Get a Bachelors Degree in Whatever It Was You Could Already Do

This Monday, I start my second job at the elementary school.  For those of you not strategically tapped into my brain waves, I'm going to be working in a functional learning skills classroom with children with some pretty severe developmental disabilities.  I know it's going to be hard work and there will be many challenging days.  Plus I'll still be working at my current job, so I'll be working literally every day of the week (around 60 hours per week in total.  Yup.  I'm badass).  Nonetheless, I'm very excited about this opportunity.  Which, given the hopelessness in my job searching since graduation, is no small feat.

It's been a year and a half since I graduated, and the only jobs I've been able to secure are the ones that I could have got with a mere high school education.  Don't get me wrong- I've enjoyed most of those jobs.  I've had fun, got some nice experience, and met some great people.  But it is slightly frustrating to have spent mucho mula to go to college to get jobs that I could have with my trusty high school diploma. 

Not that I would give back my college experience for anything.  I learned so much about the world I live in, I met a phenomenal group of women that taught me just as much as the professors did (a metric crap-ton), and I got some nice looking trophies to hang on my resume.  I got to be the first person in my immediate family to graduate from college and that is an achievement that I do not take lightly.  And my children got to see me walk across the stage to receive my degree, so they see that there is some value in hard work and perseverance. 

Of course, it's a good thing I learned to persevere so that when I graduated I could find a series of part time jobs to work hard at so we could barely stay afloat.  Post college life has been a struggle.  Before I got this job at the school, I hadn't been able to find anyone willing to hire me for more than 24 hours a week or $8 an hour (I don't count my time as an AFT because that was like a paid three-month tour of duty in hell).  Not from lack of effort- there's just not that much out here in the U.P.  I even applied at Target and Wal-Mart!  All I got was a 'Thanks but no thanks' e-mail from Target and no call back from Wal-Mart. I guess it was just as depressing for them to think about hiring a 32-year old college graduate as it was for me to think about working there.

I shouldn't take it so personally though.  The fact is that more kids are graduating from college today than in the past, and so the field of potential employees for limited jobs is now a much more competitive one (for better and for worse).  I didn't get a case manager position at the social service agency I work for now because a couple of other BSWs had applied for the same position.  Sure, I have reason to believe that I was the better candidate based on my resume (and my self-affirmation bias) but the reality is that there are more and more people who look like me (just on paper, thank God) in the search for jobs.

The structure of the employment market is different too.  Back in the day, you could afford to graduate from high school and get a nice factory job that would pay you good, middle-class money and you could work there for 30 years or whatever and then retire.  BOOM.  Sure, there were elite jobs that required college, but you could still make a good living without it.

Nowadays, the same hierarchical job structure is there, except that the factory-type job paying middle-class money with benefits has been outsourced to other countries.   So the middle and lower jobs saw a shift downwards in the income level, but now you have to spend around $50,000 just to have a chance to get rejected from these lesser jobs.  Unless you go to a rich school where you can make some meaningful ($$$) connections.

Even then, in this era of affirmative action and equal hiring policies you see the 'Old boys network' slowly eroding away.  Sure, there are places that you can get a job just based on who you know (and the reality is that social networks do play a role in getting many jobs), but it's getting harder and harder to simply cash in a favor for such work.  Trust me, I know.  I now have a negative favor balance and a restraining order from Shop-ko.

And even though I've had some nice experiences, apparently they haven't been the right ones.  In my quest to thrust myself into the upper-lower class, I have found a plethora of jobs that all seem to be looking for this one thing- experience.  Unfortunately you need experience to get experience and they won't hire you without experience.  It's like a circular logic merry-go-round, and I'm trying to jump on it...except the guy spinning it is the Incredible Hulk.

And he's drinking what looks to be Campells Grape-flavored soup.  Must have been a '70's thing...

Say what you will about Occupy Wall Street (I guess really I should just say Occupy X, since prit-near every city has their own Occupy movement now), but the basic premise of the movement is sound.  There is a disparity in our society.  It's easy to point the finger at poor people and call them lazy or entitled  or whatever, but there are people out there who are willing and able to work hard- there just aren't many opportunities to work hard and make a decent living.  Yes, my life as an American in poverty is much, much better than most of the poor people (and even some non-poor people) elsewhere in the world.  I'm thankful for what I have and for the opportunities that I've been afforded.

But the American Dream wasn't built on the idea that hard work and sacrifice will get you the exact same thing that just doing the bare minimum would.  No, that's just what the latest version of it has become.
PS- Since I'll be working around 60 hours per week between my two jobs, I can't promise that my blog will receive the tender love and care that you've come to expect from me.  I do hope to update it often enough for it to not fade into oblivion...but I don't know how much energy I'll have at the end of each day, either.  Regardless of what happens in the short term, I at http://www.youshouldknowjasonparks.blogspot.com/ am not leaving and will continue to sporadically give you the same level of post quality as I did back when I was a underemployed stay-at-home dad/bum.  Which I suppose could be taken as a sign to abandon ship, I don't know.

PIC- https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8a2R8quOv29yPI1rKBRuFk8hWLPhjcmv0BOuQwUmVUBVmc-QOC8lBKg8KKTak-nJQ-1xCKQnJvrGBzlAeoq2NZL8MEKUeh92kj1Ka1crRZbV6QA79x53P_OKh4CePgkTfcoC5gxEtFNsm/s1600/bixby_hulk5.jpg

Assassins Creed: Revelations comes out today...which means I won't be getting it for a couple months

This blog is one of those rare entities where the title of my blog pretty much says what I want the whole blog to say.  And if you want to leave right now, I wouldn't blame you.  You've probably spent minutes, if not hours, reading my posts before only to arrive at the end with your neck involuntarily spasming and contracting your face into your desk.  So leave now if you must.  I won't hold it against you.  You'll just miss out on the chance to win free money.

Now that I have you hooked, I'm going to tell you that there actually is no chance at winning free money.  But hahaha- you're hooked!  You can't just leave now!  You'd look/feel foolish.  So even though you'll keep reading until the end with slightly blushing cheeks and an increasingly complex plan for vengeance, by the time you reach the end of this I'll most likely be washing my hair in another country.  Also, you'll notice that I've managed to stretch a blog that admittedly was summarized in the title into two whole paragraphs. 

(I just wanted a chance to show a picture of pre-meltingly hot Patrick McDreamy Pants)

But let's get down to some business. Because I do actually have something I would consider to be relevant commentary on the thesis I proposed in my title.

Yes, the new Assassins Creed game (Revelations) comes out today and I want it- bad.  In fact, on my Wishpot wish list, I gave it the highest desire ranking I could-  I neeeed it!  I've played through the first three games (although Assassins Creed: Revelations is not Assassins Creed IV...it's more like II.III), and could conceivably never own another (non-Assassins Creed) game for the rest of my life.  They're amazing.


The Assassins Creed games are basically every dudes fantasy set a few hundred years in the past.  Your whole job is to climb up buildings, kick butt, mess with the local police force, and sometimes kill bad guys.  You have an almost unlimited means of income.  You can rent women.  At any given time, you'll have a pistol, two hidden daggers, a sword, a knife, some vials of poison, and several throwing blades on your person.  You are always in peak physical fitness and you can traipse around the city wearing robes and armor.  In other words, this is exactly the kind of stuff we used to play when we were kids, except our weapons were sticks and women were still the enemy (cooties are much like a weaponized Krippen virus back then).  I don't need to buy any more video games ever...that is, until they make a new Assassins Creed game.
 

I'm mostly joking when I say this, but that's pretty much what capitalism is built on- the production and consumption of things that we don't really need.  And the people that make these things (and the people that market them) are very, VERY good at their jobs.  Sure, I don't need this game at all in a technical sense, and I definitely need things like toilet paper, gasoline, and a place to live much more than I need to roam around virtual Constantinople in the 1500s. I know these things in my head.  I know the the games $59.99 price tag will go down considerably after a few months, and I'll be able to play the same game but for cheaper (while also having a home where I can wipe my bum with the toilet paper I drove to the store to buy).

But that didn't stop me from having to basically strap myself to a chair and take myself offline over the past week as my mind kept trying to figure out some way, any way, to get my hands on that game on the day it came out.  "How much cushion do we have in the checking account?  How much remaining balance is on that credit card?  How much could I get if I sold this game or that book or those children?  Hey, I could order from here and open a new account...".  Even though I rationally understand that the ability to wait will give us added financial stability while saving money in the long run, my brain was still trying to convince me to just go ahead and get the game already.  Thanks a lot, brain.

Please understand, I'm not looking for sympathy (maybe a little) or a handout (although I wouldn't give it back)- I'm just relaying the ridiculous struggle that I'm sure millions of Americans go through when their favorite book/movie/game/toy is released to stores.  Somehow, whether from our parents or our friends or commercials or our own humanity (or a combination of the above), we get roped into the capitalist mindset and struggle to suppress immediate gratification for trivia even though the practical situational reality should work just fine to ensure that we focus our energies on the bottom parts of the hierarchy.  You know, just things like FOOD.  WATER.  SHELTER.


Capitalism doesn't want to hear that noise though, so they created credit cards.  And while things have changed in recent years to make things less unfair for credit card users (including not having college kids sitting around giving out free t-shirts for signing up for your first credit card), that doesn't change the reality for myself and millions of Americans. 

I don't think this is a moral issue or something where it makes me (and people like me) somehow 'inferior' to others.  The system was created to exploit us!  I'm frustrated that the Occupy Wall Street dividing line seems to be between hippie socialists and stoic Great Depression survivors.  Many on the stoic side say , "If I want something I just save for it.  I don't live past my means".  Which is, by all accounts, outstanding.  I commend you.  That doesn't give you the right to look down on the rest of us, but I commend you.

Unfortunately, that's not everybody.  And it isn't that I want a bailout, or a do-over.  I made mistakes- I know that, I own them, and have no problem paying back the money that I borrowed against my future to pay for the present. That's my role in all this.  I may not have completely understood the ramifications, but I at least knew that I'd have to pay this money back.

The system is still screwed up though.  It's designed around people like me.  Without people like me, it falls apart.  So they use crazy powerful science to manipulate our feelings, emotions, thinking and get us to desire things that we don't really need (or even want)...and then they give us the means to purchase those things even when we don't have the means.  That's why I'm generally for the Occupy movement.  The system is designed to keep the masses suppressed and immobilized while a select few hold onto the resources and power in our society.

But I'm getting slightly off topic.  I honestly didn't mean to turn this into anti-capitalist propaganda.  I actually was hoping primarily to talk about how I'm refocusing my other blog.  You know, the Sojourn Boulevard one?  What am I talking about- of course you remember.  Pretend like I didn't even question.

I'm pretty much turning it into my own little on-line journal/diary/what have you about Ezio's escapades through late 15th-early 16th century Italy.  There's three games (as well as some novels and a wiki), so I should have lots of info for plenty of shenanigans to keep me busy.  I will miss the Darth Vader/Dr. Manhattan/Ezio roomie situation (and possibly one day will bring it back), but in the end I just don't have the chops to pull it off right now.  Not that I have the chops to pull of most of what I write, but hey, what do you expect?  Don't look for it anytime soon necessarily- I've actually taken it offline for the time being- because I'm trying to focus more on seriousy type stuff.  But I just wanted to let you, the faithful reader, be in the know before the know gets known.  Ya know?

So now- aren't you glad you finished reading this post?  Please, don't answer that.

PIC- https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZpEv46uXahSw9S0bZ8K8ogVBbeobrWDV1A6PFsATEd8fUf_W40iEcjnl3g5JUTSbZFYxwxaukGEFoWUH2V0XjnMKVWzceQAIWsbgJ7PDsw9GQDs3xVaHyD8c2eVdvNRw4UW3yOvNyBRk/s1600/Can-t-Buy-Me-Love-caps-patrick-dempsey-7134090-720-528.jpg

Again with the anecdotes!

I saw this picture making the rounds on Facebook today, and I have to say that I'm not impressed.  Not that I'm going to tell anyone that Occupy Wallstreet is 100% right and you should have to believe in it in order to be American- that'd be UnAmer'cun.  And I certainly don't want to come across as being disrespectful to a soldier- I can only imagine how much hard work and sacrifice that dude had to make to even be a soldier, let alone the job related hazards he has to put up with.

But this picture is just a snapshot of everything that's wrong with the United States of America today.  Let me 'splain.

To me, this picture symbolizes how divided we are as a society.  Blame it on politics, religion, talk radio, or whatever, but it's painfully apparent that we are no longer 'one nation', under God or otherwise.  It's no wonder that with such an atmosphere of mistrust and division, we can't even decide on something simple like an economic protest.

Playing a significant role is the underlying values that our country was founded on.  Values are not just good deals at Wal-Mart- they define the very rules and laws (written and unspoken) our society functions by.  In America, two of the most important values are sticking our noses in other peoples business helping those who are less fortunate and working hard.  Sometimes they work together to make us better people and sometimes they are in conflict.  Unfortunately, the Occupy Wall Street movement has brought their clash to the forefront- and we are all witnesses of one great-big-giant value-cat fight. 

Right now, it looks like Hard Work has Helping the Less Fortunate in a very painful noogie-deathlock.

Never mind that there is room for both philosophies- Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has made the two seem as different as Democrat and Republican.  Which, oddly enough, seems to be the dividing line for this whole mess.  I realize that's a generalization- but think about the last time you heard one of your conservative friends talking about what a good thing OWS is- or the last time a liberal chum decried the lazy poor looking to get an unearned distribution of hard-earned tax payer dollar bills.  It doesn't happen- because we're just stupid sheep, droning along to whatever Pied-Piper tune our news source of choice tells us to drone to.

When I see the picture above (no, not the wrestling chicks- keep going up), it reminds me that the ties that bind are not nearly as strong as the ties that divide.  That picture says to me that anyone who is complaining is a lazy, good-for-nothing because there are jobs all around us- even if all you have to do is become a soldier.  It says that the 99% movement is just made up of lazy, freeloading, couch-surfing, feeding-hand-biters.  Well maybe not all of the 99%....but at least, 98% ...of the, um...99%...or is it 99% of the ...99%???  Gah I'm so confused!

Of course, ideological stances aside (because there are legitimate reasons for not wanting to join the military), it's asinine to say that 'Well, because my job is that I'm a soldier that means that no one else has a right to complain/accept government handouts because they should just all be soldiers if they can't find a job'.  That's not an option for everybody.  Some people literally cannot enlist in the Armed Forces for various reasons- and some of them aren't even moral failings! 

This picture is just another reminder that many Americans still operate under the auspices of the 'Pull yourself up by your bootstraps' philosophy that blatantly ignores a couple centuries of every 'ism' you can imagine.  Problem- not everyone has bootstraps.  And even those of us with bootstraps might not be able to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.  But still, many operate under the idea that 'if I can do it, so can everybody else'.  That attitude is to empathy like Kim Kardashian is to 'Death do us part'.

The fact is that just because the Declaration of Independence says that all men are created equal doesn't mean that it is so.  And not all poor people are lazy bums sitting around trying to milk the system.  There are plenty of hard working people making sacrifices that do receive some form of government assistance (terrible, I know) because of the economic reality we live in.  And they still don't have enough to make ends meet.

That's why this picture pisses me off.  It's just another example of someone with a subjective opinion and a successful anecdote getting on the Internet and turning what could be a thoughtful discussion about how to better improve the lives of our poor people into a big-hornets-nest-poking-stick monologue about the evils of socialism.  Too bad that you don't have to walk a mile in someone elses shoes before you can criticize them for shopping at Goodwill.

PICS- Soldier- Find it on Facebook
Catfight- http://dallaspenn.com/pics/albums/backup3/catfight.jpg