middle-class guilt rears its ugly head..

[sebastienne]

so i'm writing a job application and i need to demonstrate that i'd be a great supervisor.

and the idea of just typing the words "house music captain" is making me feel ill...

Comments

[steerpikelet.livejournal.com]

of course, you could always put 'queer dominatrix' or 'director of non-mainstream burlesque act' in the box.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

of course i am mentioning "turning a disparate group of singers, dancers, and comedians into a succesful cabaret ensemble."

xXx

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

I don't think most people want a dominatrix as a supervisor...

[ex-leighwoos982.livejournal.com]

Didn't you produce a show or two in Oxford?

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that you describe your feelings as "guilt". Surely nobody can help the class into which they are born? It's not an action taken of your own volition - and most children don't get to choose, all by themselves, which school they go to and whether it's one that has positions like that. (I really don't mean to dismiss your feelings, and I hope this doesn't come over as doing that - I'm just interested in how people conceptualise that sort of negative feeling.)

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

i had privileges that others don't have, and i am taking advantage of that fact to get a job. so it feels volitional - even though that might be illusory.

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

You had the privilege of being at that sort of a school, but it still took something from your part to do a useful job with responsibility once you were there. Most of your classmates weren't taking those roles. I expect you'd have been a useful member of society whatever sort of school you'd gone to.

(Well maybe it's hard to do much useful in a sink school of knives and bullying and doom, but you shouldn't apologise for not going to that sort of school; nobody should have to).

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

Ahh, right, I see what you mean. Thanks for explaining.

[ex-leighwoos982.livejournal.com]

Hey, I was a house captian. My school was fairly rough. We still had (Hogwart's style) houses and some of us took a lot of pride in winning either the Eisteddfod or Sportsday.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean. But I think lying about your upbringing would be just as bad.

Anyway, surely you've done something responsible since then?

[potatofiend.livejournal.com]

My school had houses, and it was full of inner-city kids from knife-wielding northern criminal clans, if that helps.

- by which I mean 'poor kids have school houses too'.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Every school I went to (about half-and-half state and private) had houses of some sort, IIRC. I don't think any of the state ones had house music captains, but I'm not much of a musician, so I probably wouldn't know if they had.

[deepbluemermaid.livejournal.com]

I initially misinterpreted "house music captain" to mean captain of house music.

So I briefly imagined that you were in charge of organising students' attendance at raves! Possibly you had to check that they were in proper uniform (carrying glo-sticks and wearing clothing that looks good under UV light). There might be prizes for the best dancer, and demerit points for non-possession of drugs.

...I'm going back to my chapter now :)

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the same, although in a less developed way...

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

me too

Em, I have never yet had a job that I haven't got via middle-class-parents networking. I have never yet been paid by anyone who wasn't a family friend. I was still the right person to do those jobs, and I did them damn well.

*shrug*

Write your amnesty letters. Smile at people. There are lots of ways to save the world, and most of them come guilt-free, in despite of anything you may or may not do with your middle class education.

[sir-rosealot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought that too!

[r-e-mercia.livejournal.com]

In fairness I'm not sure that your being or not being a house music captain will matter two hoots to them. You'll not be employed because of your middle class background, you'll be employed because you are awesome!

So stop feeling guilty and have a gin :-)

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

i really don't have that much experience of being in charge of anything, so if they really don't give two hoots about my holding the role, i'm not sure i'll get the job...

[r-e-mercia.livejournal.com]

Just because you don't have a lot of experience other than a few bits and bobs doesn't mean you wouldn't be a good supervisor. You're level-headed and logical, you've planned your time sufficiently to get through an Oxford degree, you're clearly a capable learner (and can learn how to supervise) and you're also friendly and joyous. What more could they ask for? Tis the person, not some random bits of experience, that counts :-)

[aliche.livejournal.com]

Don't understand. Why would that give you middle class guilt? One of the primary schools I worked in in one of the worst bits of east London works on a house system. It's not that unusual in the state system. I'm confused.