Reblogged from dandaddario
Bow Ties Are Cool.
I'm doing 26 awesome things in 2012.
I'm doing 26 awesome things in 2012.
I was literally folding laundry (#LAUNDRYSCHOOL) when this went up. <3 it like bleachie!!!
YAY, this is the best thing to happen all week! <3 u, Jolie!
(Source: dandaddario)
An Atlantic Monthly article saying what I’ve been saying for a long time: unpaid internships are terrible and should be illegal. There is no reason businesses should expect unpaid labor from anyone.
Full disclosure: I worked an unpaid internship at a major newspaper in college. I was very lucky that I still had time to go to class and work a part-time (paid) job waiting tables at Chili’s. And that my parents paid my rent, bills, tuition and books.
That internship has given me a leg up in my career ever since. And you know what? That’s unfair. It’s not that I didn’t work hard at it or deserve the internship. It’s that I was privileged enough to be able to afford to take it. Only students who could afford to work for free could take an internship like that. It was a gigantic newspaper and could have easily, easily afforded to pay us minimum wage. But they didn’t, because they didn’t have to.
The most galling is when internships are offered in exchange for college credit. At many universities, students pay per unit. So in order to take an unpaid internship, they have to pay more in tuition. Essentially, they’re paying to work. At least my school only charged a flat tuition rate per quarter.
But there is a silver lining to my tale of privilege. At every job I’ve had since then, whenever someone mentions hiring interns, I personally insist we pay them. On three separate occasions I’ve made paid internships available to people when my bosses wanted them to work for free. If you have ANY chance to do the same, please do. Businesses, if you can’t afford to pay your employees, you don’t get to have employees.
I’m not saying interns should get a salary and benefits or anything. But minimum wage and a modicum of decency should be standards for all workers in America, no matter what level they’re at.
-Jess
This. This this this this this. I also have had (completely undeserved) positive effects from my unpaid internship, and saw way too many smart people get completely screwed in their careers because they had to spend their free time in college making money instead of connections. Forcing all white-collar aspirants to work for free for a year or two does an awesome job at stifling class mobility, and it is wrong.
And Dress Barn! I just got a bunch of surprisingly fashionable pretty summer dresses there on the cheap. I’m not in plus anymore, but half the store was reserved for plus sizes and the selection looked to be the same as straight sizes.
how-to-kiss-distinctly-american:noraleah:
This seems important.
SUPER IMPORTANT
Attention: SISTER!
Love. It.
“I didn’t become a clerk right away because I had to work. I just had too much debt!…To this day it is one of the biggest regrets of my career.”
I walked into the Supreme Court building today for a Phi Beta Kappa event, expecting to hear Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor give some…
At this point in my life and career, I simply can’t understand or abide literary snobbery. How can anyone who loves books not take heart in seeing so many new readers huddled up with a novel? Whether it’s “Harry Potter,” “The Hunger Games” or “Infinite Jest”—does it really matter? These days, when reading fiction seems like an endangered activity, why should we begrudge the success of any book, especially one that stirs such passion with younger readers?
<snip>
That’s the beauty of reading for pleasure. When you turn the final page and shut the book, that heady blend of sadness and joy you feel can quickly ripen into a hunger for more. I like to think of bestsellers as a gateway drug. Once you’ve found one you love, books will forever hold a special allure. All comers welcome. No special education required.
This just about perfectly sums up a thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, mostly because all of a sudden (or had I just not noticed before?) two places I generally like have turned into swamplands of book shaming and it’s offensive on the one hand but also embarrassing for them on the other hand. You do realize that you sound like a Fresh Kills fire-level flaming asshole when you announce to the world that you “cringe” to think that you read VC Andrews as a tween, right? No obviously not. Obviously you think that people are going to titter along snobbishly at how unsophisticated you were in middle school, before you grew up to be a Literary Adult sipping warm chablis at overly precious parties in cramped Brooklyn apartments.
Anyway, enjoy that chablis. If you need me, I’ll be catching up on my Margaret George.
This. Also, I was at PAX East over the weekend with the rest of the nerdiverse, and a theme that came up again and again was that it is worth it to defend your right to enjoy things that other people expect you to “grow out of.” If losing my ability to enjoy stories and imagination and restricting myself to Serious Weighty Things is the only way to be an adult, I don’t wanna grow up.
I spend my day job, and a fair amount of my non-work time, focused on the gritty realities of the world. I’ll be in the corner with my games and my fantasy books, thanks.
