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 While
looking around the Web for good job search and career enhancement articles, an piece by The Savvy Intern's
Lauren Kirkpatrick titled "Millennial Stereotype Busted: 'Paying Your Dues' is Bullsh*t," struck a chord. It's
a short piece and, as you might guess from the title, somewhat naively attitudinal (a 2013 graduate).
However, she does bring up a good point about how the world has changed from even as recently as the
1980s when I first hit the tech job market. In both the technician and engineer world, there was definitely
a 'pecking order' in most larger companies whereby initial hiring and promotion were subject to seniority.
My first job as an electronics technician at Westinghouse, after getting out of the U.S. Air Force,
had me starting at the bottom of the heap on the evening shift. Promotion to the next level nearly always
required waiting for the guy above you to move up the ladder, then you filled his position. Jumping
a place in line was usually met with scorn from fellow workers, so it rarely happened. That hierarchic
system is still very much a part of the union membership experience, but most of the rest of the companies,
at least in the U.S., have abandoned it out of a struggle to survive.
Posted February 21, 2017
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