My banana scandal certainly seems to have pressed some buttons and comments continue to pour in (you can read the post and billion comments here) . A special shout-out to Lee who wrote an essay on the subject.
I thought I should respond to a couple of points that have been raised in the comments.
Firstly, let me clarify something about the way work experience works in a big office: the staff who provide the tasks for the Workies (as we called them) are usually the most junior people in the office.
Accomodating work experience students takes a lot of extra time and energy for whoever is managing them. This is on top of their regular workload and it’s something the Workies are rarely aware of.
So all this talk about work experience doing "unpaid labour" needs to be put in the context of the "unpaid labour" done by whomever is responsible for looking after them, answering their questions, setting them tasks, supervising the completion of these tasks (and often having to re-do them) and trying to ensure they have a pleasant, educative experience in their chosen workplace.
When I was an editor, the truth is that I didn’t have much to do with work experience. Not because I was superior or a snob or a bitch but because I was JUST TOO BUSY. I had to prioritise the needs of my boss, my staff and my own family above those of work experience. There were simply not enough hours in the day to sit down and have chats with the hundreds of girls who came through our work experience program every year.
Often, this was my loss and I knew it.
When it was possible, I would try to talk to the girls or answer their questions but the demands of my job meant this rarely happened. I always tried though because I knew the work experience girls are not just the readers but likely to be passionate and loyal readers. I always valued hearing their thoughts and opinions about my magazines and magazines in general.
When I was at Cosmo, I designed a questionaire for all work experience girls to fill out and whenever I had time, I’d call them in and ask them to pick their most and least favourite covers from my wall. I was never so arrogant to think I couldn’t learn from them. They were my readers!
As far as menial tasks go, I can’t remember ever asking a work experience student to do anything personally. I didn’t have that kind of involvement with them and anyway, that’s why I had an assistant. That’s not to say they weren’t asked to do things for me by other people. Because sometimes? When she was busy?
I’m sure my assistant on-passed some of the more menial tasks to the work
experience students. In fact, I hope she did! It’s called delegating, prioritising and time management – all crucial when you’re working in any industry.
Hence the banana incident.
I make absolutely no apologies
for this. Work experience is exactly that: EXPERIENCE OF WORK. I don’t
know anyone who started at the top, do you? I don’t know anyone who didn’t have
to do menial, boring tasks when they first began their career.
Even at the highest level, EVERYONE in a workplace still has to do menial, petty, boring tasks – the boss included.
I agree that work experience expectations have sky-rocketed in the last decade and yes, I’m sure much of this has to do with the fact that uni students have worked damn hard and paid damn hard for their degrees. Kudos for that. But in most work places, a degree does not give you immunity from boring, menial, banana-like tasks.
It’s true I don’t have a degree but a few years ago, out of interest, I asked my staff which of them had degrees. All of them did (except the fashion girls). The receptionist had two degrees, one of them law. And she was opening the mail.
Which brings me to my final point.
Some industries are more appealing to work experience students than others. Magazines like Cosmo, Cleo and Dolly are routinely booked out a year or more in advance. I’m sure banks and the RTA have more vacancies. It’s called supply and demand.
No doubt this is because many girls assume working on a magazine is glamorous. Parts of it certainly are. But other parts – most parts - are not. Running errands and doing admin are not glamorous but they are part of working on a magazine.
To accept a student for work experience and show them only the glamour – the shoots and the interviews and the glossy functions and the beauty cupboard – would be doing them a great disservice. That stuff is maybe 5% of the job. The rest is deadlines and admin and re-writing and lugging piles of clothes down to the courier dock. And doing whatever your direct boss asks you to do even if you think you’re ‘above’ it. Because they’re your boss.
We would always spell this out before students came to do work experience. It’s crucial to go into any industry with your eyes open. And I believe part of an employer’s responsibility in providing work experience is to give students a realistic impression of what that work place is really like.
And yes, part of that is understanding that the most junior member of staff will occasionally be required to run an errand for a more senior members of staff who is unable to leave the office at that particular time. This may be coffee, it may be a banana. It’s not unpaid labour, it’s part of the job.
So if you go to a magazine to do work experience, don’t expect to be sitting front row at fashion shows or interviewing Mischa Barton. Those things are the icing, not the cake, and they need to be earned.
Comments
21 Comments so far
Gosh Caitlin, lucky you were over 18 when I sent you to research penises!
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I did work experience at Cleo when I was 18. You were features editor there at the time and gave me most of my tasks, though I also helped out Paula on beauty. You asked me to stay on for a second week and I remember my jobs included transcribing an interview with a man who’d had a penis enlargement and going to the library to find clips of stars who’d met stars and fallen in love.
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Mia, you made an excellent point, which is being missed in the fuss re private/public education: work experience students mean extra work for staff. I am an academic working in a university setting and I no longer offer work experience in my lab. I have found it incredibly hard work for myself and my team to organise a timetable of activities that are appropriate for students and genuinely reflect what they might do in this line of work. And at least half the time the students would sit there looking totally bored.
I see the same attitude in some of my undergraduate and even postgraduate students, who expect not to have to do the more menial aspects of our line of work. Or who do it but roll their eyes at the same time. I’m an Associate Professor (after serving my years!) and I once had a 4th year undergraduate student email me at home on the weekend and pretty much tell me to run a computer analysis for him/her and send back the results. I pretty quickly pointed out how many miles he/she had crossed over appropriate boundaries. More importantly, after a year of pushy, entitled behaviour, I had to reflect this attitude in referee reports that I wrote for this student. This is the critical thing: if you act like a narcissistic, pushy lunatic, please don’t expect me to give you a job or write you a good reference.
As I often (probably too often) say to various members of my team, I have a toddler already (well a 4 year old now) and I don’t have room for any more babies in my pram!
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private vs Public – it varies from school to school. We have 2 Private schools here, and one does have the tendencey to indoctrinate (along with the parents) the students with ‘Want it now, therefore, must have it now. NOW DAMMIT!’. The other (my son goes there, and we work very hard to afford it) is forever driving into the kids that their parents work hard to send them there, and that they must work hard in return. No doubt there are some children there whose parents reinforce the ‘Gen Y attitude’ but the school doesn’t.
As to the WE issues with Gen Y – I have a friend who runs a hairdressing salon. She rarely takes WE students any more, as 1 out of 2 will refuse to sweep the floor, or do the coffee run, or answer the phone. My son is Gen Y, my other Gen Z – and they both understand tht whilst they may ‘want’ it right now, they aren’t going to get it without working for it. PArents are responsible for this attitude to a large degree.
Not all Gen Y/Gen Z are like this, but enough are that it is becoming an issue that is tarring all of those Generations with the same brush. And that is sad for the ones who want to get out and give it a go.
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I went to a public school. I am sending my children to private schools. Why? Our local public school is completely overcrowded and almost falling down. When I went to the open morning I was horrified and determined I didnt want my children spending 7 years of their school life in that environment. So we had to make the decision when out eldest child was 4 and basically beg for a spot at the private girls school we chose for our girls. Its not about snobbery or spoiling them and giving them everything they want. Just giving them what they should be getting for free like I did, but its not available.
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At the end of the day..if you really have a passion for the industry, you WILL do whatever it takes to get into it. Menial tasks…bah thats nothing! Look at people who are told by their superiors you have to “sleep with him/her” in order to progress in your career.
Opening mail,getting banana’s..thats nothing.
Whether you go to a private school or not doesnt really make a difference. Its all about drive, passion and upbringing.
People need to stop whinging.
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I wanted to be a journalist (not on magazines!) and did heaps of work experience in my holidays from Yr 10 through uni. Mixed bag, everything from sorting the mail through to a full cadet’s workload and writing a feature interview. Got offered a couple of jobs out of it, but finally bit the bullet and realised that – I didn’t want to be a journalist! (this was a good thing to learn).
I went into the corporate world in a graduate program. Many of my fellow grads griped, bitched and moaned about being photocopying. I didn’t; instead I just saw everything as an opportunity. Guess which grad got the first and best job at the end of the program? – the one with the best attitude.
And further down the track? – a senior exec role in my 20s, first woman in the industry to do that, and 15 years younger than even the youngest of the senior exec team – and I think that’s largely because I kept the enthusiasm to learn, respect for others and the attitude of service. I still get to photocopy.
Those who make a big deal about boring tasks on work experience (or any other time) are probably focusing a wee bit much on themselves – which doesn’t get anyone anywhere very much. But they will never be short of people to blame when they aren’t overnight megastars.
And I have to agree – work experience students can be nice to have around, but on balance they don’t add value, and they suck resources of time and energy. I’m there with a whole set of objectives which, to be blunt, the work experience student can’t help me reach. Interns and new grads are more likely to add some value, but it takes time for me to figure out whether that is true for each individual or not.
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As a person who is part of this ‘want it now’ generation, I want to assure people that not all young people are like that. If I wanted to work in the magazine industry, and was lucky enough to get work experience at an iconic mag like Cosmo or Cleo, I’d be happy to buy a banana for the boss. Heck, I’d do her weekly groceries if she asked.
Like others, though, I’d also like to reply to Michelle. I attend a Catholic school, and apparently we’re considered ‘private’. The public schools have to wait ages for a government grant? Lucky them, we rarely get a look in from the government. I wouldn’t consider my school rich by any means.
Yes, when something is required, the parent body is asked, through fundraisers and special days. We had a school hall built six years ago, the first decent facility for anything other than classes our school has gotten, and payment for it still goes on the school fees.
Most of the classrooms are horrible, with falling apart desks and chairs, and could use a complete makeover. Last year, we got a toilet upgrade after having the same horrible, dirty toilets for probably fifteen years.
The public school down the road has,in most part, far better facilities than ours. At the same time, I’m proud of my school, because a lot of what we have has been gotten by countless parents and students cooking cakes and organising special fundraising days. We’re nothing like the big private schools in Sydney, but we’re still considered private – so please don’t make that generalisation across all private schools.
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I have to say, I think that Michelle is right to some degree about the private/public school thing. My private school just repainted the entire school (purple, much to my delight), because we happened to mention in passing it looked like a mental institution (well, it did. It was ALL white). My public primary schools both used to have to work for several years to get enough money to make improvements like wet weather shelters for the bus stops. There is definitely an “ask and you shall receive” attitude at my current school. There’s no denying that. But it doesn’t really effect the attitudes of the work experience students.
99% of us were aware of the fact that we were going to get stuck with the jobs no one else wanted to do on work experience, and we weren’t thrilled, but we did them. And then there were the girls who bitched and moaned about having to make coffee/photocopy, because they thought it was below them. And they were all girls who just ask daddy, and get given (and they got shit reports from their employers, too). However, one of my friends, who thinks $300 for a pair of shoes is a bargain, got a glowing report from her employer, and was apparently incredibly pleasant, did everything she was asked, and even offered to do extra photocopying. It’s not so much about the school’s attitude as the families come from.
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I did work experience at Australian Book Review 10 years ago (slightly further away from the glamour mag industry in my head) – I did everything that was asked of me including mail runs, lunch collecting and typing. As a result, I got the most invaluable experience I could have asked for – proof reading, layout work and eventually was given a crack at writing book reviews which eventually led to where I am today, a million miles away from the magazine world but an amazing workplace nevertheless. Work experience people/interns/junior staff who prove themselves as enthusiastic, bright, committed and intelligent WILL get given a go. As a manager with 20 or so staff now, I generally find it’s the people who complain about not getting given a ‘go’ and blaming others for their lack of elevation up the ranks, who don’t display these characteristics.
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I too have read back through the comments on the first part and realistically if you don’t want to do the things work experience sets out for you. Then don’t. Don’t sign up for work experience if all you are going to do is complain. If you know its not for you after they’ve told you what you will be doing then back out. Let someone who will actually appreciate the lessons to do it.
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seems this topic has got legs, a life of its own. I wonder if Mia will let it run.
Two sides of the coin, with the work experience/boss situation, and now with the private/public school attitudes, a juggernaut for sure.
Let the legs run…..
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Wow! I havent been in the workforce for several years now, I’m busy being a mum to 4 but can still remember….
I have 2 Uni degrees, one gained before I began work in my chosen career, the other degree I studied for PT while working. I can honestly say without a doubt, the theory is worth NOTHING without on the job experience. When I started work I had no idea about what I was doing. I learnt the most from the girl who trained me in my entry level position. She was my boss’s PA (but she actually did a lot of his job) and she was amazing. He came to a stand still if she was away. She had no qualifications but ran the place blindfolded.
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In response to Michelle, clearly you don’t know many private school kids. I attended one of the most expensive schools in Perth and opened many doors for me that would have never have otherwise been available. But my parents slaved to send my siblings and I to the best schools they could afford or even not really afford. And thing is that I wasn’t the only one there who was in the same situation, many girls were lucky enough to have parents do the same for them. Nothing was handed to us on a silver platter and we never expected it to be so. Is a third of one thousand too many to count as ‘a few exceptions’. You can not judge someone based on what school they attended. Read the book don’t judge the cover by the school it comes from.
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Michelle, i am horrified by the sweeping generalisation you made in your comment above. I think you will find that the attitude of a school (whether public or private) towards the students would NEVER be to give them everything they want (and immediately if possible) – i can’t think of a more ridiculous and dangerous attitude for anyone to have towards a child.
The “i deserve it, and i deserve it now” attitude you refer to i imagine would come from many circumstances, perhaps not least the parent/s of the child, and how they respond to, train and discipline the child, as they grow up. However “religion or snobbery” just do not cut it as as valid excuses to vilify parents who want their children to have the best education they can afford to give them, which may therefore mean sending them to a private school.
It would be just as easy for you to assume that public schools teach their students to not bother aiming high, and simply make do with whatever career is easily and quickly accessible to them as soon as they finish the compulsory years of schooling.
It is utterly ridiculous, and even insulting, to assume such substandard ideals are taught, even subconsciously, by the teachers who spend their lives making sure that each generation have the knowledge and abilities to reach any height they aspire to.
I am fairly certain that Mia didn’t refer to public vs. private students, and their different attitudes, or distinguish between the two sectors in any way. I daresay that could be taken as indication that the attitude of the work experience student is dependent on the student, and not their schooling.
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“Silly Yak” I think you read the wrong ideas into what I was saying. I wasn’t referring to the income level of families, but to the attitude of the schools themselves.
I live in an area where the local private schools are at the cheaper end of the scale and many parents do work hard to send their kids to them, so I am very aware of this common situation. I apologise if I caused any personal offence, that was not my intent. As I stated, I was making a generalisation based on my personal experience.
Isn’t this blog a place for discussion, not personal criticism?
I have now gone completely off topic from Mia’s original post, so I will keep quiet on the private school front now that I have clarified myself.
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Wow Michelle, how very narrow minded of you to assume that private school education is only obtained by people with rich parents. Both of my parents worked damn hard, my Dad in particular worked in excess of 80 hours a week, to earn enough money to send me to a school with an educational philosophy that would ensure that I was successful in all aspects of my life, not just my career. My financial situation was far more common in my private school than that of independently wealthy parents. I am eternally grateful for the sacrifices my parents made for my education & this was one of the biggest lessons I ever learned, I have never expected anything from anyone without having to earn it. I have worked hard & appreciate every opportunity that I have been given. Funnily enough I’m part of Generation Y – who’d have thought?
I would also like to comment to Lee, from the previous comments. How fortunate for you that you were able to go to University & study a vocation that you were passionate about. I unfortunately couldn’t afford to go to Uni straight from high school because I was supporting my family (mother & brother) & worked at the ‘bottom’ of the ladder to do so. I longed to be at Uni like all the other 18 year olds rather than slogging it out in the office & maintaining a household at the same time, but I didn’t have that luxury. I have now worked my way up (without a degree) to a very high managerial position in a global company & it was through hard work & determination. Fortunately for me we are in a position where I no longer have to emotionally & financially support my family & I am still working full-time while studying part-time for my piece of paper. The best part – I wouldn’t change a thing & would sacrifice anything for my family because I do not feel entitled!
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I just wanted to say thank you Mia. I’m one of those junior members of staff, and I’ve just printed out your blog to show the workies who come through our office.
You perfectly articulated everything about work experience, internships, and the industry I chose to work in.
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I was a little horrified when I read the stories of work experience kids ‘these days’ feeling “entitled” to the exciting bits of magazine work. I am an Arts student majoring in Gender Studies and my dream job is to be a features editor. I have been running into brick walls applying for work experience at magazines because I am not a media student, so I was totally stoked when I was offered a stint at Women’s Health Magazine after continuous email harassment of a variety of mags. I’ve read a lot about work experience being menial tasks so I was pretty prepared to do all the boring bits. My jobs included sifting through newspapers for story ideas, helping writers with research, I transcribed an interview, I did data input with Excel spreadsheets, sent things to the courier and archived proofs and research from old editions (which, because I am a twisted individual who finds massive organisational tasks soothing and therapeutic, was probably my favourite job; the excitement I exhibited amused the editorial coordinator, who probably thought I was just being polite).
There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for an opportunity to get a foot in the door of the magazine industry, and the appreciation expressed by the staff on the magazine made it totally worth it. Even though they were constantly busy they made time for quick chats about what they were working on. The ed co went on leave and I was offered his position for a couple of days (on a work exp basis) which I was totally thrilled about – more organisational tasks! I graduated to filing invoices, answering the phone and emails, as well as doing all the stuff I was doing before. I definitely gained a greater appreciation for what the ed co of a huge magazine has to get through in a day! For three days I was a fakey editorial coordinator and I loved it.
I had no problem with paying for my own insurance and transport (uni won’t help me because the work experience does not relate to my degree), and I had no problem with not being paid for my time there. I appreciated the experience in itself, because it assured me that yes, this was what I want to do. The magazine industry is popularised with ideas of glamour and celebrity, which, as Mia pointed out, results in it being negotiated through supply and demand. For such a competitive industry, only the people who accept the reality of the boring bits can ever get to the icing on the cake. And, I imagine, only these people are remembered positively by the people already in the industry.
I was an editor of my university magazine last year, and I am currently on the editorial committee of our Arts Faculty creative journal. I am still working at getting my name out there and getting in the ear of potential work experience offerers.
There was this one moment during work experience that reinforced my belief that magazines was what I wanted to do: as I was leaving to go on my lunch break I saw a few women walking out of the building towards the park with a stack of proofs. I thought, ahhhhh proofing proofs (this was my favourite part of being an editor at uni) in the park on a sunny day (I told you I was a twisted individual…). Work experience, I hope, with all its menial tasks, brings me one step closer to the day where it will be me proofing proofs in the park!
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I’ve also gone back to re-read the comments and I’d like to make a small retaliation to Lee who commented that apparently without a degree you’ll only ever do menial tasks.
I don’t have a degree, because I wanted to get out there and earn that $100K that apparently I’m up on graduates who’ve had to sacrifice for their degrees. Suck it up you poor students.
YOU made a sacrifice that you would be a poor part-time worker while you did your degree and now you think the world owes you “good money” because you have a piece of paper.
Some of us have been working in the actual world instead, and sometimes we know a little more than you when you first start. But are we looking down our noses at you? No we’re not, but that doesn’t seem to stop you looking down yours at us.
I honestly don’t think a degree is the be-all-and-end-all in thw workforce, I strongly beleive there are other ways to get there and to upskill yourself.
If you think trainees are being exploited, then find another traineeship, like any system, its open to misuse, and you have the option to try somewhere else. Whether you’re a chef, mechanic, retail trainee, whatever you want to go into, you should count yourself lucky that business is interested in training YOU at all, and why shouldn’t they be compensated by not having to pay you as much as a fully skilled worker, when you’re going to eat into their other employees time as Mia said above. You should remember this is what you WANT to do, its your choice.
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Having just gone back and read the millions of comments on the previous “banana” post, I think all the Gen-Y bashers are missing one crucial point: public or private school attendance. Obviously how each individual reflects their schooling is also affected by their family’s attitude towards it (as in, what was the real reason for sending the kids there – religion or snobbery?), but this makes a huge impact on their attitude towards work and sense of self-worth.
All you have to do is look at what happens when the school wants a new building built or some new computers for the library – the private school simply asks the parent body for more money (like those “voluntary” building fund donations which are charged to the account), but the public school is forced to conduct fund-raising efforts and petition the government (usually having to wait for a state election to come around to do so).
The example this sets for the students is simple – the private schoolkids learn that if you ask for it, you’ll get it, no work or effort required. I blame private schooling for creating this “I deserve it, and I deserve it now” culture which is rampant amongst Sydney teens (and beyond). Yes, I may be making a massive generalisation here, but from personal experience, the exceptions to this rule are just that – a few exceptions.
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