1. My parents’ generation—and by extension, my generation—has witnessed a substantial growth of the middle and upper-middle classes; we are, I guess, the tail end of the generation following the baby boomers. It’s probably safe to say that we are now more cushioned by wealth than most of our parents were when they were our age.
2. I, and others of my generation and milieu (?), on the whole, have led a more privileged upbringing than what our parents experienced, taking for granted a whole host of amenities that were not available for previous generations until much later in their lives. (I’m thinking here in particular of, say, our ability to travel frequently, or weekly manicures, or strawberries in the winter, or yoga, or paying someone to clean your apartment, mow your lawn, do your laundry, move your furniture, etc.)
3. The most recent previous generations grew up learning how to make money.
4. We grew up learning how to spend money.
5. Many of us—perhaps more than ever before—have not/will not ever experience true financial desperation, to the extent that we will be without basic needs of shelter and food.
6. The wealth of our previous generations will be passed to us.
7. But given items #3 and #4, we will have accumulated little relative wealth and when our time comes to pass it to the next generation, there won’t be much to share.
8. Conclusion: Snap! The affluent middle class dies with us.
I’m at a jobs crossroads, a quarter-life crisis, and trying to figure out what hell I’m going to do next, and while what I think I’d really like to do is work in the kitchen of a restaurant, I know I won’t do it, because I’ve worked in one before and can say firsthand that (a) the conditions are bad, (b) the hours are bad, and (c) the pay is bad. But oh! To take a break from the paper pushing! No more rush-hour commute! To be available for Time Warner on a weekday! And to, like, be up on your feet, doing stuff that isn’t hypothetical!
But I’m beginning to have doubts about myself, that I secretly actually value having a salary, benefits, holidays off, a structured week, etc., because I’m too lazy to actually make anything else work for me (and because I don’t like to work, and let’s face it, corporate jobs are the lazy person’s solution to making a living). So in trying to reconcile this fact, I’ve been taking a closer look at how these corporate-ish jobs are structured, and you know what? The whole incentive for “working your way up” is so that you can eventually get paid a lot to just, like, have “ideas,” and make a bunch of young things who get paid a lot less than you, you know, “execute” them. And, unlike myself, who probably should have realized this kind of thing long ago, other people have identified this fact as the light at the end of their tunnel and stamped it as their goal. [I’m losing my train of thought. My eczema itches.] Whatever happened to being a baker, or a cobbler, or a tailor, or a gardener? Now everyone’s a “professional” and we’ve invented fields like “HR” and “PR” and “Strategy” and “Analysis,” and titles like “associate administrators” and “assistant managers” and, Jesus Christ, every kind of vice president you can imagine.
I obviously don’t know what point I’m trying to make, but what basically started me thinking about this was my brother, who lives in Reno and just graduated from college and has been working for a contracting firm and doing a lot of renovating and building stuff. I always thought it was awesome that he enjoyed this kind of work (he graduated with a “business degree” and I figured he’d take a job with a financial consultant or at a corporate headquarters for something like Nestle or Citigroup). But then it turns out that he doesn’t really want to be doing the building. He wants to go in and “broker” the deal and then send “other people in to do the work.” Which may be a better model for someone starting up a business, and is just the American dream put into practice, but… maybe that’s the problem. As Joni Mitchell put it in her 1991 song, “Who you gonna get to do the dirty work when all the slaves are free?” See above. We’re going extinct.
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