Careers are a hot-button issue these days, with everyone from your mom to your roommate to the government wanting you to “actually work”. But is actually working right for you? Pick up any magazine—preferably a free one from your dermatologist office while you wait to get that suspicious mole checked out—and they’ll have a whole section of career advice. It seems the new trend is having a job. Before you hop on the feminist bandwagon (which started with the 1983 smash hit Working Girl), ask yourself: Are you ready to career? Consider these important factors before getting a career of your own.
Working is good for your finances and for feminism, but it is hard and not fun.
Do you actually want to be stuck in the same place for upwards of eight hours a day? Sure you get paid, but at what cost? Your life? Yeah, keeping up with the boys is great in theory, but is this really what feminism wants from us? To work? Kelly*, a 39-year-old paralegal, says of her decision to have a career, “I have to have a job so I can afford to live.” Sounds pretty lame, Kel. It’s like these women have never even heard of staying at home all day, lounging on your queen-size Tempur-Pedic mattress, and masturbating to the scenes in Scandal where Mellie goes apeshit. All of which leads to one conclusion: Work doesn’t sound like that much fun.
You need to have “qualifications” (????).
Okay, so by now we know that careers involve doing things we don’t want to, but working is more than just a hard bad thing. We did some digging and it turns out, for most careers, you actually need to train for years, especially cool jobs like astronaut, marine biologist, surfer, doctor, and even police lady. If you think about your life in terms of television seasons, you could spend more years training to get a job than the world gave to Veronica Mars. That’s a lot of mysteries! Are you ready to be qualified to do anything?
It gets in the way of your day-drinking.
Another thing to think about is that most modern workplaces don’t really cater to women who drink. I’m referring to the no drinking at work policy in place at most corporations. We asked around at four Fortune 500 companies and the tune was the same, “What? No, you can’t drink on the job. Absolutely not.” When pressed further, one HR representative suggested that, if caught drinking, “it would be grounds for immediate termination.” That means you’d probably get fired on your very first day, once they discovered your margarita machine in your employee locker. Looks like on-the-job drinking is a real Cinco de No-No!
But, you can finally shop in that one section of H&M.
Now, all of this may sound positively unbearable—trust us, we agree—however, there is one rather appealing upside to the whole “career thing”: You can finally shop at that one section of H&M with the fancy-people clothes! You know, the pencil skirt blazer section? Not all jobs require this type of dress these days, but at the very least you’ll need to invest in some new clothes for the interview. Sometimes, you can even get your parents to shell out some money for that as it is a “job-related expense” and you’re “really trying.” Additionally, if you plan well enough, you can use the outfit later with a couple minor tweaks to be a slutty librarian, slutty secretary or even slutty school principal for Halloween.
You need to actually get hired.
Interviews! Ooof. Like that sexy barista with the Kafka quotes on his forearm, they’re hard to get, and even harder to nail. What’s the point of even trying? Well, that’s how you land that big job your frenemy Janice has always dreamed of. You have to go in an convince someone you’re right for the role, but unlike all the other times you’ve asked for things in this world, there are other competitive candidates out there who might get it instead of you. And looks don’t matter. You actually have to know things about the company. If it sounds boring, that’s because it is.
Remember, having a job isn’t for everyone. If all of this sounds like too much, you can always get a job-alternative, like living on a boat, getting a sugar daddy, or just dying. Good luck!
