Climbing the Tower of Babbel
When I turned 18, I was faced with the sophisticated choice every American teenager is meant to make with extreme clairvoyance and levelheadedness. Go to college or Go to work In the contemporary professional climate, both choices are laden with their own respective risk. Over-qualification seems to be a phenomenon in the developed world, while higher education offers unparalleled social & educational development, it continues to be framed as the โsafe betโ in the prevailing narrative. Influenced by my father's "get up & go" old school American bootstrap values, I decided take the road less traveled and get to work. I moved around the continental US for a while, exploring different career paths trying to find my place. I held a couple different jobs, I was: - a bouncer at a famous Jersey Shore nightclub - a Los Angeles mailroom clerk - a roadie for a Hasidic DJ for weddings in Brooklyn - a hillbilly carpenter - an assembly-line worker in a solar panel factory But after a while, I eventually got my "big break." At 21, I was hired as a junior project manager for a residential construction company in the upscale neighborhood of Rumson, NJ. I was making what felt like serious money at the time: $16.50 an hour. Very quickly in my new position, I realized that I had a lot to learn. I had some experience with woodwork & light electrical, but I was employed by a general contractor. I needed to know a little of everything to communicate between subs, keep track of projects, and be a point of contact for the homeowner. I had no particular edge, so I got to looking. I began to realize that (at least within the northern Jersey shore area) different cultures occupied different trades in the construction industry. It tended to loosely follow this structure: - Millwork & Finishing: Eastern European (Slavs, Poles, Slovaks) - Framing, Gypsum, & Roofing: Latinos (Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorians) - Flooring: Brazilians - Masonry: European Portugueses - HVAC, Electrical, Plumbing, & Insulation: Americans