When Paying Your Dues Isn’t Enough

Nothing bothers me quite like someone saying that the only reason a late 20, 30 or 40 something isn’t successful is because they haven’t “put enough” work in yet. The very notion that a person must pay their “dues” in order to have a shot in the gamble of success fosters a harsh climate of cynicism in our culture. This is especially true considering what those very dues constitute is subjective. We are told if we put in the hours serving coffee and delivering mail for big corporations that it will pay off in the long run; when the harsh reality is that the number of people will always out weigh the number of desirable jobs. You can put in the same amount of internship, job training, and schooling as someone else but if the hiring manager simply likes the other person better, than you’re out all of those years of work. Unfortunately, this can be the case for many people after several interviews. What people fail to acknowledge when purporting that everyone is blessed with equal opportunity in America, is part of getting the job really comes down to pure luck sometimes.

Of course, this topic is always fuzzy because the very idea of “hard work” is extremely subjective. Writers often work for ten years before finding success, whereas others have claim a solid two-to-three years of pitching before getting a solid gig. This narrative is also true for people in the entertainment industry, especially actors. It’s very easy to say “well just don’t work in those fields”, although it completely neglects the fact that these fields do exist, and there remains a demand for them, despite their competitiveness. We have no issues respecting the writers and actors who provide us with quality entertainment, even though we don’t always know how they all got there. Yet when we see someone who’s in their mid thirties, cock tail waitressing, we are quick to assume they simply “didn’t do enough” to get the job they wanted.

How long must you “pay your dues” before someone hires someone less experienced just because they happen to like that person more? It’s an answer that every bootstrapping worker responds to with an anecdote about their x amount of years working some job before they got their big break. While the success stories are inspiring, there’s just one problem : the variable ‘x’ is anywhere from a few weeks to even decades. There is a patronizing tone that comes with these stories because they assume people who haven’t escaped their entry level positions are somehow stuck there because of some inherent lack of work ethic. It’s also incredible narcissistic because the more successful person believes that they know what it takes to succeed in fields that aren’t even of their own expertise.
I don’t know what it takes to make it in news journalism, and no matter how successful I become at writing, I won’t pretend to know, either.

So it seems quite natural for a person to feel critical towards society when they’re told throughout their entire life that hard work pays off….and then suddenly it doesn’t. They’re told to “try out another career” or even downgrade to a job that requires little to no knowledge or experience. This is all happening while working at their side hustle because rent doesn’t stop just because you do. While there is nobility in working any job, it is truly disheartening for the culture that promotes “following your dreams”, when space is, and will always be limited. It is not “entitled” (everyone’s favorite buzzword) to think if you put in the same work as the guy who did get hired, that you should eventually get a chance to do something comparable to them.

For many people with other goals like having a family, this often means the time allowed to climb the ladder is limited. As a result, all of those years of working entry level jobs in your dream field are forgotten when you have to take a job in manufacturing or food service to have any financial stability. These are hard choices that people have to make (especially women, who quite literally, have a ticking clock when it comes to potentially being a parent) when they make moves towards a career. Sometimes you have to give up prospective career opportunities in order to have a suitable private life. In other words, no, you can’t have it all, but you should try to so other people can profit off your work until you eventually give up.

While, yes, a person is fundamentally responsible for their own well being, but at one point do we stop blaming the individual as the sole reason for their lack of success in their field? Sure, companies don’t owe an individual person anything. However, it’s puzzling to see the level of outrage people feel towards Millennials who dare voice their disdain towards the wealthy and successful; i.e. the very people who hold power to promote them from their dead-end jobs, but often don’t. This is most often the case when they sacrifice quality of life to work for free, only to be passed on for an opportunity by someone with the same level of experience, but also a “family friend” of the boss.

This reality is illustrated in Kanye West’s song “School Spirit” on his album The College Dropout.

“If you continue to work at the GAP, after several interviews, Oh my god!
You’ll come in at an entry level position and when you do that,
If you kiss enough ass, you’ll move up to the next level,
Which is being a secretary’s secretary!
And boy is that great! You get to take messages for the secretary
Who never went to college
Shes actually the bosses niece, so now you’re apart of the family !”

Maybe if people acknowledged that sometimes there is a little more than just hard work involved when it comes to achieving your dreams, then people would feel less inclined to complain about their situation. Perhaps changing the tone in media discourse predicated on labeling several million educated and working people as “lazy” is a good place to start.

Or maybe, like Miya Tokumitsu suggests in her Atlantic interview, perhaps our very-American ideas about work being the key to a nebulous concept of success is flawed in itself. People spend years of their life working for free so they may follow a path paved by broken promises from upper management and the elites. Maybe if we reevaluate work as something that doesn’t need to bring us joy, and realize happiness doesn’t have to come from our careers, then we won’t be overrun with such feelings of contempt towards each other. I’ve told my own family members several times that I’ve accepted the idea of a modest lifestyle with roommates, working service industry jobs if it meant I could at least write on the side. Notice that I said I “accept” this idea, not that I’m particularly excited about this path, and neither would anyone who’s spent sizable chunks of their life studying their passion. Perhaps my mind is too saturated by my shining American values to recognize that there’s more to life than my job. After all, it’s a little difficult to not want something you spend 40 plus hours a week on to at least bring some level of satisfaction, right?

Ultimately, it seems (financially) successful people tend to distance themselves from the reality of people unlike them. I’m not suggesting people don’t work hard for what they have. That wouldn’t be fair to discount the effort put in to get where they are. However, it’s also not fair to assume success is only based on objective standards. People spend their whole lives chasing dreams and many have to give them up for various reasons. Just because they didn’t “make it” doesn’t mean it’s entirely their fault.

Paying your dues doesn’t come with a receipt. You can’t make up time spent in an entry level position at another job if you finally decide to throw the towel in and switch careers. It’s a total gamble, and the sad part is we tell the average person to keep playing, even if they never win.