Come Sing The Career Day Blues

The other day I thought, “I wonder what I would be doing in my life if middle school career day was honest.”

You remember career day, don’t you? A bunch of well dressed professionals would show up and sit at booths. And you and all your awkward preteen friends would shuffle around, clipboards in hand, and ask questions of the well dressed professionals.

“What do you do?”

“Do you like it?”

And the famous “I want to help people. Do you help people in your job?”

Usually the Well Dressed Professionals would have free stuff to give away that had logos, because that makes everything more fun. (“What did you do at school, Jimmy?” “It was Career Day and it was awesome. I got a free stapler koozy with a logo on it!”)

Or they would try to have some sort of activity to entice youngsters to visit their table. This would work for about 30 seconds, until they saw that the guy three tables over was giving away monogrammed coupon filers and scampered away to collect more useless junk.

I know when I used to work career fairs on behalf of my university, the teachers gave the kids worksheets to complete. They had to ask me certain questions, and they had to visit a set amount of booths. Once their worksheet was done, however, they were free to visit the snack station and wander aimlessly the rest of the time.

You can guess how quickly the interviews went.

I also know from my time working at universities that college marketing departments LOVE to talk up career development. But not in a realistic way. Your typical college viewbook usually contained stories such as these:

“Meet Emma, a third year student at Overpriced University.” (Pro tip — “third year” is often code for “has been on this campus more than a year but doesn’t necessarily have the credits or ambition to truly be a college junior/close to earning a degree.”) Emma wanted to help people. (There’s that phrase again — “help people.”) So her professor connected her with an internship at McBain-Snootermeyer Industries. As an intern, Emma conducted groundbreaking research on how understanding the migratory patterns of the endangered Peruvian spotted dung beetle can lead to sustainable, cruelty free agriculture which in turn will eliminate poverty in the region (but only on Tuesdays). Emma is on target to earn a Nobel Prize before the age of 25. Be like Emma. Enroll at Overpriced University today.”

To any middle schoolers out there (or prospective college students), I want to give y’all some valuable info on how this whole Being A Grown Up and Having A Grown Up Job really works:

  • Lots of jobs help people. Your task is to decide how you want to help.
  • Know this, do-gooders. If your idea of “helping people” involves actually spending time with people…understand that’s not how things usually work. If you talk to your average social worker, for instance, they can tell you that you spend approximately 15 minutes a day Helping People. The rest of the time is spent doing paperwork documenting how you helped people, how you spent government resources while helping people, how the people felt about being helped, how you felt about helping the people, how helping the people fits your agency’s goals, how fitting the agency’s goals fulfills your requirements as a grant-supported non-profit institution, how you filed a mileage report, what you ate for lunch that day, how you feel about you ate for lunch that day, etc.
  • Maybe you’re disappointed to hear that the people to paperwork ration is so skewed. Let me tell you something else that you don’t hear at middle school career day: paperwork can be awesome! I’m not kidding. Listen, I love people…but sometimes I really don’t like them. So a day of paperwork can be great. You get to sit in your comfy office chair, jamming to some tunes, writing away while drinking your beverage of choice AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO TALK TO ANYONE FOR SEVERAL HOURS. Then by the time the paperwork is done, you’ve had your Alone Time and you’re ready to talk to people again.
  • Future college students…some of you will engage in research about endangered Peruvian spotted dung beetles. Most of you will get valuable work experience while working on your degree. But that valuable work experience is more likely to be in the form of being some overworked staff member’s lackey than doing something glamorous. But again…doing mindless work has its perks. You’ll enjoy the mental break. Promise.
  • If you’re reading all this stuff about helping people and thinking “what if I don’t want to help people?” Don’t worry. There are jobs for you, too. In fact, there are jobs where you can get paid to drive people nuts. Case in point: telemarketing.

If there are any youngun’s out there eager to learn about careers, I hope this post was helpful. Readers, what have been your experiences with Career Day promises versus reality? Tell me about it in the comments. I’ll read them in a bit. It’s paperwork time.