My Two Cents Part 2

"For What It’s Worth… My Two Cents! Part 2: Confessions of a Career College Student" by v. johns

Since my return to South Florida, circa 2001, with regard to work, my life has been almost nothing but an endless, mindless competition with other middle class and poor people to see who can work the hardest for the least amount of dollars, which I have already proven, time and time again, I can certainly do. When you sweat profusely, in an air-conditioned environment, you are indeed working. When you have customers asking you how much you make and telling you to slow down and take it easy to avoid heart attacks and strokes, you are, most certainly… working…

That was years ago… In more recent years, my job life has gone from one mindless extreme to another… Upon being assigned what is perceived to be the easiest job at my company, without protest, I’ve unwittingly traded in my reputation for being a very good, hard worker, with the physical power and skill to do the work of two people, to being subliminally and verbally accused of being soft or “having it made” or “standin’ around, doing nothing.” As if I somehow enjoy twiddling my thumbs and not having anything to do once sales have slowed and/or all major tasks have been completed for the day...

I’ve gone from lifting hundreds of pounds of potatoes to weighing up a few pounds of fish and shrimp here and there. There are women, where I work, who sweat more than I do. And people new to my store, not knowing my long, scrappy history at my company, eons before their arrival, have dared to write me off as being not even remotely capable of doing what they do, when in truth, I have nearly done it all… and perhaps even beyond their own capability… For, when it is TIME to work hard, no one can do it as intensely as I can.

Jobs like mine, in my industry, are not about fulfillment or prestige or even survival. They are about day to day scrutiny… whether or not you are moving around or “working hard” all day. Talkers need not apply… Never mind that I can make shoppers feel good about shopping where I work, or that I know where most everything is, or that I can perform basic tasks in multiple departments, or that I go out of my way, ditching my naturally quiet and aloof persona for one more approachable and friendly, to ensure that all who shop there, even the bums, feel welcome… Over the years, what has mattered most to some is that I don’t sweat even half as much as they do and that I get paid, just a few cents more, to do what they perceive to be as somehow less than what they do…

To add insult to injury, my refusal to use my work environment as a virtual bar, my lack of a wife and kids and house with picket fence, my inability, and refusal, to live up to black male stereotypes, and my apparently unusual friendliness and talkativeness on the job, has attracted barbs, jabs and cheap-shots from coworkers and customers alike. I’ve had to temper mindless insults and innuendo that not only question my manhood and sexuality (I dig chicks, man), but also make a mockery of my unyielding commitment to education as the basis for the life I hope to ultimately live and achieve (Go, Noles!).

Mind you, it hasn’t been all bad, work-wise. Between 2001 and 2004, I really enjoyed working for a temporary agency in Palm Beach Gardens, that has since moved its office to West Palm Beach. I got an opportunity to experience a rich diversity of light industrial jobs that were out there at that time. I’ve done everything from trimming dead palm tree fronds to assembling golf carts to moving furniture in high-rises to resetting craft store shelves to fitting plastic fixtures on metal pipes and stocking Gatorade on convenience store shelves in some of South Florida’s worst neighborhoods. While some may see these types of jobs as boring or repetitive, or tedious, I see them, looking back, as very rewarding, in the sense that once the day was over, there was always the confident feeling of a tiresome, but good day’s work. I’d give anything to go back to those days, but with the housing boom finally gone bust, those days are over and done. All I feel now, at the end of the day, which I have often been made to feel, is that while others have done all the work, I’ve done all the talking…

While it’s a common American elitist sentiment to portray jobs like mine as “dead-end” and people such as myself as “slackers” and lacking in what it takes to make our dreams come true… the truth is… a lot of people are perfectly happy on these kinds of jobs, bad economy or not, minus all the drama… and a lot of people like me, who are not, but try to be, are simply relegated to working on our truest of dreams, somewhere in the background, until the right opportunity comes along and matches up with our most optimal preparation.

I’d like to think that what I’m doing now, with this blog, is not only contributing to all relevant discourse on my topics of choice, but also setting the stage for a more important role in life, other than the one I have now. Whether it be in graphic design, transportation, or mass media, I just hope that everything I’ve had to suffer, up to now, somehow pans out into something more meaningful and rewarding, later on. There’s got to be more to life than constantly having to always prove something to other people on essentially meaningless matters in life…

Like most people, I’m just trying to ride out the bad economy as best as I can. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful to have a job. Many people are well out of luck. But not all jobs equal fulfillment. Being bored half the time or ridiculed for “having it easy” is no way to live or work… Which is why I take my chances with school. I say “take my chances” because, even then, upon graduation, there’s no guarantee of finding a good gig. But there’s always the opportunity to do so. And as I said before, education, for some people, myself included, is not simply a matter of fulfillment or prestige, it’s also a matter of survival…

My Two Cents

"For What Its Worth... My Two Cents!" by v. johns

Beyond myself and several friends, this blog, at this time, doesn't have much of a readership, but once other people catch on, if at all, they will find enough posts to keep them reading for ages. My initial concern was not having enough to say, but upon changing my format from essay to op-ed I've found it much easier to write about my concerns. It's just a matter of forming a solid written opinion. Florida's academic suicide in the form of huge budget cuts to education to the tune of 200 million+ dollars, for example, is an issue that demands passion and is so bold in its audacity, that it would be virtually impossible for me to remain completely objective...

The very foundation of this blog is the idea that without strong education, good governance, social equality, diverse industries and full regional access to mass transit, South Florida is in danger of becoming a lost paradise. Many feel that it already is. Sure feels like it. But the promise of paradise for all still appears quite attainable. When Florida's housing demand eventually rebounds, we must be prepared to accommodate all who call this strange land of opportunity and promise home.

Just because this blog is titled "The Lost Paradise Journal" does not mean that I am totally ignorant of all the good things that are going on in Florida and its economic backbone, South Florida. I read Florida Trend and other magazines that examine the Florida landscape in the most positive way, with the zeal of a child opening the latest issue of their favorite comic book. But as a loyal citizen of this state, I believe that it is my duty to be vigilant about those things in our state that are not right or do not make any sense. Writing about them is certainly the very least that I, or anyone, can do. My next step, then, will be to attend various city, county, CRA and DDA meetings to get a firsthand look at what's happening as opposed to just reading about them in local news papers.

This blog started out as an idea for a class assignment I had one summer at Palm Beach Community College. At that time I had developed a mild interest in urban planning. This interest in urban affairs was sparked, to a degree, by my 2001 return to South Florida, from Tallahassee, and seeing how much things had changed, physically and socially, in the nine years that I had been gone: While Palm Beach County was beefing up with flyovers and highway segments that I had not seen before, St. Lucie was packed with more houses than I remembered, Stuart had more businesses and newer roads, and most of the neighborhoods in my hometown of Indiantown, had become predominantly Hispanic. In addition, I noticed that Vero Beach now stretched out near I-95. 

I found all of this to be very fascinating. But what further sparked my interest in urban affairs was talk, in the mid-2000's, about regional growth and possible extension of Tri-Rail service to the Treasure Coast. When the housing market here was booming, there were concerns of overcrowding and over-development. Local print and TV news outlets were reporting on F.A.U.'s findings regarding South Florida's urgent need to handle all that growth by encouraging all seven counties to work together on common issues. What I had previously thought was common knowledge -that the Treasure Coast is included in the South Florida landscape- I came back home from years and years in North Florida only to realize that many people's conception of South Florida stopped at Miami/Ft. Lauderdale or West Palm Beach. It also occured to me that if South Florida does indeed, oficially, stretch from Vero to the Florida Keys, there should be comprehensive transit accommodations that provide for that entire geographic area on the basis that all seven of South Florida's counties share close economic ties. In addition, somewhere in my casual reading of various newspapers and magazines, I learned that Boeing or Lockhead Martin had once considered headquartering here only to be unimpressed with a lack of infrastructure and poor education systems. I also heard from talking with one person that Martin Couny could have been the recipient of a Toyota plant but turned it down. Things like this are no small potatoes. So if I sound a bit bitter or unoptimistic, it is because of opportunities like that which have been squandered away in Florida's overly-politicized environment.

Despite my end-of-the-world writing style, I'm really an optimist in the way I view most things. My first post in this journal, "The Real South Floria," establishes that underlying optimistic tone. But in the editorial tradition of sounding the alarm bell on things that may doom us to becoming a truly lost paradise, it is important that I retain a vigilant tone. I know that most of our public officials are working as diligently as they can to solve our problems. But not all of them are. Some of them have sold their souls and put our livlihoods in question. Still, all of them are fair game for criticism and I will try to criticize them as constructively as I can without much vice. But we elect them to serve and that is what they must do as responsibly as they can. I like to think of my writing style as Fox Mulder meets Lou Dobbs: The truth is out there and I'm damned sure gonna tell it! 

Although I've branched out in recent articles to comment on other topics, as I mentioned before, the basic thrust of this journal still centers on education, transportation and regional branding. Just as Dallas-Ft. Worth, years ago, designated itself, "The Metroplex", to give the North Texas region a more marketable identity outside the state of Texas, South Florida must also flesh itself out in such a way that we are recognized and understood outside of our own boundaries. While many businesses and news outlets have caught on, it seems that some of our leaders have continued to allow territorial stakes and turf claims to cloud their view of the larger vision that we all should embrace, here in South Florida, to compete nationally and globally. Let's be for real, here. Extending Tri-Rail and Palm Tran service to Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties just might draw dollars that would have been spent here, in Martin, to counties further south. But visionary thinking also provides for the potential of the Treasure Coast to benefit from millions of potential visitors from our more populous neighbors to the south who would like to enjoy nature, sports, fishing and clean beaches in a more relaxed environment. Martin County is known for being good-natured and green.

Unlike my first post to this journal, "The Real South Florida," my most recent posts have been more personal in tone: This upon the advice of a book on blogging I glanced at over the summer. But at some point, in addition to citizen observation, I hope to also produce collegiate-level material with documentation and references to support my opinions. For now, though, believe me, writing this blog is as much my therapy as it is my joy. It also serves as a bridge of sorts from one creative interest to another. I like writing just as much as, if not more than, art and design. And I'm seriously thinking of changing my college studies from graphic web design to mass communication upon re-instatement at university level.

To conclude this particular assortment of tangents, I just wanted to give whatever readers I may have an idea of the reasoning behind the opinions I espouse. I realize that our entire country is on the brink of ruin, but once things begin to get better, if we are not already addressing them in some way, some of the things I have discussed in this journal are going to have to be dealt with at some point. For all those who are concerned, our regional standing and sustainability must be built on the solid pillars of real infrastructure. Not lofty illusions of fantasy or false charm. We can't allow ourselves to get too comfortable. South Florida, still, has a very long way to go. But regardless of the challenges we now face, I do believe that we will eventually see the light of day. And I believe that Southeast Florida will emerge as the one premiere region in the world to live, work, study, play, relax and do business...