#career ladders

Featuring the occupational range of our favorite fictional couple, in the third largest city in the U.S. Latest listicle starts below the gif; try to stay focused. :)

Illegal work - dangerous, cash / off-the-books:

Mickey: Running guns and drugs, Mafioso, pimp, sex worker

Ian: Underage dancer/Sex worker

Retail/Service work. This is typically hourly, low-wage work with minimal benefits except at the higher end (e.g., fine dining), in large corporations (e.g., Starbucks), or after a long period of employment  

Mickey: mall security, florist shop, Bartender, waiter

Ian: Macy’s seasonal hire, Amazon warehouse, teacher’s aide, waiter

Career ladder possibilities - highly dependent on wages, benefits, unionization, ownership, and potential for burnout. We often think of these as blue collar, pink collar, or working class labor in the US. 

Mickey: Sanitation worker, construction, electrician, police officer, IT/programming, chef, social worker, private security/private investigator, teacher, nurse, mechanic

Ian: EMT, paramedic, teacher, nurse, social worker, electrician, counselor/therapist

Protective/uniformed services - Typically good career ladders, especially for men, who are over-represented in law enforcement and emergency services. Often unionized with reasonable wages and benefits, with modest educational requirements.  

Mickey: police officer, federal agent

Ian: EMT, paramedic, federal agent, police officer

White collar - typically college or graduate degree required, high salaries, includes finance, business, law, research and consulting, tech, and medicine, mainly.

Ian: lawyer, doctor, tech sector (varied), corporate exec, actuary

Mickey: doctor, tech sector (varied)

Creative industries + sports - wildly varied - tattoo artist seems to be the most common for Mickey, and they’re both written as commercially successful more often than not when given these jobs:

Mickey: tattoo artist, visual artist, chef, professional sports (baseball, hockey, gymnastics), model, porn star, musician

Ian: poet, musician, comedian, professional sports (baseball, hockey, gymnastics), photographer, porn star, journalist

Stealing this from Quora about what are the greatest recruiting lines ever. I do love the one between Steve Jobs and John Scully. Read, be inspired, read the speech from Sheryl Sandberg's 2012 HBS speech (linked within), and be inspired some more.