"What do you want to be when you grow up?" (634 hits)
Category: Humor -> Dumb JobsRating: 0.47 on 17 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Day Star (View user info) at 2005-10-13 13:01:28 EDT
The emblem that symbolizes adulthood is the dawning realization that you cannot grow up and be anything you want. Mommies and daddies and teachers and pastors and guidance councilors and after-school specials drum it into the heads of America's youth that you can make it anywhere, doing anything. And for a while, to our detriment, we believe it. The pursuit of college degrees, internships, career planning and hours spent thinking about the paths our work-lives would lead is inevitably useless.
It all boils down to the jobs offered in the area you choose to live, the salaries, benefits, and the compromises you are willing to make in order to keep the paychecks coming. I am one of many twenty-something post-college grads that struggle to fit themselves into estranged jobs like square pegs. Why did we get Literature degrees if we are stuck in customer service, or data entry? Why study for a journalism Bachelors if you're only able to find a job working retail? It comes down to paying the bills, and working within the niches that allow us a few days to enjoy ourselves. We are wasted individuals; potential that is depleted by the mundane occupations we embody.
It's bad enough that we settle for the less than savory jobs in order to maintain a lifestyle (Lifestyle can be loosely interpreted as the amenities that make your day-to-day situation NOT suck, anything from shopping at Victoria Secret and a yearly vacation to buying a 6-pack every afternoon and renting pay-per-view porn) It sucks that as a adults we have to deal with 40 hours of drudgery a week, but why do we teach our children that they can be ballerinas and firemen and astronauts and doctors when the chances of such are slim at best? The conscious decision to purposely shelter a child from the elements of red tape bureaucracy and commonplace cubicle jobs can come from two schools of thought; hope and anger.
Ideally, I'd like to think that adults feed their kids the "personal career choice" idea because they want the best for their children, or at least don't want their kids to follow in their thankless footsteps. This is fed by the proof that many parents pay their sons and daughters way through college, giving them the financial steering that may help a career of their choice flourish. This often fails when a student pursues a liberal arts education, as we all know; liberal arts leads to unhappy career choices. Too smart to flip burgers, but finding it hard to excel in a business-driven, experience-heavy industry; there is only a career in misery. "I read Milton, Melville, wrote about Antigone, Chaucer, Tolstoy...and I'm stuffing envelopes for seven dollars an hour." They are only smart enough to notice how their life sucks, but don't have the education to change their situation.
The darker truth may be a certain envy that adults secretly harbor towards youth. (even I am guilty of sending hate vibes towards kids in the summer when my lame ass has to head to the office and they are slathering themselves with mud and grass at 7:30 in the morning.) The freedom, summer vacation, ignorance from a 40-hour work week. Their idea of a hard day's work is hunting though the backyard for imaginary tigers before chasing down the ice-cream truck, and working overtime by daring each other to eat worms. And when the dream of a job that is satisfying beyond the weekly paycheck withers into a raisin-esque reality of wall-facing cubes, sadistic management and of course stress ulcers, you have to remember that it was the brainwashing of your youth that led you to this misery. And it is you who passes this falsehood onto the next generation.
User Reviews
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2005-10-14 10:24:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Bart: Oh, cheer up, Mom. You can't buy publicity like that. Thousands
and thousands of people saw your pretzels injuring Whitey Ford.
Homer: You can call them Whitey-whackers!
-- Homer Simpson
The Twisted World of Marge Simpson
Submitted by trent_nz (user info) at 2005-10-13 23:02:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i liked this article it's morbid and negative! keep it up
Submitted by sideshow (user info) at 2005-10-13 17:15:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I think that you are bitter. I wanted to do something, and I did it. Mm and Dad had their own ideas, but I moved out at 17, and did my own thing. No money, no help. I left. I am in debt, still paying it off, but at least I did what I wanted to my way. My toughest decision is deciding where I want to work, and what I consider to be enough money. However, I have turned down higher paying jobs because of a lack of benefits, or because of a posibly relocation. Fuck that. I ain't moving. I have many opportunities, and nothing to hold me back except my own worries and priorities.
I believe the the youth can be what they want. At least my kids will. Wanna be a Doctor? That is cool if you can handle a decade of poor student life. Wanna be an astronaut? I don't think so, I don't know anybody at NASA that could get your resume in there. Fireman? Sure, if you are physically fit and have no fear. Ballerina? No fucking way, get a job with a future. The point is, whether I give my kids money or not, if they are determined and intelligent, they can do what they want.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-10-13 16:22:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I want to be a Las Vegas showgirl when I grow up...
Submitted by Thanatos (user info) at 2005-10-13 16:02:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Cubicles are the tool of the devil. I think people would be a hell of a lot happier if they still had offices. They might get nothing done, but they'd surely enjoy work more.
Submitted by shitfuck (user info) at 2005-10-13 14:24:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I wanna be a time traveller so I can go back to the day you were concieved and slaughter your parents.
Submitted by Dante_Alighieri (user info) at 2005-10-13 13:50:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
"I wanna be Hitler when I grow up! Daddy, can I raise an army of followers to exterminate the Jews, and eventually, all non-blonde, non-white, non-German, non-Christian, and non-blue-eyed humans in the world?"
"Ask your mother."
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2005-10-13 13:50:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
You sound like you are upset because you aren't making great, sweeping changes in the World. The World doesn't want to change, for the most part. Know that, and you will be the wiser.
Think about this: not only do you find a remarkable number of BA degrees assistant-managing the Men's Clothing department at Sears for $27,500/year and 20% off, but at this point that position REQUIRES a BA just to thin the number of applications that need to be looked over at hiring time.
Whoever came up with the idea of "Love thy Neighbor" changed the World. Whoever invented the Personal Computer changed the World. How do you make the World listen, and see that what you have in mind is better than what is? Two ways: have a remarkable social idea, or invent something useful.
Can't do that? Well, then, quoting my third-fave movie, "The world needs ditchdiggers, too." Hey, I'm a ditchdigger (figuratively, at least). But I'm a ditchdigger that understands that the World needs ditchdiggers.
Submitted by Teephphah (user info) at 2005-10-13 13:43:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I need to +2 this again.
I just wish it held some promise of a light at the end of the tunnel. Preferably not a train.
Submitted by Fungah (user info) at 2005-10-13 13:42:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
That kid's crying because he was assraped
Submitted by Faithless_Whisper (user info) at 2005-10-13 13:36:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by jumpinjellyfish (user info) at 2005-10-13 13:22:35 (#)
Ranking: 1
Of course any one of us could break out of the mold if we could overcome the fear.
You're totally right, but would you leave a tedious job you didn't like, but paid the bills. There's always a chance you can't get that better job, and you'd be stuck with a stack of bills and no way to pay them. My point is that adults sell kids all these fantasies about the awesome jobs they can have someday that will define their lives, and meanwhile how are they going to pay their student loan bills while trying to get into the tight niches of their dream job. In this economy there's aren't many openings for the illustrious occupations that would draw the allure of the kiddies. When I was five I didn't get all starry-eyed and day-dream about dealing with cranky people on the phone all day. I wanted to (still want to) be a writer, or a librarian, or at worst be an editor. Which means grad school. Which means I have to finish paying student loans. Which means a lousy desk-job until I can move on with my life. And though it's not a tough job, and I am certainly grateful to have a job at all, I can't help but hope for more.
Submitted by jumpinjellyfish (user info) at 2005-10-13 13:22:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Of course any one of us could break out of the mold if we could overcome the fear.
Submitted by SkinnyKenny (user info) at 2005-10-13 13:22:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
The older I get, the more certain I become that I never will grow up.
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2005-10-13 13:20:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
a ja-lop-a-noe!
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2005-10-13 13:07:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Ever heard the term grow up?
I am sure your 40 hr a week work ain't that tough.
Stop thinking about how miserable it is and start thinking if you had to really toil 40 hours a week, or had a dangerous job, or that you couldn't support your family with a 40 hour a week job.
Give me drudgery. Give me boredom. But give me security, give me the ability to support my family and have 2.5 weeks off a year.
Submitted by Teephphah (user info) at 2005-10-13 13:06:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yup. Bummer, eh?
Submitted by Method (user info) at 2005-10-13 13:06:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
you're an idiot. I won't even get into ripping your argument apart.