Why are we sold the idea of a dream job?
-It is an uncorroborated fantasy that's time has come.
There is a concept that plagues the minds of working people. It is a quest that engrosses the driven and beguiles the desperate. It is ubiquitous and mass-marketed. It is “the dream job.”
So enticing, so desirable, it sits atop the highest of pedestals just out of reach and we are encouraged, that if we focused on our ambition a little harder, we might achieve what the very few say they have. Total bliss in work.
But these claims are unsubstantiated. They are a siren call furthering the disillusionment of people willingly living for their work. There is no magic formula for the ability to just do what you love. Most have much bigger worries than to keep working towards that dream. Wage stagnation, poverty, unequal access to education, profit motive, taking care of a family, food insecurity, discrimination, etc. If we want to extract some semblance of satisfaction out of our brief stint in life, it’s time we abandon the preconceived notion of work as the pinnacle of gratification.
In Transition
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” is perhaps the most daunting question a person is asked to consider when transitioning into adulthood. Almost any person in their acquired wisdom by their 30’s looks back on their own period of adolescence and opines “if I had only known X, I’d be so much better off.” In the United States most of us during our youth have never explored the vast catalogs of concepts on offer, never been introduced to alternative societal structures, never left our hometown. And yet during this time we are expected to develop a 1-4 year plan that takes us from tripping over our shoelaces to becoming productive members of society.
If one attends a university during this period of development, they are hounded to have a major declared by the end of their second year. Up to that point courses are designated, a curriculum of “basics” required for almost any degree. Students are constantly reminded they need to be career focused; “What will you do with what you’ve learned? How can you make yourself marketable?”
Higher education is rarely used to expand the mind, and with its ultimate focus set on qualifications for career, it drastically misses that mark. Student loan debt causes entry level workers to take the first job they can find, often outside of their field of study, preventing them from utilizing that small window of time in recently graduated status that keeps them categorized for entry level positions. Additionally many organizations take their entry level positions to one extreme or another, such as unpaid internships or requiring multiple years of experience.
This ordeal leaves many wondering if it was worth attending university. But those who don’t attain a diploma have it harder. A sizable portion of the population is wracked with student debt but haven't and likely won't finish their degree. Of those who do graduate high school more than 30% don't enroll in college, and worse yet, almost half a million students drop out of high school yearly. All are hard pressed to obtain decent paying or desirable options.
On the invisible road to a dream job young people start out with the scales tipped against them. There is no period to explore different ideas and have a better grasp of what they might want to do. It is sink or swim in the middle of an ocean with no land in sight.
Economic Hindrances
It’s not a choice for workers to engage in a miserable job. The structures of our society corral us into a mental state of taking mitigative measures to get by. Let us look past education and qualification. Estimating very conservatively, there are over 100 million persons between ages 18 and 65 in the U.S. participating in the workforce. Despite the inherent difficulties of entering the job market, it’s safe to say people are still trying. And here, we run into a new assortment of impediments.
Family needs are a prominent consideration. Most other developed countries provide child care and family leave for their citizens. The U.S. does not guarantee either. In fact it costs on average almost $10,000 a year to utilize day care services. For households with two parents or guardians, the choice is between having two salaries to justify that expense, for one or multiple children, or having one parent stay at home with a significantly reduced net household income. Single parents have no choice, it just costs them that much out of pocket no matter their situation.
Healthcare concerns are also a weighty factor. Where many other countries provide healthcare through government funds, the U.S. abstains. Here it is tied to employment, and not all companies are obligated to offer it. If not received through employment, it must be purchased individually, and it is unclear whether individuals have to pay a fine for not being able to afford the outrageously priced and necessary coverage. Once again workers are left with a difficult decision. Settle working for a large corporation that provides benefits, find a job that pays enough to purchase coverage themselves, or risk going bankrupt over medical bills. In any case, what they “choose to do” is from a list of very few choices.
Conjointly with the aforementioned, workers are invariably struggling with a number of other concerns. Paying the rent or mortgage, food insecurity, job security, future retirement plans, delayed retirement plans, and on and on. Landing that perfect post is a remote conception and of minimal priority to our toiling mass.
The Tendency to Corrupt
We have all heard, in one form or another, the aphorism “A person who does what they love never works a day in their life.” The corrupting influence of the profit motive begs to differ. The purpose of any for-profit enterprise is to cut costs and increase earnings, and the negative effects on workers are glaring.
Pressure from employers have reliant subordinates constantly on edge. An anti work-life balance attitude manipulates us into working overtime, impedes us from taking time off, discourages calling in sick, and cultivates an atmosphere that we are always replaceable. So we put our heads down and carry on because we need the wage.
Some opt to break away from working under these conditions. Looking past the abundant roadblocks and sheer impossibility of competing with big businesses, they attempt to pursue their own vision by going into business for themselves. But any dream task that is done as a service becomes tainted by the profit motive. For instance: if a brewing hobbyist wants to sell their brews for a living, they may be passionate about brewing a specific type of beer, but to be competitive and keep paying the bills they have to brew what’s trendy or what sells and have the constant personification of a salesman. What was once a pleasurable activity becomes devoid of meaning as they are forced to sell out their goals for a cost-effective business model.
Whether you’re working for an established company, or operating your own small business, the process is taxing. This acquiescence to the daily grind is no big secret. In fact corporate America has found a way to take advantage of this desperation with a multi-billion dollar a year “gig economy.” Disaffected workers are now bombarded with disingenuous concepts like the side hustle, and told they can thrive as independent contractors or freelancers.
A perfect example of this deceptive practice is a recent ad from Squarespace in which Dolly Parton’s working class anthem “9 to 5” is misappropriated, changing the original lyrics to try and convince consumers to buy their product with the prospect of “making something of [their] own.” Where Parton previously emoted truths such as “[them using] your mind and… never [giving] you credit” and “you’re just a step on the boss man’s ladder”, we are left with a jaw dropping level of hypocrisy as they push us to work after hours (5pm-9am) while they profit from our labor.
The circumstances created by the mishandling of COVID19 has bolstered this industry even further, with a torrent of unemployed workers seeking gig economy employment for some source of income. And as further indication these companies are aware of how lucrative this enterprise is, they spent over $200 million to promote a proposition in California, which passed into law, allowing them to continue this exploitation unchecked.
Looking Forward
It is clear we need a systematic transformation to collectively shed ourselves of the great workaholic malady. We must reform societal structures to deliver humanistic conditions that support the idea of work to supplement living, not living to work.
We can start by refocusing education towards a means of enrichment for the mind and away from a means for providing a continuous stream of obedient workers. Providing time and programs for students to explore an array of ideas would help to ameliorate dissatisfaction in study and worker burnout. An over reliance on standardized testing and rapidly expanding voucher programs financially burden school districts and communities and contributes to increasing the inequality gap. We need to expand the right to education to post secondary schools including universities, trade, tech, and vocational; both as an economic investment and to mitigate the massive student debt crisis.
Leisure time needs to be paid more credence. Our overtime laws are weak and outdated. They allow companies to “eat the cost” and require overtime work from hourly employees, and abuse even further the working hours of exempt employees. We need to strengthen workers rights with laws that prohibit overtime abuse and protect quality of life as a sanctity.
We should educate the public on the existence and success of Worker Cooperatives (Worker Co-ops). They level the playing field for workers in representation, ownership, benefits, and wages. They have strongly stood up to scrutiny over performance levels when compared with traditional corporate firms.
Union rights must be fortified. Focused analyses result in positive ripple out effects for worker protection and wages, union and non-union, when unions have effecting power. The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act would be a great start. It has passed in the House, and President Biden has promised to sign this legislation if passed by congress. Since the debate over removing the filibuster remains open and undecided, the prospects of it passing the Senate look improbable. Time will tell.
These ideas are prudent, achievable, and as Scandinavian countries have shown for years, demonstrable. Politicians and pundits who say otherwise are falsely suggesting the U.S. is not capable, bought off by special interest groups, or both. We can do better than existing for the motive of driving the market. Let’s stop accepting what the conniving few say a dream should be. Let us take that into our own hands.
Yes Bub! All of this...yes!