
Buying groceries for rich people, I realized upward mobility is largely a myth - drags
http://www.buzzfeed.com/nielaorr/two-college-degrees-later-i-was-still-picking-kale-for-rich
======
pjlegato
The headline ("Two College Degrees Later, I Was Still Picking Kale For Rich
People") is a statement of disappointed entitlement, of outrage over a belief
that some implicit social contract has not been fulfilled.

The reality is that just having "a degree" in a generic sense is no longer the
magical ticket to a middle class lifestyle that it was in 1960. It's become
too common and is no longer much of a differentiator in most job markets.

A related issue is that many, many people have degrees in non-marketable
subjects. Whatever one may think of the intrinsic value of studying history,
philosophy, English literature, anthropology, art history, etc. there simply
is not much demand in our society for specialists in these fields -- and so
you wind up picking kale for rich people, with a pile of student loan debt to
pay.

We utterly fail to communicate that fact to young students entering college.
We do the opposite: follow your dream, follow your passion for anthropology or
whatever and it will all somehow work out in the end. Turns out that's not
actually true. Telling students that it is true is what leads to indignation
and this sense of entitlement. Society just doesn't need more than a tiny
number of anthropologists. Whether one thinks that society _ought_ to need
more of them is irrelevant.

It's disingenous to keep encouraging kids to get degrees in non-marketable
subjects, to keep pretending that economic reality should not be a factor in
what you choose to study.

~~~
gearoidoc
I agree with you with one caveat: there really _was_ a social contract in
place that said something along the lines of "Finish third level and you'll
walk into a job thats better than flipping burgers".

That contract has been broken. I think it was stupid to begin with but it was
a message very clearly sent from generations, society, government that went
before. As you say, it still is.

So does the writer have reason to be aggrieved? I think so. However, at some
stage in an adults life they need to do some critical thinking and
independently decide whats the optimal way to climb the pay ladder (legally).

That critical thinking is something that is simply not taught in schools.
Perhaps its not teachable at all.

~~~
_rpd
> there really was a social contract in place that said something along the
> lines of "Finish third level and you'll walk into a job thats better than
> flipping burgers"

Was this ever true for a Masters in Creative Writing? My understanding is that
this class of degree has always been a social signal for "my family is so
wealthy, I will never need to work."

~~~
pjlegato
With the advent of government subsidized mass higher education in the US
starting in the 1960s, that changed. Many high school teachers and college
professors began heavily encouraging their idealistic, young, poor students to
"follow their passion" and study creative writing and other non-marketable
subjects.

This group feels that it is vulgar and crass to even mention money or
economics in the context of art or pure academics, much less integrate it into
your life's plans, thus setting almost all of their naive students up for
massive disappointment when they graduate with a huge pile of student loan
debt and no jobs available except picking kale for rich people for barely
above minimum wage.

~~~
gearoidoc
"This group feels that it is vulgar and crass to even mention money or
economics in the context of art or pure academics" \- I'm not sure where
you're gleaning that from - my point was there was/still is a social contract
in place that tells young people that graduating from a third level
institution will be a signifier of above average intelligence and/or work
ethic thus leading to at least better than working class job.

Perhaps you had the foresight (or your parents did) to see that such
qualifications would drastically decrease in social value. Others didn't. Then
again, maybe you just happen to work in tech and lack empathy for those who
didn't luck out in their chosen industry.

~~~
pjlegato
No, actually, I speak from painfully learned experience, as a former poor
student who is now the holder of a non-marketable university degree in history
and philosophy, and a pile of student loan debt.

But my personal experience is entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

Let's keep the personal stereotyping and passive-aggresive insults out of this
discussion.

------
mywittyname
After reading that article, I realize how much truth there is to the old adage
that, with a good article, you delete more than you save. This article feels
like an interesting and thought provoking topic, but if it's there, it's hard
to pinpoint while wading through the biography of half the author's family.

Twenty three paragraphs but no message.

~~~
skylan_q
_Twenty three paragraphs but no message._

The message is "tax the rich".

~~~
nostrademons
No, it's not. The message is "This is my experience."

I think much of the HN community is accustomed to a style of discourse that
deals in big ideas with immediate applications: "This is where tech is going."
"How I hacked the YC interview process and got in." "Here's what's wrong with
the Javascript dependency mess."

Much of the world doesn't think this way, though. For much of the world, their
goal is _to be heard_ , and to be understood, and to have their existence as
an individual human being validated. When articles speaking from this angle
come out, people react with "What's the point?" And the point is precisely
that people react with "What's the point?", and they shouldn't.

The author said as much in her last sentence: "It’s the work I want to own."
But there's no way to make that connection to readers who are accustomed to
thinking of the big picture without trivializing the little picture.

Related video clip: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM-
gZintWDc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM-gZintWDc)

~~~
NhanH
> When articles speaking from this angle come out, people react with "What's
> the point?" And the point is precisely that people react with "What's the
> point?", and they shouldn't.

Oliver Sacks's late writing is of the latter type you describe, and various
eulogies type of writing occasionally popped up on HN as well. So I don't
think it's just the _type_ of the writing that isn't well received here.

~~~
nostrademons
Some'll get it already. The HN community isn't one monolithic hivemind, it's a
bunch of people who each have their own perspectives. But I'm trying to
connect with the people who _don 't_, who still think in terms of the big
picture, and so my comment needs to be phrased in the same terms that it
complains about. It's _hard_ to make a perspective shift, because you are
trying to see things that, by definition, you did not see before.

I remember wrestling with this when a friend of mine posted her personal
experience, as a woman and as a psychologist and as someone who has been
discriminated against, a year or so ago, and she said "You're a hero for
making the effort. I mean that."

------
NhanH
The topic itself is worth discussing. However I'm not actually sure why this
specific article was the one being picked for a second chance.

It's one long life story (stories?), and there is nothing in it supporting
either the title or subtitle. Yes, her upbringing was bad, but I wanted to
know what happened personally to her after graduating that she's where she is
now. Or even better: what exactly could have helped her (by government or
society) getting to where she want to be in life? Those details are no where
to be found.

And I'd like to hear others' opinion on this, but I don't consider her writing
to be good. _Maybe_ if she want to be a writer, that has something to do with
it?

~~~
x3n0ph3n3
I'm also curious what 2 degrees she has that prevent her from getting a job in
her field.

~~~
home_boi
I did a quick "site:linkedin.com" google search.

Bachelors in English and Masters in writing from not the best colleges.

~~~
gearoidoc
"from not the best colleges"

You do realise that it's a considerable achievement for someone from a working
class background to go to third level at all, right?

------
maerF0x0
> I was nonetheless positioned only marginally better off than my grandparents

>listing the indignities she felt working these jobs with a laconic intensity
and steady determination: washing the house’s windows inside and out, cleaning
the mattresses and box springs, scrubbing the floors on her knees, a lunch of
a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk offered by a client that was quickly
rejected, getting paid $3 a day.

I'd argue that smartphone in hand, greater than minimum wage rate, flexible
work schedule and the option of going to post secondary education constitutes
more than a "marginal" improvement. This person is claiming that she's no
better off than 2 generations prior, and but in reality is using a peer
comparison to try and prove it. Short of absolute equality, someone has to be
behind someone else. Someone has to have "less". But if that relative "Less"
is consistently more in an absolute sense, with each generation, then clearly
things are getting better.

The "poor" of today have more food, more tvs, better technology, greater
rights than several generations back. Largely because the rising tide is
lifting the vast majority of ships.

~~~
gearoidoc
I see your point but surely you agree peer comparison is fair?

No doubt the author has things better than generations before (though you do
have to factor in things like increased expectations as a cost for this) but
if this was the only measure then social equality would be move much slower
than it is.

~~~
maerF0x0
In my opinion only equal actions should demand equal results. I imagine nobody
working as a freelance writer, working for instacart, taking loans against a
useless asset are doing very well in this society. Therefore the author's
peers are likely doing roughly as well, and thus "fair".

Some sources of unfairness might be the disingenuous nature of post secondary
education, selling assets (degrees) far beyond their value. Being lied to
maybe the biggest claim the author has. But I dont see gender or race being a
part of that claim. The lie is unfair irrespective.

------
eitally
I think this article is important and useful, but the title she chose is
misleading. The content has absolutely nothing to do with higher education, or
_either_ correlative or causative connection to her employment with Instacart.
Social mobility is an interesting research area, and it's important to be
aware that most people who claim bootstrapping out of poverty is easy are the
folks who've never been in poverty or worked menial jobs.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-
economic_mobility_in_the...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-
economic_mobility_in_the_United_States)

Press coverage:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/america-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/america-
social-mobility-parents-income/399311/)

[http://www.salon.com/2015/03/07/the_myth_destroying_america_...](http://www.salon.com/2015/03/07/the_myth_destroying_america_why_social_mobility_is_beyond_ordinary_peoples_control/)

[http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/social-mobility-
memos/posts/2...](http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/social-mobility-
memos/posts/2015/05/27-inequality-great-gatsby-curve-sawhill)

[http://www.economist.com/news/united-
states/21595437-america...](http://www.economist.com/news/united-
states/21595437-america-no-less-socially-mobile-it-was-generation-ago-
mobility-measured)

Original research / scholarly articles:

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103115...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103115000062)

[http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc262g.pdf](http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc262g.pdf)

~~~
fleitz
Did people stop hiring plumbers? It's difficult in North America to become a
millionaire, but it's pretty trivial to escape poverty. What I often find is
people would rather be poor than sell their skills to the highest bidder, eg.
I know welders who refuse $60/hr jobs because they dislike the oil industry.

Or train for jobs that actually pay, like plumbing.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I don't know what it's like the US, but in the UK becoming a plumber is a long
way from "pretty trivial."

[http://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/may/15/fast-track-
plum...](http://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/may/15/fast-track-plumbing-
courses)

~~~
marincounty
Here it's not difficult, unless you want a union plumbing job. The reason why
becomming a union plumber is difficult, say for San Francisco local ?, is
getting every question on an easy test right. Plus there's a lot of people
applying to take the test. Those Union plumbers are paid I believe over
$100/HR.

The easy way is just call yourself a Plumber, and put an ad on CL. Something
like what that very conservative guy did--what's his name--"Joe the Plumber".
In all honestly, these guys get the job done. I wouldn't want them installing
hydronic heating though.

The other way is get a licence through the state. You can get a general
contractor's licence, or a Plumber's licence. It's easy. There's schools that
will walk you through the paperwork, and an easy test. You don't need the
school. They are a ripoff.

If your young, and have kids, a union plumbing job is great. Non-union
plumbing is a horrid job. The only one making a real living us the owner.

I was in the San Franciso electrical union and it was a good deal. I didn't
stick around. Just found construction very boring, but it paid well.

If anyone reads this who's thinking about going into a union trade, I'll pass
this along. Construction is construction. Stay away from non-union
construction. If you are going to be a construction worker go union, and try
to get into these unions in this order. The order I'm picking us quality of
work, and pay.

Elevator mechanics union(might have changed name?) Electrical union local 6 if
in San Francisco. Plumbers union, or HVAC union(forget the name)

Stay away from carpenters union, unless you get into the finish carpenters
uinion(if still around?) Stay away from roofing, concrete, insulation, and
painting--if you can? If you really want to go into one of those trades make
sure to get into the union.

Non-union construction is right above not working. "Oh, but I see Tom, and
Horhe, and they seem happy?". I don't know how these guys are happy. I've
worked non-union, and it paid retail. The conditions were horrid.

To anyone against union, do a non-union construction job just one day. Just
one day. Look at what you are paid. Then look at the house that the owner of
the non-union lives in. He usually has houses, and he bought each of his kids
their first house.

Hands down worst job I ever had was at Bradley Electric. My father went
through a union apprenticeship program with this guy--if he's still around. He
opened a very successful non-union shop, and would hire desperate guys, at
horrid wages.

------
amsha
In my experience, writing (or any other art) is maybe the most downwardly-
mobile profession there is. The supply of artists _far_ outstrips the demand
for art, and getting your first job often depends on proximity to industry
gatekeepers. I can't speak specifically for the publishing industry, but in
film and television people tend to get writing jobs through personal
connections.

The four paths I've seen for people who make it in film/tv:

* Have a family member who gets you your first job.

* Have rich parents who completely subsidize your work for a few years and provide anonymous funding for your first feature film.

* Have upper-middle class parents who partially subsidize your work for a few years, and get ready to be an assistant for 3-25 years while you build connections with the business bros that determine your future.

* Have lower-middle class parents. Be extraordinarily driven and ignore all material needs while you win festivals and get noticed.

The lower you are on the list, the more effort it takes to maximize your
probability of success. Realistically, almost no one makes it from the bottom
category.

~~~
skylan_q
Serious question: Do you feel that society should be re-adjusted/obligated in
some way to make more upwardly-mobile paths for writers?

~~~
home_boi
It already has. The internet has made distributing and selling text content
thousands of times easier.

------
bko
> The woman who laughed at me was one of these customers with very discerning
> tastes currently causing me a lot of anxiety... With “all my education,” as
> my family would say, two degrees and the student loans to show for it, I was
> nonetheless positioned only marginally better off than my grandparents, who
> ran errands and did other grunt work two generations removed from where I
> now stood.

I can't tell who the more entitled person is. The wealthy woman who believes
she is entitled to have her discerning tastes met, or the author who believes
she is entitled to work as an author regardless of her commercial success.

No excuse to treat people who work for you poorly, but I think the entitlement
runs both ways.

------
Alex3917
I find it amusing that one of Instacart's competitors, TaskRabbit, is
currently blanketing the NYC subway system with ads that say "We do chores.
You live life." The implication being, at least the way I read it, that they
consider their workforce to be perhaps slightly less than human.

~~~
cperciva
I'm struggling to understand how you can possibly jump from "we do chores; you
live life" to "our workers are subhuman".

Are you saying that only subhumans do chores?

~~~
chipsy
Cold logic. The advertisement defines life as something that is not doing
chores. Therefore people who do chores are not living. Whether that makes them
"subhuman" does involve some interpretation, but if you call someone "not
alive" you aren't exactly complementing them.

------
drags
I think it's interesting that we're 44 comments in and nobody has commented on
how race fits into this.

She sees herself as someone working her way up into a freelance writing
career. Her customers, her bosses and her family view her as the kind of
person unlikely to do anything more than what her parents and grandparents
did: bounce around through low-wage, low-prestige jobs like Instacart their
entire working life.

When everyone around you assumes you won't make it higher, it's hard not to
wonder if they're right. And society assumes African-Americans are much less
likely to achieve career success. [1]

[1] See
[http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html](http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html)
for instance: "Race, the authors add, also affects the reward to having a
better resume. Whites with higher quality resumes received 30 percent more
callbacks than whites with lower quality resumes. But the positive impact of a
better resume for those with African-American names was much smaller."

~~~
pjlegato
Nobody has commented on how race fits into this because race is entirely
irrelevant to the theme of the article.

Her skin color is not relevant to her picking kale for a living. She's picking
kale because she got two college degrees in non-marketable subjects, not
because she's black.

Not _every_ topic contains a hidden narrative of latent racist oppression just
waiting for an overeducated postmodernist to come along and deconstruct it,
even if it does involve people of a visibly different ethnic background than
their employer.

~~~
drags
Race is the theme of the article:

"Our national history is rife with examples of black Americans facing
exclusion from labor movements, as well as general workforce discrimination.
It’s not hard to see how the effects of these policies have trickled down. I
see my family’s work history, rendered briefly here, as a particular kind of
ingenuity necessary for black Americans."

~~~
pjlegato
It's not at all, though she seems to think it is. It's about how indignant she
is that she got _two_ college degrees and still can't get a middle class job.

The headline is: "Two College Degrees Later, I Was Still Picking Kale For Rich
People."

That happened because she studied creative writing, a largely non-marketable
subject. Her being black is not relevant. If she had studied chemical
engineering or dentistry or any of a large number of other in-demand subjects
instead of creative writing, she'd easily have obtained a middle class job
despite being black.

------
swagv1
It took her that long to recognize her own under-employment??

------
lostmsu
TL;DR Why is it a myth?

~~~
skylan_q
Find one example of a poor person working hard and becoming rich! You can't!
Ergo, myth.

~~~
lostmsu
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin)

