I had WAY more sympathy for the story about the Starbucks employees who had to both close stores at midnight and repoen them at 5, who had work schedules that changed moment to moment and who even got told to go home soon after they arrived (after sometimes lengthy commutes) only to be told they weren’t really needed that day. They also weren’t being considered for openings at locations nearer to where they lived. That was abusive, and I’m glad that the sunlight those articles shined quickly brought apologies and changes to Starbucks’ scheduling and employment practices.
D works for one of the tech companies in NYC that has pretty similar benefits to Yelp – the lunch, the snacks (everwhere), the drinks, and the great health insurance. Her employer paid nearly $7K last year for that health coverage, and I would guess that Yelp in the Bay Area paid even more. That’s also part of compensation whether or not TJ appreciates it. D is paid a lot more than TJ, but she still shares an apartment as does pretty much everyone with whom she works.
The biggest financial issues I saw with TJ were the debt (student loan and cc), the car, and having her own apartment. The air of “I want it all and I want it now,” didn’t help. Choices have consequences. Her choice to have debt made certain kinds of jobs – like low level call center jobs in very expensive cities – not a very feasible choice. Her choice to have her own place vs. a cheap room or even a shared room imposed commuting costs and further limited her options. Cars in California are dang expensive to operate and insure.
I’ve no criticism of a major in English Lit, and I think the world would be a very depressing place if everyone pursued tech majors.
Starbucks is just a “cooler” version of the old corner donut shop but the people behind the counter have loops in their ears and a nose piercing and a modern art tattoo on their forearm.
This is an interesting concept: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/managed-by-qs-good-jobs-gamble.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
Very interesting. Employers do not always the hidden costs of turnover.
Nice try, but a straw man. Call centers, at minimum wage, are 40 hour a week jobs; anything over that is OT.
https://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/pulse/call-center-wage-theft-lawsuits-rise-david-filwood
A Call Center worker being paid $12.50/Hour — who is required to put in an average of 15 extra minutes each day “off the clock” — and who works 250 Days/Year — is potentially losing (15 Min/Day = 0.25 Hrs/Day x $12.50/Hr x 250 Days/Year x 1.5 Overtime Rate) = $1,172.00/Year in lost Overtime Wages.
52 weeks x 5 days is 260 days per year. Yelp gives them 31 days off. 229 days/year. I have taken calls in or managed many call centers over the years. You really do not want to get into the business of trying to calculate off the clock time. Many, many more hours are spent on the clock that are not actually working. The math does not compute. Until someone invents ‘Star Trek’ like devices, it will take time for someone to get from their car to their desk. Some call center jobs can be done from home. Those that have sensitive customer information are not as likely to be done that way. What typically happens in most places is that people clock in and then take an unscheduled break to get coffee or go to the bathroom or ask a question. When I say ask a question, I mean “so what did you and whatshername do last night?” type questions. Businesses lose considerably more money to unproductive time ‘on-the-clock’ than they would gain from any ‘unpaid’ time for transit to and from a desk. If a call center is truly doing what is claimed, they deserve the lawsuits. In my experience, that is atypical.
More likely is that businesses have learned the hard way that it is better to settle a lawsuit than deal with the expense of a long and expensive trial that only serves to hurt their reputation even if they are exonerated. I have seen literally hundreds of frivolous claims paid just to move on. The lesson here is that you should not necessarily put too much stock in what is being claimed and the fact it was settled.
In her essay, she wrote that her transit card was declined because there was not enough money in it. So she chose to drive in, a more expensive, slower, and more annoying way to get to the office in downtown San Francisco than taking the commuter train that she could have taken if she just put more money in the transit card.
I was also fortunate that the monthly unlimited T pass was reasonable for the income I was earning and at one firm, was heavily subsidized by my employer. Also the portion I paid for the pass was done in a manner which reduced my taxable income.
“So she chose to drive in, a more expensive, slower, and more annoying way to get to the office in downtown San Francisco than taking the commuter train that she could have taken if she just put more money in the transit card.”
Nope, not what the letter said. Can’t drive a car with a blown out tire. Her boss suggested that she drove and then paid the toll fine. A CVS employee then overheard the conversation and gave her $6.00 so she could get to work.
“52 weeks x 5 days is 260 days per year.”
The place is called Eat24. the name itself explains what it means - literally, food delivery 24/7, every day of the year. What do you think a customer whose pizza was delivered 5 minutes late at 2:35 am instead of 2:30 am should do? Wait until the morning to complain? 
I would be livid if I could not reach their customer service at 2:40 am!!!
@BunsenBurner "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. "
No. As I mentioned a few pages back she has a Twitter feed. All those pictures were on there too. She claims she cooked the food, mostly baked goods that involved booze as an ingredient. Along with the $50 bottle of craft whiskey she had delivered to her at work. It looks as though she was living just fine until her boyfriend moved out a couple of months ago. Her half of rent would have been $600 and affordable.
I never heard of a flat tire and broken taillight making a car undrivable. Put on the spare, go down to the auto parts store. Sometimes they’ll even help a customer replace bulbs. They will lend tools for free for a credit card deposit.
The girl just enjoys creating drama. As I mentioned she has an agent and does stand up and free lance writing.
As far as the fiction of it being a worse job market than the last generation had, ridiculous. When I finally got a career job, unemployment was 9.7%, thank you Mr. Reagan. Today it is 6.7% nationally. It’s less than 4% in my area and lower for those with a four year college degree. When I purchased my first home in 1983 after a year of my career interest rates were 12.21% but I got 10.42% thanks to a program for first time homeowners. I had a couple of roommates to help pay the mortgage. And I had a second job. Today’s mortgage rates hover at about 4% .
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/06/05/millennial-college-graduates-young-educated-jobless-335821.html
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/10/millennials-may-never-land-a-decent-job.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/student-debt-prevents-house-buying-2015-11
http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/01/real_estate/millennials-squeezed-out/
^^^There are jobs. Maybe not instant executive positions. Honestly Newsweek has been alerting us to job shortages for the past 40 years.
A friend of mine, an executive at a bank, says they have entry jobs that go unstaffed. Many applicants can’t pass the credit check or have too many tattoos and facial piercings to be considered professional. That’s something a young graduate can control.
alh:
the description that is described in post 286 is a slam dunk claim in California. No attorney needed. Just a simple letter to the Labor Commissioner. Voila – instant OT.
That being said, it sounds more like an exaggeration. I don’t know of any hi-tech firm which is so technologically-challenged that it takes 10 minutes to log into their VPN. (We’re a really small company, but which has a LOT of private data which is buried in secure servers, but it takes about 20 seconds to connect thru our VPN.)
$27k in today’s dollar is equal to $17k two decades ago,
Is “two thirds” today equal “one half”
two decades ago?
I guess I don’t understand why we aren’t trying to figure out how to help the millenials (our own kids!) instead of blaming them for the circumstances we created. They didn’t cause 2008.