Here’s a question for Labor Day weekend – ever wonder how many jobs you will hold in your career? Between 1978 and 2008, the Bureau of Labor Statistics conducted a study to determine the answer to this very question. The findings showed that during this 30-year span, Americans, ages 18-44, held, on average, 11 different jobs.
It seems that job hopping is the new normal, with the average American staying in his or her job for just 4.4 years. For Millennials, those (born between 1977-1997), it’s less than three years.
With change a constant and job security a thing of the past, it’s getting more and more difficult to bring home the bacon and fill up one’s piggy bank. Workers have to be resourceful, using “everything but the squeal”, when it comes to finding gainful employment. Take, for example, the resume of this Average Joe who just couldn’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear when it came to his career:
My first job was working at Starbucks, but I decided to quit because it was always the same old grind. In college, I thought I’d try my hand at a professional career in tennis, but it wasn’t my racket. I was too high strung. I thought about being a historian, but I couldn’t see a future in it, so I enrolled in flight school.
I tried working as a pilot, but tended to wing it, and I didn’t have the right altitude. When I got laid off from the airlines, I moved to California and managed to get a good job working for a pool maintenance company, but the work was just too draining. So, I worked for a while in a shoe factory, but I just didn’t fit in. They thought I was a loafer, and I got the boot.
Then I worked in the woods as a lumberjack, but I just couldn’t hack it, so they, too, gave me the ax. Next I tried working in a car muffler factory, but that was exhausting. I turned to a career in sales, and I loved my job selling origami paper, but the business folded. So, I went to another sales position. This time, I was selling Velcro, but I just couldn’t stick with it.
I thought I’d go back to my roots as an athlete and work as a personal trainer in a gym, but they said I wasn’t fit for the job. So, I took a job as an elevator operator. That job had its ups and downs, but I managed just fine until, one day, I got the shaft. UPS hired me to deliver packages, but I couldn’t express myself. So I’ve retired, and I find I’m a perfect fit for the job!
This Labor Day weekend, if you’re gainfully employed (or happily retired), take a moment to wallow in the blessing. If you happen to love your job, or, if you have been with the same company for years, then you’ve been doubly blessed – you should be as happy as a pig in mud. No matter where you stand in the job market, we hope you’ll…
Live high on the hog this weekend,
~Bob
Happy Labor Day from All of Us at Matchmaker Logistics!
