Young people of the world, let me jive you in on something. Those assholes who show up at your school for the "career day", the ones handing out flyers and want to take your name at some cheesy booth or folding table, who want to find out what your prospects are for the future, yeah. Those people are eagerly, albeit unintentionally, setting you up for the royal screw job. You see one of these...
And you run your ass off in the opposite direction. It's a trap, one that these yutzes fell for, but not one that you have to. Treat these people as pariahs, like Hare Krishnas, or Jehovah's Witnesses showing up at your door on a hungover Saturday. They are selling a load of crap that you're expected to lap up like candy. It's a massive crock, the career. It equates to little more than you selling your soul for a paycheck and a couple weeks off a year. Do older you a biiiiiiig favour, and dodge this shit like a bullet.
Trust me. Career is bullshit. After 20+ years playing that retard's game, I am sure as a prom date gets pregnant that career is a fancy way of telling you to settle.
The Scam of Career
Give this a try: go search the word "career" and take a look at the images that come back. Most all of them are powder or sky blue jobs with upwardly-spiralling, clean-cut characters standing in front of career street signs trying to find their next step on the path. Why? Why such a barrage of clear sky, ascension imagery? I can only assume we are so far gone as a civilization that we have completely internalized the protestant work ethic. Working is now equated to the glories of heaven, earned by paying our taxes and working 80 hour weeks. God loves a hard-worker, especially a white one in a suit.
Why is it that we're supposed to aspire to this? Why are we supposed to be so cock hard over our careers that we internalize this as some image of ascension, of a path to salvation. In fact, what it is, kids, is a path to working a lot, going prematurely grey and losing sight of what really matters while we squander what precious time we've got chasing after paperwork and meetings. No lie here: you will not like it. Unless you're a fucking idiot or have been so enslaved by parents or a society obsessed with earning that you can't see your hand in front of your face, you will be in your "career" for a couple years when you notice an emptiness inside you, a wish for something more. It WILL happen. You will wake up one day and wonder where your twenties went and you're not sure why you are working weekends or caring if the Johnson and Johnson account gets the green light, but what you will know is that some very significant (read smart) part of you wants to pack a bag, burn all your ID and pull a runner. This is a good, healthy voice telling you this. It is a sane voice, one you should trust.
Career sucks.
I can say one thing about myself, for all of my career whoring. I have never, ever looked like the douchebag in the above picture. I've at least kept that shred of my dignity. I've never stooped so low as to look like Mr. Power Meeting there. I have never, ever worn a banker suit and swung a briefcase on my way to sell cosultingg time to JC or Moses or Mohammed or whoever. I've never stormed heaven wearing a bluetooth headset. Beyond a few ill-fated early years, I've only worn a tie to weddings or funerals. I own a single pair of black socks and LinkedIn gives me the heebie jeebies.
Now you can chock my cynicism and smart-assery off as juvenile jealousy, a man with sour grapes for the successful of the world. I'll admit it. I am jealous of this dude in the picture above. Clearly, this guy is ascending to Heaven. His career trajectory is actually THAT good. If only mine was (sigh). If only I could be one of the well-dressed spawns of the great Cracker in the sky ascending to consult at God's throne on what version of Sharepoint will integrate best with the Holy Intranet, or what trades will best diversify his holiest of holy portfolios. I wish deep, deep down (like near my rectum) that I could have a career path so fraught with potential that I'm surrounded by blue skies.
Alas, I no longer count myself so lucky.
If I could jiggedy-jump back to younger me and do him a solid it would be this. I'd tell him to tell that recruiting agent who got him his first gig in IT to go fuck herself. When she explained "This is a job with a future. This job could turn into CAREER," I'd tell younger me to kick her in the box and steal her purse for trying to sell me on the fat lie of modern work life.
Why does Career suck so very much
What sucks about having a career? Well shit, how long ya' got? Fact is, if you do what you really, really love, then do yourself a favour and don't refer to it as your "career". What you're doing is living your passion, and this I applaud. This is what mid-life crisis is all about. There comes a time when your younger mind can no longer stand what a tool we've become and tries to rebel, tries to drag you back to where you belong. Unfortunately, most of us misinterpret the signals and end up:
- Ignoring said voice by drinking / eating / watching / consuming it into subservient silence.
- Misinterpreting it as a need to be "young" again (a rant for another time) by acquiring a lot of bullshit you do not need (fresh pussy, a penis vehicle, a toupe, a fake rack, whatever).
- A time to really dig in and get some good work done. This last one is called "settling" and it's something we humans do oh-so-well.
Most people never get to a point where they do what they love, because honestly most of us have not the foggiest hat what we want to do, or worse still, DO know what we want to do and don't have the stones to give it a solid shot. We don't do what we love, or if we do, we do it half ass, and then dedicate the better portion of our lives chasing around some office playing grab ass and pretending to be grown ups. We do it so well, so successfully, that eventually we actually start to look to BE the part.
Career sucks so very much because it is keeping a goodly portion of us from reaching anything even remotely resembling our real potential, and as a species we applaud the shit out of this. No one likes to admit that we do this. Shit, live your dreams, be the person you want to be. Do what you want. We say all this, but in the end, if someone says they want to follow their dreams of being something, we are only impressed when you're successful at it.
FYI: Success in modern terms means MONEY. If you make MONEY doing it, then you're a success.
And thus what sucks about the lie of career: All "careers" make you money. The whiter and more willing to suck a corporate cock you are, the more money you will earn. And thus your success. Because playing the company game is all it really, really takes to get "ahead" in your "career". There's always some dickweed boss who wants you to shine his shoes or yes man some smoke up hi ass, and as long as you're douchey enough to do this, then your career is guaranteed.
What sucks so much about career? It is a game for suckers, full of people who are willing to do whatever it takes to "advance", wiling to work ridiculous hours, to give up their personal lives (something they don't appear to have in the first fucking place) so they can focus on their jobs, and for the remainder of us, we are expected to live up to this Neo-Con fantasy of success. If only we all worked as much as that jerk Wilson over there. If only we were willing to forget about our kid's birthday and come in on Saturday. If only we cared more about the company than ourselves.
And that's it in a rub. Career means sublimating your own happiness for the happiness of the company, and giving up so much of your life for something which gives your life so, so very little.
FYI: Success in modern terms means MONEY. If you make MONEY doing it, then you're a success.
And thus what sucks about the lie of career: All "careers" make you money. The whiter and more willing to suck a corporate cock you are, the more money you will earn. And thus your success. Because playing the company game is all it really, really takes to get "ahead" in your "career". There's always some dickweed boss who wants you to shine his shoes or yes man some smoke up hi ass, and as long as you're douchey enough to do this, then your career is guaranteed.
What sucks so much about career? It is a game for suckers, full of people who are willing to do whatever it takes to "advance", wiling to work ridiculous hours, to give up their personal lives (something they don't appear to have in the first fucking place) so they can focus on their jobs, and for the remainder of us, we are expected to live up to this Neo-Con fantasy of success. If only we all worked as much as that jerk Wilson over there. If only we were willing to forget about our kid's birthday and come in on Saturday. If only we cared more about the company than ourselves.
And that's it in a rub. Career means sublimating your own happiness for the happiness of the company, and giving up so much of your life for something which gives your life so, so very little.
Watch for the Danger Signs and Get the Fuck Out
So you are still reading, so I'm assuming you are still interested in what I have to say. So I'll finish it up like this. I've watched career turn once nice people into dick weeds, money grubbing assholes more concerned with getting the deadline done than all other concerns. I've watched marriages fail over career. I've seen worthless asshats move up because they were more willing to whore themselves out to the Machine.
Take my advice: don't be one of them. Do what makes you happy. Whatever it is, however long it takes, if you stick with your REAL passions, they will pay off. Money comes; money goes. Career is a fancy fucking way of saying Job that Never Ends. Don't fall for it. I fell for it. Plenty of idiots like me fell for it. I still know once nice people who've become fuck faces because they have the career hand up their puppet ass. Don't let them trick you.
Take my advice: don't be one of them. Do what makes you happy. Whatever it is, however long it takes, if you stick with your REAL passions, they will pay off. Money comes; money goes. Career is a fancy fucking way of saying Job that Never Ends. Don't fall for it. I fell for it. Plenty of idiots like me fell for it. I still know once nice people who've become fuck faces because they have the career hand up their puppet ass. Don't let them trick you.
If you are in a job you think might not be for you: maybe it's not. If you're losing sleep over work and imagine this is wrong, you're right. It IS wrong. If you're wondering why friends of yours are ever-so-slowly becoming dicks because they are so obsessed with advancing their careers, do the smart thing and turn in another direction; go get some new friends.
I'm telling you this not like some wasteoid Timothy Leary. I think doing something of value is the best. Just make sure the something of value is for you, for your dreams, and not subsumed by the engine of industry.
