The Fine Line

     A few years back a letter started being passed around Facebook that was apparently addressed to and answered by Mike Rowe. Everyone went nuts about his advice, passing along this letter sagely agreeing with, "How true it was." And, "What great advice." Furthermore it had the makings of a conservative wet dream but, that is besides the point. The advice he gave in the letter to a young man unsure about what he should do with his life had everyone hot and bothered. What he said was simple, get a job, any job and work hard. A simple American answer. Very puritan, very thorough, very to the point. And total utter bullshit. Apparently Mike Rowe has not had to navigate our world of employment. You know the one we mortals have to slosh through.

    I am not saying this as a simpering, entitled millennial. I am not saying this because I believe everyone should chase their dreams. (Though I know people who have taken that route and the world would be a worse place if they had not.) And I certainly am not saying this because I sincerely believe my place in the world is higher than that. I am saying it because that mentality simply does not and will not work in our modern day workplace. There are steps you have to take, people you have to meet, things you have to do in order to simply just survive in America's workplace economy. I am saying this from experience. I am saying this from the 23 year old girl who did just what Mike Rowe said to do. I went out and got a job, any job. I dove into the rat race head first and ready to work and work I did. Hard. Where did it get me at 33? An "unmarketable" position for myself in the traditional job market, that is where it got me. You see those steps that I talked about above? They are there for a reason, despite being good or bad or right or wrong. They are there to make it easier to simply judge you. That is all this is about, being able to judge you . Like that scene in Half Baked, "F%$k you, F%$k you, you're cool..." If you do not know what you want to do with your life and you dive into a career that does not work out, work for a boss who is truly a crook or a poor businessman (my experience and apparently giant black stains on my resume) or simply have a different desire or dream you most likely are forfeiting any chance to move into another industry without having to totally start over, like moving 10 feet back, or have the ability to move at all. Unless of course, you know a unicorn. You know, a magical being that can "pass along your resume" so that someone actually reads it, or furthermore can actually get someone to have a human conversation with you.

     It seems very few people these days want to look past your veneer to see the substance you are made of, much less give you an actual chance. Your heart, soul, and brain do not matter, those are not easily quantifiable. You must come equipped immediately to do the job at hand. That is why they ask you what you are "qualified" for. Unless you need a license to do you job, like a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, if you are in a position where you could do severe damage I understand the qualification part, but what the hell does that even mean? I think I am qualified for whatever I want to be. I am not an idiot, I know a lot of thing, how to do a lot of things and furthermore I have taught myself a majority of it. So if I am not trying to get job doing brain surgery or building a computer, what the hell do I have to be qualified in? If you did not complete steps 1, 2, AND 3 then you do not stand a chance. It does not matter how amazing you are at 1 and 3 if you missed 2, no time will be taken to decipher if you possess the character to master 2, hell 2 could even be a latent talent just waiting for discovery. Mike Rowe's advice was bad. He sent that young man forward in his life to whittle away at working for someone else, at the mercy of someone else and I pray to whatever being is out there that the young man was lucky enough to chose a good employer. I hope he was lucky enough to choose something he could live with for the next 55 years. I hope because he just went out and got a job, that he is not deemed worthless someday when he is trying to make his way in this world when he maybe looking for another one.

    I say this with all the anger of a 33 year old, who finds herself further behind than her 23 year old self. Who is now answering questions online for people who refuse to find the knowledge for themselves because so far, apparently that is all I am qualified for. I wish we could stop this notion that people are only valuable if they possess something so concrete its value pools on the paper it is typed on like it is catching raining gold. Our false economy is dangerous enough in over-valuation of things that really are not that essential to our being. That it is such a burden to actually look at a person and not a piece of paper, or worse yet, just put that piece of paper into a computer that spits it out as reject because it lacks a few "key words." That being a good bullshitter is rewarded more than hard work. I put my time in and still am, I have been working since the age of 11 actually, but none of that matters Mike Rowe, does it. It does not matter how hard we work everything is still at the mercy of they system and our employers, because again it is a surface quantifier that is easily judge-able. That is all that matters isn't it. So next time someone is asking you for career advice Mr. Rowe, think about how the job market really operates. Think about the processes everyone has to go through before you tell someone to blindly just go an get a job. You are putting them in survival mode and they will never break free from it. I have been over a decade in survival mode, I am mostly okay in the mode because I am lucky enough to realize there is more to life than work. There is living. While everyone around me is "thriving in the career world" I am still only surviving, pray tell, how can one get out of that whole? Do I just dive blindly into another trap we like to call a "job"? Or do I actually deserve to think of myself as worthy of doing something different if actually given a chance? Because god forbid we do not conform.