Parents and siblings. And that actually brings up an entirely other privilege I had at that time. When I first got my job at the movie theater, I was asked by nearly every floor employee how many kids I had. I was one of only a handful who were yet to have children, despite all of us being ~18-26. I can't guess how restricted I would have been in my mobility if I had children to think of at that time.
Oh god, take this 'privilege' stuff back to Tumblr. Not having kids isn't privilege, it's choice.
Edit because I don't want this comment to come off too aggressively: you sullied a perfectly nice set of comments and truly interesting anecdote about your life by discounting it as privilege. Since when are wise choices privilege?
Hi! Thanks for going around to all the poor families and explaining to teenagers proper family planning and sexual education, making sure that all birth controls methods are both used and failproof, and guaranteeing that no one is coerced into carrying out a pregnancy due to cultural beliefs.
It's good to know all of these things are choices. It makes it a lot easier to be condescending and close-minded about the shit others go through.
I think your privilege — and lack of awareness thereof — is showing...
Re: your edit, it's not the choices that are privilege, but all too often, the opportunity even to make them. As a white male, I have choices, and opportunities to make them, that women and non-white people simply don't. That's privilege: not what you do with the choices you do have, but the choices you have available to you.
Again, you're misunderstanding the nature of privilege. Having the choice of whether or not to have children at — or after — 18 is a privilege. There are parts of the world (arguably, even parts of the US) where young women don't get that choice, whether through (lack of) education, (lack of) access to contraception, forced marriage, or otherwise, those women have had that choice taken from them.
To have the choice is the privilege, not whether or how it's exercised.
He didn't. Calling it privilege didn't discount it to me, and I doubt it discounts it to those who have a basic understanding of privilege. I found it respectful that he was able to recognize it, call it out, and acknowledge its influence on his perspective.
The only person discounting his contribution is you.
I think when you read my comment you may have been reading it with an eye toward whatever story you have of yourself?
I didn't make any wise choices. That one guy, my manager at the Kenneth Cole, made those choices for me. I wanted to get my family gifts instead of getting interview clothes for myself, I would never have even thought to apply to Kenneth Cole, instead I was poached away from a job that paid me so little that I was gathering leftover food from the theater floor for meals. And within a year or so of the context of this story, I also found myself worrying that I may have gotten someone pregnant.
What I did have, that I always had, was an outgoing personality and a strong work ethic. The rest of it was a series of chance events and one forceful personality on the part of that manager. I think that maybe the larger connotation of the word "privelege" may be what has rubbed you the wrong way. How about this:
"And that brings up another stroke of luck"
I wasn't out there making wise choices, I was getting lucky, and I when I can ask myself what has allowed me to be lucky, I can learn about myself and the larger context of my life. When I can learn about myself and the larger context of my life, I can better understand and empathize with others.
You give yourself too little credit. I am not discounting luck -- I too have gotten very lucky in my career -- but without good decisions and hard work luck is wasted. You didn't have to accept the job at KC. You didn't have to go along with your boss' demand to spend the money on wardrobe. You didn't have to do well at that job. These are all things you did that nobody forced you to do.
> without good decisions and hard work luck is wasted
I disagree. Luck can go a long way. Ever heard of Paris Hilton? Do you see hard work and good decisions, or simply a big pile of luck?
Or how about me? I'm a fairly successful programmer, making quite a bit of money as a freelancer right now. But I don't work hard, nor did I really make a lot of hard decisions. I just kinda wound up where I am. I just went with the flow. I'm lucky to be blessed with a good brain for programming, and to be born in an academic family that loved computers. My dad and my older brother are programmers, and I just followed the family trade.
There were plenty of other things that I would have liked to do, but all of them would have required a lot more decision and discipline. This was the easy road for me. I wouldn't even know how to apply for a different kind of job.
The only tough step I ever made, was to switch from being a salaried employee to a freelancer. That was seriously a really big and hard step for me, and one that I messed up quite a bit. But miraculously it all worked out tremendously well.
Wow. When you put it that way, you make it sound like he's a soldier obediently following orders. I've never thought of it like that before. I've never thought of wisdom as synonymous with obedience before. ...religion makes a lot more sense now.
He was, in fact, an interesting person, and far more so than I ever gave him credit for at the time. I was actually perpetually oblivious to all the things he was trying to do for me until much later.
In my first 2 weeks working he signed me up to have breakfast with him, one other employee, and Kenneth Cole. Like, the actual guy. He put it on the schedule, but didn't see me in advance of it, and I didn't actually look at the schedule (literally didn't know where we kept it yet) so I missed it. He and the other employee showed up to work where I had been standing outside, freezing, wondering where they were and they couldn't believe I had skipped breakfast with Kenneth Cole.
I couldn't believe he had apparently invited me...he used to pull me aside all the time and critique my sales. I have a very hard time with selling things to people so it always rubbed me the wrong way, and I found it especially frustrating because he never seemed to do it to anyone else.
When I finally quit he fought very hard to keep me, and I just couldn't understand why. He was always critiquing me, and I felt like I was terrible at the job. On that last day he showed me the sales numbers for all of our employees, and it turned out I had the 2nd highest sales. I was flabbergasted.
Cleaning out my locker I asked a girl that I didn't know very well what it was all about, why had he been constantly critiquing me if I had such strong sales? She turned to me and said,
"Don't you get it? You were Joe's little star. He was grooming you."
I did NOT get it. Not at all. About a year later I returned, wanting to see Joe and other old friends. I had realized a handful of things.
First, that Joe poaching me at all was a huge leap of faith.
Second, that the "KC Cash" I got was probably as much his doing as that regional manager and he wanted me to be dressed in our clothes to show me off better to the higher ups.
Third, that our store was a season ahead, which was more important than I realized at the time. We were the smaller store on 5th, and we were meant to showcase what would be coming down the line for the next season. Our customers were more unique as a result, and my private client book (customers you shop for, come in on a day off to dress, etc.) had a couple seriously trendy, affluent people in it.
The job, the clothes, the critique, the breakfast I missed with Kenneth Cole, I didn't see any of it at the time, but I can only imagine what a different life I would be living now had I pursued what Joe was putting in front of me.
I'm not at all disappointed at how things have turned out for me, but it's kind of startling to look back on a major turning point that you were completely oblivious too at the time.
For Joe's part, he wasn't there when I went to visit. I've never talked to him again. Fun fact - he was, I believe, a Philippino B-Boy before coming to NY, and the only person I was still friendly with at KC that day I went to visit implied he had returned home.
On the off chance that he comes across this extended series of comments about my time there, someday - let me say that my memory of all of this is over a decade old now, so I may well be getting some of the bits and pieces wrong.
EDIT: I have an inkling of what he saw in me, now, and I think it is all personality and my genuine joy talking with and sharing my expertise with strangers. It was a huge asset at the time, though I didn't realize it, and something I'm learning to make better use of myself now.
That's very interesting, thank you for the response. Your joy talking with strangers and sharing your expertise with them (exemplified here too) sounds like a very good asset to have, for salesmen and for hackers too.
This is really fascinating, thanks for the post. I also have to add that you were a bit lucky to run into Joe. In my first job (big investment bank) there was too much politics and the only people I could trust (and who somewhat mentored me) were not only from different teams, but the managers of our managers were also different people.
Everyone makes mistakes. No one has perfect knowledge of the future. No one makes all the right choices at every point in their life, especially when they are young (and fertile). And people's economic situations change over time, sometimes for the worse.
The economic freedom to be insulated from poor choices, mistakes, and the vagaries of the myriad uncontrolled factors that we call "life" is a huge privilege.
