“Detroit hustles harder.” I saw this slogan on a t-shirt in San
Francisco recently. This was in Hayes Valley, home of artisanal ice cream
stands, a Warby Parker frame shop, and children’s clothing boutiques. The shirt
resonated with me. Growing up in a Greater Cleveland that seemed ever lessening
in commercial and cultural influence, I absorbed an imperative to do whatever
one can to carve out a niche in the face of an uncertain and threatening
economic future.
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| The real question, though, is Who Brands Better? Image © Aptemal Clothing LLC. I make no claims to ownership. |
It wasn’t always true, though, that America's rust belt centers stood for grit and determination. The downfall of the American automotive industry, at least in the cultural imagination, can be traced to workers who had achieved a level of job and economic security that left them unwilling to apply sufficient hustle.
Today’s tech scene seems to celebrate the opposite
impulse—concepts like growth hacking or the minimum viable product bring with
them instructions to “fake it till you make it,” that is to never stop
hustling. And yet the San Francisco Bay Area offers something no longer accessible
in the Midwest: secure vocational jobs to those who can train themselves up for
them.
It comes as no surprise that I’ve spent a lot of time
thinking about the concept of “vocation.” For one thing, I was introduced to
the work of sociologist Max Weber at the right time to permanently freeze his
frameworks into my toolkit for understanding the world (Weber’s works include Politics as a
Vocation and Science as a
Vocation).
Plus, as a good Millennial, I’ve spent the past ten years
hung up on the “what am I going to do with my life” question. And, as with many
Millennials, I have parents who achieved success by picking a path early and
sticking with it (mine are professors of American history).
So what is a vocation to me? I can think of a few ways to answer
that question:
