9 ms·

Most trendy, fashionable and 'glamorous' jobs are like this. A lot of suckers want to get into the field, and the employers know this. I know people who work i

Most trendy, fashionable and 'glamorous' jobs are like this. A lot of suckers want to get into the field, and the employers know this. I know people who work in haute-couture shops. They typically clock in 14+ hours per day, and regularly work insane hours on the weekend. The weeks leading up to a fashion show / collection are brutal. These people have years of experience and managerial responsibilities, yet their salaries are absolutely laughable (I'd say a waiter often earns more than them).

petercooper 14y ago
Similarly, a rather sad thing about the magazine publishing industry (especially fashion) still is that many workers are unpaid (except, perhaps, expenses) interns for years at a time fighting to get a tiny number of paid jobs. We even see the intern thing in our own tech industry: http://techcitynews.com/2013/04/08/were-hiring-join-our-team/ http://techcitynews.com/2013/04/08/were-hiring-join-our-team... I think this article goes a way to answer why young people dominate the games development industry, but not really why they tend to be white or male, if that's true.
- guard-of-terra 14y ago
  The amusing thing here is bunch of unpaid interns living on ramen, renting a two bedroom flat for a collective of four, work 12 hours a day writing elaborate articles on luxury, fashion and festive lifestyle.
  - mimiflynn 14y ago
    I've consulted in NYC design shops where most of the designs and documentation were being done by interns. They were available 24/7 and extremely bright; the business couldn't have gotten anything out without them. The full time people and owners were paid way more than necessary all while the interns were unpaid or lowpaid.
    - guard-of-terra 14y ago
      Why don't they network a bit and create their own design shop? Given that they're already all in one place.
      - yen223 14y ago
        Because that requires capital, and no one is going to fund interns, skilled though they may be.
        guard-of-terra 14y ago
        In time of the internets I can't imagine a design shop hard to bootstrap. On internet nobody knows you're an intern.
        mimiflynn 14y ago
        They have to build out a real world portfolio to be able to get clients on their own... and that will be created through real experience, not just school work. So, being an intern makes sense, but they should make a living wage.
w1ntermute 14y ago
> Most trendy, fashionable and 'glamorous' jobs are like this. Which is why the smart thing to do is to go for the most unfashionable job (or market, if you're starting a business) you can find that provides a product that your customers simply can't live without. You just don't want to be selling an elastic product, and you don't want to be in an industry where there's supply-side competition from people who are doing the work purely because they enjoy it. Healthcare is especially good in this respect. People will (quite literally) die without your product, and the payer is just about as far from the consumer as you can get, which makes demand highly inelastic. Your business isn't profitable? No worries, just double your prices. What are they going to do, stop paying you? And how much competition are you going to get (as a worker) when the work can't be outsourced and you can't hire a kid out of high school to do the work based on his GitHub profile?
- jseliger 14y ago
  >Healthcare is especially good in this respect I agree with your overall point but will temper it some by noting that there are VERY high barriers to entry (http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-nurse-or-physicians-assistant-instead-of-a-doctor-the-underrated-perils-of-medical-school/ http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-beco... for one discussion I wrote) and those barriers are enforced by regulators. That being said, once you get the necessary credentials to enter the market the gig is pretty sweet and pretty protected. The real benefits, however, appear to accrue at the lower end of the profession (nurses, P.A.s) and the very high-end (specialists). The great middle (family docs, internists) appear appear to be hurting. Oh, and dentistry is awesome from a money / lifestyle point of view, but it's not much respected (http://www.theonion.com/articles/local-prostitutes-eagerly-await-dentists-conventio,431/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/local-prostitutes-eagerly-a...).
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    It doesn't even have to be just working as a healthcare professional. If you don't like working with patients (it can be quite depressing for some folks), you could be creating a variety of products for this market, including software (though you sort of lose the supply-side advantage in that case).
Crake 14y ago
"I know people who work in haute-couture shops." Me too, or costume production, rather. It's insane how much they have to work for so very little pay. It's hard to tell if they're happy or unhappy, overall--they seem proud of their work, but at the same time, incredibly stressed over bills and whether they'll still have a job after a certain production's wardrobe is finished. (This is skipping over the sewing people who went to college for it and now work at starbucks or whatever. These people are also a much larger percentage of the total than the people who were even able to get into the industry at all.)

petercooper 14y ago

Similarly, a rather sad thing about the magazine publishing industry (especially fashion) still is that many workers are unpaid (except, perhaps, expenses) interns for years at a time fighting to get a tiny number of paid jobs. We even see the intern thing in our own tech industry: http://techcitynews.com/2013/04/08/were-hiring-join-our-team/ http://techcitynews.com/2013/04/08/were-hiring-join-our-team... I think this article goes a way to answer why young people dominate the games development industry, but not really why they tend to be white or male, if that's true.

guard-of-terra 14y ago
The amusing thing here is bunch of unpaid interns living on ramen, renting a two bedroom flat for a collective of four, work 12 hours a day writing elaborate articles on luxury, fashion and festive lifestyle.
- mimiflynn 14y ago
  I've consulted in NYC design shops where most of the designs and documentation were being done by interns. They were available 24/7 and extremely bright; the business couldn't have gotten anything out without them. The full time people and owners were paid way more than necessary all while the interns were unpaid or lowpaid.
  - guard-of-terra 14y ago
    Why don't they network a bit and create their own design shop? Given that they're already all in one place.
    - yen223 14y ago
      Because that requires capital, and no one is going to fund interns, skilled though they may be.
      - guard-of-terra 14y ago
        In time of the internets I can't imagine a design shop hard to bootstrap. On internet nobody knows you're an intern.
        mimiflynn 14y ago
        They have to build out a real world portfolio to be able to get clients on their own... and that will be created through real experience, not just school work. So, being an intern makes sense, but they should make a living wage.

w1ntermute 14y ago

> Most trendy, fashionable and 'glamorous' jobs are like this. Which is why the smart thing to do is to go for the most unfashionable job (or market, if you're starting a business) you can find that provides a product that your customers simply can't live without. You just don't want to be selling an elastic product, and you don't want to be in an industry where there's supply-side competition from people who are doing the work purely because they enjoy it. Healthcare is especially good in this respect. People will (quite literally) die without your product, and the payer is just about as far from the consumer as you can get, which makes demand highly inelastic. Your business isn't profitable? No worries, just double your prices. What are they going to do, stop paying you? And how much competition are you going to get (as a worker) when the work can't be outsourced and you can't hire a kid out of high school to do the work based on his GitHub profile?

jseliger 14y ago
>Healthcare is especially good in this respect I agree with your overall point but will temper it some by noting that there are VERY high barriers to entry (http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-become-a-nurse-or-physicians-assistant-instead-of-a-doctor-the-underrated-perils-of-medical-school/ http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/why-you-should-beco... for one discussion I wrote) and those barriers are enforced by regulators. That being said, once you get the necessary credentials to enter the market the gig is pretty sweet and pretty protected. The real benefits, however, appear to accrue at the lower end of the profession (nurses, P.A.s) and the very high-end (specialists). The great middle (family docs, internists) appear appear to be hurting. Oh, and dentistry is awesome from a money / lifestyle point of view, but it's not much respected (http://www.theonion.com/articles/local-prostitutes-eagerly-await-dentists-conventio,431/ http://www.theonion.com/articles/local-prostitutes-eagerly-a...).
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  It doesn't even have to be just working as a healthcare professional. If you don't like working with patients (it can be quite depressing for some folks), you could be creating a variety of products for this market, including software (though you sort of lose the supply-side advantage in that case).

Crake 14y ago

"I know people who work in haute-couture shops." Me too, or costume production, rather. It's insane how much they have to work for so very little pay. It's hard to tell if they're happy or unhappy, overall--they seem proud of their work, but at the same time, incredibly stressed over bills and whether they'll still have a job after a certain production's wardrobe is finished. (This is skipping over the sewing people who went to college for it and now work at starbucks or whatever. These people are also a much larger percentage of the total than the people who were even able to get into the industry at all.)