Antick Musing's Fridays, Black and Otherwise

[james_davis_nicoll]

[...] [M]odern Westerners can be separated by the work they did when they were young and unskilled. One great mass worked in retail, selling goods of one kind or another. A second cohort worked in food service, waiting tables or working a grill. And the third group, seemingly the luck ones, were those rich or privileged enough not to have to work at all -- the ones who were children, then entirely students, and then set off on their careers, without ever having had "just a job."

Comments

[rosefox]

Comment posted there:

Your division of humanity seems to leave out a lot of people. Farmers, for example, and those who didn't have jobs in high school but did a lot of volunteer work, and those whose "careers" involved customer service or data entry jobs as mindless as any retail shift (we are distinguished from the rest by our unfailing politeness to call center staff even when we are furious, the equivalent of being an ex-waitress who routinely tips 25%), and those who like working in food service or retail and are happy to consider it a career, and those who took apprenticeships, and those who dealt drugs on street corners, and those who were groomed for the clergy, and those who served in the military from the day they turned 18...

What else did I miss?

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

those who had children when they were still in high school.

[rosefox]

Oh yes, absolutely! Thank you.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely certain this sort of broad humor is supposed to be analyzed this way.

[rosefox]

I need an XKCD-style "MY HOBBY: Taking joking people seriously".

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

It seems to me the objections would vanish like Bob Stanfield's chances at becoming Prime Minister [1] if in the phrase "And the third group" "the" was replaced with "a".


1: Americans may substitute "Michael Dukakis' chances at becoming President".

[ljgeoff.livejournal.com]

You know, I was just thinking the same thing. He meant it lightly, and I really took no offense to what he said or didn't say. He seems like a nice guy, and I hope all of this isn't distressing him; I certainly meant no criticism.

But I'm glad that we can sit here and pull it apart a bit, because I think that deconstructing our assumptions is a good thing.

[andrewwheeler.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure -- it's not even my formulation to begin with. It was really designed, as I recall, to explain late '80s college students.

And the one thing underlying it is the gulf between people who need to get "a job" -- just something they can get to make some money -- and people who have something else (whatever that is) that they're going to do for specific reasons.

But I do think there's something valuable in having had "just a job" -- something that didn't lead anywhere, and never was going to lead anywhere -- in one's past.

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

There's manual labor not involving kitchens or farms. My first job was doing cleanup on construction sites, and later I worked in a warehouse (although I've had plenty of "just a job" jobs involving retail, kitchens, and other service work).

[suckmyglock.livejournal.com]

Those of us who worked in balloon factories! Okay, prettysure that's just me...