10 ms·

Your Employer Is Not Your Friend, and Young People Know It

99 points by jrs235 11y ago

beat 11y ago
A while back, my Millennial daughter had a conversation about finding jobs and building careers today with her Boomer grandfather. At some point, he stopped and said that he had no useful advice for her, because he'd only had two job interviews in his entire life. He went straight from college into a career, and he retired from that one job. It's been interesting watching her deal with her career (in cooking) with her GenX mother too. Her mother can't quite imagine that you do something other than go to college for a four year degree and then get a corporate job. The idea of a career based on experience and networking is rather alien.
- magic_beans 11y ago
  "The idea of a career based on experience and networking is rather alien." It's been that way since the before Industry, and it'll stay that way after.
  - beat 11y ago
    True. But for her mother, the college -> career in something you didn't study path is "normal". Jobs are found via resumes, not networking. Interestingly, my spouse found herself unemployed for the first time in 13 years recently. She's since become much more understanding of my dream of creating a startup, and our daughter's dream of becoming a chef. She's realizing just how much she hated her old job, how hard it was on her soul.
  - stephengillie 11y ago
    Every single job I've ever gotten has been from: 1. Cold applications - find a job posting (usually on Craigslist) that you could fit, send cover letter as email body + resume attached. 2. Cold recruiting - Recruiter contacts me by email with a job that looks like a good fit. I've never got a job from knowing someone. Everyone who has ever worked with me has done so without knowing me beforehand. My experience helps me get jobs, but then, doesn't experience help everyone? I've got 6 jobs this way since 1998.
    - beat 11y ago
      Depends on your career. Want to be a short order cook? That might work. Want to be a chef at a great restaurant? Then you need to know people.
      - Gibbon1 11y ago
        Depends on where you are in your career. If you're young and fresh getting entry level jobs then yeah. Older with more experience, networking is everything. One will find it increasingly difficult to find jobs via cold calling. Even if you are, and especially if you are rolling around hopping jobs inside a large corporation networking will be everything. BTW: A lot of companies try and work things to keep their employees from interacting outside of narrowly defined corporate controlled channels. Don't let them do that to you.
    - jdbernard 11y ago
      To offer the counterpoint: I am in my 5th position since 2004. All of my jobs have been from knowing someone. This latest position is the closest to a cold lead in: I knew someone who knew a contracting firm which was looking to fill a position. For every other position I've either been approached personally by the hiring manager whom I knew or by someone one link away in the org chart from the hiring manager.
    - mcv 11y ago
      I once got a freelance job from knowing someone, and it sucked. It was a tiny company that I worked for at a lower rate than usual, and they refused to pay my invoice after a few months. I have had experiences from friends at various companies influence my decisions, though. I work for a big bank now because a friend gave some Angular training here and said they were doing cool stuff.
- magic_beans 11y ago
  "The idea of a career based on experience and networking is rather alien." It's been that way since the before Industry, and it'll stay that way after.
columbo 11y ago
Serious question: Is this significantly different from all the similar-themed articles in the 90's and 80's? It seems like the more things change the more they stay the same... https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19980412&id=zU5WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zusDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3633,3129737&hl=en https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19980412&id=... https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1309&dat=19941224&id=TSJOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=nBMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1310,1470107&hl=en https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1309&dat=19941224&id=... https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2209&dat=19881231&id=VhJgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LJQMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2730,7829523&hl=en https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2209&dat=19881231&id=...
- yellowapple 11y ago
  It's actually not significantly different, AFAICT. History is a series of infinite loops.
  - aetherson 11y ago
    I'm sorry, this is complete pedantry, but I can't help myself: I think that you mean history is an infinite series of loops. I don't know how you'd get to the second in a series of infinite loops.
    - yellowapple 11y ago
      No, I actually do mean it's a series of infinite loops. The universe is a fucked-up place, man. Though, in truth, it's more like a bunch of infinite loops wired in parallel rather than in series, with occasional connections causing one loop to melt into another.
- onewaystreet 11y ago
  No, this isn't a new trend. The end of job security started in the 80s. Millennials are just the first generation to have no doubts otherwise.
- dataker 11y ago
  Maybe 90's and 80's, but if it was truly cyclical, one'd have to notice the same with Boomers, who retired in the company they interned
gavanwoolery 11y ago
On the flip side, your employer can be a valuable resource, even after you leave the job (moreso at small companies). I still maintain connections to past employers that have remained legitimate friends and valuable resources.
dataker 11y ago
>social media itself is the tool younger workers use to make sure they have contacts in place I know the articles tries to depict this as 'innovative/cool', but it's the same issue of crony capitalism vs true meritocracy.
- makerops 11y ago
  Having the wherewithal and self awareness to develop a professional network is meritorious.
  - whatshisface 11y ago
    In some sense yes, but not in a way relevant to most jobs. Knowing which officials to bribe might also be considered a form of merit, but it adds nothing to the world and should not be rewarded.
    - harrumph 11y ago
      >In some sense yes, but not in a way relevant to most jobs Not relevant to most purely technical jobs, that's true. But these are few and far between, because working means working with people.
hvs 11y ago
To paint this in starkly generational terms seems counterproductive. No one that I know (in my "Generation X" circle) thinks that your employer is your "friend". Companies will often play that up when you get out of college, but it is obvious to anyone with a brain that companies do not hesitate to sacrifice employees at the first sign of dipping profits. I'm not putting a value judgement on that, but you don't need to be a "Millenial" to realize that only you are responsible for your career. My point is that these are structural changes in the work force. They will affect different age groups differently, but to pretend that it is somehow due to the "Generation" they are in is ridiculous. Those labels just encourage lazy thinking.
- halviti 11y ago
  >"To paint this in starkly generational terms seems counterproductive." .. which you proceed to do in the next sentence. >"They will affect different age groups differently, but to pretend that it is somehow due to the "Generation" they are in is ridiculous." I don't know if you're going out of your way to contradict yourself, but for all intents and purposes "generations" and "age groups" are the same thing.
  - LockeWatts 11y ago
    It sounds to me like he's challenging the conceptual idea of a generation, which to be fair is a kind of difficult line to draw. Instead, he's saying that if you're 20-25, regardless of generation, you'll see things one way. 25-35 another, etc.
    - hvs 11y ago
      Yes, I was. Thanks.
    - beat 11y ago
      It really depends. As an early GenX, I find the generational boundary quite stark. I have more in common culturally with people 15 years younger than me than I do with people 5 years older (late Boomers).
- 11y ago
yellowapple 11y ago
This article is hilarious with the millennials -> snake people browser extension.
- ubertaco 11y ago
  I forgot that I had that extension until I clicked "comments." I had a couple of moments of confusion around sentences like "I had a conversation with my Snake Person daughter...."
FlannelPancake 11y ago
> "At some point, millennials are going to grow up. They’ll start caring about stability for the sake of their families, and they’ll make decisions that likely look more and more like that of their parents." Uhhh why? Wasn't the whole point of the article that you're basically better off job-hopping? If I live in or around any sizable metro area, it's incredibly likely that I can find another job in the same area. No need to uproot the family, and in fact changing jobs often increases the financial stability of my family (one notable reason millenials job-hop is it's an incredibly effective way to get a salary increase).
z3t4 11y ago
It's very interesting to read about union history, where sometimes the military was called in to stop a work strike. We have come a long way in the last 100 years.
- justizin 11y ago
  takes deep breath Mostly, people have learned that is bad press, but the national guard were called into Baltimore what seems like days ago to stop black people from protesting the war waged against them. Labor Day is an artificial holiday, while May Day, a holiday created by the American Labor Movement, is celebrated in basically every other country in the world. If you're going to read about union history, really read about union history. Do you know anyone who is a union organizer? Buy them a shot and a beer and listen up. ;)
  - Kalium 11y ago
    > Labor Day is an artificial holiday, while May Day, a holiday created by the American Labor Movement, is celebrated in basically every other country in the world. And in the US, it's celebrated by riots and burning cars! I gotta say, that really makes me appreciate freedom and want to join a union...
    - justizin 11y ago
      Stop watching Fox News. Sports victories and losses in the USA are celebrated by riots and burning cars, as, for some reason, are Pumpkins. May Day is often celebrated in the US with free assembly and speech, and any time free assembly occurs successfully, there are a few people who want to ride its' coattails to experience the creation of riot porn. Read something other than Reddit once in a while.
      - Kalium 11y ago
        I didn't get that from watching Fox or reading Reddit. It got it from walking around my neighborhood. I walk two blocks from my apartment, and I'm at an intersection where windows were smashed and cars were set afire on May Day. Ask me how I feel about the anarchists of Oakland who smashed up my neighborhood on May Day. Or how inclined I am to dismiss them as a false construct of political media. Go on...
Practicality 11y ago
This idea of "loyalty" is just bizarre. An employment contract of any sort is just a monetary transaction. They are paying for time or productivity, or both. It's like complaining that people aren't loyal to Wal-Mart, or loyal to Amazon, or Apple. Or why aren't people "loyal" to the bank foreclosing on them? There doesn't need to be any animosity, but the idea that people should somehow be beholden to the person on the other end of the transaction is irrational.
- shmerl 11y ago
  > This idea of "loyalty" is just bizarre. That depends. If company positions itself as "money for the sake of money", then you are right - being loyal to such idea is weird. But some for instance are interested in advancing other goals (example: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/). Does it make sense to be loyal to such goals? I'd say yes.
  - justizin 11y ago
    It's dangerous, however, to allow an employer with "mission fit" to get away with things you wouldn't take from another employer. For instance, in recent years, in the US, we've taken a hard stance that interns who perform essential job functions - which basically all interns do - must be paid. Should this requirement be relaxed for a non-profit? How does the way I feel about that change if I'm a donor to that non-profit? I care about the mission, but I also care how we get there. I'm fairly sure that internal to Mozilla, Wikimedia, ahem the Association for Computing Machinery (promoting computing as a science AND a profession!), and any other non-profit corporation you can find a lot of the same internal struggles that employees everywhere face. Further, you have a leadership team who believes it's OK to pay people below market because they "love" and "are loyal to" their job. It works for a lot of people, and I know / have known a lot of folks very happy with such choices, but it can be a dangerous alleyway to wander down as well.
    - shmerl 11y ago
      Just for the reference, Mozilla (as a company) is not a non-profit. It's Mozilla Foundation that is non profit. But Mozilla (company) is the primary backer of Mozilla Foundation. Other than that - I agree and fully support fair compensation for work.
SixSigma 11y ago
Employers are in the loop already and way ahead of this journalist. That's why there has been a shift in workplace culture. Employers are working hard to develop and communicate to potential and existing employees that they provide a workplace higher up Maslow's hierarchy of needs than previously [1] Take GM, in 1985 General Motors’ considered workplace mentoring as “divisive and not based on meritocracy”. Today GM’s Director of Social Media, Digital Communications, Research and Reputation Management says that mentoring is a priority at GM. [2] With layers of management being stripped away, shop-floor workers being replaced by machines or offshoring big employers are ready. Adapt or die. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs [2] https://fastlane.gm.com/2014/03/08/mentoring-matters-mary-henige/ https://fastlane.gm.com/2014/03/08/mentoring-matters-mary-he...
mikestew 11y ago
I'm glad to hear that "young people" have finally caught up to the generations before them. My 70 year old mother, who worked in software for many years and even benefits from a pension from a previous employer, said decades ago: "my loyalty extends to the day the paycheck clears. On Monday we start all over." Employers have never been your friend, nor have they necessarily been your enemy. Your job is a business transaction, and to try and make more out of that relationship than it is should be considered foolhardy and more often than not will lead to disappointment. This is not the news flash the clickbaitish article makes it out to be.
makeitsuckless 11y ago
Yeah, sure, "young people know it". Because they invented unions, labor laws etcetera. This self-congratulating bs is an insult to the people who have quite literally laid down their lives for workers rights. If anything, most of the young people around me are totally naive when it comes to their relationship with their employers and the economic consequences of lack of job security. It will hit them hard when they want to buy a home and start a family, but by then it will be too late. Sure, some will have cool careers and write awesome blog posts about it. But the vast majority of millennials are getting screwed hard exactly because of this clueless attitude. If you are this naive and self-involved, you lose the right to bitch about selfish babyboomers taking all the things.
- arca_vorago 11y ago
  "quite literally laid down their lives for workers rights." Too many people don't know about this or don't care, and I largely blame the educational system. When is that last time you heard about J D Rockefeller and the Ludlow massacre in school? Oh yeah, that's right, never.
- justizin 11y ago
  This post makes me sad because I caught myself using the term "young people" the other day. I get to catch the blame for all things Millenial and Generation X, so I tread carefully. All young people are naive and self-involved. Naivete shouldn't be used as an insult, because it is the natural state of things, wiped away by life experience. Oh Wise One, grow up. ;)
- itsybitsycoder 11y ago
  I feel like the people who laid down their lives for workers rights might be more upset about their work being slowly undone and rampant anti-union bias than they would be by some fluff article on a blog.
cryoshon 11y ago
FTA: "At some point, millennials are going to grow up. They’ll start caring about stability for the sake of their families, and they’ll make decisions that likely look more and more like that of their parents. Isn’t that the circle of life, anyway? But with every generation comes a few changes. What makes millennials look “reckless” or disloyal now might actually be the key to their success, especially because corporations are never going to be their friend, no matter the generations of change." There is some confusion here. Millenials don't dislike or disregard stability, they've learned by watching their parents and peers that job stability is not something an employer is interested in providing as part of the compensation package. The lack of loyalty is a result of being or seeing others get cut loose, not of some chaotic-neutral desire to jump around depending on the mood of the day. This isn't a matter of growing up, it's a matter of learning that loyalty earns you nothing. Then there's the adversarial and asymmetrical relationship that exists between employer and employee in the US, generally speaking. They control the flow of your life's time, your effort, your income, your healthcare, and your future job prospects in the same field. They are purely indifferent to you, because you are (relatively) easy to replace, whereas you may struggle to replace them. If they ask for more, you must acquiesce to their demands or risk being released. If you ask for more, they have the power to say either yes or no, and exercise both options as convenient.
- wahsd 11y ago
  That's what I find most amusing about people who don't get what's going on. Employment is a relationship, if there has been significant back-stabbing, lying, deception, deceit, fraud, abuse, exploitation, etc. then people will simply not extend trust. The trust relationship of American corporations is almost irreparably shattered and destroyed. Not least due to corporate policies, but also due to baby boomer "leadership" that exhibits very little more than incompetence and project the entitled, spoiled lives they were allowed to lead. I have my own difficulties overcoming that perception that people hold, but I see it everywhere. Unfortunately, people are also getting fooled by the sham benefits, concern, and care that the likes of the big corporate tech companies like facebook exhibit. Employees are lulled into thinking that the corporation is young and dynamic so it must "get it", but there is still a stone cold corporation behind it all that will slit the throat of your newborn if they need to. Just look at the rise of facebook, it's just the same kind of sleazy, deceptive, conniving, heinous corporation as any other; maybe even worse, considering they are complicit in the greatest threat to human liberties and freedom humanity has ever witnessed.
dmgbrn 11y ago
This is all true, and it's wonderful! I fired my previous employer for unethical behavior. They told me to settle down and act my age, so I responded with my two weeks notice, at which point the asked me to leave immediately. The following job search consisted of one phone call to a friend who was working on a promising startup. The job search was a bit of luck of course. It usually takes me at least a day or two and multiple phone calls, emails, and messages to find a new position.
toolsadmin 11y ago
Loyalty = Monthly Salary/ Monthly Hours Worked. If you're following any other model while working for someone else (without equity), I got bad news for you.
toolsadmin 11y ago
Unless you're working for equity this is the formula you should be following: Loyalty = Monthly Salary / Montly Hours Worked
chrisbennet 11y ago
Supposedly, when asked about loyalty to employees, Jack Welsh said: "It's Friday and you got paid so we're even." http://thenewgildedage.blogspot.com/2011/08/jack-welch-former-ceo-of-ge-on-employee.html http://thenewgildedage.blogspot.com/2011/08/jack-welch-forme...

99 points by jrs235 11y ago

beat 11y ago

A while back, my Millennial daughter had a conversation about finding jobs and building careers today with her Boomer grandfather. At some point, he stopped and said that he had no useful advice for her, because he'd only had two job interviews in his entire life. He went straight from college into a career, and he retired from that one job. It's been interesting watching her deal with her career (in cooking) with her GenX mother too. Her mother can't quite imagine that you do something other than go to college for a four year degree and then get a corporate job. The idea of a career based on experience and networking is rather alien.

magic_beans 11y ago
"The idea of a career based on experience and networking is rather alien." It's been that way since the before Industry, and it'll stay that way after.
- beat 11y ago
  True. But for her mother, the college -> career in something you didn't study path is "normal". Jobs are found via resumes, not networking. Interestingly, my spouse found herself unemployed for the first time in 13 years recently. She's since become much more understanding of my dream of creating a startup, and our daughter's dream of becoming a chef. She's realizing just how much she hated her old job, how hard it was on her soul.
- stephengillie 11y ago
  Every single job I've ever gotten has been from: 1. Cold applications - find a job posting (usually on Craigslist) that you could fit, send cover letter as email body + resume attached. 2. Cold recruiting - Recruiter contacts me by email with a job that looks like a good fit. I've never got a job from knowing someone. Everyone who has ever worked with me has done so without knowing me beforehand. My experience helps me get jobs, but then, doesn't experience help everyone? I've got 6 jobs this way since 1998.
  - beat 11y ago
    Depends on your career. Want to be a short order cook? That might work. Want to be a chef at a great restaurant? Then you need to know people.
    - Gibbon1 11y ago
      Depends on where you are in your career. If you're young and fresh getting entry level jobs then yeah. Older with more experience, networking is everything. One will find it increasingly difficult to find jobs via cold calling. Even if you are, and especially if you are rolling around hopping jobs inside a large corporation networking will be everything. BTW: A lot of companies try and work things to keep their employees from interacting outside of narrowly defined corporate controlled channels. Don't let them do that to you.
  - jdbernard 11y ago
    To offer the counterpoint: I am in my 5th position since 2004. All of my jobs have been from knowing someone. This latest position is the closest to a cold lead in: I knew someone who knew a contracting firm which was looking to fill a position. For every other position I've either been approached personally by the hiring manager whom I knew or by someone one link away in the org chart from the hiring manager.
  - mcv 11y ago
    I once got a freelance job from knowing someone, and it sucked. It was a tiny company that I worked for at a lower rate than usual, and they refused to pay my invoice after a few months. I have had experiences from friends at various companies influence my decisions, though. I work for a big bank now because a friend gave some Angular training here and said they were doing cool stuff.
magic_beans 11y ago
"The idea of a career based on experience and networking is rather alien." It's been that way since the before Industry, and it'll stay that way after.

columbo 11y ago

Serious question: Is this significantly different from all the similar-themed articles in the 90's and 80's? It seems like the more things change the more they stay the same... https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19980412&id=zU5WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zusDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3633,3129737&hl=en https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19980412&id=... https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1309&dat=19941224&id=TSJOAAAAIBAJ&sjid=nBMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1310,1470107&hl=en https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1309&dat=19941224&id=... https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2209&dat=19881231&id=VhJgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LJQMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2730,7829523&hl=en https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2209&dat=19881231&id=...

yellowapple 11y ago
It's actually not significantly different, AFAICT. History is a series of infinite loops.
- aetherson 11y ago
  I'm sorry, this is complete pedantry, but I can't help myself: I think that you mean history is an infinite series of loops. I don't know how you'd get to the second in a series of infinite loops.
  - yellowapple 11y ago
    No, I actually do mean it's a series of infinite loops. The universe is a fucked-up place, man. Though, in truth, it's more like a bunch of infinite loops wired in parallel rather than in series, with occasional connections causing one loop to melt into another.
onewaystreet 11y ago
No, this isn't a new trend. The end of job security started in the 80s. Millennials are just the first generation to have no doubts otherwise.
dataker 11y ago
Maybe 90's and 80's, but if it was truly cyclical, one'd have to notice the same with Boomers, who retired in the company they interned

gavanwoolery 11y ago

On the flip side, your employer can be a valuable resource, even after you leave the job (moreso at small companies). I still maintain connections to past employers that have remained legitimate friends and valuable resources.

dataker 11y ago

>social media itself is the tool younger workers use to make sure they have contacts in place I know the articles tries to depict this as 'innovative/cool', but it's the same issue of crony capitalism vs true meritocracy.

makerops 11y ago
Having the wherewithal and self awareness to develop a professional network is meritorious.
- whatshisface 11y ago
  In some sense yes, but not in a way relevant to most jobs. Knowing which officials to bribe might also be considered a form of merit, but it adds nothing to the world and should not be rewarded.
  - harrumph 11y ago
    >In some sense yes, but not in a way relevant to most jobs Not relevant to most purely technical jobs, that's true. But these are few and far between, because working means working with people.

hvs 11y ago

To paint this in starkly generational terms seems counterproductive. No one that I know (in my "Generation X" circle) thinks that your employer is your "friend". Companies will often play that up when you get out of college, but it is obvious to anyone with a brain that companies do not hesitate to sacrifice employees at the first sign of dipping profits. I'm not putting a value judgement on that, but you don't need to be a "Millenial" to realize that only you are responsible for your career. My point is that these are structural changes in the work force. They will affect different age groups differently, but to pretend that it is somehow due to the "Generation" they are in is ridiculous. Those labels just encourage lazy thinking.

halviti 11y ago
>"To paint this in starkly generational terms seems counterproductive." .. which you proceed to do in the next sentence. >"They will affect different age groups differently, but to pretend that it is somehow due to the "Generation" they are in is ridiculous." I don't know if you're going out of your way to contradict yourself, but for all intents and purposes "generations" and "age groups" are the same thing.
- LockeWatts 11y ago
  It sounds to me like he's challenging the conceptual idea of a generation, which to be fair is a kind of difficult line to draw. Instead, he's saying that if you're 20-25, regardless of generation, you'll see things one way. 25-35 another, etc.
  - hvs 11y ago
    Yes, I was. Thanks.
  - beat 11y ago
    It really depends. As an early GenX, I find the generational boundary quite stark. I have more in common culturally with people 15 years younger than me than I do with people 5 years older (late Boomers).
11y ago

yellowapple 11y ago

This article is hilarious with the millennials -> snake people browser extension.

ubertaco 11y ago
I forgot that I had that extension until I clicked "comments." I had a couple of moments of confusion around sentences like "I had a conversation with my Snake Person daughter...."

FlannelPancake 11y ago

> "At some point, millennials are going to grow up. They’ll start caring about stability for the sake of their families, and they’ll make decisions that likely look more and more like that of their parents." Uhhh why? Wasn't the whole point of the article that you're basically better off job-hopping? If I live in or around any sizable metro area, it's incredibly likely that I can find another job in the same area. No need to uproot the family, and in fact changing jobs often increases the financial stability of my family (one notable reason millenials job-hop is it's an incredibly effective way to get a salary increase).

z3t4 11y ago

It's very interesting to read about union history, where sometimes the military was called in to stop a work strike. We have come a long way in the last 100 years.

justizin 11y ago
takes deep breath Mostly, people have learned that is bad press, but the national guard were called into Baltimore what seems like days ago to stop black people from protesting the war waged against them. Labor Day is an artificial holiday, while May Day, a holiday created by the American Labor Movement, is celebrated in basically every other country in the world. If you're going to read about union history, really read about union history. Do you know anyone who is a union organizer? Buy them a shot and a beer and listen up. ;)
- Kalium 11y ago
  > Labor Day is an artificial holiday, while May Day, a holiday created by the American Labor Movement, is celebrated in basically every other country in the world. And in the US, it's celebrated by riots and burning cars! I gotta say, that really makes me appreciate freedom and want to join a union...
  - justizin 11y ago
    Stop watching Fox News. Sports victories and losses in the USA are celebrated by riots and burning cars, as, for some reason, are Pumpkins. May Day is often celebrated in the US with free assembly and speech, and any time free assembly occurs successfully, there are a few people who want to ride its' coattails to experience the creation of riot porn. Read something other than Reddit once in a while.
    - Kalium 11y ago
      I didn't get that from watching Fox or reading Reddit. It got it from walking around my neighborhood. I walk two blocks from my apartment, and I'm at an intersection where windows were smashed and cars were set afire on May Day. Ask me how I feel about the anarchists of Oakland who smashed up my neighborhood on May Day. Or how inclined I am to dismiss them as a false construct of political media. Go on...

Practicality 11y ago

This idea of "loyalty" is just bizarre. An employment contract of any sort is just a monetary transaction. They are paying for time or productivity, or both. It's like complaining that people aren't loyal to Wal-Mart, or loyal to Amazon, or Apple. Or why aren't people "loyal" to the bank foreclosing on them? There doesn't need to be any animosity, but the idea that people should somehow be beholden to the person on the other end of the transaction is irrational.

shmerl 11y ago
> This idea of "loyalty" is just bizarre. That depends. If company positions itself as "money for the sake of money", then you are right - being loyal to such idea is weird. But some for instance are interested in advancing other goals (example: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/). Does it make sense to be loyal to such goals? I'd say yes.
- justizin 11y ago
  It's dangerous, however, to allow an employer with "mission fit" to get away with things you wouldn't take from another employer. For instance, in recent years, in the US, we've taken a hard stance that interns who perform essential job functions - which basically all interns do - must be paid. Should this requirement be relaxed for a non-profit? How does the way I feel about that change if I'm a donor to that non-profit? I care about the mission, but I also care how we get there. I'm fairly sure that internal to Mozilla, Wikimedia, ahem the Association for Computing Machinery (promoting computing as a science AND a profession!), and any other non-profit corporation you can find a lot of the same internal struggles that employees everywhere face. Further, you have a leadership team who believes it's OK to pay people below market because they "love" and "are loyal to" their job. It works for a lot of people, and I know / have known a lot of folks very happy with such choices, but it can be a dangerous alleyway to wander down as well.
  - shmerl 11y ago
    Just for the reference, Mozilla (as a company) is not a non-profit. It's Mozilla Foundation that is non profit. But Mozilla (company) is the primary backer of Mozilla Foundation. Other than that - I agree and fully support fair compensation for work.

SixSigma 11y ago

Employers are in the loop already and way ahead of this journalist. That's why there has been a shift in workplace culture. Employers are working hard to develop and communicate to potential and existing employees that they provide a workplace higher up Maslow's hierarchy of needs than previously [1] Take GM, in 1985 General Motors’ considered workplace mentoring as “divisive and not based on meritocracy”. Today GM’s Director of Social Media, Digital Communications, Research and Reputation Management says that mentoring is a priority at GM. [2] With layers of management being stripped away, shop-floor workers being replaced by machines or offshoring big employers are ready. Adapt or die. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs [2] https://fastlane.gm.com/2014/03/08/mentoring-matters-mary-henige/ https://fastlane.gm.com/2014/03/08/mentoring-matters-mary-he...

mikestew 11y ago

I'm glad to hear that "young people" have finally caught up to the generations before them. My 70 year old mother, who worked in software for many years and even benefits from a pension from a previous employer, said decades ago: "my loyalty extends to the day the paycheck clears. On Monday we start all over." Employers have never been your friend, nor have they necessarily been your enemy. Your job is a business transaction, and to try and make more out of that relationship than it is should be considered foolhardy and more often than not will lead to disappointment. This is not the news flash the clickbaitish article makes it out to be.

makeitsuckless 11y ago

Yeah, sure, "young people know it". Because they invented unions, labor laws etcetera. This self-congratulating bs is an insult to the people who have quite literally laid down their lives for workers rights. If anything, most of the young people around me are totally naive when it comes to their relationship with their employers and the economic consequences of lack of job security. It will hit them hard when they want to buy a home and start a family, but by then it will be too late. Sure, some will have cool careers and write awesome blog posts about it. But the vast majority of millennials are getting screwed hard exactly because of this clueless attitude. If you are this naive and self-involved, you lose the right to bitch about selfish babyboomers taking all the things.

arca_vorago 11y ago
"quite literally laid down their lives for workers rights." Too many people don't know about this or don't care, and I largely blame the educational system. When is that last time you heard about J D Rockefeller and the Ludlow massacre in school? Oh yeah, that's right, never.
justizin 11y ago
This post makes me sad because I caught myself using the term "young people" the other day. I get to catch the blame for all things Millenial and Generation X, so I tread carefully. All young people are naive and self-involved. Naivete shouldn't be used as an insult, because it is the natural state of things, wiped away by life experience. Oh Wise One, grow up. ;)
itsybitsycoder 11y ago
I feel like the people who laid down their lives for workers rights might be more upset about their work being slowly undone and rampant anti-union bias than they would be by some fluff article on a blog.

cryoshon 11y ago

FTA: "At some point, millennials are going to grow up. They’ll start caring about stability for the sake of their families, and they’ll make decisions that likely look more and more like that of their parents. Isn’t that the circle of life, anyway? But with every generation comes a few changes. What makes millennials look “reckless” or disloyal now might actually be the key to their success, especially because corporations are never going to be their friend, no matter the generations of change." There is some confusion here. Millenials don't dislike or disregard stability, they've learned by watching their parents and peers that job stability is not something an employer is interested in providing as part of the compensation package. The lack of loyalty is a result of being or seeing others get cut loose, not of some chaotic-neutral desire to jump around depending on the mood of the day. This isn't a matter of growing up, it's a matter of learning that loyalty earns you nothing. Then there's the adversarial and asymmetrical relationship that exists between employer and employee in the US, generally speaking. They control the flow of your life's time, your effort, your income, your healthcare, and your future job prospects in the same field. They are purely indifferent to you, because you are (relatively) easy to replace, whereas you may struggle to replace them. If they ask for more, you must acquiesce to their demands or risk being released. If you ask for more, they have the power to say either yes or no, and exercise both options as convenient.

wahsd 11y ago
That's what I find most amusing about people who don't get what's going on. Employment is a relationship, if there has been significant back-stabbing, lying, deception, deceit, fraud, abuse, exploitation, etc. then people will simply not extend trust. The trust relationship of American corporations is almost irreparably shattered and destroyed. Not least due to corporate policies, but also due to baby boomer "leadership" that exhibits very little more than incompetence and project the entitled, spoiled lives they were allowed to lead. I have my own difficulties overcoming that perception that people hold, but I see it everywhere. Unfortunately, people are also getting fooled by the sham benefits, concern, and care that the likes of the big corporate tech companies like facebook exhibit. Employees are lulled into thinking that the corporation is young and dynamic so it must "get it", but there is still a stone cold corporation behind it all that will slit the throat of your newborn if they need to. Just look at the rise of facebook, it's just the same kind of sleazy, deceptive, conniving, heinous corporation as any other; maybe even worse, considering they are complicit in the greatest threat to human liberties and freedom humanity has ever witnessed.

dmgbrn 11y ago

This is all true, and it's wonderful! I fired my previous employer for unethical behavior. They told me to settle down and act my age, so I responded with my two weeks notice, at which point the asked me to leave immediately. The following job search consisted of one phone call to a friend who was working on a promising startup. The job search was a bit of luck of course. It usually takes me at least a day or two and multiple phone calls, emails, and messages to find a new position.

toolsadmin 11y ago

Loyalty = Monthly Salary/ Monthly Hours Worked. If you're following any other model while working for someone else (without equity), I got bad news for you.

toolsadmin 11y ago

Unless you're working for equity this is the formula you should be following: Loyalty = Monthly Salary / Montly Hours Worked

chrisbennet 11y ago

Supposedly, when asked about loyalty to employees, Jack Welsh said: "It's Friday and you got paid so we're even." http://thenewgildedage.blogspot.com/2011/08/jack-welch-former-ceo-of-ge-on-employee.html http://thenewgildedage.blogspot.com/2011/08/jack-welch-forme...