Perspective is key.
I believe the most damaging concept or ideology is the notion that there is a difference between a job and a career. A job is seen as something you do to receive a paycheck, while a career is something you choose to do, enjoy doing, and want to do. This distinction is a fallacy because you choose a job and accept the position and pay offered. You choose to wear the uniform and badge, learn the job, and stay in the job for years. You also develop friendships and working relationships, forming pseudo-families. You have essentially turned that ‘job’ into a ‘career’.
The real difference between a job and a career is perspective: how you view your employment. I have heard statements that suggest a job is somehow lesser, as if it were merely a step toward something you want to do for a living. In all honesty, some of the things we enjoy doing are not sufficient to cover the daily cost of living. Not everyone can be a rich and famous athlete, singer, or actor; however, you can do those things, but just know that you may not make a lot of money doing them. There is the rub: the employment roles most people desire are the ones that pay the most, but they are not the easiest to obtain. This is the problem with the perspective on the difference between a job and a career. In Western culture, it is ingrained in us that individualism is the way of life. We are taught and influenced to believe in the importance of the ‘one’ instead of the ‘many’. Nothing we learn or are influenced to do is based on a collective way of life.
Entrepreneurship is strongly promoted and often disguised as being ‘self-made’. No one is self-made. It took a team to help that individual reach the top, but in our culture, those who helped that person are discarded and barely mentioned. In Western culture, we bash people who say, “Hey, I helped you,” labeling them as “haters” or “money-hungry vultures.” All the famous, self-made, independent entrepreneurs had others in their lives who helped them. This ideology of being self-made has, in some sense, handicapped our society (Western U.S. culture) and skewed our view of the difference between a career and a job.
If Westernized educational systems were structured differently to encourage collective thinking and to help students become comfortable with the idea that their true desire to be a baker may not make them a millionaire, there wouldn’t be this degrading distinction. Everyone is an employee at some point; even as a business owner, you are an employee who works for yourself and often with others. There is nothing wrong with saying that the job you have had for an extensive period of time is your career. It has put food on your table, helped pay your bills, and enabled you to keep your lights on. It may not be the form of employment you imagined you would do as a child, but…that’s another conversation for another time. My overall point is that a job in the service industry can be a worthwhile and valuable career. Working in customer service and hospitality is nothing to be disappointed in or embarrassed by; it is honest, hard work. Have pride in your employment, and if it is a stepping stone to a different position, then hurry up and get to that position because you’re wasting time and taking up space from someone who knows the true value of working in service.
By Nick Higgins
