knuckle down

"In the same way that some people are born with extra-bendy thumbs, there are people who are born with the will to work. As Amoruso explains in #GIRLBOSS, one theme of her wobbly adolescence was an urgent desire to be an employee somewhere, working at something, for some amount of money. Topics like friends, boys, and family get a few sentences each in the book, while a string of menial adolescent jobs gets a whole chapter. That section, “Shitty Jobs Saved My Life,” is where Amoruso itemizes her industriousness: There were stints at a hydroponic-plant store, a dry cleaner, an orthopedic-shoe store, a restaurant, a Borders, a factory-outlet mall, a landscaping outfit, and, before that, babysitting gigs and a paper route."

- The Cut profile of Nasty Gal Founder Sophia Amoruso

One thing I love about the fashion is that it is full of great stories about hardworking women with good ideas. You can read the rest of the profile here. Reading it, I was also reminded of this Business of Fashion profile of Kate Lanphear, where she said:

“I ended up living in a hostel, sharing a room with seven guys in bunk beds,” she said. “I was the only girl in the room. I would clean the disgusting hostel through the night. My roommates taught me how to hustle pool. You would drink beer for free and buy a loaf of bread and peanut butter and eat that for a whole week.

“I’m glad I did it. I don’t think I could go through it again. But it was an amazing time. I would go to work for a magazine during the day and then work through the night so they would let me live in the hostel.”

I work with a lot of young staff at the moment, and it can be pretty frustrating when people believe some tasks are beneath them and they don't pull their weight to deliver something up to mark. And they believe that just by vocalising their disagreement with something, they're entitled to reject the task. It astonishes them that they have to do something they dislike. This is bullshit (unless of course we are talking about fighting sexual harassment and other forms of exploitation, committing a crime, etc). Very often, when you're working for someone else, you accept some of the shit that comes with doing something you love. You have your days of fist-pumping awesomeness, but you also have days where you're doing what you're told, earning your keep. Is it out of fashion, to believe that every now and then you have to pay your dues in life?

As someone who logged years of humbling work while studying - waitressing, tutoring, working as a retail sales assistant, giving out flyers, even assembling furniture for a showroom - I often think lots of people can benefit from such experiences, provided they're willing to learn from them. You learn to knuckle down and take instruction, fight back your ego and be a team player. Working for a living makes you appreciate opportunities. Some people never have to go through this to become a better person. But most people, I think, need a jolt every now and then to remember that the world doesn't owe them anything.