Warning: What started as a blog about my thoughts on my current career status and my impending plans to improve that status, has become a monster all its own, gone off the deep-end into a series of run-on sentences, rants and tangents. Please don’t look at this as what I’d call a publish-ready work.
Recently I’ve been working on making some life changes with respect to my qualifications, career, and overall happiness when I came across this article written by a friend of mine. You might want to check it out to make better sense of what I’m saying.
I like what she has to say and can certainly relate to what she's getting at. I think in terms of our parents' potential "bad" influence, much of it comes from their understandable lack of foresight in how one generation builds of off one-another, ultimately changing the entire game altogether. In previous generations, Americans mostly adhered to a self imposed caste system where sons of doctors became doctors and sons of farmers would most likely end up farmers and the idea of one becoming the other would probably be (as Wallace Shawn so eloquently put it) inconceivable.
The further along our society went towards its more modernized state, our parents found themselves in a world where one was not necessarily limited to their origins if they were willing to work hard and sacrifice. This new realization could be taken advantage of by those who understood this concept because it was just that, new. By the time our part of the equation hits, this new idea is no longer new and even the less ambitious of parents most likely taught their kids how they can make up for mommy and daddy's mistakes. Now that we have all been given this self entitlement, we have also gone out and created a more competitive environment which leads to the gen y stereotypes of the slacker who sees this ultra competitive atmosphere and protests it in their own way and the overachiever who has decided that it is the only way to make something of themselves in this new world order.
As someone who can admit to being both extremes at different times I find my self struggling to try to find a happy medium. Growing up, my dad always told me that a bachelor's degree was a magic piece of paper that will guarantee success and teachers throughout my schooling seemed (to a lesser degree) to support that notion. I think it would be safe to assume that a majority of those who found themselves bright eyed and bushy tailed out of a degree program could attest to the fact that my father's analysis has become outdated due to graduates becoming far more numerous than any generation before. In my ignorance I obtained a degree that was more interesting to me than applicable to the job market, thinking that there would be plenty of employers looking to hire me regardless of my field of study.
To anyone who reads this who may not know me, after college I went on the hunt for a career and found that someone with a history degree doesn't have many options. Yes, my degree relied heavily on research and analysis and yes, I can do both with proficiency. Yes, I have quality writing skills (or at least that's what my professor's led me to believe). Yes, my peers consider me of above average intelligence.
No, nobody cares.
If you got your degree in engineering and became an engineer or in nursing and became a nurse, then good on you. If your degree is like mine and appears vague to the unfamiliar and uninformed than there is a good chance you'll end up like me in the rat race within a rat race known as sales and sales management.
The further along our society went towards its more modernized state, our parents found themselves in a world where one was not necessarily limited to their origins if they were willing to work hard and sacrifice. This new realization could be taken advantage of by those who understood this concept because it was just that, new. By the time our part of the equation hits, this new idea is no longer new and even the less ambitious of parents most likely taught their kids how they can make up for mommy and daddy's mistakes. Now that we have all been given this self entitlement, we have also gone out and created a more competitive environment which leads to the gen y stereotypes of the slacker who sees this ultra competitive atmosphere and protests it in their own way and the overachiever who has decided that it is the only way to make something of themselves in this new world order.
As someone who can admit to being both extremes at different times I find my self struggling to try to find a happy medium. Growing up, my dad always told me that a bachelor's degree was a magic piece of paper that will guarantee success and teachers throughout my schooling seemed (to a lesser degree) to support that notion. I think it would be safe to assume that a majority of those who found themselves bright eyed and bushy tailed out of a degree program could attest to the fact that my father's analysis has become outdated due to graduates becoming far more numerous than any generation before. In my ignorance I obtained a degree that was more interesting to me than applicable to the job market, thinking that there would be plenty of employers looking to hire me regardless of my field of study.
To anyone who reads this who may not know me, after college I went on the hunt for a career and found that someone with a history degree doesn't have many options. Yes, my degree relied heavily on research and analysis and yes, I can do both with proficiency. Yes, I have quality writing skills (or at least that's what my professor's led me to believe). Yes, my peers consider me of above average intelligence.
No, nobody cares.
If you got your degree in engineering and became an engineer or in nursing and became a nurse, then good on you. If your degree is like mine and appears vague to the unfamiliar and uninformed than there is a good chance you'll end up like me in the rat race within a rat race known as sales and sales management.
Still gleaming with pride from completing my degree, I took an attractive offer with Enterprise Rent-a-Car for their management training program. While I’ve been with ERAC for 2 years I have gained knowledge and experience on how to run a small business from an operational standpoint which is unquestionably appreciated; however, I’ve also learned that I am not content with being one of the masses. After all, I’m a gen y’er who’s too stubborn to settle.
Two years out of college I find myself at a crossroads. My job pays a wage that is...well, fair. And to be fair to my current employer, since working here I have been able to: purchase a home, pay my bills, and feed my family. I have decent insurance (medical/dental/vision/volcano) and retirement options that I am foolishly not taking full advantage of. So why complain?
1. Well, for one, I do have that sense of entitlement, as I mentioned, which tells me I'm meant for greater things or at least more fulfilling things. My paycheck pays the bills, but just barely. Like so many Americans, I live paycheck to paycheck. I make just enough to get by and if life happens and extra expenses need to be incurred, then a credit card is my only option (which as I'm sure many of you know, is not always a good thing). When living on a tight budget, those credit cards you used to bail you out of a jam can start to stack.
2. The job itself is all about aggressive sales. Countless intelligent and capable colleagues of mine have been past up for promotions by folks who surpass them in sales numbers alone. The strongest leaders and most capable minds always end up being overshadowed by their less capable cohorts based on a skill set meant not for the management but their employees.
3. I can’t help but feel like I could be doing better for what my specific skill set and capabilities are. I never set out to be an overachiever. I definitely have my limits and think I’m somewhat familiar with what they are; it’s just that I know that with what I’m doing, I am nowhere near those limits, nor am I on a path to reaching them.
I like solving problems, analyzing situations, taking creative license, and facing challenges that provoke the intellect. I am and always have been a nerdy brain and I’d like to be paid for it if at all possible. It is at this point in my life to where the supposed, “gen y over achiever” in me wishes to reconcile my goals with my reality. I’m not excited about where I am professionally, which I know is common. The difference I’ve decided to make however is in figuring out what it is I can do about it. Rather than wallow in it.
Going back to Erica’s article, gen y’ers tend to slack or overachieve and in some cases now, overachieve the wrong way. In my given situation I’ve seen both occur when someone finds themselves in a displeasing situation such as mine. The slacker route seems to be the easiest and therefore most popular in my experience. We are built up with this sense that we can achieve anything but we’re not always told how. I can imagine many getting to this point and creating their own brick wall to halt their progress. From an outside point of view it may seem obvious that if no one told you what to do, then it would be sensible to take initiative and figure it out. That sense of entitlement though, makes it much easier to blame the world for not granting you that which you deserve. In the end, rather than break, climb, or go around that brick wall, the slacker just sits at it in protest and wonders simultaneously aloud, within, and subconsciously what happened.
I’ve also seen some go all Dwight Schrute, thinking that will get them ahead. Yes we were told we can do anything we try hard enough for, but how many really do? Or at least do it right? I see many take the Dwight path where it’s all about intensity rather than intelligence. Kissing ass, back stabbing, deceit, peacock feathers. This is what they do. I can’t lie and say that this method will always prove fruitless. Indeed the problem is that it does work just enough to where others who can’t seem to get by on skill can fall back on these methods and forge ahead. Again this isn’t the guaranteed method, just one that’s been proven enough times to work so that others take cues from those who successfully used it. If you are reading this I’m hoping you are not one of those people but at the same time I am a realist and understand that my wishes may not always go fulfilled.
As a culture we seem to discourage the slacker to a degree but I question whether or not we discourage the over achieving monster who favors deceit and ruthlessness to his/her credit rather than intelligence and talent. If we reward this behavior we end up with companies ran by bullshitters, who in the end will kindly ask their subordinates to go down with the ship while they try to make a break for it, much like the examples Enron and Arthur Andersen left for us. At the end of the day both these types, slacker and over-achiever, are negative stereotypes that gen y’ers need to shake if we are ever going to truly inherit this world from our predecessors. And to you snakes out there who think that playing dirty has done you good thus far, take a look again at that Enron example and all the others like it and remember that success is fleeting to those can’t properly maintain it (macro and micro).
So what does all this mean to me? As someone who did go to college but then came out feeling ultimately disenfranchised, I’ve decided that I don’t have the heart to be the snake and I cannot live with myself being the slacker who settled. So I have hit that proverbial brick wall and have decided that I really want to see what’s on the other side. Last week I wondered into the local state university and inquired on the availability of an academic advisor. I told her my story and asked if there was anything I could do about it. I came to learn that I am not alone. There is a silent majority of gen y that has decided to do what I am now planning on doing, which is something. So as of now I have applied for admission to graduate school to earn a degree that can apply more readily to the workforce as well as filled out my first FAFSA in over 2 years. It is my hope that I can continue to improve myself and hopefully stand out as someone from my generation who found his way out of the maze. I know that I am one of many and that the "you can do anything you set your mind to attitude" is no longer a secret to be taken advantage of. Really all we can do now is strive to be the best we can while keeping in mind that each and every one of us needs to figure out how we can stand out from the crowd and do what's necessary without expensing others in the process. I know that this new turn of events for me guarantees no success, but in the end, I’d at least like to say that I tried and tried with dignity.
