This article has caused a recent uproar on the interwebs lately. To sum it up, a 24-year-old college graduate lives at home with Mom and Dad. He’s been looking for work since graduating in 2008 with a PolSci degree (I know, I know). His search yielded one result, a $40K-a-year offer as an insurance claim adjuster. And he turned it down. According to more than 1,000 overwhelmingly angry commenters, this young man made the dumbest move of his life. Others are outraged that a child of privilege has the option of being choosy when so many would jump at such an opportunity for full time work.
So it made me think about those who haven’t had a full-time job offered in some time. Say you’re offered a job at an agency you’re not crazy about, doing work you don’t want to do…do you take it? Times are tough. Do you suck it up? Let your portfolio take the hit? Just to keep the bills paid?
There’s one camp that says, “of course you take it.” Any job’s a good job. Those bills don’t pay themselves. If you have a family, they’re not going to stop eating or needing new clothes or getting sick, etc. You stick it out until something better comes along. Or just make the best of it. Or both.
Then there’s the other camp. Hold out (and hold your breath). Trust your gut. Wait for the next thing to come along. That choice job offer should turn up someday. Maybe it does. And maybe it doesn’t.
A career in advertising is judged by the quality of work one completes. Awards are won. Parties are attended. Rockstars are made. That’s what we all aim for. In rough economic times, those goals may just have to wait. Your reality may be way bleaker. If you find employment, freelance or full-time, you may be called in to work on unglamorous client-driven projects: newsletters, direct mail, banners, Facebook pages, etc. You’ll get paid to do it. You don’t have to do it. But do you?
Brad Mislow is a freelance writer type person who loves fresh peaches in the summer.
16 Comments
It is a dilemma indeed. We, the twentysomethings of the 21st century, aspire to more than just “a job”, which is what this was. I can’t completely fault him for wanting to work in his chosen profession, to do mindful work that challenges him to use that fancy degree, and to be not miserable.
But at the same time, I can testify that unemployment sucks. While he (and I) may not have a family and a mortgage, being without a job puts us into a generally useless state. It zaps our creativity and our self-esteem. Lack of money keeps ups from doing anything — attending parties, entering awards competitions, buying sharp new interview clothes. And being unconnected from people makes us hermits by default. These days I tell fresh graduates the following: Do whatever you can to avoid unemployment, even if it means leaving the profession for a while.
It’s a heavy-hearted decision, but ultimately the lessor of two evils. And evil they are.
No rent or student loans, full health insurance, free meals, and a Mommy and Daddy to tuck him in at night? I suppose he could always put “house cat” as his current job position.
I don’t think it’s really about him making the tougher choice, considering that he’s thinking about bartending and temp agencies if he remains unemployed. Still, hopefully someone in his industry might read the article and be willing to give him a shot.
Someone might give him a shot? I think the article makes him look like a lazy, entitled whiner.
His parents aren’t doing him any favors by paying for him. They’re teaching him that if you can’t do it on your own, there’s always someone there with a handout.
Life doesn’t work like that.
I understand the thought that we as a group are choosy, I’ll admit that; I have been. I still believe that he should have taken the job, I’m only 20 and don’t have much insight into how HR works, but I don’t see why he couldn’t have taken it, and still kept looking.
Not working, without reason, is more of a check against you in my mind, than working in another industry. Also, I don’t know how he keeps from getting bored, not having something to focus on exhausts me. I would have taken the position in a heartbeat, and kept looking for my dream position.
In fact, I just found out I had a job after 10 months, it’s a menial job for my qualifications, but I’m taking it to help me financially, mentally, and socially – as was pointed out in the first comment. I’m also planning to continue with my search for a position that suits me and my qualifications better.
My father once told me “you need to have a plan. You can change your plan, but you always need to have one.”
If he’s just going to sit back mass mailing resumes, crossing his fingers hoping for a better offer, than he should have taken the job. If he instead decides to try working for himself, or goes abroad to volunteer, or donates his time to a political campaign for a candidate he believes in, then he is probably best served by turning it down.
The problem with this kid is that he turned down the offer while having no other plan. There is much more to life than a steady paycheck. But that doesn’t mean you should just sit back hoping for a bigger one. He needs to come up with a plan.
I’m sitting in an interview today trying to divert the media managers away from my account management experience so I can get a paycheck. But I don’t feel I am very convincing and I am sure they’ve seen my kind before. But if I take this job just to survive so as not to be unemployed- and look better to other employers, then I am allowed to jump ship when the agency I am really waiting on finally makes a hire or a better position comes along.
If my goal is just a right now job, then its carte blanche on how I keep my career moving in the right direction. I am not letting the job I NEED this month, stop me from starting the job I really want next month.
There are only so many Crispins and Weidens to go around. If you’re so creative, make the bad assignments good. Dont bitch and moan about it, figure out how that facebook page can be truly different and accomplish what the client is paying for.
Wanna be an artist? Start painting.
When I got laid off from BBDO as a copywriter, I took the first job that came along so I could pay the bills. It was at a terrible agency and I hated every day there. BUT, in retrospect it was a good thing I took the job and suffered the people there for 2 years because I learned a new skill that I did like, got me my next job, and pointed me in the direction of the career I am in today and love.
Laid off from old school advertising, this agency of idiots taught me how to write and produce for the web. Now, 5 years later, I’m all about web work and I like it so much more than traditional advertising. Plus, I get calls all the time for jobs because not too many writers out there have a solid web writing background. Point is: take the job, you might learn a thing or two that will benefit you in the future.
While I’m definitely not in the same situation as the guy in the article, I can relate. I thought it was interesting to read about “those who graduated from college during the severe early ’80s recession earned up to 30 percent less in their first three years than new graduates who landed their first jobs in a strong economy. Even 15 years later, their annual pay was 8 to 10 percent less.”
I was one of those who graduated in the ’80s. I remember competing for entry level PR jobs with those who had 4-5 years of experience but were willing to take that entry level job. Needless to say, I transitioned from the bartending position I had to support my way through college into a management position with the restaurant chain I’d been working with. It wasn’t until I was 30 that I decided to go the portfolio school route to try to make my way into advertising (which I was having no luck doing with a PR degree but only restaurant experience to show for it.)
I also was faced with a decision after an agency layoff about 2 years ago on “do I take the pharma agency gig which my gut was screaming to avoid or wait it out for something better to come along.” My brain won out over my gut, but 6 months into that position (which was total hell for me personally) I found myself again out on the streets.
Thankfully, after 15 months of sporadic freelance and unemployment, I landed an AE job with an agency I’ve done work with as a writer. This time my gut was screaming “YES!” even though it is a different role for me. But I know the experience will be great. And I love the group I work with.
And I also had to face the reality that, despite still being on the uphill ride to age 50, my days of finding a CD who would look past my age and instead recognize I still have a lot of creativity inside are waning.
Gee, taking a job as an insurance claims adjuster is a far far cry from what this man majored in, and I don’t blame him for not taking it. Not that he should hold out for the dream job, but a claims adjuster? That’s almost like selling your soul. I don’t blame the guy, i’m pretty sure I’d choose working at fast food over being a claims adjuster.
I’m with Chris and Johnny if the question is about adland. I was once told by a creative director at Carmichael Lynch “good people do good work no matter where they are”. I have taken those words to heart ever since and they have served me well.
As for the kid with the Poli/Sci degree, he should have taken the job. He needs to simply learn how to work a job, any job will do! Also, the busier you are the more opportunities you hear about and the greater interest you create.
Jeff
That anyone could be faced with the choices described in this article — that this topic is up for debate AT ALL — should serve as reminder that we live in one of the most fortunate, privileged and auspicious periods in the history of the world.
Yes, recession. Yes, struggling industry. But if you’re reading this, you have access to THE INTERNET… Employed or not, you’re probably enjoying a higher standard of living than 99% of human beings who have ever walked the earth.
It’s great that the kid in this story has his parents to fall back on. Many of us have something like that. But at some point, you might just find yourself hopelessly entangled in the safety net.
So to me, the question isn’t ‘do you take it?’
The question is ‘what do you do with your time?’
What will you choose to experience? What will you contribute? What will you choose to learn?
There is nothing wrong with having a goal. Or a plan for achieving it. But nowhere is it written that taking a job that isn’t in the ‘plan’ will derail you. It may derail you. It may re-rail you. It may put some coins in your pocket while you figure out what’s next. Who knows?
And if you don’t take the job, what are you doing instead?
Hopefully something.
Because if all you’re doing is waiting for the path you’ve envisioned to unfold before you, you’re going to be waiting a long time.
If he was an experienced person in his desired field I wouldn’t blame him for turning down the job. But he’s just starting out in life. Working opens you up to so many things. And personally, I and a lot of people I know are doing things completely unrelated to our first jobs out of college. There’s not only one career path to success.
I don’t think any of us really have a right to judge. We don’t know this person, whether he has the right personality or temperament for this job, what his situation really is. Until we’ve walked in his shoes, we have no right to tell him what shoes to wear.
“Let your portfolio take the hit…”
When you’ve got bills to pay and kids to feed the last I’d be thinking about is my precious portfolio. Get real. You sack up and take the job.
This kid is in a different situation. He lives at home, yada, yada, yada. He’s free to do what he wants. But as a grown man with REAL bills and REAL responsibilities, in this job market, the last thing I’m worried about is “Who are the clients?” and “Will the work shine in my book?”. That thinking is for the spoiled days of the late 90s.
best to be freelance, if you lose one client then no big deal, if you have one job, you have one client, your boss
strength comes from diversity
dig up the garden and plant vegetables
sell sufficiency helps
as does solar panels
may people now live in a rv, american housing is over priced, the american worker demands too much money, chinese people work for less money, you need to compete in the global market place
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