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Paying the Fisher-Price
How ‘Little People’ have ruined my career
By Greg Coyle

Like most jobs, it was not one I had even set out to get. It would be more accurate to say I found myself marooned there, shipwrecked by forces if not outside my control at least beyond my understanding. Today, still unemployed, I spend my days sampling the vast selection of sugared cereals (I’m up to the D’s) at my local grocery store, watching the TV Land network and making a list of people to blame. Who’s at the top of that list? My employer? No. I quit them long before they quit me. My parents? They were for awhile until my mom sent me some beer in the mail. My psychiatrist, girlfriend or God? Nyet, nyet and nyet. No, I blame goddamn Fisher-Price and their confoundingly happy "Little People"!

That’s right, Fisher-Price is the architect of my career failures. They and the lovably cylindrical, round-headed, limbless denizens of their fire stations, amusement parks, and construction sites. Those Little People, with their sweet, button eyes and satisfied expressions, were my first introduction to what the working world looked like. Workers fit perfectly into their work, almost as if they were made for the job. They were contented and carefree and wore eye-catching uniforms. And I bought it all, right down to the shoestring gas pumps. Oh, were it only that easy and perfect...

In the weeks since my unceremonious "release," I have had a chance to conduct an accounting of Fisher-Price’s crimes against me and my career. Here, then, is a sampling of those pieces of Fisher-Price-sponsored misinformation that have made it impossible for me to succeed:

1. Work is a joyful place: Take a look at their little faces. Everyone from the mailman to the farmer are grinning. Imagine how hard it has been for me to understand that post offices are, in fact, sad, bureaucratic, monumentally boring places staffed largely by loners with a taste for guns and role-playing games. Worse yet, given the look of great happiness on the mailman’s face, nattily dressed as he is in his neat blue uniform, how am I ever to process the expression "Going postal"? And what of the beaming farmer in his yellow hat? In reality, he’s up at dawn to shovel shit and mend fences, while his cattle die of hoof-and-mouth and his crops of drought. I can only credit his smile to his most recent batch of homemade sourmash.

To their credit, Fisher-Price did at least have the honesty to depict mechanics as humorless. One point Fisher-Price.

2. All work is done by men: The pilot is a man. The fireman is a man. The train engineer is a man. The entire working world is populated by men. As I had secretly tried it, I knew that the bodies of the women fit into the mail truck, the fire truck, even the backhoe. But I also knew by looking at the picture on the box that they didn’t belong in any of those vehicles. If they were included in the picture at all, it was standing off to the side, showing off their pouty smiles and suitably complex plastic coiffeurs. When I began applying for my first job, you can understand my shock at learning I would be competing with women.

3. Women can only be stewardesses, teachers or queens: There are some jobs women can occupy that men cannot. Fisher-Price taught me that women bent on having a career could select from three occupations: stewardess, teacher and queen, though only women with glasses could become teachers. One can only assume women were not eligible for other positions because they did not have the proper hat or facial hair. I counted myself lucky that I would one day be able to grow a mustache. As for the positions themselves, the only job that promised good pay was that of queen, and I knew that those opportunities were limited, with employers usually hiring from within.

4. Every occupation requires a different kind of hat: The most important part of anyone’s job is the hat that goes with that job. If you were a pilot or a mailman, it was a small blue number perched somewhat cavalierly on your head. If you were train engineer, it was white, with a bill, and nearly as tall as your body. If a farmer, you got to wear a large yellow chapeau that looked the slightest bit like a sizable bird of prey had landed on your head. Mechanics, heavy machinery operators and construction workers had the best hat of all, the hard hat, but for reasons I could not understand, they were the most unhappy. This was a conundrum for me: Get a job that allowed me to smile, or one that had great headwear. It’s a question I continue to be burdened with today.

Incidentally, I blame Fisher-Price for my dismissal from the writing staff of a local newspaper for my insistence on wearing a fireman’s helmet at my desk. If they had just told me what kind of hat a writer was meant to wear, I would’ve worn it!

5. Every occupation requires a scarf: This requirement came as a complete surprise to me. Having never seen my father leave the house in a scarf, I was surprised to learn it was a signature piece of every job one could get. While they might differ in color, the scarves were always uniform in design, no matter the occupation. Upon greeting my father at the door one afternoon in a hard hat and flowing neckpiece, and saying, "Look, Daddy, I’m a construction worker!" my father immediately signed me up for Pee-Wee football. This experience provided a valuable lesson that I will now share with all Pee-Wee football players: Do not -- no matter how appropriate it may seem -- purchase and distribute scarves to your teammates. It will only get you ostracized.

6. Indian chief and motorcycle rider are kinds of jobs: To this day, I still look under "I" (and "C" just to be sure) in the want-ads to see about any jobs as an Indian chief. I mean, if only for the headdress, it seemed a perfect position for me. The fact that I never found any openings proved to me they were highly sought after jobs. I guess like most jobs, it’s less about what you know and more about who you know. As for a job as a motorcycle rider, it’s an opportunity I’m still investigating. To this point, I’ve not been able to get a straight answer from anyone regarding the starting pay for such a position, or whether or not the motorcycle is provided.

Thank You Very Much, Fisher-Price!
Given this sort of bankrupt preparation for joining the nation’s workforce, is it any wonder that my generation wanders from job to job, without apparent direction or design, as listlessly as Kung Fu? We have been misled and lied to and played for fools. The only real solution is the development of new Little People, financial analyst Little People and insurance agent Little People and software designer Little People. And they need to be outfitted with their slide rules and pocket protectors and actuarial tables, and they must wear the proper expressions of weariness and grim resignation. Until that day, we will continue to don hat and scarf in search of this Shangri-La of work, and as we do, we will continue to fall flat on our round little faces.