Is your profession a calling?

Several years ago I read an op-ed type column in the WSJ (it's hard to tell in a liberal newspaper if you're reading news or an editorial) that I've never forgotten. A journalist wrote about a friend from college who chose a career in business. The writer chose journalism because "he wanted to make a difference in people's lives," or something like that. By age 50, the writer had had several reverses in his career and was struggling to even make ends meet. His friend by then had retired from a successful business career--don't remember if he invented something, or sold something, but he'd made a bundle. Now he was living his dream--he'd created a foundation and was using his money to help people.

I think juniors or seniors in high school should be told the realities of life, handed a fistful of play/monopoly money, the classifieds from any major city with ads for grocery stores, restaurants, plays, housing, cars, etc. and a book of charts, graphs and stats on salaries. After they've figured out how they would live in Chicago, LA or Peoria, let them look through the college catalog. They may still want to be a librarian, a social worker, an architect or a journalist, but it might cut down on the whining 10 years later about college loans, cost of living, and how this generation won't live as well as its parents or grand parents.

Annoyed Librarian writes: "I always assumed that librarians working the really crappy jobs were doing it because they were lazy or stupid, or had no marketable skills, or had previously worked in an even more annoying profession, or were uncompetitive in some way they couldn't help (unable to move from the area, for example), or just not very good at their jobs. But now I know that it's possibly because they view librarianship as a calling, like being a priest or a rock musician. Those librarians are just living the dream, serving the public faithfully, saving the world one library card at a time."

Yesterday the WSJ featured the gift to NY School of Social Work of $50 million from Constance and Martin Silver. Mrs. Silver got a bachelor and Master's in Social Work there in the late 70s, but reading through the bio, she must have gotten it after she married Martin, because it says they met right after she finished high school and came to NY to get a job. He was already a graduate of NYU when they met (it's also possible she isn't wife #1 and younger). They became wealthy because of his blood-plasma business, Life Resources, Inc. which was sold to the British government for $110 Million in 2002 when they were still in their 60s. She says the gifts (this one and others to NYU) are to fight poverty because "they had struggled to overcome poverty." [Reading the story I don't think they were any poorer than the rest of us growing up in the 1950s--we all had a lower standard of living than today.]

I think the gift from the Silvers might better serve needy college students by offering scholarships to the business school or even trade schools for youngsters who don't have a "calling" but want a better life for themselves and their families. Only a growing government needs more social workers, and that's not how they met their dream.