Summations Only

Modulous brings up a lingering issue I have been holding in the back of my mind when he states: But what if you are NOT? What if you are AVERAGE? Why can't people who are willing to work, but have no exceptional talent - why should they ALL be swept aside for the Dollar/Pound/Euro/Yen/etc. capitalistic crucible of extracting to most efficient business result? Civilized people should be BETTER than that.I go to the grocery store and there is a stand of old bread and other stuff - it says "Not the best, but still good." I get some of it, sometimes. It's cheap, but it's still good food.There are some 7 billion people on this rock and, say, only some 1000 of them are Top Notch. Clearly we need to change the perception that only the best is good enough. To recant a recent meme in the current news, we're not special."Mediocre" means the "Middle". We can get by with the Mediocre! We need to welcome in the Mediocre. If we don't, civilization will never be close to functional. Even mediocre people are great compared to your tripanosome. But even more, "substandard" can be okay to hire. If you are LESS than AVERAGE, but still willing to work - hey, you should still be able to get work. Even Arlo Guthrie's Last Guy * has a right to live out a decent life with a decent fitting job, if he should want that. And if the private sector can't do it, then that's where the government should step in and do it - there's lots of infrastructure jobs the government needs to get done every year - they are never done painting a bridge, for example. Is this better than welfare, no?Most of the chronically Unemployed are victims of a mindset in management that they can only win the capitalist game if they hold out for the best young exuberant bucks they can get. In fact there have been internal memos exposed that specifically direct the HR department of the company to not hire any unemployed people, only hire people jumping from another company. This is BASSACKWARDS!!! Traitors shouldn't be rewarded. Clearly the business schools, led most nefariously by the Harvard Business School, are much at fault here and should be destroyed and a completely different course of education replace them all. The mindset they have been teaching to the world's young men & women is morally bankrupt rubbish at best.Modulous nails it on the head when he says: I am currently deep in the throes of my lifetime's 3rd "chronically unemployed state" (greater than 4 years between jobs), but I still have much to give to the workforce. I would happily take a mediocre job. But now I am too old and my resume (CV) is too shot full of holes.It would be nice to think that the USA or the UK or any reasonably advanced industrialized country could provide decent liveable work for anybody who needs it. But I guess the profiteers won't see it that way - they only see it as (somehow) less profit for them, less personal prestige points pocketed that would lead to their own career advancement.Shouldn't anybody have a right to work and get a liveable wage, regardless of how mediocre they are? No matter how many holes their resume has? Maybe I'd be better off committing a felony, serving time and getting out into a fast-track work program from a half-way house. Or emigrate to Mexico, change citizenship and sneak back in undocumented. Or run for congress.I guess I'll never be in any company's HR Department because I would screen the qualified resumes based on who needs the job the most. Similarly I could never be a Manager, because I could never have the guts to fire anybody.* from the rap before The Pause Of Mr. Clause, on the 2nd album

Crashfrog asks: I'll answer that.Since I've been involuntarily retired from the software engineering business, I've continued to hone my 52-year on-and-off career as a singer/songwriter - appearing in hundreds of coffeehouses & open mike nights, occasionally getting a Feature and proving that you can make tens of dollars to offset the hundreds of dollars you have to spend to show up at all these places.I also continue to work on designing abstract games, such as the one shown in my avatar, where you might make a penny or 2 back for each hundred dollars spent some day if you are luckier than I have been so far.Lately I've been getting some hands-on experience in Estate Settlement that cannot be used as experience on my resume, since I am doing it on my own.I could be collecting social security, but decided to wait 1 more year when the amount will be close enough to live with. But, with my luck, the Republicans & Romney may have destroyed it by then.

Crashfrog tries desperately to quote CS: But CS's first post on this, in Message 68, states: I'd like to know, Crash, how is it that YOU and only YOU seem to be unable see anything in CS's statement beyond the words "coffee n'stuff without getting paid"?? Maybe a truck ran over your eyes right there? Did you miss the part that goes "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"?Or is it that this is only more stupid semantics and your narrower understanding of the word "experience" precludes any sort of in-the-field education or on-the-job training? Help us out.When everybody else thinks you are wrong here, you might just want to consider the possibility that you are wrong here. A tip with no experience meant.

Modulous lets a small modest shoe drop with this quote: Congratulations, my man!- nate

Perhaps this whole argument has been over semantics.Following a photographer around and getting valuable tips, taking notes, learning the ropes in exchange for doing mundane non-photographer errands is more like a paying a small adult education fee at your community college in order to get valuable knowledge in the course you are taking - which could involve taking you out into the field where you even learn what kind of shoes are best to wear.It can be construed correctly as education, not experience.Note that Onifre has stated that no one successful in film making has not done a stint of unpaid work. Note that most of the examples cited here are in the arts. I can also think of the medical profession, where literally you are STILL IN SCHOOL when you do your unpaid internship in order to get your sheepskin.So, on your resume (CV for you UK folk) where would you list "Learned directly from Ansel Adams in person on how to set the black & white exposures." In the Experience section or in the Education section?