Rethinking College and Career

In the more than 20 years that he’s been studying the issue, Sum says that the current downturn has negatively affected young people the most—and not just in terms of their take-home pay. For some people, the recession has forever altered perceptions of how the world works, creating the impression that success has more to do with luck than with hard work.

Young, Educated, and Unemployed: A New Generation of Kids Search for Work in their 20s

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This is a great article. The sad thing is that this isn't a problem for the young. I read of MBAs with business experience and in their 40s who can't find a job. The fact is that this recession hurts all over. The irony is that most of these folks voted for Obama.

I read a lot about the bubble in higher ed, people struggling repay student loans, and unemployed middle managers, lawyers, and what have you. What I never read is the crux and the linchpin that ties all of this together. This is the issue of bullshit jobs.

Bullshit jobs are created in bubbles. They result in nothing meaningful. It is mostly office work, attending meetings, and just doing shit that doesn't matter. Right now, the public sector and university administrations are the white hot center of the bullshit job bubble. Why is this? Because that is where all that fake federal money is going--government and colleges. You can't get a job as a college professor, but you can as a college recruiter--if you are lucky.

The reason these people can't find work is because they trained for bullshit jobs that are fading fast in the private sector. Bullshit jobs rely on luck, and right now, luck is in short supply. Deprived of these bullshit jobs and buoyed by parents and unemployment checks, these people revert to a holding pattern hoping that luck will come back their way. This is not the answer.

The answer is to do real work for a change. For instance, a young person can get a job washing dishes at a restaurant and work his way up to cooking. In time, he might try and open his own place. This is what real work is about. It isn't about mission statements and meetings. It is about providing value for the dollar. But the bullshit alternative is to take an entry level job in a corporation and claw their way into middle management. What a suck ass route to take.

The whole society needs to rethink these things. I've already done this. The result is that I stand completely out of step with the rest of the culture. While people look at folks riding by in their shiny BMWs with covetous hearts, I envy the blue collar guys I see at the construction site in their hard hats and denim doing real work. I do real work, but it just doesn't have the same dirt and grit as what those guys do.

I doubt anyone else will see it the way I do which is just fine with me. I'm not the one with mountains of debt and a job he hates. I'm glad I went to college and had a job once that required a degree. It makes it easier to enjoy what I do now knowing that the grass isn't greener on the other side because I have seen the other side.

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