February 14, 2006
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Dept: Really hard questions
Course: The hardest question known to man
I want to start off this class by asking everyone here a difficult question. I want to test your ability to dig information from your brain…are you ready. OK…here it goes, the most difficult question I could possibly ask. A question that could stump a Harvard lawyer, or an MIT engineer, or even your average Joe who thinks they’re smart. Ready…
“What did you have for lunch last Tuesday?”
Go ahead…just try to answer. I couldn’t, even after spending about 30min. this past Sunday pondering.
Wouldn’t that make a great book title though. I mean, how could such a simple question be so hard? Why can’t we access such simple memories from our brains, like doing a “google” search?
Anyways…that was for fun, but, as with most of my posts, I’m gonna piggy-back off that train off thought and onto another.
Job myths. I’m quite ignorant and naiive about the working world…but I’m learning fast. I’m learning that I can make $30,000/yr. doing work that a 16yr. old high schooler could do, and I’m learning that despite the statistics that imply a college degree brings high income, the reality is that you get paid based on what job you take, and not every job, even high paying jobs, require a college degree.
In fact…skimming through the want ads, it turns out I could be making up to $80,000 doing the same job I’m doing now. Right now my job description is one of several things. I’m an “office manager,” an “administrative assistant,” a receptionist, a secretary, and an “executive assistant.” All titles mean very similar job duties, but the difference is in how you spin them, and the work environment.
For example, the job listings for executive assistants can be boiled down to just a few things. First, you have your basic computer skills including typing (Microsoft Word), e-mail (Microsoft Outlook), date entry (Excel). Then, you have other intangible skills such as being organized, ability to hold a conversation, time management, etc. This skills are applied to such job duties as booking flights for other employees, as well as booking hotels and rental cars.
I’m tempted to give it a go and in the future try out the life of an executive officer in an $80,000 job. The biggest drawback I fear would be long hours, and perhaps a stressful work environment. But…like all jobs, there would be a multitude of learning opportunities. I could end up being the right-hand-man for an MBA entrepreneur, or a CEO of a large company. Talk about an opportunity for a great education and networking opportunities.
Then, there’s the thought of being a garbage-man, which I was recently told involves working about 3hours a day, and the pay is quite high. That would be another great experience, short hours, good pay, and an interesting blue-collar type of work environment. In addition, I would get my workout in and would save money on a gym membership.
I’m beginning to think less-and-less about the ability of the gov’t to provide the best solutions for the needs of people and communities, although I’m not about to come out against programs right now, as I think knee-jerk, “Gov’t is bad, cut spending,” can have a whiplash effect on many people, and is not the approach I would like to take.
My major concern, is how social services, ranging from public schooling to child welfare, are so heavily dependent on public financing to run efficiently. Budget cut-backs do make it more difficult for these agencies to accomplish their goals. However, I have been beginning to think that their goals can never be met, without changes in the way individuals act.
For example, the US gov’t spends about $1billion/yr. trying to stop cocaine from coming into America. The problem, as one Bolivian coca farmer said in a recent NY Times article, is “the gringos are the ones using the cocaine, not us.” So…until drug user behavior changes, we can expect all gov’t funding to stop cocaine use to be money washed down the drain.
My thoughts are still evolving here, so I’m just going to think out loud for a minute longer. As I started writing, with only basic skills it is possible to be financially successful in America. It does take a bit of creativity and clever thinking to figure out how to not to make minimum wage your whole life…but the skills to do so can easily be taught and acquired.
The tragedy today is that in 12 years of schooling, our leaders, for various reasons, have been unable to come out and say that most of what we are teaching and measuring in schools is complete bullshit in terms of what we know adults need and use to survive.
They preach critical thinking, but cannot demonstrate it themselves. They preach math and science, when most students will be getting by on basic skills and skills learned on the job.
One of my biggest problems with “education,” is that any public discussion about education is limited to schooling. As most people would agree, the majority of what is learned in life, is not learned in school. And this point is not purely a critique of schools, rather, it’s a more general observation that people spend a lot of time out of school, and after age 17, or 21, people spend virtually all the rest of their lives learning in non-school settings. And so when our political leaders go on about the problems of education and how education is the key to the future, the problem is they’re talking not about education, but about schooling.
I haven’t yet figured out what sort of professional role I may be able to fill one day, but for now, that of writer, critic, and semi-activis will have to do. In that light, I’ll continue to rant as though what I say meant something.
The solution to the education problem, the schooling problem, the jobs problem, is easy. It’s easy because it’s not about government or policy. If it were, it would be difficult, partisan, bureaucratic, and uncertain. Rather, the solution is mindfulness. Awareness. Information based.
Words are the most powerful tool in creating change. That’s how we grow overtime…we accumulate more words (and phrases, sentences, paragraphs, articles, blog entries, books, tv shows) through our lives. But…depending on the words we take in, alters the people we become, and the potential we have to do certain things.
With access to the “right” words, anyone can find a job, and know how to live a comfortable life. I’m still trying to access those words, and I know there’s people who are on all different points on the “word spectrum.” For example…the difference between someone who has saved for retirement or not might come down to the different words someone read or was taught about saving. The difference between someone making $8/hr as a receptionist and $40/hr as an “executive assistant,” could be someone reading this blog and saying, “hey…I’m gonna apply for one of those high paying office jobs.” Maybe someone reading these words will decide to take a year off after high school to travel the world and read 20 books during the year, while another will get sucked into a more shallow college experience. The difference between the two being the words they were exposed to.
I think part of life is having had the luck to have been exposed to the right words at the right time. Sometimes…we create the words ourselves after having had a particular experience. Oddly enough, I credit my ability to write with hours of loneliness as a child, time spent alone with nothing but the words in my own head. I’ll tell you, that can be both a liberating and a dangerous experience…your own words have the power to torment you and scare you, and to make you realize what a powerful tool you have in creating the life you want, as an artist might a painting.
-our Vice President shot his 78yr. old friend, HAHAHAHA
-new book everyone including myself should read, “Left Hand of God,” by Rabbi Michael Lerner
-going winter camping this weekend…sweet!!!
-still can’t remember what I had for dinner last Tues.
-snow boarding at the olympics…some fun shit to watch
-building a networking game plan to brainstorm book ideas and professional paths
-got drunk enough on Sat. night to write my name in the snow!
-NY pizza…god i love it
-need to go kayaking again to get my mind off serious things
Comments (4)
Most of those problems stem from two things: culture and capitalism.
Very linked.
Garbageman. Now THAT would be interesting. How much pay?
Oh, I just applied to Columbia.
I work today. You gonna be around?
“Most of those problems stem from two things: culture and capitalism.” – JohnnyAttero
Hey, if we’re simplifying things, why not just say, “All problems stem from humans”?
There are MANY factors deciding what jobs go to which people, of which education (schooling) is but one. I wholeheartedly endorse your idea of applying for different jobs, but mostly because I am interested in seeing which jobs will hire you and which will not. Would you be shocked if you applied for the job of garbage man and were rejected?
Hygiene, attitude, breeding, presentability, endurance, strength, ability to kiss ass, intelligence, sex, adaptability, race, height, weight, and confidence…I could triple this list and not exhaust all the possible attributes that come into play in competition for a job. And I still haven’t covered market forces that affect employee selection (nor will I).
Most Americans’ financial woes stem from materialism, not capitalism. If you are capable of sound financial planning and self-denial concerning consumer goods you can retire a millionaire working ANY job (assuming you start before age thirty). Most people just aren’t willing to make the needed sacrifices (20% of every paycheck). Instead they feel they need cell phones and computers and Playstations and Internet connections and decent cars and leather couches and vacations and fine dining and HDTVs and DVD collections…(Again I could triple this list). Investing in depreciating assets instead of banking or investing loose capital is always a losing venture. Then again, a life spent denying oneself material goods could be pretty boring. Somewhere in between, there is a balance. You will find it.
Good thing you have a short name like DAN. You’d have to drink a lot more to write Michael or Reginold.
I had the Gyros Plate at Jim’s Coneys (and Greek food). But I had to think like a sumbitch to remember it.
ryc:
“Most of those problems stem from two things: culture and capitalism.
Very linked.”
I would say the problem is more culture than capitalism. Capitalism, as a system, will take on whatever form the culture creates for it. That’s why you can have companies that do good, and companies that do bad, those that treat their workers well, and those that don’t. In our system of capitalism (which many people will say isn’t really capitalist because there is so much gov’t intervention in society), there is both the potential for someone like Bill Gates to get super rich and spend that wealth to highlight world poverty and try to eliminate it, but there’s also the problem is how the super rich fail to take similar actions to address extreme poverty.
So…my belief is that our form of capitalism is part of the problem, and what is needed has more to do with, as you said, culture. Changing how people think, speak, and act. What I was trying to say in my post was that many of our society’s problems, such as people being overworked, and underpaid, stems from a lack of awareness of how to live differently. If I knew what I am now aware of about life, I would have not spent a dime on college, and would have worked my way up as an executive assitant, bringing in $50,000+ a year with those basic skills I described. By the time I was 22, I’d be free to take 2-3yrs. off to simply travel, read, reflect (i’d actually still like to do this, but might be 30 at the time).
And…as for being a garbage man, I was told you make around $50,000 and full-beneifts, plus a pension I would imagine since it’s a good union job. Who knew?
-d
I’m pretty sure I had red beans and rice, but that’s because I have that almost every day, not because I have an especially good memory.
I agree that you can’t just pour money into a program and expect it to function proportionally better. I’m thinking of an example from The Grapes of Wrath, which I’m almost done listening to-probably 20 more minutes. In the government camps, there are no police and people govern themselves. If someone’s misbehaving, they vote to kick him out, but that rarely happens. People behave themselves and look after each other. Conversely, in the “Hoovervilles” where most all Dust Bowl refugees live there are police controlling your every move, tormenting you to know end because you’re poor and they don’t want you there. Violence is everywhere.
If all the money spent on security would have been spent on relief programs and decent living conditions for those who truely had no other option, conditions would have been better for everyone. But that would have meant that the well-to-do would have had to admit that they were wealthy because they were born with an advantage and because they exploited others, not because they were better people and deserved it.
Some things have changed less than we’d like to think.
~Bethany