Writer's ramble: "Perfect, just like everypony else": marks and Equestria's job market. · 1:34pm Jul 6th, 2018
Twilight isn't the best librarian.
I've made that pretty clear by now, right? In my own writing, it's been shown that she wasn't initially (drastic understatement approaching) suited to the Archives, basically wound up there because under the terms of her research grant, she had to have a job and the Archivists didn't want to offend Celestia by firing her student... there were all sorts of Anti-Employee Of The Moon problems there. And even in Ponyville, for the 'verse... she's admitted to never having taken a formal course in library science. She had to learn on the job. She's still learning, and doing so in the same position Pinkie's stuck in: no matter how skilled each might eventually come, the best option is second place. And that's a second place with a huge logjam crammed onto the top podium.
So something interesting happened when Three Hoofwidths To The Left went up.
People started siding with R.L.
Yes, she's not a nice pony. Yes, we were looking at a turf war between two compulsive reorganizers, neither of whom would allow the other's work to stand. It's very nearly Twilight vs. pre-Bearer Twilight, and the intent is that we should root for the one we like a little better. But at the same time -- R.L. has a point. Some of the changes, even through the initial rudeness, are practical ones. Actual improvements. They're things somepony -- a very local somepony -- arguably should have thought of and instituted before this.
Twilight's custody of the library has seen her go through bad moments. The Remainders Of The Day found her questioning whether she's just keeping the tree away from a qualified pony, who can't do what she's meant to because somepony else has the job. Rarity had to pull her back from it. And ultimately, Twilight is Ponyville's librarian.
But...
How many ponies have librarian marks? Call that number X.
How many libraries are there? We'll call that Y.
And if X is larger than Y...
Let's keep going down this path for a while.
In-'verse, it's a little easier. The Continuum has the Canterlot Archives: Equestria's version for the Library Of Congress. A couple of dozen buildings' worth of media storage, broken down by subjects and categories. Most Equestrias with some detail will likely wind up with a master facility of their own.
However...
Let's say you have a librarian's mark. Let's also say that, just for the sake of having a number, there are one hundred head librarian postings available in Equestria. And they are occupied, because this kind of mark has been around for centuries.
Every library in Equestria (with one exception) is being run by a pony with a librarian's mark. And while some writers will say that strength of talent can vary somewhat from pony to pony, it's safe to say that putting an appropriately-marked pony in charge means these libraries are being run just about perfectly. Nopony gets fired for incompetence. You might occasionally see somepony step down for personal reasons, and local politics might play a part every generation or six. But for the most part, those positions are being filled by ponies who will have the job until the day they retire.
Your mark says you're supposed to be a librarian. That's your talent, the focus of both your magic and inner drive. But those positions are occupied. Sure, maybe there's a secondary library aide job somewhere, but your mark isn't for being an assistant. You're supposed to be running a place. Even when you're in the system on its lower levels, some part of you keeps saying you should be in charge.
If there are one hundred head librarian postings, a hundred and twenty living ponies with that category of mark, and a position opens up...
Imagine you're one of those ponies, filling out the job application. Getting ready for your interview.
What distinguishes you?
You can run a library perfectly?
So can everypony else.
If an occupation exists where there are more ponies with those marks than jobs available, then there are going to be ponies with problems. When we're looking at those with appropriate marks in truly overcrowded fields, we're potentially looking at something very close to a massacre. There is one new head librarian position open this year, and there are twenty-one ponies who could fill it. Guess what happens to the twenty who don't get it? And it's not just what you know, because just about all of you know the same things. It's not about your magic being perfectly suited, because every candidate's magic is perfectly suited.
A job scramble in Equestria could potentially become very cutthroat, very fast. It's not what you know, it's whom. Say, how good are you with bribes? Anypony thinking about undercutting the competition? Time for the elimination round!
And when you see somepony without the appropriate mark taking up a space...
Twilight is a lot of things. For starters, among those destined librarians of her own generation, those who've met her and seen her mark, I suspect she's hated.
Note that this is just for those marks which suggest gainful lifelong employment.
Which brings up the question of everypony else.
We could go looking at something like athletics, where a pony might have two decades of peak performance before somebody younger and fresher comes along, retires to give the next generation a chance -- and then has to figure out what they're doing for the rest of their lives. Time to find another job! All they have to do is -- find some way of getting past everypony who has a mark for the job they wanted and is therefore better qualified than they'll ever be. Hope they saved some money...
Artists? How many sculptors can a country truly support? How many ponies are buying that work? How are you keeping yourself fed until you get discovered? Well, at least grass is free.
Did you just manifest a talent for being a parent? That's truly wonderful. You're going to be a great one. Consider your foals to be exceptionally blessed. Your next task is to find a spouse who can fully support you financially, because a mark magic suite of 'I'm the best mother' isn't worth much during an interview.
You know what you're supposed to do with your life: the mark has granted you that much. It doesn't mean the world is obligated to keep you going while you do it.
Where do you go for work? What can you even try to do when by the very nature of mark magic, pretty much any field you could enter has multiple ponies looking for that same job -- in a task which they're perfect at?
In-'verse, one reason Mr. Flankington keeps ambushing ponies is one of the base expectations built into pony society: that every facility will be run by a pony with a mark appropriate to its operation. In his case, he's not a chef: he's a food chemist who can't quite work out the 'tasty' part, although he did manage to detoxify that leaf to the point where the horrible flavor no longer automatically kills you.
If you're a pony going about a normal day -- then everywhere you go, you expect perfection.
The train will be on time, because that's what conductors are for. The weather is set up on schedule. Your lunch was made by somepony who always makes an great lunch, and that play you're seeing later? The actors are going to be ideal for their roles because of course they are. That's just how things work.
In that sense, Ponyville in the pre-castle years gets a little weirder. The weather coordinator is often late, one of the bakers has a party mark, and the librarian? Technically isn't. Ponyville throws off a lot of visitors with its weirdness, and some of that is just from what they see when they go into the shops and buildings. (Go in-'verse, and the repair shop is being run by a pony with the right mark and the wrong wings.) It's not running perfectly.
You'll always find a few ponies working in the mark-wrong categories. Younger generations in a family business which they're not old enough to leave yet. Those desperate for any kind of work, who had the right connections or friends to make it happen. Wildly successful bribes. Those who just decided to go into politics...
...oh, wait. There's political marks.
Wonder if there's more ponies with mayorality icons than there are mayorships to fill.
Gee, I'm sure that's going to be a polite sort of race.
The opposite situation exists, of course. A Founder comes along, the first-mark new talent who opens up an entire industry, and suddenly there's one pony who can do this job and still needs to staff the whole operation. But eventually, that talent starts to show up in the next generation. The gaps fill in.
But unless you want to go with the level of destiny which somehow assures that the numbers always match, a.k.a. 'I don't want to deal with any of this and who can blame me?' -- then it makes some sense to have job hunting in Equestria turn into a rather desperate charge. A social (or worse) fight against your competition, frantic attempts to prove yourself, trying to find some way where you stand out at all -- while hoping the job doesn't just go to the manager's nephew, the one with the mark for laziness who'll sleep at his desk and get paid for it.
Rarity ran into some of it at the trade show. Others may have it worse.
Do you want to put a pony outside Equestria? Have them living among zebras, minotaurs, griffons, and everything else? Here's the simplest reason in the world for them to be in that environment. Because some ponies travel because they want to, while others have it as the focus of their mark (and must therefore find a way to afford it). But with more than a few...
A hundred head librarian positions in Equestria. A hundred and twenty library-marked ponies.
"This was the only place I could get work."
...and my day just dropped into the toilet. Skywriter blocked me.
I tried to post a comment on his latest story, about how he'd just given me an idea. (Which he did. The title would have been Clothist Colony.) And the system told me I'm not allowed to do so.
So I can't comment. I can't contact him, as the code also stops PMs. I'm just... blocked, by one of the people who gave my stories public exposure in the first place.
It's his right to do so, of course. I just wish I knew what I did.
ETA: He just contacted me. It was a misclick, and has now been rectified.
I'm sure this fix has ruined someone else's day.
This whole blog post is a good reason to think that Cutie Marks are just plain bad. Yes they help pony society but they limit them so much more. Think of the CMC just what will happen with their life plans and will more ponies start to follow their example?
It reminds me of this story. At the end, the last six chapters, are choose your own ending. It gives a more personal feel to how the story ends and it's consequences.
It is a rather disquieting implication of cutie marks, though there is a tiebreaker, at least in your Equestria: How much the talent has consumed the pony. After all, Blank Canvas is the greatest artist in Equestria despite all the other art marks out there. Some of that is the breadth of his talent, but I suspect that's not the only reason. There's probably a peak on the obsession vs. effectiveness graph, but R. L. demonstrated that it's nowhere near zero on the former axis. No wonder so many ponies seem to be their talents and nothing else to non-equine eyes. It's the only way to get ahead in the job market.
A story about a pony abroad looking for a job might be interesting.
4895883
That seems... odd.
I would argue that a mark merely suggests competence.
Let’s take your librarian example. R. L. has the mark. She can smell when to update the card catalog. Reshelve any section before her morning wake-up juice. That’s just her base magic working. To excel, she has to put in effort. To match a patron with a book, just by looking at them? She’s going to have to tap the deeper parts of her mark magic. That takes effort, it burns thaums. Is she going to put that kind of effort into everypony that walks in?
My question to you is, how many ponies are just coasting on the minimum their mark provides?
A woodworking mark means you can build a functional chest of drawers. It’s not going to be a beautiful piece of furniture unless you tap deeper to make it beautiful. A dovetail joint is functional. A “sunrise dovetail” is beautiful. One is a hell of a lot more effort...
Just because Mr. and Mrs. Cake can bake a cake perfectly, that doesn’t mean that they have baked the perfect cake.
I’ll wager that a mark does not necessarily link to ambition. I’d suggest that a driven pony with the “wrong” mark is better in the job than a lazy pony with the “right” one.
4895890
We also have the flipside: non-ponies trying to find work in Equestria. Okay, you went to college, you graduated first in your class, you have a doctorate for the professional skills -- but where's your mark?
I dunno, Rarity's mark is a trio of diamonds and she designs pretty dresses. I think we may be overstating the extent to which marks direct ponies' lives.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Equestria would actually be a pretty horrifying place to live in.
As to the second point, has anyone already volunteered to contact or already contacted Skywriter to ask for clarification? As 4895890 said, this seems odd, all things considered.
4895896
I sent Estee a PM asking if I should, but haven't actually reached out; didn't want to intrude if it was unwelcome.
4895883
Just for the record, everyone, this was a stupid mis-click that went unnoticed by me. It's all fixed now! Nobody panic! Except for, um, you know, the normal everyday reasons for panic.
4895902
I think that's what we all kind of were thinking/hoping it was, so that's good to hear.
4895895
In the Varies By Writer category, I've said that ponies will have their magic latch onto ideas in different ways, and thus some of the range we see on icons for the same talent. Rarity has a symbolic mark rather than a literal one, and it's given her some problems in the past. (It's also a reason to keep using gems: doing so stops a few questions.) Snowflake's is also symbolic, but what would a literal icon for determination even look like?
But all this is Varies By Writer. Ramble blogs aren't meant to convince anyone that I (and naturally, I alone) am right. It's just starting the discussion and seeing where people take it.
4895902
Even the best of us sometimes “dad-click.”
4895902
*Panics normally*
While I haven't read the related story yet, this analysis does bear striking similarities to something I've been working on about a support group for ponies with unemployable cutie marks (or, to be technically accurate, talents that are not relevant to a job position or which are for jobs that have been obviated). I hope I don't step on any toes with it, but this has given me an idea for a new direction to take one character in.
4895892
I would also suggest that a driven pony with the wrong mark tends to be the innovators of Equestria, because they have to work harder at the deeper fundamentals than their counterparts, and it is diving into those depths where creation comes from. (The other place is the ponies with the marks that want to be something more than just what their mark is telling them. Trixie, for example, if she had a good therapist and a decent patron, would make for an excellent theoretical mage in this version of Equestria. She would need someone to handle the actual magical workings, but Pair Programming is a thing and would make perfect sense.)
There are, I think, two counterpoints here.
First, a lot of marks don’t so much suggest a job as they do a skill. A pony whose mark is for strength or an excellent memory or noticing details is going to have a lot of different ways they can put that mark to use. Likewise, a fair number of ponies are going to have a mark that ends up applying to a part of their life outside their job. To take your example, a pony whose mark is for parenthood... even if she’s on the job market, she won’t be using that mark for her job.
Second, and kind of connected to the first, if you have fields where there are more marked ponies than there are jobs, then you will also have fields where there are more jobs than marked ponies. They may not be the jobs everypony wants, but if a manager needs ten new assembly-ponies, he can only find two ponies with marks for telekinetic skill and one with a mark for seeing how to put things together, and all he has to fill the rest of the slots are authors and parents and nappers looking for something to pay the bills... he’ll take what there is.
4895883
4895902
Ah, jolly good, Skywriter beat me to it!
(Mostly because I DO go on so long when posting...!)
So, ladies and gentleponies, I think we can chalk that one up to "the universe hates Estee for no definable reason."
4895896
I did, (among others), because it did seem so odd...! I actually found I couldn't actually get to do my work before at least checking it was what it was; A Horrible Tragic Accident, and that Mummy and Daddy were not, in fact, fighting...!
(Skywriter and Estee can decide amongst themselves who is who...!)
Now I can go back to finishing the frigate for the rabidly-evil, unusually sexist fanatical Xyrgitt Matriarchy with a clear conscience.
(Well, what passes as a conscience, in my specific case...!)
So, this made me curious about how marks get distributed amongst the population. It doesn't seem to be completely random, as you have marks that run in families - apple farmers seem to often have children with apple farming-related marks, for instance. New technology leads to new mark classes. That suggests there's some mechanism behind the process.
The best case scenario seems to be personal choice, simply because it'd correct for job-related pressures *quickly*. Born to a world where there are way too many damned engineers? Welp, not gonna be an engineer, then. However, the fact that there doesn't seem to be an overwhelming number of say, candy taste-tester marks suggests that it's probably not that simple. Mark of Appeal suggests otherwise, too.
Parents? What they wanted for their child/were thinking about around the time when the child was born/genetic component? I'd probably expect a huuuge oversupply of doctors/lawyers/other-well-paying-prestigious marks in the first case, and there are enough exceptions to the latter (plus, founder marks as you mentioned) that genetics doesn't quite describe it either.
Some sort of magic zeitgeist network that reflects the values of society? Possible. That's really unfortunate because it suggests a pretty massive lag period between what society wants and when they get it. That generation of soldiers born just as the peace treaty is signed is gonna have a rough time of it. Population boom generations aren't going to have any fun either. It's the best option I can think of, though.
The family-tradition marks from earlier can be explained by that pretty well if there's a spatial component too it. Apple farmers probably think the world needs more apple farmers. Hypothetically being raised in an apartment near a medical school suggests a really good chance of being a doctor, too. There's a pretty bleak downside, though - grow up rich and your chances of a mark that makes you rich are high. Grow up *poor*...
It also suggests that highly isolated settlements of ponies would be *really* interesting - I'd imagine that you'd find marks fairly common to specific areas that would show up zero times in the rest of the history of the planet. Similarly, you might find groups for whom otherwise common marks are just utterly, utterly alien. Say, a scavenger society who have no marks for agriculture. Or, a settlement of ponies who plop down on a uranium-rich zone suddenly find themselves with a deluge of reactor engineers in a few generations to complement their world-class oncologists.
Economically, the issues would boil down to (appropriate marked) labor supply and (appropriate talent) job demand, by ratio rather than absolute quantity. There is also some flexibility to the system, because marks don't precisely dictate jobs.
Take your example of 120 library marks and 100 librarian jobs, a 20% labor oversupply.
First of all, librarian salaries drop. This may not happen directly, due to rent-seeking and other sources of demand inelasticity, but it will happen by some routes, such as early retirement or hours reduction.
Next, reduced average salaries mean that libraries offer more jobs, probably lower-paying "assistant" posts. (This is also part of how salaries drop). Now that it is cheaper to operate libraries, some new libraries open.
But of course DEMAND for libraries is not perfectly elastic either, so this doesn't happen perfectly. Say that 10 new jobs are created, for a total of 110, leaving 10 lorn librarians? What happens to them?
Do they remain unemployed, possibly leaving in boxes in which they also store books? Maybe some go crazy and do that: mostly no.
What they most likely do find jobs which are not exactly being librarians, but are conceptually related. They become clerks or booksellers or writers.
Since the ones taking such jobs are probably the ones with the least pure librarian talents, this outcome is less tragic than it sounds.
This assumes a roughly free market. In Pony Cuba or Venezuela, life is probably hell.
But isn't that always the case?
4895917
Equestria seems always to be expanding. Maybe those cozy new towns need one or two libraries, courtesy of the Equestrian state.
4895892
This. If a Mark meant perfection, you would have a lot of races end in a draw. Rainbow Dash is still faster than Spitfire or Soarin, however.
Another thought: in Equestria, the career ladder is very, very short. Here, in many cases, the pathway upwards is into management; there, all the management positions are filled by ponies with marks for administration and leadership, and you don't have one of those, and besides, if you have a mark for, say, engineering, not only would you not be talented in hooves-off management, but you'd have to spend the rest of your career with something deep down in your soul telling you to do something else.
Hopefully you can go from Engineer to Senior Engineer to Supervising Engineer and maybe, in enlightened companies, to Engineering Fellow, but there's no point at which your track changes. Three, four rungs, that's all you get for a lifetime.
Where this gets really weird is --
Well, okay, in some cases the brand new idea may occur simultaneously with cutiesynthesis, but that seems unlikely to be the case every time; for one thing, there are some inventions which require a level of background knowledge that's going to take longer to acquire than you have, at that point, had life unless you specialized practically as a newborn -- short of marks substituting perfectly for knowing what you're doing, which doesn't seem to be the case. (Obvious counterpoint: Twilight studies.) But any time that's not the case, the resulting chicken-and-egg problem either implies destiny arranging for something to be invented (which has some disturbing implications) or some wacky retrotemporal fun where the mark appears because of something that will have happened later, which suggests inventors spend a lot of time staring at their own flanks wondering just what the heck that thing represents and trying to build something to fit.
So, for myself and my headcanon, I tend to assume that inventions tend to be made by those with one kind of inventor's mark or another, and the specialist marks follow once ponies grow up around said inventions and hear their calls.
Although that option also gives you interesting consequences to deal with: if there are always exactly the right talents to fill every job in the places where said ponies are, the labor market always clears completely, and we suddenly have Equestria, the zero-unemployment economy, in which even a single unplanned death can disrupt an entire downstream supply chain, and very little in the way of expansion or alteration can take place without waiting for birth, growth, and cutiesynthesis of the necessary ponies to fill the slots.
Better hope destiny is completely omniscient, and even if it is, the resulting society and economy is going to look weird as hell from any perspective we're used to.
4895936
Actually, it could be a mixture of both.
Marks are linked to destiny. So yes, it's possible there will always be roughly the number of jobs fitting roughly the number of ponies, as long as pony society is somewhat stable. And the other option, if ponies always knew what their Marks meant, you would have no need for the Cutie Mark Crusaders... but there is a high demand for their services.
Hm. Well, if the destinarian theory is correct - and assuming the mayor's mark is specifically for mayoralty, rather than general administration or some such - it would be awfully convenient if those tended to pop up due to population pressure. Somepony gets a mayor's mark? Well, it must be getting too crowded, so it's time for the Diarchy to figure out where to put a new settled zone in a decade or so.
(If the epiphanic theory is correct, on the other hand, then in less utopic Equestrias I'm guessing there're a hell of a lot of them about, since it's amazing how many folk believe they can mind everyone else's business better than the incumbent other-folk-business minder. Especially since they're so negligent when it comes to dealing with the scourge of Unkempt Lawns/Young People Today/Them, Over There, You Know, Them/Etc.)
I tend to go the other way, really. Marks are incredibly powerful magic... but they aren't predestination, and they're rarely incredibly specific. When they are specific, they're trouble, because they're usually powerful and easy to fall into.
Talents, like personalities, have many facets.
That said, I really like the idea of Twilight slowly becoming terrified as she realizes the entire Apple bloodline has closely related Marks. All of them. Even the ones who married in.
What would be the expected ratio iof specilist detailed cuti marks, to generalised vague marks, that jobs evolve and are evolved into, for those that like to cross their timeless, manifest destiny and evolutionary theories?
And then theres Discord and Pinkie Pie.
I'd wonder how many marks actually apply to a whole job rather than a particular skill as part of it.
How many marks are 'Librarian' vs how many are 'Find the right book' vs how many are 'able to index thing' vs 'deal with customers'
At the interview for the new librarian post you might interview somepony who can find any book they want in seconds but is to why to talk to a customer, someone who can keep order amongst the patrons but doesn't understand the dewey decimal system and somepony who can index a hundred books in 10 minutes but can't find anything once they've sorted it. So you'd likely fall back to whoever has picked up the relevant range of skills and somepony with a non matching mark might end up a better generalist than anyone with a partial mark.
4896003
Party Ponies seem to operate under a different reality. Even Pinkie was amazed at what Party Favor could do with his balloons. There's actually an interesting point there: Both the Party Ponies and Discord appear to draw power from amusement: Party Ponies by making others laugh, Discord by spreading chaos for fun, thereby amusing himself.
4896012
You mean you couldve escaped at any time?
Not any time. Only when its funny.
4896013
Well... basically, yes.
Wouldn't the skills one gets from a Librarian Mark also be applicable elsewhere? Bookstore, for instance? Mark don't assign jobs so much as skill. And while you might be stuck with a particular set of skills, I imagine there's still a lot of things you can do with them.
4895892
I like thinking of the mark in Estee's universe in D&D 3.5e type skill checks. Maybe ponies could be considered to have ranks in a skill (we'll assume their underlying stat is similar), but having a mark is like a super skill focus feat that gives them +5 to all rolls or something like that. So:
Untrained pony: +0
Pony w/basic skill: +2
Pony w/employable, journeyman-level skill: +6
Pony w/strong professional-level skill: +10
Pony w/maximum possible skill: +14
Now throw in the mark, and then
Pony w/basic skill (appearance of mark): +7
Pony journeyman w/mark: +11
Pony professional w/mark: +15
Maximum pony capability: +19
So, a foal who just got their mark will still be inferior to a non-marked solid professional with years of experience, but will clearly be past the point of basic employability. A truly dedicated and talented baking pony who lacks a mark (e.g. Pinkie) can reach the level of a marked journeyman, but even the best non-marked ponies can never quite get to the level of a strong marked pro, much less the true masters like Mulia, Gustav, Joe, etc.
4896049
I figure there's a lot of this, as well as, well, what happens when your parents are gunned down in an alley but your mark is for baking? You adapt the skills you have to the situation you have.
I vaguely remember a bit in Starlight Over Detrot (nice as it is, I'm not trawling back through it to find it) about loose protocols on the police force, because everyone has a different way of accomplishing their goals, and is assigned thusly. Guy A can smell when people lie. Guy B can stochastically guess the motive behind any crime from the report alone. Guy C just has a magic mark, and they call him in when they need a house picked up and shook for hostage negotiations. They're all good officers.
You also get the opposite problem when Y is larger than X
How many ponies do you suppose have a mark for waiting tables vs how many needed?
I remember on Taxi
First episode that Elaine showed up
"I'm not really a cab driver. I'm an Art Curator" (for museums)
Alex replied "I understand perfectly. See him? He's not really a cab driver, he's a boxer. Him? He's really an actor. Him? He's a writer. Me? I'm a cab driver"
But let me ask you this.
If you needed an operation, & bearing in mind that a mistake could well prove fatal, would you rather that your doctor's Cutie Mark indicated a talent for:
1 Glass blowing
2 Floral arrangement
3 Sailing or maybe water sports
4 Surgery, or at least medicine
4895896
Rarity basically took this position in Remainders of the Day
4895902
https://www.bing.com/videos/search? >>4895888 q=mlp+pinkie+panics&&view=detail&mid=95058D3FCC2450E2E75995058D3FCC2450E2E759&&FORM=VRDGAR
Yeah, but it probably saves a LOT of time on Resumes & Job Interviews. "Qualifications? Got them right here"
4896099
Ah, the classics.
"Twilight is a lot of things. For starters, among those destined librarians of her own generation, those who've met her and seen her mark, I suspect she's hated."
Hm; that does help explain R.L.'s behavior (in addition to, like the rest of this post so far (and, having finished it, after), being interesting).
Thanks for the post!
4896009
Apparently, even within a skill set, there's variation?
'Once.' - Barnyard Barge-Ins:
So, there's other types of business marks?
I subscribe to the idea that the majority of ponies have non-specific cutie marks, and they interpret them as being perfect for their lives' work.
Take Twilight Sparkle. A large star, surrounded by five smaller stars. Would her talent be astronomy? Astrology? Astronaut? Really... klutzy? No, she's one of the most gifted magic users in Equestria.
The really interesting case is Cheerilee. Without knowing her character and knowing pony butt symbols = profession, I'd guess florist, gardener, or even landscape architect. If you gave me a hundred tries, I wouldn't come up with teacher. Even her name doesn't hint at her talent. However, when she described how she interpreted her cutie mark, it made beautiful, poetic sense.
Somemare with a mark for mothering would be either the best baby sitter ever, because best mom, or the worst baby sitter ever, because now the foals are more bonded to her than their real parents. Unless part of the mark is knowing when to let go...
Side note: this is the first time I've used "somemare" and I don't think I've seen it anywhere before. It fits really well.
4896115
This is looking at the divide between
"I have a mark for candy making. I should open a candy shop."
"I have a mark for business. Maybe I should diversify with a candy shop."
I take the mostly general Marks view myself, especially since my headcanon is that the Mark is built over time in a foal's subconscious and is only released when the conscious mind and the subconscious agree on what the pony wants to do with their life (except the occasional disorder like Troubleshoes).
I thought I was gonna add to the discussion but 4896099 and 4896140 got me covered. The only other possibility I could think of is yadda yadda harmony magic.
4896220
One thing. I've long felt that a Cutie Mark shows *what you LOVE the best*
This doesn't necessarily mean that you're good at it.
4895963
Auntie and Uncle Orange. Pear "Buttercup" Butter. Third example that doesn't come to mind.
4895883
Oh? Have you decided what your century story is going to be? And whether it'll be a big deal?
Hmmm. An extra library-Marked pony - I'm thinking that this is a common problem in pony society, and therefore a problem that has solutions.
An extra library-Marked pony has a few options. Sure, there's only a hundred public libraries - what about a private library? The initial books will need to come from somewhere - perhaps a businessman or a noble looking for something to invest in?
Alternatively, there's a lot of skill overlap between a bookstore and a library; in both cases, you're looking after books and matching them to customers. So a lot of the skills will carry over. It's not a perfect match for the Mark - but it's a good match for the Mark. (Unless your Mark concentrates on the proper collection of late fees,in which case look for a job in debt collection).
I imagine you'll find a lot of almost-matches like that in pony society.
Some thoughts:
Are all cutie marks for one job/talent/category the same?
Rainbow Dash, Soarin', Spitfire, Lightning Dust, Sky Stinger, Vapour Trail... they all have cutie marks for speed. But the symbols are all different. Would it follow that they also operate differently? I think so. Lighting Dust can make tighter turns than Rainbow Dash, but Rainbow Dash can perform a Sonic Rainboom. Vapour Trail can fly well while still supporting someone else, which makes her ideal for team flying in a way Lightning Dust for example isn't. And so on.
Similarly, take Pinkie Pie, Cheese Sandwich, and Party Favour. They're all party ponies, but they all learn from each other. Party Favour can do things with baloons Pinkie can't. Cheese Sandwich goes over the top in ways Pinkie doesn't, but Pinkie also teaches Cheese Sandwich a higher sense of compassion in his antics.
So they're not actually perfect just by having the mark. Even within the mark, they have different focuses and can still grow and improve.
So if you want to employ a pony... do you currently need the fastest flyer ever or a fast flyer who's also good at teamplay and collaboration? Do you need the party planner with the most ostentatious ideas, or one who knows when to stop?
Do you need a librarian who can organise everything perfectly, or one who knows how to work around the fact that the occupants of the library need a small space to sleep in (and may not want to do that on the toilet)?
It's like the real life job market: You may be able to code something perfectly, but if you're a dick to the rest of the team and the clients everyone will be reluctant to hire you in spite of your skill. Unless it's an outbound/working at home gig, in which case skill alone would work.
Different situations require different additional skillsets, and so employers would still want their ponies to show them what they got. The talent is only the beginning.
Furthermore...
Let's say you're one of the 20 librarians who didn't get a job. Okay, that sucks. But your mark is telling you you must operate a library. So how else can you achieve that?
Why, you could make your own. Where do you get funds?
Well, perhaps you could offer to mow lawns, for example. Surely not everyone who has a lawn and is currently to lazy to mow it themselves will refuse you just because they want to wait for the perfect lawnmowing pony to suddenly show up. Also, their rates may be higher. So you mow their lawns. Maybe take out their trash. There's a lot of small odd jobs that I can't imagine ponies to only give to the "perfect" candidate: Sure, if a pony with a lawn mowing mark is available they might hire that pony, but if such a pony is currently not around or booked out, and you're offering and right there... some ponies might refuse you, but I bet a lot of them wouldn't.
Or you could use your innate talents for related things: maybe the local bookstore needs help, maybe you could offer your services of matching books to ponies for a small charge privately, maybe you could offer your services to nobles with private libraries for a price. Maybe write a book about library classifications (or the state equestrian job market, I'm sure CUNET at least would support it). Maybe hire yourself out to schools to teach young ponies how to properly use a library for research; I was actually taught that in middle school, high school and university by actual librarians cooperating with my schools.
Do enough odd jobs like that, and you could start building your own little private library.
So I think there's a lot of options and possibilities even when you don't have the perfect mark for a job. Talents definitely throw a curveball into how it works, but I don't think the job situation in equestria is that bleak.
4895895
Yeah, she doesn't strike me as a banana farmer:
derpicdn.net/img/2017/2/15/1363277/medium.png
Also, Cheerilee is either a flower pony in denial or she has a peculiar "How I got my butt mark" story. Not to mention Snails and his future job.
On a side note, something tells me mares with mother marks may end up in, umm... the movie industry (genre: MILF).
4895902
Bunny stampedes?
A filly running around, covered in ever-increasing cutie marks, doing seven different “special talents” at once and speaking French?
Random zebra in a cloak showing up?
Estee, if memory serves, you were a year or two behind on watching the show. Did you ever make it to season 7?
The episode Marks and Recreation touches on this. [SPOILERS] Rumble outright avoids doing anything he thinks might manifest a cutie mark, to the consternation and horror of the CMC. The show's perspective (or at least the perspective of his older brother Thunderlane) is that while a mark represents a particular talent which the pony in question enjoys doing, it's entirely possible for ponies to excel at other things.
The example given is that Thunderlane loves to cook, and he's great at it, even though cooking has nothing to do with his cutie mark.
Although it isn't commented on in the show, multiple Wonderbolt cadets have marks which seem wholly unrelated to flying or speed. That would suggest, at least, that ponies can and do choose to build their lives around things beyond their cutie mark talents, and that they get a fair chance at employment in those fields.
Obviously, that's all just in the show and every writer has their own view. I do like that they brought it up, along with Rumble's very reasonable fear he'd get a mark and then be pigeonholed into doing one thing for the rest of his life.
4896369 That's actually been my headcanon for a while now, though Estee's system for cutie marks is tempting me...
And another interesting thing to think about: here, ponies don't have to distinguish between their greatest passion and what they're actually good at. Indeed, to separate the two concepts might be utterly alien if not outright inconceivable to these ponies.