I went to a job interview and waited in a room with some other candidates as they were talking to each other about what they did before the job and I notice that people fall into two categories when you ask them what do they do: one is self-loathing and the other is people in non-stop interview mode.
The first is the self-loathing 20-something who doesn’t think much of what they do. They might say, “I just work for a non-profit,” even though that doesn’t explain too much. Defining your life by your company’s designation in the U.S. 401K tax code seems to be trendy and I’m not sure why. These people are depressing to listen to and they are probably depressing themselves whenever they speak about their job. When you ask them how life is after college, they often say “nothing much, I just work,” as if they’re in serving time in prison. Most of their advice centers around enjoying college life while you can because it all goes downhill from there. Those people never really made me look foward to graduating much. I think a lot of these people are unhappy because they're on the bottom of the totem poll, but the way i see it, there's no guarantee that your job will be any more exciting or fulfilling when you get higher up anyway, so you might as well enjoy where you are.
I bumped into my old college suitemate on the metro, who said that he just worked for a textbook company doing research. He seemed to suggest he was “unskilled labor” and it wasn't really much of a job because anyone can do it. What?! he's writing textbooks that kids use in school, he gets to learn about things like history, geography, anatomy all day and translate it into what goes into a textbook? What could be more exciting than that? So you do something interesting with your day but you feel it’s devalued because other people can do your job? Whatever happened to trying to make the best of a bad situation? At one point in this time since college, I was working in a movie theater 14 months after graduation for $6.50 an hour and working with mostly teenagers. I was even in grad school at the time, and I found things i liked about the job to get me through the day, so I'm sure most of you can too. I'm not saying i was perfect at this method, but i'd say I maintined my sanity about the first 5 months out of the combined 8 months i was working at the movie theater (4 in 2006, 4 in 2007).
The second category is people who treat their life like a never-ending job interview and try to impress you by also throwing vague words around about what they do like “I consult,” “I manage,” “I assemble,” etc. How are there so many consultants in this town anyway? When I think of a consultant, I think of someone writing a “Dear Abby” column or a wizened old soul spreading his wisdom, not someone two months out of college who probably can’t remember what they studied in their major anyways. Based on how many of my friends tell me they’re “consultants,” I feel I can pretty safely conclude that the reason there is so much stifling bureaucracy in this town is because too many people are consulting and no one’s doing anything. At least a mailman or a garbageman do things.
To me, I feel better that they're around than I do that society is employing any more "consultants."Unless you're a rocket scientist, everyone should be able to say what your organization does in a couple sentences and what you do in a couple sentences in your organization. Working at Booz Allen Hamilton can't really be that complicated and beyond my comprehension to understand.
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