AngryManDinners

As a currently unemployed person, I’ve been attending local networking events for unemployed people.

They are helpful and I’m meeting some great people. What I’ve noticed is that a lot of the people I’m meeting are Supply Chain Professionals.

I’m not entirely sure what a Supply Chain Professional does, but it does seem like an awful lot of them aren’t doing it right now.

Of course, a lot of people in a lot of different professions are finding themselves in the same boat. (Or ocean liner…or aircraft carrier. There are SO many people out of work right now.)

Even kids graduating from college right now are having a tough time finding work in their chosen field.

This got me thinking. If I had children, what types of professions would I advise them to go into these days?  “Healthcare” is the top answer that most people “in the know” would give.  But what if you know that’s not for you?

IT jobs seem like they won’t go away, but I’ve seen an awful lot of IT people at these networking meetings, too.

This got me thinking again – is it better, in this economy, to pursue a career that may have a better chance at keeping you employed  over one that you have an aptitude or a passion for?

Or, more dire still, is it better to pursue a job, or jobs,  that will keep you working instead of focusing on pursuing a career in one field?

The younger generation of workers seems to have figured it out. Or at least figured it out for now.  They treat career positions like jobs.

They “punch in” at nine and “punch out” at 5.  They don’t read trade publications, don’t attend trade meetings or industry social events.

They don’t typically take work home or think about their industry when they’re not at work.  They don’t particularly care to hang out with co-workers outside of work.

In fact, they don’t really “hang out” with their co-workers while they are at work. After all, all they really have in common is their workplace and with the high-churn environment of today’s workplace, why get to know someone who might be gone in a few months?

They use their breaks to log into Facebook and other social networks to keep in touch with their network of non-workplace friends and spend the time at their desk wearing earbuds, plugged into their iPods.

Sometimes they supplement their income – not with freelance or consulting work, but with retail jobs.

In the very likely event that they fall victim to lay offs in their main job, they can work their retail job while they look for a new job.  Perhaps in the field they studied in college –or maybe something else entirely.

Looking at every job, even a “career” position, as “just a job,” makes the job hunter a lot more resilient and their job hunt a lot more flexible.

So what ever happened to pursuing a career path? And how did this “just a job” attitude come about?  It’s simple.  These workers are just showing their employers the same level of loyalty, investment and dedication that their employers have shown them.

Recently, I read an interview with the director of the new comedy “Hot Tub Time Machine.”  The interviewer had done his homework and pointed out that the film had a whole bunch of blatant and not-so-blatant anachronisms.  The director was half-surprised by some of the examples and tried to explain away others.

Half-surprised? Explaining away?  Granted, this is a light, goofy comedy with a light, goofy premise, but it is also a MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR PRODUCTION.  There is an entire team of writers and fact-checkers on the payroll, not to mention a team of people called  “Continuity Directors.”  On set, these are the people who make sure that things in the movie, like clothing and props, stay the same between breaks in shooting.

On the set of “24,” for example, this person would make sure that all the rips and bloodstains on Jack Bauer’s wardrobe stay in the same places for the 24-hour timeframe of the show, even over weeks or months of shooting in real-time.

Behind the scenes, however, the continuity team is also responsible for making sure that things “make sense” in the film, continuity-wise. This involves things like making sure that all the street signs in the scenes that are supposed to be taking place in Russia (but are actually being shot in Vancouver) are in Russian and so on.

In a period piece or TIME TRAVEL MOVIE, their job is to make sure that each scene is “period-appropriate.”   One of the more famous mistakes in period continuity occurs in “Ben Hur,” when a few of the extras in crowd scenes are seen wearing wristwatches.  A more recent example occurs in Cameron’s “TITANIC” when Leo DeCaprio’s character mentions a lake that hadn’t been created yet.

In “Hot Tub Time Machine” there are numerous errors. Songs playing that hadn’t been released for months, or years in the future. TV sets showing programs from the future. Movie posters and props that didn’t exist in 1986.

But I know the life of someone working on a big-budget movie must be rather hectic. With a rushed production schedule and  looming deadlines, finding time for research might be tough.

If only there were a quick, easy way to fact-check stuff… Perhaps with just a few keystrokes on your ever-present laptops or  the ubiquitous iPhone.

Oh wait, there is.

Continuity team: you’re all fired, damn it.  So you’d best all hop in that hot tub and go back to 1986 because finding a new job in 2010 is really hard. You might even have to do some research.

Ok, here it is, the inaugural post on AngryManDinners.com.  I suppose I should say something profound or inaugural. But all that comes to mind right now is: “Release the Hounds!”