Around the age of sixteen, my parents made me get my first job. It was pretty basic: working as a camp counselor at a hockey camp. There wasn’t much difficulty to the job. You showed up at 8:30 in the morning, tied skates, helped on the ice for their first session, got off the ice and ran dryland drills, made sure they didn’t make a mess of the lunch room, and then did it all over again in the afternoon. To me, it was the perfect first job. There were ups and downs, but that’s what life’s all about right?
In my six years of working and however many years I babysat before that, there’s no such thing as the perfect job, just as there’s no such thing as a terrible job. A job is a job, no matter how dirty or sedentary your position happens to be. You could be working at McDonald’s, sweating in long black pants and a red polo shirt when the AC breaks, and the job may not be completely fun at all times, but it’s a job and you’re employed. You could be CEO of a Fortune 500 company, sit back and work through emails, attend conferences all over the country and dislike your job despite the pay, but it’s a job and you’re employed.
My overall point, basically, is that despite whatever shortcomings the job may have and whatever perks you may find through your time in that particular position, a job is a job. Waiting for the perfect job to come around will only bankrupt you of money and hope, so what’s it going to hurt to find a job in the meantime, do some soul searching, and maybe you’ll see that the job you didn’t immediately jump into might end up being a job you don’t mind.
It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to get to where you want to be, just as long as you don’t ever stop trying. We’ll have plenty of rough jobs before we finally get to the point where we land that dream job. Finishing college doesn’t ensure you’re going to get that one job right away, no way. The hard part has only just begun, but that’s what makes it all the fun as we navigate through adulthood. I’ll provide a personal example, just cause that’s mostly why I’m so adamant about this topic.
I’ve worked in positions varying from greenhouse assistant, where I literally go home covered in soil and mulch from moving plants for twelve hours six days a week, to marketing jobs where I sit in an office thirty-five hours a week and filter through photos for a blog. Honestly, in all my experience, there’s not one job I inherently dislike to a large enough extent not to do it again. Every position taught me something, but more so I think it’s important to remember that we may all be college graduates, but we’re not below any position.
Know you deserve a decent wage and a decent chance to get a good entry-level position, but you’re not below anything yet. If anything, as far as entry-level jobs go, you’re at the bottom of the totem pole. So find something that interests you or something to get you started and work your way up. We all may have a long way to go, but we definitely can’t get too picky yet when it comes to that first real job.
Being employed is more important at the start than finding the right fit. We have many months, years, and trials to see what works for us. And as recent college graduates, it might not hurt to get your hands dirty (maybe even literally) just to see another side of yourself. Who knows, you might learn something about another subject entirely or maybe even about yourself. So take a chance, find something interesting and go for it. It may be the only time you can.
