ERJ gives Career Advice

I was hanging out waiting for Belladonna.  To kill time I started chatting with the cousin of one of her buddies.

He had recently graduated from college and was "thinking" about interviewing for a job.

I asked him what he had graduated in.

He told me "Communication."

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There are times when Belladonna wants to disown me.  Times like this.

I told the young man, "I simply don't understand.  Everywhere I look I see young people texting and posting to social media.  You cannot STOP them from communicating.  Why would a company PAY you to communicate when their biggest problem is employees 'communicating' when they should be working?

Then I added, "It is like the early days of the sexual revolution.  Everybody predicted the demise of prostitution because so many people were giving it away for free.  Yes, there are still a few hookers, but not like 'Back in the day'".

He mumbled a bit.  When pressed about the kind of job he was looking for, when he finally got around to looking, he said "Sales.  That is what my mom and dad do.  My mom sells rubber products and my dad sells construction steel."

I asked what he thought he would sell.  He said "I don't know.  Maybe custom choppers (motorcycles) or ski equipment."

I asked him if his parents were doing well financially.  He admitted they were.  They sent him to a University where it cost about $42,000 a year.

I told him that his parents are smarter than he knows.  They are selling "boring" products that companies buy by the million metric ton.

I asked him to consider the local Verizon store.  They sell "cool" products and they have twenty employees.  None of the employees makes huge amounts of money.  It is a simple application of the law of supply-and-demand.

His parents, on the other hand, do not have competition at every turn.  The profit margin per pound may not be large but they are not selling pounds, they are selling by the ten-to-thousand tons.

I am not sure, but I think he is going to ask his dad to introduce him to some clients who sell concrete.  I wish him luck.