I went in for a haircut the other day and was about to take a seat when the barber asked me to wait until he’d swept up. He got a broom from the corner, swept up all the hair clumps from around the haircutting chair, then bent over and scooped them into a trash bucket all by himself.
Sweep, sweep, sweep.
I used to work on construction sites when I was in high school, then as a housepainter after college, and most recently in a greenhouse filling pots with dirt. All of these jobs involved picking up a broom at the end of the day and sweeping up, which I always found strangely fulfilling—a way of acknowledging that the day was over, that you’d accomplished something, and that you could start the next day on a cleaner note.
But these were also low-level jobs that were fairly easy for me to get, and I always saw them as the type of job you worked for a while and then got out of. Yet here I was watching my barber, a fiftysomething guy with a highly marketable skill and his own business (which was clearly doing well since I’d had to wait a half hour for my haircut on a Tuesday afternoon) doing the same sweeping I’d done as a freshman in high school, except he was sweeping up hair instead of sawdust.
Why do we act like people who sweep floors as part of their job duties are beneath us? Furthermore, why do we act that way about any kind of job at all? The world would fall apart if we didn’t have people to clean our buildings, fix our cars, deliver our packages, or hang stoplights from traffic poles. Quite the opposite, in fact: these jobs are far more important than others I could name, like marketing consultants or insurance claim processors.
Sweep, sweep, sweep.
A lot of times, the roughest jobs even pay more than the jobs we traditionally think of as being higher status. People who work on offshore oil rigs can make $300 a day, with three weeks off in between shifts and all their food paid for, so that’s a pretty sweet gig. I’m also pretty sure that the guys fixing my car at the mechanic also make way more than I did at my first office job (and with fewer student loans!) even though for some reason they were the ones calling me Sir when I came in still wearing my shirt and tie.
So if money doesn’t make us respect certain jobs more than others, what does?
One explanation is that white-collar workers are more educated, but I don’t buy this either. It takes a lot of skill to teach a college course or become an engineer, but it also takes a lot of skill to be a great carpenter, an electrician, or a chef, not to mention the mechanic who needs to know how transmissions and braking systems work. Like the barber who has to sweep up after every haircut, these jobs all involve working with your hands rather than a computer, but both kinds require tremendous knowledge, problem-solving, mental dexterity, and understanding of the field.
Like the above meme implies, I don’t believe people who work certain kinds of jobs are somehow deserving of a higher social status than people who work other kinds of jobs. Working should be about finding the job that’s best for you, the one where you can do work that makes you feel fulfilled, preferably in an environment that you enjoy and that fosters your growth and the improvement of the world around you (as many millennials are now opting for). It doesn’t matter what form this job takes: if you’re good at it and earn the living that fits your needs, I consider you more of a success than someone who makes more money or spent more time in college.
Sweep, sweep, sweep.
How does the Day Job philosophy fit into all this? If you’re working a job (or looking for one) to keep the bills paid while you work on something creative, you’re going to get the most out of your time if you can find a Day Job that pays more money so you don’t have to spend as much time there—or a Day Job that leaves you feeling focused and ready to do your creative work on your off time. What kind of social status the job brings you is irrelevant—the important thing is what it can do for you.
We often limit ourselves by saying we could never work certain kinds of job because they would be “beneath us,”* which sounds really stupid when you spell it out like that (hence the air quotes). Not pursuing certain opportunities can lead to your missing out on sweet gigs that pay more than you think, or that come with other sweet perks that in turn lead to your getting more creative work done.
Bottom Line:
There are tons of great opportunities out there, especially the ones that most people don’t want, so why let worries about social status stop you from going after the rewards you need to get your shit done?
Sweep, sweep, sweep.
Side Note:
* I borrowed this phrase from an old high-school friend who used to have a sweet job at a sandwich counter during the summers. He made good money and got free sandwiches (and they were damned good, too), but after he finished college he didn’t go back because he felt it would be “beneath him.” Instead of earning money, he spent the summer bored and basically doing nothing because he hadn’t found another job yet, and felt regretful when he told me about it afterward.
I’m not a big fan of wasting time, so I don’t recommend making the same mistake my friend did (especially since he couldn’t get any more of those sweet free sandwiches…).