'This one time, I had a real-person job'

Sadie at Jezebel comes down hard on Caitlin Kelly's NYT piece about working in retail on the side while trying to make it as a freelance writer. Having read both the article and the post, I'm still wondering what the complaint is, other than the broader point that it's totally unfair that Person A's articulate-enough whining gets into the Times, while Person B's does not, even though Person B has superior authoritah on the very same subject. It strikes me as just as unfair that Person B gets to rant on Jezebel, whereas Person P over here rants for assorted friends and family members, as well as a pseudonym named Petey. But such is life.

Sadie writes, of Kelly, "if she wants a medal, she's not getting it." I did not see where in the article the request for a metaphorical medal appeared, but the Jezebel commenters get really into it, as they do whenever a situation merits (or seems like it might merit) either a 'bish plz' or use of the word 'whambulance.' In other words, accusing someone else of whining, while whining yourself, is totally awesome. Because calling someone else "privileged" is proof beyond any doubt whatsoever that you are in fact typing your comment from a sub-basement studio in a Brooklyn neighborhood the trust-fund hipsters haven't heard of yet, but will soon so as to give you something new to complain about.

So, long story short, everyone commenting at Jezebel is more hardcore than everyone else, or than this one NYT writer, or who knows, but every commenter there worked this real-person job this one time and it was way harder than what the NYT writer is dealing with. How the pyramid-building and so forth allows time for keeping up with the Jezebel comments remains one of life's great mysteries.

If having once held a less-than-fulfilling job made one a good person, as goes the myth, not only would all working-class people be Mother Teresa (yet, strangely, nasty people exist at all income levels), but not-good people would be hard to come by indeed. Aside from Rothschild-level elites and those who head straight into leadership positions in the family business, everyone, even members of the much-hated college-educated upper-middle classes, will sooner or later find himself with work less well-paid and stimulating than, I don't know, brushing Queen Elizabeth's corgis. The reason a post about 'I once had this job' garners a gazillion comments it that we all once had a job like this or that, and it's human nature to think your own story matters. (Am I, P of WWPD, the exception? Take a guess.)

So. This comment is ground we've seen before:

"I'm pretty sure we'd have a much kinder society (and I might get benefits!) if people had to support themselves in the service industry for a year."

OK, slight problem: if those who don't need to work work all the same, so as to have some independence from their parents, or so as to avoid being that guy who's never had a real job, that leaves fewer jobs for those who need money, not 'character'. If you think it sucks to deal with someone who spent all her weekends shopping while you were folding the clothes, would you prefer losing a potential retail job to someone who only took the job so as to buy even more designer jeans than is already the case?

Ultimately, even if 'builds character' is a legitimate reason to take a job, if that's why you signed up, no one's offering, especially not in this economy. For the college-educated or college-bound, Jezebel-approved real-person work is often harder to snag than snooty-sounding low-paid work for which a degree/veneer of snootiness is required. This is why I found Paul Gowder's bafflement at lawyers who choose low-paid legal work over similarly low-paid service-industry work altogether baffling--no one would hire someone with a legal degree, or someone who took the J.D. off his resume but still seems like someone with a legal degree, to work as a waiter, because if it's your restaurant, you want someone a) who will stick around at the job, and b) who won't act as though the job is beneath him. Just as stores, restaurants, and other locales known for employing teens often refuse to hire young people still living at home who only seek pocket money, and who will leave once Swarthmore or Oberlin starts come the fall, these same places will not want to hire lawyers going through a screw-the-Man midlife crisis. Unless you can act that well, or really do need the GAP as much as you claim, good luck out there.