Out-of-the-Boxed In

I was asked in an interview not long ago how I spent my days. I said that I felt that looking for employment was a full-time job and I was doing just that. Luckily, the interviewer didn't press the issue too much. While I do indeed spend my days and some evenings looking for work, it not as fruitful as you might think for a city the size of Chicago. Instead of finding tons of listings to apply to, I find that most are nothing I would want to do, even for the short term. Jobs seem to have become very nuts-and-bolts somewhere along the way. Manage collections, data, IT, HR, marketing. The job descriptions are long and detailed, having long since been defined to fit a niche in the organization (yet few having anything to do with the actual product the company sells). It's clear from these descriptions and the requirements attached to them (MBA, 10 years experience doing the exact same thing in the exact same field, further certifications in that field just in case there's any doubt left) that they want someone to peacefully come in and fill the slot so that it can be included on the next quarterly report as a handled issue and then everyone can go about business as usual.

The exception to this is work in the non-profit world where they actually go as far as to state "must be familiar with local leadership" - meaning you must have connections. They too often want advanced degrees and multiple years experience all so you can earn $25k/year. Those without local connections seem to be relegated to the more junior positions, none of which come with opportunities to actually make those connections and are instead operations and office work... desk jobs.

Being on the tail-end of the Gen Xers, I was raised to think that one reason to go to school and work hard was so that you could do something you loved. Spending the bulk of your conscious hours at work means, on some level, you are what you do and you wanted that person (and thus that job) to be a great as possible. The more passive Gen Y generation, barely remembering the 80s at all, were raised with college educations and white collar jobs being more of the norm and something you just accepted would happen. You play by the rules, you meet the success markers and you are rewarded for it. Who you are and what you do can be outside of that. They were a generation raised to think of Nirvana as cool, though a wee retro and on mainstream radio. There's something we Gen Xers got from the 80s duality of the Alex P. Keatons and the Joey Ramones that they seem to be missing. There's something we got out of having non-Gap flannel. Something goes awry when 'alternative' and 'indie' lose their edge and become mass marketed for the part-timers stopping in after the office. What's left, in the Colbert-coined term, is truthiness.

The interesting thing about the masses being able to afford college (on some level, a great myth), is that we've taken the Me Generation, American Psycho love for labels and embraced it in education. It's not that you went to school, but where that matters. A top-tier school in the East Coast gets you into the club, but in the Midwest, where local schools and Greek memberships still carry weight, it just means you aren't a PLU ('people like us,' an actual term used). To carry that further, there are advanced degrees and certifications that 'earn' you a place at the table. I know a guy who went from doing all non-profit work to being a consultant to executives as a result of getting his MBA. This is not to say the guy isn't bright (he is) or can't do the work (he can), but I don't really know that the MBA is what made him able to do that work. I've spoken to other friends with MBAs and while they say that they learned the 'proper' vernacular to use when talking about things, they didn't really alter their strengths - that people go in with a zeal for ideas and innovation or they don't. Given my, er, lack of subtlety I asked if they thought an MBA was a $100,000 finishing school. A pregnant pause later... "that's exactly what it is". The problem is that it's the MBAs that are doing hiring and if they paid to be in the club, why shouldn't you?

In the pursuit of work, I've been networking with people near and far who can offer advice and/or assistance. In one of my discussions I asked someone the honest question: companies complain about not having 'out-of-the-box' thinkers, yet they actively recruit people with straight and narrow experiences - how do they expect to get those thinkers with that strategy? I immediately withdrew the question, apologizing for its confrontational nature. But... I really don't understand it. I don't understand how people are expected to be innovative when they spend years being forcefed ideas and systems. I don't understand how people are surprised by the sheep mentality we have when everything is set up to encourage just that.

My resume has been making its rounds in Chicago for about two months now and the results are pretty consistent - great resume, we just don't know what to do with it. It seems like I just don't fit into a lot of pre-set expectations. On some level, I'm glad for that... but it doesn't solve the unemployment issue any faster. I'm a Gen Xer - I'll leave my orange Pumas at home to go to the office, but... on the inside, the mentality I have and the skills that I offer are those of a girl with orange Pumas. It's the mentality of a girl who, years ago, wrote on her Chucks "ask why". I suppose I still am.