I supervised beginning social workers. They seemed to believe that an infinite amount of money existed some where and that they deserved a bigger proportion of it. They described it as "hurtful" when jobs that did not require a college education paid more than an entry level social work job. It was as if some all-powerful work god was supposed to see the inequities and correct things so they would have more money.
"for most people—even those who are above average in many ways—their primary source of meaning isn’t going to come from their job."
I think it's tragic for anyone to get their primary source of meaning from their job. These are the people who never retire and end up hobbling around Congress or on the stage long after they've begun to seem pathetic. When your primary source of meaning comes from your job, you end up like Joe Biden and Madonna.
love the phrase “aspirational elite,” maybe more than “luxury belief.” If I’m honest, I probably thought a lot like those who posted in my 20s. Hopefully some years bring perspective. Great point about finding meaning and identity ivy serving ones family, faith, and community.
As an employer for many years, I always looked for and appreciated an applicant's experience at McDonalds or in the Military. They know what a boss is, what customers are, and what a variety of attitudes and behaviors a day can involve. I can teach you the job skills, but not attitude. Conversely, the most common reason for firing an employee was a deteriorating attitude that alienated their coworkers.
I like you Rob and I really respect the hardship you’ve overcome without much direction. I too have worked these, let’s just call them unglamorous jobs. I’ve cleaned pools, bussed tables, cleaned literal cow shit out of cattle trailers. I get where you’re coming from, but frankly man, you didn’t even address the core substance of the argument.
The “work at Panda Express” argument is being made to displaced tech workers who have been replaced by H1B visa recipients who are competing on price and hours worked. If someone told you that you had to go from a high paying, let’s say 200k+ job to working as a dishwasher for minimum wage, I’m guessing you would have a much different response.
Again, I like you man, but you’re not even attempting to address what the real crux of the argument is here.
Exactly. I’m also a BIG fan of Rob’s, and I appreciate this essay which brings many interesting perspectives. But I do think he missed the point of this whole debate. I think it has something to do with Rob never had any corporate jobs.
Imagine during his restaurant job, instead of giving him praises and raises every few months, his boss discovered Raj willing to take only 35 cents/he for the same work Rob was doing. Now maybe Jim wouldn’t have replaced Rob with Raj due to his loyalty to his people. But any corporate 100% would. Even worse, you know that Raj was a fraud. He was worse than the worst slackers never actually worked. But Rob lost job. He looked around and realized now Rajs are everywhere. Someone pointed out, “hey there’s a job listing for outdoor manual labor, which according to Rob was a step back, that pays 50 cents (!) an hour. It’s lower pay than the restaurant, but better than nothing. Do you think yourself above this job?”
Facts. This is a huge problem and it’s not going away. In south Florida EEOC doesn’t exist, you see “all Cuban” “all South American “ etc businesses like everywhere, even government offices would have very homogeneous workforces where they all seemed to know each other and would recruit people from outside the country who never ever set foot in the USA. Yes, even government jobs, healthcare, you name it. One company I worked for the supervisor said in response to a client requesting a non-Haitian healthcare provider for her desperately ill son, and the reply was “I’ve got 100 nurses and 99 of them are Haitian”. The staffing coordinator made sure her friends got hours but not the american(s), eventually the Americans had to find jobs doing other things. Meanwhile I find out that a huge scandal where 7,000 fraudulent nursing credentials were sold, and yes I know someone who attempted to purchase these credentials and take the boards, and I believe more than a few were my coworkers who couldn’t put on sterile gloves or draw up a correct dose of medication for a child. They were all fully employed and given hours in excess of what was available to Americans who attempted to work for this company. It is evil and systemic.
You are on such a roll! My first job was at 13 at a Dairy Queen in Wyoming(where is legal to work at that age.) I was so proud. When I recent first paycheck for over $200, I couldn’t believe it.
Great post. “The dignity of work” is my favorite part. Keep it up. 💗
I always did manual labor when I was a teenager, mowing lawns, trimming hedges, etc. When I got my first “official job” with real pay checks rather than cash in hand, I realized I would be making a third of what I was making doing the grunt work out in the sun. And this was while a college student?! I think it’s a cope for these would-be intellectuals who realize that their air conditioned jobs are not uniquely better or even offer better compensation than “working class” jobs. And as to Bronze Age Pervert, he has a whole section in his book about praising the criminal life. I see the value in all productive work just as you do.
Another great post Rob. I'm a bit older being in the leading cohort of the boomers. When I was a kid, in my circle and in my family, there was no concept of not working. As kids we actually looked forward to working so we didn't have to be dependent on our parents, when interest in girls came along working was critical because it allowed you to date. Most of us were out mowing lawns at 13 or 14 and at 16 during the summers off from school we worked. My first job was as bus boy at $.75 per hour! It sucks but I knew that it was just a step to other things. Later came work in the steel mills, at a plant making greenhouses, in a value manufacturing company. All hard physical work, in hot dirty environments with a lot of strange and wonderful characters.
The concept of work your bliss is current and so much bs, work is the pathway to bliss, only later do you get to choose the work that is blissful.
I work with people coming out of prison and most of them are gob smacked when they see what can be earned in food service and the trades, and how poorly young people perform in jobs.
Maybe it's time to consider the idea that everyone leaving high school is required to do two years of national service before they can start college. It would certainly give most of the young folks some perspective.
It might help some but I work with veterans who are leaving prison and that is no environment for anyone long term. Faith and art lift a person's soul a prison grinds it to dust leaving nothing but an oily spot where a human once stood. Kids today are not as mature as we were in the 1960s they are less physically fit, more depressed, more anxious and less aware of the world beyond a screen. Two years doing hard work building trails in National Parks, paving roads, cleaning up trash etc. would do them all a world of good.
I agree with everything except the 'national service' requirement. Having been a VISTA many years ago (now part of Americorp) you end up being placed with agencies that frequently, just take you to get the goodies involved with being part of that program and you are stuck with work that might not be doing anything. I remember when I was young, I couldn't wait to turn 16 so I could get my first job. That first paycheck was a dream come true. The joy I felt back then, to be able to capture that again...
Very confusing. Understand the intro (from your book) and the generic concept (in my words) want more? Do more. Do more, get more…to succeed. But then you seemed to imply the right is dissing the concept of working your way up at Walmart, Chipotle, etc. Later you shift to the left being the critics of wasting your time like that.
While I didn’t suffer like you did as a child, we were lower middle class with no money to waste. If I wanted more I had to work to earn it. I learned the right way by watching my parents work long and hard, doing whatever it took to take care of the family of four, while still donating 10% tithe to the church. It never crossed my mind that “there was somethin for nothing and chicks for free”as Dire Straits claimed.
I did four years in the USAF during the Vietnam era. Made E5 after three years. Worked my butt off even though the pay was low and the pressure was onerous. Worked my way through several colleges then got a decent job at a large medical center in LA. My salary in 1974 was $15K to manage a department with 105 employees. I worked 12 hours a day 6-7 days a week, not because I had to but because I wanted to.
After four years I saw an opportunity to start my own business. With not enough funding and a lot of grit I started a medical billing company because I knew all the doctors. Several years later I started a medical publishing company, then bought two other companies and a majority interest in a software company. Working my ass off every day. Sometimes sleeping on the floor of the computer room and then waking up and doing 12 more hours. Saw my kids asleep in the morning when I left and asleep in the evening when I got home. Missed a lot of normal life.
Generated more than $500M in revenues and achieved more than anyone I know personally in financial terms.
Almost everyone I know who is financially successful has the same story. My friends are split evenly politically, but we all agree on most key issues except for who pays for it. I have friends who are musicians, lawyers, doctors, chefs, construction workers, and real estate pros. They all work their asses off. I am 77 and still running two companies. Most of my friends of the same age are still working. Those who retired earlier are generally not happy and some withered away because they were no longer engaged. So, again I don’t understand your flipping back and forth from right wing to left wing on this issue. Too much work is better than not enough.
Supplement to this long story is my 77 year old Korean wife who came to the US in 1982 with two small kids. She did anything and everything to survive and support her family. She became a successful real estate entrepreneur with a pre-2008-crash net worth of $30-$40 million. Both of her children went to Stanford undergrad. Her daughter became a radiation oncologist with an M.D. & ph.D and her son became a lawyer with his own successful firm in Los Angeles. This is what Asians, and many other immigrants do (put us to shame for not raising more successful children). She did this on her own and at 77 is still at it, recently breaking ground on a 50 unit apartment building. She is the mirror image of myself, which is one of the reasons I asked her to marry me 27 years ago and to my good fortune she said yes.
Her opinion about opportunity is summed up as “If you can’t make it in America, you can’t make it anywhere.”
My girlfriend emigrated from the Congo 14 years ago. She says one is better off in America than the Congo even if you have to LIVE IN THE SHELTER for three months (which she did).
The teen labor market has changed a lot since the 1990s. My kid applied to 30 places last summer and never found a job, because no one is hiring ‘summer kids’ anymore. Every typical teen job locale wants full-time or indefinitely part-time workers. Either is not compatible with school sports, school, dating and homework ( unless you are willing to sacrifice school performance to help a family pay its bills). There are so many under skilled adults willing to work fast food full time, there is less room for the ‘summer teen’ to find work. Upper middle class male teens are structurally being shoved into elite summer jobs (country club caddy, hotel valet, etc.) which don’t expose them to the rest of America.
I enjoyed this post, and thanks for writing it, Rob.
One thing that stands out to me in the online-people spat that leads the article is a difference in terms: Rufo talks about salary, and BAP talks about "building wealth." These are not the same thing. Leaving aside BAP's hysterical hyperbole (worst prospects for wealth accumulation ever), the different terms display different goals held by different people. Some people want to "accumulate wealth," to win at capitalism by getting enough money that their money starts to make money. Some just want to pay the rent, keep out of the hospital, and have a good month. To folks who have been broke and want to not be broke, 70K working at Chipotle might sound like a great deal. To folks who have been spoiled and think they're owed more, unless they're building generational fortunes they think they're being exploited.
How much difference is there between one set of people who think they're owed something and another? What's the difference between feeling entitled to racial preference and feeling entitled to better prospects for wealth accumulation? Are we entitled to heroic careers if we've jumped through the right hoops in school and college? Is that like reparations for the victims of tiger parenting?
I agree there's inherent dignity in work, and that working menial jobs is a great way to learn how to succeed at better jobs. I would like to be a hard-assed dad and make my son do menial work like I did when I was young. But the wise guy just stuffs my good intentions by succeeding at getting paid to do things that are meaningful to him.
As an old fart who grew up having a plethora of crappy jobs, I 100% agree. Looking back, you forget the misery anyway, you just remember the silly stupidity of them. My strongest memories aren't from events that went according to plan, it's always the unplanned, the mistakes, the pain, the scary and the absurd.
Even thinking back on good jobs, my memories aren't of the work... it's the people and the interesting situations that happen to take place at work. You can find interesting people anywhere, even at, heaven forbid, Panda Express.
Bravo for this important intervention against harmful guff!
Really commend you on using your platform, life experiences, and education and professional attainments to speak against ideas that harm society, particularly the "non-elite" (aka, most of us) who have most to lose from being led astray. This was a very compelling post.
In my work, I/we see top flight CVs. Like the best of the best, tippy top 0.001% of a cohort kind of level. Of that very exclusive handful that have the qualifications and temerity to apply, we weed out 99+% of them.
What's interesting is that after awhile, despite these CVs being otherwise the equivalent of a standout unicorn for most other settings, within mine, they pretty much blur together and start to look the same, the majority being met with a meh (I guess standards are easy to normalize).
Most fall into a well trod pattern: Exclusive private high school. Elite undergraduate institution. Elite graduate degree, usually with funding by elite prestigious scholarship. Internships (likely unpaid or lowly paid) at blue chip brand names. Sprinkling of do-gooder volunteering at prestigious NGO or charitable organisation. Work experience at labs, research assistantships and fellowships at fancy centers and institutions, whilst in college or even high school. You kinda know the drill ...
In a context like that, it's hard to stand out when (a) everyone is more or less ticking these boxes; and (b) everyone on the other side is familiar with this well trod trajectory of elite schooling / background. What REALLY impresses, and what I and (at least some) people notice - are the retail jobs, the fast food jobs, the blue collar work.
Manager at McDonalds after a continuous 10 year stint working one's way up through high school? I will fight to have you shortlisted for interview (all other things being equal). Worked as a plumber, delivered newspapers, or did manual labor? - you are so on my good side. Volunteered in some very unsexy but practical setting that made a real difference? You are seen and noted.
WHY? Because even at the "elite" level, and maybe for some, espeically at this level - we know how the game works. We know that that fancy unpaid internship was pretty cushy. We know that premature research gig or fancy summer program was likely a result of connections or at least being well connected to resources.
What retail, hospitality and other unsexy work experience tells us is the opposite: that this person has graft, that they didn't have all those other things and still got this far, that they coped with the unpredictability and difficulty of endless unreasonable customers and therefore likely has good emotional regulation and self-discipline, that they can really stick at something even if tedious and menial, that they are resilient and emotionally mature, that they are likely to be humble.
In a funny inversion, at a certain niche, it is those "blue collar" or "working class" markers that stand out and receive extra notice.
I lived in a village in the UK for a bit and I noticed the opposite there--they valued hard work and a job. Unlike the US, where job titles really matter. I'd love to see further research on how looking down on people is changing--I'm going to guess it's increasing among white color workers outearned by blue collar.
So many unfounded generalizations and assumptions in this essay. All based on a tweet trying to be clever and 900 comments to it. This essay feels lazy. Not a result of a hard work ethic.
Name one single thing you have ever earned on your own. You wouldn't have lasted ten seconds in Rob's shoes. You probably don't even wipe your own ass, rich boy.
"This essay feels lazy. Not a result of a hard work ethic." The essay didn't write itself, so you absolutely criticized the author. But feel free to be more specific in the criticism of the essay - like point out the unfounded generalizations and why they are unfounded. Otherwise your comment feels lazy and not a result of a hard work ethic.
Many passages to choose from. Here's one below. An extreme series of statements without any sort of proof.
"Regardless of political orientation, many aspirational elites have more respect for criminals than for ordinary people working ordinary jobs. They consider menial work humiliating and easily imagine, in response to such indignities, committing crimes.
They could easily imagine committing crimes rather than face the humiliation of going to a job where you have to clock in and wear a uniform and put on a visor and an apron and get to work.
More and more young people think they’re above this kind of work."
And, Jennifer, there's a difference between criticizing someone's work product and their person. That's why we have the phrase ad hominem.
I supervised beginning social workers. They seemed to believe that an infinite amount of money existed some where and that they deserved a bigger proportion of it. They described it as "hurtful" when jobs that did not require a college education paid more than an entry level social work job. It was as if some all-powerful work god was supposed to see the inequities and correct things so they would have more money.
"for most people—even those who are above average in many ways—their primary source of meaning isn’t going to come from their job."
I think it's tragic for anyone to get their primary source of meaning from their job. These are the people who never retire and end up hobbling around Congress or on the stage long after they've begun to seem pathetic. When your primary source of meaning comes from your job, you end up like Joe Biden and Madonna.
Or you become suicidal when you lose that job.
love the phrase “aspirational elite,” maybe more than “luxury belief.” If I’m honest, I probably thought a lot like those who posted in my 20s. Hopefully some years bring perspective. Great point about finding meaning and identity ivy serving ones family, faith, and community.
As an employer for many years, I always looked for and appreciated an applicant's experience at McDonalds or in the Military. They know what a boss is, what customers are, and what a variety of attitudes and behaviors a day can involve. I can teach you the job skills, but not attitude. Conversely, the most common reason for firing an employee was a deteriorating attitude that alienated their coworkers.
I like you Rob and I really respect the hardship you’ve overcome without much direction. I too have worked these, let’s just call them unglamorous jobs. I’ve cleaned pools, bussed tables, cleaned literal cow shit out of cattle trailers. I get where you’re coming from, but frankly man, you didn’t even address the core substance of the argument.
The “work at Panda Express” argument is being made to displaced tech workers who have been replaced by H1B visa recipients who are competing on price and hours worked. If someone told you that you had to go from a high paying, let’s say 200k+ job to working as a dishwasher for minimum wage, I’m guessing you would have a much different response.
Again, I like you man, but you’re not even attempting to address what the real crux of the argument is here.
Exactly. I’m also a BIG fan of Rob’s, and I appreciate this essay which brings many interesting perspectives. But I do think he missed the point of this whole debate. I think it has something to do with Rob never had any corporate jobs.
Imagine during his restaurant job, instead of giving him praises and raises every few months, his boss discovered Raj willing to take only 35 cents/he for the same work Rob was doing. Now maybe Jim wouldn’t have replaced Rob with Raj due to his loyalty to his people. But any corporate 100% would. Even worse, you know that Raj was a fraud. He was worse than the worst slackers never actually worked. But Rob lost job. He looked around and realized now Rajs are everywhere. Someone pointed out, “hey there’s a job listing for outdoor manual labor, which according to Rob was a step back, that pays 50 cents (!) an hour. It’s lower pay than the restaurant, but better than nothing. Do you think yourself above this job?”
Facts. This is a huge problem and it’s not going away. In south Florida EEOC doesn’t exist, you see “all Cuban” “all South American “ etc businesses like everywhere, even government offices would have very homogeneous workforces where they all seemed to know each other and would recruit people from outside the country who never ever set foot in the USA. Yes, even government jobs, healthcare, you name it. One company I worked for the supervisor said in response to a client requesting a non-Haitian healthcare provider for her desperately ill son, and the reply was “I’ve got 100 nurses and 99 of them are Haitian”. The staffing coordinator made sure her friends got hours but not the american(s), eventually the Americans had to find jobs doing other things. Meanwhile I find out that a huge scandal where 7,000 fraudulent nursing credentials were sold, and yes I know someone who attempted to purchase these credentials and take the boards, and I believe more than a few were my coworkers who couldn’t put on sterile gloves or draw up a correct dose of medication for a child. They were all fully employed and given hours in excess of what was available to Americans who attempted to work for this company. It is evil and systemic.
You are on such a roll! My first job was at 13 at a Dairy Queen in Wyoming(where is legal to work at that age.) I was so proud. When I recent first paycheck for over $200, I couldn’t believe it.
Great post. “The dignity of work” is my favorite part. Keep it up. 💗
I always did manual labor when I was a teenager, mowing lawns, trimming hedges, etc. When I got my first “official job” with real pay checks rather than cash in hand, I realized I would be making a third of what I was making doing the grunt work out in the sun. And this was while a college student?! I think it’s a cope for these would-be intellectuals who realize that their air conditioned jobs are not uniquely better or even offer better compensation than “working class” jobs. And as to Bronze Age Pervert, he has a whole section in his book about praising the criminal life. I see the value in all productive work just as you do.
Another great post Rob. I'm a bit older being in the leading cohort of the boomers. When I was a kid, in my circle and in my family, there was no concept of not working. As kids we actually looked forward to working so we didn't have to be dependent on our parents, when interest in girls came along working was critical because it allowed you to date. Most of us were out mowing lawns at 13 or 14 and at 16 during the summers off from school we worked. My first job was as bus boy at $.75 per hour! It sucks but I knew that it was just a step to other things. Later came work in the steel mills, at a plant making greenhouses, in a value manufacturing company. All hard physical work, in hot dirty environments with a lot of strange and wonderful characters.
The concept of work your bliss is current and so much bs, work is the pathway to bliss, only later do you get to choose the work that is blissful.
I work with people coming out of prison and most of them are gob smacked when they see what can be earned in food service and the trades, and how poorly young people perform in jobs.
Maybe it's time to consider the idea that everyone leaving high school is required to do two years of national service before they can start college. It would certainly give most of the young folks some perspective.
I thought you were going to recommend everyone should do time in PRISON!
Come to think of it, I wonder if that might help?--say a mandatory 48 hours in the County Jail. Lol.
It might help some but I work with veterans who are leaving prison and that is no environment for anyone long term. Faith and art lift a person's soul a prison grinds it to dust leaving nothing but an oily spot where a human once stood. Kids today are not as mature as we were in the 1960s they are less physically fit, more depressed, more anxious and less aware of the world beyond a screen. Two years doing hard work building trails in National Parks, paving roads, cleaning up trash etc. would do them all a world of good.
I agree with everything except the 'national service' requirement. Having been a VISTA many years ago (now part of Americorp) you end up being placed with agencies that frequently, just take you to get the goodies involved with being part of that program and you are stuck with work that might not be doing anything. I remember when I was young, I couldn't wait to turn 16 so I could get my first job. That first paycheck was a dream come true. The joy I felt back then, to be able to capture that again...
Very confusing. Understand the intro (from your book) and the generic concept (in my words) want more? Do more. Do more, get more…to succeed. But then you seemed to imply the right is dissing the concept of working your way up at Walmart, Chipotle, etc. Later you shift to the left being the critics of wasting your time like that.
While I didn’t suffer like you did as a child, we were lower middle class with no money to waste. If I wanted more I had to work to earn it. I learned the right way by watching my parents work long and hard, doing whatever it took to take care of the family of four, while still donating 10% tithe to the church. It never crossed my mind that “there was somethin for nothing and chicks for free”as Dire Straits claimed.
I did four years in the USAF during the Vietnam era. Made E5 after three years. Worked my butt off even though the pay was low and the pressure was onerous. Worked my way through several colleges then got a decent job at a large medical center in LA. My salary in 1974 was $15K to manage a department with 105 employees. I worked 12 hours a day 6-7 days a week, not because I had to but because I wanted to.
After four years I saw an opportunity to start my own business. With not enough funding and a lot of grit I started a medical billing company because I knew all the doctors. Several years later I started a medical publishing company, then bought two other companies and a majority interest in a software company. Working my ass off every day. Sometimes sleeping on the floor of the computer room and then waking up and doing 12 more hours. Saw my kids asleep in the morning when I left and asleep in the evening when I got home. Missed a lot of normal life.
Generated more than $500M in revenues and achieved more than anyone I know personally in financial terms.
Almost everyone I know who is financially successful has the same story. My friends are split evenly politically, but we all agree on most key issues except for who pays for it. I have friends who are musicians, lawyers, doctors, chefs, construction workers, and real estate pros. They all work their asses off. I am 77 and still running two companies. Most of my friends of the same age are still working. Those who retired earlier are generally not happy and some withered away because they were no longer engaged. So, again I don’t understand your flipping back and forth from right wing to left wing on this issue. Too much work is better than not enough.
Supplement to this long story is my 77 year old Korean wife who came to the US in 1982 with two small kids. She did anything and everything to survive and support her family. She became a successful real estate entrepreneur with a pre-2008-crash net worth of $30-$40 million. Both of her children went to Stanford undergrad. Her daughter became a radiation oncologist with an M.D. & ph.D and her son became a lawyer with his own successful firm in Los Angeles. This is what Asians, and many other immigrants do (put us to shame for not raising more successful children). She did this on her own and at 77 is still at it, recently breaking ground on a 50 unit apartment building. She is the mirror image of myself, which is one of the reasons I asked her to marry me 27 years ago and to my good fortune she said yes.
Her opinion about opportunity is summed up as “If you can’t make it in America, you can’t make it anywhere.”
My girlfriend emigrated from the Congo 14 years ago. She says one is better off in America than the Congo even if you have to LIVE IN THE SHELTER for three months (which she did).
The teen labor market has changed a lot since the 1990s. My kid applied to 30 places last summer and never found a job, because no one is hiring ‘summer kids’ anymore. Every typical teen job locale wants full-time or indefinitely part-time workers. Either is not compatible with school sports, school, dating and homework ( unless you are willing to sacrifice school performance to help a family pay its bills). There are so many under skilled adults willing to work fast food full time, there is less room for the ‘summer teen’ to find work. Upper middle class male teens are structurally being shoved into elite summer jobs (country club caddy, hotel valet, etc.) which don’t expose them to the rest of America.
I enjoyed this post, and thanks for writing it, Rob.
One thing that stands out to me in the online-people spat that leads the article is a difference in terms: Rufo talks about salary, and BAP talks about "building wealth." These are not the same thing. Leaving aside BAP's hysterical hyperbole (worst prospects for wealth accumulation ever), the different terms display different goals held by different people. Some people want to "accumulate wealth," to win at capitalism by getting enough money that their money starts to make money. Some just want to pay the rent, keep out of the hospital, and have a good month. To folks who have been broke and want to not be broke, 70K working at Chipotle might sound like a great deal. To folks who have been spoiled and think they're owed more, unless they're building generational fortunes they think they're being exploited.
How much difference is there between one set of people who think they're owed something and another? What's the difference between feeling entitled to racial preference and feeling entitled to better prospects for wealth accumulation? Are we entitled to heroic careers if we've jumped through the right hoops in school and college? Is that like reparations for the victims of tiger parenting?
I agree there's inherent dignity in work, and that working menial jobs is a great way to learn how to succeed at better jobs. I would like to be a hard-assed dad and make my son do menial work like I did when I was young. But the wise guy just stuffs my good intentions by succeeding at getting paid to do things that are meaningful to him.
As an old fart who grew up having a plethora of crappy jobs, I 100% agree. Looking back, you forget the misery anyway, you just remember the silly stupidity of them. My strongest memories aren't from events that went according to plan, it's always the unplanned, the mistakes, the pain, the scary and the absurd.
Even thinking back on good jobs, my memories aren't of the work... it's the people and the interesting situations that happen to take place at work. You can find interesting people anywhere, even at, heaven forbid, Panda Express.
Bravo for this important intervention against harmful guff!
Really commend you on using your platform, life experiences, and education and professional attainments to speak against ideas that harm society, particularly the "non-elite" (aka, most of us) who have most to lose from being led astray. This was a very compelling post.
In my work, I/we see top flight CVs. Like the best of the best, tippy top 0.001% of a cohort kind of level. Of that very exclusive handful that have the qualifications and temerity to apply, we weed out 99+% of them.
What's interesting is that after awhile, despite these CVs being otherwise the equivalent of a standout unicorn for most other settings, within mine, they pretty much blur together and start to look the same, the majority being met with a meh (I guess standards are easy to normalize).
Most fall into a well trod pattern: Exclusive private high school. Elite undergraduate institution. Elite graduate degree, usually with funding by elite prestigious scholarship. Internships (likely unpaid or lowly paid) at blue chip brand names. Sprinkling of do-gooder volunteering at prestigious NGO or charitable organisation. Work experience at labs, research assistantships and fellowships at fancy centers and institutions, whilst in college or even high school. You kinda know the drill ...
In a context like that, it's hard to stand out when (a) everyone is more or less ticking these boxes; and (b) everyone on the other side is familiar with this well trod trajectory of elite schooling / background. What REALLY impresses, and what I and (at least some) people notice - are the retail jobs, the fast food jobs, the blue collar work.
Manager at McDonalds after a continuous 10 year stint working one's way up through high school? I will fight to have you shortlisted for interview (all other things being equal). Worked as a plumber, delivered newspapers, or did manual labor? - you are so on my good side. Volunteered in some very unsexy but practical setting that made a real difference? You are seen and noted.
WHY? Because even at the "elite" level, and maybe for some, espeically at this level - we know how the game works. We know that that fancy unpaid internship was pretty cushy. We know that premature research gig or fancy summer program was likely a result of connections or at least being well connected to resources.
What retail, hospitality and other unsexy work experience tells us is the opposite: that this person has graft, that they didn't have all those other things and still got this far, that they coped with the unpredictability and difficulty of endless unreasonable customers and therefore likely has good emotional regulation and self-discipline, that they can really stick at something even if tedious and menial, that they are resilient and emotionally mature, that they are likely to be humble.
In a funny inversion, at a certain niche, it is those "blue collar" or "working class" markers that stand out and receive extra notice.
Keep up the good work Rob!
I lived in a village in the UK for a bit and I noticed the opposite there--they valued hard work and a job. Unlike the US, where job titles really matter. I'd love to see further research on how looking down on people is changing--I'm going to guess it's increasing among white color workers outearned by blue collar.
Great essay. I shared most of it on notes!
So many unfounded generalizations and assumptions in this essay. All based on a tweet trying to be clever and 900 comments to it. This essay feels lazy. Not a result of a hard work ethic.
Name one single thing you have ever earned on your own. You wouldn't have lasted ten seconds in Rob's shoes. You probably don't even wipe your own ass, rich boy.
No need to get personal or angry. I criticized the essay not the person.
"This essay feels lazy. Not a result of a hard work ethic." The essay didn't write itself, so you absolutely criticized the author. But feel free to be more specific in the criticism of the essay - like point out the unfounded generalizations and why they are unfounded. Otherwise your comment feels lazy and not a result of a hard work ethic.
Many passages to choose from. Here's one below. An extreme series of statements without any sort of proof.
"Regardless of political orientation, many aspirational elites have more respect for criminals than for ordinary people working ordinary jobs. They consider menial work humiliating and easily imagine, in response to such indignities, committing crimes.
They could easily imagine committing crimes rather than face the humiliation of going to a job where you have to clock in and wear a uniform and put on a visor and an apron and get to work.
More and more young people think they’re above this kind of work."
And, Jennifer, there's a difference between criticizing someone's work product and their person. That's why we have the phrase ad hominem.
You’re just a prick, D.R. You trying to find new subs for your lame Substack?