Monday, September 28, 2009

Today's Observation in Labor Economics

From a poster at SDA;

"the MAJOR workplace flaw I encountered in my ENTIRE working life was the reprehensible practice of demanding years and years of experience. jeezuz murphy, I even remember an interview in the late 80s. they wanted 3 yrs experience on the IBM AS 400. which had only been around for 3 years. in other words, to get that particular yob I had to be in an organization that, wait for it, picked up the 400 the moment it became available.

whut utter insanity. how in blazes does *anyone* get a god$%#m job anywhere in the face of this absurdity?

I have pondered this more than any single work related question. an unsolvable catch-22. I guess my handicap was I didn't get picked to clean the blackboards in grade 2 so that I could get picked to collect the assignments in grade 3 so that I could get picked to hand them out in grade 4 so that I could get picked in grade 8 to help the school photographer and on and on and on.

its like the kids in developing countries that desperately need to get into the 'right' primary school in order to line up their post sec. education and get that career path started. otherwise a failure in life by the age of 5."

You see, I like to think that I am not this cold hearted, evil, indifferent guy whose ass has been pampered by his rich parents who thusly scoffs at the plebs and the serfs for not trying hard enough as he has a full ride to Yale and a job guaranteed for him by Uncle Bernie Madoff. That I have seen enough corporate nepotism and BS to know that for the most part, you can advocate capitalism, but that pure, unfettered capitalism will still have its drawbacks, namely connected cronies and spoiled brat daddy's children will get the good jobs while those more deserving won't, and as a result, society will suffer as the entire corporate sector is a mere fraction of its potential efficiency. Ergo why, despite being a capitalist, I rail against the ineptitude and corruption of corporate America.

Regardless, the "how can I get the job when nobody will give me the experience" paradox is just more empirical proof of how the upper echelons of corporate America are reserved for the elites and connected of this nation.

Additionally, my personal favorite (when I was foolish enough to try to apply to Fortune 500 corporations) was when they required "X years experience working for a Fortune 50 corporation."

Oh no, they wouldn't accept 20 years experience working at a solid, small time manufacturer.

Oh no, you won't worth the paper you were printed on if you were so foolish to accept employment at a small time start up or a well established local firm.

No, you *MUST* have had 5+ years experience working for Corning or Dow or whatever other East Coast crony outfit your daddy lined a job up for you for.

In the end, and hopefully this is some consolence to you, these corporate entities will hire such inept and incompetent people that inevitably they will be ran into the ground. That is of course unless they are bailed out by the taxpayer like;

GM
Goldman Sachs
Merrill Lynch
Morgan Stanley
Bear Sterns
Chrysler
Wachovia...

Well, never mind. I guess the larger point is that you must realize the "Fortune 500" are really more private clubs than any real entity interested in hiring the best talent. So if you treat them like taxpayer subsidized country clubs, at least it makes a little more sense and you're not foolish enough to actually try to apply to those corporations.

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