skipping” classes doesn’t work when it’s a boss who is going to fire your a— if you don’t show up to do what he is paying you to do, every day. On time.. Now THAT is going to be a real shocker to some.

A delightful young woman I met last night who works as an HR lawyer told me about having to fire a woman who had persistently arrived late at work. Upon arriving half an hour or an hour late, she called a friend in personnel, told her she had inadvertently forgotten to clock in, then had her friend clock her in. Needless to say, both of them got fired, much to their unbounded amazement.  All you can do is shake your head at such stupidity.

Others will be headed to the supposed free-wheeling fun of college. There again, absences do make a difference. One colleague who teaches math at our local university, said she had never had so many absences. Every day five to seven students would habitually miss class. And then at the end of the semester, they expect extra credit to make up for the work they missed!  Another head banger!

The Business professor husband of a friend said he had never given so many F’s in his life. The students in his business courses just haven’t been working. Somehow the rules don’t apply to them. Is it just the millennials? Do they expect to get by without having to do the work? Then expect to catch up at the end?

Certainly, that cannot be said about all of them. But there are way too many going out into our American workforce who do expect a free ride.

One graduate, regrettably a DACA student, is unable to get any grants or scholarships because of her status. Instead of getting a job, again a problem, and working her way through her first two years at the local Community College, she insists on attending a prestigious northern university. She expects to get help from friends and relatives to the tune of $22,000 a year. She has even made up a list of all her aunts and uncles and written in what she expects to get from each of them, without asking, merely expecting them to ante up. Yet another head banger!

But that said, there are, thank goodness, many good, hard-working students out there who will add a great deal to our workforce. Without them, this country could not survive. Oh, I take it back, we are going to bring in those well-educated Indian and Japanese and Chinese immigrants who will take all our best jobs. Nice thought.

Sorry! Just feeling a little bitter.