posted
I just got offered a job doing a little bit of work for a whole lot of money. It came out of the blue. (I'm not looking for work)
Here is the kicker: One of my orchestra buddies went to a good school and is now a manager at a firm. It's a good-sized firm with many subsidiaries. One of her friends is looking for four people to hire.
My problem is this: playing the oboe is what I did for a long time, but when you factor the time and effort in this society, it's a bit of a hoity-toity calling. Somehow my playing the oboe for a random orchestra when I was 16 could lead to a cushy job doing office work for the rest of my life. I'm not going to take the job. I don't mind that it was offered to me for a morally arbitrary fashion, I just don't need another job. I just get a little bit shocked everytime I'm reminded of how rigged the money-making market is.
I know it's called "networking," and again, if I needed the job, I'd take it, I just don't understand how people live this way and get righteous when it comes to taxes.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Because regardless of how you get the job, you still have to work for it.
Plus people who get the angriest about taxes tend to be small business owners who know how a small increase in taxes can push them over the cliff of bankrupcy
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Because regardless of how you get the job, you still have to work for it.
Exactly. Favoritism in getting a job doesn't mean that it's not hard work. Plus, there's nothing inherently wrong with hiring people you know. It takes some of the guesswork out of hiring people.
I'm not sure most people appreciate how hard it is to attract, select, hire, train, and integrate a new employee. The costs are great enough that even a 5% greater reliability in early assessment of a potential employee is worth taking advantage of.
quote:Plus people who get the angriest about taxes tend to be small business owners who know how a small increase in taxes can push them over the cliff of bankrupcy
Yep.
Edit: Equating preference for a particular tax rate with "public service hating" is leaving out several steps of analysis. One is not necessarily equal to the other.
posted
I don't know about angriest about taxes, but the ones who make the most noise about taxes are certainly not the small business owners.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I thought this was going to be a thread dedicated to the admiration of someone who suffers at the hands of unspeakable cosmic forces. No, wait...
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Hunh. I kinda think of the networking thing as more about character than anything else. I wouldn't dream of suggesting someone I knew for a job at my company unless I had a pretty good idea how well they'd fit the position. That's not "rigged", that's integrity. You can't tell in a 30 minute interview what kind of character a person has. You can make some guesses. Knowing someone can pare those guesses into known quantities, and given how expensive it is to hire someone, it just makes sense to hedge your bets.
But then, my outlook is that you can't train character, integrity or a strong work ethic. You *can* train skills if basic aptitude is there. I would much rather hire someone who can be counted on to show up for work, work hard once they get there, and treat their coworkers honestly and with generosity than I would someone technically qualified but who was late, didn't work very hard, and/or was generally hard to work with. Those are traits that *can* be seen in an orchestra.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:I don't know about angriest about taxes, but the ones who make the most noise about taxes are certainly not the small business owners.
They might not be the ones that get the most press, but small business owners complain far more often about taxes in personal conversations in my experience.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
A small increase in tax rate for small businesses is accompanied by a far smaller tax rate increase -- or none; or even a decrease -- for large corporations and trustfundarians.
A small decrease in tax rate for small businesses is accompanied by a HUGE decrease in tax rates for large corporations and trustfundarians.
Which makes it easier for franchisers and multiple-store corporations to drive small businesses out of business.
posted
Believe it or not, some people really are morally opposed to taxation, especially certain forms and/or for certain reasons.
Posts: 1364 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Once again, I'm fine with getting a extraordinarily well-paying job by flirting with the right girl. I don't have any moral opposition with me getting the job over some guy with a higher GPA in a more relevant field and more work experience. Really, if that's the way it works, that's the way it works, The fact that we both went to good schools and play classical music doesn't have to do with being an organ transplant administrator, but I could do the job.
The issue is that I'm not going to pretend that I deserve the benefits from that job, when it just as easily could be the case that I never sat next to this girl in a few random orchestras when we were kids. I will proudly work the system. I'm just not going to pretend that I'm doing anything else than working the system.
posted
Telp, I thought nepotism was only for relatives? (And in which case, I'd think it was wrong.)
But I don't think Irami is related to the people who wanted to get him a job...and I truly don't see anything wrong with somebody who wants to hook up a friend who's actually qualified to hold said job. Especially if the position was opened up to others besides friends of the person/company doing the hiring.
Posts: 471 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
But if you are competent, then you do deserve the benefits of the job. It is only working the system if you are unqualified for the position.
Posts: 1364 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Never ever be too proud to accept ample payment for a good job done. If you can do the work and do it with the professionalism and skill that they need and require, take the pay and perks that go with it.
But do the work that your pay should entail. It's good karma.
Posts: 472 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
I knew this happened with seven dollar an hour jobs, I just didn't know that this was the same case with eighty or ninety thousand dollar a year jobs.
posted
Russell's right. The more money is involved, the more it's about meeting people and greasing palms and the less it's about raw talent -- except, again, insofar as "talent" has to do with networking.
It really is all about who you know. Most of the really high-paying jobs are filled before they're posted.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
My husband is a manager for a large company, and he has been asked if he's known anyone who would be a good fit for open positions. He actually recommended someone he used to work with, and after an interview the guy was hired. I never saw anything wrong with it.
posted
1.) But, it's very possibly more likely to result in the best applicant being hired for any given level of effort in the candidate search.
2.) Someone risking a lot of capital is responsible for using it wisely. Absent actual corruption (which does exist, and corrupt neoptism is particularly damaging), the responsibility in hiring is to hire good candidates, not to change the underlying power structure of society.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I just figure that's how white people get by. If that's the way the world works, that's fine, I just don't want to hear any hemming and hawing when we redistribute their resources to those without connections.
posted
If you're giving out cushy 90K a year jobs to ex-classical musicians with management and technical experience, I could quite happily forget the Australian national anthem.... Posts: 2245 | Registered: Nov 1998
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quote: If that's the way the world works, that's fine, I just don't want to hear any hemming and hawing when we redistribute to resources to those without connections.
:sniff: So beautiful. You're a headhunter's best friend.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote: I just figure that's how white people get by. If that's the way the world works, that's fine, I just don't want to hear any hemming and hawing when we redistribute to resources to those without connections.
Boy is that offensive! And it should be beneath you, Irami.
I won't argue that the majority of high paying jobs in the US are held by white men. However, the vast majority of white people, men and women, work crap jobs just like everyone else.
My partner works his hands into cramps every day for under $10/hour. A white friend of mine works two waitressing jobs to make ends meet. The majority of the people in the town I live in are white, but most of them earn salaries far below the $70-$80k range. I'd bet most of them earn well below the $40-$50k range.
My mother supported 7 kids on a nurse's salary, which, while it was decent pay, did run thin on a family of 10 (parents and grandmother). Her job is far from cushy and she got it by applying for it like every other nursing applicant in the city. No Great White Council blessed any of these people with the job because they had an "in".
Did you ever consider that perhaps what you seem to be implying is morally repugnant is a practice of the socio-economic class in which you move rather than a product of "White People"?
Would you be offended if I wrote about the drugs and wild partying and general lavish, wasteful, and selfish lifestyles of many pro-sports figures and concluded with "well I just figure that's how black people handle a little wealth" ?
posted
No, it's not beneath me. It's right at me, and I have a more for all of the apologists who say that there is nothing suspect about me getting offered the job, but for the grace of some morally arbitrary mechanism like sharing the same hobby. But again, being offered the job isn't the big deal, what's awful is the meme that I'd deserve all of the benefits from that job. I talk to kids who know in their heart that the system is organized to benefit others or the selfish.
Men and women, there are large swaths of American WASPs that I find morally abhorrent, an utterly irresponsible folk who should have on their conscience, if they have consciences, many of the current problems in civilization, and at these decisive moments in history, is being preoccupied by someone else, flashing lights, banning gay marriage, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, and taking care of number one, without even thinking about what that means in a society of 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s.
I joke about my disgust for white America, actually, white America is too diverse and I really only have the digust for certain segments, but these segments are real and very large, and my disdain is even more acidic because I don't think there is anything genetic about it. They are aholes by choice, rigging the whole system of law and culture in America to support their depravity.
quote: what's awful is the meme that I'd deserve all of the benefits from that job.
I'm not clear what you mean here, Irami. Are you saying that you're not competent to get the job, and therefore should not get the salary that it will pay?
Explain 'deserve' and 'benefits,' please.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Men and women, there are large swaths of American WASPs that I find morally abhorrent, an utterly irresponsible folk who should have on their conscience, if they have consciences, many of the current problems in civilization,
Collective guilt, huh? No wonder I can't stand a lot of what you post.
posted
Yep, collective guilt, it's the tails side of the collective triumph that I feel when the Lee Greenwood song comes on. It's taking the bad with the good.
Scott,
Deserve is devilish word. I don't understand it, but for some reason, I think I should be able to accept the job, and then every year, have a good chunk of my pay-check taken for the benefit of those who do not have friends in management.
quote:Yep, collective guilt, it's the tails side of the collective triumph that I feel when the Lee Greenwood song comes on. It's taking the bad with the good.
Not really, since you assigned the guilt to a different group but seem to be willing to take the triumph.
quote: I don't understand it, but for some reason, I think I should be able to accept the job, and then every year, have a good chuck of my pay-check taken for the benefit of those who do not have friends in management.
Irami-- I think that a lot of organizations would benefit from a similar attitude-- maybe not give the money to the employees lower on the ladder, but invest that money in their own growth (infrastructure, marketing, etc.)
That said, your statement suprises me. Aren't you the self-critiscism king? Shouldn't you, of all people, KNOW why you feel a certain way?
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Just out of curiosity, Irami, is there anything you think blacks are collectively guilty for?
Yep, Cosby is probably the most well-known critic, but gangs, drugs use, broken homes, and illiterate children are a few issues.
From my read on the situation is that the system is rigged against our deficencies. We get it from all sides and the law is putting us in jail. But that same system is telling white people:
quote:He actually recommended someone he used to work with, and after an interview the guy was hired. I never saw anything wrong with it.
Giving them all of the excuses they want to cover their shame.
In general, it's one thing when you have a problem and everybody knows you have a problem, it's another issue when you have a problem and the organization of the world is bending over backwards to excuse your problem.
Scott,
I have an inkling, but it's kind of technical. Everyone has to feel like they are in the system. Everyone has to feel like the system is just. If I know that X got a position through the system because of some arbitrary social circumstance, then I'm going to resent the system. I'll deal drugs. I'll join a gang. I'll use my arbitrary social circumstances for my benefit, damn the system.
If I know that X got a position through some arbitrary social circumstance, but a chunk of the money X is making is going to my school, I'll think, "X doesn't deserve his benefits, but you know what, the system understands that and even though X is making more money than I am for no good reason, I know that the system is working for both of our benefit." I'll stay in. I won't join a gang. I won't sell drugs, blah blah blah.
quote:If I know that X got a position through the system because of some arbitrary social circumstance, then I'm going to resent the system. I'll deal drugs. I'll join a gang. I'll use my arbitrary social circumstances for my benefit, damn the system.
Are you asserting that this is a morally correct decision? Or even an understandable/socially forgiveable one?
[ March 21, 2005, 01:09 PM: Message edited by: Scott R ]
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Giving them all of the excuses they want to cover their shame.
In general, it's one thing when you have a problem and everybody knows you have a problem, it's another issue when you have a problem and the organization of the world bending over backwards to excuse your problem.
What exactly is the shame in getting a job because someone knows you and can give a better assessment of your character than they can of someone they interview for 1 hour?
Have you ever had to hire someone? Do you know the risk a business is taking in hiring the wrong person? It's a lot of work. Mistakes are INCREDIBLY costly. Interviews are a fairly unreliable way to screen people. It's just that there isn't really a better method, at least one accessible to most businesses (that is, small businesses).
I can tell much more reliably in an interview if someone is technically capable of performing well. It's much harder to tell if they will perform well. I'll take the recommendation from someone who works for me and can tell me that person X was a good person in the orchestra: that they were prompt for rehearsals, practiced, didn't blame their mistakes on others, worked hard, and helped others. I guarantee you that there are people in that orchestra who would NOT receive a recommendation.
So again, please specify exactly what is wrong with the system of relying on the best information you can when making hiring decisions?
posted
It's understandable, not forgivable or morally correct. But neither is X receiving the job. The problem is that there is huge industry in throwing drug dealers in jail, when that the system is afraid to even mention that the fifty-year dude whose college roommate's girlfriend got him a job at her dad's company, that maybe he should a pay a little more in taxes.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Well, I don't agree with your continual 'dude' judgements-- but I'm okay with paying more taxes.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote: Men and women, there are large swaths of American WASPs that I find morally abhorrent, an utterly irresponsible folk who should have on their conscience, if they have consciences, many of the current problems in civilization...
I think you should be sure to tell the girl who offered you the job that you find her morally abhorrent. That's always a great way to break the ice at an interview. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:But neither is X receiving the job. The problem is that there is huge industry in throwing drug dealers in jail, when that the system is afraid to even mention that the fifty-year dude whose college roommate's girlfriend got him a job at her dad's company, that maybe he should a pay a little more in taxes.
X receiving the job is not forgivable or morally correct? Why not?
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