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'Office Space' is not really about the mailroom per se, but it's a great movie

The NY Times Sunday magazine carries an intriguing story by Adam Davidson, “Why Are Harvard Graduates in the Mailroom?” Of course, the idea is that the company mailroom is where one goes from low on the ladder to (eventually) get a shot at big dreams of success. This theme is made famous by film and TV, but  I’ve never known anyone who actually worked in one – probably because, I’ve never really lived in a big city such as LA or NYC. He discusses that which is often not discussed in friendly company – employment represents a distinct set of opportunities, choices, risks, and rewards – and that’s just the start of it.

There are a number of professions in which workers are paid, in part, with a figurative lottery ticket. The worker accepts a lower-paying job in exchange for a slim but real chance of a large, future payday.

And then:

This system is unfair and arbitrary and often takes advantage of many people who don’t really have a shot at the big prize. But it is far preferable to the parts of our economy where there are no big prizes waiting. That mailroom clerk at Warner Brothers may make less than a post office clerk (maybe even half as much), but the latter has less chance of a significant promotion. Workers in retail sales, clerical settings, low-skill manufacturing and other fields tend to have loose, uncommitted bonds to their industries, and their employers have even looser commitments to them. These jobs don’t offer a bright future precisely because they don’t require a huge amount of skill, and therefore there’s no need to do much merit-sorting.

That last part may yield some ire in people. I don’t think that he means that people in these jobs don’t work hard or have skill, but rather that such jobs are readily available – if you dislike a particular job, then you can quit it and find a similar one quickly – hence, there is less personal investment and accordingly, little long-term opportunity payoff (even if it’s just a lottery). Or at least that used to be the case. Now such jobs have become more scarce, but even more scarce are the jobs that used to populate America – the solid “Plan B” jobs – although I find that an odd way to portray them. I’ll let Davidson explain:

But part of the American post-World War II economic miracle was that most people didn’t have to choose between a high-stakes-lottery job or a lousy dead-end one. Steelworkers, midlevel corporate executives, shopkeepers and plumbers were all able to make a decent amount from the start of their careers with steady, but never spectacular, raises throughout. These two tiers actually supported each other. Strivers were able to dream bigger because they had a solid Plan B. New York City and Los Angeles are buoyed by teachers, store owners, arts administrators and others who came to town to make it big in film or music or publishing, eventually gave up on that dream and ended up doing fine in another field.

I don’t think that Davidson is in any way denigrating these good careers that are rapidly disappearing, but rather sees them as an excellent opportunities for people who ‘go for it’ (be it to become famous or rich through business building) and don’t make it. His point seems to be that without such ‘fall back’ positions, people are less inclined to take significant chances and foster innovation – thus, the economy finds itself in a self-perpetuating downward spiral. We become a nation of ‘lottery players’ and the people who serve those players (some eventual winners and some losers) their coffee or ring up their merchandise at the store.

You can check out the rest of the story here.

The Times has an interesting story today about the relative lack of scientists in America’s elected offices – especially the executive.

Among the 435 members of the House, for example, there are one physicist, one chemist, one microbiologist, six engineers and nearly two dozen representatives with medical training. The case of doctors and the body politic is telling. Everyone knows roughly what doctors do, and so those with medical backgrounds escape the anti-intellectual charge of irrelevance often thrown at those in the hard sciences. Witness Senator Bill Frist, Gov. Howard Dean and even Ron Paul. Continue reading →

According to this graphic from Mother Jones, the turnout wouldn’t be that great for a 99% movement, at least if we assume that the top 10% have loyalties upward. H/T Buzzfeed