4 ms·

meh - this applies only to people who are looking to do things that they think require a degree. Plumbers and Electricians don't need degrees. There also persis

by pigpaws 10y ago

meh - this applies only to people who are looking to do things that they think require a degree. Plumbers and Electricians don't need degrees. There also persists (for various reasons) that the 'younger generations' don't want to put their dues in, that they want to start at the top. (holding out for a management position). You want to code? Great! take a job doing something else while you code on the side. You want to help people learn 4th Century Prussian Interpretive Dance? fine, take a different job as a step-stone to that. the point being, you don't need some bloated, under-educated piece of paper to get a job - or even the job you want. You just have to work harder to get there, something that people just don't want to do anymore. No one wants to start 'in the mail room' anymore.

artmageddon 10y ago
> No one wants to start 'in the mail room' anymore. I think part of the problem is that jobs are tighter and tighter these days and the proverbial mail room may not be open for work.
- bluejellybean 10y ago
  People either don't know about or really don't want to do a lot of jobs. Example, good friend of mine started mopping blood in a hospital, working his way up (making good money too!), he has been able to pay for school and live a good life.. The jobs are out there, they just require you to find them ( and sometimes also require that you have the stomach for it ).
- pigpaws 10y ago
  not true - there are PLENTY of low-level or entry level 'jobs out there', but people today are SO spoiled that they don't want to take those jobs because they are seen as beneath them. Why can't someone have a job at McDonald's while you take a non-paid internship at a BioTech company? or study for Chemical Engineering? or code at night? Are you honestly telling me that there is a shortage of burger-flippers, janitors and building engineers out there? A "Job" is not hard to find - you just have to be willing to swallow your pride and take it, and use it as a stepping stone to get to the next position. Knowledge comes from books. Wisdom comes from experience. "WORK" is a four-letter word, both literally and figuratively. AWS has a free tier specifically to play on, to learn. MIT and other universities have FREE online classes. an education is not hard to get.
  - kasey_junk 10y ago
    > a non-paid internship at a BioTech company Would almost certainly be a labor law violation.
    - pigpaws 10y ago
      are you trying to miss the point? https://www.propublica.org/article/when-interns-should-be-paid-explained https://www.propublica.org/article/when-interns-should-be-pa...
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    And how will I keep my non-paid internship? I can't show up reliably, because my McDonald's job has variable hours and I only get a day's notice. And how will I afford my studies for chemical engineering? I can't even afford community college on minimum wage, and no one will hire a Chem E without an accredited degree (for good reason). I can take EdX courses (not free if I want certification), but they can't ever equate to in-person courses and real college students are holding protests to ensure that doesn't change. And how will I set aside time for nightly coding? My McDonald's job is a zero-hour contract, so I'm not guaranteed any work on a given day and can't budget. Meanwhile they'll fire me if I turn down a shift, so I'm on TaskRabbit and Mechanical Turk trying to make quick cash at $3/hour because I can't accommodate a second real job. In the meantime, my job isn't a stepping stone to shit except nightshift manager, because the post above that requires a college degree and doesn't privilege current employees. Sure, there are jobs out there to get, and there are ways to self-study and get ahead. Granted. So yeah, lecture your unemployed cousin about playing Call of Duty instead of getting a night job. He's a lazy slob and he ought to do better. But it's the height of condescension to say that structural unemployment and negative real wage growth are happening because people suddenly got lazier. Don't come and tell me that "work is a four letter word" when we have the same 13% poverty rate we've had for forty years. That's not lazy teens, that's the world you live in.
    - pigpaws 10y ago
      you're cute. wrong, but cute. as the article cited 17-24y/o i'm guessing the 'poverty rate' is a little lower. please try to keep up. If you want to extrapolate the 17-24y/o demographic to include everyone, please do so when it actually applies - not to this conversation re: this article. Strawman arguments are universally known as bullshit. So, since you're using you're extensive knowledge of McDonald's shift work, You'd already know that the corporation behind it offers college assistance and flex scheduling, right? of course you would because you're a smart guy. also, in actuality, my cousin does work for McDonald's. He worked there for 10 years before buying his first (of 3 so far) franchise at the age of 28. and while i never said self-study would absolutely get you the job you want, taking a 'lesser' job would get you to the next step and so on and so forth to GET the job you want. Its called WORK for a reason. Most people today work harder to get out of work than it would take to actually DO to the work itself.
CaptSpify 10y ago
I obviously don't speak for everyone's experience but... I was always taught that if you had a college degree, you don't really have to pay your dues. One of the points of a degree was that you could skip a lot of that. Of course, it never was true, but that's what I was told.
- at-fates-hands 10y ago
  >>> One of the points of a degree was that you could skip a lot of that. I was told the same thing but was warned you exchange paying one set of dues for another in the corporate world. I stayed away from corporate gigs for years because of this. In reality, it wasn't dues per se, it just navigating all the corporate politics I never had to deal with in smaller companies.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    I took the opposite route. I started in the corporate world, and moved into smaller companies. There were 'dues' for sure, but they were pretty easy, albeit tedious
- ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
  Shades of Old Economy Steve. I think the 'traditional' model has you starting out on the bottom and working your way up with any old college degree, but that particular bottom was z white collar bottom, not cashiering at a grocery store.
dragonwriter 10y ago
No one wants to start in the mail room, because no one favors internal promotions to substantially different jobs over hiring someone with credentials from the outside anymore. So, starting in the mail room means staying in the mail room, and it means pay and working conditions which make it much harder to get better jobs than if you'd done what was necessary to qualify for higher-status work without bothering with the mail room. There's some exceptions, sure, but the working culture where starting in the mail room worked (to the extent it did: note that it was, even when most viable, already a notable exception, not a norm) basically no longer exists.
ebiester 10y ago
Those entry-level jobs have largely been automated by people like you and me.

by pigpaws 10y ago

artmageddon 10y ago

> No one wants to start 'in the mail room' anymore. I think part of the problem is that jobs are tighter and tighter these days and the proverbial mail room may not be open for work.

bluejellybean 10y ago
People either don't know about or really don't want to do a lot of jobs. Example, good friend of mine started mopping blood in a hospital, working his way up (making good money too!), he has been able to pay for school and live a good life.. The jobs are out there, they just require you to find them ( and sometimes also require that you have the stomach for it ).
pigpaws 10y ago
not true - there are PLENTY of low-level or entry level 'jobs out there', but people today are SO spoiled that they don't want to take those jobs because they are seen as beneath them. Why can't someone have a job at McDonald's while you take a non-paid internship at a BioTech company? or study for Chemical Engineering? or code at night? Are you honestly telling me that there is a shortage of burger-flippers, janitors and building engineers out there? A "Job" is not hard to find - you just have to be willing to swallow your pride and take it, and use it as a stepping stone to get to the next position. Knowledge comes from books. Wisdom comes from experience. "WORK" is a four-letter word, both literally and figuratively. AWS has a free tier specifically to play on, to learn. MIT and other universities have FREE online classes. an education is not hard to get.
- kasey_junk 10y ago
  > a non-paid internship at a BioTech company Would almost certainly be a labor law violation.
  - pigpaws 10y ago
    are you trying to miss the point? https://www.propublica.org/article/when-interns-should-be-paid-explained https://www.propublica.org/article/when-interns-should-be-pa...
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  And how will I keep my non-paid internship? I can't show up reliably, because my McDonald's job has variable hours and I only get a day's notice. And how will I afford my studies for chemical engineering? I can't even afford community college on minimum wage, and no one will hire a Chem E without an accredited degree (for good reason). I can take EdX courses (not free if I want certification), but they can't ever equate to in-person courses and real college students are holding protests to ensure that doesn't change. And how will I set aside time for nightly coding? My McDonald's job is a zero-hour contract, so I'm not guaranteed any work on a given day and can't budget. Meanwhile they'll fire me if I turn down a shift, so I'm on TaskRabbit and Mechanical Turk trying to make quick cash at $3/hour because I can't accommodate a second real job. In the meantime, my job isn't a stepping stone to shit except nightshift manager, because the post above that requires a college degree and doesn't privilege current employees. Sure, there are jobs out there to get, and there are ways to self-study and get ahead. Granted. So yeah, lecture your unemployed cousin about playing Call of Duty instead of getting a night job. He's a lazy slob and he ought to do better. But it's the height of condescension to say that structural unemployment and negative real wage growth are happening because people suddenly got lazier. Don't come and tell me that "work is a four letter word" when we have the same 13% poverty rate we've had for forty years. That's not lazy teens, that's the world you live in.
  - pigpaws 10y ago
    you're cute. wrong, but cute. as the article cited 17-24y/o i'm guessing the 'poverty rate' is a little lower. please try to keep up. If you want to extrapolate the 17-24y/o demographic to include everyone, please do so when it actually applies - not to this conversation re: this article. Strawman arguments are universally known as bullshit. So, since you're using you're extensive knowledge of McDonald's shift work, You'd already know that the corporation behind it offers college assistance and flex scheduling, right? of course you would because you're a smart guy. also, in actuality, my cousin does work for McDonald's. He worked there for 10 years before buying his first (of 3 so far) franchise at the age of 28. and while i never said self-study would absolutely get you the job you want, taking a 'lesser' job would get you to the next step and so on and so forth to GET the job you want. Its called WORK for a reason. Most people today work harder to get out of work than it would take to actually DO to the work itself.

CaptSpify 10y ago

I obviously don't speak for everyone's experience but... I was always taught that if you had a college degree, you don't really have to pay your dues. One of the points of a degree was that you could skip a lot of that. Of course, it never was true, but that's what I was told.

at-fates-hands 10y ago
>>> One of the points of a degree was that you could skip a lot of that. I was told the same thing but was warned you exchange paying one set of dues for another in the corporate world. I stayed away from corporate gigs for years because of this. In reality, it wasn't dues per se, it just navigating all the corporate politics I never had to deal with in smaller companies.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  I took the opposite route. I started in the corporate world, and moved into smaller companies. There were 'dues' for sure, but they were pretty easy, albeit tedious
ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
Shades of Old Economy Steve. I think the 'traditional' model has you starting out on the bottom and working your way up with any old college degree, but that particular bottom was z white collar bottom, not cashiering at a grocery store.

dragonwriter 10y ago

No one wants to start in the mail room, because no one favors internal promotions to substantially different jobs over hiring someone with credentials from the outside anymore. So, starting in the mail room means staying in the mail room, and it means pay and working conditions which make it much harder to get better jobs than if you'd done what was necessary to qualify for higher-status work without bothering with the mail room. There's some exceptions, sure, but the working culture where starting in the mail room worked (to the extent it did: note that it was, even when most viable, already a notable exception, not a norm) basically no longer exists.

ebiester 10y ago

Those entry-level jobs have largely been automated by people like you and me.