Monday Morning quarterback
The week of Oct. 1st - I try to get a job at a restaurant
Welcome to Monday Morning Quarterback.
This is where I share a real-life experience and the coolest things I saw this week (TikTok’s, Tweets, quotes, essays, etc.)
If you want to chat about anything I share you can comment on this post, send me Twitter DM, or hit me up on TikTok.
Experience:
I don’t want to find a corporate job anymore, because there is no job for me. There’s no career in corporate America I want to do for anything other than a paycheck.
Just look at any careers page, there are 5 jobs → Sales, Marketing, Ops, Engineering, and Product.
Imagine telling little Billy he could only be one of those 5 careers. But there is a big difference between little Billy and adult Billy. Big Billy has realized the monopoly he played as a kid is the same monopoly you play when you’re grown up. Except it’s real and even less fun.
From a young age, we’re trained to play the game. The private school and suburban kids are raised to be the white-collar, the inner city and rural kids are raised to be the blue-collar, and the ultra-rich are raised to preside over them as politicians and business owners.
I’m somewhere in between a blue-collar who thinks I’m a white collar and a white-collar who thinks I’m an ultra-rich. Pretending, white collar or blue collar, I will have a collar by the time this is over. Believing the people who told me I have immense potential. Living in an illusion that that potential is anything more than 6 figure salary at a bank.
No, I’m done living in that illusion.
Time to get a job at a restaurant, where I belong.
Begging for the Job:
So, here I am, in Brooklyn New York at 7:33 pm on a Sunday, sitting down after a day of begging restaurants to hire me to write a pretentious manifesto about the struggles of finding a job as a 25-year-old college grad in the biggest city in the country.
“Please! Please! Hire me!”
I’ll work hard, listen to what you say, and do everything right away.
You tell me to jump, I don’t ask how high. No, I jump right through the ceiling.
I’ll work harder than hard, smarter than smart, farter than fart. (Oh wait, that’s the real me, suppress thee)
My routine is simple.
I walk up to the potential owner of my time and request boldly, (depending on who is near) “I’m here to work for you.”
OR (again, depending on the audience) “Are you guys hiring?”
They look at me with discerning eyes and go through their preliminary checklist:
Do I like this person?
Will they fit in here?
Do they deserve a job?
Will I look good if I hire them?
After their quick analysis, they either say,
“We’re not hiring right now” Or “Talk to the manager” Or “Look online.”
The only positive response is the middle one.
If I get that response I walk up to the manager with a full smile on my lips and introduce myself.
They either tell me they aren’t hiring or ask about my experience.
My experience, huh?
Let’s see. VC intern. Investment Banking analyst. Sales Rep. Writer. Social media manager.
Instead of talking about the stuff I worked non-stop on for the past 4 years. Instead of talking about the stuff I sacrificed weekends for. Instead of talking about the stuff that most college business majors would kill for…
I go on a rant about my part-time college job.
“I was a security guard in Beverly Hills in college. I greeted people and worked in high-end restaurants, Hermés, Waldorf Astoria, etc. So, I’m used to dealing with the rich and the rude.”
They respond, “Oh, okay.”
No worries, I feel the same way.
TikToks
George Carlin lost all faith in humanity
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I wish this man were still around. Even though people call him a comedian, he was really a truth-teller who got paid to go up on stage and pull back the curtain. The only problem, and the problem with most entertainers and truth-tellers, is that by telling people the truth and unveiling the curtain, he too became a part of the show.
The Best Way to Insult Someone
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A few bangers in here. My personal favorite: “You’re like the end pieces of a loaf of bread. Everyone touches you but no one wants you.”
Suicide is a political problem, not an individual problem
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This creator does a great job of explaining why suicide is not a personal problem, but a political problem.
Essays
No essays this week.
Media
Moonlight
Moonlight already ranks as one of my favorite movies of all time.
What I loved about it:
The camera work in the opening scene.
How real the scenes in Chiron’s childhood felt. The smear the q***** game (for lack of a better name) in particular.
Juan. I love Juan.
Andre. I love Andre.
The transition from childhood Chiron to high school Chiron to adult Chiron. Each of these versions of Chiron were different, but also similar - the way he holds eye contact, long periods of silence, lack of self-worth, and kind smile.
It ended at the perfect moment. It told us what we needed to know, instead of telling us everything.
Karl Marx - Conflict Theory
This is more of a sociological, historical theory than a political theory. The idea is that human societies and histories are formed by of a series conflicts over the modes of production and our forces and relations to production. Basically, it’s the idea that class conflict is what drives history forward and the best way to resolve class conflict is through a class struggle.
Quote:
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Carl Jung