They were just lucky mang. I did apply to J&J a while ago, and I tried a range of cities I believe, without a peep from the other end.Originally Posted by GGT
PS: A liberal arts degree and a major in economics? Economics is the degree, unless you mean "concentration", in which case they wouldn't even have an economics degree... uhh... and I'm sure that people with just a "liberal arts" degree (B.A.?) can find a mid-wage $50,000 job right away, yeah...
Last edited by agamemnus; 03-23-2011 at 07:09 PM.
Uh
You just got upset at me for a fairly benign post, and called me recently stupid. That's
That's nice. Really.
The fact that I didn't get most of that from the post I quoted, and I find your response to me both incomprehensible and obnoxiously rude for no reason I can discern, I think it's not unfair to say we have serious communication issues. I understand that it's easy to just call me stupid and call it a day, but that's a) not productive 2) uncalled for. I didn't blame our discoursal distresses on any lack of mental faculty on your part, you'll note, but a Weltanschauung I can't relate to. This isn't some kind of failing on your part (per se), just a 'situational assertion'.
Oh, sure. If dating (serious or casual) preferences/demands include things such as occupational orientation and an interest in wealth (this might be unfair phrasing), economic down-turns will lessen your pool of available date materiel. Similarly, if someone's dating preference gravitates towards dick-girls, social conservative victories in elections and popularity in the current cultural lexicon will negatively impact their dating materiel accessibility. Neither type of preference do I object to on moral or intellectual grounds, but I can relate to the thought processes that lead to one much easier than the other; I can't quite rightly comprehend this warrants questioning my faculties.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
I didn't call you stupid. You're anything but stupid, but I do think you find it difficult to avoid seeing the worst in things that are foreign to you. There is no "communication" problem here, but you and I can't seem to disagree about a worldview without sensing a lot of hostility in the other.
I can tell you candidly that I sometimes feel a lot of hostility from you, because I'm really not opposed to anything about you. You don't "stand" for something to me; I don't see you as emblematic or representative of something I oppose. But some of the language you use really suggests that, to you, I represent some kind of malevolent alien existence.
And I am talking about serious relationships, not dating. But I think it's highly unfair to suggest that I'm snob because our youth unemployment rate is hurting the careers of the below-30 set and it makes it hard to find a particular type of person that in better times isn't hard to find.
Suggesting that I'm being narrow-minded because I am most likely to get along with a woman who has a professional private-sector career is like me criticizing you for being unwilling to date a hedge fund manager.
It takes a certain amount of bias to discount looking at the possibility of falling in love with someone who, through no fault of their own, is having a problem finding employment that you deem acceptable. It doesn't seem much of a stretch to conclude your prejudice is condescending and therefore snobbish.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
It's not about excluding people looking for employment. My last girlfriend was looking for employment. I was talking about people who are underemployed/unemployed but living a ritzy New York high life off their parents.
And the ones who don't you won't find because they are NOT going out.
Liberal Arts college, BA in Economics. Not sure what "department" the school called it. He had an internship his junior year, so that was his foot in the door at Kellogg's. (If it's any consolation to you, he hates the job, and hates Buffalo)
J & J has a practice that looks like nepotism to me. Their employees' children can get university paid for, automatic internships, and preference at hiring.
Moving on then... do you know anyone at J&J willing to adopt me as their child? (It would make a nice little movie...)
We're near the precipice of constructive discourse now, and I'm afraid I'm going to mess it up.
I'm hostile towards things I don't care for (have you seen my avatar), and I think I'm bad at separating the criticism of the point of view from what come off as personal shots. It is difficult for me not to see the worst in things, period. But I resent the "foreign to me" bit, mostly because as a continuation of our previous dialogue it comes off as some kind of pre-revelation thing; if only I'd see the splendor of <thing I am critical of>, I'd be less critical/rabid. So far this has not been the case.
Again, I don't usually find you hostile (it's usually when you conflate me with other posters or when I've been obnoxious on purpose), I have reservations that we could ever hold a meaningful dialogue beyond the banal. That's nothing to be alarmed about, it's true of most human interaction. Hostility is a bit of a default stance for me, I suppose. (Pop-psych that into what you wish!)
I don't think you're a snob for wanting career-oriented girls, I simply can't empathize with the position. Well, the work-a-holism thing I get, but with you it is bound to amalgamation and capital and that's where my eyes glossed over. I won't touch the dating/relationship dichotomy because I don't understand it.
I wouldn't call it narrow-mindedness, you have a very unabashed voyeurist attitude towards the untoward.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
On the bright side of that, it might be nice to know how a person acts during hard times, how they deal with frustration or self-esteem issues while being unemployed. Or what they expect from others (like rich daddies or prospective boy friends) vs what they expect from themselves.
It's easy to learn someone's personality and coping skills when the livin' is easy or life is grand, plus all those hopeful hormones are flying around.
My sister, but my kids get first dibs!
Bump
http://www.slate.com/id/2291534/Heading for a McRecovery?
McDonald's plan to hire 50,000 people in one day and what it says about America's economic prospects.
....The picture contributes to a larger, yet equally depressing, labor-market story: The country has produced far too few good, stable, middle-income jobs over the past 10 or 20 years, not just the past three. One of the most prominent economists making this case is David Autor of MIT. "Two forces are rapidly shifting the quality of jobs, reshaping the distribution of earnings and job opportunities," he writes in a recent paper. One is educational stagnation among men and gains among women. The other is "employment polarization, whereby job opportunities are increasingly concentrated in high-skill, high-wage jobs and in low-skill, low-wage jobs." Thus comes the frightening possibility of a "barbell" shaped economy, with jobs at places like fast food joints and universities—but not a lot of jobs in between.....
That McD's thing is pure PR spin. It comes out to just a couple of workers per location. Nothing more than the usual turn over for such a job. McDonalds also refuses to comment on pay or hours.
This yahoo article on it does mention something interesting. The average age of a fast food worker has gone from 22 to 29.5 since 2000.
"In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."
The barbell shaped economy struck me as a type of red flag. Very high income at the top, lots of low income at the bottom, not much in between. Two tiered societies don't work over the long haul.
Want fries with that?
Sharing anecdotal: Got a flier from a landscape company they'd mow my lawn (one acre), edge (wide arching curb), weed whack, trim tall perennial grasses, and dispose of all leaves, clippings and debris....for $55. I know it takes one hour on a riding mower and about 2 gallons of gas just to cut the grass, another hour to trim/edge/rake/blow. He also has to drive here, put gas in his pick-up dragging a trailer, pay his liability insurance, maintain his equipment, and pay a helper.
I called him because my mower battery is dead and the grass is getting long, wanting to know if that was a seasonal rate or random per-job rate. He basically said he'd do whatever was needed for $55, because times are tough and he just wants income to feed his family.
I used to pay my kids $40 to mow and trim. $20 for the front, $20 for the back. Maintenance on the mower is around $200/year (sharpening the blade, tuning the engine, changing oil, replacing belts and rotating tires---almost like a car) Now that they're older (eldest son doesn't even live at home any more, youngest son is busy with academics and athletics but still wants to "make some money").....I'm rather torn about what to do this season.
Something in me wants to help a grown man with a family, but I also want my kids to connect money to work (or helping out around the home with an allowance). The cheapest way would be to just do all this by myself, of course. But I'm also getting older. Makes apartment or condo life look pretty damn appealing.
Last edited by GGT; 04-20-2011 at 05:55 PM.
I've written about the barbell or double-hump before here... it's not that new. Many other economies don't have that-- Japan has a healthy bell curve.
How do you figure? Japan may have had a barbell shaped economy by age demographics, but now they have a twisted up economy after their earthquake and tsunami.
Wait, before we go further...
1) What is a "barbell" shape for you? A bell shape is just one hump.. a barbell sounds like two humps. Am I wrong here?
2) I thought we were talking about the income curve, not the age curve?
Their economy is in better shape now arguably, since the region was apparently subsidized anyway...
Barbells! Weighted at top and bottom, slim in the middle. Types of jobs, income potential, skills/education---high end or low end, not much in the middle.
Ok, so Japan has consistently had a bell-shaped curve in income distribution. Maybe it is slightly a barbell for age distribution now--not sure. One end would be Japanese older citizens, the other end would be migrant workers from eg. the Phillipines who are much younger.
That MIT author was talking about the dangers of a barbell-shaped economy. Weighted at top and bottom, carving out the middle. The employment "polarization" is connected to educational opportunities....but we already know not everyone is suited for (or capable of) a university education, and it's practically impossible to support self on minimum wage low-skilled jobs. There aren't enough jobs available at the top, even if we doubled the amount of degreed grads. Some of that is our efficiency from high-tech.
Replace a secretary with a Blackberry. Replace a production line worker with robotics. Replace a middle-manager with a software program. The number of jobs to repair or maintain Blackberries and robotics and software is smaller still (or outsourced to cheap labor nations).
I would say it is more of a symptom of a dysfunctional economy to have a barbell shape than a result of technology. It's not necessarily because of too few educational opportunities either. We have plenty of people who are highly educated who are still out of work at the moment. (Though, even when they did have work a few years ago, the barbell shape still existed...)
Japan is one of the most technologically advanced societies in the world, and their college graduation rate is very high at 54% (link), but they don't suffer from massive birth rates of poor peoplz or the recent enormous influx of people with sometimes incompatible cultures...
You should probably not use Japan as a model to imitate, aggie.
But, I like dancing robots...
Reminds me of the Fifth Element, with the meeting between the priest and the greedy CEO...
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