occupational frustration
April 9, 2008
Ever listen to This American Life? I highly recommend it, or at least pick through for show themes that pique your interest. Today I feel somewhat assuaged over any kind of occupational frustrations I might have. Why? Because I’m not an astronaut. Episode #329 “Nice Work if You Can Get It” opens with a conversation with an astronaut, and one of the things she talks about is how they don’t get to fly. Essentially all the astronauts interviewed cited meetings as the most horrible part of their job. The younger astronauts may not even get a chance to fly in their career because the current shuttle program is winding down and there won’t be a new shuttle until 2020.
Think of the amount of training, hard work, competing, and education that went into becoming an astronaut. You’ve made it! You are at the top of your game and fit to go into space. There’s just one problem… during the prime of your work years there’s no spaceship to take you out there. Bummer. I mean, at that point, are you still an astronaut? Do you need to actually go into space to hold onto that title?
This is sort of the opposite of the situation presented in Gattaca, but I think it’s equally disturbing. Part of me thinks that these are the kinds of people who are going to be excited to work for Virgin’s space program for the insanely rich.
In one interview, the astronaut notes how she watches sci-fi shows like Battlestar Galactica and Farscape, and when asked if it’s anything like the real thing, she notes “absolutely not.” Firstly they get no gravity, and secondly that sexy fighter look that they give most of the spaceships is absolutely useless in space. This led up to my favorite quote of the week: “None of that is any advantage when there’s no atmosphere, you don’t need a wing. You don’t need a pointed nose. You could be a box and have the same maneuverability as you do… you know, the borg had it right, they’re a big cube. They’re perfectly maneuverable!”
The astronaut example examines the idea of overeducation and the potential for occupational dead-ends. I see the same thing going on for friends i have in law, where i suddenly know lawyers who are puzzling over whether or not to renew their license since they’re not making money in law anymore.
The question stands: what are we willing to do for work, what does our pay have to be in order to be happy in that job… and how far apart are those two? I would argue that the glut of law students is directly related to people feeling robbed at work. Example: if I’m a brilliant physics student, but I know that I’m not going to be the next great professor of physics, in fact, i may only be destined for assistant professor, then odds are I am going to leave physics no matter how much i love it. The needs of providing for onesself, retirement, and a family block out the potential of a not-so-top job. That same person is going to say “my income has to be good to compensate for all the smarts I have.” A trail of reasoning puts a lot of these folks in law school and then into something that seems to be a crowded job market.
It’s an interesting problem… if so many of us are so educated, what then do we find acceptable to do for work? Besides, who is left to do things like sweep the floor and clean the toilets?
The astronaut is a really good example, for me, of what’s wrong. When we start having all these news reports about a recession, it all seems overdue, and I think of the brilliant people I know who are either overqualified for every job they apply for, or refuse to take a job seriously below their skillset. It’s going to be interesting to watch how the college graduates in the 10 year range (10 years before now to 10 years from now) try to navigate the seeminly overpinched job market.