SefardiLady over at http://www.orthonomics.blogspot.com/ has a posting that I'm suggesting you read, but not until you've eaten dinner and it's digested; otherwise, it may ruin your meal.
In the posting, titled "Unwilling to Start at the Bottom of the Ladder," she reprints a letter from the Yated. That letter has me so upset that I can't comment in an intelligent or even intelligible manner at the moment. For some of my opinion about the subject matter see a previous posting of mine http://conversationsinklal.blogspot.com/2007/12/ideal-jobs-or-work-is-grim-fairytale.html Perhaps when the aspirin kick in and my justifiable homicidal urges of the moment pass I might be able to organize my thoughts into a post.
5 comments:
I sense a rant coming on and I don't think it's going to be pretty.
no wonder with an attitude like that many jews disparage secular learning and accomplishments. when i see how hard my sons are working in college and associated internships , when i remember the long way for me to get my ph.d., the truly low pay in clinics where work was way above 40 hours per week, and later passing my state boards, i get very frightened for the future of many of our young people: the world will not adjust to you, and i am sure that you overestimate your talents. all this will result in bitterness and further alienation from the secular world. on the other hand, these folk are more than willing to use medical doctors and all the conveniences that are a function of secular knowledge, effort and work.
Thanks for the link. If this bochur was in my home, I don't think I'd be able to hold back. Would I tell him about my audit internship at just over $7 an hour when minimum wage wasn't much less. Would I tell him about the days when babysitting job meant $1 a hour per child (and how many of us saved up a good chunk of change while at it)? Would I tell him about the terrible telephone job I worked one summer? Or perhaps I would talk about groveling for my first minimum wage job ($4.25 an hour) and how I had to put up with a boss that really didn't seem to like me because I knew I needed something on my resume?
Ugh, ugh, ugh.
BTW, When you are at your local library next, you might enjoy the read 'Generation Me.' It is an insightful book that looks at the self-esteem movement, feelings of entitlement, oversized expectations and how young people and their employers are affected in the job place among other topics. I hope to do a book review on this book soon. I would highly recommend this book to parents.
One more thing, I disagreed with some of her conclusions in the final chapter, but thought the author did a great job of researching and footnoting. A worthwhile read.
My mom was in my house when I read the posting by SL and we discussed it. She kept saying that it sounds like these people think they are "besareh mentschen." My yiddish isn't great but I got her point that somehow these people think they are above the rest of us and don't have to do what we have to do. Might be an idea for a future posting.
Post a Comment