This last Saturday I joined two of my high school friends for some food, a surprise drink, and a little catching up. Normally, I enjoy activities – a movie, walking, board games etc – but that night I picked them both up and we walked to a bar. The night started out as normal, catching up, discussing all those people we went to high school with. We are all 22 years old, one in graduate school, one job hunting, and one about to begin his last semester of school with no plans after.
We ended up discussing how the world has changed. How, thanks to technology and the stance that our culture has taken, we have too many workers and not enough jobs. How we never talk about this. We discuss the other countries this has happened to, and discuss how scary change is. We all hope to find jobs.
We never thought we would all be sitting together, worried about finding a job.
I feel this is a discussion many people are age are having, and I have often thought about how different my life would have been if I had not gone to college and had instead gone to a technical school and started working sooner. Would my debt be paid off? Would I no longer be living at home?
And I also thought about the different friends I personally have. I have this discussion with almost all of them. But most would not keep coming back to the topic so adamantly. To sit on a porch, surrounded by the sweet smell of brisket cooking not twenty feet away, and not be able to change the topic to something a bit more uplifting. And to wonder, can we still hang out and just have fun? What happened to that?
And where will we all be four years from now?
It worries me endlessly that I can’t find a job. I apply and apply, and wish I could just find someone in person and be hired on the spot. To work in a job I enjoy, get to wear jeans every day, and feel like I am making some kind of a difference. Even if it is just to the bottom line of the company.
I don’t think that is much to ask for, but I just can’t find it. I want to be an engineer – but I guess I chose the wrong engineering.
Here is to another day, another bar, and the future. Cheers.
