“No Need To Hike Up Your Skirt A Little More!”
By: Sig Kal Shore
Typically, people who seek their first jobs via submitting their resumes into the cavernous Monster.com can quickly feel like they’re using a method quite similar to the typical prostitute’s evening work approach…
“Head to the street corner and show some skin.”
Offering their resume to any and every company who ‘wants a piece of this’, padding their resumes like push-up bras and hiking up their accomplishments like call girls hike up her skirt – all hoping to entice any customer capable enough of footing their hourly rate.
What happens if he wants more than a tantalizing resume? What of the employer who wants to know if there’s any substance behind those sexy grade point measurements? Who wants something deeper than the skin-deep summer jobs these young work-seekers promise they’ve performed.
For the standard resume actually offers little mention of purpose. Of mission. Of passion. And of calling. And for the employer- there is no written description regarding commitment. Or shared hopes. Or common values and mutual aspirations. Of desire for synergy, cooperation and co-creation.
Hey- sometimes you’re just looking for the quickest buck.
So often, the posted resume vacuously offers it wares to the highest bidder- and promises to return the payment – from any Dick or Tom - with unarguably the performance of one of the most intimate, sacred, significant and priceless acts an individual could possibly perform….work.
For the wonderful gift of work would hopefully demand more than the one’s uninhabited mechanical body. And one’s work really should be aflame with the very unquantifiable fire associated with one’s own unique human adventure- that of a human being actualizing their own purpose. Their very own mission. Their very own passion.
Now please don’t mistake this call for passionate work as a ‘call to work with non-profits’ or to ‘work for nothing’. Or to work without ambition. Or for low pay. The criticism is aimed entirely on the passionate-less work experience. Because one’s work really is one of the most valuable things you can give.
Read carefully- we ain’t deriding dollars. If the enemy is meaningless sex then the victor isn’t meaningful conversation. It’s …. meaningful sex. Because a great body, great mind and great soul…will always trump a great body.
And yes- such mates/jobs are out there!
No one is ranting against materialism …just the fact that playing for a paycheck and only a paycheck is like spending 8 hours of life energy in a passionate-less uncreative office in addictive hope of a fleeting momentary orgasm.
Make no mistake- champions of the truly wonderful art of capitalism need not champion monotony, acquiesce to inauthenticity—or even volunteer to being chained to a desk till 11PM or till their next promotion- whichever comes first.
Better stuff is out there. And better stuff might mean a better paycheck- and it certainly means more than just a better paycheck..
For right work is not something that can be fully waged- though it includes appropriate wages. And one’s life energy can not really be entirely cash valued – though it includes appropriate cash value.
Where we choose to dedicate our daily creative output is probably one of the two most significant decisions we’ll ever make (the other probably being in the realm of relationships- i.e. life partner selection or at least - whom we choose to relate with).
And thus, excluding instances in which a human being is simply starving and truly desperate for the most immediate cash flow- a far rarer occurrence in this country than every whining graduate lamenting the job search would have you believe - It’s time we started calling the one’s who’s committed to ‘looking for a job – fire off my resume to anyone who will hire me – desperate for cash – find me on monster search’ for what he or she really is – …the wandering vocational whore.
( Editor’s Note: That might have gone too far… Hmmm….To be politically correct, how about we add “The wandering vocational whore: Not that there’s anything wrong with it.” Could that work? )
But to this we hear a furious, reflexive defense: “But that’s how one gets their (drum roll…) …. start! Beggars can’t be choosers! That’s how job searches are conducted at the junior levels!”
Well to ignore such insulting of all recent university graduates (beggars?) and new young ivy-league-graduating lawyers who barrage every possible firm with their willingness to join any high bidder (beggars?) – there is still some truth to that argument.
To be fair, till now- there haven’t been that many alternatives for the young job seeker. But it still hurts.
For if juniors need to be hired through vocational whoring – their posting their job hopes on Monster feels not unlike the desperate housewife’s uploading her naked anonymous picture on the meet-for-‘encounter’ page with a tag-line of ‘Call me!”
At least those one rung up the corporate ladder get the privilege of using real text descriptions and the somewhat more personal ‘personals page’. Here the newly single can describe their ambitions, their experiences on past dates, their hopes, their dreams and what they’re truly looking for. Here its not all about measuring stats and quantifying skills – but also considering one’s future plans and maybe just maybe…the flickers of one’s emerging passions.
And those even a step ‘hire-up’ – get to meet the matchmaker herself. Say hello to the headhunter! Who just called YOU!
Now, very interestingly, at this the tier, the job-seeker aren’t the beggars- they’re the ones answering the requests. These corporate types are clearly choosers- choosing to hear offer after offer – offers that come right to them! No street corner required!
They weigh signing bonuses, attend interviews and court possibilities that seek – finally- at least a rudimentary fit between one’s purpose and one’s pay, one’s mission and one’s occupation, one’s night-time hopes and dreams and one’s daytime objectives and tasks.
They have the chance to authentically seek some congruence between their work strengths and their work situations. Between one’s inimitable soul print and one’s patented businesses card.
Finally some fit.
The whore finally retires and the marriage between mission and organization finally begins.
But what for those impatient and insistent junior job-seekers seeking a matchmaker/headhunter before they climb the ladder? What of those early juniors who know that time spent on wrong rungs is really awful, ridiculous and – in a capitalist society so rich with opportunity- absolutely non-required?
Must even approaching the fringes of purpose, of one strengths and of one’s mission be limited to the one who’s ‘paid their dues’?
Are we required to do a stint of slavery before attaining authenticity?
(Note- we aren’t arguing for laziness or denying the value of hierarchy- we didn’t whiningly complain ‘Are we really required to do a stint of hard work before before attaining major financial success?’
No one’s preaching the avoidance of healthy struggle or denying the chronology of well-earned personal and financial development! We just wonder if there’s a way to the finish line that lets you keep your integrity fully intact. )
Are we expected to deceive, repress, ignore, isolate, refuse or overlook our strengths for ‘just for a few years’ – or in fact- in a free country- is such treason both a crime against one’s innate gifts and a felony of bad faith to one’s employers who seeks his hire’s honest-to-goodness best contribution?!
…And in fact is the prerequisite for reaching the rung of authentic work - or at least semi-authentic work - not slavery or submission but simply… self- consciousness?
To play the mission game and not the job whore – might the only absolute requirement be - some awareness of your own daemon? Some minimal wakefulness to your strengths? Some faint detection of your own innate vocational impulse?
And yes – lest we be confused with impractical (and homeless) idealists rather than what we truly are- namely, profoundly realistic capitalists who demand more from life --- Is some embryonic understanding of one’s economic engine- really impossible to obtain with one’s rational mind and intuitive heart? Or in fact is this kernel of knowledge only found on the other side of long-term job experiences and multiple-page career histories?
Well, maybe others must have lengthy job experiences before such emerging understandings emerge but scientists have cited unique studies that show how some children learn to cross the street at a green light even before they’ve been frequently hit by a car.
Shocking.
Of course- for all others- they’re always lengthy trial and error.
Maybe we’re arrogant but some of us believe that basic financial literacy, simple economic envisioning, uncomplicated career planning and even rudimentary market analysis is (shockingly) sometimes available to the still not-yet-employed.
And thus today- for those impatient young ‘uns - we have some good news to announce. Authentic jobs that you love and that love you back are not just available- today they’re findable.
Because today- we invite you off the ladder…and unto the fast track. This route skips the steps from whore…. to relationship. In fact, the itinerary up isn’t via a ladder at all. Invitees get their own personal altitude adjustment.
These lucky seekers finally get a chance …. to pursue right work, right pay and right fit…and try CV4D.
This essay is dedicated to my father and mother.
Without their hard work, very significant financial assistance, constant emotional support, spiritual teachings, instilled self-confidence and intelligent advice – I might have been a whore too.
(And Mom- thanks for giving me the chance to build a way to help other potential prostitutes find a life beyond the desperate street corner!)
The Fast Track To UP.
Been swallowed by the Monster?
Try CV4D instead.
Faster, more comfortable …and a lot less degrading.