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…