In high school, I had a friend that enjoyed playing basketball as much as I did. Unfortunately, we figured out pretty early that we would not be getting drafted to the NBA (because of the whole not making our high school team, not being 6’8 or being particularly good at it), so we decided that we would make videos that would MAKE us appear we were good at it. We would throw the ball backwards over our heads from 50 feet away, edit out the air ball, and then make a shot from really close. Or we would dunk using a trampoline, without showing the trampoline. We figured that college coaches wouldn’t know the difference and at least offer us a scholarship to play at North Carolina. And then we could edit more videos that made us look like we played amazingly at North Carolina and Walaa! NBA superstar bench warmer that makes the NBA minimum. 12-year career as the best bench player ever and enshrined in the NBA Hall of Fame.

We miscalibrated that dream by just that much (imagine my holding my arms as wide as six feet apart). To be honest, I’ve miscalibrated almost everything in my life. Early math was one of my biggest miscalibrations.

It wasn’t until last week that I figured out the big secret to math. Most of the time you got the right answer, you just got the number positived or negatived. If I would have figured this out when I was young, I would have been a world renown mathemagician and become a street math magician. Just like every failure in my life, I was one little calibration from celebration.

When applying for college, I decided to do what George did in Seinfeld. When he figured out everything his instincts ever lead him to do was wrong, he did the opposite. Since I was bad at math, science and engineering, I decided to do the opposite and major in reverse engineering.

There weren’t any other students in the reverse engineering program, so they stuck me with the engineers. In my five years of college, I studied people’s solutions and found a way to turn them into problems. I breezed right through the program, so I decided to make problems for everyone, including my roommates, girls on campus and of course my parents. Don’t ever say I didn’t go above and beyond in my major. In fact, I was so good at creating problems, that it took a whole department of engineers, the college administration and many world leaders, to deal with all the problems I created. I thought I did a great job, but for some reason the college didn’t like how well I did and told me to never come back. Some people just have no appreciation for talent, I guess.

If I wasn’t lazy, I would have double majored in reverse science. They had a lot of fun from what I could hear and feel. Instead of figuring out how to control chemicals, they found the best combination of chemicals that had “chemistry”. A lot of earthquakes and explosions came from Michael Bay Reverse Science Building and Lab. It was a pretty intense program, which was why very few reverse science majors survived the four-year program. It seemed that many reverse scientists started as healthy men and women, but by graduation most people were missing limbs, had burnt hair and often had really dirty face. Many of the graduates went on to have short lived, but successful careers in Hollywood, working as explosion specialists.

We didn’t have a lot of people make it through the reverse psychology program either. A lot of them weren’t very skilled in the sarcasm arts, manipulationology, and struggles in the pseudological arts (masterful liars). Though some people excelled at lying without feeling guilt or shame. Some of the all time greats in the program became great politicians, worked in the media, the FBI, lawyers (pronounced liars), and Amber Heard.

Our athletic program how quite a few reverse athletes. They were really good at accepting bribes to play there before it was legal to do, and they loved scoring for the other team. Other teams loved playing against us because we were an easy win.

Unlike most college graduates, my major in reverse engineering prepared me to create problems immediately after I finished school. I apply my skills and knowledge of problem making to every aspect of my life. In fact, I apply my skills of creating problems the most to myself. I never let an effective solution opportunity pass without creating a problem for it.

I give all the credit to math and George Costanza. Reverse what you’re doing and you will create all kinds of problems for people.

My family, friends, strangers, employers, and quite frankly, the world has benefitted from all the problems I create.

In fact, I’ll never forget what my professors would always say when I was back in college. You will get exactly what you deserve. And believe me, I do.

ARRRRRGGGHHHHHHHH

Bitter Reverse Engineer Ben