In Ocejo’s work, he discusses the rise of the creative class and how their new objective in the workforce is to not find jobs that pay the highest salary with the most benefits, but rather jobs that give meaning to their work. Ocejo specifically looks at jobs like bartenders, butchers, and barbers and tries to understand why these professions were chosen by the creative class and what meaning they provide to their lives. A majority of these individuals who have chosen these service level jobs are well-educated and have degrees from many colleges and universities. Some had previously worked in the “desk job” life for big corporations and quit soon after starting. These corporation jobs, although providing monetary comfort, did not fulfill meaning of work in the creative class individuals. As discussed in class, many believe that these workers are over qualified for these service level jobs, but also who is to say whether or not someone has the education to be overqualified for a job.
While Ocejo never explicitly says that the higher educated individuals are more likely to get the service level jobs, it is quite easy to assume that owners of these businesses are looking to cater to a very specific type of consumer: the wealthy. These upscale bars, and farm to table butchers are bringing niche businesses into these growing hipster neighbor hoods and their consumers all seem to fit the same mold. Business owners know what type of consumer their businesses are attracting and want to hire staff that will better represent the ideals of the business. For example, an upscale bar in New York will higher the bartender with higher social capital of ending an elite college because they bring a sense of class and sophistication with them. Ocejo mentions that “The people who fill backstage roles [in these bars] , who have limited if any interactions with customers and clients, are mainly ethnic and racial minorities without advanced degrees or outward interest in the cultural repertoires of the work” (155). These educated workers in these service level jobs have a degree of privilege that their coworkers in the back are not fortunate of. For many of these creative class workers, they left their corporate jobs and high pay to become service level workers, but with no responsibility or expenses following them. The privilege that these workers have to choose to leave a higher paying job to work in a job with more meaning is an opportunity taken for granted. Unlike these privilege creative class workers, many who are working in these same businesses, but in the back, do not have the same opportunity to be able to choose a career that offers them the most meaning in life. Many are trying to support themselves and their families and are happy finding work wherever that may be.
Being in the generation of the creative class it interests me why these individuals feel the need to work these service level jobs. It seems quite unnecessary for these individuals to pursue a four-year college education to work a job that needed no formal education at all, only time and practice in the craft. Perhaps many of these workers felt pressured by their parents or their high schools to pursue a higher education when all along they knew a formal workplace was not for them. I could also see it as a resistance identity of those leaving college and not wanting to follow the expected path from their alma maters. A school like Bowdoin College markets itself in having the best network of alumni to help with careers after graduation, but the focus of these careers is in the business/corporate sector. Would Bowdoin ever boast about their alumni working in these service level jobs like they do about those working in finance or pursuing medical schools. It is to my belief they would not because we still are living in a culture that prides itself on success of people by the amount of money they make and their monetary wealth, not necessarily their emotional wealth or happiness.
In Jonathan Wynn’s Music/City, he describes the movement of a cities cultural identity of material production to the present goal of maximizing consumption offerings. As the trend of festivilization will continue to grow, this idea aligns naturally with our in-class discussion of the city as an entertainment machine. City officials are placing an emphasis on music festivals in hopes of transforming local economies. As a result, festival sites are being constructed at a pace that outweighs demand, costing over $15 billion.
Because cities have transitioned to offering as much consumption as possible, there has certainly been a rise in the individual consumer. The consumer now has more freedom to partake in music festivals as well as indulge themselves in the host cities food market. In addition, Wynn mentions that the continued privatization of urban spaces has led to numerous theaters, bars, and restaurants. Gentrified neighborhoods soon became home to new businesses and urban development (Wynn, 25). Furthermore, the idea of festivilization presents new roles for city officials as well. Recently, city officials have placed a greater importance on the construction of festival sites surpassing education and healthcare facilities. As a result, policymakers are finding new ways to use public spaces in order to maximize consumption.
Due to the increase in the amount of music festivals many Americans of all backgrounds come together and share public spaces, which reminded me of Anderson’s cosmopolitan canopy. Anderson writes, “the cosmopolitan canopy becomes ever more significant as a setting in which people of diverse backgrounds come together, mingle with strangers…” (Anderson, 29). In many ways, festival sites offer many of the same characteristics. Specifically, Wynn’s example of the Newport music festival takes a community which is known for their majority white elite population and throws “beatniks” and college students into this environment. Surprisingly, over time the Newport festival was greatly accepted by the local residents. Hence, these festivals resemble some qualities of the cosmopolitan canopy as diverse groups of people of all ages come together to share a common music experience.
Lastly, what stood out to me in this reading and what I believe is worth noting is the relationship between locals and tourist populations that travel for music festivals. Wynn notes that while the Newport residents encourage the annual music festival it certainly took time for them to adjust to the music genres that were popular at the time. The Newport community highlights that cosmopolitan canopies do not arise overnight, they develop over time and I’m sure we will see a lot more in the near future as festivals become ubiquitous. It is also important to note that cities attempt to attract more youthful residents as they find ways to rebrand their cities. However, in doing so, they may be affecting a city’s originality and historical value. The effort to rebrand and make communities more appealing causes a potential disconnect between city officials and policymakers as both groups may differ in long term interests for their city’s.
I think the firs post raises an interesting question in wondering whether or not Bowdoin would advertise their alumni working in creative class jobs. Honestly, I do not have a response to that, but to add to your question I wonder how many Bowdoin students do throw off some of the expectations that go along with having a Bowdoin degree, to work in a service industry job. I think there is definitely a pressure to “put your degree to use” after graduating from a prestigious college such as Bowdoin or a similar school, but I would also argue that working in a service industry job would not be a waste of a Bowdoin degree. I think that a college degree is valuable no matter what job one engages in in their post-grad life because the experiences and learning that one gains in college follows them for the rest of their lives. I would imagine that a Bowdoin student who may be tired of being confined to the high stress environment of Bowdoin academics would still bring their strong work ethic and talented mind to the table in a service industry job and perhaps rise to a managerial position or something similar, and would be able to do so, because of their solid college education foundation.
I think one of the things that complicates this discussion is the enormous cost of attending Bowdoin or similar prestigious colleges. It seems to me that the issue here is that Bowdoin has an estimated cost of over $68,000 per year of attendance at this point in time. So, if you can do a career that makes you happy and you are passionate about without spending this huge amount of money, then why would you attend college? If you want to work on Wall Street, be a physician, a professor etc. you have to have a college degree because that is a requirement of the profession, and financially it ends up being sustainable because you will make a salary that can be used to pay off your student debts. However, for the professions Ocejo talks about you do not necessarily need a college degree (although I acknowledge in our current cultural setting his point is that having a college degree helps you in the market because of the social capital it gives you). My question then, is why are we putting so much social pressure on attending college? Why isn’t it that rather than spending over a quarter of a million dollars to attend college we can allow members of the creative class to follow their passions out of high school and enter into these artisan industry professions? Why can we not promote passion and realize that not everyone wants to be an investor or physician, and do it before so much money is spent? I am not at all saying that a person going into an industry job couldn’t benefit from college, but I am asking if its worth the high stress and cost if ultimately they are passionate about something else.