Think About It 107: ANNE HELEN PETERSEN

 

The desire for the cool job that you're passionate about is a particularly modern and bourgeois phenomenon — and, as we'll see, a means of elevating a certain type of labor to the point of desirability that workers will tolerate all forms of exploitation for the 'honor' of performing it.  The rhetoric of 'Do what you love, and you'll never work another day in your life' is a burnout trap.  By cloaking the labor in the language of 'passion,' we're prevented from thinking of what we do as what it is: a job, not the entirety of our lives.

      …The desirability of 'lovable' jobs is part of what makes them so unsustainable: so many people are competing for so few positions that compensation standards can be continuously lowered with little effect.  There's always someone just as passionate to take your place.  Benefits packages can be slashed or nonexistent; freelance rates can be lowered to the point of bare sustenance, especially in the arts.  In many cases, instead of offering a writer money for the content that goes on a website, the writer essentially pays the website in free labor for the opportunity of a byline.  At the same time, employers can raise the minimum qualifications for the job, necessitating more school, another degree, more training — even if that training may or may not be necessary — in order to even be considered.

      In this way, 'cool' jobs and internships become case studies in supply-and-demand: Even if the job itself isn't ultimately fulfilling, or demands so much work at so little pay so as to extinguish whatever passion might exist, the challenge of being the one in a thousand who 'makes it work' renders the job all the more desirable.

 

Can't Even: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation (2020)

 

 

 

 

Use the link below to read a September 2020 article about North American writer and journalist ANNE HELEN PETERSEN and her book Can't Even: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation:

 

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/sep/22/anne-helen-petersen-millennial-burnout-work-life

 

 

 

 

 

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To be valuable in American society is to be able to work.  Historically, more work, more toil, more commitment, more loyalty, more grit — all of that could make you more valuable.  That's the very foundation of the American Dream.  But in our current economic moment — often referred to as 'late capitalism,' to evoke how much of the economy is predicated on the buying and selling and leveraging of things that aren't, well, things — hard work only becomes truly valuable when accompanied by existing connections (also known as class status and privilege) or credentials (diplomas, recommendations, resumés).

      Which explains our current 'best practices' for achieving middle-class success:  Build your resumé, get into college, build your resumé, get an internship, build your resumé, make connections on LinkedIn, build your resumé, pay your dues in a soul-sucking low-level position you're told to be grateful for, build your resumé, keep pushing, and eventually you'll end up finding the perfect, stable, fulfilling, well-paying job that'll guarantee a place in the middle class.  Of course, any millennial will tell you that this path is arduous, difficult to find without connections and cultural knowledge, and the stable job at the end isn't guaranteed.

      And yet it's easy to see how parents of all classes would become fanatical about college prep:  If you can just get on the path, that good, stable job is in sight!  To make things better for the next generation, you don't need revolution, or regime change, or raised taxes.  All that's necessary, at least to start, was your kid's college acceptance letter… Instead of raising kids, so many parents, conciously and subconsciously, began raising resumés.

 

Can't Even: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation (2020)

 

 

 

Use the link below to read a September 2020 article about North American writer and journalist ANNE HELEN PETERSEN and her latest book Can't Even: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation:

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/sep/22/anne-helen-petersen-millennial-burnout-work-life

 

 

 

 

 

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According to Indeed.com, between 2006 and 2013 there was a 2505 percent increase in jobs described using the words 'ninja'; a 810 percent increase in 'rock star,' and a 67 percent increase in 'Jedi.'  At the time of this writing, you can apply for a position as a 'Customer Support Hero' at Autodesk, a 'Nib Ninja' at a Pennsylvania chocolate factory, a 'Wellness Warrior' at a clinic in Utah, and a 'Rockstar Repair Man' for an Orlando, Florida, rental group.  Most of these job ads are for entry level positions with pay at or just above minimum wage, with few or no benefits.  Some are simply freelance gigs marketed as 'earning opportunities.'  The shittier the work, the higher the chances it gets affixed with a 'cool' job title and ad — a means of convincing the applicant that an uncool job is indeed desirable and thus worth accepting the barely liveable wage.

 

Can't Even: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation (2020)

 

 

Use the link below to read a September 2020 article about North American writer and journalist ANNE HELEN PETERSEN and her latest book Can't Even: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation:

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/sep/22/anne-helen-petersen-millennial-burnout-work-life

 

 

 

 

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