@Nrdsb4, you would have been highly insulted because I would have thought of you as a kid. Don’t be so literal. When I said she was a kid, I didn’t mean she was a * child * and I’m certainly not infantilizing a person who is entering the working world. What I mean is that she is young and still unaccustomed to the ways of the working world, which can be quite brutal. I have two daughters, 25 and 27. They are both gainfully employed (and work very, very hard, both have reputations for this) and I can assure you that they have learned through their first jobs how very difficult employment can be. I’ve heard stories aplenty from their peers about horrible first or second jobs and “internships” and I’d say that there are some who have entered these positions hoping for the best and getting a rude awakening.
I’m also surprised at the knee-jerk “young people are lazy” reaction. I have a daughter who works as a writer. Do you have any idea how hard young, aspiring writers work or how competitive the positions they seek? They work for pennies, even taking unpaid internships to advance their careers, and they work unceasingly. I have another daughter whose job measures her productivity and the expectations are so high that the older people in her division can’t keep up with her.
How wonderful that all your children and all of you have worked and had only positive experiences and ample pay. You’ve never had jobs that make you miserable, to the point where you are depressed. You are lucky but don’t think for a second that a horrible job situation can’t color the way an individual feels about life. Take a look at the book Young Money and read about how even when the pay is lavish, young and unwary people can land in a job that leaves them clinically depressed. Yelp is known for recruiting on college campuses and then spitting out these * kids * only to bring in more of them to replace them. As I’ve said already, they also run a big call center in Arizona and the kids who work there earn a minimal wage that, in Arizona, doesn’t cover the cost of living. I don’t condone a personal attack on the CEO but I think this young woman’s message is a clear and honest warning call to those who follow her.
AW, I know how that accounting math works. Feel free to slice an dice the actual financial statements if you have the time. I highly doubt that Yelp owns the 12 or whatever stories where their offices are located, so that mortgage argument is out of the door. Certainly rent accounts as differently, but isn’t there a point where overpaying for facilities makes no sense? Keeping your workforce where you have to provide it with 5 mandatory sick days does not sound like a smart financial move. It certainly is a recruiting perk, but More likely, they rented the latest high rise with grandiose expansion plans in mind when their stock was at its peak (happens all the time in tech), and then realized that plans could change rapidly. Oh, and by the way… Constant turnover comes at higher labor costs, too - you have to keep an army of recruiters.
@saillakeerie, it’s not just a matter of pay. It’s a calculated tactic of false advertising. Yelp recruits on college campuses and promises the young grads a map to a higher level position after putting in a short period (generally six months) in the low paid, poor working conditions of the call center or sales center and the prospective employee makes a decision based on that information. That pretty much never materializes.
Everything I read suggests a staggering number of recent graduates, who did everything right, aren’t employed, or are underemployed. And they have college debt beyond what most of us could have imagined at that stage of life If only minimum wage jobs are available, I guess they will have to work for minimum wage. I don’t claim to understand economics, but this seems a really bad outcome for all of society. You can’t buy very much on minimum wage. Eventually those business owners have no customers.
I would rather focus on helping all our “kids” than defending and helping business owners. Of course, blaming the “kids” lets us off the hook for what we’ve done to them.
@3girls3cats, I’m not the only one who took issue with “she’s just a kid!”
She’s not. 25 years old is old enough to own her behavior in this issue. I’m not even saying she is in the wrong. But she’s an adult, through and through. Not expected to have the wisdom of a 50 year old, but certainly old enough to understand choices, behavior, and potential consequences of same.
Seems to me it would be better to reduce the number of people (including college grads) who only bring minimum wage skills to the table. Simply having a college degree does not entitle you to a job making a good income.
And if its an issue of false advertising to college kids, the market will correct that as kids will talk (particularly on college campuses) so that it will be difficult to get recruits on college campuses. Reputations on campus can take a long time to change.
bunsen… even in the good times a company should run on a budget. an office building 5 miles outside of akron is always better for the bottom line than downtown san fran. you can put the bells and whistles in akron too ( good cafeteria, cool public spaces etc…) and you can staff the company in akron for customer service jobs probably a lot easier than in san fran. if you need a couple computer whizs on site in akron…extra $$$$ can make that happen. but overall it is a better long term location for shareholders/investors etc…
if i invested in a company I would want the facilities to be clean and safe but i would be pissed off if the ceo and others took my money to make a shrine or a playground for themselves.
My comment wasn’t aimed exclusively at you @Nrdsb4 and I too would have been offended to be considered a kid at 23. I was employed well before I graduated college and thought of myself as an independent adult. For awhile I lived on a stipend of $400/month and managed. As I look back though, oh my, I certainly was a kid and many of my decisions were kid-like.
I disagree with your judgment that a 25 year old has the control and perspective to make an ideal employment decision. She took a job where she was told there would be advancement and discovered that not only wouldn’t there be but that the conditions were worse than expected and the pay wasn’t enough to make ends meet, even living 30 miles from the job site. Yes, she made a mistake. Many, many other young people have made the same mistake with the same company. It’s not a coincidence. The employer paints a picture and the kids fall for it. Personally, I think it’s a good thing that she called them out on it.
I know underemployed recent MBAs from Wharton. We can pick apart the decisions of the English and History majors, but I’m observing underemployment across the board. One thing I’m seeing is that networking and connections matter a whole lot. And that is luck more than anything else. And perpetuates a class system. imho.
And if graduating from a top business school doesn’t get you the connections…???
sailakeerie: What stage are your kids? Are they done with college and job hunting?
My grocery is going to self checkout. College grads won’t even find employment as clerks any more in the not so distant future. What then? Even the computer software designers and data scientists can be outsourced pretty easily, if I understand correctly. (We could take a sidetrek though Visa issues in SF companies) Probably for minimum wage in a decade or less.
Maybe you guys can predict what fields will pay a living wage in the future. I can’t.
The market sent jobs overseas in search of lower costs. How will mandating higher costs here help? Mandate higher wages and require products be made here? What does that do to costs (of pretty much everything)?
No one knows what careers will pay living wages. Change happens too quickly now. Kids need to be flexible and adapt as changes happen. Likely people in their early 20s and younger will change careers multiple times over their working lives.
As I said, I don’t understand economics. However, when we had unions and employees made products here and then purchased those products out of their above minimum wage salaries , wasn’t there a higher standard of living overall in this country? For most people? Obviously not for CEOs.
My kids are going to be fine through all this. I have no idea why. LUCK - just blind luck.
As a business owner I get my hackles up at this last statement. No I don’t make millions but after 16 years of blood sweat and tears I sure as s#!+ make more than the receptionist and file clerk. While the rest of them leave for the night or weekend I’m doing the strategic planning, overseeing every detail and making sure 35 other families have a person with a job come Monday. If I pay my receptionist 50k then what does the person make who gets a promotion and raise? Just maybe this little snowflake didn’t do well enough to warrant a promotion. But let’s stop biting the hand that feeds you. A lot of factors go into salary. I also have snacks and drinks, have excellent low cost insurance to the employees, and bend over backwards to make it a place of opportunity and encouragement. And guess what, no one here is spending two seconds worried about the crappy things employees do sometimes that cause all kinds of problems to the managers.
When I was 21 I moved out to the SF Bay Area for my first job after college. I chose to share a house with 4 other roommates to save money. If I’d been making minimum wage I probably would’ve found a cheaper place with 8 roommates. Sure I was a kid in the eyes of an older adult, but if you’re going to live on your own you need certain life skills, one of which is budgeting.
From the tone of her letter, she still hasn’t realized that while salary isn’t fully under her control, where she chooses to live and the amount she pays for rent is.
Actually, it has become common in the computer industry to give a single allotment of paid time off (PTO) of about 15 days, instead of separate allotments of 10 vacation days and 5 sick days or some such. It was only recently that the city of San Francisco started requiring employers to have specified sick days. Some companies added 5 sick days on top of existing PTO for employees based in San Francisco, presumably to avoid downgrading the existing PTO benefit.
^^#116 This! At 25, she is old enough to know to budget. My D who knows nothing about money looked at rent in the ares she is relocating after college graduation decided the only thing she can afford is to share with 7 others.
In 1965 the average CEO made 20x what the average worker made. In 2014 the average CEO made 300x more than the average worker. That upward trend really took off like a rocket starting around 1995.