MIchele Obama another look

Much has been made of the comments of the would be First Lady Michele Obama. Many people have commented about her comments and some are good comments and some not so insightful. There is one comment in particular that has bothered me and until recently I wasn't sure why.

I re-read the comments today and I think I know what bothers me. Here is the part that bothers me:

"We left corporate America, which is a lot of what we’re asking young people to do,” she tells the women. “Don’t go into corporate America. You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. Those are the careers that we need, and we’re encouraging our young people to do that. But if you make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry, then your salaries respond.”

I want to be clear here, I have nothing against nurses, teachers etc. These are all fine important careers. If that is your passion by all means be a teacher, be a nurse, be a social worker be what you want. I might mention that the laws of supply and demand have already not been good to teachers. If the Obama-nation all go into this type of career the supply will go up which will ultimately bring down the price this is what happens when the supply of a commodity goes up without a corresponding increase in demand. The young idealists will not be able to support themselves and I'm certain will turn to the government to fill in the gaps.

The comments bother me because they tend to taint any career where you are making commerce happen. I work as a software developer. I also didn't like being part of corporate America. My response was to go to work for a smaller enterprise. I find that very rewarding. I make a difference. I can do more that a single talk over and over and again I make a difference. I'm sure what would make Ms Obama upset is that I contribute to a profit making enterprise.

My industry is to help people make electronic commerce happen. Thousands of workers depend on our company doing our job. Most of these are factory workers by the way, the only people that the Obama seems to think are 'working people'. We deliver purchase orders, advanced ship notices etc between companies so that the people who work in plants can do their jobs. We format electronic records to health care companies so insurance can be administered effectively and efficiently. I am not a 'community organizer' whatever that is but I think I help companies make jobs available to employees.

What about a mega-sized company like Microsoft? Are they a benefit to the community? The Ms. Obama is telling people to not work in corporate America the hiring managers for Microsoft are looking overseas for qualified people to fill their high paying jobs here in America and overseas. Maybe if some of those young people would forgo their good feelings of 'community service' and be trained in some of these jobs, we wouldn't have so many jobs going overseas. I see that as a good thing. Maybe some of these young idealists could spend some time in corporate America to find out what doesn't work and then they could create their own business using their humanistic values. That would be a benefit to the community.

Now by writing this am I saying community service is not important? Of course not. I believe greatly in community activity. I believe in people volunteering their time and their money for causes they believe in. That can be through their church, for non-faith based causes, for training programs for the poor (non-governmental) parks and recreational groups, for homeless shelters. Volunteer for an organization that works with young people. The people that worship, er I mean support Obama don't like the Boy Scouts but what about YMCA, or Big Brothers and Big Sisters? You will note the things I have mentioned are not government jobs, but activities that we have to sacrifice for. When we give of ourselves we feel good and we make an impact. Just going to work for a bureaucracy as in the additional programs that Senator Obama is proposing doesn't help, it simply takes money away from producing people to give to non-producing people.

Lastly by encouraging people to shun profit producing enterprises we weaken the fabric of the backbone of our country, private enterprise. Without private ownership of profit producing enterprises we lose productivity and ultimately we lose freedom in all its forms. The more decisions are made by large governmental and quasi governmental groups the less productive everything is.

My advice is this, find what you are passionate about and that you have an aptitude for and pursue that career. I spent ten years in a job I hated and it affected me greatly in a negative way. After hard work and temporary reduction of salary I am now somewhat prosperous in a career that I enjoy and I thinks helps others even if the possible future First Lady doesn't agree.