Get a Job

In biology, any group, or for the reference, fish, that stay together for social reasons are shoaling.  If the group is swimming in the same direction in a coordinated manner, they are schooling.  To apply that to human social experiment of maturing ~ when we are seeking employment we are schooling but when we’re conversing with the fellow sitting in the chair next to us in the unemployment office then we’re shoaling.

The point of my entrance here is to make an observation that ours is a gauntlet of social obstacles.  We learn to date, drive and get a job.  Specifically, there are many techniques and many, many paths to obtain the coveted “job.” Finding one, and most importantly LIKING it, is the consummate challenge of life; even more than, I’d say, selecting a life partner. 

  Oh my, why so?  It’s not about the money; it’s not about the prestige.  It’s not ever about the status, even if all of these external measures are subtle leads towards the real effort to succeed: It’s about competency. 

   When we obtain ‘the job’ we check the social maturity block of adequacy.  We are part of the collective whole that is making the effort towards, or schooling as I earlier mentioned, in a direction of sufficiency.

   I am supposed to get a job.  I can skirt it with rationalization about why not, but that’s self delusion and it’ll wear out sooner or later; I can use a number of readily delaying tactics (injury, necessary training for a particular skill, inadequate funds to obtain that training, things like that.) Yet the point of departure remains an agreed upon expectation that we work; so then we work a job. 

   Now I’ve been listening keenly to the media concerning our current macro situation of unemployment and how many pundits say, ‘get off your ass and get a job’ as a solution.  Under employment or labor in humiliating conditions, notwithstanding, getting any job is the solution to the deplorable situation of unemployment. The sacred job appears to be all that is necessary to obtain social standing; that’s one of the reasons a condition for receiving government assistance is tied the formula that the person is only deserving of help if they are working first. But working just to claim you are working is not enough, not by a long shot. 

   Our ultimate happiness is anchored in three pivotal characteristics:  Sense of autonomy; where we believe we can make decisions about where to go and when, free of duress. Competence; where we feel we have a significant skill to contribute to an enterprise and where we alone are uniquely able to provide that service. Then connection; where our fellow human beings freely and gladly commune with us in good humor and cooperative living.  Autonomy and connection are fluid, so are difficult to get a clear handle on how each person regards what level of those are necessary to be happy.  Nor are they catastrophic when they fluctuate.  But competence? Oh baby, that’s the tall pole in the tent as my old First Sergeant used to say. (that being the tall pole is the first thing that needs to go up inside a tent to lift the canvass in order to make the shelter work.)  Without competence the job is prison.  It’s a means to an end; the paycheck.  But a job that fulfills the need for competence is in and of itself the end.  The pay is a welcomed (and necessary) by-product, but a person who feels competent performs the necessary tasks, assignments, and duties without being threatened or overly supervised; they are accomplished and so the person obtains a sense of competency. 

   Our unemployed millions don’t need work so much as they need a sense of competency.  I don’t think our government leaders really get that.  They quibble over length of unemployment benefits while fretting over squelching motivation to find work with too liberal access to checks.  What unemployment really means is an individual has lost their competency, (by virtue of downsizing or outright dismissal.)  Every, well most, who have worked have transferable skills.  They know now to communicate, they know how to solve problems, and given proper instruction, can follow processes.  I don’t care how complex a job may be, ALL processes can be taught; so then learned. 

   Today we are so credential conscious that the question can this candidate be trained? Has been lost to do they have the official paperwork that says he has been trained to do the job.  To be an eager worker is to be competent; that begins with feeling able, and that means to be treated with respect.  That will lead towards treating others with respect and ultimate harmony.  The future CEO of any company still had to be taught how to get an outside phone line and where the rest rooms were.  From there, it was just a question of applied training into the skills that made success a possibility.