The Basement Dweller

Not quite. What really happens is that management see that you are good at it and give you much more shit to shovel while promoting the manager's chinless, cross-eyed offspring.

'Hard work pays off' is a myth used to squeeze more productivity out of the drones. 'Work smarter, not harder' and all that, eh?

'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'

its not even really an american thing outside tnhe fevered imagination of people who cant remember past 1950, particularly a leave it to beaver white middle class 1950.

The whole move out at 18 thing didnt exist at all until the middle of the century when prosperity was on the rise and all, and is simply swinging back the other way now that it isnt financially viable.

Or that management itself is just a lot more shit to shovel, while being paid little more for the privilege and having no choice but to take less holiday then those below you because you are vital to the business.

I've seen it happen.

edited 10th Oct '13 7:35:44 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On

Yep. Management simply means you get to treat regular employees the way your own boss treats you.

From what I've seen, regular employees are treated a bit better — management where I work is much more stressful than being an ordinary employee. The management take a lot of the heat at my store, so we can do the jobs as well as possible.

edited 10th Oct '13 7:42:38 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On

Bullshit. I've built my entire career on hard work paying off. Hell, I invented my current position through hard work and dedication. I started at my current job as a temp, earned the respect of my coworkers and bosses, and did such a great job that they created a brand new job position so that they could hire me as a full-time employee. And when our systems analyst moved on to greener pastures, I was promoted because I was the most competent guy for the job. It DOES happen.

And I hasten to re-emphasize that I'm an uneducated high school dropout, now working as a systems analyst for a global corporation. Multimillion dollar decisions are made based off my work. The funniest thing about my work history? I've almost never held a job that I was actually qualified for; almost every job I've had said, "Bachelor's Degree Required" and I still got hired for the position because I impressed my bosses.

That cynicism right there? It's an excuse to justify not working hard. Cynicism is the biggest drain on productivity, by far, because cynicism is comfortable. Cynicism lets us do whatever we want to do, because why work hard when it's not going to get me anywhere, right? Cynicism is a convenient excuse to justify sloth.

edited 10th Oct '13 7:59:48 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Most people that do work hard probably never happen upon a job where they'd have the opportunity to advance. It's probably a matter of several factors, including luck.

The claim that advancing through hard work is impossible for everyone is clearly BS, but so is the claim that anyone can advance through hard work. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

It has nothing to do with luck, and everything to do with two things. One is figuring out what you have to offer that nobody around you has. If you want to be manager, then answer this: why should you be? What makes you a better choice than that guy over there? What do you have to offer me, the hiring manager, that he doesn't? What's your niche? What unique skills do you bring to the position? How about your knowledge? Do you know the products better than anyone else? The business? If you want to be raised above your peers, then you have to answer, what makes you special?

And the second is this: don't answer it to me. Answer it to your bosses, and do so every day. When you do something spectacular, make sure people see it, don't just expect your boss to take it into account. Remember it. Bring it up when you're jockeying for the position, and definitely make sure you jockey for the position; when I got my promotion, I walked right into my boss's office and told him, "I want that job, this is why I should have it." I met with half our V Ps and presented my case to all of them about why I'm the best fit for the role.

Advancement exists, but it's not going to just be handed to you on a silver platter any more than the job originally was; getting a job, keeping a job, and climbing the ladder all takes hard work and effort. But I can promise you one thing: if you throw up your arms and go, "Why bother? It's not going to work out," then you're right. The only sure path to failure is giving up.

edited 10th Oct '13 8:05:09 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Uh, what about the 10 other workers that didn't get the job you fought so hard for?

I mean, it's admirable that you distinguished yourself. But not everyone can get the same promotion at once. It's just not possible.

Of course you can promise that. What you can't promise, though, is that if I do work harder than anyone else in the company I will advance. It's very possible that there simply is no room to advance, or that factors outside my reach influence the decision as to who advances.

There are people out there who have learned 5 or more professions because the company they used to work for went bankrupt or moved the factory to China or completed a project for which the position was established - and this can happen to one person time and time again, even if they're the best at their job in the region. You can of course tell them to never accept temporary employment or to re-train (again and again) to match the jobs on offer, but if the job they have is swept from under them it's usually not in their power to get it back.

A term has been coined for this kind of situation: people in that position are in the precariat. (The term is obviously derived from "precarious" and "proletariat." )

These days it's very common for people to get training for a job, work for a couple of years, and suddenly see the job disappear with little or no warning. If they can't find another job in the same industry in the area they'll have to move or re-train, and the latter is usually the more viable option, especially for people with family. So they get the education for another job, one that is suggested/offered to them by an employment agency or a local business, and they work for a couple of years or so until that job disappears, as well.

You can blame them for not learning a job that is certain to be available for ages, but often there's no way to predict which jobs will be around, or if there is there might be obstacles to getting the training for it.

My father is in this position. He's had about 5 or 6 different jobs (in different industries) and usually he's employed for a couple of years until a project is completed or cancelled, or the factory closed, or other such circumstance. He's always sought employment in the fields he knows, as well as training for new fields, but sometimes there simply are no jobs available. And he's one of millions like him around the world. That he has always done his job well and been complimented by bosses and so on is simply irrelevant. That he works hard simply has no bearing on whether or not he'll have a job in 5 years. Or rather, if he didn't work hard he wouldn't have a job, but if he does there's no guarantee that he'll have an opportunity to work 5 years from now.

This is a huge problem, and it's one that exists in all Western countries.

edited 10th Oct '13 8:23:57 AM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

We have to remember that all of this "hard work is no guarantee" line is due almost solely to the supply-constrained job market. The mere fact that there are too few opportunities for people means that there are no guarantees no matter how skilled you are, unless you're willing to take up one of the dirty/dangerous jobs that few people are willing to do anymore (like military for the latter or waste disposal worker for the former)

In bull markets, meanwhile, even the patently mediocre can cruise to a cushy office job, while in bear markets, Phi Beta Kappa college grads like myself end up stuck in gas stations and seriously considering joining the military.

Skills differentiation that Tobias mentioned is important, but as Best Of countered, even that's a function of luck, because even the best business analysts can't make a good prediction as to what will be the skill to have in 5 years, let alone a 45-year working-lifetime from now.

You're right. Not everyone can. That's why I did. Employment is competition. It means constantly trying to work harder and be more deserving of that promotion than everyone around you which, in all honestly, is easy because most of them are sitting there going, "Why even bother trying? I'm not going to get promoted anyway." Not everyone can win. That's why the burden falls on YOU to be the one that does. It's not luck. There are no prizes for participation. A better job is your reward for winning, and if you honestly can't think of a single reason why you are more deserving of that promotion than the guy next to you, then you're not. Correcting that is also on you, not luck or God or anyone else.

If you want to climb the ladder, then you need to figure out what you need to do to be the one guy that gets promoted, instead of the ten guys that don't.

I know how that goes. I've had jobs fall out from under me before because the company went under. At an old job, my entire division was sold to a competitor, with massive layoffs because they wanted our contracts more than our staff. But you pick yourself back up and you keep moving forward. There's no guarantee of success, but you have to keep trying and stay marketable.

Some of the best advice I ever got is this: You are a product. You are a human resource. Every other employee is a competing product. Now, you might be the best product on the market; you might be more effective at the task that your customer needs than anyone else. But without marketing, that's meaningless. If you want someone to buy you, then you need to find opportunities to pitch your product to people who need it, and do so at every opportunity. That's what a job interview is: it is a sales pitch, and your task is t convince the customer to buy your product instead of someone else's.

Skills don't become obsolete. Specializations do. We might not always need neurologists, specifically, but doctors will always need to exist. Expertise in auto repair might become obsolete if the market turns away from cars, but there's always opportunities for that skill - being a mechanic - and that specialization in auto is applicable in other forms of machinery, which makes learning new specializations easier. I built my career on speaking computer. I've never had to use the same software from one company to the next; my expertise in Showcase Suite is worthless to a company that uses SAP. But my skill - being able to understand and manipulate software - is applicable to countless different systems.

Don't be content to know a specialization; build the skills behind it, and it won't matter where the market goes and what specializations are needed. If all you know about engineering is how a car works, then your hireability is sorely limited to just car manufacturing; but if you understand all the mechanics behind it, the technology, the hows and whys of this design, what makes it better than that design, what makes it better than this option or that option...you can apply this to all manner of things.

Don't stop at knowing. Understand, instead.

edited 10th Oct '13 8:57:36 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

If one is working hard instead of smart, one is a moron. All that wasted effort could have been saved and management would probably still buy whatever bullshit line you fed them and promote you anyway if you did it cleverly enough.

The trick is to get the most out of your employer in return for the least effort on your part. Hard work is for robots and ditch-diggers.

edited 10th Oct '13 9:01:21 AM by InverurieJones

'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'

@Tobias Drake: You know your personal experience doesn't trump everyone else just because you got it right? You may have had gotten a great job despite not having a degree but not everyone can do that, because even if their letter gets through, (they often feed it through a computer) companies would rather hire an experienced and educated candidate no matter how the interview goes.

Whether you want to admit it or not luck played a factor in your success. That doesn't diminish it as all too often people who hear it think it does it means you got it through your own power and because you had luck on your side as well, that isn't hard to understand.

METAL GEAR!?

The two are not mutually exclusive, and it's impossible to perceive working "smart". You could be the smartest person in the building, but if you're just sitting on your ass every time the boss sees you, that does not communicate well to him. Hard work is visible. Smart work is just personal. The "smartest" thing is to do both.

I've often found that cynicism and failure tend to go hand in hand. It's that cynicism that grates me. "It's impossible to find a job. Why should I work hard if nobody's going to promote me? People with good jobs were just lucky, that's all. I could totally do your job if I had that kind of luck." That cynicism right there? It's self-fulfilling and self-defeating. If you give up before you've even started, then you have chosen to fail. Cynicism is failure by choice.

I'm not saying that everyone will succeed. Quite the contrary, I'm saying that success is hard, and you have to vigilantly strive to it. But I'm sick of people saying it's impossible, or that only the lucky ones make it. It's not about luck. That attitude right there? THAT is why a lot of people fail.

I've fallen just as hard as anyone else, but I never gave up. That's why I'm sitting where I am now. I could have gone, "Fuck it, nobody will hire me, I'm unhireable, I have no education, I have no experience, my application will just get fed to a computer anyway." And you know where that would have got me? Laying on my mom's couch eating Pringles out of a can and watching Simpsons reruns.

I chose to believe it was possible for someone like me to build a career. And then I did.

edited 10th Oct '13 9:33:38 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

...and? Who said anything about being cynical? Many of us are looking at it with optimism, were just aware of what is going on right now. Can you tell me how long it has been since you've been in high school? One of the tropers hear Gabreal I guarantee she works as hard as you do and isn't cynical about things but her jobs don't pay much and she worked through school.

Were saying you can choose to believe it was all your own doing that got your success. But there was other factors in it, whether or not you choose to acknowledge that is up to you.

METAL GEAR!?

With all due respect, the multiple of anecdote is not data.

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

As hard as you tried, Tobias, it still could have been you that failed. It's a mathematical certainty that somebody has to fail in the current scenario. You were in the right place at the right time, you found the right company. You had prepared to make the most of these eventualities, which is laudable, but circumstances could just as easily have twisted against you, since there aren't enough jobs for everyone.

I dropped out of high school 9 years ago, and got my first job about six months after, working as a waiter at a bar. We had staff coming and going because it was a terrible place to work; I was there for a year and a half, working 80 hour weeks for several of those months because of our inability to keep employees. The place was a nightmare; our chef, Ira, was completely unsanitary, and had a bad habit of having drug relapses where he would steal all the money from the register, buy tons of drugs, then check himself into rehab a few days later. He kept getting hired back because he was the owner's best friend. We had two illegal immigrants washing dishes, and they liked to pretend they couldn't speak English because they found it hilarious. What finally made me leave was a fight with the owner about his treatment of a young, female employee who had been there three days. He flipped his shit and yelled at her until she was walking out crying, and I stormed out with her because that was unacceptable to me.

I was unemployed for about half a month - this was before the economy went to shit - before getting hired at a local supermarket. I'd applied for a courtesy clerk position, but after explaining my experiences and work history at the bar, they immediately gave me a higher position at the deli instead. I worked at that deli for...I can't remember if it was one or two years, but I proved my worth there. I made the sandwich station mine; I made the best damn sandwiches in the department, and also introduced a running joke that made our customers crack up laughing: honesty.

The assistant manager and I garnered a lot of return business by being honest. If you asked our opinion on a product, we'd give it to you. If you want to know if that godawful cardboard cheese is good, we'll tell you just how bad it tastes, then politely ask if you'd like a sample. If you want to know a better cheese, we can recommend one. And for the bullshit parting line*

, we started telling people, "We appreciate your money." So many customers cracked up at that line; we had multiple customers telling us that they keep coming back just for the honesty, because it's refreshing in the modern age of Customer Service bullshit.

The Assistant Manager and I quickly became the top dogs of our deli; the actual Manager was rarely in. I probably could have gone far there, but I left to enlist in the United States Army. That's not my proudest story. I had a lot of great experiences, and my DI is still the best teacher I have ever had. He gave me a lot of lessons that I've carried with me. Lessons like, "Don't ever let yourself be intimidated. You are a MAN first, a soldier SECOND. Don't you EVER forget that." I never have. But the reason that's not my proudest story is because I failed out of the Army.

So I came home. I was unemployed for about three months before one of my applications got through and I was picked up by an insurance company to be a policy typist. It was an entry level position, nothing fancy, and I was working alongside the daughter of the Vice President. It was a one-man job, but she wasn't really doing anything, so they needed a second hand, and that was me. I put in extra hours, got the entire backlog wiped out, and caught us up to the point that we no longer needed two of us. When that time came around, well...she was the daughter of the VP. So I got cut.

Two months later, I was hired at a major financial institution to be an administrative assistant. The HR Director at the insurance company had given me a strong recommendation because of how hard she'd seen me work, which was why I got the job; I totally bombed my interview, but my work history spoke for me instead. I very quickly impressed my boss as well as her boss, who promptly stole me to be his assistant instead. From there, I started taking on more responsibilities and tasks. I designed the database that became central to our business operations, and wowed the Site President. When our systems guy left, I was next in line for his position; I was also in the process of having a VP removed from the company for incompetence, because the Site President trusted my word over his. Once again, I could have gone far, but life happened. Our division was sold because the institution decided they needed to cut some of their divisions - this was during the bailouts, and our bank was one of them that received one - and we hit the chopping block.

After that layoff, I started temping. My credentials thoroughly impressed the agency I started working with, who provided me with ample supply of temp jobs while I had another headhunter agency looking for permanent positions for me. After a few jobs earned me glowing recommendations with the agency - ensuring further work - the temp agency put me to work doing data entry for a manufacturing company, and within a month, I was going outside my job responsibility to teach everyone in Customer Service how to use their own systems more efficiently, which impressed their boss enough that he continued to retain me long after the task I was hired for was completed.

I kept temping at that position for about two years, then was offered a permanent position that was created just so they could hire me and stop paying my agency. I've been with that company a little over the year, and already earned a promotion to primary systems analyst after our analyst left the company for greener pastures; as soon as I heard he was quitting, I made a fuss to everyone who had a hand in replacing him - including the analyst himself, to get his recommendation - and it paid off with a stronger position including more responsibilities and a higher pay.

You can call it luck all you want. Fact is, it has been me that failed. Plenty of times, and it probably will be again in the future. But I made it because I persevered. I didn't let failures get me down, and I never gave up. Even when I've failed, I've always bounced back, and will continue to do so.

edited 10th Oct '13 11:40:44 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

and not everyone can do that.

Not all of us have the sheer overbearing of ego to make a fuss when a position is opening up. Not all of us perservere when the chips are down, and most importantly? even those of us who try to sometimes fail miserably.

My dad's worked loyally and hard for the same company for 20+ years. Y'now what his reward is?

New hires getting paid nearly as much as him. Bonuses disappearing more year after year as cost cutting measures for the company. Little chance for advancement except to supervisory positions that demand longer hours without commensurately higher boosts in pay.

Hate to tell you this, but for a lot of us? the hard reality is hard work doesnt mean success, it means hard work.

edited 10th Oct '13 12:44:28 PM by midgetsnowman

Locking this thread down, since it has long ago left the original topic behind, and is trending toward stating opinions as facts.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.