Summations Only

Getting coffee isn't going to make you a better photographer, and if you tried to tell someone that it did, they'd know you were an idiot. Watching other people take pictures doesn't make you a better photographer either until you put what you've learned into practice.What makes people think you're a good photographer isn't the "experience" line on your resume, it's a fat portfolio full of awesome photographs. You guys are so hung up on "experience" that you've failed to realize that you should be demonstrating your skill, instead.

When it's fun, it's not work, it's play.Very lucky, of course, are the people who get paid to play.

Privilege runs the opposite way, I think - I've never been so privileged that I could spend a summer at an unpaid internship, with my parents to pay the bills. I think you'll find that it's precisely the unprivileged who can't afford to work for free. Like I said I don't know anyone so privileged that they have the luxury of taking on full-time work that doesn't pay anything. Don't you think looking for full-time work where you could start immediately is a better use of your time than 6 months of unpaid work with no guarantee of a job at the end of it? That's what I'm getting at, though - you don't have to be hired to get the experience. Experience isn't something you're given, it's something you gain. If you want to get a job doing a certain kind of work, but you don't have the experience doing the work, do the work! Don't fetch coffee hoping you can get "experience" from watching other people work. If you want experience as a writer, write. If you want experience programming, write programs. I've got this job right now as an embedded software developer solely on the basis of code samples I had because, while I was looking for work, I wrote software for embedded platforms using free tools. Never held a programming job in my life until now, but I had experience because I wrote software. Sensible people can get all of that without wasting time getting coffee when they could be taking pictures. Seriously, nobody is ever going to hire you to be a photographer because you fetched coffee for the right people. You get hired as a photographer because you can take great pictures, and if that's your goal, then every minute you're not learning about taking great pictures is time wasted. I invite people to seek out all of the above. I'm just not convinced that someone who is exploiting your labor with the false promise of "experience" is going to serve you well as a mentor or instructor. I invite people to volunteer; I did volunteer work myself. But we're not talking about volunteering, we're talking about unpaid work. You've missed the point, I think. The issue here is that someone who watched you stock shelves all day for free isn't going to be much of a reference, because they haven't seen you do anything but busywork. Volunteering comes with challenges, and you can certainly have a good reference in someone with whom you met those challenges. One of my own references is from a volunteer gig I had. But the context of this thread isn't volunteering, it's about forcing people to do low-return, menial labor for free for no other reason than the work isn't worth even minimum wage.

Well, how's it working with the "go into debt for a good school, get a good major, work unpaid internships, check all the boxes, color inside the lines, and eventually someone will give you what you want" way? My understanding is, that stopped working for people in about 2008. Maybe before then. It certainly never worked for me or anyone I know.I'm not trying to control people's lives - that's you, remember? - I'm just saying, if you're finding that not having experience is holding you back in your career, the solution is pretty simple - go out and have the experience. There's literally nothing stopping you.

And yet not sitting on the couch for nine months is going to give you a better leg up, still.I'm just not seeing the value of these "references." Again, everybody has a reference who will say how dependable and hard-working they are. Something that gets you from the bottom of the resume pile to the middle isn't, actually, that much of a help, since they hire at the top of the pile. You need something that gets you to the top of the pile. A busywork reference is setting your sights way too low. My mind is closed only to statements that are offered without any evidence.

You're misrepresenting the context. We're talking about people who already have the education but lack qualifying experience. My advice to them is that they should get experience, because experience is something you have, it's not something that an employer gives to you. I don't have much advice for people who have no qualifications at all for the work they want to do, except that they should probably find another line of work in the interim, because they're not going to be hired at zero qualifications. By fixing engines. If someone, indeed, has absolutely never seen an engine, never held or owned a tool, can't get into mechanic school, can't read a book on the subject, and works 20 hours a day leaving no time to do anything else, how do they know they want to fix engines? As always, the counterexamples you present are all but nonsensical. There are certainly people for whom a $3 wrench from Sears represents an unsupportable luxury, but I would submit that such people have much larger problems than an unmet desire for experience working with engines. My advice to such people would be to focus on the near term, figure out where your next couple of meals and a place to sleep are going to come from, put a little money together if you can, and then start to think about pursuing your dreams. I don't know how it would work any other way. I certainly don't see how someone who can't afford a $3 wrench is going to benefit from working for absolutely nothing, which you'll recall is your position.

Dupe post deleted.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

There is nobody who doesn't, except individuals who no one will recommend as "hard-working and dependable" because they're genuinely such unreliable layabouts. The fact that complete fuck-ups frequently can't pass themselves off as anything but fuck-ups is unfortunate, but they should stop being fuck-ups if they want to stop being regarded as fuck-ups.Of the many problems our society has, the inability of some lazy individuals to be thought of as hard-working isn't one of them. That's the system working as intended.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Your country and mine have the same problem - unemployment is high because aggregate demand is low, therefore the business need for labor is low. Nobody's been able to explain what it is about "unpaid work for the unemployed" that solves the problem of low aggregate demand. So let's keep paying them. Unemployment benefits are stimulating at a factor of 6:1 - every dollar spent in unemployment benefits causes six dollars to be spent in the economy, boosting demand. God forbid, let us not make the economy even worse by reducing wage levels and further depressing aggregate demand. How the hell does that make any sense? Sure, but doing it yourself is also free, and the best part of it is that you're your own boss, you can do it at your own pace, you don't have to pay for gas or bus fare since you're working at home, and you get to keep all the results of your own labor. Advantage: just doing it. Not in the least. The same LAMP architecture at work in commercial databases is a free download. If you want to work with it in a working environment, then build something with it that works and that people use. Like a forum dedicated to discussing creationism. Then talk with an expert. How are you going to talk with the expert while he's working and you're down the street getting his Starbucks? And what about when you want to talk with a different expert? Why lock yourself in via fake employment? Sure - one problem might be that there's 40 million jobs and 50 million job-seekers, because depressed aggregate demand means that everybody - especially the unemployed - is buying a lot less of everything. If that's the case, then training people to be better applicants doesn't reduce the unemployment rate, it just changes who's going to be one of the 10 million who don't have a job. Training someone to be better at musical chairs might guarantee that they get a seat, but it doesn't change the number of seats, or reduce the rate of seatlessness. You actually need more chairs for that.The problem, in both the US and the UK, is high unemployment due to a shortfall in aggregate demand. Nobody's been able to explain how that's a problem best solved by people working for free. Aren't people without any money going to spend a lot less?

But they don't have to buy a $3 wrench. Whether or not they want a wrench at all is up to them, and it's not a result of their employment status, but perhaps a condition of it. Free or not mechanics usually provide their own tools, just as chefs provide their own knives. Those are restatements of the obstacles you listed. Did you forget your own post? Why don't they have experience, then, if they have a pile of tools and a degree from a technical college in Diesel Engine Repair? What were they doing all that time, around all those engines, all that education in how to fix them, if not actually fixing engines? If nothing else this points to the importance of attempting to apply what you learned while you're learning it instead of assuming that you'll graduate with a degree and then automatically, someone will just give you the experience in how to actually use it.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

No, in fact "reduce unemployment" has been the stated rationale from the get-go. I quote from message 5:

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We have a problem with youth unemployment in this country (and across Europe) and I guess that some of those may never have been employed at all. Also there are those who have been unemployed for extended periods (the "long term unemployed") who may have worked at one point but who have lost the "habit" of work and who might arguably benefit from work experience for that reason.

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The problem of unemployment has been the focus from the beginning. I don't see how that would be different in a "work for free" situation. I think the odds of an employer providing significant capital investment in terms of tools, access to materials, and the like to an employee who they weren't paying is just vanishingly small. With no promise of a future paycheck to keep them coming in, what would prevent the "employee" from just stealing the tools and materials? Yes, that's certainly my position. The barriers to entry are lower, the work is self-directed and therefore more appropriate for your specific, individual needs, and you keep all of the results of the work. There's just nothing about this "work for free" nonsense that even comes close. No, you're right, in fact we hope that the pool of unemployed people is constantly cycling through, because the time you spend unemployed has persistent, unrecoverable effects on the rest of your career. Unfortunately what we're seeing in both of our countries is that the people who are unemployed are unemployed for so long that they stop looking altogether, we're in a situation where millions have been unemployed for so long that their unemployment benefits have simply expired; we're not cycling the unemployed like we would be in an economy closer to full employment.And that's the issue - our policies can't just be about re-arranging the deck chairs (you know, on the Titanic.) It's the overall rate of unemployment that we have to target, that's a function of aggregate demand, and the result - as always - is expansionary monetary policy to stimulate demand. I think you'll find that relatively few people are going to quit their jobs so that another person can have a chance at it, and that relatively few businesses are going to spend weeks training an employee just to fire him after six months to start fresh with someone new. Businesses aren't going to fire experienced workers in order to hire inexperienced ones, except under a very narrow set of circumstances. (Circuit City, a major US electronics retailer, did that a few years ago; remember what happened to them?) Yes. It's part of the reason for the decline in aggregate demand - people who go from working income to welfare income reduce their spending. Wouldn't it make the problem worse if their welfare checks got even smaller? Of course it would.

No, I'm addressing the fact that you have no idea what you're talking about. We can't talk about employment using jobs and work conditions that exist only in your mind. Yeah, but you don't know anything about anything, so what you're unaware of is hardly diagnostic. I didn't say you said that. Again - those are restatements of the problems you raised in your post. Then there's quite a bit more standing in the way of their employment as a diesel mechanic than just their lack of experience, now isn't there? Recall what you said:

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Even if experience fixing diesel engines is the only thing separating them from a life of welfare benefits and a life of productive, meaningful employment?

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You were talking about someone whose lack of experience was their only obstacle. Now you're talking about someone who has many obstacles, including their lack of tools and their lack of education. As always, you're changing positions as fast as you can to avoid pertinent objections. But, fine, let's address your newly changed position. Maybe better to solve those problems first, eh? Experience can come during education, and students can frequently get tools for cheap. How does "unpaid employment" get your untrained, penniless individual into schools or get him tools? Be specific.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

Well, that's not fair. I always address objections head-on, I state my position clearly and don't change it as I defend it unless I'm genuinely convinced by the counter-arguments, and when I am, I'm explicit in my recognition that I was convinced by my interlocutor's argument. That's more than can be said for many participants at EvC, who frequently alter their position mid-stream and then try to pretend like that's what they were saying all along.Nobody at EvC has admitted to being wrong as often as I have. Absolutely nobody. Seriously, go back through my posts and look at how frequently I admit to being wrong. I think my third post at EvC was an admission of error, and I still remember what it was - I said that birds, in general, adapt to fly or to swim, not both. What a stupid thing to have said - ducks, of course, being the tremendously obvious counterexample. I think admitting when you're wrong is a strength, and it's something I've noted about you, too, CS - you admit when you're wrong. It's earned my respect. I wish it was returned.

I didn't claim that they did. That is, in fact, the problem with these "schemes"; they attempt to address unemployment without addressing aggregate demand, the cause of unemployment. Because it is what you were talking about:

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I'd rather the bottom of the bottom is employable enough to work six months in every five years rather than just let them build up ever larger difficult to explain gaps in their CV.

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How else do you create a rotating system of "six months on, every five years" except by having qualified people leave positions so that unqualified people can take their place? A business that cuts its workforce by 20 doesn't turn around and hire 20 new people, so that can't be a source of the "unemployment cycling" we're talking about. Well... but they don't. That's the problem that causes increased unemployment; businesses reduce their workforces in aggregate, and relatively few expand their workforce. And the businesses with constant workforces are trying as hard as they can to minimize turnover, so there's relatively little hope for "cycling" there. Why "manage" it when we can reduce it? Isn't that what's being called for in Europe? "Austerity"?

I don't see where I did it even once, CS. I'm not "spinning" anything. You're going to have to explain in more detail, I guess, because the exchange you quoted is me directly addressing the issue you raised against your my position, not avoiding it.Look, CS, I get to do that - if you present a counterexample against my position, I get to explain how it's not really a counterexample at all. You presented as counterexample the valuable experience one would get if they "follow around a photographer and get them coffee n'stuff without getting paid." I'm entitled to point out that, no, that experience isn't invaluable, and that the more valuable experience is what you'd get if you took pictures like a photographer, something you don't need to make pointless coffee runs for. I'm not under any obligation to just accept that something is true just because you say it, CS. The issue is that you're just plain wrong about this, "getting coffee and stuff" for a photographer isn't a good way to become a photographer, and you certainly couldn't convince someone to hire you as one based on your "experience" of watching photographers take photographs. It's not experience.I'm entitled to address the counterexamples you raise, CS. It's not spin. It's defending my argument by directly addressing your objections - exactly what you claim I'm not doing. I'm not trying to "make them wrong", CS. They're already wrong. Your example was wrong just the way you wrote it. I'm sorry you didn't notice, but the fact that you think it's right doesn't obligate me to agree. I don't see where message 79 has anything to respond to - it's just a flat assertion with no suppporting argument - and message 92 makes the same point Modulous is, and I've already replied to it from him.