diving into the job market

I went out to eat last night. At a burger place attached to the mall. Relax, no big thing. When the meal was done I took a moment to look around and it occurred to me that there were just enough waitresses and bus boys necessary to serve the clientele.

A coincidence?

After eating I walked around the mall and every store I entered had someone there to assist me. Every one. Shoe stores, sporting goods stores, candle stores; all had just the right amount of workers needed. What are the odds that the number of people with an interest in selling shoes, sporting goods and candles perfectly matched the number of workers required?

Heading back to my car, my head still swimming from such an observation, I happened to look back at the mall, and it hit me… building that mall required architects to design it, construction workers to build it and run electricity and plumbing through it and an army of bankers, lawyers and accountants to give it the green light. To say nothing of the legion of individuals needed to mine or harvest the raw materials required and then transport them to the site.

And it just so happened that the exact number of people needed to complete the job matched the number available.

My swimming head went from a breaststroke to the butterfly as I thought about all those resources moving to and fro on our nation’s highways.

There are 3.5 million trucks on the road in the United States and behind each wheel sits a truck driver. Try and imagine a world where that wasn’t the case. The roads would become a charred hellscape.

I recently watched a program about a waste management facility in Mexico City where they employ someone to get into a wetsuit and then get lowered into an enormous storage tank, the size of a football field, filled to the brim with feces, in order to clear out debris clogging the various tunnels that bring in the aforementioned to be treated. They needed a guy who was passionate about both diving and excrement and apparently they found him.

Imagine if there was more than one guy interested in both diving and excrement. That they had to interview multiple candidates. “So what is it about swimming in filth that excites you?” It follows that after the interview someone would be getting notified that they weren’t deemed worthy of being lowered into a giant vat of shit.

That would be a tough letter to get. Where the fuck do you go from there?

At this point I’d like to venture back a few sentences to make sure that you understood what I meant when I said that the roads would become a charred hellscape. I’m sure you got it, but I just want to make sure. It’s such a humorous visual that I’d hate think you blew right by it. What I was going for was the idea that there were 3.5 million trucks on the road and behind the wheel of each sits a driver. Then I inferred the possibility that suddenly, while those same trucks were barreling down the road, there wasn’t a driver behind the wheel.

Hence the charred hellscape. Thousands of driverless trucks careening around and causing massive pile-ups.

Got it now?

Now you might ask how they got onto those very same roads to begin with, being without a driver and all, and I can’t hold it against you if that’s the way your brain works, but doing so removes the humorous visual I was referring too.

Just go with it Poindexter.

Anyway, I guess we’re lucky that there seems to be a job perfectly suited for everyone. Not too many, not too few. A cornucopia of opportunities tailored to our individual interests, whether they be tailoring, serving food, selling footwear or diving into giant vats of crap. Gears meshing together to perpetuate a content and thriving society.

And in our free time?

Hopefully taking a few minutes each day to read and fully appreciate a shitty story.