Fast food executive complains that social media inflates young people's "self-importance," killing their willingness to work for free

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/23/poes-fucking-law.html

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Dear fast food company executive… I have a message from young people…

sansa-fuck-you

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And that’s why we need to get rid of minimum wage laws and the enterprise-killing 13th Amendment. If lazy, entitled millenials expect to get paid and leave a job whenever they want to it will kill American business, and the terrorists will win. President Trump, Bring Back Slavery!

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2009 was right before the general job market started opening back up; it was the year I was an unemployed single mom with a kid not yet in school, and I was desperately looking for a job, just like countless others.

This lady is so full of shit her eyes must be brown.

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Asking to be paid for their work? The nerve! If corporations give in, who knows what these self-important Millenials will demand next? Subsidised or (gasp) free post-secondary tuition? Single-payer universal health insurance? Or perhaps a stable and sustainable environment that they’ll be able to live in decades after people like this executive or “responsible” politicans are long dead?

Nah, screw 'em:

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So the part about working for free is shitty, but there is more to the article (if you read it) which seems to match what I have heard from friends of mine hiring entry level (but salaried) positions.

I know some of those friends have had interns, and some were paid, some not. Where I used to work, interns were salaried (just not paid a ton, but IIRC 40k with some benefits).

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Free internship was huge problem in my area during that time period; so many companies were trying to rely on unpaid interns and the want ads were full of thankless unpaid positions… many of which went unfilled until the companies caved and finally started offering a pittance for compensation.

I remember those days very well; and even though I was no 20-something millennial at the time, I was in the same boat competing against many of them for the same scraps.

This lady can go fuck herself sideways with a rusty screwdriver; I’ve had more than enough of people trying to reinvent reality to suit their own agenda.

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As a Texan., I’m in no position to throw stones at Californians for their senior senator, but if they could primary her ass out the door that would be great.

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Yeah, totally agree re: internships. The part of the article about entry level interviewees rings true is all I am getting at.

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Oh, totally; I’m just focused on her bullshit claim about young people “constantly” calling her “begging to work for free.” That’s something that I’d ‘bet my bottom dollar’ it only happened in her mind.

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Internship is a big reason for inequality, and it’s continued perpetuation.

Only way you can afford an internship is if you’re already rich enough not to need a job. Since the only way you can get experience and hired in certain fields (like media and politics), you end up with a glut of people in those positions who all resemble each other, and not just in what they look like. The entire system is set-up to keep poorer people out. It’s a means test that has been presented as an ability/motivation test.

So good on today’s kids for adopting a better mantra.

Fuck You. Pay Me.

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Ehhh, I dunno. I recall a gal I know back in '08, '09 in between grad school and law school doing some begging to work for free. It was the only way to get a leg up on job experience–there was no paid internships in the whole suburban area. This was after she left her paid “internship” where we worked together.

I wonder if there was some law made about unpaid internships now?

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That’s not an equitable comparison.

Your pal was in a specialized field, where experience is vital; I highly doubt young adults were “begging” to work fast food jobs, FOR FREE, during a recession.

Miss me with that bullshit.

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Aren’t more young people working for free more than ever? So many companies, big and small, expect you to intern indefinitely, with no benefits, before they may or may not offer you a paid position.
And most of those companies would rather burn out those interns and replace them with the never eding supply than actually hire anyone. I’ve worked at a couple of those (I was being paid).

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I quickly (perhaps too quickly) gave up on working in Radio-TV-Film (for which I have a B.S.). Right out of college I got a job in a molding shop (among other things they made the little blue wheels for the old Fisher-Price telephone). My first interview for a job in the business (I think it was crew for Walker Texas Ranger but it might have been Gilbert Grape) went well enough, and then she called back and asked if I was willing to work for free, just to get my foot in the door. It wasn’t so much that I was unwilling as I was unable. I told her I needed a job. As I was already finished with school, it wouldn’t have even been a proper internship. I went back to my slightly-above-minimum-wage job and paid the rent and bought food.

Years later, I did narration for promo and training videos where I worked. Not in my job description, but at least I was finally using my degree!

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“Passion and enthusiasm” - must be the MBA’s version of “thoughts and prayers”.

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Just came to loudly applaud the choice of image, and it’s composition with the logo, for this story. Hat well and truly off to you BB.

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Solidarity–it’s spreading! (Like wildfire, I hope.)

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She is not referring to burger flippers in the article. She says the free workers are clearly interns, and the precending paragraph mentions Marketing interns specifically.

I think the disconnect here is that Mr. Doctorow is seeming to suggest that young adults were begging to flip burgers for free… which is not the content of the article.

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