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Instant Gratification Society (aka ‘I want something for nothing’)

By Michael Stelzner

Lost Person Seeks “Quick Fix”.

This would have been the headline had this been a classified ad.

This is a real message I received, full unedited.

I am located in Tx and I am doing a paper for school,but I am lost and I need a good grade. If you can I need it by 12:00am central time.

It seems that many people today fully expect something for nothing. It is rather unfortunate.

This is the second such message I received in only 24 hours from two totally different people.

How might you respond to this if you were me?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 10th, 2006 at 11:53 am and is filed under Freelance Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

  • That is horrible. Kids think they can just scoot through school and not actually do work. When they hit the real world it tends to hit them harder then they expected
  • Hey Gordon - I get messages like this far more frequently than I care to disclose. I am convinced they are indeed real.

    Jonathan - Good points! I used to LOVE Cliff Notes!

    Mike
  • I've had those kind of emails from students asking for help with a "paper" for school, and I always assumed they were from spambots testing whether some email address they tried out was working.

    It's hard to believe any college student would send out such vague emails asking for help getting through their classes. Don't they even know how to Google an essay-writing service?
  • I think this is an example of what happens to a generation of students weaned on Cliff Notes in college, now having to find an alternative in the "real world".
  • Hi Chris and Lora;

    Chris - yes I agree. I made tons of mistakes in college. I wish they had iPods back then so I could focus!

    Lora - Good point. Not sure how thus student could ever think that waiting until 2 hours before the deadline would bring anything meaningful.

    Procrastination is something I personally DID need to learn to overcome.

    Mike
  • I would respond by saying..."Sounds like your deadline is closing in on you. You'd better start writing now!"
  • I mean not that I wasn't looking for some scam or short cut back when I was in college myself, mind you.

    But if someone had pointed out to me thinking like the proverb that says, "Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty," instead of letting me discover it for myself I might have figured it out a little quicker.

    Then again I might have just plowed stubbornly along anyway until I got burned enough by my mistakes...
  • Amen Brother!
  • Mike,

    Perhaps you could refer them to the definition of consequence.

    Or maybe you could share a little philosophy with them, "Those unwilling to work will not get to eat."

    I'm just sayin'...
  • It's a sad state of affairs. I can only hope my kids turn out a bit better and actually work. What kind of students are we pumping into the marketplace?
  • I agree with your comment. But constantly hearing about web sites where students can buy a paper and news stories on cheating take away the surprise and shock when I hear about such requests.
  • Hi Meryl;

    I am a former Texan myself and I know most Texans are not like this person.

    I should have said that the subject line was: "request someone to write a white paper"

    I generally follow your suggestions. But this request really floored me. If you read between the lines, this is all about helping this person "cheat" so he/she can get a good grade.

    Mike
  • When I get these types of emails -- I'll suggest a resource or recommend going to a favorite search engine and try specific keywords (sounds obvious -- but not to everyone). The email you shared is very broad -- a paper on what? Can't assume it's white papers.

    FYI -- I'm from Texas and we're not all like this. :)
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