Seed: What Color Is Your Friggin' Parachute?
It's hard to imagine in light of society's current preoccupation with job satisfaction, but there once was a time when the word 'career' had yet to reach the mouths of those long forgotten windbags careless enough to speak it. Neanderthals, who seem to be getting smarter by the week, had little concern for such high falutin' verbiage. After all, you were lucky to reach puberty back in those days, so it stands to reason that finding a purpose beyond procreation and hunting/gathering would have held little intrinsic value. And it might have stayed that way too, if it weren't for those meddling Homo sapiens. Cut to a few years later, and suddenly every rube with a broom in hand is plying a trade of some sort. But the concept of careers as we know it today, seems to have been yet another touchy-feely Baby Boomer invention, which surprise surprise, has irrevocably set up future generations for a lifetime's worth of lingering resentment.
All this to say, by way of lengthy introduction, I am currently unemployed. I have only been unemployed for six days, but it might as well have been an eon. I'm starting to feel like that no good third cousin that every family talks about in disparaging terms. You know the one. Watches Judge Judy religiously. Always has a stain on his shirt. Talks about his previous job like he just clocked out, even though the last time he drew a paycheck, Lorenzo Lamas was a household name. I hope this is the kind of bugbear that will not overstay its' welcome, but statistics seem to indicate otherwise. Recent polling provided by newsfromrussia.com suggests that the average length of unemployment has climbed to 18.4 неделя. That's 18.4 weeks for all you non-Ruble heads. In other words, I could be in for a long haul.
As much as I would like to pretend otherwise (and often do), the problem isn't really the recent economic downturn or the job market vacuum. It's me. I have absolutely no idea what vocation I would like to pursue. You would think twenty-seven years into the game, I could have mapped out a career path that doesn't look like a four-year old with ADHD spray-painted it on the sidewalk. Sadly, I've awakened to the realization that this just isn't the case. I have been asked, "What kind of job are you looking for," so many times, it's as if the very question has cemented itself to the wax-covered labyrinths doctors graciously refer to as my eardrums. I want to respond with confidence, but instead I just shrug my shoulders and manage a polite "Meh."
My father, like any respectable pater familias, has expressed a desire for me to follow in his petroleum soaked footsteps. I remain cautious. And it's not because I've fallen in with the whole "oil is the root of all evil" crowd. In fact, oilmen have historically been some of the most interesting people to ever hornswoggle Mother Earth out of her natural resources. Hell, if insatiable entrepreneurs like E.W. Marland and Waite Phillips never existed, Oklahoma would have been ceded to anarchists long ago. That's right Istook. I said it. Anarchists. But thankfully, we were spared that indignity. No, I'm leery of the Texas Tea trade for another kind of reason. To be specific, several of my former acquaintances have recently joined ranks with the likes of Boone Pickens and his many minions. Rarely a day goes by without my old man emailing me the name of yet another friend who is hocking his or her services in hope of landing a job in the oil and gas industry.
Reading those forwarded emails, I feel a strange mix of embarrassment and failure. Embarrassment because I empathize with their desperate search for gainful employment, and failure because it seems my generation has learned nothing from the trials and tribulations of the Ewing Family. Do these people honestly not remember the 80s? C'mon folks, you know...A Flock of Seagulls, legwarmers, the OIL BUST. I still remember my parent's speaking in hushed tones about the bust as if it was the Holocaust or something. I'd like to think in the year 2008 we would know the ultimate fate of the oil business is inevitable. Pack it in. Game over. Good job team, but it's time to go home. Here's a gold watch for your trouble. But no, there are still a few well-meaning but misguided individuals, clinging to the hope that our energy dilemmas will be solved by a modern-day Jed Clampett. Don't get me wrong; there's still a little of the black stuff left, but it seems like people my age would want something a bit more reliable.
So I'm left to ponder a mind-numbing array of vocational opportunities, none of which I might add, scream out, "Pick me! Pick me!" I'd probably have better luck just drawing a trade out of a hat. It worked for Dr. Phil, right? One benefit of being unemployed is that I've learned to trick myself into believing certain jobs are a plausible fit. That's what those career aptitude tests will do to you. I think to myself, "I like the outdoors. I'm a good rule follower. I prefer to work alone. Why, I could be a game warden." But in the light of day, these career models are just another exercise in futility. And now, unemployables like myself have to deal with the added pressure of this 'career' nonsense. You can't just have a job anymore. No, you have to find something fulfilling and life-affirming. Sure there are people resisting this on a daily basis, but they don't get to enjoy the smug self-satisfaction that comes with finding your true calling in life. And if I desire anything in life, it's smug self-satisfaction.
Friends, what say you on all things career related? Oh, and it's good to be back. I missed this.
posted by A Contemporary Bunkshooter @ 8:55 PM,
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Response: He Works Hard for the Money
Well, Bunky, I hate to shatter the high esteem you hold for me because of my stellar career and meteoric rise in this place some affectionately call Dewey’s World. I know how devastated you were when Pee Wee Herman was pinched. The truth is, the very foundations of my career and all the early decisions that went into it were based on selling myself short. Not surprising really, since I’ve done that my whole life. I went to an easy college, chickened out of transferring to a more prestigous one, cowered from accepting an offer at a high-powered graduate school. I’m not sure when I started selling myself short or why, but I usually blame it on my sister and my mother; oh and my father.
I did have career aspirations early on, though. Here’s my list in order of how desperate I was to have the career:
Professional assassin
Sniper
Paratrooper
Intelligence agent (not a James Bond spy type, but like an analyst)
Preacher
City planner
Letter carrier
Librarian
Bus driver
Anyone can see that, like any good Pisces, I was pulled in different directions. I wanted to kill people, but I also wanted to help them. The problem was that no matter how many guns and knives I owned (a lot) and how many years my Soldier of Fortune subscription ran, I was ultimately too damned chicken to go through with one of those top jobs. After I got out of the cult, I just couldn’t bring myself to be a preacher. And, after I’d been to Europe a couple times and four years of college, I couldn’t allow myself to be a letter carrier or a bus driver. So, I was left with librarian, city planner or intelligence agent.
I laughed out loud when I read your account of the Oil Bust because I was affected by it, too. My worldview as a young teen just beginning to think about my future career was profoundly influenced by the Bust, but the funny thing is you’re affected by it the way I was by people telling me about the Great Depression. The Depressioneers were my age now when they were telling me to play it safe: “if you could keep your job, you’d make it through,” they told me. “So, find something that’s very secure.” My dad was no help, he grew up after the war when opportunity was limitless. He was unfazed by the Bust because, as he said, “I’ve never had any trouble finding work.” And it’s true, he hasn’t; he never went to college and never had a Career, but he was never unemployed (but he never worked with the black stuff). Still, those stories of the Depression weighed on me as I saw the unemployment lines on the news and friends moved away as their laid-off fathers took them to greener pastures elsewhere.
The thing about the Oil Boom was that people lived like there was no tomorrow. The new cars, big houses, rhinestone cowboy boots, and worst of all, the oil boom shacks thrown up by the thousands in far northwest Oklahoma City. Nine out of ten of the college kids I knew were Petroleum Geology majors or some other major related to the industry. By the time their four years were up they were lucky to be a bank teller and the ones who got a job moved to Dallas.
Combining the shaky economic times of my youth with my habit of selling my self short, meant that I went the librarian route. Not that I don’t love what I do, but notching reference questions on your belt is not nearly as exciting as notching heads of state you dropped from a fifth-story window at 500 yards. Or driving through a regentrified neighborhood in a former slum and knowing your plan made it happen. But I’ve got a career and as long as I walk the straight and narrow, I’m likely to keep it through good times and bad.
I’d say you’re in a good position, though, there’s an element of freedom in working non-career track jobs because you always know in the back of your mind you can chuck it and do something else. You don’t have to play games to get ahead and nix to all the kowtowing. Moving from job to job keeps it interesting and you can always say you’re gathering material for that next album. Now, I don’t like to give advice, but here’s what you do: marry a high-achiever and then follow her to another city while she fulfills her career goals. Or I hear stripping pays well.
posted by St. Fiacre @ 4:17 PM,
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Response: "Hey mister, wanna buy a cat?"
Smug satisfaction, Bunky? I think not. Each time I get a paycheck I thank God that I somehow fell into a profession which in Oklahoma puts me firmly in the middle class and doesn't leave me covered in grease at the end of day. Thankfully, I'm not dishing out hot pizza to mall rats or manning the cash register at the La Quinta Inn.
I always wanted to be a librarian. Well, almost always.
I dreamed of a farm in Africa. Well, not in Africa. But I did dream of a farm in South Texas. A cat farm, where I would tend herds of multicolored cats, exquisite animals desired as far west as El Paso (and possibly up into the panhandle as well). Although my artistic abilities have never been up to scratch (so to speak), I would spend hours doodling images of my ideal occupation, imagining my life as a cat farmer. Dressed in overalls, I'd wander among groves of apple trees, cats frolicking at my feet, hanging from branches, perched on my shoulder -- a veritable Garden of Eden minus the fig leaves and angry God.
It was a cruel day when I noticed that cats were all too familiar in my urban landscape. Most likely, I remember thinking, cats aren't going to be a big seller. Especially when they were practically giving boxes of kittens away at the local icehouse. Perhaps horses would be a better career choice. Sadly, as I researched the big ticket items that went along with housing horses, I could see that was another dead end career choice.
Perhaps I could write the Great American Novel, then. Yet after only two college-level literary courses, I felt something inside me die. Could I create anything that compared to Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County? How could I possibly top the picaresque stories of Mark Twain? Those masterpieces by Edith Wharton, Flannery O'Conner, Herman Mellville. Damn them all to hell --they'd beaten me to it.
After that, it was a long, miserable slog of occupational despair: local newspaper reporter, typesetter, desktop publisher, library assistant, temp, C-SPAN gopher, administrative assistant. Fed up with my tiny checks, I finally decided to go back to school. It was librarianship or die!
My decision had nothing to do with the librarians I'd encountered in my life. Up to that point, I'd never had a devoted book lover beam at me from over the reference desk and guide me to a literary wonderland, like Matilda's mentor in Roald Dahl's amazing novel for children. From what I remember, my elementary school librarian had been a battle axe with a fondness for shushing, the middle school librarian had kept the room sealed and locked, and my high school librarian had a permanent frown that reached down to her knee caps. No, it was merely the presence of books that did it. Those constant childhood companions, stalwart friends -- I wanted to be surrounded by books.
Like the Saint says, there is something attractive about moving from job to job. If anything, it gives you a wealth of experiences from which to draw when writing your own Great American Novel.
I'm sad to say, it won't help you much if you decide to open a cat farm. But lately, I hear llamas are all the rage.
posted by Adjective Queen @ 2:30 PM,
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