I’m done with the system.
Tl:dr: I did all the things. I’m still at the bottom.
The not-so-dirty secret to society, which the younger generation is quickly learning earlier and earlier, is that where you start out is a massive determining factor of where you end up.
As someone who grew up in the 80s and 90s, I was totally sold on the lie that ‘hard work will get you to where you want to be.’ Spoiler alert, it won’t. No amount of hard work, positive attitude or ‘success hacks’ will change that. I say this as someone who’s 42 years old, and browsing retail jobs as money’s becoming too tight.
I’ve worked pretty consistently since age 11. I started delivering papers. Worked every job from call centres, (even cold-calling double glazing sales in the 90s), bar work, retails, sales, administration, data entry, photographer, hospitality work, teaching, lecturing, manufacturing, everything.
I did the education thing more than once, and have letters after my name. Later I added a HND and multiple other useless professional or smaller qualifications to my resume. Get an education to get your way out, as the phrase goes.
Still, after ticking all the boxes and playing all the games you’re told to, I’m browsing the same shitty jobs as when I was a teenager. The teenager I promised would never have to work those types of jobs once they had a degree.
Additionally, despite having worked several senior positions in some of those roles (team manager, senior assistant, senior sales manager, overall ‘boss’ at a few small companies) the highest I’ve ever earned per annum is £16k. When I see the UK average is supposed to be around £30k, I have to wonder if the top earners are skewing the figures.
There are a lot more people in my position than folk realise, and that just makes the whole situation more depressing.
Realising I’d probably never get anywhere in any of the fields I have experience in, I ‘opted out’ of the rat race, becoming self-employed. Another option to ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps.’
I learned to play various instruments, paying for private tuition and teaching myself. But, the wage a private music teacher generates isn’t enough anymore, even with 15 years experience. Income took a huge hit during the pandemic, and I’ve been living on government grants, loans, and credit cards since. Even coming out of it, I’m still nowhere near back to the level of teaching I once was, and the debt I’m in is too great to overcome, especially with food prices and energy prices skyrocketing.
Ever the resilient, enterprising and hard working little tyke that I am, I got my ‘hustle on’ during Covid, and started making money self-publishing on amazon. Just a trickle of income at first, but it was eventually enough to supplement my teaching to scrape by. Now, because any giant corporation can do whatever the hell they want, Amazon has put up the price of their subscription service (reducing subscribers) while lowering the amount they pay creators and removing or automating support staff who keep the whole thing running. Now the teaching wage and writing wage combined isn’t enough, either.
I’ve read all the success books. All the words of wisdom. All the self-help stuff, productivity hacks, the works. They all have one glaring omission – it takes money to get anything started and keep the momentum going.
We all love a ‘rags to riches’ story (Arnold Schwarzenegger’s is my favourite) but, the truth is, for every one success story there are countless failures. Thousands. Millions. And the failures didn’t fail because they didn’t try as hard, weren’t as talented, smart, or whatever. They failed simply because not everyone can succeed, and that there were massive odds stacked against them.
If you are born poor, with parents who don’t set you up, support you, or are simply absent, you start further back than everyone else. Likewise for many, many other situations. There are forces, factors and countless other things you have to overcome others’ don’t even have to consider. Still, we’re told you can ‘rise above it.’ I used to believe it. I had to, in order to function from day to day.
Part of me remains in denial about it, but there’s honestly no getting around the fact. It’s not going to ‘happen.’ You aren’t going to ‘make it.’ You will never pay off your mortgage, suddenly find yourself with enough money, or ever not be struggling. For most generations, you’ll probably never retire. You’ll just work, and die. Not in a nihilistic, defeatist way, just a pragmatic, factual reality.
Everyone I know who is well off has one of two simple things in common: born wealthy, or wealth-adjacent that they can receive a large enough sum of money when a relative dies, or they know someone who finds them a job through rampant nepotism. Most likely family again.
Money is the secret. It’s that simple. Money to promote my work would net me more money. Newsletters, advertising and websites add up. Money to hire experts to make my seo’s catchy and drive either business. Money to fix the things which need fixing about the house which end up costing more patching up over and over in the long run. Poverty pays with interest, as the phrase goes. Every time you have a ‘bit’ saved, something else will go wrong or another bill will be due. That’s just the way it is.
So (deep breath) I’ll head back into the workforce, and rejoin the teenagers working to support their studies for the promise of a better life after university, knowing what awaits them. I’ll keep my head down again, work another shitty job, put up with complaints from privileged folk who think everyone’s who works in any industry whatsoever is their slave, all the while knowing there’s a good chance I’m more qualified than them, and worked a damn sight harder to be where I am. Knowing there’s an even greater chance they simply won the ‘society lottery’ by being born into a certain group or class without even knowing it.
I’ll be right back where I started, with much less hope, much more years and miles on me, and a lot more broken. Attaching Cv’s to things which then ask me to fill out the same information again, and smiling at interviews and saying bullshit things like ‘I love working as part of a team!’
I’ve failed pre-university teenage me, and society has failed me.
Thanks for listening.