Guest Column: Making it in Missoula
Making It (or Not): Missoula’s Slippery Job Market
By Beefcake Wellington, 5-03-07
So I know this column usually covers the underbelly of the dating world, but recently I’ve been thinking about making it in a much less carnal sense. Lately the phrase has acquired more gravity, mostly born out the awkward struggle find a balance between living in Missoula and trying to stay afloat financially. You know, like making it work--as in getting those pesky ends to meet.
It’s no secret that, as great as it is, Missoula has its flaws: high housing costs paired with a job market that seems to have hidden itself beneath a very large rock, for instance. As an AmeriCorps volunteer (a detail that manages to maintain anonymity since there are like 7,000 of us in town) nearing the end of my term of service, the question of viability has raised its very ugly and expensive head. Forget my love life; how am I supposed to eat once Uncle Sam boots me off food stamps and stops sending me $700 a month?
Granted, there are jobs to be found in Missoula. It’s just—and here I’ll probably come off sounding like an a-hole, but oh well—that I’m looking for a little bit more than slinging fast food or brewing my days away as a barista (baristo?). I’d like something a little more fulfilling, something I can sink my heart and teeth into. Plus I’d like to make some actual money. Oh yeah, and can I get benefits please? Is that too much to ask?
Yes. At least here where the good jobs either require years of experience and technical skill or necessitate taking some kind of public oath. Which sucks, but I guess that’s why so many people end up heading off to Seattle or Portland. They’re taking Horace Greeley at his word.
But here’s the thing: I don’t really want to leave Missoula. I like it here; the small-town feel, the openness, the big sky, summer baseball, floating the river, bikes galore. Why can’t I have it both ways: a sweet, well-paying job that fulfills me and allows me to live in a place I really enjoy being a part of?
“Because,” my brother said recently when I was complaining over the phone, “life isn’t fair. Now quit bitching.”
Thanks, Bro. Very supportive.
The problem is he’s right. And so one of two things has to happen: I either need to a) suck it up and commit to another year of stable government “employment” or b) head out of town in search of fame and fortune. And so here I sit, mired in a quandary thicker than a glass of Olde Bongwater (it always comes back to beer, doesn’t it?), trying to decide between solvency and soul-vency (you like that? It’s all yours, Missoula).
But what if there’s a third option. What if instead of choosing between total fulfillment and fiscal responsibility, I redefine what making it means? What if I defy the nagging fears inside my head, understanding that maybe I won’t have my dream job—unless someone’s looking to pay a highly talented writer lots of cash (hint hint)—in the near future and that it’ll be a good long while (if ever) before “luxury” enters my vocabulary, but at least I’ll be happy where I’m at. And hey, there’s always this column to unload on, right?
Maybe that’s why they call Montana the last, best place: because it’s here that people choose to give up things they don’t really need in order to feed the parts of themselves that so often go neglected. It’s a place where hard work and relaxation hang out together; where money may be tight and hours long, but there are plenty of open ears and ridiculous sunsets to remind us why we stayed.
And beer. There’s always the beer.
1. Horace Greeley didn’t actually utter the famous line I allude to; he stole it from a journalist named John Soule. Just covering my butt in case any history nerds wanted to bust my chops over it.
2. I apologize, in advance, for any history buffs I just offended. But really: Horace Greeley trivia? Come on.
To read more musings on life and love in the Garden City, visit www.newwest.net/makingit
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Ashamed as I am of that aspect of the program, hasn't AmeriCorps gotten you some connections you can use? Isn't that a major promised benefit of the program? My suggestion is that if it has, you need to make sure that each and every one of those connections is well aware of your desire for a job and has a couple copies of your resume handy. Then make phone calls.
As to redefining "making it," I'd suggest the following:
40 hrs/week doing whatever you can get for work that covers rent, basic expenses, and that will cover student loan payments when those start kicking in in six months. (For financial planning purposes, don't forget that you'll pay income tax on your education award come next April too, unless they ever got that law changed).
20hrs/week doing what you really want to do, paid or not. Write, write, write and submit everywhere you can think of.
If you're good enough, the time may come where you work 20h/ week at a job that gets you some basic health insurance, and you can write the other 40.
Be ready to make sacrifices. I stayed on in the area where I did my AmeriCorps service for about five years. The high cost of living there meant I rarely went for a beer or the movies, rarely travelled on the weekends, didn't see my friends in other places very often, and lived in a teeny-tiny apartment with very sketchy neighbors. The place has to be the absolute most important thing to you, and it it is, it will all feel like it's worth it.
Don't ever expect 40 hours to be enough to do both.
Thanks for the article - and thank you to those Missoulians for caring more about this place than your own comfort, security and material well-being.
STOP hanging around downtown with the clowns pushing resume's on everyone you can. If you are, and you do, you're done. Over. Sister singing, if you will. You might as well pack up and head back east.
Really making a living in this town is not as hard as everyone makes it out to be, and part of the reason I give, and enjoy doing so, those 2 sisters so much shit is because they are SO DAMN CLUELESS about how this town works. You WILL NOT find a real job hanging around a bunch of posers downtown. You will, however, be another sheep with a useless resume, and possibly some 'cool' shoes and clothes, that you may or may not see other sheep wearing on the street, or the Old Post.
Go get a job with the real people, that's where the real connections are, not at that lame-ass brewery. The hungry can survive here, dude. At $700/month, I bet your pretty damn hungry.
Then go to the bucking horse sale later this month, hit the supper club, get you a nice little ranch girl and get your own bucking horse freak on.
Just don't take her to breakfast the next day.
Thanks for the in-depth response. While I disagree with you on EBT (it's been a life saver for me not having to worry about where my next meal's coming from), I appreciate your take on what I should be doing with myself after service.
Pendejo:
It never ceases to amaze me how exactly right on you are. About everything. That's gotta be a full-time job in itself...
It's only a hobby, but excellent response. Truly well done, amigo. Well done.
Yo soy el pendejo asombroso.
It never ceases to amaze me how exactly right on you are. About me clearing tables for soup at the deli.
I'll bring you some pie if you blow me . . . one of those balloon animals. Or a hat.
Oh, and that guy clearing your plate at the deli you look down your snotty, uptight nose on (it might be me, I ain't scared of real work), at least he's not an elitist, hippycrit, poser like you clearly are with that remark.
He's a survivor, you're a leech.
Well, good luck is all I'm saying. I don't think this is the kind of place you can half-commit to, so if you are ready to commit full-on to the place, I think over the course of 3-5 years you can go from barista/whatever to doing what you really want, here. One cool thing about the tough job market/low wages is that there actually seems to be a pretty high turnover, at least at the entry level.
Staying in Missoula means decisions. It might mean deciding whether or not you have a strong desire to own a home (or even a decent car) in the next 3-5 years, or how you feel about expensive airfares to go see friends and relatives or all sorts of other things. Relationships have a way of entering into the equation, too.
Believe me, there are worse places to look for a job, and far worse places to try to make rent. And, I have found this to be a place where people are really good about understanding those who are in it for something other than money, since if any of us in Missoula wanted money and nothing but, we'd have moved to New York or LA long ago. That understanding isn't universal across the country, and I have been in places where wealth was the only yardstick anybody ever applied to themselves or those around them. It was awful. I've never been around such shallow creeps in my life.
A short rejoinder on the EBT thing- Had any of my fellow members needed the EBT (all but 1 out of 21 total took it), I might have a different take on that issue. I made the sacrifice of not really going out drinking and not doing other cash-intensive things during my service so that I wouldn't burden a system that benefits people who have no choice over their poverty. I served alongside people who saw AmeriCorps as a vacation from responsibility and the EBT thing as a big game. They literally used it to buy brie, tropical fruit and other expensive treats at the grocery store while using the cash from their stipend as drinking/going out money. I was ashamed of this because in my service and elsewhere I have come in contact with people who were down on their luck and really needed it. I resent that the federal government would create a service program that allows/forces many of its members on to federal assistance for food.
I actually (GASP!) agree with Pendejo. Well, okay, only for about half a sentence. Here's the half with which I concur: "Really making a living in this town is not as hard as everyone makes it out to be..."
Lotta talk (in the form of complaining) around these parts, and not a ton of action. Everytime I've looked for a job, I've found one. I don't think it's luck. And it's not because of my resume (it's not that special) nor because of my shoes or sparkly pants (they, of course, are very special). Rather, I think that it's because I stretch the net to include jobs I don't necessarily long to do. I don't yearn, for instance, to sit at my desk 8 hours each day, but it pays the bills. And I get to learn new stuff, too.
Kinda like Matguy said: find 40 hrs/wk to cover life maintenance costs, and then devote what time you can to your not-so-profitable passions.
That being said, part of the Missoula's charm is that so many people figure out ways to survive on their not-so-profitable passions, and often creatively turn them into profitable ones.
-BS
So Pendejo, thanks for keeping it real.
I'm glad you concur, welcome aboard.
TD:
De nada.