Selling Ourselves Is The Only Job Any Of Us Will Ever Have
There's this kid named Sean Aiken who is doing a different job every week for a year, Times workplace ponderer Lisa Belkin writes. "In the spirit of his generation — the one that brought us extreme sports, and made a mini celebrity out of a blogger who traded a paper clip for a house, and a mega celebrity out of a socialite who went on reality TV to move from job to job in 'The Simple Life' — Mr. Aiken has begun a most unusual search." Digest that for a moment, millennials: you are responsible for not only Paris Hilton and One Red Paperclip, but also extreme sports. Also, when it comes to the future of your employment, you are as fucked as a base-jumper without a chute.
Sean has chronicled his search to find lasting satisfaction in temporary employment via—what else?—a blog! He still hasn't found what he's looking for, but he has inspired his fellow twentysomethings, says the author of a book about workplace trends. ""He sends the message 'job-hopping is O.K.,' 'moving around is O.K.'"
And, she says, it's a good thing someone is sending this message, because it's not like Sean and his contemporaries have a choice in the matter. "The reality is they might prefer one job that would last forever and end with retirement, but that kind of job doesn't exist anymore."
But you know what you can do? That's right, rise to Internet-fame and convince yourself that that's your metier!
"Talking to [Sean], and scrolling through his Web site, one can't help but conclude that he has in fact already found his job, one not available to his parents' generation, but which his will refine and perfect."
"Mr. Aiken's life work might well turn out to be the marketing of Sean Aiken."
Okay, sure. We'll check back in with Sean, and the One Red Paperclip guy and Julia Allison et al in another five years, and see how that career path is working out for them and the world. That is, if the thing hasn't been mercifully consumed by a fiery apocalypse by then.