Summations Only

Jesus Christ, crashfrog. I even quoted the question in question! If you didn't believe me, you could read back through the discussion and remind yourself. Here is the question again (I put it in bold to make sure you see it this time):

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What does "turn professional" mean except "start getting paid work as a photographer"?

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Why do you ask?

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What do you mean, "why do I ask"?

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The 'what does x...' and the question mark at the end were clues that it was a question that you were asking me. I just have no idea why you are asking it. I suggest you work on your writing skills. It was framed as a question. If you just wanted to make it a statement you should drop the 'what...' at the beginning and the question mark at the end. And I would have more or less agreed with the statement, with the possible exception that I gave originally (one doesn't turn professional just because one gets paid. But to turn professional one needs to be getting paid. One can get paid, but not be a pro). I have provided a small number of examples when it happens without a rout necessarily having taken place. That should be sufficient to disprove your universal claim that it 'only happens' in one set of circumstances.As such, I now await your proof of this claim. Not at all. You were hung up on the coffee thing: talking about it to the exclusion of the reasons for hanging out with a pro photographer. That was the problem initially, one I tried to correct you on straight away. Yes it is. And we've been agreeing with this all along. I gave you my actual position in my previous post, and I think you'll find it is consistent with what I have been saying in each post I have made. Try discussing that for a change. Just as I have been saying all along. Which is fortunate, because you'll never find me making such a claim. If so, point me to that case. I only remember seeing you assert it.I fail to see how the experience of seeing a pro at work, asking them questions and so on is not relevant to becoming a pro in the same field.It's not mandatory, but I see no reason to suppose it is irrelevant. Oh right. Well, how about you deal with what I said after that assertion? You know, like I asked you in my previous post to but which you completely ignored again. Here is is a third time

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That's in reference to you focusing on the unpaid work aspect (ie getting coffee) rather than the valuable experience you can get between coffee runs.

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No, it's not. It's in reference to how CS can't rebut my arguments so he just throws out these accusations that I "spin things."

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That doesn't make any sense I'm afraid. You might think that CS's statement was made because he couldn't rebut you, but that's not relevant in interpreting what CS's comments were referring to.

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Here is the comment again

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You spun my photographer assistant analogy six ways from sideways.

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He was referring to your comments such as:

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To riff off of CS's example, below, nobody's opinion of your photography skills is going to be improved by your "experience" of getting coffee for photographers.

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It was readily apparent to most participants in this thread that CS was not referring to the experience of getting coffee improving your photography skills.

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So when CS said

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You spun my photographer assistant analogy six ways from sideways.

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He was clearly referring to your attempt at addressing the photographer assistant argument. Do you disagree that this is what CS is referring to here? If so, what was CS referring to here? Because I thought you smart enough to comprehend I wasn't making an argument that was that stupid. Mea culpa. I clearly noticed you were focusing on the wrong part of the example and I tried to point your focus elsewhere. I thought you thought I had made a simple error, not such a gratuitous one. False dichotomy. Arguments are not limited to being a) So very stupid it's hard to imagine anyone holding them sincerely b) Brilliant.eg., Socrates' arguments for the immortality of the soul are not brilliant, but nor are they as stupid as the argument you thought I was making.I could certainly see you tackling one of Socrates' arguments if someone brought it up here. And as I have previously said: It is clear that a person needs to balance things up, how much work do they need to do and will it prevent them getting the time they want to watch the pro/ask tips etc.Taking three twenty minute breaks to fetch coffee in a 8 hour day is hardly going to be a major barrier. We've jumped from one stupid argument to another. Obviously I do not believe there is any law that insists that advice can only be given in exchange for work. Of course they aren't doing you a favour by asking you to do work. They are doing you a favour by showing you the ropes. In exchange, you might do them a favour of carrying their bags or getting coffee or whatever.Of course, they might do it with no expectations whatsoever, and that's great. But really those examples are out of scope for this discussion. Naturally, that would be optimal from your point of view. But then - so is getting my workplace to pay me without me doing any work.But we're talking about examples where the pro is asking for favours in exchange for their time. I don't see why the only option to take here is to refuse, if you really think the time spent the pro is worth a bit of errand duty why not do it? I didn't explicitly state it, but I think the fact that I corrected your understanding of the arrangement should make it clear I thought you weren't getting it.The coffee part isn't useful to you - that's useful to the pro.
It's the watching the pro part that's useful to you.And that's the bit I tried to get you concentrate on, since you seemed to be looking at only one part of the argument. That, essentially, you were not understanding the reason for bringing it up. The point is, that CS noted you had got his example wrong and he did so pretty early. He thought it was deliberate on your part, 'spin', rather than a misunderstanding. I still maintain it was a misunderstanding, but I can certainly understand his point of view on this one.He thought you were deliberately focusing on the wrong part of the example, the part that had nothing to do with photography, so as to attack a strawman essentially. That this was 'spin' on your behalf. And you don't get to blame him - you are both interpreting one another in the worst possible light and this is the inevitable result of this kind of interpretation.I have maintained that you've understood things wrongly, and I've been trying to realign the way you look at the example by focusing on the bit that is useful to the novice: the watching and asking questions and receiving advice part.If you agree that there is some value in spending time with a pro, you can perhaps begin to understand that some people think this value is worth going to the coffee shop a few times to acquire it.

What do you mean you "have no idea" why I'm asking? Like I said, I'm at a loss, here. The context seems pretty obvious: So, I don't understand "why do you ask." You used the word "professional", and I asked you what the word "professional" means. Can you explain why you asked "why do you ask"? Did you forget your own posts and the context of the discussion we were having? No, it was framed as a rhetorical question, which is why your response completely floored me. Why would you ask "why do you ask" when I hadn't actually asked you anything? You're aware that a question can be a statement, right? In English? Then I apologize for causing the misunderstanding on your part that you aren't willing to openly admit to. For your own edification, however, I suggest you read up on the concept of the "rhetorical question." But a rout did take place, so your examples aren't applicable. We're not talking about "hanging out with a pro photographer." We're talking about doing unpaid work for a pro photographer, work that has nothing to do with photography, and you've repeatedly and dishonestly tried to equivocate those two very different things. I have no objection to hanging out with pro photographers. My point, which I have been very clear about so there can be no misunderstanding here, is that doing unpaid grunt work for photographers is not a way to get experience as a photographer, and it is therefore not a counterexample to my position that people who want experience doing a certain kind of work should just do the work, not do another kind of work for someone else for free.Fetching coffee and carrying things for photographers is neither a prerequisite for getting tips from photographers nor experience in photography, so someone who wants to become a pro photographer shouldn't waste his or her time doing those things. They should work as a photographer. Getting coffee for a guy is time they could be spending taking pictures, and what is going to be better experience in photography of those two activities? I don't see anything after the assertions on that topic, that's why I said there was nothing to respond to. It's just a string of assertions:

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That doesn't make any sense I'm afraid.

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This is just an assertion.

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You might think that CS's statement was made because he couldn't rebut you, but that's not relevant in interpreting what CS's comments were referring to.

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This is also just an assertion.

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It was readily apparent to most participants in this thread that CS was not referring to the experience of getting coffee improving your photography skills.

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This is also just an assertion. Yes, I know that he was. But he didn't say that I'd misunderstood it, he complained that I didn't take it at face value:

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Now, you could try to use my example to falsify your own position, that is, is there any way that you could imagine my example as a way of working for free and getting experience (watching how a photographer sets up shots would be good xp for a newb). If you can, then your position is wrong. Or the other way, the way you actually do it, is to try to think of any way in which my example does not falsify your position (you cannot get photography xp while your busy getting coffee).

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There's nothing in here about any "misunderstanding". This is CS simply complaining that when he presents a counterexample, I defend my argument by showing how his counterexample is invalid. If I say that there has never been a female President of the United States, and you say "what about Abraham Lincoln", I get to defend my position by pointing out that, in fact, Abraham Lincoln was not a woman. I'm not under any obligation to just accept that mistaken example as "something that challenges my position," because it didn't. But again, you're focused on the wrong part of the example - you're focused on this idea that getting coffee and carrying things is a necessary prerequisite to hanging out with photographers, but it isn't. Why do you insist that it is? I bet you've hung out with photographers before without carrying their bags of gear; I bet you even got tips for nothing more than the asking.What I'm saying is, get the tips - then spend the time you would have spent making coffee runs taking pictures, instead. I don't see why that's so unreasonable, and none of you have responded in any way except to attack me personally and obsess about this coffee thing. That's like saying you need to "balance" shit with Shinola. Since fetching coffee and carrying gear doesn't teach you anything at all about photography why bother doing any of it? If you want tips, get tips. If you want to be a photographer spend your time taking pictures. Your own source said as much. So why do you insist on presenting advice only as something that can be given in exchange for work? All I'm saying is, it's not. You can get all the tips you want without carrying a single camera bag, and you shouldn't - unless it's your own.Do you see what I'm saying? Or, even better, don't do any of that "in exchange." Get shown the ropes. Don't carry their fucking bags or get coffee or whatever. Instead, spend that time taking pictures.I don't see what's so hard to understand about that. I mean, you just agreed that you don't have to carry bags or fetch coffee to get shown the ropes, so why bother to do those things? But I did get it. I just thought you were wrong. I still do. You're wrong about fetching coffee and you're wrong that I misunderstood your argument. I understood it. I just wasn't convinced by it. So watch the pro. If the pro wants coffee, let him get his own fucking coffee. Your time is better spent, that's all I'm saying. But he didn't "note" that. He complained that I didn't fall down in the face of his counterexample and admit defeat. He didn't say that I had it "wrong" or that I had misunderstood, which is how I know that I didn't misunderstand it. Of course it's deliberate. What else would it be? That's my whole point, Mod, how do you not get this? Fetching coffee has nothing to do with photography! It's not "spin" to point that out, it's a completely reasonable riposte to a counterexample against my position. If I say that there has never been a female President of the United States, and you say "what about Abraham Lincoln", I get to defend my position by pointing out that, in fact, Abraham Lincoln was not a woman. You would say "you're focused on the wrong part of the example, whether Abraham Lincoln had a vagina is irrelevant to whether he was President of the United States", but that's a spurious defense of the counterexample.

I'm going to address that quotation in reverse if I may. First off, I do agree with you that it does make a lot more sense to do the kind of work you want to be hired to do. The experience you earn will be more relevant, and you will clearly be improving your CV even more. I do agree with you on that one Crashfrog.Where I depart from you somewhat is in relation to your first sentence in that quotation - ie "the choice is between carrying water for a photographer and working as a photographer." In practice, the choice is very rarely that lucky. If I were a keen amateur photographer as a young man (a few more years ago than I'm comfortable with now), and wanted to break into professional photography, then if a photographer's assistant was the only work experience available, I would gladly take it, because I believe that I would be right in thinking that it would be of some value to me. Not as much value as work experience as a photographer, but even so, of some value.In fact, I would go further than that, as mentioned in my previous posts. If (in my current capacity as a reasonably senior chap in an office) I received a CV from someone who had worked (unpaid or otherwise, but unpaid in the context of the current discussion) as a photographer's assistant, I would still count that to their credit. I would still add that to their score.It would be wonderful, of course, if everyone who is unemployed could in an ideal world be (a) paired up with proper paid employment; or (b) (if that is not currently available) paired up with unpaid work which would give them relevant experience to a vocation which they want to pursue. However, I believe that that is an idealised aspiration. In an imperfect world, I am of the view that even making less relevant, unpaid work experience available to unemployed people is of some value to those people.The debate lies in the compulsion to do that unpaid work experience, and the safeguards which would be needed to protect against unscrupulous employers. In theory, yes, but in practical terms, it won't often work out that way, I don't think. If I receive CVs from two people, one of whom has been working off their own bat to submit articles to publications, and the other of whom has been working as an assistant to a features writer (or even to a freelance journalist), then chances are, I'm afraid, that I'm going to favour the assistant. That decision will be influenced by whether the independent worker has had any articles published, of course, but on an otherwise level playing field, the experience of working in a collegiate environment; of possibly making connections that might be useful to me; of operating in a hierarchical structure; and (probably most importantly to me) of being demonstrably willing to turn up 9.00 till 5.00 to an office; is going to sway me more.I know that this might be arbitrary - I know that it can seriously disadvantage a talented and independent minded person - but faced with 500 CVs for a single position, I'm going to go about this in a sensible way for me, and that will mean making assumptions such as this. It's the way life is.I'm not defending it - it's probably wrong on a number of levels. And if that's what you're saying Crashfrog, then I agree with you - it is definitely imperfect.However, in my view, in sheer practical terms, taking some form of unpaid work experience will, on average, count in a person's favour, when looking for a job, even if that experience is of limited relevance to the position applied for. My company brings in summer interns every year. We don't need them - the work they do is not valuable to us - but we bring them in regardless. We do it largely to entice them to apply for us for qualified jobs, in a competitive market.However (and here's the rub), that free work experience is valuable to them. Even if we don't employ them, another employer will look favourably upon their experience. (I know that this is true, because I have looked favourably upon that experience myself as a potential employer of someone who did not work for me as a summer intern, but who did work for someone else as a summer intern). So that experience itself is valuable to them (in job seeking), but is not valuable to the company.Now, this doesn't entirely address the point in your quotation, I agree. If the company won't pay for this work to be done, should it be seen as relevant work ?My answer is that it will be seen more positively than negatively by a potential employer. As I mentioned above, it shows a willingness and ability to work co-operatively in a collegiate environment, and at its most basic, shows a willingness to turn up to a place of work every day, 9.00 till 5.00.Maybe these things shouldn't count - but faced with 500 CVs for a single position, I'm afraid they do.

Why would it be the "only work experience available"? That's my point, I guess - you can always work for yourself. Remember we're not talking about getting paid in either case, so it's not a matter of money. It seems to me that carrying gear for Ansel Adams is never the only experience available - you can always carry gear for yourself, and the upshot there is, you get to actually take pictures with it and work as a photographer. Photographers get hired on the strength of their portfolios, not on the strength of their CV. I mean, obviously. All a good resume can prove is that you know how to write a resume. Right, and the evidence that I've presented shows that, in aggregate, they'd be better off if they didn't intern for your company (or any other that doesn't pay them.) Students who spent their summers doing unpaid internships had lower starting salaries than students who did no internships at all.It's not valuable experience in job seeking. Statistically, it's just not. For exactly the reason I described - experience doing something that isn't valuable is valueless. I'm aware that popular opinion on the value of unpaid internships holds the exact opposite, but popular opinion is objectively wrong on the subject. An unpaid internship is little more than a lucky rabbit's foot. It shows a willingness to be taken advantage of and work for free. No surprise that an employer would be looking for it! Regardless, it's not in the interest of a job seeker to be seen as someone who gives away their product for free. Your company wouldn't do that, would it?

I'm not here to teach you rudimentary English and I suspect you know and I'm beginning to suspect you are being deliberately awkward.To answer the question: To 'have no idea' is a hyperbolic idiom, a colloquial metaphor if you will. It means I do not know why you bothered to raise the question. I don't know where you were going with it, what motivation you had for asking, what rhetorical purpose is being served etc. And I think I answered that question. Will you now reveal what you are going to do with that? Why did you ask? Is it relevant to anything?To repeat the answer: Professional means approximately that you do the vocation to earn your primary income. You see that part where I ask "Why do you ask?"?, that's me identifying that I'm not understanding where you are going and asking you for clarification. It is an implicit acceptance that I don't understand your point fully. So no, I'm afraid your characterisation of me as being unwilling to admit to not understanding you fully is pure bollocks with rubies on top. Of course, your only evidence that a rout took place is your assertion that my examples aren't applicable.Again, you said that the evidence can ONLY mean one thing. A single example where the evidence has a different conclusion proves you wrong. Deal with that.Here is the extract of your claim again:

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...the way that we know it's a dodge is that it only happens after a rout

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But it doesn't ONLY happen after a rout. It can happen in other cases too. Clearly this is difficult for you. What we're actually talking about is doing work in exchange for something you value. In this case it is in simple terms, 'hanging out with a pro photographer'. And we both agree with that, but that's not the reason proposed to do unpaid grunt work for a photographer. It is however, an example of someone doing work for something other than money. In this case: the learning experience of seeing a pro at work. With supporting quotes. Which you keep ignoring for some reason. It can be so exhausting arguing with you crash. This line of argument came up because you explicitly said the opposite of this: If you now agree that is what he was referring to, let's revisit what was originally being argued about. He told you just a few posts later when you directly challenged him to. You said:

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I don't really want to derail this thread into a discussion about the unpleasantness of your responses.

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You spun my photographer assistant analogy six ways from sideways. You completely twisted the example away from its point towards supporting your own position.

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That's in reference to you focusing on the unpaid work aspect (ie getting coffee) rather than the valuable experience you can get between coffee runs. I wouldn't dream of saying it was pre-requisite. Well I think I can absurdum up your argument structure. It goes like this:p1 x is not a prerequisite to becoming paid to do y.
p2 you want to get paid to do y
c: You should not 'waste time' on xp1 Getting a degree from the California Institute of Technology is not a prerequisite to becoming a paid physicist .
p2 you want to get paid as a physicist.
c: You should not 'waste time' on getting a degree from the California Institute of Technology.p1 Becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs is not a prerequisite to becoming a paid Prime Minister .
p2 you want to get paid as a Prime Minister
c: You should not 'waste time' on becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs.I think the flaw should be obvious by now. Just because something is not a pre-requisite it does not mean it is a waste of time. Studying physics at California Institute of Technology is useful but not necessary.I mean, one could become a paid physicist by simply solving problems and creating theories and performing experiments and other such things. And in order to be a paid physicist I'd suppose it would be necessary to do those things.Watch my ninja skills as I apply this to our current example:It is not necessary to follow a photographer around for a day. But it may be useful. That utility has some value. To some people, they think it is worth walking to a coffee shop and back a few times to get that value. They could decide not to, maybe they contact many photographers until they find one that will both agree to let someone pester them for a day and will expect no favours in return. And good luck to them. But some people prefer a few coffee runs, to extended cold calling strangers trying to persuade them to give you something for free.They could decide also, to self-teach themselves the trade.It is as I said earlier:

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'...working as a photographer' which would be a valuable, mandatory even, experience

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It's not unreasonable. If you can get 7 hours of discussion, tips, watching setups, and all that jazz without having to get any drinks that's great. You can spend 1 hour taking your own pictures.Or you can spend 7 hours of useful time in exchange for 1 hour of time for someone else's use. I don't see why that's so unreasonable.As for obsession, I thought it was a trifling point: doing something for something is a traditional exchange between humans and other animals. Do you want to drop the topic?And I'm sure you are more than aware that I have avoided personal attacks. In normal society what we do is exchange things of value with one another. The photographer has something of value: a day out with them sharing advice and watching setups etc. However, it costs them something to give that value to you: you may be competition for them in the future, they have to explain what they're doing all day rather than just getting on with it which takes effort and presumably distracts them from doing their work at optimum efficiency, they may miss a killer shot because of your presence.By your own argument, the photographer should not take on this extra work without some form of exchange. They ask for value for value. The photographer might think 'I hate having to pack up my stuff and lug it to the coffee shop If someone were to do that for me, that would be valuable'. Seeing an opportunity to exchange mutual value with each other an agreement is soon made. It isn't, and I haven't. I've just put forward the notion that it can be, and it isn't some travesty of reason. If you can find a photographer who would be willing to do this for free, and I suspect there are many generous-minded photographers in the world, then great - good for you.But since this topic isn't really about 'not working for free', I'm kind of focusing on the times when the photographer rationally requests something of value in exchange. I trust it is clear, that it is not hard to understand. If you can get something for nothing, then you should (within certain moral limits of course).But a mutual exchange of value is not unreasonable either.If you value your time at $20/hour, and you expect to spend an hour on coffee runs then the only question is: How much is it worth to me to spend 7 hours with a pro photographer in preparation for getting into the business? If you think it's worth more than $20 to get a 7 hour useful experience, then its not unreasonable to take the deal. Some people pay much more for just a few hours of entertainment, after all and that is unlikely to advance their careers.I don't see what's hard to understand about that. Very good, in that case I guess I can only judge your arguments as piss poor. CF: "There has never been a female President."
CS: "Vigds Finnbogadttir was President of Iceland".
CF: Vigds Finnbogadttir was not a President.
CS: Actually she was, of Iceland.
CF: That's not what you said, you claimed she was President of the United States, as I was thinking when I said 'President' as I had been using it previously.
CS: Yeah, I was quite clear from the outset the kind of President I was referring to. Of Iceland.
CF: You're lying because I proved you wrong that Vigds Finnbogadttir was President of the United States.What CF should have done from the outset is say:CF: "There has never been a female President."
CS: "Vigds Finnbogadttir was President of Iceland".
CF: I'm sorry, I don't know if you're trying to be funny, but I was talking about the President of the United States.(CF and CS are hypothetical debaters only, and are not meant to completely represent their initialised nicknamesakes, nor is their argument.)Do you agree, that it can be perfectly reasonable to do work in exchange for something other than money. Whether it be work experience, or the experience of seeing someone working, or training, or whatever?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Frustrating, isn't he? I can't tell if he's stupid or lying. Today, I'm leaning towards lying. But its just the way he argues; Jon was spot on in his description in Message 94:

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You're simply sidetracking and avoiding the actual issues raised against your position.

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And that's exactly what he did to my assitant analogy. Rather than address the issue (that you can learn a lot from following a photographer around for free) against his position (that you can't get experience without getting paid), instead he focuses on making my analogy as stupid as he can imagine: "you can't get xp while you're at Starbucks".I call that spin, but maybe there's a better word. He's certainly building Strawmen.The reason I totally ignored that part of his message was because I've already seen where people try to explain stuff like this to him and he just won't have any of it, and also because I figured it would only lead the discussion off topic. My reply to him in Message 79 was an attempt to avoid this whole discussion about who said what and steer it back to the topic. He didn't reply. My next message was in the same vain and he didn't reply.It was only when he replied to my reply to Jon in Message 95 (where I supplied a snide off topic remark) that I reluctantly enter this discussion about what I was saying: Message 102He seems to think that spinning analogies into strawmen is some kind of legitimate debating tactic so I'm just gonna go back to the avoid and ignore strategy I was previously employing. Even though everyone but him can see it, he's not going to admit he did anything wrong here so its not even worth wasting our time on.

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ABE:From your last message: What's kinda funny to me is that I added the coffee bit during the preview! I was just gonna say that you could get some good xp by following a phographer around, and then during reveiw I thought; He's just gonna say: "well, you're not working for them, are you?" So then I added the bit about fetching coffee so that you'd actually be doing some work for them... Whoops!Edited by Catholic Scientist, : see ABE

Very true. But I think the smarter choice is to work unpaid for the photographer (if that's all that's available from the photographer) AND take photos yourself as well. Even if you are doing menial tasks, you are also observing, picking up techniques, asking questions, seeing some of the tricks of the trade in practice. I've watched wedding photographers at work, and picked up one or two tips on composition and lighting just from observing them. I will always take paid employment, if it's available of course - but in the absence of paid employment, I would be able to supplement my skillset by being able to observe and question an expert. And take photos myself too, when I'm not doing that. The experience with the photographer is something I would leverage. Alternatively, we have the following data from the Department for Work and Pensions in the UK:"Young people taking part in a Government-backed work experience placement are more likely to get off benefits and into work, according to research published today.The first 3,490 young people who took part in the Government placements were 16% more likely to be off benefits 21 weeks after starting than those in a similar group who did not take part."(I'll give the link if someone can tell me how to do a hyper-link on here please ?) I have been in several meetings discussing applicants' CVs. Very many included unpaid internships. I can guarantee to you that in no case did we look negatively at that experience, and assume that it meant the applicants were gullible and willing to be taken advantage of. It has always been seen as a sign of enthusiasm and desire for the role. And it sounds like this will surprise you, but as an employer, I am not looking for people who are willing to be taken advantage of - my business will be stronger and more profitable with enthusiastic, motivated workers who want to work.Edited by vimesey, : typo

double postEdited by Modulous, : No reason given.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I let it slip a long time ago, in Message 11 (Feb 2008), it's just that nobody noticed Thanks though! As you might be able to tell from what I said, unlike in 2008 we have plans, arrangements and all that stuff. And thanks to the others who commented, and all those that thought it but didn't want to make an off topic post - as an Administrator I salute you (and scold myself!

I'm sorry Mod but this is simply a ridiculous post. You can't expect me to respond to all of that and argue with the other participants in the thread, can you?Could you please try to re-write it and focus more narrowly on the issue we're discussing? Thanks. If nothing else I think that will give you less opportunity to misrepresent the context of the discussion up to this point.

A contingency plan can be in place in the event that efforts to eliminate unemployment fail. Not a Plan-B in the sense of 'an alternative way to achieve our goals', but instead 'How will we manage the consequences of failure?' I'm wondering what kind of 'busywork' you are thinking of?As far as I am aware, it's real work like the kind you can get paid for. Stacking shelves, operating a till, cleaning up or whatever. If you are trying to get a job stacking shelves, operating a till, cleaning up or whatever how is the problem of not having experience in stacking shelves, operating a till, cleaning up or whatever not solved by stacking shelves, operating a till, cleaning up or whatever? They are getting them a job, they're just not getting paid a wage for it. Instead they are being paid welfare benefits. And workfare affords people the opportunity to hold a job for six months. An opportunity they were not being able find elsewhere having been earnestly looking for several years.I agree - the best thing to do would be to give paying jobs to the unemployed. But if nobody will pay them to do the work then some of the choices might be:1. Wait until the job market changes so that there are more jobs than candidates.
2. Get them a job and pay them in benefits from the government.Number 1 results in a problem of long term unemployed if you happen to be unable to solve unemployment.
Number 2 is designed to avoid the problems of having long term unemployed if you happen to be unable to solve unemployment. Yeah now, finally I'm getting. If I only I had mentioned it in my first post, Message 67

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Starting a new career track can be difficult if you are competing with people with even as little as 6 months experience.

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One possible escape from this dilemma is to take on a sort of voluntary role to gain the experience so that you can compete with others for future employment because now you can justify the wage.

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if you are competing against people that

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Or my second message, Message 74:

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Of course I could have stuck to your principle and try to compete against those that didn't, but that might mean spending longer on the lower rungs on lower pay.

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Unless you can't have the experience because nobody will hire you without that experience (eg., if you are competing for the position with people with experience).

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Or my third message, Message 87:

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if you find yourself constantly competing for such a role with people with experience actually doing the work - you're going to struggle

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But yeah, now I get it. I had previously been completely unaware of the competitive nature of job applications. I'm beginning to get bored of repeating myself over and again.This is not a proposed solution to unemployment. It's a proposal to help the long term unemployed compete with those that are short term unemployed for the same jobs. The result of this meant to be, not a reduction of unemployment, but a reduction in the average time spent in long term unemployment.If you get someone who has been unemployed for five years and you teach them skills, and get them working behind a till for six months in exchange for more benefits, then they might be in for a chance at getting paid to work on a till. If we can get them employed again, the next time they become unemployed they won't have to face the mountain of 'no recent experience' and so will likely join the shorter than long term unemployed. The more people we can get into the shorter than long term unemployed the better.You want to get into the cycle of unemployed/employed as quickly as possible spending as little in the former and much in the latter as you can. As I said before, if you fall out of it, it's difficult to get back on it because nobody wants to risk paying you to do something when they don't have any recent evidence of good work ethics or skills or what have you. If only I had said almost exactly this earlier, perhaps we could have agreed sooner.

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Let's say there are 100 jobs. And 110 unemployed who want to work. Sometimes jobs disappear sometimes they are created. In this economy, for simplicity, we'll say it maintains on average, 100 jobs.

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One way to structure things would be to employ 100 people permanently as possible. That is when their job is lost, they pick up the next one that is created. And we let 10 people become permanently unemployed - until we solve unemployment.

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Or

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We can try and structure things so that all 110 people get their fair share of the work that's available. Everybody takes their turn in the unemployment queue, but hopefully never so long that they basically end up unable to get employment ever again despite the new job opportunities that open up.

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100 jobs, 10 long term unemployed.
Then suddenly, one business shrinks its workforce
99 jobs, 10 long term unemployed and 1 short term unemployed.
Another business fills the gap left by the shrinking company and opens a new job position. All things being equal (which they are) the short term unemployed gets the job as they have recent work experience in their belt.
100 jobs, 10 long term unemployed.

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Wouldn't it be more ideal to have 100 jobs, 10 short to medium term unemployed?

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Now I'm not saying we should start mandating that a company must employ someone whose been out of work for a long time, but if you can find work arounds to the problem: such as getting the long term unemployed some relevant and recent work experience, you might be able to influence the distributions.

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No, they're about minimizing the amount of time people spend in long term unemployment.To modify your analogy: it's like saying 'Women and children first!' rather than letting the disadvantaged suffer as a result of things that may well be out of their control (in the analogy it might be strength in the debate at hand it's lack of recent work experience.)Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I did this earlier, I provided my position in two paragraphs because I anticipated you might say something like that. Here it is again:

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There are reasons other than money that might motivate a person to do work. One reason you might work with no pay, is because you want, for whatever reason, the experience of so doing. This might be like in the photographer example where you can get direct tips from the photographer and feedback of your own shots etc. Or you might do it to gain relevant work experience to give you better chances of finding paid employment in that sector.
The workfare scheme attempts to circumvent the problems the long term unemployed face by getting them some relevant and recent work experience to help them compete against those who also have said recent experience. It doesn't work all that well, for various reasons, but variations with added investments have worked quite well.

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You can just address that if you'd rather not deal with the meta-debate. That said, we're more or less discussing the workfare side in a separate sub-thread so really just the first part is of relevance to this particular sub-thread.

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To summarize the salient points I raised:1. You were asking me a question about what it means to be a professional and I answered and asked you why you asked. Yeah this isn't salient, but I'm itching to know the answer.2. In normal society what we do is exchange things of value with one another. The photographer has something of value: a day out with them sharing advice and watching setups etc. However, it costs them something to give that value to you: you may be competition for them in the future, they have to explain what they're doing all day rather than just getting on with it which takes effort and presumably distracts them from doing their work at optimum efficiency, they may miss a killer shot because of your presence.By your own argument, the photographer should not take on this extra work without some form of exchange. They ask for value for value. The photographer might think 'I hate having to pack up my stuff and lug it to the coffee shop If someone were to do that for me, that would be valuable'. Seeing an opportunity to exchange mutual value with each other an agreement is soon made.3. If you value your time at $20/hour, and you expect to spend an hour on coffee runs then the only question is: How much is it worth to me to spend 7 hours with a pro photographer in preparation for getting into the business? If you think it's worth more than $20 to get a 7 hour useful experience, then its not unreasonable to take the deal. Some people pay much more for just a few hours of entertainment, after all and that is unlikely to advance their careers.

Only one of us is lying, here, and it's you: But it's not your position that you can "learn a lot from following a photographer around for free." Or, maybe it is now but that's not the position you originally took:

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You could follow around a photographer and get them coffee n'stuff without getting paid but get the invaluable experience of watching how they do their job and better your own performance so that you can end up getting paid to do it.

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You didn't say "for free", you specified that it was for labor. An exchange of work for the opportunity to watch the pro work. Except that the exchange isn't worth it, as I keep telling you. Look, obviously if you're in the shop fetching coffee, you're not following the guy around. And you still don't understand my response to this - if you want tips from a pro photographer get tips from him, don't do his laundry or suck his dick or whatever. Don't work for free. Any time you spend fetching the coffee is time you're neither getting tips from a photographer nor working on your own photography, so why do it?I don't understand why you're having such a problem with that, or why you think it's "spin" to point out that all the time you're at the coffee house getting coffee or "stuff" is time you're not, actually, having any experience that will make you a better photographer. So why fucking do it?And, look, I didn't "make" your example into anything. You're the one who brought coffee into it. I didn't change your example in any way. The problem you have with how I treat your example is with your example, how you formed it poorly, not with how I'm not convinced that it's a devastating rebuttal of my position. There's nothing to reply to. Here's your message 79 in its entirety:

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These programs are for people who are becomming so skill-less as to be unemployable.

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Just a bare assertion. What "programs"? How do they help anybody become less "skill-less"? Where is the part where CS defends his position that the root cause of elevated unemployment is "skill-less, unemployable" workers and not a shortfall in aggregate demand, as is the position of nearly every economist? Why, it's not there.There's just nothing here to reply to, so I didn't reply. Aren't you making my case, here? If you can just follow a photographer around without working for them, why shouldn't you? How is this not making any sense to you guys?If you knew you could get something for one price, would you pay double that price for no reason? Do you understand how stupid your example is, yet?Don't work for free. You don't ever have to. You just admitted that you don't have to - that you can get everything you think you'll get working for free, without working for free. So why the fuck would you do it?

I already told you the answer. Remember? I showed you the context of the discussion?What about the exchange still puzzles you? Well, wait, that's not my argument. Remember? You already agreed with me that you can follow around a photographer for free, without fetching coffee or hauling gear. You've already conceded to my point that carrying the stuff and fetching the coffee isn't a necessary condition. That was your Message 196 where you conceded that.Now you're misrepresenting my argument and ignoring the fact that you've already conceded this point. Do you see, now, why I have no choice but to accuse you of dishonesty? And a milkman would certainly find it more valuable to be paid $100 for a carton of milk than $3. That doesn't mean I should give him $100 for milk when I can pay $3. Nobody has to look after the milkman's interests but himself. If I can get something of value for one price, it's inherently unreasonable to pay a higher price for the exact same thing. Look, I've dealt with this already, in posts to you and to vimesey. Obviously there are people who consider these unreasonable trades a "good value." The question is whether they're reasonable to do so, and the answer, as I've shown, is "no." Whatever benefit there is to be had in exchanging grunt work for photography tips can be had without exchanging grunt work for it, and the time you spend doing the grunt work is therefore better spent working for yourself.Don't work for others for free. There's no benefit to it that you can't get working for yourself. That's my point.

Hi Modulous. Is this a serious statement or are you just trying to be funny? I've seen some mechanics work on vehicles before. You think this is going to help me in any way whatsoever when trying to get hired by a garage?Me: Hi. I'm here to apply for the mechanics position.Garage: Great. Do you have any experience?Me: Yes. I seen mechanics work on vehicles before.Garage: Great, but do you have any experience?Me: Oh, you mean real experience? No, I don't.Garage: Ok. Have a good day.Modulous, you can't be serious about watching pros do their work and then expect that that will somehow benefit you in the slightest way in the real world when trying to get hired for a particular position. Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.