The Initial Entry Stage
Floundering consists primarily of a lack of commitment to an occupational goal. However, it is more than that. It is also an attitude about the labor market: Individuals assume that if they find a satisfactory job, it will happen primarily because of chance. They are frequently motivated by a sense of hope-if they are "lucky," a good job will become available to them. During this first stage of floundering, the job seeker does have some goals. In many instances the objective of a floundering career-seeker is money. My own experience documents that many clients who have adopted this goal have been willing to take any job paying a salary commensurate with the wage level they have set their hopes on achieving. And they initially define a job as "good" when it meets or surpasses this criterion. But frequently they seem not to assess themselves in monetary terms because they assume that luck will do that for them. More specifically, they tend to hope that fortune will allow them to find a training program that will pay a decent salary while teaching them a salable skill. They also assume that they will adjust to the job as long as its pay level meets or exceeds their vague financial standard.
New entrants into the labor market who are ostensibly motivated by a wage standard frequently link their concept of self-worth to that criterion. Others are motivated by monetary standards because of parental pressures, family responsibilities, or other financial demands. They do not feel that they can allow themselves the luxury of choosing jobs on the basis of interests or personal preferences. Their sense of well-being seems to be dominated by needs that-from their perspective-can only be met by monetary gain.
In other instances, new entrants into the labor market naively assume that the only ingredient necessary for successful career attainment is an interest in that career. In fact, numerous job seekers blindly denounce monetary values and enter the labor market willing to accept any salary as long as the job is something they think they will like. One example of this type of applicant is an adolescent who came to an employment counselor and asked the counselor to intervene on his behalf with an employer who was offering a gardener's job in a small community 35 miles from the youth's home. The job paid the minimum salary, and the employer had specifically requested that referrals be limited to persons who resided close to the nursery. Because of the client's sincerity and .enthusiasm for this type of work, the counselor urged the employer to make an exception in his case. The employer did so, and the young man obtained the job. Two weeks later the youth reappeared, asking the counselor for further assistance. It seemed that the travel costs, combined with other work expenses, overcame the young man's initial enthusiasm for the job he had chosen primarily on the basis of interest.
Vocationally oriented educational programs may also aggravate floundering tendencies by overemphasizing the factor of interest, either through discussion groups or through the selection of occupational literature and films. In many instances such programs might be more helpful in the long run if they were broadened to take into account the monetary return, the personal and social characteritics, the basic skill requirements, and the nature of the labor market. Also, vocational education programs that implicitly encourage youth to make specific occupational choices at an early age should be approached with appropriate caution. Early career choices that are not understood by the student to be tentative might decrease the student's flexibility and enthusiasm for continued exploration of established or newly developing careers. Tentativeness adds a dimension of reality to vocational decisions, and it should be stressed to allow for choices of occupations that suddenly become overcrowded or obsolete.
Some job seekers spend only a short period of time floundering. Having appropriate work values, manifesting such observable personal characteristics as enthusiasm and neatness, and getting a chance opportunity, they obtain a satisfactory position or career and stabilize in it Others, who have access to a socially inherited career but who want to try to find one on their own, may flounder in the labor market for a while and, after a period of dissatisfaction, take advantage of an opportunity provided by parents, friends, neighbors, or relatives who are in a position to provide a means out of their maze. In fact, this is probably one of the more frequent paths for many young people.
In some instances the floundering process is an intentional training period-so intended by parents-that provides the means by which new workers learn employer values. Some parents I have known have allowed their sons and daughters to go out and flounder before allowing them to return to a provided position in the belief that the deprivation the adolescents experienced during this period would heighten their appreciation for a better-paying job with better working conditions and other benefits. There have also been instances where former clients have returned to vocational counselors to discuss the positions in which they have become stabilized and to express their appreciation for experiences acquired during the floundering period. Examples of benefits obtained from floundering experiences have included an increased ability to work with one's hands and an increased ability to appreciate a variety of human differences in work life. Beneficial knowledge occurring as a result of floundering has also included negative reactions to some types of work.
The Shopping Stage
If, as a result of a job search, a client finds a position that continuously satisfies most of the needs that he or she expects to have gratified, there is a reasonable probability that the client will become stabilized in it. On the other hand, if the new worker's expected level of need gratification is not satisfied, chances are that this worker will not become stabilized but will continue to flounder. If a floundering job seeker enters into a position that is not the goal of an occupational commitment, the worker will in all probability begin shopping for another opportunity within a relatively short period of time. Al-though the intensity of this floundering experience may be mitigated by the gratification of some pressing needs, the worker will still be expending energy in varying degrees toward modifying his or her present job or toward getting a "better" one. The term shopper, then, refers to a flounderer who is either permanently or intermittently employed and who is either consciously or unconsciously attempting to achieve stabilization in some occupation other than the one in which she or he is presently engaged.
Occupational shopping takes a variety of forms. Employment counselors and placement interviewers with whom I have worked have described several types of floundering activity, which seem to fall into three categories.
Specific Shoppers. Flounderers in this category usually go to em-ployment service offices asking for a specific job or training program because they have heard that it is available. They actually know very little about the nature of the work or about their own ability to adapt to it. They are primarily motivated by the assumption that it will be more satisfying than their present job.
Impulse Shoppers. This term applies to applicants who periodically go to employers and employment service offices on the basis of a whim. They are motivated by capricious impulses to gratify intermittent needs for improvement of their feeling of well-being, their feeling of self-worth, their monetary income, etc. Their purpose is to try to satisfy their particular motivating need by investigating the possibility of a chance opportunity. They are periodically dissatisfied with their current occupation, and their searching activity, though constantly reoccurring, tends to be temporary in nature.
Window Shoppers. This category of job seekers is made up of individuals who either continuously or periodically seek jobs for which they do not basically qualify. They are different from other flounderers in the sense that they have an occupational goal or at least have a good idea about the type of work they want. However, they will not or cannot take the steps that would prepare them to compete for entry into that career. These shoppers are periodically motivated to investigate the labor market by a vague hope that fortune might guide them to an opportunity that came about as the result of an unusual need by an employer, a need that forced the employer to modify the usual job requirements so that the flounderer would be able to gain a "lucky" entry into a desirable position. The window shopper's motivation is periodically refueled by "shop stories" about other individuals who attained success in this manner.
A subcategory of the window shopper includes those individuals who survive by means of casual, or temporary, labor and who seek permanent jobs without actually intending to accept them, sometimes in the belief that they do not have the characteristics necessary for occupational stabilization. This category consists largely of persons who, because of repeated job losses as well as other adverse experiences in life, do not view themselves as normal work force participants. They are frequently motivated toward casual labor or other activities, sometimes illegal, that provide more immediate gratification of perceived needs, even though such activities are frequently of a temporary nature. Alcoholics and chronic drug users might comprise a portion of this category.
A second subcategory of the window shopper includes individuals who make their living by means that are outside the law, or at least outside the socially acceptable work norms. Prostitutes, narcotics pushers, and gambling promoters are in some cases committed to follow their "careers" and do actually have their anticipated level of satisfaction achieved through them. In some of these cases the individuals would not really be classified as floundering under the present definition. Many of them, however, are discomforted by a nagging fear of legal retribution or other forms of social punishment. In order to attempt to convert their discomfort to a sense of social well-being, they periodically visit an employment office or read the classified ads in their local newspapers to see if some compelling opportunity will present itself. In a few cases what appears to be job search activity is actually a device employed to gain relief from the pressures of a parole officer or to meet the requirements for welfare or unemployment insurance benefits.
It is important to note that there is a significant difference between a person's shopping during the floundering period and a stabilized worker's shopping for a better job. Many stabilized workers who are relatively satisfied with their current jobs become exposed to new opportunities that arise, and others actively seek them. The factor that distinguishes the floundering activity from stabilized shopping is the degree to which the shopper is committed to a given occupation. Stabilized shoppers, in essence, are either shopping for an opportunity within their current occupational field or are committed to a new field.
The Mid-Career Stage
Mid-career floundering usually occurs as the result of an environmental accident; a worker who had previously committed himself or herself to an occupational goal has achieved it, has become stabilized in it, and then, due to some unforeseen event, has been forced to abandon it. Examples of this often traumatic experience have occurred in recent years among engineers, scientists, and technicians in aerospace firms throughout the country who suddenly became unemployed. Several thousand engineers, who had been lavishly recruited during the period following the launching of the Sputnik satellites, suddenly found themselves with little or no market in which to utilize their skills. Less publicized, but just as numerous, are workers who, because of the intervention of some physical or emotional disability, are forced to change occupations during what is normally considered the mid-career period of their working life. Physically debilitating circumstances occur when, for example, a butcher develops arthritis and cannot tolerate cold meat lockers, a teacher becomes severely allergic to chalk, or a skilled worker loses a vital limb.
The mid-career stage is frequently complicated by factors such as age, limited opportunity for training, and wage reductions, any of which might intensify the floundering experience. The affective characteristic of mid-career floundering is frequently described by those persons who experience it as a sense of hopelessness and depression. It is conceivable that skilled counselors could facilitate relief from these psychologically debilitating influences by appropriate intervention in the motivational processes of the client. In addition to helping the client explore alternatives to his or her current occupation, the counselor can use this intervention to focus on the client's strengths. A few of the personal characteristics that mid-career flounderers frequently lose sight of include their stability, their dependability, and their knowledge of general employer work values (getting to work on time, keeping busy on the job, being productive and efficient, etc.).
