One of my teachers got caught doing coke in the bathroom. I was always suspicious when he sent students to get Little Caesars cheesy bread in the middle of class. I remeber he went on a lecture about how beautiful the hardcover database book was. We weren't going to use it but he told us we should keep it because it was beautiful. A lot of ex-miltary people who never showed up but somehow never failed. Of course if they fail you don't get that federal government backed money.

It's probably as bad as you imagine. I would take that decision back but I'm also doing pretty well. Some of the teachers really meant well but they had no support at all from the admin. They had a few good instructors with real world experience that I learned the most from.

edit: I remember being recruited. They had a guy that reminded me of Professor Xavier give me an aptitude test. Then they all played up like they've never seen anyone score that high. Looking back, I'm sure that was part of the con.

Jesus, that really does sound soul-crushingly abominable.

I remember working night jobs surrounded by that sort of crowd. Everywhere you look it feels like you're witnessing the distressed underpinnings of all civilized behavior disintegrate in the throes of abandon.

To wit: Comes the day that I find out 9 in 10 people found this one particular night job (which shall remain nameless) because they had all connected at narcotics anonymous meetings. A month or two later I'm at the book store reading up on (what else?) computers. I had developed a crush on one of the girls I worked with, and I glance across the store, and there she is, sitting on the floor with a book in her lap.

A nervous compulsion to go say "hi" creeps in, so I consider how to strike up conversation and start in her direction. I see she's with someone. The brain-damaged guy, who sits next to her at work. He speaks slowly, with this lazy, distant gaze, and the hypothesis is that he was in a car accident, since he's physically normal and healthy. We catch eyes, but given his situation, there's no hint of emotion. Just a lost half-sleepy nod hello from him. I'm surprised they're hanging out outside of work. I'm steps away, when she slumps over into the book in her lap, then startled, staggers to her feet with this absurd, slurred giggle. She almost walks into a book case when Damage Case catches her around the waste, and they sort of stare into eachother's eyes. We have crossed into uncharted territory, and I'm disturbed at what's all-to-obvious. I buy my book and leave.

Monday morning. I reassess the situation in the office. Damage Case is brain damaged as usual. A handicapped person. Clueless, and incapable of normal social interaction. At the printer I bump into "It Girl" and ask if she finished that book she was reading. Confused and searching... What book? She does not remember being at the book store. At all. I make a joke, and she laughs harder than necessary, and I notice for the first time that all her molars are gone.

Over time I learn that everyone in the office had lived lives ravaged by a managerie of drug addictions, and "It Girl's" life was in the process of being unravelled by herion. She was a prostitute on the down-low, especially for anyone who had access to heroin.

Thanks to everyone else ruining their lives outside of work at that place, I looked like some kind of wunderkind model citizen. And with that I was promoted well beyond my experience or qualifications, and paid handsomely, all because of the disparity between me and the human wreckage I shared the room with. I made that much work out in my favor, and got the hell out of there as fast as possible.