Worker Bees

I am astonishingly lucky.

I managed to find a job in big, bad corporate America with a company I like, full of hard working people I admire - doing something I love.

Astonishingly lucky.

Because for the average America worker, the working experience isn’t always quite so enjoyable.

An employee is seen as little more than a drone in America. Replaceable, expendable and utterly powerless in the face of market forces. The attitude is: Be Grateful You Have This Job.

It’s totally the opposite in Europe. Being a ‘worker’ has some validity and they enjoy considerable more security as a result. Be Lucky You Have Me, the worker tells the employer.

I think the major reason for this disparity is the conflicting mindsets of Americans and Europeans. (The British mindset is currently stuck in the middle - and leaning increasingly closer to the American viewpoint.)

Europeans are pragmatic. Your place on the totem pole is pretty much decided from birth. There is no shame in being a steel-worker, or a factory foreman, or an office worker for the rest of your life. You have a job. You receive an income. You earn a pay increase during your years of service that matches inflation. Generous holiday allowances and other benefits ensure that you work to live and not the other way around.

Americans, on the other hand, are aspirational.

You might start off as a steel-worker or a waitress, but the American Dream tells you that you can achieve anything if you set your mind to it. You might be considered ‘working class’ right now, but in a few year’s time you’ll be running your own business, or on TV, or clutching that winning lottery ticket. You don’t care so much about the long term benefits of your job because whatever your job is, it’s a temporary proposition.

You work hard and you’ll go places. Who You Are is determined by What You Do and as a result, the American worker lives to work.

This aspirational attitude might go some way towards explaining why Americans allow employers to treat them the way they do.

Less than two weeks paid vacation a year. Minimal benefits and – worst of all – the knowledge that you could be marched out of the door at a moment’s notice (instead of being given a month’s notice like we are in Europe.) The risks might be bigger, but in return the opportunities are better.

I admire that concept, but it doesn’t dismiss my shock when I first witnessed how ‘the working man’ gets treated by the American corporate monster.

The total lack of job security is the most scary prospect. America lives paycheque to paycheque and the timescale between them is a generally no longer than a fortnight.

A working stiff with a $3,000 mortgage, $1,400 car payments and $800 property tax a month to pay off (a pretty average situation) is going to be in real trouble really quickly if he gets the brush off on a Friday afternoon and suddenly isn’t earning that $80,000 salary he was counting on.

The American mindset pushes you to spend big and to build a wobbly tower of monthly credit payments to support your shiny new car, big red house and expensive toys. These ‘things’ say as much about Who You Are as anything you say or do. But the taller the tower, the more quickly it comes toppling down if there’s an upset in your finances – and that upset can whip around and boot you up the arse in a matter of hours.

It’s a totally alien prospect to me, coming from a European prospective.

In England, we lived in a tiny shoebox house, drove one fifteen year old car and struggled from paycheque to paycheque – but we always had the security of a month’s notice if either of us lost our job.

In America, living within our means has become so much easier and we can finally save money and live better – but the more we might extend ourselves, the deeper and more dangerous that drop might become.

Tina is half Jewish and I’m half Scottish – now that we’re aware of just how unpredictable an American worker's fortunes can be, we’ve both decided to maintain a lifestyle more in keeping with the stereotypes of our ethnicity.

Three and a Bit Days

In just over three days time, Tina and I will bid goodbye to Blighty and board a Boeing.

And we're stressed. Which is understandable, really.

The major source of stress is simply logistics. It's not easy to pack up your life into matching luggage. To do that, all while plugging away at your job and scrubbing your house, takes time. Lots of time. Tina and I had four hours of sleep last night.

Then there's simply the awe-inspiring thought of starting a whole new life. A Whole New Life. It looks like it should be capitalised.

A Whole New Life involves new jobs and possessions and a home. Very fortunately we've managed to get the home thanks to Tina's brother. When it comes to getting a job, I'm on my own.

That doesn't unduly worry me. I mean, I'm an enthusiastic, experienced chap with a sharp line in suits and a firm handshake. In America - the land of opportunity - I'm sure somebody will want to hire me.

The stress comes from deciding what it is I want to do.

Because I have a wonderful opportunity to choose my own path in the States. But the problem with opportunities like those is that the decisions you make need to be the right ones.

I've basically pinned down my motivation into two directions. Job Satisfaction and Salary. I'm willing to do a job I really enjoy for a modest salary - or a job I don't really enjoy for a generous salary. This polarisation pretty neatly fits into my two career paths.

Writing is my life. My current job, writing adverts and coming up with conceptual marketing ideas, is one of the most satisfying ones I've ever had. To see my ideas and words come to life on the radio or a computer screen is incredibly satisfying. The only thing better than pitching a creative idea to a client and having them love it is when that creative idea is similarly picked up by a receptive audience. I've been lucky enough to feel that buzz.

The downside is the salary and career prospects - which would both be better in the States.

On the other scale is getting back into the boiler-room. Sales.

It was working for Summer Study that really introduced me to sales and a nice smile and a smart suit saw me continue in that business when I left France and came to England. I even managed to reach the dizzy heights of Sales Manager before I realised that Sales was only worth being in if you really loved what it was you were selling... Or you got paid an enormous sum of money.

In America, I could get back into the sales business. It's tough work. It's a grind and worst of all, it's not the creative industry that writing is. But it offers the path to security and if I manage to twin my brand with a suitable corporate one - selling something I truly believe in - I think I could be very successful at it.

I can always write in my spare time. Not that the American workforce gets much of that.

It's a toss up; and with "the best laid plans of mice and men" and all that, I'm probably only going to discover where my American path will take me when I finally make footfall in New Jersey.