I don’t follow a lot of people on Twitter (I know, I should, but it’s just one more huge time suck I don’t have time for). Yesterday, however, someone I follow retweeted the above Tweet. Now, I read Chris Guillebeau’s blog (I’ve even included several of his posts in my weekly link round ups). I’ve now started following him on Twitter too. I admire his writings and his life philosophy.
Now, maybe, I’m taking the Tweet out of context. Maybe it was meant to be tongue in cheek, or maybe it’s a joke I don’t understand. If so, I apologize for not seeing the humour in it. But the Tweet above offended me – and I’ll tell you why.
There is no reason to be embarrassed about honest work. I don’t care WHAT you’ve done in the past, if it was legal work, why is it something you should be ashamed of?
In my past, I have: worked as a babysitter, worked in sandwich shops, worked in grocery stores, worked in call centers, worked for school divisions, hotels, resorts, and even done food services for the military. I’ve also worked as an accountant, a consultant, and currently I work in a casino.
Over 24 years of working, have I developed? Definitely. Have I evolved? Probably – depends what your definition of evolved is. But you know what? Every job I’ve had has taught me something – about hard work, about myself, about how to be a better employee, and a better employer.
So why should I be embarrassed about any of those jobs? When you’re first starting out, you have no work experience. In many cases, you’re still in high school, so you don’t really have any training either. The best you can hope for is working in a restaurant, or stocking shelves at a grocery store, or serving coffee at your local coffee house. You know what? Those are good jobs! My son is currently looking for work, and is not to proud (or evolved!) to apply at McDonalds, or Safeway, or any of the other restaurants, gas stations, and retail stores close to our home. And later this year, I may just do the same in an effort to earn a little extra to pay off my debt.
In this economy, any job is a good job. Sure, minimum wage and no benefits sucks – but any day, any time, I’d rather be working than not. So, sorry, I’m not sorry. In fact, I’m kinda proud of where I came from.
I could be wrong, but I think the tweet may have been something to do with art/artists/creative professions. For instance, I’m sort of embarrassed by what I thought was relevant when I started blogging – my blogger blog was something to be buried and never seen again
haha!
I could be wrong, though. In that case, I definitely laugh sometimes at my first job – fast food – because it was kind of embarrassing but at the end of the day I worked hard and made extra money and was able to pay for some of my education with it.
That may be – I was really surprised because it didn’t seem like something Chris would typically say. I mean, I think we’ve all had jobs that were bad (I was once asked to commit tax fraud by an employer… I said no. And quit). Jobs we can laugh at, or that we wouldn’t want to go back to.
Creative work? Well maybe – a lot of the stuff I wrote 25+ years ago is pretty cringe-worthy!
I agree with you. I’m not really embarrassed by any of the jobs I’ve had. I worked at a fast food restaurant once that actually paid a few dollars more than minimum wage. I encouraged my cousin to work there because the hours were good, the pay was better than I would get anywhere else at that age, and I actually really liked my co-workers–it was more like socializing than working. However, she was embarrassed FOR me, and said she wouldn’t be caught dead working at a fast food restaurant. That was fine with me–she ended up getting a job with crappy hours (really late at night) and minimum wage. Hope it was worth it!
I’ve worked fast food (sub shops), I’ve even cleaned toilets, it all pays the bills, right? And yeah, if I had a choice between a fast food joint with a crummy polyester uniform (but a few extra bucks!) vs. crappy hours and minimum wage… where’s my polyester??
I don’t see anything wrong with working at fast food restaurants. A job is a job! The only reason why I didn’t work at a fast food restaurant when I was younger is because I found a telemarketing job that paid more.
Exactly! I worked at a department store instead of fast food, because they called me first. A job was a job!
I see what this tweet is trying to convey, but I never totally agree with this type of logic. The tweet reminds me of the old “you have to experience failure before you can experience success” or something similar. Why? Can’t I know that I was doing okay before and now I’m doing much better? Do I have to get hit by a car to know that it will hurt? Of course not. As long as you know you’re growing and evolving, I don’t think that means you were ever doing a “bad” job before.
Oh, I like that! I accept that failures happen – but they are not inevitable. Yes, learn from them when they happen, but hey, if you have a terrific idea or product, run with it!