When I graduated from college, my father told me that one of the biggest disappointments in his life was that he didn’t have enough money to send me to an elite school. Also, that he never wanted me to work my way through college, as I did, when I attended a less than elite university because its journalism courses emphasized “doing it” with working reporters  and editors instead of listening  how “to do it” from text book teaching professors.

I often think of those days when discussing how much of an advantage a graduate of a prestigious school has in obtaining employment over a more intelligent and talented individual because of financial considerations. 

Too many truly gifted students are forced to attend a college with less stature, preventing them from being given the opportunity of changing the world, hopefully for the better. Instead, many of us are relegated to careers in substandard jobs like U.S. Senators or political consultants, reviewing books and theatrical performances, creating television and Broadway shows, and, sadly as reporters, especially for cable TV political channels, or Op Ed and editorial writers just because our sheepskins read Yokel College instead of Big Money University. But the truly unfortunate among us grads, who are ashamed to display our diplomas in our offices, are those who ended up in the demeaning jobs of public relations and, even worse, God forbid, in advertising. 

It’s punishment enough to have to beg reporters to look at story suggestions, as public relations people do. But it’s slightly less shameful than telling your children and grandkids that you earn living writing TV commercials at an advertising agency. (I know one child whose father, a friend of mine, volunteered to speak at a sixth grade “parent’s employment day” event. When the teacher learned the father was in the advertising biz, she called the parent canceling his appearance saying, “The event is meant to encourage students to consider respectable employment opportunities, not ones that rank just above criminal activities.” (As a public relations practitioner, I told my child, “Don’t ever tell your teacher what I do for a living.  And never tell any of your friends’ parents or you’ll never again be invited for a sleepover.”) 

TV commercials really bother me. While watching television I often complain to my wife, about the sleaziness of them. Her template response is, “Who are you to complain? You’re in public relations.” Even some of my friends who are criminal defense attorneys and celebrate when they get a murderer off on a technicality are invited by school teachers to speak on “parent’s employment day,” but not me.  

I blame those of us who have to spend our lives writing ad campaign slogans or PR releases on the employment censors of supposedly respectable businesses. Those employment specialists hire only graduates from the Ivys. 

In order to get even with the educational snobs of society the great majority of TV commercials are deliberately created by grads of schools, too shameful to name, with the intention of insulting  a viewer with a modicum of intelligence, not to mention being misleading, to put it politely. Other commercials are written to leave viewers wondering what message the commercial was supposed to deliver, or in many cases what the creative has to do with a brand, so viewers will spend days trying to figure out if there’s a hidden message in commercials for insurance companies featuring a bunch of animals.

This acting out by the unhappy folks who were forced to work in ad agencies, I have been told by doctors of psychology who proudly hang their Ivy League sheepskins on the walls of their offices, and have photos of them on their I-phones which they show to everyone they meet, is a childish attempt to stick it to those, oh so mighty, high-ranking marketing execs from prestigious schools, hoping that the commercials will so upset viewers that the brands will fail and that the next check the execs will receive is when they file for unemployment benefits.

When I watch TV, most commercials are like clouds in the sky, they just roll by without me paying attention. But there was one commercial that struck home with me. I forget what brand was paying for it, -- not an unusual occurrence among people being bombarded by one commercial after another, especially on telecasts of sporting events. But the message struck home. It told the story of a student who just was notified of admission to a high tuition, prestigious school, and the father congratulating the child while secretly thinking of how the tuition will bankrupt the family.

Well, no longer will any parent have to tell their child what my father told me: “The biggest disappointment in my life is that I couldn’t afford the tuition at a prestigious university and you had to work your way thorough college.” And no longer will families have to go into debt to send their children to prestigious institutions of higher learning. 

Why? Parents can now tell their offspring that going to college in order to land a job with a prestigious title that keeps a person tied to a desk 18 hours a day is injurious to their health and results in a shorter life span. In fact they can say, “We love you too much to send you to college” and point to a study in The Lancet, a respected peer reviewed medical publication, for authority.

In its April 28, 2021, issue, The Lancet published a study titled, “Occupational physical activity and longevity in working men and women in Norway: a prospective cohort study,”

The research “results suggest that moderate to high occupational physical activity contributes to longevity in men… These results might inform future physical activity guidelines for public health,” the study said. 

And if your children aren’t convinced, you can tell them to read the story on the study by Gretchen Reynolds in the universe’s most never wrong authoritative dispenser of information – The New York Times. 

Ms. Reynolds’ Phys Ed column on June 8, 2021, was titled “Active Jobs Could Lengthen Your Life.” It was accompanied by a photo of a construction worker lifting a barrel of some thing. Maybe a container of corrections the paper has to run every day, or the wrong financial advice dispensed by Barron’s and the Wall Street Journal columnists, or the videotapes containing the wrong information that Fox News opinion hosts dole out daily, more often than excuses PR and advertising people give to clients on why their strategies fail to achieve the desired results.

So, parents don’t spend your summers taking your children to see campuses of colleges and universities that will bankrupt you. Instead, take them to the local construction sites. Tell them because of your love for them to consider a job in construction, not in the white collar management area, but in lifting barrels of trash or equipment weighing hundreds of pounds. Tell them how proud you will be if they can pass the test for garbage men, who daily have to lift heavy loads. If they don’t like those suggestions, have them consider other jobs that require physical labor, like structural iron and steel workers, or forest firefighters. Unlike snooty CEOs, who can’t be bothered speaking to people who don’t make money for them, laborers will be glad to chat with someone interested in their jobs.

If the glorious aspects of coming home dirty, smelly and sweaty every day fails, have your child read another know-it-all publication, The Wall Street Journal, so they can read almost weekly about all the white collar executives convicted of fraud. Make certain to emphasize that no garbage man has been sent to the Big House because of stock scams. If your spoiled brat refuses to do so, there’s always the threat of only buying them a new car every other year, instead of yearly.

If they’re still not convinced take them to Norway so that men who work in manual labor can tell them how they outlive high paid white collar executives who sit behind a desk after having left their parents penniless by having them pay tuition to expensive universities. 

Explain to your children how being a farmer means that they’ll always have food. Emphasize that sitting behind a desk leads to many medical conditions including obesity, increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat, abnormal cholesterol levels, cardiovascular disease and  a white collar executive disease known as sticky fingers, which often results in the person being jailed for fraudulent activities.

If that doesn’t work use the sympathy approach.  Tell your child about how hard you never had a day off, when you worked yourself through college, when tuition was only $30,000 a semester, not including room and board. Doing so probably won’t change the mind of your child; neither will the shorter lifespan study. But at least you gave it your all before declaring for bankruptcy.

As a last resort, tell your child that you’ll pay tuition for schools that specialize only in public relations or, God forbid, advertising. But make certain that no law enforcement person learns about that conversation or you and other parents might be charged with “cruel and unusual punishment.”

While this might be an April Fools column, the study in The Lancet is no joke. Neither are the tuitions charged by institutions of higher learning – prestigious or not. And also true, alas, is the low opinion the public has of advertising and PR people, even though our work doesn’t lead to a murderer getting off on a technicality (as far as I know). 

About the Author: Arthur Solomon, a former journalist, was a senior VP/senior counselor at Burson-Marsteller, and was responsible for restructuring, managing and playing key roles in some of the most significant national and international sports and non-sports programs. He also traveled internationally as a media adviser to high-ranking government officials. He now is a frequent contributor to public relations publications, consults on public relations projects and was on the Seoul Peace Prize nominating committee. He has been a key player on Olympic marketing programs and also has worked at high-level positions directly for Olympic organizations. He can be reached at arthursolomon4pr (at) juno.com.