For decades, bosses [in certain professions] have groomed their assistants to be the next generation of big shots by working them long hours for low wages.
Call it the “Devil Wears Prada” economy, after the novel depicting life working for a fictionalized Anna Wintour, the longtime Vogue editor.
But now, with the Obama administration moving to require time-and-a-half overtime pay for most salaried employees making less than $47,476 a year, that business model is suddenly under assault.
— The New York Times
"The change presents more than an economic challenge for the companies that rely on the willingness of young, ambitious workers to trade pay and self-respect for a shot at a prestige job down the road."
The article doesn't explicitly reference architecture, but as Archinect's past coverage on the state of internships in the field makes clear, it could. Many firms employ a business model that involves underpaying interns and other young workers – or not paying them at all.
Like many of the employers quoted in the article, some architects contend that this culture breeds better architects in the long run. Additionally, since some firms won't be able to afford overtime hours, their interns will end up getting less "training time" (and fewer opportunities to impress the highers-up).
Thoughts?
For related coverage, check out these links:
2 Comments
Maybe relevant? I haven't read it yet, but it just popped up: Jezebel's article Will Obama's New Overtime Plan Affect Your Shitty Creative Job?
This kind of sophistry is also used to defend slavery in Thai fisheries. How would not paying breed "better architects"? You'd have the industry filled with only upper-class children who don't have financial urgency. They work for fun, and often seek for projects that just "looks cool" but actually unrelatable to general public. Sure we'd have impressive-looking pictures that people share on Twitter.
When you don't pay people enough, you lose the talents. I personally know so many friends from college who are so talented but now are very successful in other fields because they want to have children and can't afford not to earn. We've lost people to the PR industry, the library, organic shop, accounting, Walmart, the Kate Spade store... and just plain being housewife after a Harvard master's degree because the overtime is just not worth it. What a huge waste of talent, and waste of education for the country!
On the other hand, I feel that this bill might not work out as we have plan. Like the wishmaster in Adventure Time, there is always a sick twist to it. I feel that we might end up outsourcing a lot of work to China.
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