The Gallavich Economic Ladder
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
Categories/jobs are not mutually exclusive. Culled from all our amazing writers on AO3. Not exhaustive, of course. Rather than link to fics, I decided to link to material about these different professions in Chicago. Please contact me if you want the fics, but I hope you’ll read some of these news stories and research reports too!