thinking once again about the tendency in teen dystopias to feature "the government chooses your lifelong career for you when you turn 18" as a plot point
it's probably meant to preach to 11th-graders that they should appreciate their freedom when they reach adulthood and start figuring out their path
but in a lot of these books (thinking here of The Giver and Divergent)* the career assignment is extremely thoughtful and personalized, and (until the protagonist shows up) it is never wrong. you're always meeting a guy who was assigned gardener at graduation and loves it because it turns out he has the exact combination of traits that make a person ideally suited for gardening. you're never meeting a guy who was told "doesn't really matter what your little hobbies are, son, we need truck drivers."
it's an evil authoritarian government that really sees you, y'know? they go to the trouble of doing little personality tests on you and somebody actually reads your answers.
it's pitched as dystopia but it's also a wish fulfillment fantasy (especially for 17-year-olds) of simply being told your place in life. no tuition fees, no job hunting, no uncertainty. you don't even have to arrange your own transportation to Gardening Academy. you just get whisked there and then you find that they've already got your lodging and meals and daily schedule sorted out. there's uniforms folded on your bed when you show up. and they fit.
and every time I think "but I'd get sick of that in ten minutes in real life," I run back into the nigh-infallible personality test. The one that's supernaturally good at finding something I won't get sick of. That's not exactly the same as having a choice, but it's also not the same as being forced into a role purely at society's convenience.
basically what I am saying is yes, if it worked like this, of course I would want a faceless institution to tell me what to do with my life and then facilitate all the logistics. that sounds lovely, thank you
*and Brave New World, sorta, although that's more about tailoring people to jobs, but it seems to be equally effective. and Enter The Game (or something like that?) which was a more obscure one I read in the 90s. that one was particularly funny because the main characters got assigned unemployed, but the government still set them up with housing and a food stipend. didn't even have to fill out forms
and then they go to a weed coffeeshop by mistake and the bouncer gets mad at them for not smoking weed
and then they get into this VR game which is secretly training them how to survive on a distant planet after they get launched into space because Earth has too much unemployment
I'm like 75% certain this book actually existed
EDIT: It's called Invitation To The Game
