I recently realized that, based on the various jobs I've had, the "better" my job is (in the sense of more specialized, socially seen to be of higher calibre, requiring more education and training and experience, better paid), the easier it is for me. And I don't mean easy in the sense that I get to sit in a comfy chair and wear whatever I want and not have to talk to anyone instead of being on my feet dealing with customers all day (although that's true as well). I mean easy in the sense that if I do my best and use my own best judgment, I'm very likely to land on the results that make my clients and employer happy. When I worked in fast food, somehow my best work and best judgment just didn't align with customer and/or employer expectations.
I've been reading a lot of novels with historical settings lately, where the characters are uneducated or undereducated and have to do a lot of unskilled or physical labour. If I'd lived in that era (assuming I'd managed to survive birth, childhood, etc.), I simply wouldn't have been much good at my work. With practice I would have fought my way up to competent, but I just don't have the potential to become exceptional - or even above average - at things that are physical and tangible, or at people work.
My whole life I've heard that I'm lucky to live here and now because I get to have an education and live independently. But what's more interesting to think about is that living in this situation gives me the opportunity to excel - like, to excel at something, anything. I'm good with academic and professional things, and I never would have discovered that if I lived in an era where I didn't get the chance to do academic and professional things. I'm bad at people work and physical work, and that's probably the majority of what I would have been doing if I'd been born in an earlier age. I've always been labelled as smart because I glommed onto literacy and numeracy quickly and easily, but in an earlier age I would have been the village idiot because I'd be a mediocre housemaid or weaver or subsistence farmer or something, with no appreciable skills in any area. I'd never even have been exposed to things I'd be good at doing.
I wonder how many people are currently in that situation - the things they're good at haven't been invented yet or are far out of reach of the non-elite?
1 comment:
I briefly taught computer and office-work skills to young people getting their high-school equivalency diploma. A few of them would make good office workers. Most were completely ill suited to what they were learning.
I often thought that some of them would have been good garment factory workers, in the good union jobs that used to exist in the area. The work is skilled, but repetitive, paid well, and required no language skills - making them excellent jobs for new immigrants.
Those jobs had long since vanished.
I guess this is the other direction from what you're talking about.
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