My Time as a Sidekick with Indiana Jones Did Not Prepare Me for the Modern Job Market

Let me preface this by saying that I hold no grudge against Indiana; he's a great guy, an A-list gent. Everything you ever heard about him is absolutely true. He really is the world's greatest bull-whip-wielding adventurer/archaeologist. And while we were traveling together I had a great time. Jumping off of roofs, investigating secret cults, foiling Nazi schemes, watching the good doctor put the moves on whatever beauty happened to end up with us during that particular adventure, etc., all that was fantastic. But as much fun as I was having while we were doing it, the undeniable fact is this; spending my youth as a side-kick for Indiana Jones did a poor job in preparing me for the rigors of the modern job market.

Oh I learned plenty during my travels with Dr. Jones; how to drive a car with boxes attached to my feet, the secret and ineffable true name of G-d, the best way to strip a uniform off an unconscious goon, all sorts of things that, while useful to a pulp-hero, aren't exactly in high-demand when one enters the workforce. When other children were learning basic mathematics and American history I was fighting alligators and outwitting priests of the Thuggi cult. On my first interview a perspective employer asked me about my knowledge of computers. I told him that Indy and I once had to race against the evil Dr. Heisenfuhrer to shut down the secret doomsday clock created by the people of the lost continent of Atlantis, and that the clock showed computational power a thousand-times beyond that of modern day technology. He said he was more asking whether I knew how to create a spreadsheet on Excel. I didn't get a second interview.

One would think that, having spent my formative years in the company of the world's greatest archaeologist, the U.S. government's go to guy anytime they need a man to investigate a lost treasure or a primordial civilization, I would find it easy enough to get a position at a major university in just such a field. One would be entirely incorrect. First of all, most of these ancient artifacts we searched for had a tendency not to make it back to the Smithsonian, if you get my drift. The Spear of Longinus? Repossessed by the ghostly visage of an other-worldly spirit. The Sacred Relic of the Tooth of Buddha? Returned to the ancient order of monks from whom it was originally stolen. The point being its hard to prove you spent time on a dig when your findings are immediately classified by the feds and locked up in some secret government warehouse.

And honestly, that's not even the real issue. Going into my first undergraduate interview I felt confident that my 'hands-on' experience in archeology would come through, despite my lack of a birth-certificate, high-school diploma, or academic transcript of any kind. Imagine then, my surprise when during my interview with Stanford's archaeological department they began to ask me, not questions about my ability with a revolver, or my skills at fisticuffs, or even the best way to cheat a five-card stud; no, Stanford Universities' first interview question was about how well I read Sanskrit. Sanskrit? How's my Sanskrit? Gosh, I'm sorry, I guess I was just a little too busy saving the planet from the machinations of the National Socialist's to pick up the grammar of a language that hasn't been spoken for three-thousand years. Where are my priorities?

I'll be up front with you. I'm not even sure how Jones still has a job. I know that there's a tendency amongst professors to slack off a bit, dump their coursework on the TA's and whatnot, but even by the decayed standards of modern academia Indiana is pushing it. To the best of my knowledge this man has yet to finish teaching a complete course. He'll get through two weeks of coursework and then suddenly he's called away by government agents or shadowy industrialists. I swear to Christ, this man is in the classroom less than Cornell West. The purpose of a sabbatical is to further your research, not screw showgirls on Himalayan mountaintops. In all the years I traveled with him, I never once saw him work on a research paper. Not once. You know that saying 'publish or perish?' I suppose lessons learnt during the years he spent looking down the business end of a Lugar serve him well when in front of an a tenure board.

I'm sorry, this is bringing up a lot of unresolved feelings. In retrospect it seems clear Dr. Jones was not really the best parental guardian, what with constantly forcing me to risk my life on dangerous escapades as opposed to, you know, enrolling me in grammar school or something. Maybe if he had tried to place me with some foster parents instead of dragging me half-way across the world I wouldn't have ended up competing with geriatrics for the coveted Wal-Mart Greeter position. 'Hi, welcome to Wal-Mart. Hi, welcome to Wal-Mart. Hi, welcome to Wal-Mart.' It's enough to make me wish I'd opened my eyes that one time G-d smote the Nazi's.