Follow Your Dreams, Do What You Love, and other nonsense

Every day, I walk past a park on my way to work from the train station.  It's a 5-minute walk, through a chain of parks called the "Greenway".  The Greenway is new, replacing what was once an ugly interstate that cut right through downtown, obstructing harbor views and creating much noise.  The 8-lane highway has been moved underground in the "Big Dig", and I have watched them transform a hideous pile of rubble into beautiful parks.  I go out of my way to walk through them, so I can look at the flowers, shrubs, and trees as they blossom, grow, and beautify. 

Unfortunately, these parks are being run over by Occupy Boston (OB), one of the branches of Occupy Wall Street.  Dozens of tents are crammed into the park outside of South Station, displaying leftist signs and emitting a noxious odor.  I have never seen any active acts of protest by these people, only the passive signs that I read as I walk past:

"Make love not GREED"
"America wants to work"
"Finance is pure evil"
"9/11 was an inside job"
And my absolute favorite: "Boycott student debt"

I initially laughed at them, not really understanding their overall message and goal.  I figured they would be gone in a few days.  This was in late September, and they are still there, even marching up the street just yesterday as a "Free Speech Protest".  What baffles me most of all is the empathy they are getting not only from the media, but from everybody.  Everyone seems to relate to the plight of the "99%", and the top news story for the last year has been unemployment.  While it is unfortunate to be jobless, nobody seems willing to blame themselves:  "It's the economy"; "It's the government"; "It's Wall Street and corporate greed"; "It's the baby-boomer generation" (side-note: dumbest article ever).

Since when is it not your own responsibility to find, and then keep, your job?   Who's stopping you from starting your own business?  Why is a job, along with healthcare, a perceived "unalienable" right?

I personally think that my generation, and the generation coming up, has been coddled.  Look at the media we've been digesting for years: Most of the movies involve some youth trying to "find himself" or "follow his dreams", and features a bald, old, stern-looking white man who is holding him back, representing "The Man".  Not to burst everyone's bubble here, but unless your dreams include reviewing large legal documents, writing mounds of code, working long hours for "The Man", or researching stocks (aka what most people consider "boring" jobs), you're going to need to give up on your dream and pursue something more marketable. 

Case in point:  I happen to work in a field (Information Technology) that is very marketable.  This is not my dream.  Besides being a professional athlete, my dream was to be a City Planner (instead of an architect), as growing up I loved maps and the flow of traffic and other related items.  I even took a few geography classes at BYU.  However, I did some research and found that: 1.  Working for the government totally sucks; 2.  It's very competitive and probably not nearly as enjoyable as, say, playing Sim City.  So I decided to go into Information Systems, knowing that every business uses technology to run their business, therefore, there would always be a need.  My dreams would be accomplished via video games, where the sole purpose of video games is to live in a fantasy world where you're playing in the NBA, designing cities, or conquering the world.

Now?  I have a good job.  Guess what?  We're hiring.  In fact, we need people so badly that we opened up around 50 positions nationwide last March, just in my small group full of data specialists.  These spots have still not been filled.  I know for a fact that other companies are hiring aggressively, looking for accountants, lawyers, IT consultants, systems analysts, etc.  Jobs are out there for the hungry and qualified.

Let's look at a scenario where one of the unreasonable demands of OB were met:  Let's say the government decided to create jobs and take away some of the "greed" on Wall Street by offering the OB positions where they would be the personal assistant of some fund manager, for example, for a percentage of the salary?  They obviously wouldn't be qualified to research stocks, so being a personal assistant is the only thing they could do.  This wouldn't work, though. The people in Tent City wouldn't be satisfied as a "Personal Assistant", especially not for a greedy fund manager.  They are too principled for such nonsense.  It's not their "dream" to work in such a capacity.  They want to write songs, craft sculptures, discuss politics, or research history.  They wanted a first-class education that has taught them about the nuances of 17th-century French literature, but they don't want to work a boring job to pay for it.

Why are they so quick to blame everyone else when it was their poor decisions that got them there in the first place?  Information about salaries, job openings, tuition, and really ANYTHING has been at our fingertips for more than a decade.  What were the OB thinking when they decided to pursue a degree in Philosophy at Northeastern University?  I just googled "average tuition at northeastern" and clicked on the first link.  The answer?  51K annually, right on the university's site.  Then I googled "employment rate by major" and found that Philosophy was 9.6%, which was about average*, but noticed that "Architecture and Urban Planning" was a staggering 18.2%, so I'm glad I didn't pursue my City Planning dream.  Of course, I don't know the validity of the survey, this is merely an example of how easy it is to get information.  2 minutes of research would save them a lifetime of debt with iffy job prospects.  With this much information available, why is the government accountable for people's careers, student debt, or lack of a job?  The difference between the OB and potential actors is that the actors at least realize it's a long-shot, so they work crappy jobs until they make it (and they also don't have mounds of debt, unless they went to Julliard).

*If you look at the percent of "Still in field by Major", Philosophy is at 36%, which is the LOWEST of all the majors, meaning: you can get a job as a Philosophy major, but it's not because of your major.  It's probably because you went to Law school.  This particular chart is probably the best indicator of the real-world value of a degree.

At what point do we need to just be realistic with ourselves?  If I told you I still wanted to play in the NBA, you'd laugh me out of the room.  But what about people who want to be Broadcast journalists?  Their chances aren't much better.

Why must we do what we love, rather than learn to love what we do?  I wasn't crazy about working with data, but I learned to enjoy certain aspects of it.  I don't go home at night and work on data for fun, but I don't dread going to work.  I work because I get paid, and I use that money to follow my dreams, which makes my time and motivation at work much better.

I'm like most of America, and think that getting jobs is not about waiting for the government to hand you one, it's about working hard, sending out applications, following leads, taking temp jobs, and doing what it takes to get a career you can be satisfied with.  Melanie is a great example of this.  She got a first-rate education at Boston College and a mountain of student debt.  She graduated in Marketing, which is a "marketable" major (yuk-yuk), but also very competitive in the job market.  She couldn't find a full-time job, so she took temp jobs to pay her rent and her loans.  She did a great job at these places, and finally one of the temp positions turned into a full-time one.  It took her 2 years of working temp jobs to get a full-time position.  And you can ask her, those temp jobs weren't exactly thrilling.

A lot of the OB people think that firing an employee is a crime next to murder.  That's just ridiculous.  If someone doesn't see the value in me, I wouldn't want to work there.  If I'm not adding any value to the company, then why should they keep me around?  Companies should not be concerned about my self-esteem, only the overall morale of the work force.  At my current job, we are always under observation, having to get constant performance feedback.  Once a year, we get an annual rating, and if that rating is low, we need to look for a new job or be fired in a month or so.  I like that I have to constantly be earning my position, because then it makes me feel good about my role here.  If I lose my job, it's because they don't need me, or I don't deserve the job.

My theory on the high unemployment:  Computers and systems have made every business much more efficient and effective.  Data is available to make better decisions.  However, it took some time for businesses to realize this.  They didn't need Carol in Purchasing to file invoices since 2001, because they automated her job with computers and streamlined the process.  However, they didn't lay her off until 2008 because they were doing so well, and why would they lay someone off when they were doing well?  All of the sudden, the stock market took a dive, real estate crashed, etc., and businesses had to adapt.  It was the perfect time to trim the fat, so Carol from Purchasing, along with others with similar roles, was let go.  It was sad.  But necessary for the long-term.

Now there are thousands of Carols from Purchasing on the streets, looking for jobs.  "What are your skills, Carol?"  "I'm real good at putting papers from stacks into folders."  "I'm sorry, but that's not really a skill.  My monkey can do that."  Carol from Purchasing now realizes that she is obsolete, and she won't be able to get a job as high-paying as the one she held with the skills she has.  Is this the government's fault?  Maybe it's Wall Streets, after all, their greed caused the stock market crash!  Or maybe Carol from Purchasing should have realized at some point that she's easily replaced and should learn a more marketable skill?  The grim reality is that Carol from Purchasing will have to work in retail, restocking shelves or, if she's lucky, as a supervisor, probably making 30% of what she was before.  It turns out that Carol from Purchasing is a single mom of 3 small children, one of which has diabetes.  Seems unfair.

But look at it from this perspective:  Maybe Carol from Purchasing has been overpaid for 7 years by 70% (if not 100%), practically stealing from the company.  Has she never once thought to update her skillset?  Did she really think that filing paper invoices was a lasting career choice?  It sounds heartless in my made-up situation (even I'm starting to feel sorry for her), but how could she not try to protect herself?  How could she not think ahead?  Is the government responsible for every poor decision, whether active or passive, made by us?

I think most companies that survived the 2008 recession are in a decent place.  Unemployment will take years to go down, because it has to do it organically.  If companies aren't hiring, make your own company-necessity is the mother of invention.  Unemployed college grads that aren't too busy whining will find ways to make money/products/sell services.  Maybe they will start selling items on eBay, finding a niche and making some money.  Maybe they will make a revolutionary widget that changes the way you think about pomegranates.  Maybe they will start offering services on Craigslist, the epitome of the free market.  I called an out-of-work licensed electrician off of Craig's list and paid him $400 for a day's worth of services.  A few more days like that a month and he could be making enough to pay rent and feed his family.  He didn't realize this, but his quote was half of what the established businesses were quoting me.  Same with plumbers, plasterers, cleaning services, etc., that I've hired.  I find almost all of my services on Craig's list for a fraction of the price.  You're telling me that the OB can't clean a house?  Maybe if they did it well, they'd pick up more clients.  They'd charge more for doing such great work.  They'd hire people to do the cleaning for them, making sure the quality didn't suffer and the clients didn't have issues.  Pretty soon they have a well-run cleaning business and they don't even have to work anymore.  Isn't that the American Dream?

Most of the people in OB wouldn't agree with me.  That's fine, this is only one man's perspective.  You can certainly have success, financial and otherwise, in other ways, but you can't count it as success if someone does it for you.  Get your Liberal Arts degree.  Get your dream job if you can.  Pay off your student debt or default and kill your credit.  Go camp in the park either way.  But do it without the government's help.  Otherwise, let's just stop with this "99%" nonsense and call you what you really are: A bunch of commies.