How Dare You Ask Me to Work for Nothing?!

HAHA. I love this man. Harlan Ellison is a writer but his experience with employers trying to use his services for free is so similar to what lawyers are currently dealing with that I had to share this video with those of you who haven't seen it before. Job ads for lawyers to work for free, for $10/hour, and even for room and board are becoming commonplace these days. And these firms often demand that applicants graduate in the top of their class from top tier schools, have experience, and admission to bar. Maybe someday more people can be like Ellison and tell these employers to take a long walk off a short pier, but I doubt it. Things aren't going to get much better in the coming years and we'll see a lot more graduates who are currently in school to wait out the recession doing absurd things when they enter an already over saturated job market. Sad.

Is a Temp the New Perm?

My dear friend Ivy sent me that pic and I let out a little gasp.  Is this my future?

While Obama is covering my health insurance, I suppose I can live on the horribly methodic, brain dumbing work--but is this present slowly turning into my future?  I read the article in Businessweek and I felt no better.  Upon evaluation, it is clear that I am now a Disposable Worker.

A "Disposable Worker": "no health insurance, no retirement benefits, no sick days, no vacation, no severance, and no access to unemployment insurance."

When it's put that way, doc review sounds pretty horrible, doesn't it.  Yet, piles of attorneys are being fleeced from law firms every day and dumped into document review projects; where you are no longer a professional.  You are an hourly wage worker. If you don't work, you don't eat. If you get sick, you suffer financially as well as physically.

"You know American workers are in bad shape when a low-paying, no-benefits job is considered a sweet deal."

I have received two offers of employment since being let go.  Both were laughable.  So, I continue to click away at document review.  Temp attorneys are made fun of constantly, but facts are facts. I may not have vacation pay or stability.  But , with a semi-decent rate, I will make more as a temp attorney than I will at either of the companies/law firms that offered me a position.  The only advantage a low paying job offers is stability, and even that is questionable. ""When I hear people talk about temp vs. permanent jobs, I laugh," says Barry Asin, chief analyst at the Los Altos (Calif.) labor-analysis firm Staffing Industry Analysts. "The idea that any job is permanent has been well proven not to be true." As Kelly Services (KELYA) CEO Carl Camden puts it: "We're all temps now.""

And when is this likely to change?  Or will this be life from this point forward?
"The forecast for the next five to 10 years: more of the same, with paltry pay gains, worsening working conditions, and little job security. Right on up to the C-suite, more jobs will be freelance and temporary, and even seemingly permanent positions will be at greater risk."

This gives me pause. I find myself thankful to be in a large urban center that offers temporary placements.   I definitely consider myself lucky.  I've landed on my feet, for now.