*A brief Holiday departure.*
You were a good shopper this year, you purchased everything well in advance to avoid the traffic jams and long lines at your local mall, yet somehow due to an oversight, you were forced to come out on Christmas Eve and exchange a sweater that you bought two sizes too small. It took you an hour to find a parking spot and fifteen minutes to find the appropriate size, and now you are faced with a long line and a seemingly apathetic sales associate standing between you and an evening by the fire. She is moving slow and has an attitude that would trump both Ebenezer Scrooge and The Grinch on a bad night. Before you give this girl a piece of your tired and stressed out mind, take two seconds and remember that her sour mood has nothing to do with you trying to make an exchange and get a price adjustment without a receipt, and everything to do with the effects of a down economy on her ability to escape adolescence and move into the adulthood she was promised when she got her degree.
Your sales clerk endured 4-5 years of lectures, two summers getting coffee as an intern, and countless hours at part time jobs like this one, only to be forced back into the same drudgery a college degree was supposed to deliver her from. She could have gone back to school like many of her friends, to wait out the economy while living off of financial aid; instead she chose to enter the work force at a time when 10% of the population is drawing unemployment. Knowing the current state of the economy, she should be overjoyed to have a steady paycheck, however like the 17.5% of the population that is underemployed, our college educated sales girl is more qualified than her manager and receives the same rate of pay as someone with no experience. Not to mention, she is becoming increasingly discouraged due to her current lack of the traditional markers of young adulthood.
Since before she could remember, society has feed her images of what being a 20-something means. The apartment in the cool section of town, the friends, the wardrobe and the job that finances it all has been consistently out of reach since graduation. Although her college years are behind her, her life seems to be stalled going to the same places in the same ways. Her Baby Boomer parents keep encouraging her to hang in there, telling her that things will get better, what they fail to tell her is that since their jobs won’t be vacant for another 10-15 years when they can afford to retire, she may be hanging in there for a long time. You see while our financial crisis may be easing, most of the available jobs are temporary or seasonal, the jobs with benefits, vacation time, and steady paychecks are being held onto tooth and nail by the people occupying them. These people by and large have been holding onto these jobs for years now and with their IRAs taking major hits, they cannot afford to give up those desks and comfy offices.
In effect, your overqualified sales specialist who had the misfortune of studying liberal arts instead of a science is stuck in a job that leaves her under-stimulated, under-valued, under-paid, and over worked. She will not be enjoying spiced cider tonight; she will be picking up a shift at a local restaurant after she finishes folding that stack of sweaters you tore through five minutes ago. She will also be up bright and early after the Holiday to assist the herds of people trying to return and exchange the Christmas sweaters, too small trousers, and hideous scarves they were given the day before.
Next time you feel like giving the poor underemployed server/sales associate/barista/bartender a piece of your mind because they are lacking Holiday cheer, imagine how you would feel if your incompetent boss told you “Yes Virginia, you do have to work the day after Christmas.”
*Labor statistics taken from The United States Department of Labor website.
Check out this article for more information on Holiday jobs and underemployment.
Comments
Great article!
Great Article, well written
says, The truth has finally been told. Amen, Ms. Simon!
This article was ery informative and I loved all the metaphors. In most cases, you hit the nail on the head with what one goes through during holiday time. Very well written!
So very true! We Boomers worked so hard to give our kids the best of everything and can't give them the one thing that they really desire... financial independence. Great article
This was a very good article and I must concur with the other people who have commented before me that this is the state of the world today. Now, I do believe that going to college broadened my horizons but I am working three jobs right now. Most of my friends (myself included) were first generation college graduates so we went with our passion instead of, researching what professions were most lucrative and then made an informed decision from those results. So, basically my goal in life is to educate the youth coming behind me so they can make a much wiser decision than myself (Psychology and then Counseling)! We need more articles like this to guide the youth in the right direction. As the African proverb states "It takes a village to raise a child". All of us are responsible. Keep up the good work!
Very good article. Opened my eyes about folks who may be working these types of jobs. I have a daughter in college so I understand Ms. Simon's frustration. Things will get better for her and other kids in that situation if they hang in there, pray, and have faith.
Good article. I remember working in retail sales when I was in college. Working the day after Christmas was such a drag.
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