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Well said. The funny thing is, there's nothing about this argument unique to our generation. Both the WSJ article & Matt's response could've been written at a

by aneesh 18y ago

Well said. The funny thing is, there's nothing about this argument unique to our generation. Both the WSJ article & Matt's response could've been written at any time in the past, and perhaps at any time in the future. Indeed, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

mattmaroon 18y ago
I don't think that's true. There's been a fundamental shift away from working one job all of your life (as our grandparents did) and being more of a free-agent that could never have been said before.
- Retric 18y ago
  Our grandparents are just one example I don't think most people started and ended the Great Depression working for the same company. I think today's world is much closer to the historical norm of lot's of small to mid sized companies fighting it out.
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago
  > working one job all of your life (as our grandparents did) You know, you hear this all the time that people used to work one job all their lives. But I keep my 88 year old grandmother company often and she doesn't shut up, relating extensive biographies of the family tree going way back. If anything it sounds like major career changes were more common in the past. You definitely get that impression reading about colonial America circa the revolution. I think maybe there was a brief post-war period where it was true? William Whyte's "The Organization Man" talks about the era.
  - silentbicycle 18y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised - there are numerous assumptions in American culture about how things have "always been" that are only really accurate from the post-WW2 era on. The GI bill led to substantially higher college enrollment, which in turn had a tremendous influence on pretty much all white-collar jobs.
  - time_management 18y ago
    The "one company for one's whole life" era lasted... significantly less than an average human lifetime. It certainly wasn't present during the Great Depression. It began in the 1950s and ended in the '80s, but even then, people were more mobile than was often said. The difference is that the ideal was to have a long, monotonically increasing career at one company-- it didn't always happen that way-- and that a person who shifted was implicitly assumed not to be successful. A major change the '80s brought about was a recognition that most people's involuntary job changes were through no fault of their own. Well-to-do 18th-century people prized generalism and aspired to be polymaths. The professions emerged in the 19th century, but these were structured as lifelong careers, not jobs, run by individuals who would develop reputations. Corporate paternalism didn't emerge until the World War I era, when workers moved into company towns, and more services (e.g. medical care) were provided, directly or indirectly, by the employer than the community.

by aneesh 18y ago

mattmaroon 18y ago

I don't think that's true. There's been a fundamental shift away from working one job all of your life (as our grandparents did) and being more of a free-agent that could never have been said before.

Retric 18y ago
Our grandparents are just one example I don't think most people started and ended the Great Depression working for the same company. I think today's world is much closer to the historical norm of lot's of small to mid sized companies fighting it out.
kingkongrevenge 18y ago
> working one job all of your life (as our grandparents did) You know, you hear this all the time that people used to work one job all their lives. But I keep my 88 year old grandmother company often and she doesn't shut up, relating extensive biographies of the family tree going way back. If anything it sounds like major career changes were more common in the past. You definitely get that impression reading about colonial America circa the revolution. I think maybe there was a brief post-war period where it was true? William Whyte's "The Organization Man" talks about the era.
- silentbicycle 18y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised - there are numerous assumptions in American culture about how things have "always been" that are only really accurate from the post-WW2 era on. The GI bill led to substantially higher college enrollment, which in turn had a tremendous influence on pretty much all white-collar jobs.
- time_management 18y ago
  The "one company for one's whole life" era lasted... significantly less than an average human lifetime. It certainly wasn't present during the Great Depression. It began in the 1950s and ended in the '80s, but even then, people were more mobile than was often said. The difference is that the ideal was to have a long, monotonically increasing career at one company-- it didn't always happen that way-- and that a person who shifted was implicitly assumed not to be successful. A major change the '80s brought about was a recognition that most people's involuntary job changes were through no fault of their own. Well-to-do 18th-century people prized generalism and aspired to be polymaths. The professions emerged in the 19th century, but these were structured as lifelong careers, not jobs, run by individuals who would develop reputations. Corporate paternalism didn't emerge until the World War I era, when workers moved into company towns, and more services (e.g. medical care) were provided, directly or indirectly, by the employer than the community.