The average person born in the later years of the baby boom held 10.8 jobs from age 18 to age 42, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor. These baby boomers held an average of 4.4 jobs while ages 18 to 22.  The average fell to 3.3 jobs while ages 23 to 27 and to 1.9 jobs from ages 38 to 42.

As you can see, the baby boomers could not figure out who they were for about 27 years. Today, individuals will have spent time in 15 different job descriptions by age 38, which may mean knowing who you are is far less likely to happen at all. Trying out different jobs has now been reduced to the brain energy equal to trying on different pairs of shoes. The average American will change careers 3 times and will ultimately end up in a career that may not reflect any original intension, let alone their college education.

This means that although you may be going to school to become an information specialist, you may ultimately end up deboning fish with an electro-mendon for an outfit that does not yet exist. The fact is this; times are changing faster than we can educate ourselves to meet them. It appears that we have been reduced to pinball’s blindly bouncing off the edges of inconvenient happenstance. Where is the focus? The direction? I ask people all the time, “What would you do if you could do it for free…” and about 90% answer with a glazed over “I don’t know;” we are only reacting to the circumstances around us, as opposed to causing them.

Buckshot and bullets

Get this; among those who started jobs at age 38 to 42, 31% ended in less than a year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor. What?!! I am 42 years old and I don’t know what to do? I am 42 years old and I’m not good enough at it to out rank everyone else? I’m 42 years old and the basket I put all of my eggs into just “got broked?” Part of the problem is not only our lack of excellence, but our lack of determination and ingenuity. We should be so excellent at what we do, so good at it that when the company folds for lack of foresight, we walk off with the remaining customer base working out of our garage.

Today’s workforce are more like buckshot; they can only hope that one of those little bb’s hit’s a vital organ out there somewhere. We are more dependent upon the animal mistakenly getting in the way of our ammunition, as opposed to locking on the target with expert marksmanship knowing that senseless beast will have no chance in hell of survival. Only the marksmen are winning this game now. It’s an all out free-for-all. Companies are exchanging people like underwear because they are a dime a dozen.

When I first started college in 1981, I worked at a local Burger King for minimum wage. By the end of the first year, my brother and  I had invented a scheme known as “pre-closing.” I had learned the buying habits of each ethnic group within our city and determined the odds of how many would purchase in the final hour and a half. I would make the sandwiches and shakes to reflect my notions and then break down the machines one by one, clean them, and line them with sandwich wrappings. When it came time to close, it was a matter of throwing away the paper linings and cleaning the floors. We reduced the closing time from 2 hours to seven minutes when we all did things in order. Needless to say, other BK’s were negotiating with my manager, trying to trade multiple workers in order to get my brother or me in their store. The only way out of that job was for me to quit. My manager would send me and a friend to the movies – on the clock – to show his appreciation! I could make a Whopper in less than 4 seconds – my friend Lucy and I could hold off an entire bus of students all by ourselves. I loved my job at Burger King. I made it fun. I had pet names for everyone, I decorated the bulletin board for Halloween, I would do tricks for sandwiches, I entertained the customers, I was irreplaceable, I went fishing after midnight with the store manager. I even entertained the idea of attending BK University and becoming the best Burger King executive in the world. I was a bullet.

Go be great at something… anything… just be great at it.

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Me? Are you kidding? That’s right my dear child, you can say that too. This seems to be my latest reply to all the madness going on in my life. Freak Show Madness I might add…

The seamless goo

It appears that when you do what you are during your work hours, you can no longer distinguish between yourself, your cliental and the room you are in… they all run together in some seamless goo. In other words, you cease to be aware of your limitations, and I personally think this is because they have been substantially eliminated. When your work is actually an extension of who you are, rather than what you do, life happens.

Life happens? What was going on before life happened? A form of death my child. There is nothing on this spinning celestial ball worse than getting up in the morning and exerting energy in the direction of something you don’t like… it makes your hair hurt. It’s sort of like digging a hole in concrete with a plastic Dairy Queen spoon. It’s not like you exit your Friday with a sense of inordinate affection for Monday. When you are one with your work, you no longer distinguish between week-days and week-ends because they all run together now.

Melodramatic risk-taking on steroids

Listen my dear ones… if you are dissatisfied with your enterprise, if your job is a nightmare on elm street, you have to believe you can wake up. You have to believe you are destined for more than the five day a week hate club. You have to have hope. Hope will bridge the gap between faith and total disbelief. Hope will as the scriptures purport, become an anchor for your soul… the part of you that needs to be satisfied. Begin believing this to can change and then start looking for signs of the anticipated way out. Remember, opportunists always live by the door.

Ask you husband or wife what they see you doing with your life, because they are a good indicator of who you really are. Don’t waste your time asking yourself – because you’ll probably lie. This is why Jesus asked Peter; “Who do men say that I am?” notice he didn’t say; “Let me tell you who I am.” Your first step is to ask 5 people who they believe you are, and what they could see you doing with your life. You don’t have to obey it, but you should at least take it into consideration. Others tend to see you as you are, while you tend to see you as you think you are. Once you have done this, contemplate it with a serious thought process. In other words, take it seriously.

Don’t be just another idiot

Don’t start the self pity club and make yourself president. Start with the idea of knocking it off. Some people would be better off as slaves in Egypt compared to their demanding work schedules and moronic bosses. You deserve better than that. If you are not rewarded for your talent, time and genius, you are being punished for it. All work is a system of either rewards or punishments; there is no middle ground. If you do not feel rewarded for your work, you may want to entertain the idea of jamming a pen in your neck, because that might feel better. Don’t allow others to frame your world because they will always frame it too small! We were created to be creative and to produce in all that we do! 

Take responsibility for your life for heaven’s sake and stop blaming your boss. If you don’t like your job, leave it. Staying and complaining is reserved for jerks and other mild mannered losers. Decide you are going to change things and then forge ahead with some bright ideas for once. Mount an emotional coup-de-tat on yourself. Don’t stifle your creativity, grow it… or else you might fall into the category of just another idiot.

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