quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

universities have a lot of responsibility when *that's why almost everyone is going*

This is all interesting –- the idea of the degree (and major) as an absolute signifier to a mushy signified

i read one blogg post

― dayo, Thursday, September 1, 2011 8:44 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

(sorry that was too snarky)

― dayo, Thursday, September 1, 2011 8:45 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wutt

The grade-inflating argument is key here, too, in that earning a 3.85 from Harvard Business in 2011 looks better than a 3.4 in 1995.

also MBAs are expensive but bachelors for a state school aren't really. My state university (which admittedly isn't CA but state research universities are all p much the same for undergrad education) in-state tuition is like $700 per 3 hour class. So I think there are a few different issues here.

I'm not even sure what we're arguing about anymore

and it pretty much all goes back to the fact that the economy is unprecedentedly shitty atm. like would it really make a difference if all the unemployed 20 somethings were holding engineering degrees instead?

if all of them did? then, no. but if some of them did? than, yeah, probably.

all i was arguing is that its unfair to lay the blame on the individual people in these situations, like horseshoe i hate the "you should be happy to be working at all" meme, thats what They want u to think maaan

for sure. i think i meant that you can be as unhappy as you'd like working at your job but

1) recognize there are people who would like to have it, even if u hate it.
2) if your job involves customer service/interacting with the public, don't take it out on them - they're not the enemy
3) take pride in what you do, as much as you can

i know that is all moralizing 'n' shit, but as a guy who spent 12 months working as a minimum wage security guard/junkie-catcher/puke-cleaner-upper/ guy who mopped hobo piss off the floor and wasn't allowed to sit down for 8 hours at a stretch, nor wander more than 20 feet from my "station" or talk to coworkers, i feel i've got a right to say that i know what it's like to have a shitty job.

my boss used to make me clean chewing gum out of the carpet, and offer me quarters at me as 'incentive'

This said I still think the louis bit is funny

so basically you're all just saying "don't hate the player, hate the game"

bizackly

for the record i think it's okay to hate being a dockworker and to tell the nyt that you hate being a dockworker

eh its not the moralizing that bugs me! i get it, ppl shd be thankful for what theyve got. but only to the extent that "what theyve got" isnt being determined for them by horrible policy/institutions/structures. *takes off blindfold of false consciousness, sees ideology for first time*

but yeah "dont hate the player, he doesnt even realize which game he is playing, because the refs lied to him, and so did his opponents" - friedrich engels

i must have skipped that one

But I agree entirely, Max. I'm just thinking out loud that when you're, say, 23 and working as a stock clerk at Home Depot with a 4.0 average from Columbia and you complain about how you deserve better, can do better, and were lead to expect better, and should get the next promotion, it's gonna rub your 40 year old LEP coworker with 4 years of seniority the wrong way, and actually makes you into a colossal cock.

Wait, somehow I glossed over the key part of this passage the first time:

Likewise, Amy Klein, who graduated from Harvard in 2007 with a degree in English literature, couldn’t find a job in publishing. At one point, she had applied for an editorial-assistant job at Gourmet magazine. Less than two weeks later, Condé Nast shut down that 68- year-old magazine. “So much for that job application,” said Ms. Klein, now 26.

Wow, isn't that just like rain on your wedding day.

Some days you eat the truffle fries and some days the truffle fries eat you

http://www.benopipari.com/.a/6a00e553f11fb38833013488d6c6b0970c-320wi
"So much for that job application"

working as a stock clerk at Home Depot with a 4.0 average from Columbia and you complain about how you deserve better, can do better, and were lead to expect better, and should get the next promotion,

I don't think the last part comes up much

i'm so glad this conversation happened while i was teaching people at a college

I was the DJ at Amy's sister's wedding. I'm pretty sure they didn't all get great jobs out of Harvard. Lots of shitty jobs and switching around jobs and the usual spending your 20s trying to figure out what to do with your life situations.

If anything I think, and maybe hope, that people today have less patience for shitty jobs. Maybe at some point it was assumed your only hope was to just get a job and have some security and eventually go farther and make more money, but that dream died a long time ago. It just hung on and maybe now kids aren't just not getting good jobs, they don't have the patience for the shitty jobs that are supposed to lead to good jobs because they have the sense that they don't any more. So why not do something cool? Of course for everyone who drops out of the rat race to do something "cool" and "interesting" another ex-indie-rocker gets bored of that lifestyle (or can't afford it) and goes to law school.

It came up a lot when I worked at Borders... and I'm nit entirely innocent of it myself.

In my experience in retail, Business types are especially guilty of vying for position in places where the have notionally more supervisory power because they have taken courses in "management" and "communications" and are thus qualified to leap to the front of the line, get the codes to the safe and a key to the front door even though they're relatively lacking in the front line experience that would make fir better working conditions all around

I think there's a huge difference between Harvard (or whatever) grads bumming around in the early 2000s and their equivalent today - there was a lot of flexibility that just doesn't exist anymore. that affects the 'I wanna do something cool' people too...the risk that comes w/ leaving a boring job (or any job) is really high today.

like, I don't know how accurate this one stat is but Amy's sister's friends weren't living in this world: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/10/survey-85-of-new-college-grads-moving-back-in-with-mom-and-dad/

i just hired two interns.
at one point during the summer i had seven interns and two assistants. it's an odd fucking work environment.
I do long last-day sessions with everyone to explain how they can make the internship work for them.

i would never ever send a kid to college unless they were trying to learn specific skills toward a vocation: law, medicine, whatever. If they wanted to do anything, they'd be better off going out and doing it unpaid and learning in the field rather than going into debt learning what Joseph Conrad had in mind.
If someone asks if you have a degree, lie. No one checks degrees. They check work history.

i've realized that, barring an insane stroke of luck, i will be "working below" my education for a while. i've tried to put a premium less on what i'm doing and more on what it pays and the people that i may be working with/working under. thankfully i haven't had to slum it on a dock or at a home depot or as a vomit wiper. i've gotten hooked up w/ a few secretarial (more or less) jobs with decent hourly wages, which is in itself a pretty nice stroke of luck and/or the fruits of relative privilege. the work isn't the greatest, but it isn't the worst, either. and i've had an agreeable amount of time to pursue ~other career interests~

yeah I always find that interesting! I don't think it's going to be the case 5 years from now, I think there will eventually be some centralized linkedin-type way that everythinggg is verified. but at the moment it really wouldn't be hard to give yourself a fake degree. xp

most of my incoming interns are less than a year out of college and living with their parents.
Halfway through the internship they get a subsistence level job, cut their hours in half and generally become a lot less productive.
the ones that don't tend to be great.
We have generally hired internally through intern pool for base level jobs. I think most organizations do. Four years paying at college will not get you a job. Four years apprenticing for free at basically ANY job WILL get you a job in more or less any field.

yeah, the one thing i learned about journalism, is that you're p much guaranteed to get a paying job in the field if you go to nyu, live solely off loans/grants, and work for free at various places for four years

iatee, I think I'm saying the opposite of what you think I'm saying. I didn't mean "bumming around", there were more jobs then, granted, but I think people were more likely to stick with them because while that freedom may have been taken for granted, it wasn't as much an accepted notion. You HAD to stick in your shitty job because that was the only way to have a career. Nowadays it's like 'I don't care if there is a job or not, I'm gonna pour drinks and sell aprons on etsy no matter what."

I've always been impressed by musicians and artists who make sacrifices so they can have the time and freedom to work on their "art", andI just think the economy is something of a motivator. A few years ago a kid might bounce around shitty jobs, or even "good" jobs that are still soul-crushing and lead nowhere, because it's what's expected of them and what they expect of themselves.

xp tbf, you could do the same thing to become a butcher, a music exec, a copywriter, an animator, whatever.
just y'know, not a pediatrician or a paralegal or a notary public

Four years apprenticing for free at basically ANY job WILL get you a job in more or less any field.

in the end this is more a quid pro quo arrangement than a reflection of how valuable they are / that 4 years of work experience is. back when we had a real economy entry-level people trained on the job - it's not like that can't happen today, it's just not a logical use of resources when you have people willing to give you free labor.

btw i'm amazed by this but it appears there is NO STIGMA at being a college graduate and living with your parents based on my world of young interns
they're all like "oh yeah, i live with my parents, so there shouldn't be any problem maintaining the internship" and there's not an iota of shame or discomfort in saying this.
When i was fresh out of college, everyone i knew would rather have cooked and eaten a foot than moved back in with the 'rents.

and again, technically most internships are already illegal

yea but now they're all missing feet, think abt it xp

kinda depends on where your parents live
i moved in with my parents and turned into a waitress
some people can live with their parents and have meaningful internships

btw i'm amazed by this but it appears there is NO STIGMA at being a college graduate and living with your parents based on my world of young interns
they're all like "oh yeah, i live with my parents, so there shouldn't be any problem maintaining the internship" and there's not an iota of shame or discomfort in saying this.
When i was fresh out of college, everyone i knew would rather have cooked and eaten a foot than moved back in with the 'rents.

― thank got forks showed up (forksclovetofu), Friday, September 2, 2011 12:18 AM (34 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest

heh, this is pretty accurate. i've def sensed a mutual jealousy, too, like, "oh you have a place? that's cool, you can have sex freely" vs "oh you live with your parents? that's cool, you have money"

and again, technically most internships are already illegal

yeah, that's the truth. I make every effort to make sure that internships are learning experiences and beneficial to the people I'm working with, but that's almost entirely because I'm aware I'm milking free labor in the most fucked up fashion. And I tell them this! And they shrug and say "whattayagonnado?"
Dunno if I mentioned this elsewhere, but i had three interns over the summer who were PAYING to work with me. They were taking my internship for college credit, which meant working 125 hours for free for me and paying their college the cost of a semester's worth of classes. They they write a fifteen page paper and get the credit. It's utterly insane.

oh man

btw, i'm not pissing on living with your parents, especially IN THIS ECONOMY tm
just noting a paradigm shift

living with your parents is pretty nice. i made a decision after nine months (nine!) that i felt like was wasting my life from a social standpoint, but now that i've decided to move out i'm kind of scared shitless. but what're ya gonna do?

kinda depends on where your parents live

yeah people w/ parents who live in major metro areas...areas w/ jobs are in a wayyy different situation. I moved back with my parents when I came back to the country after college, but it didn't even make financial sense to stay - neither close enough to anywhere w/ real job opportunities. how I wish my parents lived in greater nyc, I would totally live with them til age 40, euro-style

I graduated in May and I live with my parents and don't have a job! My other friend who is in this boat is very ashamed but he's got serious self-esteem issues in general. I'm mostly just bored and frustrated because I don't have friends who live around here anymore. No shame though, really. It's safe, comfortable, and free.

Just a data point I guess.