Are You Happy In Your Job? Neither’s America!

Are you happy at your job?

Think about it – are you really happy doing whatever you’re doing?

Phillip DeFranco’s Youtube video the other set me onto an interesting thing. A social experiment was conducted recently in America and it turns out the American dream ain’t all so accessible for 52% of Americans. That’s how many people were said to be unsatisfied in their job and that the “perks” of working in certain establishments, such as games rooms and massage parlours and free catered meals and casual Thursdays, beer Fridays, health care and dental and whatnot, are not enough to grant them overall satisfaction in their work. 18% said they were “actively disengaged”. Essentially these people are just slumped over their desks, buggering about, pressing a few keys then slipping off for a beer to take the edge of the boredom.

What makes me sad is that only 30% felt their job to be “actively engaging or inspiring“. In a population of millions, in a country apparently busting at the seams with opportunity and preaching happiness and fulfillment and all that overly positive Americanness, such a tiny number of people have actually found that.

What does that say about the productivity of such a vast country? If they can have the amount of influence that they do with only 30% of people actually doing any properly motivated work, can you imagine the madness that would ensue if the other 70% were engaged?? It would either become a world so overrun by sunshine and productivity that the actual sun would feel like an underachiever and find another solar system (assuming of course it isn’t an unmotivated working class American, of course, in which case it would probably just stop shining) or it would be complete carnage! War. Need I say any more? They’re already farting rainbows over there, who’s to say what could happen!

Which made me think. This isn’t even the number of people who are not doing the job they want, that dream job that has everything they are looking for in a satisfying occupation – these are just the people who are doing a job, one to get by, get some money, get paid and go home. What of the people who got the dream job – then discovered it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be?

I’m under no illusions. In a society so uncertain of its future, life seems to be filled with “just getting by” moments, people doing what they can for money to support themselves and their families – but isn’t that such a crap way to live?? Argue that life is full of winners and losers, people who get what they want and people who don’t and that it all comes down to whoever has the balls to go out and get what they want gets it, but I think that’s a load of bull.

happy accordion player

That’s like saying those 52% of unhappy people never tried to achieve their dream. Maybe they did. Maybe it just didn’t quite workout. Maybe they wanted to make it as a street accordion player, but unfortunately, the public were more into skater haired street buskers at the time. Gutted for them. Now they sell insurance in a call center.

Forget that – who is to say they’ve even decided what they want to do with their lives and are just trundling along at half speed til they can work it out. I’m 19 and I’m currrently trying to work out what the hell I’m going to do with the rest of my life. There are times when I think “well Gem, you’ve made a royal balls up of your life so far, what are you going to do about it??” Terrifyingly (though not altogether unexpectedly) the general response from that voice in my head is either silence or… “…fuck if I know, you control the legs in this situation, you work it out!” Yeah, coz the voice in my head is extraordinarily rude, by the way. Should probably have a word with it about that actually…

try again! never too late to rock the street XD

So now I’m wondering; what can the people represented in that awful stat do about it? Can they do anything? Go back to that accordion and hope the market’s changed? Get a hair cut and conform for the sake of a taste of success? How do you even measure success. I think it’s personal. If you are satisfied then surely that’s a job well done? You might not have millions in the bank, but you will be rich in spirit.

From the sounds of America, this whole appearance of total contentment in life is a facade, a nation wide pass time of pretence and self disillusionment. Maybe they should take a look at a happy busker, an old man and his accordion. A guy who took up the art again after years wasted in a desk job, having given up on the dream of his youth ; chances are there are holes in his shoes and a couple of missing buttons on that old thing, but I’ll bet there’s a smile on his face. Because he’s made it; he’s playing to his audience. Whether they listen or not is irrelevant – that little bugger with the cool hair has gone home… I hear he sells insurance now…

SSDD

Sometimes We Must Weep For Kismet

I think of myself as being open minded. I may not be religious, but I believe in something being out there, exerting some kind of control over the goings on of the world. A tweak here, a nudge there. Maybe even a big ol’ slap in a certain direction from time to time.

But there are some things that make me hope to (a metaphorical) god that there is some kind of quantifiable reason for. Because if there’s not – whatever force influences us is a bit of a scummy entity.

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/08/justin-stanfield-thomas-killed_n_3407551.html

I encountered this story on the Huffington Post Crime and it made me feel sick. A father and his 4 year old son went to visit a friend. Somehow, the boy got hold of a gun fired it. The bullet hit his father. His father is now dead.

Some things you hear make you weep for the way the world spins. Surely this proves American gun laws are stupid. Surely this is another nail in the coffin of the argument in favour of guns being allowed in private residencies; a coffin, I might add, which has now got to be so riddled with nails that it resembles a giant stud ball, by the way. Kids are still getting hold of guns, even if this was an accident – guns. and. people. = bad. I am quite sure residents can look after their homes without them.

No more details are known, other than the fact that the father and son were visiting a friend and the bot is now with his mother. I have no idea how or why the gun came to be in that child hands, but the fact remains that it did. And now a man is dead.

Something has to change.

What if that gun had blown off the head of the 4 year old? Would that have been better? Worse? No, it would still have been tragic. It just means that now someone has to have the job of telling that poor child the truth when he asks why daddy isn’t still around. Can you imagine how that conversation might progress?? Oh, I’m sorry sweetie, you shot him when you were 4. Now he’s dead and you are to blame. Well, American gun laws are also to blame. But still, you killed him.

He may have pulled the trigger, but as far as I am concerned, America handed him the gun.

 

SSDD

Alcocholic Cupcakes!!!!!

New craze for cupcake cocktails – caketails – sweeps London, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire | Mail Online.

Alcoholic cupcakes from Molly Bakes

That’s right – some crazy cats have created cocktail cupcakes!!

Continuing my apparent obsession with weird and wonderful baked goods, I found these for your viewing pleasure.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It was always going to happen. A mixture of cocktail and cake is to combine two delectable goodies, neither consumed as anything more than a cheeky treat. Everyone feels a little bit naught tucking into a huge, colourful, iced cupcake. We all know that little flutter when you take that first tiny lick at the swirly icing sitting temptingly on top, begging you to give in and devour it, damn the care and effort it took to make and to hell with the calories!

It is the same with a cocktail. After perusing a menu filled with ambiguous titles full of promises they could never really fulfill, you watch the waiter twist and shake that silver maker. They add a splash of this, a dash of that, before the heady mixture is decanted into a fancy and utterly impractical glass with a dramatic flourish. It is presented to you as if part of a great event, decorated with all manner of superfluous things, like sparklers and miniature umbrellas; and you grin like a kid at Christmas because it is a magical thing and you wouldn’t drink it any other way.

As the article (linked at the top of the page!) from the Daily Mail states, there are in fact several places that sell these  cocktail cupcakes in all varieties. They are bakery bars in a way, the only cake shops where it is acceptable to be asked for ID 😀

Mocktail versions are available of course, for those less partial to a tipple but still a sucker for a pretty little sweet thing with a silly name. The amazing thing is, that despite alcohol itself being so expensive compared to your average soft drink, these cupcakes are priced the same as the average “designer” cupcake. Great, i’ll take 6! 😀

The link tells you where to buy/order them if you live in the UK, but their origins are apparently to be found in the good ol’ U S of A. On behalf of the world, we thank you for your baking ingenuity!

Which do you prefer – Cocktail Cupcake, or Mocktail Cupcake?

SSDD