Tue 22 Jul 2008 – 12.41
Lately folks are talking about money. Not the usual twentysomething jabber about disposable income in the era between puberty and parenthood, these days folks are talking about the lack of money. The economy is in the toilet, banks are collapsing, jobs are scarce, salaries are down, and here in New York, a new wave of new graduates are learning the true nature of middle-class poverty.
Imagine this: You went to an Ivy League school and now you’re in New York looking to start on the right foot towards a rewarding career. Happens all the time. But it’s a bit of a dirty secret that these are the very people who are often exploited and underpaid, even amid the noise and haste of everyone else. the New York Observer has an article defining and illustrating what they call ‘The Ivy League Slaves of New York”. While low-level workers are often treated like crap, these Ivy Leaguers, moreso than other graduates, are squarely in the sights of certain bosses:
Ms. Marcus explained that her former place of employment had a policy about not hiring anyone who had gone to an Ivy League school, because “they didn’t want people whom they could perceive as a threat.” … Her first job out of college was as an assistant at a major media company she declined to name. “They went through 22- and 23-year-old girls like some people go through glasses of water. They didn’t care that they were hiring a new assistant every six weeks.
Ugh. What to do. And of course, the entry-level position, consisting of fetching coffee and other humiliating and barely-profitable activities, is only a small step away from the internship.
posted by Scott in careers, coffee, education, life, personal finance.