Why Are Harvard Graduates In The Mailroom

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/magazine/why-are-harvard-graduates-in-the-mailroom.html?_r=1

by kqr2 • 14 years ago

103 87 14 years ago

I'm constantly reminded that we, as programmers, have excellent opportunities in both fields: we can both shoot for the stars in a startup, and have a comfortable fallback in enterprise. I can't think of many other professions with this great a degree of both opportunity and security.

brandnewlow• 14 years ago

For now, that is.

The robots came for the content creators last decade. They're coming for the educators now. They will come for programmers, too, eventually.

benmathes• 14 years ago

We are the ones making the robots, though.

sskates• 14 years ago

"The Oscars make clear that there is only so much room at the top."

I hate when people make this fallacy. It may be true to some extent for entertainment but there doesn't seem to be any limit to the number of businesses that can be created. As long as people want stuff then there is opportunity.

_delirium2• 14 years ago

Since wealth is at least in part relative, there's some limit for how many people can be at the very top in tech as well. If millions of people had as much money as Sergey Brin has, then having $15b dollars wouldn't mean as much, or buy him as much. One way of thinking of it is how many people you could hire to work for you, which depends on the ratio between your wealth and their salaries.

rbanffy• 14 years ago

What limits the number of spots at the top is the total amount of resources allocated there. If the über-rich got less über, there would be more free spots there. Plus, if the gap between the very rich and the very poor is smaller, with a fairly large middle class in between, a lot of social tensions disappear.

Drbble3• 14 years ago

But don't confuse money (which can be inflated an has no inherent unit of conversion to the material world or labor) with material wealth. If everyone had, say, a Star Trek 3-D printer and power/atom supply, we'd all be pretty well off.

tpatke• 14 years ago

There is another aspect to this which the OP fails to mention - moving the needle. If you think about how much money you need to retire (f u money if you are under 30) then figure out how much money you need to save in order to achieve that...well, chances are you are not going to retire anytime soon. Now, say you were given a 20% raise. How would that affect our retirement prospects? Well, chances are you are not going to retire anytime soon. Even a large raise on an “employees” salary will not make a big difference on a, say, $2m retirement target.

If you are working a 9-5 you are fighting for a 5% raise that just will not have any effect on your life. The "lottery jobs" offer a way out. Of course, it is not a perfect system so if you have any better ideas...

kahawe4• 14 years ago

Though once I got a 300% raise instead of a 5% one, would I really want to retire at the living standard I had before or after the 5% raise? So, chances are you are STILL not going to retire anytime soon...

coopdog• 14 years ago

I've had something similar happen to me (maybe not 300%) and I'm aware of the higher money but mentally I keep myself on my lower rate and standard of living, because I don't want to do this job forever. The sooner I can get to passive income funding an 'acceptable' life the better. Not everything that's worth doing takes money, just time, which you just don't have in a 9-5

shin_lao• 14 years ago

You make it sound like the purpose of life is retiring. I find that a little sad.

tatsuke95• 14 years ago

You're both right, I think. The OP describes what I view as the reality for most people. But then I read your comment, and agree: that is pretty sad.

Funny thing is, that seems to be an artifact of my parent's generation, the halcyon days of years past when America was a manufacturing powerhouse that we seem to want to get back to. Work sucks, so put in your time, then get out and start enjoying life. At 60 (if you're lucky) or 65 years old. But who wants to be touring around the world when you're old?

Find something you love to do, and you'll be able to do it successfully until you drop dead. It's not all about wealth.

tvon• 14 years ago

Eh, "retiring" to me generally means "making sure I have enough money that I don't have to die on the street". Saving for retirement is more of a precautionary act than a journey to a destination.

pedrolll• 14 years ago

HN is a freaky place sometimes. Accumulating a pile of money is actually the purpose of life for many commentators here. It has often been stated here that there are easier ways to accumulate money than doing startups. This article also seems to enforce this point.

rayiner2• 14 years ago

Here in the U.S., the purpose of life is building up as big a margin as possible for how screwed you will be when you get old/if you get sick.

iqster2• 14 years ago

I'm a computer guy who loves his work a lot! That said, I do have to eat and I do need to retire some day. That is certainly not the purpose of my life but it is kinda necessary. I've also done the numbers on how much I need to retire and it doesn't look good.

csomar• 14 years ago

The author forgets market demand. If the society needs 1 Oscar winner, then there will be 1 Oscar. After all, it's the viewer who finance Hollywood. There is a need for talent in the Tech (and other related industries) industry. Youth bootstrap startups so they get paid the right price for their talent.

If you have the right talents and skills (programming, some design, marketing, market analysis, costumer support, networking...) there is little reasons that you fail your business. There is always some demand in the market, in some field. You have to figure it out and solve the problem.

It's the problem here in Tunisia. We don't have a decent infrastructure (roads, schools, houses...) and we have a huge number of art, language, IT... graduates who can't find a job. They complain about the poor infrastructure, but solving it is actually finding a job, and a new business. There is a demand for workers in that field, and there are people with lots of money despite the country being a poor one.

dasil0032• 14 years ago

I don't like the playing the lottery analogy. I get that your odds of joining the ranks of a mega-corp and climbing the ladder to one day become CEO are infinitesimal, but it's not dumb luck either. Unlike the lottery, many things are under your control, and if you have the proper drive and dedication you will quickly pull ahead of all the people who are there for an easy paycheck. When applied to startups, the assertion is downright offensive. At a startup the point is you take equity and you play a key role in the success of the company. There is luck involved as with anything in life, but chances are if you are en early employee, many parts of your success or failure can be traced back to specific actions that you personally decided and acted on. It's not easy and it's not always fair, but it's as close to a meritocracy as humanity has achieved so far.

ht_th• 14 years ago

Yes, but there are also a lot of things not under your control. You might be able to pull ahead quickly of the easy paycheck people, but then you're surrounded by other people with proper drive and dedication. To get ahead of them you need luck to have been given the right opportunity (in hindsight) that payed out, or to be liked more by those who promote you than your colleague, or to be the right sex (which is often irrelevant for the job), or be more beautiful (which often is irrelevant for the job), or being promoted just before the economic down turn and getting another turn when the economy comes up again, or having a family with some problems (like a sick child or spouse), and so on. A lot of these things will have unconscious effects on yourself, your colleagues, and the people that can promote you. It isn't a clear cut choice to perform well anymore to get ahead.

paulhauggis• 14 years ago

Maybe so, but a person that truly wants to succeed will continue on and find other opportunities and act on them when one passes them by or they fail.

dasil0032• 14 years ago

I tried to write my comment very precisely to prevent this type of counter response. You are not saying anything that is different from what I said.

My central thesis is simply that playing the lottery is foolish because it is completely luck and the odds are against you. Entering the corporate world as a means to success is a reasonable move for many to make. It's not about "perform[ing] well to get ahead", it's about how are you going to make your way in life. You could join a corporation and be a backstabbing prick and perform terribly and still get ahead, and maybe that was your calculation and it worked...

The thing that bugs me about the article is the attitude of throwing up of ones hand and succumbing to fate. There's a difference between acknowledging the chaos in the universe and simply being a loser tossed about by circumstance powerlessly.

daniel_iversen• 14 years ago

Agree with you 100%. There's a saying (watch out, here comes the cheese) and it goes something like "aim for the moon, even if you miss you will end up among the stars".

There's something about karma and hard work we have to believe in I think but also there are some countries (my impression is that America is especially guilty on this) where people are just too obsessed by what the neighbor has and being the number one etc..

At the end of the day people can work hard and aspire to great things, but remember to live, get by with what you have, stay positive, be happy and have fun!

robyates• 14 years ago

"many graphic designers have been replaced by Photoshop" ... I'm not sure that's how it works.

gaius• 14 years ago

Bad analogy, but the others work.

JEVLON• 14 years ago

"not-especially-creative professions" ...So Graphic Design is not creative. Apart from the excess use of Helvetica, calling Graphic Design uncreative is a sort of oxymoron.

jackalope• 14 years ago

Like his example of TurboTax, it's a DIY alternative to hiring a professional. For example, my 80's band hired a graphic designer and professional print shop to produce a poster with a blank spot to hand write information for our latest gig. Today, I could easily create a unique poster for every gig and print it out myself. I'm confident the quality of the design would be better (the printing itself would probably be inferior, but good enough).

dfxm122• 14 years ago

I think the point OP is trying to make is that just because you have Photoshop, that does not mean you have graphic design skill (and artistic skill it is not as simple as following directions on a tax form).

retube• 14 years ago

> Wall Street, however, is a special case. It offers extremely high entry salaries and enormous potential earnings.

Ha ha. No wall street in fact fits this analogy perfectly.

1) The number of "producer" roles vs suport/finance/tech/legal/admin etc is small. 90% of employees are toiling long hours in the hope of making the jump across.

2) And even in "producer" roles you're still playing the lottery system. While grad/starting salaries may seem high - say $120k, do you know how many hours you'll work? Double a regular 9 - 5, and often on the weekends. On an hourly basis it's really not high. And you'll need to put in many years of this to get to a position where you're "winning the lottery". I dare say the few that make it that far feel they deserve it.

lix2333• 14 years ago

I was going to say the same thing. It's very much the same. Making 120k sounds like a lot, but when people realize how much we're giving up, you can see that its not worth the money. But people (like me) do it anyway to get great experience and get ahead of the game. If it was only for the money, I'd be out in a heartbeat.

The people that do want to do it for life are gambling that by the time they're 30-40, they'll be an actual investment banker with relationship and closing deals. Chances of that are slim these days.

timcederman• 14 years ago

This article is representative of why I dislike Planet Money so much - anecdotes and conjecture presented as data.

rmc• 14 years ago

Of course there are people now who have a much better chance of getting to the top now than they did in the Good Old Days™. Women, black people, asian people, etc.

kahawe4• 14 years ago

> In their book "Freakonomics" Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt explain, among other things, the odd economic behavior that guides many drug dealers. In one gang they described, the typical street-corner guy made less than minimum wage but still worked extremely hard in hopes of some day becoming one of the few wildly rich kingpins. This behavior isn’t isolated to illegal activity. There are a number of professions in which workers are paid, in part, with a figurative lottery ticket. The worker accepts a lower-paying job in exchange for a slim but real chance of a large, future payday.

This example is indeed listed in "Freakonomics" and was contributed to the book by a sociologist called Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh. What this paragraph fails to say, however, is that the chapter in the book makes it clear the "soldiers" slinging on the corners either had the option of taking a minimum wage job working 9-5 plus overtime or taking the minimum wage "job" slinging and have a chance at making it big time PLUS the gang provided certain social services and security to their members and their families - something the minimum wage 9-5 job also did not have to offer. So while they were clearly in a tight spot, they took the more economic of the two options. And the guy leading the gang was described as very capable, social, if I remember correctly he even had finished school or was working on a degree and was capable of handling all financial matters of the gang. So his skills, qualifications and killings got him the job but ultimately his performance kept him there - otherwise he would have been replaced long ago. Clearly he had something more to offer over his soldiers.

A point this chapter was making was that these jobs take practically zero skill, have no entry-level barriers and there is an abundance of people willing to do them who don't have other options - that's why they the pay was so absolutely terrible while the job of being injured or killed on the job was ten-folds more likely than the most dangerous, "regular" job in the States.

kahawe4• 14 years ago

I am sorry, the last part was of course meant to say "that's why the pay was so absolutely terrible while the chance of being injured or killed on the job was ten-folds more likely than the most dangerous, "regular" job in the States."

jeffcoat• 14 years ago

I picked up Venkatesh's book _Gang Leader for a Day_ on the strength of the work cited here ... and ended up throwing it out.

He's not an economist: he has a very clear idea of which jobs are useful in a society and which jobs aren't, and no interest at all in what the market has to say.

I'm sure he has useful data, but everything he writes goes through that filter, and there's no way to trust what he says about people dealing drugs, because he makes it so clear that everyone doing anything outside the law is Evil, and so everything they do is tainted.

kahawe4• 14 years ago

Interesting... I just knew him through "Freakonomics". Well, I think he provided the information and the data used in that one chapter and Levitt/Dubner ultimately wrote it, probably also for lack of better sources. How many scientists hook up with gangs and prostitutes? To be fair, Venkatesh is a sociologist.

I guess both (all three) of them are leaning more toward the "infotainment" side of things in those works - after all, they want their books to sell and I wouldn't be surprised if he absolutely had to make that point "it is evil" so often, otherwise the bible thumpers/moralizers might have gotten to him that he promotes gangs? Levitt/Dubner had to go out of their way to make clear they aren't trying to promote abortions in their "legalizing abortions reduced the crime rate" chapter... which I found extremely peculiar, given that it was nothing but an analysis and a convincing theory for the data at hand.

jdc• 14 years ago

Fluff piece with a catchy title.

The author conveyed as much by saying "we have a 'winner takes all economy' which might not be a good thing if employees realize this and lose their interest in working hard."

zaidrahman• 14 years ago

The title was catchy. Misleading in the end. No Harvard grad works in the mailroom, sir! Even if they do, it is for a very brief period of their lives.

cperciva2• 14 years ago

He's right about the "Plan B" at least where I'm concerned: I wouldn't have started Tarsnap if I hadn't received a job offer from Google to prove to me that I had a safe fallback plan.

Drbble3• 14 years ago

Are you sure that job offer would be open in a year or few down the road?

Why not bank the Plan B security money first before launching a startup?

gwern• 14 years ago

I don't think Colin means he takes the offer as a guarantee of a position at Google in a few years if he so chooses - although I doubt his Tarsnap and other work have hurt his chances - but rather that it's proof that he can get 'a high paid tech job somewhere'.

Drbble3• 14 years ago

I worked in the mailroom as a Harvard undergrad. It paid overtime for 7am shift and paid a 3 hour shift even if we finished work in 90 minutes. Best workstudy gig ever, if you don't mind crossing the bridge over the Charles River at 6:45am. I apologize for sending Chauncy mail to Quincy, I didn't know Chauncy was real.

wavephorm• 14 years ago

You'd think an article about top tier graduates working in mailrooms might have an interview with one such person, or some rough numbers to back up this claim.

Then they go on to state this will create a situation where people no longer need to be innovative or creative... which these jobs didn't require in the first place.

This article is fluff and full of fallacies.

jessriedel• 14 years ago

I'd definitely take the numbers, but I'll pass on the interview. A few soundbites from a college student who fits the mold imagined by the author is the only thing I can think of that would be less useful than the fluff and conjecture filling the rest of the article.

yabai• 14 years ago

Does this article point to a failure in capitalism?

jonnathanson5• 14 years ago

I worked in the mailroom at a major Hollywood talent agency after graduating from a top school. Granted, the literal "mailroom" phase of my employment lasted all of a month or two, after which I was promoted to assistant. As an assistant, you're basically a secretary to one of the agents in the firm. Eventually, you prove your competence and rise to the ranks of the training program, in which case you're still doing secretarial work -- but you're doing it for one of the firm's partners. And you're steadily accruing other responsibilities, such as script evaluation, client scouting, studio networking, and so forth. Depending on the agency, your workday is usually a minimum of 10 hours (mine were typically 14 to 15 hour days, and the occasional 20 hour day was not unheard of). The pay was in the $20-30k range.

There were plenty of Ivy League grads in my mailroom class. Even a few MBAs, and a Harvard JD. Landing the mailroom gig at this particular agency was extremely difficult, and the folks playing the "lottery" all could have taken six-figure (or close to it) entry-level jobs elsewhere.

Why did we do it? For no better reason than the fact that "it's always been this way," and "this is the way it is." (Or the more economically rationalized supply/demand explanation: there are 500 bazillion gajillion people lining up at the door to get these jobs, so demand always exceeds supply, and thus wages are low and the work brutal).

For those who really love the entertainment business, and who are ambitious enough to "pay their dues" in the toughest epicenter of it -- the agency world -- it's the best way to get a foot in the door. If you survive the agency meatgrinder, you are highly sought-after among other Hollywood firms: be they studios, networks, production companies, or what have you. It's not unheard of to hit the mailroom at 22, make junior agent by 25 or 26, and be making a very respectable living somewhere by 30. And for those truly ambitious, ruthless souls who go on to be big-time producers or studio heads, you can be making obscene amounts of money in your late-30s to 40s.

It's definitely a "lottery ticket" model, with some echoes of the ancient apprenticeship model thrown in for good measure (all the bigshots in Hollywood were, themselves, in the mailroom back in the day). The model burns out probably greater than 90% of the hopefuls who leap into it. And that seems a pretty inefficient way to find a small handful of Katezenbergs, Geffens, Dillers or Eisners in the haystack.

More important, the model burns through a lot of would-be superstars who simply don't have the tolerance for the indignity, BS, and luck-dependency[1] that comes along with the dues-paying years. These are people who may leave the business and go on to do some pretty amazing things in other industries (tech, for instance). Seems to me that you could still find your Dillers and Katzenbergs in a more tech-style model -- i.e., putting people to work actually making product, rather than answering telephones -- while probably finding a lot more of them in the process.

The problem with the Hollywood hiring model, as it currently exists, is that it selects solely for the most ruthlessly ambitious candidates -- the ones who can survive years of toil in pursuit of a big paycheck. If they are also great thinkers, or innovators, or creative geniuses, that's sort of a secondary consideration. The model gets what it selects for, and often nothing more than that.

[1]Ultimately, what burns out most people isn't the indignity of the work, but the dependency on dumb luck: the fact that there is no guarantee of work in / reward out. You may kick serious ass in your apprenticeship, only to find out that there are simply no spots open at the next level up. (It's understandable that someone who's just spent 4 of the best years of her life as an indentured servant, only to be told that she needs to put in another 4, would opt out altogether.)

Maro• 14 years ago

Sounds like the Page program at NBC?

jonnathanson5• 14 years ago

It's very similar in nature, although the agency route offers longer hours and probably lower pay (but with a potentially bigger upside).

dfxm122• 14 years ago

There were plenty of Ivy League grads in my mailroom class. Even a few MBAs, and a Harvard JD.

Was this type of prestigious degree more or less required? I get that a gajillion people are trying to get these jobs, is this what employers are looking at to differentiate candidates, and is an MBA or JD program the best to prepare for the type of work you'll be doing?

jonnathanson5• 14 years ago

"Was this type of prestigious degree more or less required?"

Yes and no. It's kind of funny, actually. My degree certainly helped get me in the door. But once in, I encountered a virulent strain of anti-intellectualism that runs pretty rampant in Hollywood. More often than not, my Ivy degree was viewed with disdain by various bosses and co-workers. Somehow it made me soft, or "entitled." (The latter claim being patently absurd, precisely because I earned entrance to my college by dint of having sacrificed my entire waking life to studying and grinding in high school).

a_a_r_o_n4• 14 years ago

Where are you now, and how did you decide to get there?

jonnathanson5• 14 years ago

Eventually I traded traditional Hollywood for tech. Both startups and big firms. Just seemed to make more sense. I saw where the change was coming from, and I decided to move to the new core, rather than be left on the periphery. I still work with, and tangentially in, Hollywood. But I don't think I'd have been in any real position to do great things had I simply stayed in place, substantial paycheck or not.

larrys2• 14 years ago

I really liked your first person account.

But by saying this:

"[1]Ultimately, what burns out most people isn't the indignity of the work, but the dependency on dumb luck: the fact that there is no guarantee of work in / reward out."

Aren't you discounting the future value of making contacts that can be helpful even if you don't land a lottery job?

jonnathanson5• 14 years ago

That's a fair point. And, frankly, it's most of the point of starting at the agency as opposed to, say, starting out directly as an assistant at a studio (a shorter path, but one that yields far fewer contacts outside of the particular studio you happen to be starting at). Even if you don't want to be an agent, starting at an agency usually yields a better career ROI than starting on a desk at a studio or network (or in, say, something like the NBC Page program).

Plus, as I mentioned, there are the resume benefits that accrue with having done time at an agency. "Agency experience" in Hollywood is a little bit like "McKinsey experience" or "Goldman experience" in other industries. It's highly valued as a general indicator that a) you have a very solid, holistic understanding of how the entire business works, and b) you can handle high-pressure environments (provided you lasted at least a year, and preferably two, at the agency -- ideally with some indication of upward movement while there).

fasteddie31003• 14 years ago

I believe industries where workers need to "Pay Dues" to get to the higher echelons are ripe for disruption. It is a sign that the big players they "Think" they have monopolistic power in their economies and run their businesses such. However, this is a sign that they are complacent and could be disrupted.

mirsadm• 14 years ago

Right now I earn $200 a month but it is doing something I love. Not long ago I was earning more than twice that a day. I wish there was a nicer balance between the working for someone else with a nice salary and working for yourself. It seems to me the start up scene is loaded with people looking to strike it rich. What about ones that would be happy with an average salary but working for themselves? What could you do to achieve that balance?

sritch• 14 years ago

I think that people these days are being taught or encouraged to only do what you love, and the thing is, we all can't. You have to take the crappy job at one point or another or you'll end up unemployed if you're too picky.

However, in the case of this article, it's funny that the crappy job is the one that is most sought after.

Why Are Harvard Graduates In The Mailroom

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