I wish to extend the content of my last entry. I was considering the ways in which I view my job in contrast to the prattling Kinko's employee or my crass supervisor. I think we all see our job as just that - a task to be done. I suppose the biggest departure in our understanding of our job is our duty. What is our relationship to our occupation as compared to our relationship to everything else in our life?
It seems to me that during my parents' and their parents' lives a person's job was mere occupation. The notion of a calling in regard to work was reserved for missionaries, families with a long history of doctors or lawyers, or people involved in a family business. A person had a job and worked because that was what one did. There was no room for personal ambition or fulfilment of desire because the practicum of the day-in-day-out had such a bloated importance. And I use the word bloated in the most reverent of manners.
My brother-in-law recently wrote about a lady who wrote a book about young people's collective and individual narcissistic entitlement frenzy especially as it relates to assumptions concerning degrees and subsequent careers. I can attest to the clear idealism that pervades the upper-middle class young Americans these days. I am just as guilty of the most disgustingly under-deserved self-important visions of grandeur as the next literate, laptop equipped youngster. And like the others I usually don't have the maturation of mind to understand it was all but a dream. Most white kids my age in America have it pretty good. There is great luxury in the very visible safety nets we hedge all of our bets on. In most cases our parents or our ruddy good looks and cleverness (or a strange combination of the two) will be our bail out. We can't lose.
I think it must also be stated that the rules and therefore the expectations have changed in the decades since our mommies and daddies were home bacon bringers. The new young professional is the upwardly mobile standard and an aspiration that seems crucial to all of us who not only want to take home a paycheck but also dignity. It does not feel like enough to come home around five thirty in the afternoon with head held high because a full-day's work was put in at the ol' office. It does not feel like enough because of what I was perplexed about in my last entry. What is a full-day's work anymore? When am I allowed to be satisfied? A person is confronted with the option of being their job or being very little. Many of my friends have jobs and have "side projects." These appear to be hobbies but a slightly closer look reveals them to be entreprenurial strivings. Small businesses are the new quilting bees. These are the ways we get involved with our neighbors and invest in our community. And not to mention move on that hope that the thing we love to do may be the thing we make big bucks doing. It seems this is the only way to get gratification from one's job and in this economy to just get by. I believe that is also why so many people are going to work for non-profits. Perhaps it is to prove that you can do what you love without being motivated by money alone (although CEO's of most non-profits make a pretty fantastic living).
We are a disappointed and disappointing people. Because we choose this pursuit of a "birthright as means of job satisfaction." As the middle class it sure seems as though that is what we are charged with seeking out - that sole occupation we can fill. We will know it when we see it, nay feel it. It is supposed to seek me out, I think. It is actually difficult to say. I know I may not have a place in the sun but I certainly have one out there somewhere. A progressive architecture firm dying for my copy writing skills. That must be it.
I think it is good that we have high expectations from within and without. Hopefully the dream lasts long enough so that when we fail we still have enough hope juice to strive towards the next impossibility.
brandonpiercegeary
My brother-in-law recently wrote about a lady who wrote a book about young people's collective and individual narcissistic entitlement frenzy especially as it relates to assumptions concerning degrees and subsequent careers. I can attest to the clear idealism that pervades the upper-middle class young Americans these days. I am just as guilty of the most disgustingly under-deserved self-important visions of grandeur as the next literate, laptop equipped youngster. And like the others I usually don't have the maturation of mind to understand it was all but a dream. Most white kids my age in America have it pretty good. There is great luxury in the very visible safety nets we hedge all of our bets on. In most cases our parents or our ruddy good looks and cleverness (or a strange combination of the two) will be our bail out. We can't lose.
I think it must also be stated that the rules and therefore the expectations have changed in the decades since our mommies and daddies were home bacon bringers. The new young professional is the upwardly mobile standard and an aspiration that seems crucial to all of us who not only want to take home a paycheck but also dignity. It does not feel like enough to come home around five thirty in the afternoon with head held high because a full-day's work was put in at the ol' office. It does not feel like enough because of what I was perplexed about in my last entry. What is a full-day's work anymore? When am I allowed to be satisfied? A person is confronted with the option of being their job or being very little. Many of my friends have jobs and have "side projects." These appear to be hobbies but a slightly closer look reveals them to be entreprenurial strivings. Small businesses are the new quilting bees. These are the ways we get involved with our neighbors and invest in our community. And not to mention move on that hope that the thing we love to do may be the thing we make big bucks doing. It seems this is the only way to get gratification from one's job and in this economy to just get by. I believe that is also why so many people are going to work for non-profits. Perhaps it is to prove that you can do what you love without being motivated by money alone (although CEO's of most non-profits make a pretty fantastic living).
We are a disappointed and disappointing people. Because we choose this pursuit of a "birthright as means of job satisfaction." As the middle class it sure seems as though that is what we are charged with seeking out - that sole occupation we can fill. We will know it when we see it, nay feel it. It is supposed to seek me out, I think. It is actually difficult to say. I know I may not have a place in the sun but I certainly have one out there somewhere. A progressive architecture firm dying for my copy writing skills. That must be it.
I think it is good that we have high expectations from within and without. Hopefully the dream lasts long enough so that when we fail we still have enough hope juice to strive towards the next impossibility.
brandonpiercegeary
2 comments:
RYC:
I was working under grant money from my parents. So, totally big time.
Nah, I had a nearly full-time job (32 hours) at a small church. Being at a small church, it felt like filler. I never loved it. It was nice, chill, but nothing amazing. Evidently I have ambitions to be amazing. Annnnd, I quit that job. (This is weird, since I'm not sure if I said "I need to find a job" in a comment or if you read that on my blog, so the timing of this is confusing me and I'm giving you the whole story to compensate.) And now I have to find a job, after a three week vacation to Singapore, and I am both applying to teach English in Japan for next August and working for my dad/brother for about 40 grand a year in the interim (I doubt I'll be there for a year to even get that mucy). And I need to throw in the salary or it just sounds like I'm working for my dad and my brother. Yes, and no. I'm working for family, but only because I'm not going to find anything better. In many ways.
With hope, I will be throwing the novel around next spring.
And there you go. :)
Incidentally, this post is appropriate to this comment, to "my life," because I have all these good things going for me. But it's hardly my dream. And so I whine.
I think. I think you are right. I am teaching at a community college and have realized that there are some who will not be able to do "whatever they want." I like the idealism of "be whatever you wish to be," but there are students of mine that don't have the head to write a coherent college paper-- even with extra help -- which makes me question their grand aspirations to be an engineer or a businessman rolling in the dough.
But we are hope, it is more of what we are than this thing we call body, and I can't call that a bad thing. Find that thing you were meant to do and do it. And if it's got to be a hobby while you clean toilets or make copies, you can find happiness in those hours after hours.
I am one of the lucky ones in that my hobby and my passion are are a big part of the work I do for money. I love teaching writing.
Now to find it full time.
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