Dear XXX,
My name is Marcus Nagelberg. I'm going to stop there and tell you that I didn't realize how long this email would become, but I've written much of what needed to be written about me, but I can assure you, that every word of it is important because it comes from the heart! I am writing this covertly because it's an important use of my time, and I respect how accessible your email address is on your blog. That matters to me, as it shows you are willing to listen!
I'm a student at XXXXXXXX, a non-traditional, liberal arts college, as well as an employee for a startup called XXXXXX.org, although I've been spending a number of paid hours reading your old blog posts. I enjoyed what you said about Tim Feriss - all I got out of his 4-hour work week book was that, if I have my own business at some point, I can pay people in India to tie my shoes for me, but, as I have learned working my current job, they can't tell you if you're not respecting your employees.
So, I live in sort of a rich dad, poor dad scenario, although I lack much guidance from the rich dad. My father, my "poor dad" who is currently in grad school for an MFA in theatre arts, (he wants to direct, produce, and/or teach professional theatre) loves me, cares for me, and since my wealthy grandfather passed last year, is able to help me pay for school out of state, thank God.
But the best advice he can give me, as I go to school in XXXXXX - and he lives in suburban XXXX, where I was born and raised - is how to be an employee. It sounds like slave morality - "Do a good job, impress your boss, and maybe he'll keep you around and give you more responsibilities." I don't want to live my life like that. Though I'm doing it now, because I'm just getting started and want to absorb as much knowledge as I can and I must support myself while in college. But I'm very fortunate to learn at the ripe age of 21, that as interested as I am in social media, internet technology, and small business, I don't want to work in an office for the rest of my life.
It has been my understanding, that what many people have studied in their formal education is largely different from their career and/or vocational work. So, I have made decisions with my education to study what is best learned in an academic environment (current emphasis on Russian and Eurasian history, literature, language, and culture) and learn more lucrative things from jobs and internships. I am beginning to think I have made some poor choices. Well, probably not, seeing as I'm only 21. I don't want to get any older. Mentally, I feel 35. I want to be young and virile forever. But that's another story.
I just spent this Christmas with my Aunt and Uncle and their two sons and my second cousin. My uncle is very wealthy and is able to support his hobby of collecting and storing Corvettes. He has a passion for these cars like I have a passion for literature and music, but he knows he can't make much money from Corvettes, so he makes money via other means to support his hobby. He dropped out of college and developed a piece of software for mining engineers and sold it and made millions, and will probably start a new business this year to create a 2.0 version of the software and market it through the website. But the point is, he figured it out, he had a plan and went for it.
My argument is that he couldn't have done it all himself. He had his colleagues, his old coworkers from his old firm, his network to pool investors from. That he didn't come up with his plan until it crept up on him. And that's what I'm getting to. His son, my cousin, is graduating with a business degree from some Christian private college and my uncle is confident that he'll get a job paying $50-70K right away, as the economy is great in Calgary (where they are), and that they are looking for people like him. But does he really have a plan? He's student body president, people like him, possibly a natural leader, etc. I don't think he has a plan. He's just pretty and privileged and has a wealthy father to give him all the advice and connections he'll ever need. I don't have those things. I have to find them all myself.
I spent nearly two years as a paid, part-time intern and researcher at a social media marketing startup that blossomed in Los Angeles and expanded to NY and London. Of course, as an employee, my hourly rate never reflected the company's success. I couldn't get a promotion, as I was part-time. But I learned a hell of a lot and got some great referrals. I should do more to keep in touch.
Now I work at another small business. It started off great this summer, and I've been out of the house at 7 or 8am, either for school or work. I bust my ass more than any of my friends do. And the pay is good for this small city, better than I'd probably get anywhere else, part-time, as a literature/history student. But I'm really starting to hate the office environment. My job responsibilities have changed, like, every 6 weeks, there's weird structures and chains of command that elicit the worst in some people's personalities. And for some reason, my title is "Project Manager". That'll look good on a resume. I just don't know where I'd apply. I love working with computers, just not in a room with other people who I feel want to eat my brains when I die. And I find it truly sickening to see people more loyal to their superiors than the people they manage. My father worked in a place like this for longer than I've been alive to support his former wife, me, and to pay our mortgage. I should note that it's nowhere near getting paid off and costs more than the house is worth.
And I don't want to be a lifer, either. The other lady who used to manage me (until she took over my projects) has no life outside of this company. She recently went back to get her college degree and has been here a month longer than I have. I bet I could do her job and make good money, but I don't want to be consumed. She gets calls and emails from our director at home, on weekends. She'll come in at 7, leave at 3, but go home to do more work. She puts in a lot of hours, but she really needs to get laid. I agree with you, it does a lot more for a person getting laid once a week than once a month. I think I'm gonna go steady with this girl just because of what you said. (She comes back from Texas today, hooray!)
But it's also a really great site! It is ... XXXXXX. But please don't say anything about it or my boss will find out and kill me. But it's going places. We're the {description and ranking}! It's amazing. I wholeheartedly recommend it. The job isn't that bad, I just want to dick around a lot. I ask myself how much has changed since I was hired, and in some senses, a lot, and in some senses, not fucking much. My projects have certainly changed, and I've been "disciplined" too. It doesn't really matter now, but I'm just here to pay my bills. I've taken in some alternative measures, in "reassessing my core beliefs" and some yogi maxims and mumbo jumbo, but I just feel like shit here and I can't help it! The only thing I'm trying to do different is outside the office is, read your blog, start Tweeting and following interesting (career/academically) people on Twitter and I'm emailing the heads of Rotary clubs in my area because they might offer me some networking opportunities. I want to start my own thing. I just don't know what. But the issue is, where do I go from here? Compile a list of my interests and see what I can pursue to make money?
I want to travel, I want to live abroad. I'm learning that I love history. And I love literature. I think it's really important. I love Bukowski, Bronte, Plath, Camus, Wilde, Gogol and many other dead people's works. I'm learning Russian, I want to go to Russia and learn Russian. Why? Because it's a badass language. But I used to think that I'm ahead of my liberal arts colleagues at my liberal arts college with my vocational background, but I'm starting to doubt it as I really don't have much of a plan. I really trust my Uncle, my rich dad on this one. But I think I need to go out and see the world more in order to build one. I feel, on one hand I need to go out into the world, post-collegiate, bump around a bit, and then I'll be able to get a better perspective of what plan I can focus on. On the other hand, my uncle believes I need to have a plan now, while I'm in school, and follow up immediately afterward with some sort of career.
Please advise.
Your fan,
Marcus Nagelberg
No comments:
Post a Comment