Aspiration, failure, career goals and supermarkets: what do you think?

Allow me to run this one by you please. This was a Facebook conversation I saw recently but couldn't bring myself to participate in. I have a friend (let's call him Charles, not his real name) who has recently turned 25 and upon his birthday on Facebook, he posted a comment like, "just turned 25 and yup, I am still a failure." That's kinda a sad thing to say on his birthday really, but the fact is I know he hates his job - he works in a supermarket and it is not exactly a well paid job. But most importantly, he totally HATES working in a supermarket and complains non-stop about it.

Charles works in a supermarket in the north of England.

The response from his friends is almost predictable: no you're not a failure, there's absolutely nothing wrong with working in a supermarket, that it was a perfectly noble, honest way to make a living. Some even got offended by his statement, because they thought that he was insulting the millions of people around the world who work in supermarkets by regarding anyone who worked in a supermarket as a 'failure'.  Now that's not the kind of argument I want to get into, since I don't know Charles' friends on Facebook who were defending those who worked in a supermarket! That's one of the basic rules of social media, try to avoid getting into arguments with strangers.

In my humble opinion, whether or not Charles thinks he is a failure or not is entirely up to him - and if he does, then he can channel that energy into something constructive and positive. Different people have different ways of motivating themselves and I know Charles rather well - I know his dreams is to be a radio DJ, he wants to be the voice on the radio as well as the producer who comes up with the most innovative, interesting radio programmes that will have millions of listeners. In fact, Charles already has a Youtube channel and releases a few podcasts a week, though he does all these for free and has yet to find a way to monetize his podcast activities. So for now, podcasting and making videos for Youtube remains a hobby/passion in his free time whilst he works in a supermarket to pay the bills. Charles started working in a supermarket a few years ago on a temporary basis, whilst looking for a permanent job in media, but years later, he's still stuck at the very same supermarket and he fears being stuck there for many more years.

I have worked for BBC radio 4 in Manchester.

Why do his friends react, almost in a knee-jerk manner, to his assertion that he is a failure and why do I feel the way I do about their reaction? I think there's a clash of cultures going on here: you can take the boy out of Singapore but you can't take Singapore out of the boy. Growing up in Singapore, teachers, parents, society would nag at you to study hard, get straight As, go to the best universities because if you don't, you would end up stacking shelves at the NTUC supermarket - that would be deemed a failure, you would be letting down your parents, your teachers, your community, your society and most of all, yourself if you didn't study hard enough to become something like a doctor, a lawyer or a multimillionaire businessman. Well, that's the Singaporean mentality anyway, that's why my gut reaction to Charles' status update was simply, "good for you for not being content with working in a supermarket, time for you to shift gears to see how you can make that move into radio and get a full time job in broadcast journalism. What do you need? What else can you do to help yourself? Can you become an apprentice? Do you need more work experience or qualifications? Is there anything I can do to help to move you in the right direction?"

But let's look at things from the other side of the table - is there anything wrong with working in a supermarket? It is a perfectly honest, respectable way to make a living. So you don't get paid as much as a doctor or a lawyer, but these people who do work in a supermarket provide a vital service to the rest of us who shop there. It is unkind to put down someone who works in a supermarket for whatever reason: but wait, Charles is one of those people and he is choosing to put himself down, surely he has a right to self-deprecation? This is not like a rich businessman man mocking someone who works in a supermarket. Hence what's wrong with a bit of self-deprecation on his own terms?

What is wrong with taking a low-paid job in a supermarket?

I get the impression that it is far easier for Charles' friends to tell him that there's absolutely nothing wrong with taking a low-paid job at a supermarket than to actually encourage him to pursue his dreams of working in radio. As I work in media myself, heck I've worked for BBC radio 4: I am in a position to both offer useful advice and actually introduce people who may be able to help Charles get paid work in radio. But what if you are a good friend of Charles who works say in a primary school and there's really very little you can do to help him make his dreams come true? In that context, it becomes easier for you to just tell him to avoid disappointment by settling for what he already has in his life: a decent, stable job in a supermarket. In my opinion, if Charles is happy working in a supermarket, then fine - good for him. But I do know he is not happy where he is and he desperately wants to work in radio instead and if calling himself a failure on his 25th birthday is what he needs to do to get him to where he needs to be, then fine, so be it. Come on, my friend Charles is a 25 year old adult, not a 5 year old kid and I wish his friends wouldn't treat him like one.

At this point, I'll open it up to you. What would you do if you read Charles' status update on Facebook upon his 25th birthday? What kind of advice would you give someone in this situation? Do you think I'm perhaps being a bit too Singaporean in my thinking? Do you support the logic of his friends who are insisting that there is nothing wrong with working in a supermarket? Leave a comment below please and let's talk about the issue. Many thanks for reading.