Young, Gifted, and Broke
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.
If I’ve never said it plainly, hear me now. Internships are crap! At least unpaid internships. This form of white-collar slavery is one of the most dangerous and non-productive institutions of our modern economy. Aside from the obvious philosophical argument that a person should be paid for work, internships are often a burden for companies. Since interns are not being paid, they feel their time isn’t worth anything and subsequently, they themselves aren’t worth anything. The result is that these interns learn from a very early point, that the business world is basically a giant fraternity, where someone younger than you is always pledging. Assigning a correlation between self-worth and salary is dangerous and leads to income-based hazing, with interns on the bottom of the pyramid.; this system starts as an intern, and goes all the way up to the CEO. It’s a shitty system, but some people like it.
Those people, apparently, are all White People. That’s according to the tongue-in-cheek blog-turned-book Stuff White People Like.
White people view the internship as their foot into the door to such high-profile low-paying career fields as journalism, film, politics, art, non-profits, and anything associated with a museum. Any white person who takes an internship outside of these industries is either the wrong type of white person or a law student. There are no exceptions.
Sad but true. So sad, so true. In fact that, the write-up on SWPL is pretty accurate. And if you imagine a twentysomething, red-haired, Torontonian having fun at the expense of his own people, it’s perfectly inoffensive.
But perhaps there will be fewer white kids with Ivy League degrees taking up unpaid internships because the Federal Minimum Wage is going up again. Last year, Congress passed a three-year incremental rise in the FMW bringing it to $6.55 this year and $7.25 next year. Obviously, this is still well below the poverty line and won’t do much in supporting a single person, let alone a family, but as someone who once earned $4.25 an hour (not that long ago, mind you), I’m in full support of that bump. And in cities like New York and San Francisco, minimum wage will be nearer to $11/hr — perhaps better paying than your entry-level indentured servitude once you figure in the unpaid overtime.
I must point out my own conflicted nature on this subject. I feel that working for min. wage is character-building, and everyone should have to do it at some point. Preferably as a teenager, when expenses are low and living with parents is understood. However, I feel that no one should ever do an unpaid internship. You may be tempted with all sorts of ‘currency’ like ‘experience’ and ‘connections’, but the fact remains that you are working and not being paid. If you work, you should be paid. Even if it’s minimum wage.
So to the twentysomething slaves of the 21st century workforce I say this: now is the time for a revolt! Break the cycle! Don’t agree to an internship. Stand on principle and don’t accept a position that pays less than minimum wage. Don’t accept the dogmas of our parents just because they did, and whatever you do, don’t pass on the bad habits. Let the worst trends of our society end with you.
posted by Scott in careers, coffee, education, life, personal finance.
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