In my last post, I discussed the oversupply of educated workers. Well, apparently I scooped the New York Times. I read an article on their Web site this morning about the retraining of unemployed workers. They followed 800 airline mechanics who lost their jobs, received government training to find new jobs, and then searched for new jobs. As you might expect, many of the mechanics didn’t find new jobs. And of those who did, only a handful found jobs that paid more than they had made before.

The article concluded that many people are unemployed because the country has a shortage of jobs for educated people. While the government tells us unemployment is caused by a lack of educated workers, the true problem is a lack of work for educated people. But it’s much easier for the government to give job training than to create jobs. The New York Times article said that 7 of the 10 fastest growing occupations in the U.S. pay less than $27,000 a year and do not require a college education. And the glut of skilled workers is driving down salaries in many occupations.

Now if the New York Times had hired me, I could have gotten this story to them three days ago. So just remember, you heard it here — at the Land of Abe — first. All the fuzz that’s fit to print. First. Right here. Before the New York Times. Yup.

I attended a meeting this morning with 25 highly educated, well-dressed women. The woman sitting next to me had a master’s degree in international studies. Three women behind me were about to graduate from the University of Texas with their teaching degrees. So why did we gather? We applied to be substitute teachers. And what were the requirements? A high school diploma or GED and no criminal history. Rest assured, if your children have substitute teachers, they are in great hands.

For me, this raises a question. Why are so many highly educated women vying for a job that pays $10 an hour, provides no benefits, and offers little, if any, respect? I walked into the school thinking I would be one of the best qualified candidates, but after filling out my application and a questionnaire, I left in a near-jog, knowing I probably didn’t even have a chance at this, a job that requires no advanced education.

I answered each portion of the questionnaire with a sentence or two. Why did I want to be a substitute teacher? How would I handle misbehavior? What would I do if the teacher left no lesson plans? I completed the entire application and then looked up. Most of the women hadn’t even looked at their applications. They were still scribbling furiously to finish their questionnaires, writing what appeared to be dissertations on their philosophies of substitute teaching. My mind flashed back to high school, when I would write essays spewing forth hundreds of facts and dates, hoping somewhere in the muddled words the teacher would find what he was looking for. Had I just failed the essay portion of the exam?

Having spent many months looking for a job, I have become convinced that our society is too educated. Sure, medical jobs and postions in engineering require a lot of training, but for most professions all you need is a high school education and a few months of training. We attend college and earn graduate degrees en masse, but when we are finished, there are very few jobs that require the sort of advanced training we have. So we apply for jobs that require far less education than we have, and we’re told that we are overqualified. Even if we find jobs that do require advanced training, we often recognize they shouldn’t because they won’t even come close to using all of our skills and talents.

Universities teach us to analyze the religious symbolism in James Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” and to decode the philosophy of Friedrich Nietsche. But I think they would do us a greater favor to teach words that will help us find employment: Do you want fries with that?

We took Abe for a walk in a nearby park yesterday. As we strolled, Greg started to snicker.

“This is a new record,” he said, trying to be elusive about what the record was.

“Yes, I know,” I said, my wife sensory panel kicking into gear. “How many days in a row have you worn those jeans now?”

“Seven!” Greg said, with the beaming pride of a little kid who had just hit seven homerooms or kicked seven soccer goals. “I’m going to have to wash them to shrink them back down.” He tugged at the sagging waist.

Greg did not clarify whether this record is an all-time record or just a record while married. I’m pretty sure that sometime in college — post-mom, pre-wife — he wore a pair of pants eight or nine days in a row. I can appreciate the comfort of a broken-in pair of jeans as much as the next person, but I usually start to nag him about changing jeans by the time he hits day four. If I had a bigger washing machine, I would just pick Greg up and toss him in with the jeans still on … it would be easier than trying to get them off his body.

Greg owns thirteen pairs of pants. Really, I just counted. And I’m excluding pants worn for dress, exercise, and sleeping. But he will only wear the one pair he leaves rumpled on the floor of our bedroom. As far as I can tell, this behavior is perfectly acceptable among male members of society. After all, Greg has had his job almost a year now, and they haven’t fired him, so they must not find him too offensive. And I change pants all the time, but no one will give me a job, so who am I to pick on Greg?

Maybe I should try to see this from a man’s perspective. The longer he wears those pants, the less laundry I do. Carry on, Greg, carry on.