Black Guy, White Guy
My recent post, “Winning The Hearts & Minds Of Black Men” & got even more attention and response than I had anticipated, and for this, your humble correspondent is most grateful. It was, and is, a much needed conversation at this time in our national history.
One of the respondents, regular commenter and blogger in his own right Chuck Ross, attempted to argue the “con” position as to why college was a better deal in general for people, to say nothing of Black Men. Among the many things he said, was that I, personally, wasn’t factoring in he “opportunity costs“-a basic Econ 101 principle-into my own self-analysis. Although many commenters disagreed with him-among them, Dragnet, RR and Terry-after giving the whole thing a goodly bit of thought I decided to note the following, as a kind of comparison sheet:
Now, what I’m about to say about Chuck, is publicly known, by his own hand, both here at the O-Files, and over at his own blog, so nothing I’m saying is out of line or off-color.
But the truth is, that Chuck isn’t really in any position to lecture me or say, Terry’s hubbie, about the bennies of college education-not if we use Chuck himself as a living testimony. Here we have a guy who, again, by his own admission, is already down *40K* in debt-with nothing to show for it. Indeed, despite having *two* degrees-one of them a master’s presumably in Economics-he’s a waiter at a mid-level eatery.
Now don’t et me wrong-i have nothing against waiters and from what I’ve heard, never having done it myself, a guy can indeed make some very nice money for himself. But the truth is, that the “opportunity costs” for him just didn’t pan out, now did they? Nor is he by any stretch of the imagination alone-thousands, if not millions, of people are right in the same boat.
Now, take me on the other hand-every job I’ve had since highschool, has brought a net profit instead of loss. Indeed, I would tell any Brotha within earshot that one of the best things they can do is grip up a temp gig. Why?
Because, if they’re smart-IF-and if they’re hardworking-IF-and if they can see the big picture-IF-they can convert that temp spot into something quite nice for themselves, in a fraction of the time it takes to get a B.S. degree-with none of the debt.
I’m a witness. I’ve taken at least three temp gigs and turned them into high paying management or close to management gigs inside of four years or less-one of them I went from a temp guy to operations manager-basically first mate, if you will-inside of nine months. And held the job for an additional three years afterwards.
The principles I learned about business was inestimable, to say nothing about other skills I picked up-and I was making money all the while doing it. I wouldn’t be doing that going to school fulltime.
Or even part-time: earlier this year, I played around with the idea of going back to school, to get a degree in a field I both had interest in and actual experience doing. I did a bit of research and so forth, and came up with a school that I had observed “paying off” for a number of people I knew. So, I decided to get the application process started.
Due to scheduling conflicts and the like, things took a bit longer than usual-I learned very quickly that many of these schools try to speed up the process for their own reasons-and that gave me the chance to really roll up my sleeves and do a bit of hard numbers crunching, to say nothing of really grilling those folk who had gone to the same school(s).
So, I did what I’d always done in my previous business gigs: I sat down at the kitchen table, pulled out the yellow legal pad, a simple calculator, and a pen, and did some very basic math. I had already known the rough estimate it would take for me to attend school for about 2 years: about 30K, give or take a few stacks. I would be required to go at night, since I would also have to work in the daytime-which meant a reduction in possible earnings from either overtime and/or a second gig. And, I would have to predict out another two years ahead-assuming everything went off without a hitch with my studies-as to what the job market would be like at that time.
Well, I said to myself, if-IF-I could land a gig in doing what it was that I wanted to do at say, at least 40, 45K/yr, I could payoff my school debt inside of 2 years, at the most 3. It would require basically taking half of my earnings to do it, and all the attendant belt-tightening that comes with it, but I’m a fairly Spartan guy to begin with, and have no other commitments that require major funds like so many other adults do. So, I know I could do that.
What I didn’t know, was what the job market was gonna look like say, circa 2012. So, I looked into as much research as I could-some of you may recall a big post I put up predicting what the next decade would bring? Well, let’s just say that it had more than a passing professional interest to me. I knew that I had access to some pretty sharp minds and that not only could I get their views on these things, but I could do it for free. Brothas, trust me when I tell you that the Internet is the Great Equalizer! That post, and the respondents to it-which included Chuck-set me on the path towards looking into other areas, and doing much snooping. All of which was quite fruitful.
I ultimately came to the conclusion Dragnet did a few weeks back, waaay back to the Spring or so of this year: that, unless I had either full expenses paid for school and/or an ironclad guarantee in blood from my admissions’ officer that I’d get a gig that would net me enough to paydown any debt I incurred inside of three years, max, it was gonna be a VERY iffy proposition, at best, for me to do this. Factor in things like age, race, etc, and the proposition is starting to look more like a longshot Hail Mary pass, than a sureshot guarantor of success.
Then there was my really grilling those folk I told you about that had attended the same school I was going to, or schools very close to it? Well, as it turned out, once we got the platitudes that surround “education” and bore down to the hardcore business of cost/benefit, I discovered that easily three out of the five people I talked to-all Sistas, by the way-STILL had considerable school debt. Yes, they were working in their assigned fields, and yes, they were making good money-on paper.
But when you looked at the debt ratios, when you factored in the time it took for them to go to school in the first place, it all really hit home for me-far from pulling ahead, at best they were breaking even, or worse, they down in the hole. And keep in mind here-several of these ladies didn’t have chick nor child, like Chuck. So, they couldn’t hang their still being in debt for having mouths to feed. Sure, their individual spending habits and lifestyle played a role, too-Women after all make some 80% of all consumer spending decisions-but still, after talking to a number of folk, a pattern begins to emerge. One that I began seeing again and again and again.
OK, so the time came to take my admissions’ test-what the heck, I say to myself, if nothing else I’ll see if I’ve got the chops to do the school thing. I take the test, and ace it-in fact, I’m told that I had one of the highest scores ever for that school’s location. So, I decide yea, I got the chops. Now let’s see if I can get the bread…
And then that’s where I hit a snag-you see, because of a few things, I wasn’t eligible for grants and the like-but I was eligible for quite a few loans. And trust you me, those guys were pushing them loans *hard* on a Brotha.
But I refuse. I had already done peeped the game: no matter what happens, whether I pass or fail, the school gets theirs. The trick is whether I get mine, and doing the school loan thing, based on what I had seen firsthand from talking to so many people, doing my own “market research” and so on, told me that I was taking a huge risk that I was likely to lose.
So, I put the notion of going back to school, to bed. In the end, it just wasn’t a good deal.
Oh, and I forgot to add-despite the really great spiel I got by the admissions officer, newly minted grads don’t get squat in terms of job assistance. ALL of the grads I talked to told me this, and ALL of them got their gigs either on their own, or via the hookup.
Another reason for Obsidian to hit the Eject Button.
So where does that leave me, right now, in 2010? Well, right off the bat, in a much better spot than Chuck: for one thing, I can confidently say that I don’t have in excess of $40K in debt, or anything approaching it. In fact, I’ve always been very careful to keep my debt really low, having seen what happened to people around me who for one reason or another let their debt get outta control at various points in my life. But in addition to that, while he was in school, I was actually making money, AND getting real world, on the job training, in what it takes to run a business. And not just any business-stuff that people NEED, like what those coal miners down in Chile do, or what industrial food service workers do, and so on and so forth. In other words, stuff people need and can’t do without. Recession proof, more or less.
For all the talk of the evil that Black Men do, by all accounts I’m a success story: I’m debt and disease free, don’t have umpteen Baby Mamas out there (and this I know for a fact because I checked it with the Phila. Family Court and had a background check done), don’t have a rap sheet as long as my arm, am still alive long after I should be dead statistically, and for more than two decades straight, have been nothing but a net taxpayer to our economy, NOT a tax taker. I fully intend to collect as much of my Social Security as I can, because I’m careful to live a lifestyle that gives me a shot of going beyond the Black Male national average lifespan of 70 or so. And if personal family genetic history is any indication-where most of the Males have lived well into their 80s and beyond-chances are good that I’ll get back at least a decade’s worth of my SS. Now given the state of the economy right now, it may not be there by the time I’m ready to retire-fair enough-but I won’t be collecting it because of something silly I did.
I would tell any young Brotha out there right now to use his head, keep his eyes and ears open, and transfer his street smarts into areas that will make him money. Be willing to start small and grow in time. Be willing to do the work no one else wants to do, and take the piss-ant money they pay for it. Trust me when I tell you, employers are constantly looking for self-motivated talent-and the one biggest thing you can do to help yourself is show up. Be early-not on time, but early-and be the last Man to rollout at night. Brothas don’t network, and that really holds us back, but it don’t have to hold YOU back-if you don’t have a network, then dammit, BUILD ONE. Learn the art of making friends. There are people all around you, and trust me when I tell you that they’re watching you if you’re doing what I’m saying here. And trust me when I tell you that you’ll be able to build off of that, too. Again: nothing I’m saying here is theory. I’ve done it. I’ve proven to myself that I can go anywhere and walk into a job off the street, start out at the bottom and a year or so later, be, if not running the place, be one of the most important members on the team. In fact, I make it my business to make myself so important that if I were gone, it would visibly hurt the business’ bottomline. Like the Women in my past, businesses I’ve left have never been the same, and usually they’re the worse off for it.
Based on more than two decades of realworld, on the job(s) experience, nothing beats work ethic, commonsense and being able to quickly size
up and see the picture, to say nothing of seizing on opportunities when they present themseleves. In the Age of The Credentialed Blind, the One-Eyed Brotha is the Commonsense King.
You heard it here.
Now adjourn your asses…
The Obsidian
