Pinkham attacks on reading comprehension yet she can’t reference the correct hourly wage, as @GMTplus7 points out above.
When I was fresh out of college, I did the same. Some critical differences, however, are:
- Neither of us likely had graduated into a job market as bad for fresh or recent college grads as she had.
- Neither of us graduated in an era where a critical mass of folks around our respective ages have as high of a debt load relative to inflation or income because of various systemic factors ranging from severe Federal and State/local cuts for FA grants, employer driven inflation of minimum credentialing requirements, deceptive predatory lending practices by some private Us and banking institutions*, etc.
One stark illustration of this was how some younger friends just a few years younger than myself have much higher debt loads whereas I graduated debt free causing me to think “There but the grace of God go I”.
- While I didn't live in the most ritzy part of the Boston area, the "cheap" apartment I found was still within a reasonable 40 minute commute via the T. Not an hour or more by car....especially considering the rush hour traffic. It also had enough room to reasonably accommodate multiple roommates...not a tiny studio.
Also, even if one has public transportation…if it’s anything like the LIRR…a 40 mile commute each way could easily be an hour and half or more depending on rush hour delays.
- Having good job skills...even in STEM is no guarantee one may end up severely underemployed or being unemployed. Many engineering/CS recent/fresh CS grads ended up underemployed or even unemployed for long extended periods after the dotcom crash in 2001.
One friend with a Masters in CS from a respectable program ended up working as a floor sales rep at a big box retailer and several others were unemployed for a year or more. Even those who took advantage of special programs to improve their skills got nowhere. There just weren’t enough jobs…especially in their area/skillset back then.
Some of my engineer relatives ended up on extended un/underemployment stints due to the cyclical downturn in their respective engineering fields.
- One case was then NY DA Andrew Cuomo called out NYU and Citigroup after catching them in one such practice with undergrad students less than a decade ago.
Another word to add to Talia Jane’s vocab, besides “roommate”:
“carpool”
I’ve carpooled during various points of my adult working life. Now I take public transportation. You can add “solo commuting in a private car” to the list of dubious human-rights.
Newsflash! ‘Sex and the City’ is fantasy:
http://gothamist.com/2011/06/22/do_over_carrie_bradshaw_math.php
From reading Talia Jane’s account, she did try finding roommates from her workplace, but didn’t have much luck as most either lived at home with parents nearby and/or needed to remain in the area as they were also attending school nearby.
From that, it’s very possible the absence of carpooling was also because she wasn’t able to find colleagues to carpool with along her commute route because they didn’t need it or lived anywhere near her daily commute route.
So what? None of this means that her skills should be valued more (paid more) than they are worth. Therefore, her tirade was still pointless. She needs better skills, that simple. She should take her complaining skills of and use that energy to acquire something useful that pays more.
Even the pixie-dust enchanted MT grads who move to NYC have skills and get a roommate.
who only looks for a roommate where they work?
has this girl heard of the internet? craigslist?
in DC, people working on the Hill have roommates. People working at think tanks have roommates. People walking the halls of the Pentagon and White House have roommates. Some of them have 1 roommate. Others have 5+
… so someone in San Francisco should work at a call center and live by themselves? It’s completely unrealistic.
Should that determinant be solely in the hands of the employer? Or should other factors also be taken into account.
A quote from FDR to provide some food for thought related to the larger issues OP’s article touched:
[quote]
So what? None of this means that her skills should be valued more (paid more) than they are worth.
[/quote]
Wages for skills are set by the MARKET, not by the employer. You think hospitals could attract many doctors if they only offered them min wage?
Wages are set at what the market will bear. If there are no takers at the proffered wage, then the wage is too low.
What?!
Xpost. But cobrat, what’s with the flame?
Can we puhleeze stay on track?
That CNN article is crap. Why does everyone think it is a “raise minimum wage” issue? To me, the main issue here is predatory hiring practices of companies like Yelp - bait and switch. Not every young college senior has a bunch of smart adults who can advise that if it is not in writing, it is not there, period. Offering verbal pie in the sky career advancement opportunities to lure someone well-spoken to take a dead end job which they cannot fill with immigrants.
All this talk about market, supply and demand is phooey when arbitrage exists (one side of the bargain knows something the other side does not). Yes, even college kids can be naive.
The employer will pretty much always know more info that the employee doesn’t. Employees often have info employers don’t. Not sure how you can change that.
There is an issue to the extent yelp actively deceived potential employees. But that is not the same as saying the employer has more info.
Do you believe all advertising you see?
Throughout this discussion (here and elsewhere), the issue of income inequality is harped on a lot. And the market, supply and demand are totally relevant to that issue.
Nonetheless, wanting to live in SF is not a guaranteed human right. It’s an expensive city. You know that going in.
The girl’s Instagram showed Lush bath products (very expensive!) and lots of artisanal food that is not inexpensive to make. She just didn’t think it through.
Income inequality is a smokescreen term made up for political purposes; it gets votes and efforts to shift blame to employers as villains. The true term to describe “income inequality” is really “skills inequality.”
After fundamental skills inequality, the market is affected by what this poster says - supply and demand. All the skills in the world are still impossible to monetize if the demand for those skills is exhausted.
This is why the “college free for everyone” mantra is also smokescreen to get votes, as the market cannot even support the college grads that exist now; therefore, the concept that the market can support even more college grads is already baked into the cake as impossible. But, it gets votes from the uninformed. The person who wrote that blog post about Yelp is one of the uniformed.
awcntb, everyone who thinks companies are villains should start their own company and do it the “right” way. (walk the walk)
BB, when I was hired at that “first real job” in SF, I was told I could move from X up to Y, down the road. When that later conversation happened, the word from the next fellow in the management chain was, we’ve never moved a person from your position to that one. I blamed the guy who hired me, not the company. I learned something about weighing opportunities and etc, which served me. Was it bait and switch? Maybe. But not on a corporate level, not an issue with corporate philosophy.
I wonder how widespread b&s is, at a company like Yelp. How many 12.25/hour employees are being told this is just a jumping point, made some more glorious promises, in order to fill the phone banks with warm bodies? Is it widespread or it just happens occasionally? I think, as in the college discussion, we have to first distinguish between one disappointment and some larger, purposeful corporate shenanigans. After that, we can talk income and hiring more theoretically.
If you have to have a call center located in one of the priciest pieces of real estate and staffed with dozens of low-wage workers who speak perfect English and are familiar with food delivery needs of the demanding local tech scene… where will you find them? You have to offer them something more than $12 whatever per hour plus insurance which they also will partially pay for. Another poster here confirmed that this bait and switch happened to her kid’s good friends.
there is an alternative minus knowing the quirks of techies and hipsters in san fran…" staffed with dozens of low-wage workers who speak perfect English " some mcdonalds a few years back (not sure if they still have it) had call centers in the midwest taking care of the drive thru lanes order taking.
they felt it had several advantages including freeing up a worker from the position (65% turnover or so a year and everyone counts)
“The girl’s Instagram showed Lush bath products (very expensive!) and lots of artisanal food that is not inexpensive to make. She just didn’t think it through.”
That was a compilation of photos taken from her Instagram and put together to look like fancy food was freely flowing - possibly by someone doing damage control for Yelp. The poster who linked it never came back to provide any links in support of the other comments made about this girl. Just to play a devil’s advocate. Lots of that food was apparently office food. A couple of jars of Lush (brand mostly bought for gifting, so likely was given to her) does not make someone “rich,” but it surely can make them look like a spoiled brat when taken out of context.
Anyway, it is a good cautionary tale for the generation that puts everything on the web. Can’t wait for the Instagram collages of our presidential candidates in future (20+ years down the road) campaigns.