Do I want a "real job"?

"Real jobs," as Martin has described them are a source of peculiar and confused emotions for me. Although I am actively pursuing one, I am deep into questioning why I am doing so and for what end I am pursuing this avenue.

Most "real jobs" today do not entail what I like to do. That is, sitting inside on a beautiful day, staring at LCD screens, talking to people on the phone, filling out forms, having meetings. In fact, those are perhaps my least favorite activities on the face of the earth. I would much rather be outside, doing something active, or contributing something worthwhile to human existence. However, those jobs usually either don't pay you enough to live on, are few and far between, require lots of qualifications, or don't exist. So if I want to have my root canals at least marginably affordable and to hope to have a chance of maybe owning a small house one day, I have to seek a "real job."

But why? I have no desire to pursue a conventional career. That means investing in something I don't value and don't like, sort of like Social Security. Which means I'm condemned to either working a non-career job or being perpetually stuck at the bottom of the corporate ladder.

The fact that motivated, ambitious, intelligent people in this world have almost no choice but to participate in this system of alienated existence is insane. In order to simply live, one must further the very thing which makes them dislike life. They cannot live simply and pursue honest, though less glorious, jobs for that is not what our civilization values. Progress, growth, wealth creation, consumption -- this is life as we define it now. We worship those idols so fervently that we are blind to the fact that there, for centuries, was another path.

I would prefer that we were a world of farmers and ranchers, artists and craftsmen, where life was slower and more valued, where life was measured in seasons and eras, not in quarterly profit projections. Where life was a spiritual and philosophical journey, not a struggle to ensure the triumph of consumption. That is how much of humanity has existed across its history. Of course, there is no going back now, not without changes that no modern person would ever tolerate, and certainly not with the chronological snobbery we wallow in.

Plenty of you corporate types will laugh and berate me for my "old-fashioned" or "obsolete" yearnings. He doesn't understand how great affluence, technology, and leisure has made human life! they'll say. What a rube, wishing for days he'll never see! That's fine, perhaps you are happy and proud of what you've done. But no man can count himself truly humble unless he can look at what he has created and somewhere in his mind wonder if there is not a terrible, unseen cost, questioning whether what was old has truly been replaced by something better. I contend that is has not.

When the job hunter becomes the hunted

Living with our parents, idling the days away and wasting hours cultivating soap opera addictions are all things that we fear in the twilight. These are symptoms of the disease -- the pathogen is unemployment. Even if you hold down a do-nothing, go-nowhere temporary job, you still lack the elusive "Real Job." A "Real Job" is a job with health insurance, a 9-5 work day, retirement opportunities, company softball teams and drunken office party sex romps in the copy room with the tramp from Accounting. The Willy Loman angst, the tiny cubicle, the priggish and overpromoted boss -- I would give anything for that. Alas, that's something that those of us with humanities degrees only dream of having. Those jobs belong to the Business Major intern-whores. I'll have something to say at a later date about how my employment goals have declined since college, and Pangloss probably has a thought to offer on the subject as well, but I'd like to riff for a second on one of the things you do when you realize just how far in the distance that real job lies.

Let me set the stage: You graduated from college filled with bluster from that shitty commencement speech. Your parents welcomed you to their house, referring to it as "Your Launchpad." Optimism was plaguish. You took your Hope to the internet, scouring CareerBuilder for available positions. This is the future of employment, you told yourself. Hope sang in your heart. Your nerve quavered at posting a résumé devoid of actual content, but Hope popped it back into place, telling you that you had the requisite chutzpah. A few positions caught your eye, and thinking to yourself that you might get lucky trying for a job which demanded 3-5 years professional experience, you pressed send.

No reply from the employer, so you tried again. Nothing. Hope looked a little listless sitting in her corner, what with Realistic Appraisal of the Job Market and Your Lack of Actual Qualification tag-teaming at the other side of the ring. You started to think that maybe Hope had been inflating your odds. You couldn't blame her, though -- after all, you had taken some liberties in your résumé as well, stretching the time you told the new work-study kid how to operate the department copy machine into "Trained New Employees in Technology." All the while, you received a couple of unsolicited emails. "Marketing Consultant." "Customer Commitment Specialist." Vague titles, offered by companies like B-Line Marketing and Not Quite a Pyramid Scheme.

At this point, Hope made a play. She curled up next to you, like Othello to Desdemona, and whispered something soft. It sounded like, "Maybe they are real jobs. Maybe you could make a living on 100% commission. You're a hard worker -- you said so on your résumé." So when one of these jobs asked you to come for an interview, you said sure. After all, it's an interview, right?

The interview lasted for five minutes. You were asked to list your positives and your negatives. You were asked to talk about a time when you led people. You were asked to believe that this is a real job. When you were asked if you have any questions, you played hardball. "Can you describe a typical day at this job?" "What does a person with this job do?" "What is the actual title of the position for which I'm interviewing?"

The answer to all the questions was, "I don't really have an answer. If you come back in an hour, we have a video we'll show you and all of the other applicants that will answer all of the questions." Sort of what it's like to buy a timeshare.

Hope, that bitch. She tricked you. And no, once again, they do not validate parking.