Wednesday, March 21, 2012

If You Like Eating Pork, Someone Will Have To Raise Pigs

Forbes had an article recently on how to keep 20-somethings happy at work. It didn't break any new ground, but repeated themes I'd read elsewhere - they want to be happy, do something meaningful, they want work to be like play, etc. Thinking back, I'm not sure I would have said anything different when I was 20. It didn't sound like a novel aspect of the 2012 generation so much as the idealism of youth.

In the comments were plenty of curmudgeons grumbling about how these young layabouts needed to accept the grind of work and learn to take orders. Some were pretty clever, but I'll leave them where they were and you can click over and check them out if you'd like.

What occurred to me was this: lost amidst the blue-sky noodling was the thought that someone, somewhere was going to have to raise the pigs if anyone wanted to eat pork. Raising pigs doesn't fit any of the requirements listed in the article, save one. It has a larger purpose.

For my career, I want to muck sties while I tweet.

3 comments:

Kelly the little black dog said...

You're ignoring that some kids actually want to work with farm animals. At least that is the case out here. Some still see the idea of being a farmer as the ultimate in "being an independent Man or Women." With the increasing market for organic and local farming I keep meeting folks who decided to drop out of the rat race and run small boutique farms. I think the growing popularity in food that is not mass produced has prompted more folks to get into farming.

K T Cat said...

Yeah, I'm sure some people like working with pigs. I'm not sure how many think working in an industrial hog slaughtering plant think of it as "awesome" and "play".

Having said that, something that occurred to me after I posted this is that what these kids want is to be treated like Peyton Manning - lots of cash and perks. Some of them will be treated that way if they're good enough. If not, they'll start off as schlubs just like the rest of us did.

The article wasn't so much a list of demands as it was dreaming. There's nothing wrong with that.

Kelly the little black dog said...

Except that when we grew up we knew that most of us would be treated like schlubs unless we were extremely lucky. These kids think it is their birthright.