I think this is supposed to be a parody/satire, but strangely enough, it’s almost exactly the experience I had looking for a job a while back. And I do mean exactly. Except for the part at the end where the boss givers her a blazer. The boss gave me an umbrella instead, because it was raining.
Oh, it’s too late to edit, but here goes. I can tell by the tone this is satire, but can’t really relate to the content. I’m not the target audience of course (so no slight to the author), but I’m trying to understand why they would be so impressed. The wildly unrealistic fairy tale elements (whatever they are) seem quite realistic to me. Maybe a bit exaggerated, but nothing screams out “the real world is nothing like this”.
Small example. It’s apparently preposterous to drink milk for breakfast. I, in fact, had milk for breakfast before my last interview. Generation gap?
A bunch of the details are just setting up the “punchline”, which happens as soon as the person walks into the office and things diverge majorly from reasonable expectations. These are not things that are unrealistic, but they are things that (middle-class, American) parents will advise their children to do, thus setting up the premise that this is the world parents think their young adult children live in but not necessarily the world they actually do inhabit.
The biggest difference, I think, between this article’s target audience and “us” (those of us who work in technology, anyway) is that tech firms have had a difficult time commoditizing software jobs, so our job market is still halfway decent. In my career as a software engineer so far, I’ve applied to maybe a half dozen positions, had four phone screens, three in-person interviews, and two jobs. My partner, who is by all accounts much smarter and more accomplished than me (and also credentialed in a STEM field) has sent dozens of applications and had many phone screens and interviews, also for two jobs. I know perfectly qualified people who have applied to hundreds of jobs (I wish that were an exaggeration, but it is not) to get a single offer. The job market outside our fairly comfortable bubble is outrageously bad, and this article is appealing to people in that position, who can give a “ha ha, only serious” snicker about the naïveté of their parents' advice.
Was that the point? I don’t know anyone’s parents who told their kids that an English lit degree was a good career choice. Guidance counselors seem to say that because they’re only allowed to be positive, but parents seem most likely to ask “how are you going to get a job?”. The “I can do anything” bubbly attitude comes from the child, no?
A few years ago an older woman on the bus started chatting with me about her granddaughter, whose boyfriend she disapproved of because, although he had a job, she didn’t feel that it was a “real” job–because it didn’t come with a pension.
a bit heavy-handed, but sadly relevant
I think this is supposed to be a parody/satire, but strangely enough, it’s almost exactly the experience I had looking for a job a while back. And I do mean exactly. Except for the part at the end where the boss givers her a blazer. The boss gave me an umbrella instead, because it was raining.
You walked into the first office building you found upon arriving in the city, without prior arrangements, and they hired you?
Ah, no, the interview was arranged. I read that paragraph distractedly trying to remember what I had for breakfast. :)
Oh, it’s too late to edit, but here goes. I can tell by the tone this is satire, but can’t really relate to the content. I’m not the target audience of course (so no slight to the author), but I’m trying to understand why they would be so impressed. The wildly unrealistic fairy tale elements (whatever they are) seem quite realistic to me. Maybe a bit exaggerated, but nothing screams out “the real world is nothing like this”.
Small example. It’s apparently preposterous to drink milk for breakfast. I, in fact, had milk for breakfast before my last interview. Generation gap?
A bunch of the details are just setting up the “punchline”, which happens as soon as the person walks into the office and things diverge majorly from reasonable expectations. These are not things that are unrealistic, but they are things that (middle-class, American) parents will advise their children to do, thus setting up the premise that this is the world parents think their young adult children live in but not necessarily the world they actually do inhabit.
The biggest difference, I think, between this article’s target audience and “us” (those of us who work in technology, anyway) is that tech firms have had a difficult time commoditizing software jobs, so our job market is still halfway decent. In my career as a software engineer so far, I’ve applied to maybe a half dozen positions, had four phone screens, three in-person interviews, and two jobs. My partner, who is by all accounts much smarter and more accomplished than me (and also credentialed in a STEM field) has sent dozens of applications and had many phone screens and interviews, also for two jobs. I know perfectly qualified people who have applied to hundreds of jobs (I wish that were an exaggeration, but it is not) to get a single offer. The job market outside our fairly comfortable bubble is outrageously bad, and this article is appealing to people in that position, who can give a “ha ha, only serious” snicker about the naïveté of their parents' advice.
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It’s not clear to me why that would be a problem. I don’t pay a doctor who hasn’t completed medical school.
Was that the point? I don’t know anyone’s parents who told their kids that an English lit degree was a good career choice. Guidance counselors seem to say that because they’re only allowed to be positive, but parents seem most likely to ask “how are you going to get a job?”. The “I can do anything” bubbly attitude comes from the child, no?
A few years ago an older woman on the bus started chatting with me about her granddaughter, whose boyfriend she disapproved of because, although he had a job, she didn’t feel that it was a “real” job–because it didn’t come with a pension.