Cashing Out

What a difference a year makes

May 17, 2009: I was suffering the emotional assault of finals, senior week, and graduation with a smile. From my perch at the end of the alphabet of my graduating class, I was considering an elite private college as $200,000 well spent. It was 2009 and while the Dow continued to plummet my hopes were buoyed. Of course I would remain friends with my classmates for life. It was understood that after my first million I would donate a new wing to a building. If I could just endure the litany of platitudes from speakers neglecting the collective hangover of my class, I would happily retreat from the green to clean out my room and wish my friends well. After all, I had a JOB, the three-letter word that sent ‘09’ers racing to the career office in fits of hysteria. Of course, my employment was nothing glamorous. One tier above fetching coffee, I was hired on a limited basis but was optimistic about the prospects for advancement. “Limited term” was an issue of semantics. After a week’s reprieve from college, I raced off to my miniature studio apartment.

Magna cum laude to cashier-a slippery slope

I made new friends, travelled the country, gained access to events I’d only seen on TV, and secured the promotion to remain with my company. I also languished in a drab cubicle, underutilized- the plight of most entry-level positions. My intellectual property rights were hijacked to the point of an idea being patented without my knowledge. A mercenary to international marketing campaigns, I lived at hotels for weeks operating on minimal sleep. On the few weekends I was free from work, I hemorrhaged my meager wages in New York City. Among my friends, the fact that I boasted a “cool job” was the consensus, but it did little to pay the rent. After nearly a year, I considered grad school, begged for a transfer, and finally worked up the gumption to leave the job that marked the pinnacle of my college career. Of course a deluge of applicants immediately filled the ungrateful vacuum I vacated. Suddenly I was no longer on a trajectory to make Fortune 500 by 25. In fact, leaving my job represented first deviation in the great “plan” I engineered early in life to guarantee enormous success.

Graduation was almost frenetic with promise. Fast forward to 13 months later, and I’m skulking around my parents’ house demanding to know what “we” are doing for the day. There’s no need to ask, the schedule is rigid. I wake up with purpose, only to remember that business casual is not mandatory for the unemployed. I run on the same paths I prodded on in high school, do errands with my mom praying to avoid anyone who anticipated that I would be immediately successful, and devote the duration of the day to futile online job searches.

I’m 23. My “we” formerly consisted of a peer network in New York City and the freedom to explore everything at my disposal. I traded the world’s most cosmopolitan metropolis for suburbia in search of a new job and the hope for relocation to what I deemed the Promised Land: Colorado. Thankfully, my capable sister and her industrious husband recently acquired a convenience store and penciled me in the schedule as a cashier. That position seemed fairly commensurate with my qualifications as an economics major, and shockingly not a dramatic pay cut.

Training day

My sister obviously took not-so-secret pleasure in outfitting her formerly over-achieving sister with the awkward fitting red piqued polo and delineated the code of conduct. To date, my most frequent violation is undoubtedly texting on the job. The no-cell-on-the-register rule is in direct conflict with my compulsion to keep my BlackBerry visible at all times, like a signal of my perceived self-importance.

Duties must be fairly standard across these establishments. Politely make change for patrons and tidy up fastidiously when free. At the end of the night, ensure $100 of opening cash is in the register. Ostensibly I make sweeping an art form and use more Windex than the cast of My Big Fat Greek Wedding; in actuality I’m fantasizing about get-rich-quick schemes and if it’s truly too late to make an obscure Olympic team. I observe the patrons who shop at least once daily, blue collar individuals who subsist on the daily exchange of minimum wage for white bread and milk. I smile graciously when they discard change in the Take-a-Penny jar, even when my sister chides me that the coins are not a tip. The accumulation of spare change vindicates my shift and distracts me from sweeping curdled raw meet from the deli recesses.

Riding bikes and walking to work as I coast into the parking lot in a car I can hardly afford, my coworkers are among the most dedicated individuals I’ve ever encountered. Some are single parents; one has six children and two grandchildren monopolizing her resources. Obligated to work two jobs, often overnight, it’s not surprising that at 36 she has had a heart attack and has no financial recourse but to continue. They maintain a tenable pride in the community and their daily efforts to support local needs. I can’t afford to demonstrate disdain in my under-employment in the face of coworkers with such conviction.

Dwindling ROI

My parents call it paying your dues; I call it disillusionment and a poor return on investment of intellectual capital. Admittedly, I lived (and continue to enjoy) a charmed life. Suburban upbringing, encouraging family, private college, the trifecta for anticipated success. I always had part-time jobs growing up, from scoring basketball games to shelving books at the public library, through interning at various consulting firms during summer breaks from college. Yet somehow, sixteen years of high-achievement in school renders me grappling for shifts with people trying to feed their families on minimum wage. It doesn’t take my over-priced economics degree to realize that something has gone awry with the American financial system.

Granted, much of my dismay is self-inflicted. Perhaps my expectations were grossly misappropriated, and I did elect to leave my job. I mistakenly thought my credentials and improving economic conditions would result in a new job in a new city by the fall. Instead, my roughly 40 recently submitted resumes have yet to register a response from online databases, absorbing my qualifications into a black hole of unemployed oblivion.

I’m fortunate. My parents are generous and understanding, providing the support to continue searching. Most members of the class of 2009 are not as lucky, and are relegated to jobs that pay the rent instead of pursuing the increasingly elusive American Dream. I read years ago that our generation would be the first not to exceed the standard of living achieved by our parents. I’m certainly glad I savored my childhood, but refuse to abandon hope of one day becoming a mogul.

Can I get a "hell yeah" from all the econ majors of '09?