Youth of Today...

Sometimes you see something which is clearly well-intentioned but which, nonetheless, leaves you asking: 'what's the bloody point?' Which is precisely my reaction to the BBC's current strand on youth unemployment. It is perfectly reasonable to ask questions about the attitudes of the 'youth of today' toward employment, whether their expectations are too high, whether they have too much sense of entitlement or whether too much exposure to reality TV and TV talent shows has left them believing that you can go straight to the top, without all that career progression nonsense. However, the obvious fact is that the reason youth unemployment is currently so high, is simply because there aren't sufficient jobs of any description out there. Which rather renders the earnest discussions on the BBC's current programming utterly irrelevant.

From what I've seen of the TV segments of the strand, it also seems to be falling into the tired old cliches of graduates seeing non-graduate positions as 'beneath' them, and various 'self made' business people lecturing young unemployed people on how they should take any jobs going, and how doing even menial work is a valuable experience and 'character forming'. Again, the trouble with all of this is that when there are no jobs available, it is all academic. Moreover, it's largely bollocks. I'm a graduate, and like most graduates, I've done all manner of crappy low paid jobs for which I have no aptitude at various times, in order to make ends meet. Indeed, I'm pretty much doing such a job now. You do what you have to do in order to pay the bills. That said, I can't say I've found any of these work experiences particularly valuable or 'character forming'. That's a myth perpetuated by unscrupulous employers to justify poor conditions and low pay. The only lesson I've learned from any of these jobs is the shocking degree to which employers will exploit people, particularly those from the lower end of the social scale.

These programmes fall into the trap of believing that people have 'ideal jobs' that they should aspire to, and that anything else is just a stepping stone to this. Unfortunately, this implies that if you don't ever achieve this ideal. you've somehow failed. The reality is that most people have little choice in the kind of work they do, or much hope of 'progression'. I stopped believing in this employment 'Shangri La' a long time ago - I've come to the conclusion that the ancient Greeks had it right, that all work is disutility, a punishment placed on man by the gods. As a result, I've stopped worrying about what I do to earn a living - my job doesn't define me, it is merely something I do, rather than being a reflection of who I actually am.