Random statements. I remember when Dala and I first started dating. She didn't care that I was having money trouble at the time, she was just impressed that I was working two full time jobs. She didn't even care they were crappy jobs. She liked my hustle. I have found that my work experience is absolutely perfect for getting me jobs in the same industry I'm currently working. I could get them all day, every day, without much effort. Job hunting is taking forever because I'm looking for work outside my industry. Getting interviews are hard. Getting an actual job? ::Tsk:: I'm re-evaluating my strategy and am looking at either A) aiming my sights slightly lower and taking a massive pay cut to get entry level in a whole new industry and try to hustle to level up as quickly as possible or B) . . . maybe college. Maybe. I've had conversations with multiple people lately that the only way they're gonna buy a house is if they get a duplex or a house with an inlaw suite. That way, they can rent out the other half for extra income, and still kind of have some privacy and not really resort to roommates. Dala and I have considered this option lightly. From the stories I've heard from my friends, from guys and girls alike, the dating scene for everyone younger than me is full of frustration and disappointment. Everyone not only seems to want an amazing boyfriend/girlfriend, they all seem to want an amazing boyfriend/girlfriend with a reliable car, health insurance, and a place of their own. That didn't seem like a tall order when I was in my 20s, but for my friends in their 20s today that strikes me as kind of unreasonable. The fact that I find that unreasonable makes me feel pretty sad.
I'm an old fart. My little sister is having her 20-year high school reunion this year. When I was young: - I could get a job in high school. I had several. For that matter, I violated child labor laws. I started working after school at a toy store in 3rd grade (my parents were cool with it and the toy store owner was crazy). I say this not to illustrate my pluck but to illustrate that I wasn't competing with college-educated 20-somethings for summer and after-school employment. Fast food restaurants were universally staffed by high school students. Now? Now they're staffed by the underclass. - I could work during college. I did a lot of that, too. It paid my way. That's done a lot less these days. I made not great money mixing bands in clubs; now all those jobs (and there are a third of them, due to the decline of live music) are held by college interns whose parents can blow $80k on a worthless degree from the Art Institute. Repeat for every semi-skilled profession. - I could get a leg up easily. There was no social media so there were no HR professionals friending me on Facebook as a condition of my employment. Resumes were mailed, or attached to email. Because the marketplace hadn't been made efficient to the point of cruel, connections still mattered. When I started in the workplace, the 'boomers were 15 years from retirement. The Silent Generation? They had such a golden parachute they couldn't wait to get out the door. So the 'boomers moved up and all the jobs they were leaving? Those were totally available to my cohort. I remember visiting a jobsite with my boss and a coworker in July 2000 or so. The market was discussed. My boss mentioned that her retirement fund had lost over a hundred thousand dollars in three months. And sure - it had likely gained a hundred thousand in the year before that but the loss was real. That was her retirement pushed out. Meanwhile I had several friends that were '99ers - the dot-com proletariat that came to Silicon Valley just in time to see the flayed carcass of the dot com bubble. They've never recovered, either - they had a year, eighteen months maybe of glorious six figure incomes and they've been chasing the high ever since. Even then, with an engineering degree I discovered that the marginal utility on my employment was much higher than most of my friends. The fact that I made double to triple what they did was certainly a lever I could push on to raise better dates. This shit's real and it's not going to get better any time soon. But sure. Let's blame video games.
