Back before the election, probably mid-October, I happened to catch an interview where Mike Rowe, the host of the show Dirty Jobs, spoke about the economy in the country. The interviewer was a conservative, so thus not a fan of President Obama. He was, then, talking about how the President had failed to actually create any work to match his 2008 Presidential promise to have “shovel ready jobs.”
Rowe, refusing to take the political bait, hit home though with the real issue in determining the future of our country. Rowe said that whether or not the jobs had been created, it would not have mattered. The reason, he said, was that “you can’t point to having 4-5 million ‘shovel ready jobs’ if the entire culture has devalued the idea of ‘shovel ready jobs.’”
As the semester once again cranks up, and I face students who do not really understand the purpose of college, let alone the necessity for hard work, I believe Rowe’s comments are precisely the barometer of our issue nationally. We will never fix our country, whether you want to fix the economy or education, until we come to grips with what Rowe’s statement implies.
Not only, though, are those words a ringing indictment of our indulgent society, now grown lazy in luxury filled with our “First World Problems” such as no cell phone signal or a retailer having the audacity to be strict about the free coupons they were giving out (just ask me sometime about the laments of some of my friends about free food from Chick-fil-a)—no, his comment also points to just how far we have drifted in our understanding of success and the American Dream.
Why, one should ask, if we have such massive unemployment (officially around 8%, unofficially over 15% in many states, much higher in certain cities or within certain ethnic groups), would anyone turn down a “shovel ready job?” The answer is simple as Rowe explains—we have devalued those jobs. Jobs like that are seen as somehow beneath us or fit only for the uneducated, the dumb, the immigrant.
Having been associated for years with SkillsUSA, an organization dedicated to promoting “shovel ready jobs”—while also have cut my teeth as an electrician’s helper, and then spending 3.5 years as a general “gopher” (officially a supervisor assistant) for a custom home builder—I resent the way we have generally allowed those kinds of jobs to be demeaned.
You hear the mocking when you hear political leaders suggesting that if someone doesn’t go to college, that their life somehow is a failure. In other words, the types of typical “shovel ready jobs,” which usually do not need a college degree, are for the losers, the drop-outs.. That is wrong in general terms anyway since most of the trades and technical work inherent in the broad spectrum of “shovel ready jobs” need training that groups like SkillsUSA promote, usually through technical and community colleges.
We have undercut the value of work to the point that unless you are making a very high income (typically higher than what one assumes you’ll make in a “shovel ready job”), you are not doing useful or necessary work. And, you are clearly not a success.
This poor understanding of life success continues to ruin our country, and now two generations in since the 1970s to where we now wrongly believe that success must equal wealth, we have brought up the younger parts of our society to where they have no comprehension of what real success means.
In the decades before the 1960s-70s, living a successful life simply meant you were alive, here, being a functioning part of society. To be alive was the first marker of being successful. People considered having a marriage, maybe children, contributing to society whether through an Elks club, Little League, Girl Scouts or a church group….all of those things meant you were living a successful life.
Consumerism had not fully swallowed the focus of the country. Sure, at Christmas, we all identified things that we hoped Santa would bring us, but on the whole, the amount received would pale in both numbers of gifts as well as overall costs compared to today. The “mall culture” and the broad excessive use of credit was just beginning in the late 1970s and would really explode in the 1980s, giving rise to false signals in the economy. Rapid spending in consumer goods was never really followed up with actual money.
Thus, today, a typical kid would think that unless a “shovel ready job” somehow would allow for a 3000 sq ft home, iGadgets for all the kids, new computers often, multiple flat screen TVs, enough food in the pantry to last a solid 6 weeks, and a nice vacation (or season tickets to the local sports team or annual passes to a theme park)….well, without those obvious necessities, the job is of no value.
Rowe’s comment ultimately nails down the fact that we’ve lost the American Dream. That was one reason why I enjoyed his show when it was on. Most of the jobs were people just following a dream and enjoying the life they lived, even though most never really made any major money. These business people and workers were enjoying the simple freedom to pursue whatever life they wished.
That is the American Dream. A dream where one rolls the dice, and then lives with it come what may. A dream where the government did not take your money or your property, nor could tell you what you could or could not do (remember, we rebelled against that very type of government—one that attempted to dictate what we could or could not do).
In that world, a young man or woman would be excited about the chance to work in a “shovel ready job” if it opened up the vista of the rest of your life. You didn’t think about getting rich; you thought about living well.
As the new year unfolds, perhaps the most important decision you could make is to look upon the skilled labor workforce of your community with honor and admiration. Then, your second decision could be to encourage a young person to follow their skills when those skills and strengths are NOT found in the academic classroom. Help that young person realize that a decent living wage can be found, especially if one is very good and brings other soft skills to the table, and even if they don’t become excessively wealthy, that it is better to pursue a job married to their skills than to suffer in some attempt to complete what society says is important (i.e., College).
Lastly, let’s work together to bring American back to her historic foundation of values such as hard work. Let’s teach the younger generation that true success is not found ever in wealth, but in a life well lived. Teach one young person that truth, and you my friend will have really achieved Success for Life.