Wednesday 16 January 2013

A: a hunter-gatherer


Back in the early 90s, I remember sitting around in the pub (I still am), having a conversation with a few others, when one of them said, "We really don't have a higher standard of living than our parents did".

I and a few others looked at the person who said this, wondering whether or not he was talking in his sleep.

This bloke was sitting there, blowing a small amount of his disposable income on beer; had a car parked outside somewhere; his own house; a mobile phone; took at least one continental holiday per year; a good job; free health care; etc. etc.

My generation has come to take all these things for granted, and now that they are slowly (or quickly - time will tell) being taken away, have come to expect them a rights. In the good old days, one meal a day was not considered a 'right' by the ruling classes, no matter how hard the serf worked to pay the tithes.

In one way, my lot has had it so easy, but in another, we seem to have chosen the wrong period of history to get old and poor. Our parents lived through the war, then struggled through the 40s, 50s and 60s until retiring with more disposable income than they ever had before, once their children had grown up and gone.

I could have had any job I desired when I left college (which was effectively free for me), but having seen the two kids struggling to first get a place at college, then work all the way through it to minimise debt when they leave it, then desperately try to think of a way of earning a living doing something which they could bear to spend the rest of their lives on, is a real eye-opener.

Green-Eyed Girl was composing a 400 word 'personal statement' (which is a requirement for anyone who is seeking a place at university or college these days) the other day, and I said I would give her a hand - being 'good at words'. Little did I know the criteria against which this simple statement would be viewed by the officials who decide upon which entrants are even considered at the early stages of an application.

There are pages and pages of examples to look at on the net, and - as I discovered - one wrong word or intonation means a rejection - a fall at the first hurdle. I was far from qualified to give any advice at all.

When was the last time you heard an adult ask a child, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

28 comments:

  1. A friend of mine was so impressed by his grand-daughter's recently written 'personal statement' that he showed it to me with huge pride. It was filled with spelling mistakes and appalling grammar, but I didn't have the heart to tell him. She was applying to Sussex University; I shall be interested to see if she's accepted.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Most can get into college here, although it may be just a junior college or trade school. Paying for it is another story. When my children went on to higher learning 15 years ago, it was expensive but doable. Now one year of school can take take a family's complete income. I do not know how they can do that. Young people are now graduating owing a great deal of money and have few job prospects. There is nothing more important than having a good education, but the ability to afford one is getting more and more difficult, if not impossible.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Arleen. My oldest son left Oxford with huge debts. He is now 42, and has only just been able to buy his own (quite meagre) home!

      Delete
  3. I could write a novel on this Tom but I'll try to restrain myself.

    From folk who survived the London blitz and W.A. during its bust mining period, and have been working their arses off ever since, it took me until my late 30s to finish a degree because it just wasn't cool in this country town when I was a teen to do anything other than get stoned and knocked up.

    If anyone asked me back then what I wanted to do, folk said: "Why would she? She's got a great job at the fish factory, shovelling sardines into cardboard boxes."

    I'd love my kids to get tertiary edumacated but they are so over living with a broke student mother most of their childhood that they want to become electricians and real estate agents.
    God. Fruit of my loins. And so on it goes ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My folk left London during the Blitz, and came to live in Somerset. Fruit of your loins - Fruit de Mer?

      Delete
  4. Interesting read Tom - and yet I read in today's Yorkshire Post that many Universities are highly undersubscribed for next year. I imagine this is a combination of heavy fees to pay and not much prospect of a job at the end. My grandson has an M Sc in Maths but still hasn't found a job.
    On the subject of being better off than our parents - we have got to be haven't we? My mum and dad never owned their own house, never had a car, worked hard all their lives and then struggled to leave £1000 when they died so that the three of us had a 'legacy' - in all three cases the amount we received was less than a month's salary at the time. But they had their pride. And hearing my mother talk about the poverty her grandparents endured was a real eye-opener. But now something has gone wrong hasn't it with the present generation?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Every time a big supermarket chain inflicts another store on a town high street, they say they are creating x amount of jobs in the area - positions for shelf-stackers with PhDs.

      Delete
  5. Hello Tom:
    Well, we certainly get asked the question from time to time!! Of course, as the 'Peter Pan and Wendy' that we are, we have absolutely no intention of growing up at all!!!

    We do find the whole idea of young people saddled with enormous debts due to educational fees most depressing and count ourselves very fortunate indeed to have had a 'free' education.

    ReplyDelete
  6. P.S. Students are regularly on the streets of Budapest these days in protests over tuition fees at universities. In addition, youth unemployment is soaring and many young people see their futures abroad!!! The grass is by no means greener on the other side we often say as they set their sights on the UK!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Many of the Poles who came here a few years ago are returning home for that reason. The Chinese are becoming more plentiful, and are possibly a vanguard for times to come. The Bulgarians and Hungarians who scare Cro so much have always wandered the face of the earth, but these days, very few people get their knives re-sharpened by a street-vendor, and roadside dancing displays seem to have gone out of fashion, especially since they banned bear-baiting.

      Delete
  7. Somewhere along the way those of us in the West got it into our heads that work that you did with your hands was a bad thing. We, or rather the 'Powers that Be', decided that we would stop making real hands on 'things' and perform services and design packages for people elsewhere. So now most young people don't know how to do anything with their hands other than use keyboards and joysticks. Two of my sons have left the countries of their birth to teach English in foreign lands. The third is now in Canada and looking. We were the lucky generation, Tom -- no doubt about it...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. True, Broad. Us Brits are becoming the nation of shop-keepers that Hitler always said we were. There is true innovation potential in this country, but we cannot compete with Malaysia and China when it comes to production. Idiotic government policy now encourages 'entrepeneurialism' (however you spell it), and the new middle-class have lost the use of their hands for social reasons.

      Delete
  8. Dear Tom,
    as a study adviser I had to discuss the question every day - ("had" because since two years I am free-lancing translator today)- and for the young people it it not easy to choose, not easy to pay, not easy to do. It seems that one can only choose between 'fun in studying now - but future very uncertain' and 'no fun now - and maybe a good job.' Maybe. And I hate to think what will become of a society that does not value arts/humanities and gives all the power to MBAs - they work as 'controller' everywhere and really hit the substance out of people's work (e.g. we had one hour for advising - students could come as often as they liked - and nowadays, if you do it earnestly, I would have 25 minutes for advising, and 35 minutes for statistics. Daft!) When I was studying at university I got a bursary - we had to pay the money back in small amounts as soon as we earned our own money, and I think that is OK and fair.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just have to add: I am translating from English to German - not such a word&grammar-mess as the other way round :-)

      Delete
    2. We had 'career advisors' who came in for one day just before we left school. I spent 3 minutes with one, who quickly understood that I was going to be an 'artist', and therefore become unhelpable. The good thing about being an 'artist' is that - traditionally - we cannot be slotted into any specific social strata that governs your 'class' in Britain - even the north/south divide no longer exists, since they closed down the coal-mines - and all heavy industry.

      Germany now owns Rolls Royce, doesn't it?

      Delete
  9. I remember just how my grandparents enjoyed their food.
    One "square" meal one light meal
    Nothing fancy
    Grateful for everything

    Alcohol was an occasional treat, as was a roast dinner.
    A winter coat lasted 5 years
    Books were loaned from the library and not bought,

    Yes they were damn lucky

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In those days, Scotch Eggs were poor man's food - like oysters were 200 years before that.

      Delete
  10. In 9th grade (14 years old) earlier this year, my granddaughter took a test assessing her career direction strenghts, or what I should be when I grow up. If I find it I will write about the spectrum presented. Hers went from graphic designer to Physician Assistant. No doubt rubbish, but interesting.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's quite a wide spectrum - she probably needs one these days.

      Delete
  11. I'm going to respond to all these comments tomorrow, if that's alright with you. I walked past a young junkie who was sitting on the pavement and freezing to death tonight (it's minus 4 here), then - as I was about to tuck into my dinner - I wondered both whether or not he was still there, and how long he would survive.

    I shamed myself into going back out to find him, and there he was, head down, bloody nose, and wrapped in cardboard boxes. I bought him some dinner and gave him a space-blanket I had kept in the back of my car, just in case I had to look after someone involved in a car crash. It occurred to me that - actually - he was that car crash, albeit in slow-motion.

    I told him that if I saw him the next day, I would buy him the caravan he told me he had bought for £20, which still had £10 outstanding left to pay on it.

    Funny, but £10 is just enough to buy a little bag of those brown crystals. I wonder if he will survive this cold-snap?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This puts things in a perspective, doesn't it? And draws a line from the beginning of your post (people complaining) to the insight that quite a lot of us are living really well.

      Delete
  12. Coincidence! Just as you are blogging about a personal statement to get into university, I saw an internet report about the 'best ever cover letter' by a guy named Matthew Ross. Google it if you are interested. He is applying for an internship and he's got some balls!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I caught a snippet on the radio yesterday, in between flitting in and out of different rooms in my house. Yes I am so grateful that I was able to get a job and work hard to be able to afford to buy a place to live. Anyway, there was a young lad (22) who had never had a job since leaving school at 16. He was not the most articulate young lad, but he hasn't given up trying to find work, and sounded like he had the ability to learn a job if he was given a chance.

    In 1964 I had the pick of jobs, could walk out of one and into another. I can't see a future for our young generation. It's a pity we can't turn the clock back to the good old days, maybe not that far back, about fifty years would do it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I heard that program. I fear the lad spent most of his school days throwing tables out of windows, though. I - particularly when dealing with beautiful young bar-maids - sometimes wish I could put the clock back about 35 years, but youth, as they say, is wasted on the young. Ferraris are wasted on the elderly too, but that's yet another story.

      Delete
    2. ... a story which doesn't involve me, unfortunately.

      Delete
    3. You know, the folk who are running my place (and it sounds like they are running your place too) coasted into their positions on a free education and are now imposing these 'personal statements' and university debts on said Green-eyed Girls.
      It shits me. I explain this to all my students because I want them to question their fees and get cranky too.

      Delete