A Post Entitled I’ll always owe you one.
This week at work I had what’s called a “stage.” Stahhhj. It’s French for stage, for Americans who use French words to describe their work. It’s sort of like an audition for high-end restaurant work, and it refers to both the candidate and the try-out. So this stage was following me around for a night, getting a feel for what I do. She had just graduated from Boston University with some sort of fine arts degree. Naturally, this led restaurant work. The fine art of making rent while trying to remember who you wanted to be.
She told me that she managed to graduate college with almost no debt. What’s almost no debt, I asked her. ”Like $20,000.” I didn’t tell her that I, too, graduated with $20,000 in debt. Like 12 years ago. And I still have $20,000 in debt that I have absolutely no expectation of ever paying off.
Recently, my boyfriend asked me if I had any debt. I said no. Then I remembered, “Oh, well, I mean, other than student loan debt. But I have no credit card debt.” I didn’t even take student loan debt into calculation. It was as if he had asked, “do you have food debt? ”do you have toilet paper debt?” These are just expenses you expect to have as part of a normal American life — something you will always have. A permanent tax on having had the recklessness or ambition to be from the middle class and go to college. Or the fear. Because, you were told, without a college degree you won’t be qualified to do much other than unskilled labor. You might end up as a waiter.
Last night I went for dinner at a friend’s house. Between the four of us, we have a couple of advanced degrees, a couple of degrees from elite universities, too. We all have student loan debt that is not going down, despite payments. None of us ever expect it to.
A Link to Wow.
This story is amazing: a $27 million dollar social-realist statue built by the North Koreans in a middle of a Senegalese slum.
A Link to Unhappy American workers
This makes me wonder why job satisfaction has dropped so precipitously in the past 20 years. Is it because we have higher expectations fueled by being relentlessly fed idealized versions of life? The first generations of Americans raised under a pervasive advertising culture now populates the workforce.
Is it because many, if not most, of Americans now work for a corporation and feel disconnected from their employers? Perhaps because of this people have lost a sense of purpose in work; they don’t know why they are working other than to make money. Maybe the standardization of work rules in corporations helps people feel like they are an easily replaced cog.
Likewise, as fewer jobs involved actually making something, people can’t grasp the utility of what they are doing. It just seems pointless.
I’m sure that increasing job insecurity, rising health care costs and a reduced amount of disposable income (compared to 20 years ago) further exacerbates this problem.
A Link to On writing
Neil Gaiman: The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.)
