Bring in The Bobs

What would you say you do here?  Now THAT is a pointed question that needs to be asked more often.  The movie Office Space depicts two personnel consultants (The Bobs) that are brought in my Initech to weed out uneccessary cooks in the proverbial kitchen.  There are only two categories of people that belong in the workplace: 1. those who solve problems and 2. those who sell.  If you aren't doing one of the aforementioned, I have only one question...what would you say you do here? 

Working in the golf industry for many years has given me insight into the effect of dead weight personnel on an organization.  Take something as simple as simple as a charity golf outing.  I can't even count the number of these things that I have assisted in over the years.  I certainly cannot count the vast number of unnecessary volunteers and employees who breathed my air at these functions.  I call these people "walky talkies", because the are often frantically scurrying around with a clipboard and a walky talky accomplishing absolutely fucking nothing.  They show up in their freshly pressed pants, shiny shoes, and new shirt with the sponsoring logo all over it and they act like they are in mission control during the Apollo 13 crisis, when in fact all they are doing is making sure there are water bottles in the golf carts.  I will save my rant on volunteering for my next post.

The purpose of this post is to explore all the bitching going on about the lack of jobs out there.  Bullshit.  What do these people bring to the table?  Just because you have kids and your mommy told you that you're special when you were a kid does not entitle you to anything.  Get out there and grind.  Take what you can.  I know a CPA that shoveled snow for money this summer, AND is currently employed.  If you are under 45-50 years of age, get the image of the easy life out of your head.  Nobody wants to hear you bitch, and most likely nobody wants to hear ANYTHING from you period.  Like Kevin discussed in his recent post, you have to HUSTLE.  There is no magical tit of a job that you can suckle the golden milk from.  You are most likely replaceable, as discussed in Lou's post regarding why athletes are so highly paid.
Why do lawyers and doctors get paid well?  They solve problems.  People outsource their thinking to a trained professional for a fee, because people want their legal or medical problem solved.  People don't want to think, so they pay others to do it for them.  Why are athletes paid so handsomely?  They sell.  The recent economic squeeze is purging the American workforce of unnecessary positions.  Gone are the assistants of the assistants. Gone are the smiling faces of PR and the VP's of (insert bogus function).  My advice to the graduating class of 2010 is that you better be willing to take on a shitload of stress, be a pro athlete (good luck), or be extremely good looking (good luck again).   There is no hiding in the cracks anymore.   You better bring some value to the table.