Entry level jobs in:

business development


Every day we profile a new entry level employer, and every day we tag our posts to make it easier for you to find jobs and companies that interest you. The following companies have offered entry level jobs in business development in the past, and they are likely to do so in the future.

Brightcove

by Willy Franzen on October 29, 2009

Brightcove Logo

It took long enough, but Internet video is everywhere. Yes, we had online video 10 years ago, but now it actually looks good—and works. The main reason for this is that end users (you and me) finally have technology in their homes that can handle playing online video. This means high speed Internet connections and computers with enough processing power to not crash when a website uses a Flash video player. The issue for content creators is that delivering video still poses some challenges. Sure, I was able to produce an online job search training course that relied heavily on video with little trouble, but I wasn’t delivering video to thousands or even millions of people (I wish I had the problem). As your use base increases, the challenge of delivering video increase exponentially. Moreover, managing video content in an organized fashion is a completely different challenge than organizing text and images. Brightcove is a Cambridge, MA based company that provides an online video platform for many of the worlds biggest brands.

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Smart Destinations

by Willy Franzen on September 17, 2009

Smart Destinations Logo

Let’s say that you wanted to come visit me in Chicago. You’re not afraid to do touristy things, because you’re willing to accept the fact that you are a tourist. You’re going to visit the Art Institute, the Hancock Observatory, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Sears (now Willis) Tower. Then you want to take a ride on the Navy Pier Ferris Wheel followed by an Architecture Boat Tour. That’s a lot of separate admission fees (and an exhausting day). With a Go Chicago Card from Boston, MA based Smart Destinations, you can pay once and do all these things and more. The card will even get you a discount on your Lou Malnati’s deep dish pizza. Smart Destinations offers the same service in quite a few other cities, and it seems to be pretty popular. While the Travel industry is struggling with the economy, Smart Destinations has managed 424.7% revenue growth over the past 3 years and #652 on the Inc. 5000.

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College Hunks Hauling Junk

by Willy Franzen on September 15, 2009

Today is the last day to enter our Maghound Your Way to a New Job contest. With so few entries so far, there’s an excellent chance that you’ll win a one-year subscription to an awesome new magazine subscription service (3 monthly magazines for free!).

College Hunks Hauling Junk Logo

I’m still on my Inc. 5000 kick, and today we’re looking at a company whose name immediately caught my eye. They’re called College Hunks Hauling Junk, and that’s exactly what they are. Omar Soliman wanted to make some money during the summer, so he borrowed his mom’s cargo van to start hauling away people’s junk. He then entered his business plan in the Rothschild Entrepreneurship Competition and won the $10,000 first prize. He realized that he had a business that he could grow, and now College Hunks Hauling Junk is doing $2.9 million in revenue. Guess that’s why Omar and his co-founder Nick were named (also by Inc.) as Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30. College Hunks Hauling Junk is headquartered in Tampa, FL, but through expansion and franchising they now operate in Anne Arundel, MD; Baltimore/Howard County, MD; Chicago, IL; Cincinnati, OH; Columbus, OH; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; Detroit, MI; Indianapolis, IN; Little Rock, AR; Los Angeles, CA; Louisville, KY; Orange County, CA; Orlando, FL; Phoenix, AZ; Raleigh-Durham, NC; Richmond, VA; San Francisco/San Jose, CA; Tampa Bay, FL; and Washington, DC Metro.

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Slickdeals

by Willy Franzen on August 26, 2009

Slick Deals Logo

We all learn at an early age that we can’t have our cake and eat it too. Everything has a trade off. You can have money or you can have stuff. You can’t have both. Right? Wrong. Since 1999 Las Vegas based Slickdeals has been proving that you can have your cake and eat it too. Or as they put it, “Slickdeals.net is a free, user-driven deal sharing site with a mission to provide consumers an avenue to collaborate and share information in order to make the best shopping decisions.” That’s a fancy way of saying that they are a community of people who help each other find the best deals, so you can buy stuff and have some money left over. In fact, a lot of Slickdeals users find deals so good that they get paid to buy something (after rebate). Seriously. It’s all about free and open sharing of information, and it’s amazingly powerful. The amount of money that people have saved through Slickdeals has to be staggering.

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Vans

by Willy Franzen on July 28, 2009

Vans Logo

Yeserday we talked about jobs at Vann’s, which made me think that we should talk about with jobs at Vans today. The two companies don’t have much in common beyond being homophones of each other, so let’s start talking about shoes. Cypress, CA based Vans was founded in 1966 as the Van Doren Rubber Company. They started out by producing shoes for sports like baseball, basketball, and wrestling, but that didn’t end up working out too well for them; in fact, it led to bankruptcy. They eventually came out of bankruptcy, and then Sean Penn’s character wore a pair of Vans checkerboard slip-ons in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. That changed everything.

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Kontera

by Willy Franzen on July 24, 2009

Kontera Logo

One thing that I’ve learned as I’ve become more familiar with the world of online marketing is that some of the most annoying tactics are some of the biggest money makers. In online marketing everything is about results. If you’re making money, you’re succeeding—even if the large majority of people hate the way you’re doing it. Kontera is a perfect example of this. They’re a San Francisco based online advertising company that “delivers the most relevant In-Text Advertising & Related Information solutions online.” What that means is that webmasters can insert Kontera’s code on their site, and it will automatically create links from the text on their web pages to targeted advertisements. I’m sure that you’ve seen it on the web before, and it probably annoyed you. Still, it works. Kontera is growing at a great rate, and they just secured $15.5 million in additional funding in a round led by one of the most prestigious venture capital firms in the world, Sequoia Capital.

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People Capital

by Willy Franzen on July 6, 2009

People Capital Logo

I was lucky enough to graduate from college without having had to take out any student loans, but even if I had needed to take out a loan, at least it would have been before the “credit crunch.” These days it’s a lot harder for students to finance their educations than it was just a couple of years ago. Credit in general is extremely tight right now, and beyond that, lenders are being very picky about whom they lend to. For students with no credit history, getting a loan can be a big pain in the butt. People Capital is a New York City based startup that is aiming to change that through what they call a “peer-to-peer lending platform.” They’ve developed a Human Capital Score “to assess the creditworthiness of those just starting their credit histories,” and they’re now building out a network of borrowers and lenders to bring the idea to life. It’s kind of like Kiva for education, but with a for-profit incentive keeping things efficient.

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Topspin

by Willy Franzen on July 1, 2009

topspin-logo

We all have at least one friend who “has a band.” He’s the one that sends you a Facebook Event invitation for his “gigs” every other week. He’s also still on MySpace (because it’s awesome for bands, of course). It may just so happen that you friend is actually really good, but he’s still waiting for his big break. Regardless of your friend’s talent level, there’s a good chance that he’s struggling with marketing his band. (That’s why that big break hasn’t come yet.) Your friend may think that MySpace is advanced as band marketing gets, but it’s not. There’s a new game in town, and it’s called Topspin. They haven’t launched yet, but they’ve already put a lot of work into achieving their mission “to provide artists the tools they need to build successful businesses.”

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CB Richard Ellis

by Willy Franzen on June 26, 2009

CB Richard Ellis Logo

Considering the fact that I drove by a house in Michigan that was on sale for $12,500 just a few days ago, it’s pretty obvious that the real estate market still has some rebounding to do. There has been a lot of hurt in the industry over the past couple years, but maybe things are looking up. A friend who works at CB Richard Ellis let me know about a position that they’re trying to fill, and after I checked their Careers page I saw that they’re hiring for more than 200 positions. Considering the fact that they just went through a round of layoffs at the end of last year, I’d say all those job postings is probably a good sign for where the company (and maybe the economy?) is going. If you have heard of CB Richard Ellis before, you should know that they’re headquartered in Los Angeles and they’re “the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm (in terms of 2008 revenue).” Clearly $12,500 houses aren’t a problem for them.

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Wolfram Research

by Willy Franzen on May 19, 2009

Wolfram Research Logo

If you’re an Internet geek like me, then you’ve probably noticed all of the buzz around Wolfram|Alpha. Some have dubbed it a “Google killer,” but as far as I can tell, they’re way off the mark. They’re wrong because Wolfram|Alpha isn’t a search engine – it’s a knowledge engine. The goal is “to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone.” The concept is kind of hard to grasp until you try it, but once you see how it works, I think that you’ll be impressed. So, who is behind Wolfram|Alpha? Wolfram, of course! They’re based in Champaign, IL, and they’re “one of the world’s most respected software companies–as well as a powerhouse of scientific and technical innovation.” They’re the company behind Mathematica – a software package that excels in ” computation, modeling, simulation, visualization, development, documentation, and deployment.” I’ve never had the pleasure of using it, but I know math teachers who think it’s pretty awesome.

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WeatherBill

by Willy Franzen on April 17, 2009

WeatherBill Logo

A few years ago I had the idea of building a business that would allow people to financially hedge against bad weather. For instance, if you bought tickets to a sporting event above face value and were afraid that it might get rained out and leave you out a lot of money, you could buy a type of insurance that would pay you off if the weather caused the game to be cancelled. Apparently I wasn’t the only person to come up with this idea. WeatherBill is a San Francisco, CA based startup that is doing exactly that. Many think entrepreneurship is all about having a good idea, but it’s not. It’s about execution. WeatherBill is a perfect example of an awesome idea that is being executed well. The potential for this idea is absolutely unbelievable, and WeatherBill is already beginning to realize it. They don’t call what they offer “insurance” because there is no need for a claims process or a proof of loss. I guess you can call it a hedge, as it allows you to “get paid for weather that’s bad for business.”

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Rubicon Project

by Willy Franzen on February 24, 2009

Rubicon Project Logo

As far as I can tell, now is not a good time to be in Advertising. When the economy slows down, ad sales usually take a hit. I know that first hand, which is why we’ve moved towards offering useful products – like job seeker training – instead of selling ads to employers (remember: all of our daily posts are editorial). With that said, online advertising is still the future, and with the struggles that many publishers are facing, now is a perfect time for innovation. That’s what Rubicon Project is all about. They’re a Los Angeles, CA based startup that is “on a mission to automate the $65 billion global online advertising industry.” This means optimizing unfilled ad space through software. With 300+ ad networks to choose from, publishers just can’t possibly evaluate every ad network’s offers on their own. Rubicon Project can – in a matter of seconds – and then server the most profitable ad immediately.

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Jump Associates

by Willy Franzen on January 6, 2009

Jump Associates Logo

Imagine if you were expected to have your GPA increase 10% every semester. That’s like going from a C average to an A average over the course of 4 years in college. It’s been done, but it’s a rare feat. It’s also an impossible feat to show such continued improvement if you’re starting with a good GPA to begin with. These are the kinds of expectations that businesses constantly face. Not only do they need to deliver stellar performance, but they need to improve upon that performance every quarter. If a business isn’t delivering double (or triple) digit growth, they’re not even worth looking at for most investors. Creating such growth is a huge challenge, whether a business is an early stage startup or a mature firm that has been doing the same thing for decades. Jump Associates is a growth strategy firm that helps business overcome the challenge of constant improvement. That means that they “help courageous leaders create new businesses and reinvent existing ones through a hybrid approach integrating empathy, creativity and strategy.”

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Zipcar

by Willy Franzen on October 27, 2008

Zipcar Logo

The great thing about living in downtown Chicago is that I’m constantly bombarded with new ideas for companies to feature here. In suburban Connecticut most of what I saw when I was driving around was trees. Here in Chicago there are few trees in sight, but plenty of businesses, billboards, and buses (with advertising on the side, of course). There are also plenty of taxes. Sales tax is 10.25% and the parking tax is 28%, but likely soon to be 33%. This is on top of already outrageous monthly parking fees, so it’s no wonder that there’s a Zipcar location just a hundred yards down the street from my building. Zipcars are kind of like rental cars, but better. They’re more affordable (I think, but I haven’t done the math), they’re intended for residents instead of travelers, they’re green, and you don’t need to be 25 to take them for a ride. It’s kind of like having a friend with a car except you have to pay that friend whenever you use his car.

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GoodGuide

by Willy Franzen on September 16, 2008

GoodGuide Logo

Last week we featured FitBit, a company that was recently announced at the TechCrunch50. This week we’re looking at another startup that was announced at the conference. It’s called GoodGuide, and it’s aiming to be “the world’s largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental and social impacts of products and companies.” GoodGuide is pretty easy to use – you can input a product name to see all of the details of the product’s world impact, or you can look at a class of products to find the “goodest.” For instance you can look up Fantastik All Purpose Cleaner with Bleach specifically or you can just look at the ranking for household cleaners. It’s a great concept. They’re also apparently going to offer an iPhone application so that you can look up products as you shop for them in the grocery store; although, GoodGuide would probably prefer that you buy them online through their affiliate links.

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Fitbit

by Willy Franzen on September 12, 2008

Fitbit Logo

Have you ever tried using a pedometer? It’s a neat idea, but it’s not very useful to know how many steps you’ve taken. To get a sense of how many calories you’ve burned, you have to do some calculations, and it’s pretty likely that whatever you calculate will be far from accurate. As technology continues to improve, we’re going to see more and more devices that provide data about our every day lives. The pedometer was the start, but things are going to get better and better. Fitbit is an impressive next step (pun intended!). We found out about them from Lifehacker’s list of Top 10 Up and Coming Products, and we’re pretty impressed. Fitbit automatically tracks your fitness and your sleep and then uploads the data to your computer wirelessly. They’re a startup that just launched at the TechCrunch50 Conference this week, and now that they’re out of stealth mode they’re looking for new people to join their team.

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Bazaarvoice

by Willy Franzen on September 10, 2008

Bazaarvoice Logo

Shopping is supposed to be social. When you were a teenager, you probably liked to hit the mall with friends. Now, you probably lie in bed late at night surfing web sites looking for cool stuff to buy. It’s just not the same. You need social proof to back up your buying decisions. You want to hear what other people think. You want reviews, stories, and answers to questions that you may have about a product or service. Bazaarvoice is a software as a service provider that promotes social commerce by connecting customers to each other. They get their name from the word “bazaar, ” which “symbolizes the beginning of commerce – the initial marketplaces… lively centers of town, buzzing with neighbors, friends and merchants all sharing opinions and building a vibrant community.” That’s what Bazaarvoice is trying to recreate online for their clients.

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Menlo Innovations

by Willy Franzen on August 14, 2008

Menlo Innovations Logo

A company’s home page should make it instantly clear what the company is about. For many companies this is not the case. There’s all kinds of fluff that fails to give potential customers a proper brand introduction. Menlo Innovations doesn’t make this mistake. Their home page introduces a problem: “In 2004, the U.S. wasted over $55 billion on failed and poorly run software projects.” Then it identifies the cause: “These failures can be traced to a lack of understanding of the business issues being addressed and the wrong implementation methodologies being used.” Finally the home page poses their solution:

Menlo Innovations applies High-Tech Anthropology® to help our clients fully understand their business problems and opportunities. If the solution requires software, Menlo either develops the software within our Menlo Software Factory or The Menlo Institute trains your staff to use proven methodologies to develop the software themselves.

It’s clear. It’s concise, and it gets to the point. There’s no misunderstanding about what The Menlo Institute does.

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National Public Radio

by Willy Franzen on July 27, 2008

National Public Radio Logo

A child’s first sign of teenage (pre-teenage?) rebellion often begins at the radio dial. The parent’s up-to-this-point unchallenged decision of what to listen to while in the car is called into question, and all hell breaks loose. If there are multiple kids in the family (or even just in the car), the negotiation can quickly becom more heated than a multi-lateral peace process in a war-torn nation. The parent will fight hard to maintain his or her right to National Public Radio, but the kid will persist in his or her challenge to hear something that feeds a suddenly “eclectic” taste in music. Often the parents cede this battle in hopes of winning in the future (bad idea!), which results in the parent’s driving the kids around the mini-van listening to rap music that would be a lot more offensive if the parent knew what some of the words meant. Eventually the rebellious tykes will grow up and realize that they too want to be more cultured, and they slowly, but surely come around to listening to NPR. Or maybe some kids just never speak up. They like NPR from the start. Maybe those are the ones who end up taking entry-level jobs at NPR.

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Great Place to Work Institute

by Willy Franzen on June 17, 2008

Great Place to Work Institute Logo

We’ve said before that using magazine lists to find a job can be extremely helpful in terms of idea generation. Today we’re going to talk about the company that is behind two of the most helpful magazine lists for job searchers. The Great Place to Work Institute is responsible for compiling Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For and HR Magazine’s Best Small & Medium Companies to Work for in America. After more than 20 years of research, the Institute has found that “trust between managers and employees is the primary defining characteristic of the best workplaces.” If you’re looking for a job where you can trust your manager, why not consider the company that is known for identifying great places to work?

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Gallup

by Willy Franzen on April 16, 2008

Gallup Logo

We don’t like politics. We’re already sick of this election. We don’t care who made a verbal gaffe yesterday. And we certainly don’t understand how double-digit leads in the polls can evaporate and reappear based on a few words here or a few words there. We just don’t care (don’t confuse that with not caring about the direction of our country), but a lot of people do care. They want constant information, not only about what’s happening, but also how the American people are reacting to breaking news. The media provides the news on the mud slinging, but someone has to keep the pulse of the nation. Much of that responsibility falls on pollsters like Gallup. You can be sure that you’ll be hearing that name a lot over the next 6 months.

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Fox News

by Willy Franzen on February 7, 2008

Fox News Logo

We report, you decide. The #1 name in cable news. For those who aren’t familiar with these slogans, we’re talking about Fox News. We know people tend to love or hate Fox, often dependent on political views. We’re not trying to get involved in any controversy, we’re just trying to tell you where great opportunities for new college grads are. To this date our post on entry-level jobs at CNN has been our most popular. Obviously there are a lot of people interested in journalism, television, and production, and Fox News has a multitude of entry-level opportunities in these fields.

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Ask Sunday

by Willy Franzen on January 10, 2008

Ask Sunday LogoLife is filled with things you don’t want to do. As a college student, you probably have a lot of free time but still avoid mundane tasks (like laundry) until the last possible minute. At some point in your life those daily tasks pile up enough to keep you from being able to do what you want to do with your life. Some things like brushing your teeth and showering are absolutely unavoidable, but others you can pay someone to do. You can hire a cleaning lady, send your laundry out, and buy prepared foods, but that can become expensive. There are other daily tasks that you need done, but that can be done from anywhere. Ask Sunday is a service that allows you to send those tasks overseas for a really cheap price ($29 for 30 monthly 20-minutes tasks). So for less than you probably spend on booze in a weekend, you can have your own virtual assistant.

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BasePoint Analytics

by Willy Franzen on January 8, 2008

BasePoint Analytics LogoDid you want to be a detective growing up? Were you inspired by Inspector Gadget (ok, he was a buffoon, but his niece Penny was a hell of a sleuth)? Did you play with Spy Tech toys? Do you watch CSI Miami and think that you should have followed your childhood dreams? There’s something really cool about solving mysteries. What’s even cooler is solving them before they happen. The police usually can’t do that, because of those pesky civil liberties; however, BasePoint Analytics, located in Carlsbad, CA, is a company that prevents fraud before it happens. Through the scientific method they have developed a number of products and services that allows banks and mortgage lenders to identify fraud before they get burned by falsified applications. BasePoint’s tools enable financial institutions to accept well-qualified applicants more quickly, while giving further scrutiny to applications that are flagged by BasePoint Analytics’ models.

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Calvert Foundation

by Willy Franzen on December 9, 2007

Calvert Foundation Logo

If you’re a college Senior, it’s time to get your life together. You need to find a job, start managing your personal finances, and think about giving back to society. The Calvert Foundation can help you accomplish all three of these goals. They offer investment opportunities. All Calvert investments are focused on community improvement. And most importantly, Calvert is hiring.

The Calvert Foundation, a 3 time winner of the social capitalist award from Fast Company, is a non-profit organization located in Bethedsa, MD that offers financial products and services that channel flexible, affordable capital to underserved communities. That means that they take money from investors to help other non-profits fund community investments with a focus on Affordable Housing, Community Facilities, Microcredit, Small Business, and Social Innovations.

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IDEO

by Willy Franzen on November 28, 2007

IDEO LogoAre you fascinated by innovation? Do you run out to the store when BusinessWeek publishes their issue on the 50 Most Innovative Companies? (Blatant Self-Promotion: Read our new article on how magazine lists can help you find a job.) Almost all of the companies on BusinesWeek’s list are companies that deal directly with consumers, whether they provide products or services, but IDEO is different. They serve businesses by helping them innovate through design. You’ve probably bought many products that IDEO has had a hand in, but you likely attributed the innovations in the product to the manufacturer. Think again.

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WET Design

by Willy Franzen on November 19, 2007

Wet Design LogoAs Derek Zoolander once said, “Moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty.” That should mean that WET Design employees work with beauty every day. Wet Design, located in Sun Valley, CA, specializes in the development and design of water features for architecture, landscape, and urban design. Water is a pretty versatile medium. Nature has done a hell of a job with it. Niagara Falls, Old Faithful, and the Pacific Ocean are all awe inspiring. WET Design hasn’t done too bad itself with the Bellagio, the Wynn Macau, and apparently the fountain scene from Blank Check.

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WildCharge

by Willy Franzen on November 14, 2007

Wild ChargeYou woke up this morning, ran out the door, and grabbed a coffee on your way to an 8:00 AM lecture. No time for breakfast. This isn’t right. College seniors aren’t supposed to have early classes, but somehow you got stuck with an unfulfilled requirement and a mandatory attendance policy. After class you have to meet with your advisor to talk about your thesis and how you don’t have one. Then it’s lunch with your friend who just endured a serious break up. Finally, you can settle down for 6 hours in the library studying for your mid-term tomorrow. After about 2 hours of productivity, and 4 hours of procrastination, you run off to your intramural water polo match. Your team wins, but you swallow about a half gallon of water. So you shiver your way back (wet hair sucks in the winter) to the library and eventually settle down and get some studying done. It’s been a long day. You get back to your apartment, drop your bag on the floor, throw your cell phone on your side table, and hop into bed. Crap. You have a phone interview tomorrow for a job you don’t really want, but your cell phone’s battery will probably die even before the alarm wakes you up in the morning. You have to get out of your warm bed (why are your roommates too cheap to turn up the heat?), reach behind your side table, and plug in your phone. After everything you did today, for some reason this task seems impossible.

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