Slave Trade
Some of my builder buddies tell me they have trouble hiring the local graduates for their trades. I hear the same thing from pals in the restaurant biz. Jobs get advertised, but few apply and half those that do don’t show up for their interviews. I guess the jobs the kids want aren’t physical labor. Not when they could be video jockeys and computer cowboys. Why break your back and your neck framing houses, hauling concrete, doing lawnwork, cooking over a grill or serving dinners?
Me, I sort of went the opposite direction. I left academia, I quit my teaching job, I guess I dropped out …. to learn carpentry, woodworking, boatbuilding, mechanics, plumbing, all that stuff it takes to live closer to the land. Won’t say I got real good at any of them, but in a specialized world, it’s gratifying not to be specialized. I even learned a skill to make a living working with my hands. I’m not saying the kids are wrong — just saying there’s a satisfaction in making things, fixing things, building things. Oh, I know, you can do that in the virtual world. I work there too. When I have to ….
Course, there’s a lot of manual labor that isn’t too rewarding. You ask me, most labor isn’t, but then, you didn’t ask me. When I left the job force, I never expected to find anything that would pay me AND give me satisfaction. They seemed like polar opposites. So I count myself lucky. Blessed, if I can use a word so freighted with blissful la-la connotations.
The young folks I know struggling to find a niche in this consumer-crazed world, I tell em keep searching, don’t accept defeat, fight for meaning, don’t sell out or sell yourself short, you’ll find something you can invest your time and yourself in. Who knows, maybe it’s true if you believe it. I do. But then, I was willing to be poor. I don’t know many folks who would choose poverty over a soul-sucking job. Then again, they may get both.
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