posted 6 years ago
Hello, permies community, perhaps your collective wisdom and experience can assist me today.
I am a young person who has been socialized to rely on institutions to find me employment for most of my life. The common-sense idea in my upper-middle-class family is that whatever career you want, first you go to university and get a degree in it, then you find a prestigious internship, bla bla bla... all pretty useless for someone who wishes to learn how to actually DO something that someone will pay you for without checking your degree first (such as growing valuable food and timber).
I have lived enough outside the reality-tunnel that I was born into, to realize that the really good jobs out there are not found by applying online. I am looking for real-world experience in real-world rural ecnomies. I want to know how business is really done in enterprises like farms, and nurseries. More than happy to be the guy counting crates of produce all day in the warehouse, or the guy out laying irrigation, or whatever. Just as long as its a real business and I can gain some experience. I have a part-time online job in the evenings to take care of a lot of my income (SAT tutoring), so low pay is not an issue. What I do need is a high-quality job. The kind of job that I can do for a year or a season and be working outdoors and learning how business gets taken care of in rural economies.
My question for you all today is, am I correct in thinking that the internet is a very poor substitute for going to the right places and meeting the right people in real life? How can I quickly find a job like that. I've been considering spending some days going to the local Home Depot to find day-labor landscaping jobs, just to get started and talking to people... but I know thats probably mostly a waste of time too. I can think of all the obvious online solutions, like WWOOF and craigslist and agriculture-related job boards. But my gut says what you see on there is a small fraction of the opportunities out there. Remember an opportunity for me doesn't have to pay a lot, just offer a way to quickly gain experience in the real world.
Obviously my plan is to use that experience in the future to do real world stuff that is much more permaculture and planet-friendly than the business I'm looking to work for right now, which will be more conventional. Like in jazz music, I feel I need to learn the rules before I can break them.
I'm not looking for specific opportunities, but rather strategic advice from those with more first-hand knowledge of the rural job field. Organic type stuff is nice, but it has to be "real" - actually turning a profit by selling regular commodities on the regular market. And I really don't care what my role is. I'm sure I'm smart and strong enough to learn to do anything if given the chance.
As you can see I'm a little fuzzy on what field would be the best for me to experience working in. So I would also appreciate any advice you might have to the tune of where my time could best (and worst) be spent trying to learn something useful. If you think I shouldn't consider landscaping jobs (or whatever) because I won't learn anything useful, I want to know.
By the way, I am currently limited to looking in the mid-Atlantic and New England, especially upstate NY, Pennsylvania and Western MA. I can stretch that radius a little if the opportunity is really perfect.
So permies, I thank you in advance for you most clever and creative solutions!