There are all kinds of jobs in 21st century America: shit jobs, bullshit jobs, side hustle jobs, decent jobs, great jobs (rumor still has it), hand jobs, blow jobs, no Steve Jobs (he's dead), but the jobs I'm interested in are bougie jobs, that is to say jobs that require, or at least expect, a college degree, but pay less than $10, or $9, or in some cases, $8 an hour.
I've had a lot of jobs in my life. Excluding my lawn mowing career in my tweens, and a joint newspaper delivery gig with a friend of mine during the summer I was 15, my first job was doing inventories for a company called RGIS while I was still in high school. This was a decent job for someone in high school, a shit job, or decent job, for an actual adult.
But right now I'd like introduce a new category of job: The Bougie Job That Pays Poverty Wages or BJ-PW for short. I've worked mostly poverty level jobs my whole life. If we limit the list to just jobs I worked at for at least six months, we've got:
1. Amusement park food service
2. Convenience store overnight clerk (twice!)
3. Hotel front desk clerk (twice!).
4. High school special ed assistant.
5. Preschool teacher assistant
6. Caterer
7. Barista
8. Library assistant
9. Transcriptionist.
Now I'm not bitter about any of these jobs. Some of them I liked more than others, usually depending more on the people I worked with than the job itself. And while US poverty has its potentially stark horrifying qualities--like most US stuff, pretty much--it's totally survivable if you don't have any material desires (I like books and music pretty much, and the library here is open 7 days a week). This isn't a story about dwindling options for college grads in the 21st century. That's a story worth talking about, but my options have been limited by my (un)willingness to devote 60 hours a week to generating wealth for someone else doing something that brings me no real pleasure.
No, what I'm interested in is jobs 4,5, and 8 up there. Those were all jobs that were bougie as hell, and yet paid the least amount of money of any of those jobs on the list. Even worse, the expected standards of decorum, meaning manners and social interaction were also bougie as fuck. Which, if you're working in the school system, I kind of get, but it's weird for people making $8 an hour working in a library to act like they're better than the janitorial staff who are...also making around $8 an hour. But because our jobs required "skills" (computer literacy, customer service, etc.), we were somehow better than them.
Also, because this is the US South, even a more "progressive" section, it almost goes without saying that the janitorial staff were universally "people of color," and the library front-of-house staff were almost universally white. It's extremely likely that, despite our almost universal leftist politics, this played a role in the way people saw themselves. Let's just say that many centuries of social conditioning in this country have gone into the "at least you have it better than ______" self-esteem management strategy, and voting Democrat--while way less morally & ethically repugnant than voting Republican--doesn't exclude you from this dynamic.
The thing that sucks the most about BJ-PWs is that you're expected, and in most cases required, to adhere to bougie white, middle-class norms. That means no cursing, no sarcasm, no humor unless it's self-directed and self-deprecating, lots of smiling, lots of talking about the weekend (either previous or upcoming), lots of talk about food, and um...that's pretty much it. And while I get the reasons for not saying fuck in a library or a pre-school, I'm talking about off-the-clock behavior. I mean, even in the parking lot people were walking around smiling and telling you to have a great night.
Which just seems unfair. Because the great thing about being on the bottom rung of the economic ladder, during a time where jobs are plentiful and wages are scarce, is that you can't sink any lower so you might as well at least try to enjoy yourself. And I don't mean breathlessly complimenting your co-workers new sweater, or the muffins at the bakery that just opened up the road. I'm saying people are working jobs where they have the freedom to let it hang out, swing their metaphorical hips a little, and they're still acting like we're working in a office.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking to turn every low-paying workplace into an R-rated bachanalia, but don't you think it's weird how many adults object to adult language. Isn't it weird that we live in an era in which porn-watching is considered the norm, esp. as it appears prestige TV shit like Girls, Game of Thrones, or whatever's trending these days. Like isn't weird, that bougie cultural consumption is so filthy and bougie public participation is so clean?
As part of my training at the transcription job (you wear headphones and type up dictated messages, usually from people working in the financial and/or insurance agency--yes it's every bit as wonderfully dystopic as it sound), I meet with one of the supervisors each week to discuss my progress and learn more about how to be a faster transcriber (there are some serious financial incentives re: speed & accuracy, so I pay attention). Last month, my supervisor, a young person of collegiate privilege, asked me what would improve my speed. My first impulse was to say, "Maybe if some of these motherfuckers could slow down on the cocaine, I could understand what they were saying." But I caught myself, because I recognized that the MF bomb, and possibly the drug reference, to say nothing of the unexpected-ness of my response, could possibly violate at least two of the workplace guidelines contract that I signed upon my employment. And while I'm all for free expression, and don't value this job as anything other than a short-term money-making venture while my partner sorts out their potentially way-more-lucrative academic future, breaking white middle-class societal norms at that moment just seemed like more trouble than it was worth, y'know?
Because if I've learned one thing from my post-collegiate elevation to BJ-PW life, it's that white middle-class societal norms revolve around demonstrating your knowledge of said norms. These are forms of etiquette that are expected to be demonstrated in all public interactions. Sort of a really boring mating dance that ends up with you drinking craft brews or something. Even if you're transcribing dictations from the ruling class (or lackeys for the ruling class) for a base pay of $8.25 p/hr, people are expected to maintain bougie norms in the face of their dwindling opportunities. After all, for most college graduates, their sense of social superiority is all they have left. Hell, in another few years there might be workplace guidelines stating you can't wear white after Labor Day.
To which most of BJ-PW job holders will say, "What the heck is Labor Day?"
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