Real
World: A guide for grads
Shoreline Times
by Susan Braden, Features Editor
Tuesday, April 3, 2002
Real
world, no kidding. Life after college for this graduate could have been an
alphabet soup - HMOs, 401k's, W-4's.
Negotiating one's path through the ins and outs and inevitable rough patches of
life after school could get anyone down or confused. What about business dinner
etiquette or how to get an apartment? And what exactly is escargot?
How do you order wine?
After Jesse Vickey made sense out of it all, the 27-year-old entrepreneur wanted
to share his knowledge with others - especially college seniors on their way to
embark on their lives in the real world. Vickey, a former salesman on Wall
Street, started "Cap and Compass," a company that gives seminars on
the how-to's of reading a lease, deciphering a health insurance policy, paying
off your student loan as well as investment strategies. He hired a local
stand-up comic, Andy Ferguson, for the program so it resembles more an
entertainment hour than a lecture series.
Vickey recently self-published a book "Life After School.
Explained." To keep it breezy in tone and fun to read, he included
cartoons and funny anecdotes.
His advice to dressing for your first job for men - buy two suits - blue and
gray. Never mind if the olive one looks best on you. After a few
weeks, you don't want to be known as "Olive Green Suit Boy."
"At lunch," Vickey writes knowingly, "your coworkers will huddle
up at their table and cackle, 'Did you see Olive Green Suit Boy today?
Today he's wearing a blue tie ... like that makes it a new outfit.'"
He adds, "Blue and gray suits might seem boring, but boring doesn't get
noticed or ridiculed."
Vickey, a very personable Gen-Xer, looks like he has it completely under control
- in fact he owns it.
Not always so, however. It wasn't smooth sailing at first. He looked
for guidance and found very little literature on the subject. What he did
find was "touchy feely" books more on the psychology of being out on
your won in the world for the first time.
"The point
of this is to be more practical," he said about "Life After
School."
Vickey and his wife, Nicole, both '97 graduates of Duke University, had to
enroll in the school of hard knocks so-to-speak after leaving their dorms
behind.
"There are a gazillion things I had to learn. I talked to my friends
and parents."
There are very usable tips about apartment hunting in big cities - for instance,
grads should be prepared to find an apartment in Boston only through a broker -
period. Four months of rent is required up front - one month to cover the
broker's fee.
Writing the book was a fun exercise. The challenge was to impart lots of
necessary and sometimes dry information in a readable, humorous way. Just
like the intensive study groups in college, the author, his wife, and Ferguson
had brainstorm sessions to come up with the comic asides.
But, are college students ready for a practical guide - when they're cramming
for exams and maybe worried about finding a job after graduation?
"Once you get into your second semester in your senior year, there's
something coming up you've got to get prepared for," Vickey said.
The seminars have proven to be popular - Vickey brings costumes and props and
enlists volunteers from the audience. He may produce a top hat and wig for
the role of Uncle Sam, when he talks about income tax.
"It gets people involved," Vickey said. "We throw out candy
for correct answers."
Vickey and Ferguson have given the seminars from Maine to Florida. He is
marketing the book to colleges and universities across the country and
especially targeting alumni association. Inside the book's cover is a
space to custom print a dedication from a particular alumni group.
"I tried to cover a little bit of everything. I spoke with insurance
companies, tax accountants, car dealers."
Even then, he had to translate a lot of jargon and industry-speak.
Vickey's aim was to "not be preachy" peppering with common sense tips
and "making it smart."
In the book, Vickey gives a primer on wines and spells them out phonetically so
the reader knows how to pronounce the different varieties. He breaks them
down in to wines named after grapes and those named after regions.
Beaujolais is bo-zha-lay, Bordeux is bor-doe and Chablis is sha-blee.
After the Champagne entry, he translates to "hap-pee-nu-yeer" while
his entry for Sherry is "like the Journey song."
The author has an entire seminar devoted to "Love Your Money."
He writes, "Love it! Squeeze it! Kiss it!" He lists
the pros and cons of stashing it under a mattress versus savings and checking
accounts to savvy (but basic) investment strategies. Vickey even shows how
to read the stock pages in the newspaper.
Vickey also has apocryphal tales of the grad who had loser strategies in life,
called "Story time."
His friends may even find themselves in the pages of his book.
"All of them are real," Vickey said about the horror stories.
"We didn't have to make up any of them."
Vickey writes about what bad credit or having no credit (the same as having the
bad kind) will do to your life: "No credit is like having the Cooties but
not even realizing it."
The most common mistake Vickey sees recent grads make on their first job is at
the business dinner where they are trying too hard to impress their boss and a
client.
"They try to be too funny," Vickey said. They try to draw
attention to themselves. The important ting to remember is to follow the
lead of the host."
Although the book was only published in February, Vickey said he has sold some
1,500 copies. He will give a book-signing at Barnes & Noble in North
Haven Saturday, April 20th at 2pm.
Vickey has his marketing in overdrive. He has appeared on "Positively
Connecticut" with Diane Smith on WTIC AM radio.
Reaction from college students and recent grads has been overwhelmingly
positive, he said.
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