"It's that they had a skill that they had been working on for years that was suddenly very valuable" (Gladwell 129).
Joe Flom is the son of Jewish immigrants who came over to New York City from Eastern Europe in the middle of the Depression. This was a time of massive worldwide discrimination against the Jewish, so despite being in America, the land of freedom and opportunity for many, Flom suffered from inequality with other people in the same living situation. His family was extremely poor, often moving after several months in a home to take advantage of having one free month at a new apartment. Despite all of the odds against him, he still rose to become a famous partner in the one of the most well-known law firms in the world, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flom. His story is that of a typical rags-to-riches one. He goes to a decent school because of his intelligence, then eventually goes to Harvard Law, while working night jobs to support himself. He gets turned down by every law firm in New York when searching for a job because of competition from other ethnicity, despite his brilliant mind. With that, he ends up working in a law field that no other highly regarded law firm would consider touching: hostile corporate takeovers. However, as the economy and companies developed, this becomes a major strategy, giving Flom the credit he deserves.
So what happened? Knowing the context of this book, there has to be some kind of outside factor that allowed Flom to get these opportunities, despite having the world against him. It could be the demographics of his time period, what it means to be a Jewish immigrant at the time, or the disadvantage of being Jewish in America itself. In fact, it was all three of these factors together, Flom's three lessons, combined in amazing circumstances that allowed Flom and many other Jewish people to be successful.
Starting off, meaningful work must be understood, which is like comparing teaching a class of children with potential compared to an everyday 9-5 office job. One's going to be more fulfilling than the other. When the Jewish people came over to America, the only skill they had for job opportunities was textiles, or clothing. While granted, the garment industry was filled with hardships and harsh conditions, clothing stores became very successful in America. The meaningfulness came in to all of this with Jewish children. Unlike those whose parents just have desk jobs, the Jewish children saw how hard their parents worked at home, sewing and designing to make ends meet. This may have been a major influence in their career path. Looking at a Jewish family tree displaying their occupations is really interesting, as one generation would have all garment makers, then the entire next generation would be doctors and lawyers.
Second lesson would come with the demographics. This was following the Depression, and during that time, people wouldn't be having children with economics the way they were. When Flom came into school, he had much less competition than his parents would have. He had his pick of any top school in the country. Getting into Harvard was much easier for him than it would be for us, giving him endless educational opportunities where his intelligence wouldn't get wasted.
Finally, being Jewish caused him to enter a field of law work that involved companies absorbing one another through lawsuits, something that no law firm wanted to get involved in. The majority of lawyers that worked with these situations were in fact Jewish. When things changed so that corporate takeovers became a major strategy, law firms were scrambling to get good enough lawyers, and the Jewish were there to take that role. All of these gave Flom the perfect opportunity to earn the success he could, something his parents couldn't do.
Hearing of a success story where the wealthiness of someone isn't such a major factor (well, other than hockey) is certainly refreshing, and it made me think about what values I should be prioritizing for my future. Sure, even with our population growth rate decreasing, we aren't in any demographic drop. There's still a large amount of competition and our classes are quite full. Racial discrimination isn't present nearly as much as here, when people couldn't get a job because of it. It wouldn't matter if I am Asian or anything else, I would definitely be more equally likely for a job than Flom was. However, it's the meaningful work that gets to me. When asked about my future, like with what job I want, meaningfulness was always something I kept as my main priority. I want to be directly helping people face-to-face, not behind a desk doing things for other people who are being the ones helping. At times, it feels as if people expect me to go a different path, not to be involved with others, but to only keep and care about myself, like with getting a job that pays a lot of money and is much easier than say, a doctor. Those people don't see that I am willing to make sacrifices, like Jewish immigrants putting everything on the line with their meaningful work, although it's not nearly as difficult. I am glad to see that here, meaningful work has benefited and taught others factors that kept them buoyant in the sea of opportunities. I hope that with my future, I can at least do the same with the work I do. Anything like that would mean a lot to me.
Once again, another massively long post. I'm really sorry for that. Apparently, I could talk for hours when it comes to the future, whether it would be mine or yours. Maybe I'll edit this later to streamline the reading as much as I can (if I'm allowed to, of course). I tried to break it into multiple short paragraphs for easy reading though. The idea of meaningful work has always struck me as something further than income or job benefits ever since I wanted to help out as much as I can. Even with that though, I'm still not sure on what I want to do in the future, even though I have a good idea on what it might be. With reading, I had trouble with finding time, since this week was a very busy week with tests and whatnot. At the same time, I did have opportunities, since tennis season is now over, and I've been staying after school for the longest time now. This week's reading definitely felt deeper, as there were many more connections to be made here than with hockey players born in January. I hear Gladwell does TED talks; maybe I could find something from this book.
Anyways, what are your ideas of meaningful work? With the opportunities we have nowadays when compared to the past, it's something that more people take into consideration, with traditional people in our lives thinking otherwise. I'd like to know what other people go through with this. Anyways, I hope that this long read was at least thought-provoking, as any kind of discussion is great to me. It certainly made me think.
P.S. I found this really cool series of geometric dog pictures a while ago, I'll try to start using them.
Joe Flom is the son of Jewish immigrants who came over to New York City from Eastern Europe in the middle of the Depression. This was a time of massive worldwide discrimination against the Jewish, so despite being in America, the land of freedom and opportunity for many, Flom suffered from inequality with other people in the same living situation. His family was extremely poor, often moving after several months in a home to take advantage of having one free month at a new apartment. Despite all of the odds against him, he still rose to become a famous partner in the one of the most well-known law firms in the world, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flom. His story is that of a typical rags-to-riches one. He goes to a decent school because of his intelligence, then eventually goes to Harvard Law, while working night jobs to support himself. He gets turned down by every law firm in New York when searching for a job because of competition from other ethnicity, despite his brilliant mind. With that, he ends up working in a law field that no other highly regarded law firm would consider touching: hostile corporate takeovers. However, as the economy and companies developed, this becomes a major strategy, giving Flom the credit he deserves.
So what happened? Knowing the context of this book, there has to be some kind of outside factor that allowed Flom to get these opportunities, despite having the world against him. It could be the demographics of his time period, what it means to be a Jewish immigrant at the time, or the disadvantage of being Jewish in America itself. In fact, it was all three of these factors together, Flom's three lessons, combined in amazing circumstances that allowed Flom and many other Jewish people to be successful.
Starting off, meaningful work must be understood, which is like comparing teaching a class of children with potential compared to an everyday 9-5 office job. One's going to be more fulfilling than the other. When the Jewish people came over to America, the only skill they had for job opportunities was textiles, or clothing. While granted, the garment industry was filled with hardships and harsh conditions, clothing stores became very successful in America. The meaningfulness came in to all of this with Jewish children. Unlike those whose parents just have desk jobs, the Jewish children saw how hard their parents worked at home, sewing and designing to make ends meet. This may have been a major influence in their career path. Looking at a Jewish family tree displaying their occupations is really interesting, as one generation would have all garment makers, then the entire next generation would be doctors and lawyers.
Second lesson would come with the demographics. This was following the Depression, and during that time, people wouldn't be having children with economics the way they were. When Flom came into school, he had much less competition than his parents would have. He had his pick of any top school in the country. Getting into Harvard was much easier for him than it would be for us, giving him endless educational opportunities where his intelligence wouldn't get wasted.
Finally, being Jewish caused him to enter a field of law work that involved companies absorbing one another through lawsuits, something that no law firm wanted to get involved in. The majority of lawyers that worked with these situations were in fact Jewish. When things changed so that corporate takeovers became a major strategy, law firms were scrambling to get good enough lawyers, and the Jewish were there to take that role. All of these gave Flom the perfect opportunity to earn the success he could, something his parents couldn't do.
Hearing of a success story where the wealthiness of someone isn't such a major factor (well, other than hockey) is certainly refreshing, and it made me think about what values I should be prioritizing for my future. Sure, even with our population growth rate decreasing, we aren't in any demographic drop. There's still a large amount of competition and our classes are quite full. Racial discrimination isn't present nearly as much as here, when people couldn't get a job because of it. It wouldn't matter if I am Asian or anything else, I would definitely be more equally likely for a job than Flom was. However, it's the meaningful work that gets to me. When asked about my future, like with what job I want, meaningfulness was always something I kept as my main priority. I want to be directly helping people face-to-face, not behind a desk doing things for other people who are being the ones helping. At times, it feels as if people expect me to go a different path, not to be involved with others, but to only keep and care about myself, like with getting a job that pays a lot of money and is much easier than say, a doctor. Those people don't see that I am willing to make sacrifices, like Jewish immigrants putting everything on the line with their meaningful work, although it's not nearly as difficult. I am glad to see that here, meaningful work has benefited and taught others factors that kept them buoyant in the sea of opportunities. I hope that with my future, I can at least do the same with the work I do. Anything like that would mean a lot to me.
Once again, another massively long post. I'm really sorry for that. Apparently, I could talk for hours when it comes to the future, whether it would be mine or yours. Maybe I'll edit this later to streamline the reading as much as I can (if I'm allowed to, of course). I tried to break it into multiple short paragraphs for easy reading though. The idea of meaningful work has always struck me as something further than income or job benefits ever since I wanted to help out as much as I can. Even with that though, I'm still not sure on what I want to do in the future, even though I have a good idea on what it might be. With reading, I had trouble with finding time, since this week was a very busy week with tests and whatnot. At the same time, I did have opportunities, since tennis season is now over, and I've been staying after school for the longest time now. This week's reading definitely felt deeper, as there were many more connections to be made here than with hockey players born in January. I hear Gladwell does TED talks; maybe I could find something from this book.
Anyways, what are your ideas of meaningful work? With the opportunities we have nowadays when compared to the past, it's something that more people take into consideration, with traditional people in our lives thinking otherwise. I'd like to know what other people go through with this. Anyways, I hope that this long read was at least thought-provoking, as any kind of discussion is great to me. It certainly made me think.
P.S. I found this really cool series of geometric dog pictures a while ago, I'll try to start using them.