Irretrievable Decisions

[mallorys_camera]

Dispiriting conversation with Max a couple of days ago. He cannot find a job. This is a kid who's brilliant, accomplished and who graduated with honors from Stanford University.

I'm tempted to blame this on the fact that he's living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Except a little bit of research reveals that the official unemployment rate in the San Francisco Bay Area is down to 6%. Higher than that for his demographic cohort, I'm imagining, the cohort with the unfortunate Marvel comix nickname, the Millennials.

For whatever reason, Max decided to put off law school applications for a year. I think he's waffling. I don't necessarily blame him. Worst case scenario: He graduates from law school with $100,000 worth of debt and he still can't find a job. Or he can find a job, because with his grades and LSAT scores, he can get into a top-ten school. But it's a job with one of those big, unscrupulous Lockhart & Gardener type firms where he's expected to toil 80 hours a week if he wants to pay off those school loans, and he might as well shoot himself.

I don't quite understand why he decided to put off the law school application process, but I suspect in his own mind he's not sure he wants to be a lawyer.

"So don't be a lawyer," I said to him on the phone. "Get a teaching credential. I think you'd be a brilliant teacher. Thing is, honey, you gotta do something --"

"Mom. Chill. I know I have to do something."

But does he?

When he was visiting me in Ithaca a couple of years ago, he picked a very deliberate fight with me. "I think it's entirely your fault that I'm unable to commit to stuff," he said.

I was flabbergasted.

"Well, you kept pounding it into my head that I should never make any decisions that were -- 'irretrievable,' I believe, is the word that you used."

I thought this accusation very unjust.

"Max," I said, "I meant irretrievable in the context of your adolescence. Like you shouldn't get some 17 year old girl whose parents don't believe in abortions -- which is 99% of the parents in Monterey County -- pregnant. And you shouldn't be busted with half an ounce of pot -- even if the local authorities don't prosecute -- because you'll never be eligible for a federally insured school loan. That kind of thing. I didn't mean you should never commit yourself to anything."

I'm fairly sure that Max's job woes are at least in part due to geography. The Bay Area has always sucked as far as undifferentiated jobs go -- there are just too many people competing for them. But Max is not going to leave the Bay Area. He was born and raised in Northern California and is in a serious relationship with a woman who was born and raised in Northern California. Liza did her Yale stint plus one additional year freezing in New Haven and then she went Home. I doubt she's gonna live anywhere outside California again. And Max is in love with Liza.

You either love California, or you can't wait to leave.

Out of all the RLS posse, I would have thought Nathan the most unlikely to leave California, but he's the one a decade later whom I don't think is ever going back. Not even after he inherits the impressive ________ mansion. I think when John and Celeste die, Nathan will sell the house, invest in secure municipal bonds and hightail it back to the East Coast ASAP.

###

Jeremy and I have become close pals to the extent that it's possible for a 61 year old white woman to become close pals with a 25 year old African American man. We duck out at lunchtime and go for long riverside strolls together during which we talk about our hopes and fears. Jeremy isn't particularly optimistic about his future either. He's doing the VISTA thing because he didn't want to spend the rest of his life as a busboy at Appleby's.

"It's so tough for your generation," I say. "You know, the incredibly high taxes you're gonna be paying for the rest of your life are not gonna buy you one fucking thing. You'll merely be paying interest on loans from the Chinese that went to pay for my generation's entitlements."

Jeremy laughs. "We'll default," he says. "We'll host the flash mob revolution! And don't worry, Patrizia. When we're cornering Boomers in the streets and herding them into the reeducation camps, I'll hide you in my root cellar."

"You don't have a root cellar," I point out.

"Well, there is that," he agrees. "Maybe you should be worried."

Comments

[cah1470.livejournal.com]

I worry for Cam because I know he absolutely must go to college but I also work with so many 20somethings with a mortgage worth of school loan debt who when they finally do find jobs are paid $12 per hour. The guys at the warehouse for example are all two or three to an apartment and still can barely afford the car they must have to exist in our sprawl, lack of reliable public transportation area. What exactly is the smart move for a 17 year old these days? I am 43 and cringe at the debt I am left with after the grant my son won't qualify for and the money my job blessedly offers. Of course if he doesn't go to college then he will be lucky to find any job. I saw a a career builder posting for a receptionist that required at least a 2 year associate and 5 years experience and the job paid $9 per hour. When my cousin came down to visit he was already talking about graduate school because he didn't think a four year degree was enough education to guarantee a good job. I couldn't help but think, so what now you need a PhD to make $12?

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

The college and credentialing push is designed to keep people out of the job market for as long as possible so they can't compete with the millions who are barely hanging on to middle class status, in my never humble opinion.

It's further complicated by the fact that education is now a commodity in the strict economic sense, that, indeed, the very process of applying to college is a multi-billion dollar a year business.

My youngest kid barely made it through high school. In his senior year, he was blessed to find a teacher who understood him and so was in a position to mentor him, and Robin did spectacularly well on his senior thesis, enough to mitigate the C- average he'd had in his first three years and get in -- purely on the basis of recommendations -- into a really good university. He elected to do a straight science curriculum -- not because he has any particular aptitude for science, but because he didn't want to end up in the same marginal economic position as his loser parents.

If he hadn't found that teacher in his senior year, I was going to lobby hard -- and probably unsuccessfully -- against college. Scrape up the $$$ from somewhere and offer to send him to plumbing school. Seriously. That way, he'd have a skill that (should he decide to exercise it) would always earn him cash, and if he decided that college was worth it in a few years, he could put himself through it.

If I was graduating from high school right now, I'd go the community college route. Seriously.

[cah1470.livejournal.com]

I have to agree on all counts in my never humble opinion. BTW "unscrupulous Lockhart & Gardener type firms" I hope you were watching "The Good Wife" Sunday night. I barely have time to breathe these days but I make time for "The Good Wife"...

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

The Good Wife is My Very Favorite TV Show! It just keeps getting better and better and better.

[alexkaufmann]

If I was graduating from high school right now, I'd go the community college route. Seriously.

As a high school teacher, I am recommending this route more and more.

Before the recent economic unpleasantness, college was a no-brainer. You'd make up in lifetime earnings what it cost to go-- even when it had become insanely expensive.

Now, the math has changed and people are having a hard time adjusting to the new realities.

I find myself at transition meetings saying some variation of "Since you're going to be taking core requirements the first two years of college anyway, why not take them at a community college? It's significantly cheaper and, the less you have to spend on college, the less behind the 8-ball you will be financially when you graduate."

Many parents look at me like I've just grown a second head.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Well. College is a status thing. Community college = no status.

But I agree with you 100 percent.

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

What was his major? The area is booming again tech-wise.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

His major was developmental biology. Initially, he was interested in medical school.

I think the only three types of jobs you can get without grad school are in sales, in marketing or in IT. He has the wrong personality for sales and marketing (that's a compliment, in case you couldn't tell) and has no aptitude for IT.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Gal at work has a daughter in the Bay Area -- with a Master's degree - waiting tables.
And considers herself lucky to have that job.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

What's her Master's degree in?

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

I do not know for sure - I suspect it is something artsy like poetry.

[platofish.livejournal.com]

Resumes are a strange thing..... over the years I've read many, and almost always come to some kind of conclusion really quickly. Could be something about his resume is instantly off putting?

In the past I've know students with almost identical CVs (very similar courses and GPAs, comparable extra-curricular activities,....). One was invited to interview for 9 out of 10 jobs she applied for, whereas the other got 1 half hearted response back. I read both of their cover letters and resumes and couldn't see any tangible difference. I guess it was some instant like vs not like thing on the part of the employers.

I seen a resume recently by someone with an MBA. The first point in his list of 'skills' was 'Excel expert'. I would have assumed that was a given for someone applying for a job analyzing financial spreadsheets, so his resume rang huge bells.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Could be something about his resume is instantly off putting?


Could be.

I think also since he's a really honest person, he's signaling his unavailability after Sept 15 (which is ostensibly the date he'd be starting law school.) No job that requires any degree of training is going to want to invest that training in someone who's only going to be around for a year and a half.