October 5, 2007
Already weary of the human genome and having unraveled the mysteries of restless foot disorder (currently, amputation is the only treatment option other than open-toed sandals), the white coat set have solved another of life’s little inscrutabilities: Astonishingly, adolescents (14 to 18 years of age) who work, are more likely to take up smoking—proof that the savants authoring this study, have all but lost touch with their gangly-limbed cheese burger flipping/call center salad days and become resolutely ensconced in their ivory towers.
As we noted in The Shark Book, kids are often forcibly shunted off to children’s camp and coerced into constructing crappy folk art out of elbow macaroni—a prospect bleak enough to send the youth of tomorrow hurling newspapers through your front window or otherwise joining the dismal rigors of the workaday world.
The ‘study’ results corroborate prior ones concerning our specialty, heavy boozing, and suggest ‘adolescents seek out the rewarding aspects of adulthood ahead of their counterparts by assuming social roles and adult-like behaviors’. This phenomenon was first identified by researcher Biggie Smalls as the ‘Mo Money, Mo Problems’ theory, or more simply: kids with more disposable income, party more ‘cause they can.
According to egg heads, ‘more research is needed to systematically evaluate what features about the workplace, or about working, are most closely linked with adolescent smoking’, at which point a thesaurus can be consulted for synonyms of ‘ennui’.
The one lesson that can be gleaned from this study is: For the sake of your health, kids, you’re better off not working.
