It’s not a failure of character at all. Sometimes you get what you put into it. Sometimes you get less. Sometimes you get a great deal more. It’s a crap shoot. You don’t have to be An American Success Story. You don’t have to be anything. The pressure or failure you’re feeling is self-imposed.
Not playing the game does not make you a bad person. You can conduct your life whatever way you want. Some people will help you sustain your lifestyle, some will not. There is no law that says you have to be the king of the paper emporium. You can be the Dude with the Doobie, The Honcho in the Hut, or the Free Man with No Plan. I know lots of people who are unambitious and are immensely happy with their lot in life, living in the moment. No one is forcing you to be part of the rat race. That’s the beauty of life in these here United States.
No. There is no dumb-down school. Greater minds than ours have grappled with this problem for thousands of years. The best you and I can hope to do is to adapt some of their solutions to our own lives to try to make peace with it.
Seriously? Because the only thing I’m getting from this thread is that the OP is 1) a very lazy individual 2) possibly quite mentally ill.
Yes…in academia you have to write a thesis backed up by copious amounts of evidence and there’s a lot of pressure to publish in a peer reviewed journal. In law you have to get through law school and then memorize a shitload of subjects and sit for a 2 or 3 day exam before they’ll let you practice. In medical school you have to sit for an exam that covers 4 or 5 steps over something like 7 years. I don’t know what the f*ck the MBAs have to do but I’m sure there’s something. Boohoo. The whole point of setting high standards and expectations for professionals in a position of responsibility is to seperate the wheat from the chaff or the people who’re incapable of finishing a job and would leave you on the operating table with your chest cut open to go off in the corner and have a restorative sob. Oh the injustice of it all!
Ah, thanks. That makes sense. (One job I saw would have been cool, if it hadn’t been an old entry: Store Detective.) Oh well, I keep looking everyday, and dammit, there’s one that’s there for me (that I qualify for – it seems everything is in medicine and accounting and legal!) Wish me luck!!!
Question, Beware of Doug, (if I missed this, I appologize!) what was your major?
Mine was history. If I could, my ultimate job would be working in dusty old archives and artifacts. For example, I remember when I was in college, we had a collection of old bound magazines in our library, some of them going all the way back to the turn of the 20th century. I used to love to find a place in one of the study carrels and read them. If I could find a job that involved doing something like that, I’d be the happiest girl in the world.
Or when I was doing my internship at the local history museum, and we were doing “deaccessioning.” (Basically going through our collection and seeing what to keep and what to get rid of – give to other museums, sell, or just junk.) You’d find some fascinating things. Like a full flapper bridal gown, veil, garters, shoes, etc, complete with the newspaper clipping of their wedding announcement. And unfortunately I didn’t get to see it, but someone donated a KKK uniform from the 1920s that they found in their attic!!! I wish I could have been hired on, but unfortunately, they didn’t need anyone at the time. (I still check their website from time to time to see if they have anything I qualify for)
What ARE your interests? What kind of things do you like to do?
Again, I am DEFINITELY not the best example here – as many can tell you. But dammit, if I can find a job – and LIKE it, so can you. (And, I’ll add, of all things, none of my bosses or supervisors ever had a problem with was my work ethic. Other things, maybe, but not that. I’m ADHD and OCD, and I was able to turn those to my advantage.
Let me rephrase-I don’t think he has a “gloomy” outlook on life. I just think many of the statements he’s making demonstrate an incredible level of narcissism (elevated entitlement + world should change for me + I am a genius) combined with an incredible amount of laziness (complaining about academic standards, having to exert oneself). When he gets called on his shit he goes all manipulative (you people are killing me, my self-worth).
As I said in the other thread, the OP is beyond the scope of this Board. I should probably be a little ashamed of participating in this thread but I do find individuals like the OP kind of fascinating.
This sounds like a lot of work to me, just not paying work. The implication that work that is valuable and fulfilling correlates with pay rate is at best a misapprehension, focused on entirely the wrong metric. Certainly taking home a large paycheck is nice–as Freddy says, “Money! I can do things with money!”–it is no real measure of how satisfying the work is. Satisfaction is having at least moderately challenging work (whether the challenge comes from the intellectual effort, or overcoming bureaucracy, or just slogging through a tedious task) and accomplishing it in a manner that meets the expectations of the worker.
The ‘vitriol’ directed at the o.p. is in part a response to the snotty, superior attitude he takes with regard to his not doing work; reading through his posts it is clear that he believes work to be fundamentally demeaning, and that one is either natively stupid or has willingly decreased one’s intellect in order to accept the ignominy of performing work.
“What does humanity do with people who just cannot deal…” Well, they’re relegated to begging for alms or living off of their parents or however they can make out. The plain, harsh reality is that the world doesn’t owe you a living, even if you are smart or attractive; it’s up to you to turn your talents into some kind of effort that is valuable to some party. If someone is legitimately incapable of doing work (i.e. physically disabled, crippled by anxiety or PTSD, et cetera) then the consensus of modern society is that minimum sustenance should be provided, but the notion that some people should work so that other people–complete strangers who provide no return whatsoever–should be free to loaf is akin to legalizing theft and extortion; the working being forces to provide the fruit of their labor to the shiftless and deliberately lazy.
Sorry, but my reading of the o.p. isn’t that he is incapable of work–he is certainly articulate, intelligent, and is capable of putting considerable effort and passion into defending a philosophical (if intellectually dishonest) position. Even if he can’t sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door or work in a bank I find it almost impossible to believe that he can’t perform some kind of profitable work. Of course, it might be too menial for his vast intellect and injurious to his delicate sensibilities to perform something as crass as copyediting prose, answering customer service calls at a call center, or filing and collating. Just because I had to wash dishes, cook food, wait tables, clean toilets, lump cargo, move furniture, frame houses, fix roofs, et cetera to get through school and earn an engineering degree and work on automobiles, construction equipment, and rockets, far be it from me to expect the o.p. to lower himself and dumb down his unmeasurable genius in order to make a few honest nickels.
I can’t disagree with that, but I think the bad attitude is another component of it. He has deliberately been twisting the meanings of other people’s posts to the point of unrecognizability. To what end I’m not sure, but they consistently take a turn for the doomy and gloomy.
Of course! I’m always thinking good thoughts for you.
You may have hit on one of the OP’s disconnects. One thing that’s kind of annoying about work is that it has to be something that someone else cares about enough to pay you to do it. What you love to do could be marketable, but it has to be more than just reading the old magazines, you know? It could be doing research, it could be cataloging, it could be deaccessioning, like you mention, I don’t know, but more education might be in order to make it possible to do that kind of thing full-time.
Go to your local rec center, or center for the arts, or whatever, and sign up for pottery classes. They’re usually 5 or 6 sessions apiece. Just sign up for one for now.
In pottery class:
–If you don’t do things exactly as the teacher says, your pot will suck.
–It’s a very hands-on activity, there’s little thinking involved.
–You’re paying them to take it, so unless you’re really unruly (like smashing stuff), they won’t kick you out
–At the end, you’ll have two or three pieces that you made. And that will be really cool.
Reminds me of something I saw many, many years ago.
When I was a teen I worked in my mom’s pottery studeo. She was very successful and took on several employees to expand her business. Some were hired from the Ontario Academy of Arts, on the theory that those wishing to be artists themselves would find working in a real, live artists’ studeo a good experience. Sometimes that was true …
Anyway, she had one employee who had, well, a bit of an attitude about manual work. I dunno what she though working in a studeo was all about, but evidently what she saw in my mom’s did not live up to her expectations. The crisis came when my mom handed out the duties one morning - sort of like "you and you are wedging clay; you are mopping the floor; you are working the extruder … ".
Well, this woman got floor-mopping duty and she didn’t like it. She took the mop, made a half-hearted attempt, and then with a cry from the heart threw the mop down and yelled out “I just can’t do this! I’m an artist, not a janitor! I went to art college!”
My mom was too shocked for words - in a clay studeo, floor-mopping is absolutely necessary, or the whole place quickly fills with clay dust. It is admittedly a craptastic job, but so are most necessary for actually making stuff - wedging clay isn’t any fun either, or mixing glazes, or carrying heavy shit from here to there. The thought that an artist was too important to clean their own workplace simply never occured to her.
You may have hit on one of the OP’s disconnects. One thing that’s kind of annoying about work is that it has to be something that someone else cares about enough to pay you to do it. What you love to do could be marketable, but it has to be more than just reading the old magazines, you know? It could be doing research, it could be cataloging, it could be deaccessioning, like you mention, I don’t know, but more education might be in order to make it possible to do that kind of thing full-time.
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That was just an example. I just meant that was one of my strengths – just something that involved researching old files and archives. Which is why I keep looking for a position at one of the libraries, at least. (A friend of mine was lucky enough to get a job as an archivist for the Navy, believe it or not!)
I’ve thought about going back to school – but I gotta get a job first. You know? I could probably offer my services organizing files for someone. (Cataloging, as you said). I was always good at searching through things like that, and picking out little details. Maybe a school is looking for a research librarian?
Well, I’ll find something that works for me. (I wouldn’t mind working as a secretary for one of the local funeral homes as well…Dad probably would appreciate inside info ;))
Pottery classes? Oooh, the best part I remember about ceramics from high school was getting the clay ready – slamming it around on the desk to get make sure you get out all the air bubbles? Oh, was that GREAT way to get out stress!
Doug – since you seem to be independently wealthy, why not freelance? Offer your services reading, or typing term papers for people, (not WRITING them, but typing them out), or even just walking dogs?
ETA: WEDGING!!! That’s what it’s called! Are you kidding? That was one of my favorite parts!!!
This is what set me off the most. I had a teacher in junior high who had been a baseball player good enough to have played professionally. He’d made good money, started his own business, sold it, and decided to teach. But one thing he told us that stuck with me, ‘There is dignity in any honest job.’. And I agree with that. Whether it is digging ditches or running a corporation or making your own art and selling it, there is dignity in that job. No honest job is demeaning. It may suck, the work my be hard, but it is only demeaning if you allow it to be. And I think the OP has it in his skull full of mush that any job is beneath him.
Another point I want to make is the idea that the corporate world wants drones or automatons or soul-less machines. The truth is, successful companies want just the opposite, and the higher up you climb, the more true it is. One of the biggest management issues being faced currently is the number of young people graduating from college who come into the workplace and have no initiative. They do exactly as they are told to do, when they are told to do it, and that’s it. One of my profs in the MBA program is researching it and it is a growing problem. Companies need to be able to innovate and change. The company where even the guy in the mailroom and the secretaries take initiative within the scope of their responsibilities is going to fare better than competitors who don’t.
Of course, taking advice from the OP about how businesses are run or what work is like or how work should operate is a bit like asking a Catholic priest what the best sexual positions are.
Seriously, one episode of Dirty Jobs should be enough to convince anybody of the pride earned from a job well done, which makes me want to argue this all day. But it’s like trying to talk to a 9/11 truther or something - you can’t help but do it, but you know it’s useless.
Yea, my side’s rallying! (And no Zsofia, I don’t mean you.)
I wish I could respond now. It would take pages. I’ll spare you. I’ve got 5 days to write a critical essay about T.W. Adorno. My professor’s a beautiful guy, very understanding, but I inevitably pushed it to the point where he stopped understanding. “I know you can do this, Doug, so if you don’t do this and have it in my box by first light Monday, I will not pass you.”
I wish I know how to get rid of this urge to test people. I’ve been doing it to all of you, right from post #1.
It’s because I have always been so clueless about people and How Things Work. As a result, I have gotten blindsided so often, I became mistrustful. Of people. Of How Things Work.
Testing people and systems (work; school) is not the rational answer, though. It’s an *urge. *The basic urge is to avoid trauma and panic, but all the bad feeling I engender is just as traumatizing.
