“In this day of internet and LinkedIn, boy, the other lesson she missed was about not burning bridges.”
yeah she will be on the highly employable list with the uber twins (the former taco bell executive who assaulted the uber driver in CA and the female doctor in miami who went after the uber driver there)
@intparent, I know something about this because I have a close family friend whose child worked for yelp and several of my D’s friends also pursued it. They were actively recruiting on that campus. They tell the kids that they will be able to move from the call in or sales jobs after six months of work. Then they tell them, no, first they have to achieve some other new (usually impossible) thing and it will be in a year. Then, along the way, they learn that it isn’t going to happen after a year either. She didn’t express it well but I’ve heard it enough to understand what’s going on. I believe, but can’t swear for it that it’s also discussed on glassdoor.
One point I agree with: in this day of internet, every prospective employee should vet the prospective employer carefully. If I, as a parent, whose children do not work at yelp, can uncover the backstory, a college student should be able to do it as well. For better or for worse, they need to be a lot more wary.
@oldfort, I didn’t subsidize my daughter’s writing career at all. I encouraged her but I did not subsidize it. My nephew is a principal dancer at a well regarded dance company. He’s managed it on his own. Not everyone can succeed at this but my hat goes off to those who persist and succeed. My musician friends who work harder than anyone else I know pursue their careers because they love music and can’t see themselves doing anything else. They teach, they perform, they take freelance jobs, they travel, they work at summer camps, somehow they make it work. I have heard lots of despair and second guessing–should I have gone to med school after all?-but they manage. Thank goodness for them.
If the recruiter lied, I would assume the writer would have mentioned that in the article…
I wonder why a call center employee should even have to travel to a central location for their job. This seems like a good ‘remote work’ sort of job. Would save the writer over $50/week (minus the snacks provided at work!), which is grocery money right there. (And yes, I have worked on projects with call centers – and I know that there are some where people do work out of their homes). I agree that it is a little nuts for Yelp! to put their call center someplace so expensive. And nuts for new grads to take jobs there. Going to say that the people at the companies are older and should know better – not all college grads are savvy about stuff like this (the writer clearly wasn’t) – my kids sort of are, but sometimes I think it is only because I tell them! It seems super obvious to us as older adults, but really… new grads with minimal work experience are clueless But I honestly can think of no excuse for a company to put their call center in a high cost downtown location.
She started the job in August.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/talia-jane-vs-yelp#.hqjznza1V
“Coming out of college without much more than freelancing and tutoring under my belt, I felt it was fair that I start out working in the customer support section of Yelp/Eat24 before I’d be qualified to transfer to media. Then, after I had moved and got firmly stuck in this apartment with this debt, I was told I’d have to work in support for an entire year before I would be able to move to a different department. A whole year answering calls and talking to customers just for the hope that someday I’d be able to make memes and twitter jokes about food.”
A dream of making memes and twitter jokes. Please don’t blame choosing a non-STEM major for that disconnect.
I think attitude is a big part of why this brewed so much argument around the country.
Well… if the media team was really her goal, she could have (for one year) taken a weekend job and made ends meet until that time was up. Then leave the company if it didn’t come to fruition. I am not condoning Yelp! in this – they were ripe for bad publicity given their own bad choices. And income inequality is real and a problem. But she had choices even within Yelp! – but I guess preferred to go out in a blaze of glory. A blaze of… unemployed glory.
@3girls3cats,Actually, I wasn’t referring to that. I was referring to her decision to not only call out the company, but specifically go after the CEO, and without anonymity to boot. And even then, I haven’t said she was wrong to do so, simply that as an adult, she could have/should have been able to predict the potential consequences of that decision.
Love your screen name, btw. I would love to have even 2 cats, but alas, DH feels he’s being more than accommodating by tolerating one.
@Nrdsb4, ha, it turns out we agree completely on that. I almost wonder if she wasn’t trying to provoke that outcome.
Sadly, we are down to two cats but my screen name is fixed at three. I still miss the old lady cat.
Actually, after seeing her now-removed instagram - http://alotofrice.pixieset.com/thatsalotofrice/ the whole thing seems like a racket. Obviously she can eat something other than rice, and wanted exposure to get donations. I think she just tried to tap into an issue that people can relate to, but she seems to be a fraud.
^After looking at that link above, I’ve gone from zero sympathy to a strong dislike of this chick.
Two things were happening simultaneously: well-paid manufacturing jobs were disappearing at an alarming rate, replaced by PRC factories, and the rise in H1-B visas allowing companies to lay off highly paid experienced workers and replace them with lower cost foreign workers. A few careers had strong labor unions that prevented foreign competition (medical doctors, lawyers, government), but the result was to separate the cost of labor from the work produced. Economics 101 - when there is a glut of product - workers, college graduates, experienced engineers - then prices for that product will fall.
For example, my brother is a civil engineer (living in SF by the way). With the advancements in computers and software, he can complete a design project in two days what would have taken three weeks with five engineers when he started working. If you correct for cost-of-living, his VP of Engineering salary is lower than the average CivE salary from 30 years ago.
I grew up in a town where a house cost about double the median salary, roughly the same as an engineers yearly salary. Twenty years later, I bought an average house that was 4x an engineer’s yearly salary. That ratio is about 7x now. The last two houses sold in my neighborhood went to Chinese nationals flush with American cash money.
We can’t compare what is happening with today’s 25 year-olds by dredging up the experiences of our 25 year-old selves; they aren’t remotely the same. Really, what was her risk? She had a crappy minimum wage job with negligible chances for advancement.
doschicos…I went to the link too…she seems to be suffering from a lack of food(sarcasm)
and the screen shot with that stuff on her face looks like somebody crying from hunger pains in the bathtub or whatever she said.
What happened in 1995? What Magnetron said plus:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement
@zobroward That stuff on her face, Lush products, doesn’t come cheap. Neither does that bottle of alcohol she had delivered to her workplace which she seemed to flaunt while on the job.
Technology has played a big role. Initially, manufacturing jobs moved to lower cost centers. Then technology allowed for service jobs to be moved there as well. And technology allowed more to be produced with fewer employees. Steel plants at one point employed thousands of employees. Now more steel can be made with 100s of employees. Other manufacturing can be done today with fewer employees as a result of automation. Accounting firms that required teams of staff accountants doing audits can have fewer because of computers. Same is true of law firms.
We often hear the US doesn’t make anything anymore. But US is second in output of manufacturing (China is #1 but only relatively recently passed the US). We just do it with fewer employees.
There is more of an importance placed on skilled labor and correspondingly a decreased importance placed on non-skilled labor. To the extent you don’t have skills, you will struggle.
And you misinterpret what I said… I don’t “idealize” engineering or other practical fields. I am an engineer for crying out loud, so I think I understand the ins and outs of engineering. Second, I merely pointed to engineering as an example of an industry where young people can still make a good living – and it’s true. Are older engineers at risk? That depends largely on one’s position, the company, and the type of engineering. Where I am, most of the older engineers work their entire careers and end up retiring very comfortably.
As for becoming a plumber, you are 100% correct. It is a great trade for those willing to put up with the negatives. But you know what? Every profession has its negatives… Wall street banker? Long stressful hours. Surgeon? You’re on call and under a lot of stress, with little time to spend all of the money you’re making. Architect? Extremely competitive and saturated.
The point I was trying to make in my first post was that you need to adapt the needs of the market, rather than expecting the market to adapt to you. This is especially important for kids graduating college nowadays.
At this point, trades are pretty much looked down upon. Gotta go to college. But ultimately, I think a lot of kids would be better off (at least financially) going the trade route rather than college.
@saillakeerie I am a senior in hs and I make 17-20 an hour serving at a restaurant. I make as much as she does in about 1/3 of the time.
There is no reason for people to not be making money, $8.15 an hour jobs are not meant to be careers.
Mechanics and plumbers and all sorts of trade school jobs make 50k a year or so.
Our local CC has quite a few fields that offer jobs that will pay significantly more than minimum wage and are require coursework and sometimes licensing and certification.
I made $1500 a month as a receptionist in 1985. I was able to pay rent and car payments and other necessities, but I wasn’t able to save much in order to get a cushion and emergency fund. I lived in a modest furnished apartment, but I did live alone and bought a small, inexpensive but new car. I could have cut corners somewhere, but still, it was considered a modest salary at the time. I can’t imagine trying to live on that now in a city like San Francisco.
Note I’m not saying anyone owes a college grad working a non skilled job any particular salary.
Plumbers learn their trade over 8-10+ years, depending on the systems they want to work on.