#white collar work

[silvermoon424]

how would you recommend moving from retail to white collar work? I hate working retail and wanna move to an office job but it's hard

It's tough because a lot of companies no longer have entry-level roles being advertised as such (most "entry-level" roles are actually junior or even senior-level roles being paid entry-level wages). This has been a problem brewing in the professional world for years now, because not wanting to train new talent on how to work your field has already led to labor shortages as more and more people are retiring/transitioning to different fields.

HOWEVER, all is not lost and there are still routes to white collar work available for people. I work in accounting and I got my start when I was working as a receptionist for a small company. They wanted me to have stuff to do between calls so they started training me on how to do accounting stuff. I was then able to leverage my accounting experience to get an actual billing job at a different company.

From what I understand, having receptionists be trained in other areas of work is a very common practice because it allows the company to pay receptionist-level (ie, low) wages to someone who's doing higher-level work. It sucks that you have to put up with being exploited for a while, but getting a job as a receptionist and then transitioning into a different role (either at the same company or a different one) is one of the best paths to breaking into white collar work.

Temp agencies and recruiters are also great for helping you get your foot in the door at places that wouldn't have looked at you otherwise. A LOT of companies outsource their hiring to temp agencies and recruiters and if they like you they can hype you up. That's actually how I got my current job.

Something to also be aware of is that a lot of jobs offered by recruiters are contract work, meaning that the position is temporary and you don't get benefits like healthcare or PTO. A lot of contract positions are contract-to-hire, meaning that you can get hired full-time if you do a good enough job, but you can't bank on getting hired in a timely manner or at all (my partner didn't get hired at their job they kick ass at until two fucking years had passed).

However, in my experience most contract-to-hire jobs will make up their minds about you within a few months. As someone trying to break into office work, you unfortunately may need to take contract roles until you build up enough experience to have a more impressive resume.

I also can't emphasize enough how much of a leg up you have against other people if you're even remotely tech savvy (namely with PCs and Microsoft Office) and have good communication/writing skills. The bar is in hell even in white collar spaces so if you can write professional emails and are generally pleasant your coworkers and managers will think highly of you, lol.

[cjbolan]

HOT TAKE: Blue collar work is a luxury for the physically healthy.

[thoughtportal]

The metaverse is a cubicle

Office Space by way of The Matrix.

a lot of the commentary on VR assumes that consumer demand is what matters for adoption because it’s a consumer technology. In this view, VR is the new VCR; the tipping point is reached when you’ve persuaded enough people to go walk into Target to buy a headset.

But if the metaverse is the new cubicle, then consumer demand isn’t what will make it mainstream. Rather, you have to look at how the technology interacts with, and is shaped by, the relations of production in particular industries and workplaces—which is to say, the practices, habits, desires, fears, interests, and anxieties that mediate the relationship between the people who do the work and the people who oversee the work and own the product. If you do, I think the path to the mainstreaming of the metaverse becomes clearer.

[cosmologicalhedgehogephemera]

The Dream Job That Wasn’t

A lighthouse keeper, a deep-ocean researcher, a park ranger, and a “Snoozetern” on the pitfalls of “doing what you love.”

From the article: “My dream did not materialize, but as I entered the workforce, my early sense of what a dream job actually was only deepened. I wanted to do something I cared about and have my life taken care of in the process, but I always had some understanding that even the most fulfilling, best-paid job in the world would also still be work After all, no one sees a horse pulling a cart and thinks that they aren’t laboring. Horses aren’t doing laps with fidgety nine-year-olds in their off-hours. No one says to a horse, “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.” “

[worklabournewsresearch]

A New Voice for Labour in a World of Precarious Work

“There’s no easy way to summarize what 26-year-old Joan Lillian Wilson does for a living, other than to say it involves a lot of slashes: graphic designer/photographer/activist. Part-time/contract/volunteer. No union/benefits/pension.”

“Sound familiar? Then you, too, might be a part of the city’s invisible workforce. It’s composed of independent contractors, part-time employees, self-employed entrepreneurs, and creative types — a hitherto disparate group that Toronto activists are now seeking to unite. “

“Organizer and communications consultant Stephanie Nakitsas, who is starting the Urban Workers Project with former NDP MP Andrew Cash, says”:

“There is a huge group of people who aren’t being spoken to right now. So we are hoping to be a place for those people who are kind of outside of the political system.”

“The project, which launches Tuesday, hopes to bring together and advocate for workers who, until now, had no obvious way to connect — a demographic that, for many years, fell outside the scope of traditional union structures and often has little protection under the law.”

“Cash, who fought for better legislation for interns and precarious workers during his time representing the riding of Toronto-Davenport, says”:

“We just in general need to start looking at public policy through the lens of precarious work — how do we build a new foundation that supports all workers.”

Urban Workers Project website

The Toronto Star, March 29, 2016: “A new voice for labour in a world of precarious work”

“A university degree is not a get-out-of-jail-free card from the perils of insecure employment. Precarious work, often associated with service-sector jobs, is spreading to jobs that were once considered realms of stable employment with benefits and pensions to boot.”

“Earlier this month, the Toronto union voted in favour of strike action, if necessary. The union is currently embroiled in contract negotiations with the library board, hoping to secure a wage increase and address this increasing precarity.”

CBC News, March 27, 2016: “Librarians fight rise of precarious work”

[hazelaar]

Bored as fuck at work. Entertaining myself by organizing supply cabinets and doodling Hobbit characters on sticky notes.