One morning, I wanted to treat myself to a hot drink. I considered awarding my patronage to Gloria Jeans, Hudsons, Coffee HQ or some other coffee chain store but then I decided to support local business. I walked into a new coffee shop near the train station. Staff there had been trying to woo me in for weeks with their free raisin toast samples and mo’aves.
“One soy latte please,” I said to the attendant.
“Sure,” she said brightly. She tapped a fellow staff member on the shoulders to pass on the message. He got to work straight away.
“So,” she said in a friendly way, “What do you do?”
I was a little surprised by the directness of her conversation starter (What happened to ‘How are you today?’) but I proudly said, “I’m an environmental engineer.”
“Where do you work?”
“Just over there, in that building.” I felt the need to add something. “I only started a few months ago.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “So you did one of those degrees that actually gets you a job.”
Whoa. I stepped back a little.
“Um. Yeah. Environmental engineering. It’s quite vocational…”
“I did Arts. Lucas here did Graphic Design.”
Lucas stiffened and continued making my soy latte in uncomfortable silence.
“Oh.” I tried to nod understandingly. Quick! Say something not condescending! “…Do you find yourself using your skills now? This seems like a pretty… funky place.”
“Nah. Not really.” She looked at me expectantly.
(Cautiously) “Is that disappointing?”
“Yeah. I guess. But we all knew when we were at uni that we weren’t going to get jobs. We were expecting it. Now I want to do Education so I can get a job.”
“Ah… Some of my friends who did Arts have done that and they love Education now.”
“Yeah,” she nodded enthusiastically. “But, you know, I kind of look back on it and think, ‘What was the point of those three years?’ “
“Surely it wasn’t a waste of three years, though…” I murmured.
“One soy latte.” Lucas had spoken for the first time. He pushed my take-away cup towards me.
“Thanks.” I wrapped my fingers around the insulated hotness.
“See you next time!” she called as, stepping back onto the street, I walked towards my professional career.
Is BA really short for “Bachelor of Arts”? Someone once told me that it was short for “Bar Attendant”.
Anyway, what a terrible attitude, who needs a job anyway?
If I didn’t have uni to worry about, I could commit myself full-time to all those things that are normally considered to be procrastination… work, pfffft.
Gloria Jeans hot chocolate with cream. The best “generic” hot chocolate ever.
As someone who is in the ‘arts’ industry I have to say that the attitude is fairly typical. I see a lot of people like that. I feel that in order to really succeed in ‘arts’ you have to a> find your own work; b> be able to constantly get back up after someone has kicked you in the guts; c> ignore the naysayers and do your own thing. A lot of people say you need luck, but with tenacity you make your own luck, It’s not the for the faint of heart. Just my 2 cents.
I am very surprised that someone who did graphic design is having a hard time finding a job. GDs are always in short supply.