Before returning to college, I worked full time as an in-store repair technician for a major cell-phone company. Stuck in one of the slower stores in the area, and in a business where the heft of compensation comes from commission, the pay wasn’t great.
And it wasn’t great for my colleagues on the sales side, either. People tended to burn out, discouraged by how little they got out of the work they put in—and by the fact that the most successful sellers were the ones willing to employ less than scrupulous sales tactics.
Many in the company, myself included, adopted disgruntled attitudes, frustrated by the never-ending struggle to make ends meet.
The depressing notion of surrendering our labor for someone else’s benefit was best exemplified, and satirized, by the film Office Space. Its theatrical poster sported the tagline “Work Sucks,” and I’ve known plenty of people who made that their mantra, wasting away while providing value to someone else’s dream.
But work doesn’t have to suck.
One of my co-workers used to tell me, “You gotta hustle.” And hustle she did. Instead of spending her off time wallowing in self-pity, she started a business to supplement her income.
On the weekends, she’d make and sell home-cooked soul food in her community to people who lacked the time or ability to cook for themselves.
Her catering business won’t make her the next Richard Branson. It won’t land her a deal in the Shark Tank. But entrepreneurship doesn’t have to involve developing ground-breaking new products and technologies.
In a broad sense, compensation is directly related to the value we bring to the market. If my only job skill is the ability to work a cash register, I won’t be able to command the same level of compensation as someone who knows computer programming or engineering.
As college students, we seek to increase our value through education. That’s why we’re willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars per year on it. But even after investing four or five years and tons of cash on a degree, we might still find ourselves starting each week off with “a case of the Mondays.”
So how do we avoid soul-sucking careers in jobs we’re only passionate about because they pay the bills? We can start by taking a tip from my catering co-worker: find a need that you have a unique ability to fulfill. And be willing to take risks, especially while you’re young.
In the last semester alone, student entrepreneurs at NC State have, among other things, developed a nail polish that detects date-rape drugs, worked on growing a sunglass company and run a Kickstarter campaign to create a new board game.
When we create value for ourselves by utilizing our unique skill sets, we’re not beholden to supporting someone else’s vision for the world. We don’t have to worry about being “downsized.” And we certainly don’t have to worry about anyone taking our Swingline stapler away.
