Ford’s Rant: There Will Be No Jobs

I know it is aggravating to have to respond all the time to adults’ questions about what college you are going to, but you try to be polite and appear concerned about making the right choice and the important criteria and look worried and – blah, blah, blah.

But when the questions get around to what job field or career you are going to pursue, there is only one proper response you can make:

BOLT!

Take off. Leave the premises. Well, smile anyway, look pleasant, but get the hell out of the room as fast as you can. And why?

Because  – THERE WILL BE NO JOBS !

I know you don’t really want to believe that and are shocked at that statement and your parents don’t believe that, but IT IS TRUE. And the sooner you make that statement an integral part of your looking forward, the better off you will be.

There are many reasons why THERE WILL BE NO JOBS. The middle class has disappeared. The computers have taken all jobs that are routine and easy. Globalization has us competing with low wages all over the world. American corporations don’t want to hire Americans anymore, much less guarantee them a lifetime career. Change is happening so fast that today’s job will be obsolete soon anyway; and tomorrow’s job hasn’t been invented yet.

Take my job – The Atrium Guy. Eight years ago it didn’t exist. I was hired when the HHS renovation was completed because the building’s many doors were consolidated into only one secure entrance – as a result of the school shootings in Columbine, Colorado. And the school authorities thought it was better to have a human at that front door than either a cop or a metal detector. So they hired me and figured that I would do that JOB.

The only problem was – THERE WAS NO JOB. It was a wide open assignment without any specific tasks or responsibilities. They had put tables in the Atrium area, but had no idea what was going to happen when the students came in.

So I had to make up THE JOB THAT WAS NOT. And I am still doing it, thankfully with your help every day.

Which is my point. You will have to come up with YOUR JOB. You will have to find a need, find a market, find a skill, find an opportunity, find the source of pay and find the way to support yourself – and maybe even a family. I know it sounds a lot harder than just showing up the for A JOB like your parents did after they had some alleged preparation (read ‘college’) or ‘training.’ But that is your FEWTURE (remember?)

And the way you should go about doing that searching? Here’s the big advice you have been waiting for.

Identify – develop – nurture – qualify – focus on – connect with – read about – travel to –

YOUR PASSION.

That’s right. Get in touch with that which turns you on, excites you, make you get up early, lose sleep at night, aggravate your friends, confuse your parents – you know,

YOUR PASSION…….

And then figure out a way to make money doing it. This can be by doing it for someone, by writing about it, by recruiting for it, by investing in it, by advertising it or by talking about it on some website. And it’ll be easy, because it’s all you are really interested in doing anyway. You just have to come up with the money part. But you can go to school for that – right?

So there you go. You are on your way to happiness – and a living. The wealth and success will come naturally after you work on the happiness – a lot. The biggest barrier to finding YOUR PASSION and YOUR HAPPINESS and YOUR JOB is being cool, or hip, or uninvolved, or detached or scared or standing back or outside the world you are in. Get in there and go after what’s inside you yearning to get out.

But remember – THERE WILL BE NO JOBS – as your parents knew them. Heck, they didn’t work out so well for a lot of them anyway. Maybe it’s good riddance.

CONGRATULATIONS!