Dead-End Job: Only If You Think So

Every time I hear the term “dead-end job” I suffer an instant visceral reaction. What, exactly, is a dead-end job?

Wikipedia: “A dead-end job is a pejorative term used to describe a job in which there is little or no chance of progressing and succeeding into a higher paid position.” (emphasis mine)

I’ve thought about this topic endlessly, which is not hard to do because it’s in the news so often. It usually appears in the same sentence with “fast food,” “retail,” and “Walmart.” The premises are always the same: The job itself is keeping you from progressing in your career, too many of these jobs are being created, and somehow the company that creates them is guilty of violating some vague principle of corporate ethics because the job comes with a lower-than-middle-class-lifestyle-supporting wage. The consensus seems to be that if you take one of these jobs you are forever doomed to be employed at a low rate of pay, responsibility, and prestige. In a nutshell, you are powerless to do anything about your condition and the employer is at fault.

Obviously this summary bothers me. Mostly I just wonder why people think the job is the problem, when it’s a market we’re dealing with—we buy and sell skills. What is the market buying? What are you selling? What are your skills worth? You should know the answers to these questions.

I’m dating myself here, but nevertheless, my story: I started out as a teenage babysitter at 50 cents an hour. I got tired of low pay, difficult kids, and unreliable hours, so I sought work in fast food—the only place that would hire me because I had few skills. I made $2.10 an hour. But I got tired of being sexually harassed by the lecherous manager, so with my first real job on my résumé (Der Weinerschnitzel hot dogs) I soon sought work as a receptionist. I made $5 an hour and gained a few more skills. But I got tired of being treated as just the girl at the desk by all the suits, so I borrowed money and went to college. I gained more skills. With an English degree the most I made in any year was $24,000 as an associate editor in a large, southern publishing house. There I gained more skills, but I got tired of how hard it was to feed and clothe a growing family on that low salary; my husband was making entry-level wages at his government job back then. We were still struggling so I enrolled in graduate school. After graduation the family grew to include four children, so with a Master of communications I was churning out freelance articles from home so that I could be with my kids. But over time I got tired of piddly little paychecks that I couldn’t rely on, and our kids had college expenses, so I got a temporary job as a technical writer based on the technical writing I’d done (quilting instructions) with the southern publisher. Though the temp job stretched my writing/technical editing skills, it paid well and led to permanent, professional employment in the defense industry. Finally, we were able to support our family, though it took years of skill-building gained from myriad stepping stone (ahem, “dead-end”) jobs.

This is only a snapshot. Over the decades I’ve held countless “dead-end” jobs because I needed particular hours to meet a class schedule or to make sure one parent was minding the babies while the other parent worked or attended class. One Christmas when we were short on cash for gifts for our children I worked part-time ... at Walmart.

The job is not dead end unless you think it is. I refuse to believe the lie. Do you?