Whitechapel - Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World Sat, 25 May 2013 08:06:28 -0700 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/ Lussumo Vanilla 1.1.4 & Feed Publisher Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312701#Comment_312701 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312701#Comment_312701 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:50:04 -0700 dorkmuffin Today, I read this week's New York Magazine cover story.

It centers on what it's like to grow up as a leading-edge Millennial (bogus marketing term for those in their early to late 20s) in a post-recession world. It covers a LOT of ground, and does so with some absolutely stunning prose. Naturally, I wanted to share it all with you and see what you thought about it and maybe even turn it into a forum for people to share stories about what they've seen change.

And so we find ourselves living among the scattered ashes and spilled red wine and broken glass from a party we watched in our pajamas, peering down the stairs at the grown-ups. This is not a morning after we are prepared for, to judge by the composite sketch sociologists have drawn of us.

I'm the demographic they're talking about here. I just turned 24. I went to a fancy expensive school and was always told to pursue my dreams and was given all the encouragement in the world by loving parents. I was GOOD at school. And yet, the world I find myself inheriting is nothing like the one that was promised.

I understand this is something most adults go through but it feels like this time around is far more serious...

But at my old job, there were several rounds of layoffs. The first robbed me of my cubicle mate, the last (which came after I’d left) hit veteran colleagues at the top of their games. Watching that, I decided to never count on career stability and have tried to be less defined by my work. Some of my friends have recalibrated as well. “I look at the people in positions of authority in my office and see the stress and pressure they are under,” says one. She has lowered the bar beyond which satisfaction supposedly waits. “It makes me think, Well, maybe I don’t have to be in charge. Maybe I’ll be okay with just keeping afloat rather than making a splash.”


At any rate, I wanted to start a dialogue here. I want to hear your stories. If you're like me, part of this "Millennial" generation, I want to hear how things have changed and what's not meeting your expectations, or how you've had to adjust your life plan in order to make ends meet.

Everyone else, same question.

I encourage you to read the article before you start posting, but it's definitely not required. The story is just a lovely piece of writing and I think everyone would benefit from reading it. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312714#Comment_312714 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312714#Comment_312714 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:02:35 -0700 tcatsninfan
Coincidentally, I came into work today and checked my mailbox and there was an envelope...all I could see inside was a pink sheet of paper and I thought, "Oh fuck, this is it, I didn't even know they do actual pink slips anymore." But it turns out it was a carbon copy receipt from a fundraiser a few weeks ago.

Since 2008--October 20th will be my 3 year layoff anniversary--I've felt like some sort of wounded/scared animal. I keep applying for other jobs and not getting them...most of the time I'm logical and I know it's just because there are so many people out of work, but then sometimes it gets so disheartening and I wonder what the fuck is wrong with me that no one will hire me.

Almost everything I do is governed by my job situation and lack of stability. I need to get another car but don't want to spend the money. I want to go on vacation but don't want to spend the money. Shit, man, I want to buy a PS3 but can't even bring myself to do that. When every paycheck might be your last one you start to look at things a little differently.

There's this general mentality that's formed in the workforce of "You have no right to complain, even if your job sucks ass, because you should be grateful just to have a job." I don't like this. Companies are overworking their employees and so many more people are working through staffing agencies now with no benefits or no clear idea of whether they'll have a job in 6 months or a year.

I know everyone doesn't think the way I do and I wish I could be more like them. I wish I could ignore all of it and just go to work and, as the article says, try to define myself in ways other than work. I don't know how to turn it off though. Sometimes I have these crazy mood swings and emotional outbursts but there's not much I can do about them.

I think things will continue to be difficult for us for a long time to come. Some experts say that the unemployment rate--currently at 9.1% nationally--will only go down by about half a percent by the end of next year and I wouldn't be surprised if it takes us until 2018 or later to get back to 5-6% unemployment. There's going to be a whole generation of people that have this "wounded" mentality the way I do.

I try to see the good in the world but I get pretty angry about things sometimes. It sounds pretentious to wonder why I was laid off and not someone else but that's what it comes down to when you're talking about survival. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312715#Comment_312715 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312715#Comment_312715 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:07:51 -0700 mercurialblonde
And I don't think we're the only ones.

My last job I lost because of economics, even though I was doing a great job according to all of my superiors and was really making some huge positive changes for the company. But I was the most recent hire, so it sucked because I was there for two weeks, then there was a two week forced vacation where the company shut down so everyone had to take their vacations at the same time to save money--then over that time off they lost two huge business deals, so I come back, work the whole day, and then am let go at the end of the day.

The other day I was contemplating filing for banktruptcy because I'm so tired of these debts ruining my life, and I figure at this point everyone has bad credit now.

I feel like my whole life has been behind the financial eightball just because some foolish financial decisions I made when I was 22/23 thinking I would make at least 30K a year. But that didn't happen, so I just fell into more and more debt.

I was reading Inio Asano's manga which ostensibly are about kids in their 20s from japan's lost generation--and a lot of it resonates. A lot of it resonates.

Baby boomers killed our future before we were even born, ha. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312717#Comment_312717 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312717#Comment_312717 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:12:35 -0700 mercurialblonde
It's all completeeeetely depressing and humiliating in some ways. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312726#Comment_312726 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312726#Comment_312726 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:17:03 -0700 government spy
Now, I do alright, but every time I see the attacks on Gov. Employees, I get a little afraid. Right now I'm looking at at least another year and a half pay freeze, possibly a 5 year freeze, and they want to raise my insurance rates, increase the amount I contribute towards retirement, both of which count as pay cuts.

There's this misconception that government workers do much better than private sector workers. Depends on which numbers you look at, honestly, but we don't do too bad (right now). My problem is that it's being looked at backwards. It's not that gov. workers are being taken care of so much better than private workers, it's that private corporations have systematically reduced pay and lowered benefits over the years, gradually taking away from their employees. Instead of wanting to bring down government workers, I believe we need to raise the standards across the board. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312729#Comment_312729 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312729#Comment_312729 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:37:12 -0700 StefanJ
* * *
I've stopped reading many of the threads in another forum where I hang out. Any discussion along the lines of this one gets pegged as Class Warfare, or similar rot. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312730#Comment_312730 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312730#Comment_312730 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:48:07 -0700 William George Any discussion along the lines of this one gets pegged as Class Warfare, or similar rot.

Remind them of how the French used to do class warfare and tell them a 2% tax increase isn't that bad by comparison. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312732#Comment_312732 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312732#Comment_312732 Mon, 17 Oct 2011 22:03:21 -0700 trini_naenae
My mom was a valedictorian. I didn't quite figure that out until I was much older, but I was always pushed to do well in school. I was also told I was such a talented artist growing up. Constant praise on my drawing skills. I didn't discover it until I was in high school, but I have a language learning disability called Dysnomia, which literally means "poorly named". (By the way, I have a very good memory, but I will usually start with the generalities and work towards the specifics.) Anyhow, I was expected to do generally well at school, and a result of moving and experiencing different school systems, I put varying levels of effort into school. Generally, American schools were the easiest, and I found my classmates to be a bit whiny when they couldn't get the grade they wanted.

But I always expected that I'd go to college, and that I'd get a degree in art, and I'd work in some way related to art that would be amazing and I'd create wonderful things, and be extra special, etc yadda, so very unicorn (as mentioned in the article). My mom was all about preparedness and research and a lot of the time we were overseas, or expecting to be overseas, so we started visiting colleges when I was in 8th grade. Growing up my parents (well, my mom) would encourage whatever creative projects and interests that my sister and I happened to have. Also, a lot of the time we were overseas. So we would have piano lessons and drawing lessons and jewelry making lessons and so on. Often our teachers were the "best of" whatever they did. Not always. I appreciate that my mom let my sister and I follow our fancies and get the best education she could find for us, regardless of where we lived. On the other hand, I can have a fairly intense creative ADD. Anyways, back to preparedness. She would also try to get the family to meet various artists and graphic designers and so on and interview them about what working in their field was like. And well, they didn't paint the prettiest picture. But still, most of the time, I was hopeful.

My sister is about two years older than me, and her thing is music, and missions (as in missionaries etc), and other cultures. She went to a private Christian college, getting a degree in missions and ethnomusicology. She should have been fine. She really should have. She had connections through my parents. She was going to get part of a loan paid off by doing an internship with a church. But through a mix of idiocy (especially with handling money) and things not going the way she was told they would go, she has ended up with a mountain of debt and working entry level type jobs. Right now she does housekeeping at a retirement community.

As for me, I was planning on going to art college, but I wasn't quite good enough to get in when it was apply, and my parents couldn't afford to support me like they did my sister, so I went to city college instead. I happened to be lucky, in that Fresno City College has a great art department and a great photography department, and so I got to take art classes that were just as good as many of the state college classes would have been. And since it took me a while to get my general education classes done while taking all those art and photography classes, I watched my sister's life go to shit. As a result, I made a personal decision that I wasn't going to go into debt for college unless there was a high likelihood of a well paying job afterwards. I actually applied for San Jose State and would have transferred too, except that California's budget went to crap, and the amount of students allowed to enroll/transfer was significantly diminished, and I didn't make the cut. And well, the economy has just gotten worse and worse. I'm not expecting to go back to college, at least not for a very long time.

Until my current job, my experience with work has been trying to keep up and never being good enough, or just being alternately bored and stressed out. Usually the companies treated people horribly, and I had no drive to be any good aside from survival. I don't get paid all that much at my current job, nor do I get enough hours, but I adore my boss, and I get to feel like I'm doing something interesting and worthwhile, so I'll stick with it as long as I can.

Do I feel like I was promised something I'll never get? Yeah. Am I all that upset about it? I have a hard time thinking I have any right to be upset about it. It seems tons of people were screwed over by the recession, not just my generation. If anything, it feels like it was my fault, that I wasn't good enough, and that I didn't work hard enough. And while that's partially true, after a certain point laziness has set in, but there's a lot of things that made it so I couldn't get the help I needed when I needed it, or get the opportunities to get to the point that I feel I should be at.

I'm still living with my parents, and for the most part they don't mind. I've been trying to find an apartment to rent and my mom is being supportive of me, but at the same time, she has said that part of her doesn't want me to move out - she'll miss me for one, and the various things around the kitchen and house that will go with me. Part of me thinks it would be better for everyone if living with your parents wasn't considered such a bad thing. After all, it's quite normal in more "old world" cultures, and economically much more sensible. On the other hand, I just want to live on my own, at the very least. I've been looking forward to having my own place and decorating it and everything for so long it's kind of depressing. Maybe I won't manage the awe inspiring career, or any of those things, but can't I at least get to live on my own? It's so humiliating that I'm 26 and have yet to live outside of my parent's house. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312762#Comment_312762 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312762#Comment_312762 Tue, 18 Oct 2011 03:50:37 -0700 keyofsilence
Fortunately there was an opening for a Production Assistant job in the coming newspaper hub, and I spent time doing various unimportant things across three newspapers for a salary that, compared with my sub-editing job, equalled a £4k pay cut. That was a knock to my confidence, but at least I was employed. Then the Tories came into power. A few months later there was a second round of redundancies to coincide with the continued doom and gloom, and I was one of them. Since then, the newspaper I was initially a part of has become the one to suffer the biggest readership loss in the entire United Kingdom. The companies that own the newspapers aren't willing to put the money in to employment, so the content suffers, and once-loyal readers decide not to read what is tantamount to used toilet paper.

To an extent I agree with the sense of entitlement. After all, I worked my arse off all the way through my education, and the generation above always praised the benefits of a good education and told me of all the prospects awaiting a young adult with a good education. Nowadays my partner (who has a first in Geography from one of the best universities in the country) and I are both unemployed after initially attaining good jobs in our relevant industries. As of now we are, as a matter of fact, worse off than the people who fucked around in school, never went to university and learned a trade instead. They have security, whereas our mortgage is currently being paid by an insurance company. The chances are that we will eventually find our way back onto our respective career ladders, but I would consider the aforementioned tradespeople to be more recession-proof. It's hard to theorise just how life would've ended up otherwise, but at this point I think that choosing a trade and never attending university may have been a better route. Only time will put that theory to the test. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312780#Comment_312780 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312780#Comment_312780 Tue, 18 Oct 2011 07:01:11 -0700 Vornaskotti
The previous generation saw being unemployed or having to rely on social security as the biggest failure possible, and many from our parents' generation weren't in a very good shape mentally after getting unemployed and having to rely on "handouts". It was a pretty bleak time to spend your late teenage / young adulthood in. I, like many of my pals, graduated from (senior) high school straight to unemployment registry and to social security. The latter fulfilled its function for me - it kept me alive and away from less acceptable forms of income, although at times it quaked pretty badly because of idiocies of bureaucracy. Not really sure how wise it's to write about this online, but I did shoplift for foodstuffs now and then, especially when I hit one of those horrible bureaucratic gridlocks where I was supposed to make do with about $50 per month after rent. I did try to apply for the university, but at times I had to work on places like a hospital or such, which didn't leave that much energy for studying. There was this wonderful system where you had to take a "trainee work" where you didn't get any more money than from unemployment fee, but you had to work full time without any benefits of a worker, pay for the bus trips and lunches and whatever. You got less money working with no rights than when doing nothing at home, but if you refused, your benefits got cut. One of the worse missteps of the system, I think...

Then again, I've got to say that although social security wasn't pleasant, it still made me happy to live in Commie Reindeerland. I had to have an appendectomy during that time, and it set me back something like $100. And as I mentioned, now that we're adult productive members of the society me and my pals have been talking about what might've been without social security and all that, how we might've turned out, how we might've made our living - not that productively. Only one of us fell completely through the cracks, and he hanged himself a few years back. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312818#Comment_312818 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312818#Comment_312818 Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:29:44 -0700 Jason A. Quest Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312824#Comment_312824 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312824#Comment_312824 Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:56:57 -0700 oldhat
Life after that is pretty much word-for-word of Trini's experience. A few jobs where I was treated horribly ending with one job that pays crap but I like the people I work with. The photography...I've done better with photography than I did with my film-related jobs.

Also still living with the parents at 26. They don't mind, as they recognize that this is a time when recently laid off 40 year-olds are moving back in with their folks and the competition for menial retail jobs let alone well-paying office jobs is quite intense. Like Trini, it would be a bit better if living with the folks wasn't such a social black mark, but it is and regardless I want to get out there on my own and decorate my own place.

Do I feel like I was promised better? Sure. But I can't feel too bitter about it. My choices and all that. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312827#Comment_312827 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312827#Comment_312827 Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:02:30 -0700 Vornaskotti
So, we too were kind of implicitly promised that studying hard leads to a nice career, but instead the typical academic career is a series of short low-average paid employments on areas that have maybe a passing connection to what you actually studied. I know people whose parents urge them to study more, and just can't get it to their heads that getting your bachelors or masters probably has very little effect on your employment... ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312831#Comment_312831 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312831#Comment_312831 Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:30:33 -0700 Argos It’s hard to fully enjoy avoiding maturity if you’re worried that it’s more like maturity is escaping you.

This is exactly how I feel. My only income is what little I get from parental support, so whenever my boyfriend and I go out with friends, he's always covering me, or someone else is, because they feel bad I don't have much money, and they have enough income that it doesn't bother them to cover me now and again. And I tell them not to, because it makes me feel like the little kid in the group (doesn't help that my boyfriend is 8 years older, and our social circles are all his generation or older). So here I am trying to establish myself as an adult, and even though my boyfriend and out friends are only trying to help me out, which I appreciate, I end up feeling like the dependent kid who isn't mature enough to take care of herself yet, and all I want is to establish myself as an independent person. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312833#Comment_312833 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312833#Comment_312833 Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:53:54 -0700 Sonny
I'm an Air Traffic Control graduate who hasn't yet gotten a job. So now I'm contemplating getting a dispatcher's licsense and going to work for one of the aircarriers in the private sector. Let me back up. In high school I didn't really give a shit. I squeezed by but could have done a lot better. I used to ditch school, quite often, and would sometimes attend under the influence of drugs. For as much fun I had, I think I acted out this way out of my hatred for the entire system. I went to college because there's this notion that you HAVE to go to college these days. Like many college students, I experimented with lots of different thing, an extension of my behavior as a teenager. I didn't know what I wanted to do and did horribly becase of this. I was lost. I ended up going to jail (long story) for a bit and got kicked out. Then I realized I was actually moderately intelligent and if I applied myself I could be anything I wanted. So after a year or so of thinking about it I went back to school with what I wanted to do (ATC) and dedicated myself to it for the first time in my life. I did great. And it was not easy. If you don't put your tme in and study your ass off, you will not succeed in ATC. I made Dean's List, multiple times. I held an excellent GPA. I blew through the over the shoulder evaluations with little (and trivial) mistakes. Then I graduated. And nothing happened for me. Not only did nothing happen for me, the few students who got jobs in my class were the bottom of the barrel. And that scares me. These were people who tensed up and got flustered with mere simulations. Imagine when they have hundreds of people's lives in their hands. The worst part is that I wasn't even the best of the best. I was good, but there was a top tier of controllers in my class that were simply born for it. What of them? They didn't get jobs either.

I'm not sure what all this means. And obviously this isn't new. But its hard to put so much effort into something and have absolutely no reward at all for it. In a way, I'm glad my career hasn't started though because it affords me time to create my art, which is of course important to me. In fact, the "theme" of my next CD -- if there is one -- is making the most out of bad situations. I haven't gotten an ATC job... but I'm using the time I have constructively to create things. So that's good.

And I do have a little part-time job just to pay some bills. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312839#Comment_312839 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312839#Comment_312839 Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:30:42 -0700 rickiep00h
"Why aren't you doing better? You can write about anything you want!"
"I don't know what to write about."
"Write about whatever you want!"
"I don't know what that is."

I turn 30 in about two months and I still have little to no idea what I'm supposed to be doing, other than I'm (according to test scores and every teacher I've ever had) supposed to have cured cancer by now. I never got any of that "C'mon champ, you can do whatever you want!" but I also didn't get any direction. I've never been good at setting or achieving goals. I've never been good at finishing things I've started. I honestly don't know how successful or focused people work, because my entire life I've only been around people that did either the bare minimum necessary (a trait I've mostly picked up) or simply fell into whatever they were doing due to circumstance (not unlike my parents, who both had their lives ruined by the arrival of Your Humble Narrator).

That's not to say that I haven't had success at things. I was a three-year state finals medalist in the Minnesota State High School League speech tournament (something about only 200 kids ever did in the history of the MSHSL). I was good in choir, though not amazing. I tied for highest ACT score of my high school class, and I got a good scholarship at a good school majoring in what I thought I wanted to major in. And then I discovered I wasn't. And then I thought for sure I had it figured out four times after that, and I still didn't. And now, 900 miles away, I'm in an entirely different program, starting over on another four-year degree at a relatively low-grade four-year school. My goals right now are to stay in school until I die so my student loans get discharged and my survivors are stuck with only my credit card debt, which is about .5% of my total debt load. (I'm not kidding.)

And the thing is, it's not like I don't know how to work hard. I'll usually finish things by their deadline. I worked incredibly hard physical labor for roughly 15 years, starting when I was 12. But the things that I'm good at and the things I enjoy have rarely lined up, and when they do, it's usually in a field that it is impossible to get into without already being incredibly well-connected or simply not wherever I am. (First Fargo, now Fort Wayne.) I've thought at different times I was going to be a rock star, a writer, a rock star writer, an actor, a record producer, a career soda merchandiser, an architect, now an interior designer. There's probably a few things in there I'm forgetting. I'd probably be happy doing anything, really, so long as I liked my coworkers and was making a decent wage and not doing something like slaughtering chickens or summat.

Instead, I sit at home and watch my Twitter and Facebook and Reader and play WoW and occasionally do school work. I feel incredibly useless, even though I'm pretty sure I'm not.

And I only get more depressed because I get really annoyed about all the navel-gazing I do, and how emo the whole thing is, but I honestly don't know what to do. I mean, it sounds really cliche, but the only line that really stuck with me from Nirvana (I'm sure there are more, but I got into them long after Cobain's suicide and all their in-context hype) was "Here we are now entertain us." If I'm recalling correctly, Kurt had said the line is more about expectation than entertainment--something more like "Alright, we're here, now what?" It's not even that I feel entitled to a future or a fat nest egg or even a career at the end of the day, but I have a lot of days were I just go "What the fuck now?" Even when I'm sitting in class.

This is, I think, not the commonly held opinion by either "generation" that I'm a part of. Most of my growing up was

"We expect you to be something when you grow up!"
"Like, uh, what?"
"Uh...... something."

Which wasn't terribly helpful. It probably started when my dad pushed me into getting a job so I could get a car so I could get to my job. The circular logic of that seemed insane to me, but perfectly logical to him, and I just went with it because honestly, what else was I going to do?

And now look at me. I should be lying on a couch and paying someone to listen to this drivel, then tell me it's my parents' fault when I already know that GEEZ. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312843#Comment_312843 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312843#Comment_312843 Tue, 18 Oct 2011 13:49:16 -0700 StefanJ
As the story goes, when I was a week or so old my parents showed me around my grandparents' restaurant in Greenwich Village. (It's mentioned in Howl. "Stale beer evenings . . .")

One of the beatnik regulars suggested I be raised as a death ray repairman.

I've never lived up to that suggestion, but you take what you can get. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312845#Comment_312845 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312845#Comment_312845 Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:05:14 -0700 Deathly_shade
That's the depressing reality of growing up in the aftermath of a recession, waiting for another one to hit and the Tory government to screw over all the nice hard-working people in favour of their Eton friends. I've lost the faith I once had that I could do whatever I wanted and somehow everything would be OK.

I went to university and studied English with Film and Media. I graduated last year and I'm still working in the job I used to have at the weekends, only in a different city with hardly any friends, or any money to do anything. I could wish my life away on all the things I should have done; I should have worked harder, joined more clubs, but I might as well wish to change everything I am because none of that would have made a difference. It's not just me in this boat, although sometimes it feels like it.

I don't like my job. It doesn't offer me a challenge and won't help me get to where I want to be (some vague picture in my head of a job in the creative industries) but if I don't keep it who knows when I'll next make money? Job figures for Scotland lie at 4,277 jobs advertised on S1jobs. There are over 5 million people living here and I can't drive. Even if I had the money to learn to drive, there's no way I could afford to run a car. It's like being trapped in a maze with no map. And there's no sign of it getting better.

At least I no longer get the 'why haven't you got a good job yet?' from my mother. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312846#Comment_312846 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312846#Comment_312846 Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:28:39 -0700 Jason A. Quest whenever my boyfriend and I go out with friends, he's always covering me,If it helps, I'm on the other side of this with my sorta-boyfriend, and I hate it too. I really don't mind the expense of paying for his drinks or whatever, but I know it bothers him, so I keep it on the DL. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312858#Comment_312858 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312858#Comment_312858 Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:09:20 -0700 Argos Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312906#Comment_312906 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312906#Comment_312906 Wed, 19 Oct 2011 01:17:42 -0700 Kosmopolit
Ten years from now we could all be waxing nostalgic about the Good Old Days as our robot chauffeurs pilot our flying cars to the first Whitechapel Meetup on Mount Everest. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312909#Comment_312909 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312909#Comment_312909 Wed, 19 Oct 2011 02:22:47 -0700 Vornaskotti
Then again, that's no reason to become blasé to them... Having been born in -75 and remembering stuff from childhood on really well, it's incredible how the world has changed in just my short lifetime. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312911#Comment_312911 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312911#Comment_312911 Wed, 19 Oct 2011 02:42:32 -0700 Kosmopolit Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312916#Comment_312916 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312916#Comment_312916 Wed, 19 Oct 2011 04:14:44 -0700 texture
If (and it's a BIG IF) the aforementioned was what I wanted, surely I should be in some position to achieve it now, after a decade of work? But no... I'm not. I spend my meagre wages every month. I've never saved a penny. I'm a fairly smart guy, but even when I found a good career (teaching) and was prmised a good wage and plenty of opportunities, all that happened was a wave of cutbacks at the school I worked for, and I ended up making less money teaching than I had been tending bar or working in admin. I've gone back to Uni tostudy something I love. This will get me in further debt, and I've no guarantee of work arising from the qualification I gain.

If I can take anything from the unattainability of the middle class lifestyle my parents and people of their age seem to expect me to have right now, it is that now is a time to gamble. Do what thou wilt. Go for what you love. Play from your fucking heart. Because seriously, if the alternative is slaving away in a call centre or trying to make ends meet teaching subjects that bore me, what the fuck have I got to lose?

Debt holds no terror for me. Bankruptcy doesn't scare me. I could give a fuck about a job that brings me social status, because I've never seen eveidence that one exists... at least not one I could get, not without an extensive network of contacts developed at private schools and Oxbridge.

So, recession? Yeah, bring it the fuck on. II'll either make a go of it doing something I love, or end up broker than I am now. Besides, I'm grateful - I have a computer and ripped software to make music. I can illegally download the latest Hollywood movies. I can download ripped e-books. I live in an economy of theft and I don't pay for anything I can steal.

Do I think this is right...? No. But considering I've been paying half my wages in rent for ten years, what the fuck else am I meant to do? I'm not a protestor. I'm not political. I take my freedom from technological solutions to creative modes of expression. Occupy Wall Street if you want, I'll be making beats in my bedroom.

/rant mode off ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312954#Comment_312954 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312954#Comment_312954 Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:37:20 -0700 JP Carpenter
But while I feel really lucky to be there, it also feels like a treadmill - I have 4 dependents to feed and pay for, and a mortgage, although my partner holds a lot of equity in the house, if I wasn't working we'd have to move, and god knows where we could afford, and I'd be heartbroken to have to leave this house and area. I don't like commuting - my daily journey totals 4 hours, and on top of a 50+ hour working week, that leaves me shattered - but I couldn't afford the pay cut I'd have to take if I was to quit and try to find something closer to home - I feel kind of trapped by the responsibility.

I worry a hell of a lot about the future - my final salary pension became unaffordable and I had to downgrade it, so don't feel secure there, and I live off credit cards to keep the car running - although I'm trying to pay debt down it's damn hard. But more than that, I don't know what to expect for my daughters, what opportunities they're going to be left with.

I'm envious of my parents too - they're retired, on good pensions, have paid the mortgage off and seem to be mostly on holiday now - fair play, I suppose, I do recall them struggling quite a bit when they were my age.

And I suppose I'm starting to feel more angry and militant than I have done for a long time, especially with the vile bunch of kleptocratic cretins running the country - all the bloody corporate lobbying, creeping privatisation, assault on the public sector and the destruction of the health service. Coupled with the constant bombardment of marketing crap and vacuous celebrity culture, I tend to feel close to tears unless I turn my brain off...

tl;dr - modern life is rubbish ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312972#Comment_312972 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=312972#Comment_312972 Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:12:56 -0700 StefanJ

Peer-to-Peer Lenders Take Banks Out of the Credit Equation

You need lending and borrowing to get businesses up and running. Using modern technology to get the parasites out of the equation smells like hope. Make the vampire squids obsolete. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313012#Comment_313012 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313012#Comment_313012 Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:00:45 -0700 Rendar Frankenstein
I find myself in an interesting situation in that I feel as though I shouldn't complain about my job. At all. I'm employed, using the degree I spent time/money/effort to earn in college, and lucky enough to have a whole pack of coworkers that I enjoy. And yet, I can't help but feel as though I'm not completely satisfied with work, as though I might be happier doing something else. Could it be a case of the grass being greener on the other side? Sure. Could it be a genuine desire to pursue other lines of work? Sure.

The predicament is that given the jobs market, I feel that walking away from a solid gig is both foolish and disrespectful. At what point will there be enough jobs that I'll feel confident that if I fail at a new venture, I still be able to find something to fall back on? Ever? ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313049#Comment_313049 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313049#Comment_313049 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:53:08 -0700 StefanJ trapped. And feeling like a swine for having the luxury of feeling trapped. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313050#Comment_313050 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313050#Comment_313050 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:57:59 -0700 oldhat Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313051#Comment_313051 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313051#Comment_313051 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 10:08:38 -0700 Verissimus
I'm in doubt. A lot of people seem to be putting a whole lot of blame on banks, and telling them they should have done better, but I don't think it's going to be easy to come up with something that is actually better. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313055#Comment_313055 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313055#Comment_313055 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 10:29:53 -0700 RenThing
I think that a lot of the blame comes from the fact that the banks, via the predatory lending with the housing market, are to blame in some ways for the current economy but they are only partially to blame. Jobs weren't great before 2008 and unemployment was only starting to go down in 2006 from when it started going up at the beginning of Bush's first term when the dot.com burst and 2008 Recession happened.

The problem with making it better is that it isn't just banking reform, taxing the rich, or reforming the student loan system; the issue is much more complex than those three things and fixing them, whatever way you could fix them, will not create new jobs and/or opportunities as those seem to be what are really missing. Yeah, more money would be great but it seems like many of the complaints from people on this thread revolve around the type of job they're doing, not necessarily the money attached to it (though I don't think anyone here would complain about making more). I mean, being a fry cook at $25 an hour, you're still a fry cook and that might not be as fulfilling as working in the industry you want to. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313056#Comment_313056 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313056#Comment_313056 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 10:39:00 -0700 Solario
Very true in regards to the $25 an hour fry cook example, but if you made more money doing a menial or unsatisfying job in the future than you do now, you'd be able to save up to start an independent business or do something more fulfilling in your spare time. It really would give everyone better opportunities for social mobility and creating more satisfying jobs for themselves.

And if less demanding and creative jobs were better paid, maybe people who didn't have those types of aspirations could pick less demanding jobs that would let them do what they actually wanted in their spare time. If you could make a comfortable living doing something boring, but you had money and more spare time, it could be an acceptable job for the individual. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313069#Comment_313069 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313069#Comment_313069 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:40:30 -0700 Jon Wake
As for you older folks trapped at jobs, there's a term for that: "wage slavery". It gets tossed around a lot, but the meaning, and being trapped in it, is actually terrifying on an existential level. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313071#Comment_313071 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313071#Comment_313071 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:24:15 -0700 manglr
I'm 38 pushing 39. Graduated from a top flight university during the recession in the 1990s...took a relatively crap job at the time because there weren't many other options. Eventually stumbled into my 'career' which paid pretty well at the time in the grand scheme of things. However, whilst getting paid well, I went through 4 companies and 8 bosses in 10 years. 3 of those 4 companies no longer exist - one died by acquisition, one by bankruptcy, one by divestiture. The money was fine, but the work was empty, soul-sucking and led to significant issues with depression and related health problems.

I've been out of work for about a year and half...but at the end of the day, I'm exceedingly lucky as my wife is in a very stable position that she actually mostly enjoys. So financially, we're relatively okay and focused on the important things in life. Along the way, I've gotten healthier and happier. Lost 130 pounds, managing depression much better, etc.

I've pretty much written off a return to corporate life at this point. I realize that no company is going to be focused on the well-being of its people if financial stress is on the line. So I going to focus on doing what I want...landscape photography. It won't make me rich...but I'm hoping I'll lead a better life that what I've burned through in the past 15 years since entering the workforce.

Even if I fail, I'll be my own man. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313073#Comment_313073 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313073#Comment_313073 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 18:16:13 -0700 trini_naenae
Personally, I have a big issue with a lot of expectations and false beliefs for what will get people ahead. I love school (to a point). I love learning things. I'd go back to college in a heartbeat if the finances were right for it. But. Our culture needs to stop telling high school kids that the way to get a good job is to go to college and take a loan that they will be paying for the next who knows how many years. We need to stop telling kids that community college is for losers. We need to stop telling them that trade schools are something to look down on. What school we go to, and what jobs we have do not define us, and we need to get over that. And while my generation is starting to get that, I still see a big deal made about how important it is for kids trying to get into the best college out there. Yes, having aspirations and dreams are great. And college can be a great investment. But it isn't always, and it's an exceedingly expensive way to "find yourself".

High school students should know how to do a budget, and do it consistently, before they graduate. They should know about things like IRAs and Roth IRAs, and have one started. I had a class that was half economics my senior year of high school, and we barely went over it. And that was my one AP class!

How can we expect people to manage their finances well when they have to learn by trial and error? Because I have to ask, how many of you knew how to do any of that stuff by the time you graduated high school (or moved out)? Anyone?

Sure, there'll still be lots of people doing stupid crap with their finances regardless of what we try to teach them (my sister), but it wouldn't be such an overwhelmingly huge amount of people like it is today. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313074#Comment_313074 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313074#Comment_313074 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 18:43:31 -0700 Verissimus
It's too bad people are sometimes given the message that if you remain a janitor for your entire working career, you fail at life or something. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313090#Comment_313090 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313090#Comment_313090 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 22:12:49 -0700 James Cunningham
On the downside, at 42, I really should have just a bit of something planned for retirement. Anything I do will be starting from zero. If I had to go out on a limb, I'd say that just maybe that might be viewed as a bad thing...?

When I look at what my parents did, I've got no idea how that world worked. Married, large house, 4 kids, various pets, and a few Christmases that I remember as being the total toy overload that borders on fantasy cliche. It all turned to shit once my father died while I was in sixth grade, and my mom had to be a substitute teacher until she finally got a full-time teaching position that still barely allowed her to hold on to the house, but the thing is the dream was real for several years there, in the late 70s. I'd love to be on the providing end of it. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313094#Comment_313094 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313094#Comment_313094 Thu, 20 Oct 2011 22:55:31 -0700 William George
This is where I'm coming from when I say the following: Your dreams are bullshit. Put them away and get pragmatic about putting a roof over your head. Do not live beyond your means. Do not treat something as your "day job" or beneath you. And do not assume for a second that if you're honest, determined, and hard working that you will come out on top.

Successful people are pieces of shit. They have to be that way because they are in competition with many others for very few spots. The more successful someone is, the bigger the piece of shit they needed to be to get that way. If you really want the big house with the white picket fence, that is what you'll need to become. Do not believe them if they claim otherwise.

So those are your choices in a shitty economy: Be as pragmatic as fuck. Or just be a fuck.

Hope that helps. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313104#Comment_313104 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313104#Comment_313104 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 03:16:23 -0700 Vornaskotti
Hmm, well, just can't agree with that, except in the broad terms of "stop daydreaming and get practical, your dreams won't most likely pay your bills" (and that to actually succeed you'll have to be an arsehole of some degree, or at least it helps). I don't believe in selling your dreams, especially after busting my ass for years and years I'm starting to get them realized now. You can very well think something as your shitty day job, something you need to do just to keep food on the table and the rain out, while keeping your dreams in your back pocket. Unless you are living in an actual third world country, life is not just about survival and existing, and that's where the dreams come in. Sometimes your dreams are incompatible with the house and the picket fence, and if you are in a position where you can say "fuck you" to the house, why not do it? Life is full of choices.

I'm an asshole enough and there's no doubt that I could've chosen a more lucrative life. As a matter of fact I shut down my company because I had too many clients and made double the amount of money the people in that area usually do. As a side effect I had very little free time and very little mental energy to do things I genuinely like - stretches like two weeks of 18 hour days don't really leave much time for realizing your dreams. I chose an interesting, stimulating and fulfilling life over filthy lucre - now I'm so broke can't even pay attention but at least I'm doing stuff I like on the side. Bust your ass enough, and that's a choice you may be able to do later on the way. Not when you are in your early 20's most probably, but unlike we all thought at that age, life doesn't end at 30. At that point you're slowly stopping the aimless trashing around and life is just starting to get interesting. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313111#Comment_313111 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313111#Comment_313111 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 04:50:06 -0700 Vornaskotti
Took me a moment to figure out why that message provoked me somewhat, but then it hit me - it was the kind of advice I've heard from people in my parents' generation, and especially the women. "Forget your silly dreams, get a proper job and quit with the pipe dreams." Quite a bitter lot, that, and ready to spread the bitterness. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313113#Comment_313113 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313113#Comment_313113 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 05:09:48 -0700 Oddcult
I consider it to be a moral and objective decision to go into the crime business, with the proviso that it never be violent. If those in positions of power do not regard the law as important and do not hold the population's best interests in high regard, I shall not obey them. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313117#Comment_313117 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313117#Comment_313117 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 07:44:22 -0700 William George Quite a bitter lot, that, and ready to spread the bitterness.

The problem with "bitter experience" is that people keep ignoring the "experience" part because the bitterness is a real bummer.

There is a third option, mind you... Assuming being pragmatic or being an asshole is distasteful... And that's selling their soul to a bank or credit card company, and living their life as a debt slave so they can at least look like they're not the debt slave they are.

(Okay, the fourth option I've seen far too often is to marry/shack-up-with some idiot who will put up with their spouse grasping at brass rings while they break their back putting food on the table. But I wouldn't recommend that one since it's astoundingly selfish.) ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313125#Comment_313125 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313125#Comment_313125 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 08:45:02 -0700 Argos Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313126#Comment_313126 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313126#Comment_313126 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 08:59:59 -0700 oldhat
William, I think why I disagree with your comments so much is that it sounds like just the type of poisonous thinking my father was told when he was a kid by his parents and school teachers. If he followed their advice he wouldn't be a successful music journalist, but probably at a factory somewhere. So sorry, calling bullshit on your "your dreams are bullshit" comment. And as far as jobs go, yeah, I think in some contexts you should look on a job as below you. How else are you going to get a job at your level or even above you that might be more satisfying? ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313130#Comment_313130 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313130#Comment_313130 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:49:14 -0700 Vornaskotti
It has jack shit to do with experience. They did exactly what you said: they had dreams, were told that they were bullshit and abandoned them completely, instead concentrating on having a "proper life" with proper job etc. and not complaining. "Real people are never writers or explorers or rock stars." You could see those people being eaten up when they saw other people realize their dreams, with no better starting point than they had - just more courage and less ear for crab bucket people.

Don't abandon your dreams, they are not bullshit. People who realize their dreams are most often not privileged, they are just determined. Put your dreams in your back pocket when needed and get pragmatic when life requires it, but take the dreams out for a spin now and then, and think of the choices you'll make: is buying a house or getting kids or whatever standing in the way of what you really want to do? Then maybe, just maybe you shouldn't do it, even though it's the "proper" thing to do. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313149#Comment_313149 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313149#Comment_313149 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:43:31 -0700 William George
Responsibilities are shit because they do not give a fuck about your dreams. Your weekend bar band isn't putting your kid through college (which is why everyone becomes debt slaves, so they can keep their childhood into their adulthood). You may not like it, I sure as hell don't like it, but the world does not give a shit about you, your hopes, and your dreams. And if it doesn't actively work against you, (Remember those assholes I mentioned up above? That's why you have to be one yourself if you're chasing goals. If you don't other assholes will stop you dead.) it sure won't step up to help you either. You should be pragmatic all the time because life always requires it. That you don't think so, shows that you are coming from a position of entitlement and privilege even if you're not part of the 1%.

I'll give you this, though: If you're young, and/or living off of someone else's teat, and/or your only responsibility is not puking your booze all over the sidewalk on your way home from the pub, then yes, chase those dreams. This is your chance, baby!

But being a job-holder and not being a burden on the social safety net/ your friends and family when you don't have to be? That's not poisonous. That's being an adult.

No one wants those jobs because everyone makes them out to be jobs for people who were failures, and all it really is is honest labor.


Right. They're only shit jobs when you wrongly assume the world owes you better. And no doubt the janitor has dreams too. But he/she put them aside because they had to get a roof over their head.

And that, my children, is how you live in a world like the one we have, and the one we'll be enjoying more and more as we stumble our way through peak oil and climate change over the next century. Protect yourself, and keep your wits about you, because it's not going to get better. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313151#Comment_313151 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313151#Comment_313151 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:55:06 -0700 Verissimus
Remember those assholes I mentioned up above? That's why you have to be one yourself if you're chasing goals. If you don't other assholes will stop you dead.


Is that your new version of the Golden Rule? "Be an asshole because everybody else is?" ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313153#Comment_313153 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313153#Comment_313153 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:10:00 -0700 Finagle
Speaking as a job-holding American...I'm fucking sick of that attitude.

When did being poor and jobless mean that one became a pariah, again? At least back in the 1600's when the poor-houses were first implemented, they HAD AN IDEA for what to do with the poor and jobless - SPEND GOVERNMENT MONEY to give them make-work.

I'm sooooo sick of the terms of this debate being so heavily weighted towards the capitalists. Go out and get a job or you're shit! Nevermind the cold hard facts that we can put on a graph about how jobs have been depressed, salaries have been depressed, unions are on the decline, and those of us in the pot called "Labor" are generally being deprecated and denied for the last 30-40 years in the West.

Never mind all that. Just go pull your socks up and get a job!

Or. We could shoot capitalists in the head and take their stuff. Go to hell with your condescending "my children" attitude, "my friend." ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313160#Comment_313160 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313160#Comment_313160 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 18:07:06 -0700 mercurialblonde
But I was raised that you always have to pay your bills or DEATH. And that bankruptcy was death. But I was wondering if anyone here has done it before, and if it's as bad as people say--and whether it would be worth looking into. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313162#Comment_313162 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313162#Comment_313162 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 18:42:57 -0700 Darkest
I went to university and did a degree in philosophy which is sort of useful in so far as giving me a number of mental tools but more importantly it showed me that I can live on my own.

Now I'm back living at my parents' but I was fortunate that I have some savings and they are all going in to Niche Comics, my comic book and gaming shop and I'm praying to Zeus, Cthulhu and Ellis that I can keep it open because I don't really know what I'd do otherwise. Some incidents when I was younger knocked my confidence a bit and who I am makes it very difficult to impossible for me to get employed by someone else.

I am happy where I am sort of the goal for me has always been to get a degree of independence and sufficiency. I'm hoping that I won't have to live in my parents home forever and I would like to see a bit more of the world. Mostly because I have always wanted to experience as much as I can but I always let introversion get in the way.

I'm very much interested in where this will take me because I have had a lot of interest from people and I'm nearer the US bases than Forbidden Planet is. I think I have a unique opportunity to be a part of a community and be able to make things available that I didn't know existed when I was growing up.

But to return to the original topic at the last moment what I've seen change is access to a lot more info than I remember (Granted I'm only nearly 24 but still...) I find it very difficult to be un-optimistic but I do feel really bad that the govt. is axeing many useful organizations such as business link and the like. It was pretty ridiculous trying to get employed after university and the brief time I spent unemployed officially was kind of unhelpful and tedious.

Bleh I should sleep. I hope this is on topic enough to not get deleted. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313170#Comment_313170 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313170#Comment_313170 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 20:42:42 -0700 William George
But don't lie to yourself by thinking you can be a success (in the traditional sense) without fucking over someone else on your way to the top of whatever your dream you hold.

Finagle- I won't call you a child again. Even a child can open a history book and see Communism didn't work. Or they can at least grok Animal Farm. (My condencending attitude depends upon the position you present.)

Now, socialism? Strong government oversight for businesses? Proper tax rates for the rich? People joining their local unions?

That's some pragmatic shit right there, my dear non-child. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313175#Comment_313175 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313175#Comment_313175 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 22:29:47 -0700 audientvoid Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313177#Comment_313177 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313177#Comment_313177 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 23:06:00 -0700 taphead
My personal background: I'm 37 now and I've been working in the field of translation/localisation for the past 15 years or so, and (like Vornaskotti) came of age after the last big recession over here in Finland. I took on a rather menial job in the IT localisation industry as a minimum wage software tester, and a year later I was doing actual software localisation. From there I went on to project management, and then into working as a self-emplyoyed translator (with a few minor detours).

Right now I'm faced with a forced change of occupation, as not just my job but rather my entire primary field of expertise (patent translations, which I've been doing for the past 7 years or so) will end in Finland in about a month. I have been mentioning this around to some folks, and fortunately it looks like I may be in a rather good position for other translation work.

Now, part of this is certainly due to that whole 15 year stretch of experience, but even more than that, I'd like to point out that those toes we were adviced to step on, up there, are attached to the rest of the person. I don't know how big an industry y'all are trying to get into, but chances are the number of people in the field will be rather small and word gets around, believe me. Nice people (I'm a bit of a doormat myself) may not get ahead by default, but rest assured: assholes have bigger problems.

Pragmatic advice:
- do small but notable favours; again: word gets around
- cultivate personal relationships with your colleagues, competitors and customers
- DO NOT cultivate a personal relationship with your job, more specifically DO NOT fall into the hole of equating your personal self-worth from how much you work/earn
- be friendly, be reasonable, be professional
- DO NOT reward assholes
- and yes, join a union ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313178#Comment_313178 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313178#Comment_313178 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 23:30:22 -0700 Fishelle Secondly, that whole bitter (and I'm sure very experience-based) diatribe seemed to stem from the idea of the goal beaing "becoming a rock star". That's not the goal here, and never was.

This.

My dream (as far as occupation goes) is to teach printmaking at a small college. Or to at least teach some printmaking workshops when I have a studio of my own. I'd say that's perfectly reasonable. Plausible, even.

Regarding school: I would not know what my dream was, or have any chance of ever reaching it, without going to college. Of course, I have managed to go so far debt free, and that makes a difference. But even if I had to go into debt for it, it would be worth it for me. I would agree that looking down on community colleges and trade schools is silly. I went to a 2 year cheap school to start, and I honestly liked the program there better than my current fancy accredited program. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313179#Comment_313179 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313179#Comment_313179 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 23:46:33 -0700 William George Firstly, "give up your dreams and be an asshole or consign yourself to a life of misery" ...

The buzzer sounds.

To restate: Your choices in a crap economy are 1) Be pragmatic and do what you need to get by.. Like go get a job you may not love so you can feed your kids.

Seeing this option as either a failure or a life of torture or some other negative is more about you than it is about the option itself.

Or 2) Become an asshole because you need to because other assholes are reaching for that same dream you are and there isn't room enough at the top for you both. Guess what? The 1% don't have more problems than you do. You are their cattle. But as nice as you are they are not going to think twice of putting your head on the chopping block.

Nor are they going to feel bad enough about you standing out in the rain that they're going to stop being assholes. You want to play their game, you have to follow their rules. Rule One: Be an asshole.

And like I said, you can also become a drain on the people around you or allow yourself to become a debt slave. Both of which I see as far worse than being practical or being an asshole. Your mileage may vary.

Okay... There is the option of killing everyone and taking their money like suggested up above. Let me know when you guys try that one so I can be out of town that day.

And there's also impotent raging on the Internet as well.

Hey, you know what? Turns out there are a lot of options for life in a bad economy after all! You've all convinced me. Good stuff! ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313180#Comment_313180 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313180#Comment_313180 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 00:13:32 -0700 taphead Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313187#Comment_313187 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313187#Comment_313187 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 02:41:35 -0700 allana Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313191#Comment_313191 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313191#Comment_313191 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 05:19:06 -0700 Vornaskotti
When I was like 15-16, we got an assignment from the school to write a composition about what kind of life we would like to have. I wrote it, and showed it to a woman of our parents generation. "Oh damn that was naive, that's so stupid. I thought you were smarter than that, you are totally a naive child, now get realistic" was the reply I got about it. Thank fuck I didn't take it to heart.

Now, at the age of 36, I've done everything but one thing from that little composition and much more I couldn't even imagine then, and that one little thing is on the cusp of being realized.

I haven't been on the dole since I pulled myself out of the last recession in the late 90's, and all the money I've got from my social networks have been small loans, repaid in full. I have paid in taxes more than I cost during the years of forced unemployed in the 90's, so on that account my net worth to the society is on the black.

I'm not rich, but I've had a damn good life, pursuing and catching my dreams, although there would've been easier ways to go. Life is full of choices. I'm sorry William, that you don't seem to like the ones you've made, but don't spread the bitter.

But yeah, this is me signing out. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313196#Comment_313196 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313196#Comment_313196 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 06:47:23 -0700 Jason A. Quest Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313198#Comment_313198 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313198#Comment_313198 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 07:40:30 -0700 Verissimus
I'm assuming you're talking about succes from a financial point of view...which is a rather restricted definition of succes, but even then I don't believe it. Having a good businessplan and succeeding isn't being an asshole. Writing a great book which sells well isn't being an asshole. Being a great scientist and getting a research position or a teaching job at a great university isn't being an asshole, etc etc etc...

So I disagree with what you're saying personally, but I don't really have a big problem with it. I'm assuming it stems from some disappointments in life, which made you adopt this cynical outlook on things.

But succes is relative term to begin with. if expectations aren't unreasonably high to begin with, succes is much easier to come by. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313204#Comment_313204 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313204#Comment_313204 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 09:44:21 -0700 dorkmuffin




[headdesk] ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313208#Comment_313208 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313208#Comment_313208 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 10:39:17 -0700 oldhat Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313210#Comment_313210 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313210#Comment_313210 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 11:07:15 -0700 dispophoto retards ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313211#Comment_313211 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313211#Comment_313211 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 11:07:49 -0700 RenThing
edit: nevermind what I said, that idiotic and pretty offensive pic had to get posted. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313213#Comment_313213 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313213#Comment_313213 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 11:10:45 -0700 oldhat
]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313221#Comment_313221 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313221#Comment_313221 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 12:39:30 -0700 nelzbub Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313222#Comment_313222 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313222#Comment_313222 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 12:46:59 -0700 dispophoto
right now i'm 37, and i work as a video/photo freelancer in Montréal, mainly in the Deaf community. the video stuff involves primarily translating texts into ASL and/or LSQ for government contracts or organizations for their websites and/or DVDs to be sent out. I've only been here for a year and half, and people hire me over already established persons with similar skills (although one of them is a good friend of my fiancee, so we tend to refer each other & hire each other when needed) because of two reasons: the quality of my work in comparison to theirs is on par or *much* better; and i'm NOT an asshole. there have been MANY so-called photographers or video people here who end up becoming 'one-hit wonders' where people hire them, but don't hire them again after the contract is done, due to their professionalism, attitude (mainly attitudes) or the quality of their work (sometimes all 3). me, i have a very flexible approach with my clients, which is why i constantly get repeat business. attitude is the key here, especially if your focus is on community-based employment. if i'm an asshole with them, i'd be relegated to 'outsider' status very quickly, no matter how good my work is. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313229#Comment_313229 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313229#Comment_313229 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 13:51:04 -0700 Oddcult Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313234#Comment_313234 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313234#Comment_313234 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:21:29 -0700 dorkmuffin Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313235#Comment_313235 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313235#Comment_313235 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 14:26:38 -0700 Morac Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313244#Comment_313244 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313244#Comment_313244 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 16:14:03 -0700 taphead Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313255#Comment_313255 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313255#Comment_313255 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 19:34:06 -0700 tcatsninfan
This guy is successful and I'm pretty sure he's not an asshole:

]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313260#Comment_313260 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313260#Comment_313260 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 21:11:56 -0700 James Cunningham
As I mentioned earlier, my personal method of dealing with the world is by keeping expenses low, working a job I don't mind (much) but will never love, and being careful enough with money that I can pursue the things that make me happy when not at work. I will never make a living with the little writing I do, but it makes my life better in ways that have nothing to do with money. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313262#Comment_313262 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313262#Comment_313262 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 21:51:52 -0700 government spy Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313263#Comment_313263 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313263#Comment_313263 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 22:07:48 -0700 dorkmuffin Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313264#Comment_313264 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313264#Comment_313264 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 22:17:35 -0700 StefanJ
RE my writing, see James' last paragraph. My writing earns me a couple a hundred a year, but it means a hell of a lot.

Um. For what it's worth, I run the school supply drive, food bank drive, and (until recently) the toy drive at work. I bring this up not to boast, but to point out something troubling. It's getting harder to get donations out of my co-workers. Some people are absolutely great; they drop off $100 checks for the food bank, stuff like that. But the great aggregate seems to be pretty crappy since the beginning of the recession. About ten years ago, we'd have VPs donating bicycles and huge checks; we'd fill up a pickup truck with toys. Now, "eh." The thing is, everyone at work is working. The whole Fear of Fear Itself thing seems very real. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313267#Comment_313267 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313267#Comment_313267 Sat, 22 Oct 2011 23:13:02 -0700 government spy
I may have had to do some dickish things in the past to get here (some say working law enforcement is in itself a dick thing to do) but for the most part, I am not a dick. Though I have given up on any specific dreams I may have once had; I was never talented at things like art or music. I know I'll get a decent retirement somewhere between 50-57, and be young enough to enjoy it, with my family, and I guess that's good enough. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313289#Comment_313289 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313289#Comment_313289 Sun, 23 Oct 2011 11:25:20 -0700 nelzbub Firstly, Please forgive the deliberate vagueness! I hope you'll understand.
Secondly, please allow me to emphasise that the last thing I would do is recommend that anyone take this as advice to emulate my behaviour- however I think the sentiments behind my actions have some relevance.
My formative years were in London and Glasgow during the height of the house/rave era, and due to some overwhelmingly positive and life changing experiences during that time, I dropped out of university and made a deliberate decision to take a different path, the details of which I cannot really share.
What I can say is that I made my choices fully aware of their inherent risks and limitations and in twenty years I've never ripped anyone off or stitched anyone up, I have built a large network of friends and associates and despite ups and downs, I have managed my own business successfully without(I think) harming any others and having much fun along the way.
I have never equated success with monetary wealth (which is handy because I've never really had much of that!)- more with being able to do the thing you love and the path I have chosen has led to me finally being able to do that. In the six years I have been in Amsterdam I have had the chance to be able to see my dreams as a reality. While I'll be the first to admit that reality can and does, regularly fail to live up to expectations I have to say that I am largely happy with the choices I made all those years ago and the life that has resulted from those choices.
It was one of my earliest associates who gave me the motto of "nice things for nice people" and I've always tried to live up to that because it just felt right.
It may not be the philosophy of the outrageously successful, but it works for me. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313291#Comment_313291 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313291#Comment_313291 Sun, 23 Oct 2011 11:53:40 -0700 oddbill
I was a theater student in Buffalo NY. I knew I was going to have to move, I knew I was going to be poor. I chose a state school over a more prestigious private school because it seemed the height of insanity to take on tens of thousands in debt for a theater degree, even then. I wanted to be serious about it, and figured it mattered more that I hone skill as opposed to buy connections. My career petered out a few years later but I still think I made the right decision there. I carried a couple of thousand dollars debt for about 10 years, and thought I'd never pay it off, but I finally did in 2003.

When you are looking at a debt even as low as 2 to 5k that you see no ability to pay off ever, because you make less than 20k per year on a series of cobbled together temp jobs it all looks pretty bleak. But that does eventually get paid off, and you do eventually start earning, as long as you keep at it.

I moved to LA to act, did some plays and some TV commercials (one that was even a pretty big payday), but eventually stopped doing that as the freelancer lifestyle was just not for me. The anxiety and frustration of constantly hustling for work was not something I was mentally composed to thrive in, as I discovered.

So I started doing office temp work and working on my own artistic projects in my spare time. The temp work led to a series of completely unforeseeable opportunities that zig-zagged me into corporate IT and a well paying career (so far!) - in the meantime I did a bunch of personal projects and helped a bunch of friends with theirs.

It hasn't been a bad life, though it didn't go the way I thought it would.

The truth, though, is that almost nobody's life goes the way they think it will. It's not smart to get too hung up on doing the thing you were in love with when you were a teenager. The world is bigger and stranger and more kind than you've been told. Keep being interested in things, look out for yourself and the people who depend on you, pay your own way and then do what you like. Opportunities open up that you can't predict and if you can manage to have the freedom of movement that not being dependent can provide, you can pivot to them more easily. Find the fun in whatever you are doing right now.

That's how I work it, at least. I have not done too badly. I don't think a recent college graduate needs to do anything more drastically different than that.

This chart I found online is also probably a good guide:

chart

(PS: Career wise I'm probably somewhere in the bottom middle of the chart.) ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313297#Comment_313297 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313297#Comment_313297 Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:04:57 -0700 nelzbub Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313299#Comment_313299 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313299#Comment_313299 Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:18:59 -0700 MWHS In the humanities.
I knew it would suck coming out the other side, I had no illusions about being able to waltz into a cushy job, but this is becoming absurd. I can't even get the kind of kitchen porter or bar work that I had no problems getting three or four years ago. (Pulling pints at 17? Welcome to the fun world of local pubs). I took all the active steps while at university etc. etc., but it all came to nada. The same goes for my friends - apart from temporary or agency work none of them have been able to get traditional 'office jobs' and about half of them have gone back into post-graduate study in order to try and weather things out, borrow their way out of debt.
As it is, I managed to graduate with relatively little of that debt, except to the government, and picked up various bits of cash in hand work (decorating and labouring, mostly) to pay off the end-of-lease bills. I moved back in with my parents, which is stressful but at least they're being supportive.

On the other hand, my girlfriend was made redundant a couple of days ago. She was working as a nanny (after going travelling rather than taking further education) and the parents' company went bust. As it is, she's doing odd shifts on kitchen work, but can't get very many hours. Kind of difficult to maintain a relationship when we can't even afford bus fare.

So. Things goddam well suck and I was better off at the beginning of my A levels. Sure, we all saw this stuff coming, but as a young person there isn't anything you can really do but roll with the punches. Unless you wanted to occupy something and be part of that protest culture, or you believed that voting Liberal Democrat might achieve something. I know I did. trolololol.

But yeah, fuck you old people. This is all your fault. That rioting in August? People not giving a shit. People not feeling invested enough in society for 'Let's go crazy and smash stuff up and nick things' to seem terrible advice. I don't think that that'll be the last of it. ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313309#Comment_313309 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313309#Comment_313309 Sun, 23 Oct 2011 15:45:41 -0700 justinpickard enjoying it content?

Can't drive, and couldn't afford to run a car even if I could. Do a couple of days a week in London for a tiny design start-up installed in the corner office of an abandoned branch of Deutsche Bank ... where I rock up at lunchtime, do some copywriting and general company strategy, spend a lot of time surfing the internet, and clock off quite late for a couple of pints and a chat with colleagues. Dodge rush hour on both sides, and keep transport affordable with a young person's railcard.

Spending a lot of time networking, having pints and coffees with interesting tech people, crashing on friends' sofas. Starting a really basic teaching qualification in January, with the aim of teaching 16-18 year olds part-time, or possibly some kind of adult education.

Tend not to buy much stuff, apart from books. Spend a lot of time online, as a surrogate/prosthetic sociality, watching American TV series, bantering with smart and interesting people over social networks, and devouring news and current affairs.

Meanwhile, with meatspace friends, there's a weird sense of grim solidarity. A lot of time spent bumbling across fields to/from country pubs at strange hours of the night, to bitch about part-time jobs and lack of life-based progress. Weekends hiking with mates. Barbeques and birthday parties. Time spent being gently baffled by the peculiarities of my tiny village ... with its annual half-marathon and competitive ploughing.

Secretly believe capitalism will end before I even start paying off my student loan, and would quite like to live in a plywood moon lander. Saw a barn owl last week. Know I'm never going to be able to retire. Don't really mind. Sitting on 30,000 words of a sagging science fiction novel about post-disaster politics and infrastructure. Use my dad's wi-fi & electricty-enabled shed for writing and project tinkering.

Overall, something like Potemkin adulthood? The hollow shell of respectability and responsibility; as sustained by a suit jacket, a blagged press pass, and your half-page biography on a company website. Serious Victorian-letter-style emails bounced back and forth with intimate strangers and long-departed college friends in Portland and Toronto and Thailand.

After all, what could possibly go wrong? ]]> Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313312#Comment_313312 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313312#Comment_313312 Sun, 23 Oct 2011 15:59:42 -0700 justinpickard Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313367#Comment_313367 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313367#Comment_313367 Mon, 24 Oct 2011 03:07:31 -0700 MWHS Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313400#Comment_313400 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=313400#Comment_313400 Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:57:23 -0700 rickiep00h Coming of Age in a Post-Recession World http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=316729#Comment_316729 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10289&Focus=316729#Comment_316729 Fri, 25 Nov 2011 03:23:13 -0800 Labyrinthine
I've also never wanted any job that's not in some creative art or other, so I have been resigned to "keeping the day job"/being broke since long before the recession, on account of how the first thing anyone says to you when you go to an academically selective high school and want to write science fiction is "are you sure?"

One way recent events HAVE changed my worldview is that I've developed, much to my own surprise, a fierce sense of responsibility to the generations after us. We've inherited a bit of a shit sandwich, climate change and global poverty and political instability and all, and I want to do whatever I can to mitigate the damage. ]]>