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Cheap shot at Millennials? Or fair? (1 Viewer)

Cheap shot or fair?

  • Cheap shot

    Votes: 8 7.0%
  • Fair

    Votes: 107 93.0%

  • Total voters
    115

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Yelp was right to fire entitled millennial who whined about salary online




Memo to Millennials: Corporate America doesn’t want to have a “dialogue” about your “concerns.” Being an employee is not like being a college student. Your boss isn’t there to give you a cuddle and establish a committee to change his ways for you.

Your employers can and will fire you for making them look bad. This is as it must be.

A 25-year-old San Francisco Yelp employee named Talia Jane didn’t like the salary she was offered at the groovy tech company Yelp. So did she decline the job offer and take her skill set to a higher bidder? No, she accepted the gig, then publicly whined about her salary. In an open letter. To her CEO. Whom she called out by name.

Yelp fired her within two hours, which tells you that even companies with cute names protect their interests as ruthlessly as your average ill-tempered Gila monster.

Jane said she was getting 12 bucks an hour, which isn’t enough to eat. “I haven’t bought groceries since I started this job,” she said, having been living on one bag of rice. She spends 80 percent of her wages on rent, which is $1,245 a month. (She apparently has no roommate.) Also, she has a home Internet connection, which no one in the world had until about 20 years ago, not to mention a car. But she’s considering getting rid of the former, which she bought with intent to pursue some freelancing gigs. Now she claims to be “too stressed” to do side work.

There’s a clue about the difference between actual suffering and the pretend kind known as “reality out of kilter with sense of entitlement.”

No one who is actually starving would turn down work. This is because working beats starving. Picture George Orwell’s miserable coal miners in “The Road to Wigan Pier.” Did any of them say, “Sorry, luv, can’t handle work today. Too stressed!”? Jane’s Instagram photos of her snacking habits (prosciutto, etc.) also undercut her starvation claims.

Guidelines for the starving: Instagram less; work more. Get a second job, Talia. Get a roommate. Get several. Get rid of your car. This is how everyone your age in New York has been living for generations.

Throughout the 2,000-word piece, Talia sounds the classic Millennial whine: Why isn’t the world helping me more? (Though the world does more for her than it does for most: She set up a GoFundMe account that has brought in over $1,800.) Talia’s problems have nothing to do with Yelp and everything to do with Talia.

“I left college, having majored in English literature, with a dream to work in media,” Talia wrote.


Get a second job, Talia. Get a roommate. Get several. Get rid of your car. This is how everyone your age in New York has been living for generations.



Gosh, three mistakes in a row, there, Talia! You obviously should never have left campus if you’re determined to be treated forever like a delicate little bunny in a padded cage, with someone coming to change the pellets in your feeding bowl.

Majoring in English? I’ve been there. Got turned down for my first credit card. By Citibank, which sent me a rejection letter citing my “field of study.” I reapplied, changing my entry for “major” to “business.” Which not only wasn’t my field but wasn’t even a field of study offered by my school. But it worked, providing a valuable educational experience: an impromptu seminar in the value of bulls - - t.

Next lifetime, Talia, try majoring in petroleum engineering or supply-chain management. These fields teach what are known as “skills” (=demand, =$$$). Having a take on Joan Didion is more of what you might call a “hobby” (=love, =unpaid).

“And a dream to work in media.” Talia, everyone wants to work in media. Unfortunately for you, that includes those of us who are already working in media. We aren’t giving up our spots. You know why? Working in the media is super fun! We do stuff the normals only wish they could do, plus we get paid for it!

Sure, Talia, you and your generation can replace us. You already are replacing us. There’s a kid standing next to my desk right now. He’s 23, he’s very nice, he went to Bowdoin, his name is Tyler. He’s pretending to check Yik Yak, but really he’s just waiting for 25 years of General Tso’s chicken to realize their destiny and seal up my arteries like the boulder rolling in front of the exit in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” My seat will still be warm when he takes it.

Or so he hopes! Say my arteries continue to flow like the mighty Niagara and I don’t vacate my seat. Since you and Tyler don’t know anything, the main thing you have to offer employers is low price.

Tyler’s OK. He’s got a trust fund. Do you? If not, don’t become an actor. Don’t become a poet. Don’t become a conceptual performance artist. Don’t work in media. You can’t afford to follow your dreams if everyone’s idea of a “dream” involves being OK with being paid in coolness instead of dollars.

Life doesn’t work like a Jane Austen novel, Talia. You don’t choose love and then get magically rewarded with money, anyway, because you’re such a nice person. If you want cash, go knock on Procter & Gamble’s door and learn about the wonderful world of selling toothpaste. If you want a job you love, don’t complain when it turns out it doesn’t pay enough to fund your groovy San Francisco dreams.

 
Yelp was right to fire entitled millennial who whined about salary online




Memo to Millennials: Corporate America doesn’t want to have a “dialogue” about your “concerns.” Being an employee is not like being a college student. Your boss isn’t there to give you a cuddle and establish a committee to change his ways for you.

Your employers can and will fire you for making them look bad. This is as it must be.

A 25-year-old San Francisco Yelp employee named Talia Jane didn’t like the salary she was offered at the groovy tech company Yelp. So did she decline the job offer and take her skill set to a higher bidder? No, she accepted the gig, then publicly whined about her salary. In an open letter. To her CEO. Whom she called out by name.

...


- I stopped there.

Officially dumb.

 
An Open Letter To My CEO


Dear Jeremy,

When I was a kid, back in the 90s when Spice Girls and owning a pager were #goals, I dreamed of having a car and a credit card and my own apartment. I told my 8-year old self, This is what it means to be an adult.

Now, seventeen years later, I have those things. But boy did I not anticipate a decade and a half ago that a car and a credit card and an apartment would all be symbols of stress, not success.

I left college, having majored in English literature, with a dream to work in media. It was either that or go to law school. Or become a teacher. But I didn’t want to become a cliche or drown in student loans, see. I also desperately needed to leave where I was living — I could get into the details of why, but to sum up: I wanted to die every single day of my life and it took me several years to realize it was because of the environment I was in. So, I picked the next best place: somewhere close to my dad, since we’ve never gotten to have much of a relationship and I like the weather up here. I found a job (I was hired the same day as my interview, in fact) and I put a bunch of debt on a shiny new credit card to afford the move.

Coming out of college without much more than freelancing and tutoring under my belt, I felt it was fair that I start out working in the customer support section of Yelp/Eat24 before I’d be qualified to transfer to media. Then, after I had moved and got firmly stuck in this apartment with this debt, I was told I’d have to work in support for an entire year before I would be able to move to a different department. A whole year answering calls and talking to customers just for the hope that someday I’d be able to make memes and twitter jokes about food. If you follow me on twitter, which you don’t, you’d know that these are things I already do. But that’s neither here nor there. Let’s get back to the situation at hand, shall we?

So here I am, 25-years old, balancing all sorts of debt and trying to pave a life for myself that doesn’t involve crying in the bathtub every week. Every single one of my coworkers is struggling. They’re taking side jobs, they’re living at home. One of them started a GoFundMe because she couldn’t pay her rent. She ended up leaving the company and moving east, somewhere the minimum wage could double as a living wage. Another wrote on those neat whiteboards we’ve got on every floor begging for help because he was bound to be homeless in two weeks. Fortunately, someone helped him out. At least, I think they did. I actually haven’t seen him in the past few months. Do you think he’s okay? Another guy who got hired, and ultimately let go, was undoubtedly homeless. He brought a big bag with him and stocked up on all those snacks you make sure are on every floor (except on the weekends when the customer support team is working, because we’re what makes Eat24 24-hours, 7 days a week but the team who comes to stock up those snacks in the early hours during my shift are only there Mondays through Fridays, excluding holidays. They get holidays and weekends off! Can you imagine?). By and large, our floor pummels through those snacks the fastest and has to roam other floors to find something to eat. Is it because we’re gluttons? Maybe. If you starve a pack of wolves and toss them a single steak, will they rip each other to shreds fighting over it? Definitely.

I haven’t bought groceries since I started this job. Not because I’m lazy, but because I got this ten pound bag of rice before I moved here and my meals at home (including the one I’m having as I write this) consist, by and large, of that. Because I can’t afford to buy groceries. Bread is a luxury to me, even though you’ve got a whole fridge full of it on the 8th floor. But we’re not allowed to take any of that home because it’s for at-work eating. Of which I do a lot. Because 80 percent of my income goes to paying my rent. Isn’t that ironic? Your employee for your food delivery app that you spent $300 million to buy can’t afford to buy food. That’s gotta be a little ironic, right?

Let’s talk about those benefits, though. They’re great. I’ve got vision, dental, the normal health insurance stuff — and as far as I can tell, I don’t have to pay for any of it! Except the copays. $20 to see a doctor or get an eye exam or see a therapist or get medication. Twenty bucks each is pretty neat, if spending twenty dollars didn’t determine whether or not you could afford to get to work the next week.

Did I tell you about how I got stuck in the east bay because my credit card, which amazingly allows cash withdrawals, kept getting declined and I didn’t have enough money on my BART Clipper card to get to work? Did I tell you that my manager, with full concern and sympathy for my situation, suggested I just drive through FastTrak and get a $35 ticket for it that I could pay at a later time, just so I could get to work? Did I tell you that an employee at CVS overheard my phone call with my manager and then gave me, straight from his wallet, the six dollars I needed to drive into work? Do you think CVS pays more than Yelp? I worked a job similar to one at CVS. A manager spends half an hour training you on the cash register, you watch a video, maybe take a brief quiz, and you’re fully trained to do the entire job. Did you know that after getting hired back in August, I’m still being trained for the same position I’ve got? But Marcus at CVS has six dollars in his wallet, and I’m picking up coins on the street trying to figure out how I’ll be able to pay him back.

Speaking of that whole training thing, do you know what the average retention rate of your lowest employees (like myself) are? Because I haven’t been here very long, but it seems like every week the faces change. Do you think it’s because the pay your company offers is designed to attract young people with no responsibilities, sort of like the CIA? Except these people don’t even throw away their trash, because they still live at home and this is their very first job and they don’t have to take an aptitude test like at the CIA. Do you know how many cash coupons I used to give out before I was properly trained? In one month, I gave out over $600 to customers for a variety of issues. Now, since getting more training, I’ve given out about $15 in the past three months because I’ve been able to de-escalate messed up situations using just my customer service skills. Do you think that’s coincidence? Or is the goal to have these free bleeders who throw money at angry customers to calm them down set the standard for the whole company? Do you think there’s any point in training a customer service agent to learn and employ customer service skills? Or is it better to attract those first-time employees with their poor habits and lack of work ethic with the same wage part-time employees at See’s Candies make for standing by the door in a stupid outfit and handing out free chocolate? Do you think those free chocolates cost $600 a month per employee? Have you ever seen an angry See’s Candies customer? You know what I could do with $600 extra a month? For starters, I probably wouldn’t have to take money from Marcus at CVS just to get to work.

Will you pay my phone bill for me? I just got a text from T-Mobile telling me my bill is due. I got paid yesterday ($733.24, bi-weekly) but I have to save as much of that as possible to pay my rent ($1245) for my apartment that’s 30 miles away from work because it was the cheapest place I could find that had access to the train, which costs me $5.65 one way to get to work. That’s $11.30 a day, by the way. I make $8.15 an hour after taxes. I also have to pay my gas and electric bill. Last month it was $120. According to the infograph on PG&E’s website, that cost was because I used my heater. I’ve since stopped using my heater. Have you ever slept fully clothed under several blankets just so you don’t get a cold and have to miss work? Have you ever drank a liter of water before going to bed so you could fall asleep without waking up a few hours later with stomach pains because the last time you ate was at work? I woke up today with stomach pains. I made myself a bowl of rice.

Look, I’ll make you a deal. You don’t have to pay my phone bill. I’ll just disconnect my phone. And I’ll disconnect my home internet, too, even though it’s the only way I can do work for my freelance gig that I haven’t been able to do since I moved here because I’m constantly too stressed to focus on anything but going to sleep as soon as I’m not at work. Should I sell my car? It’s not my car, actually, it’s my grandpa’s. But the back left tire is flat and the front right headlight is out and the registration is due to be renewed in April and I already know I can’t afford any of that. I haven’t even gotten an oil change since I started this job (in August). But maybe I could find someone on Craigslist who won’t mind all of that because they’ll look at the dark circles under my eyes and realize I need the cash more than they do.

How about this: instead of telling you about all the ways I’m withering away from putting my all into a company that doesn’t have my back, I offer some solutions. I emailed Mike, Eat24’s CEO, about a few ideas to give back to our community for the holidays. He, along with someone named Patty, politely turned them down. But maybe you could repurpose them?

Originally, I suggested that Eat24/Yelp employees volunteer at local soup kitchens and food banks to give back to our Bay Area community (I see on your twitter that you care deeply about the homeless epidemic in our city) while also helping the different departments meet and mingle. Maybe instead, you can help set up something to allow Eat24/Yelp employees to get food from local food banks and soup kitchens? I’m pretty proficient at rice, but some hot soup would sure make up for not being able to afford to use my heater.

Originally, I suggested that Eat24 offer a matching donation with customers where they can choose a donation amount during checkout and Eat24/Yelp would match it and donate those profits to a national food program. Maybe instead, you can let customers choose a donation amount during checkout and divide those proceeds among your employees who spend more than 60% of their income on rent? The ideal percent is 30%. As I said, I spend 80%. What do you spend 80% of your income on? I hear your net worth is somewhere between $111 million and $222 million. That’s a whole lotta rice.

Originally, I suggested that Eat24 offer special coupon codes where half of the code’s value ($1) goes to charity. Maybe instead, you can give half the code’s value ($1) to helping employees who live across the bay pay their transit fares? Mine are $226 monthly. According to this website, you’ve got a pretty nice house in the east bay. Have you ever been stranded inside a CVS because you can’t afford to get to work? How much do you pay your gardeners to keep that lawn and lovely backyard looking so neat?

I did notice — and maybe this was just a fluke — that Yelp has stopped stocking up on those awful flavored coconut waters. Was that Mike’s suggestion? Because I did include, half-facetiously, in that email he and Patty so politely rejected that Yelp could save about $24,000 in two months if the company stopped restocking flavored coconut waters since no one drinks them (because they taste like the bitter remorse of accepting a job that can’t pay a living wage and everyone kept falling over into the fetal position and hyperventilating about their life’s worth. It really cut into the productivity that all those new hires are so prolific at avoiding). I wonder what it would be like if I made $24,000 more annually. I could probably get the headlight fixed on my car. And the flat tire. And maybe even get the oil change and renewed registration — but I don’t want to dream too extravagantly. Maybe you could cut out all the coconut waters altogether? You could probably cut back on a lot of the drinks and snacks that are stocked on every single floor. I mean, I could handle losing out on pistachio nuts if I was getting paid enough to afford groceries. No one really eats the pistachios anyway — have you ever tried answering the phone fifty times an hour while eating pistachios? Those hard shells really get in the way of talking to hundreds of customers and restaurants a day.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I know they’re not worth your time — did you know that the average American earns enough money that the time they would spend picking up a penny costs more than the penny’s worth? I pick up every penny I see, which I think explains why sharing these thoughts is worth my time, even if it’s not worth yours.

Your Friend In Food,

Talia

UPDATE: As of 5:43pm PST, I have been officially let go from the company. This was entirely unplanned (but I guess not completely unexpected?) but any help until I find new employment would be extremely appreciated. My PayPal is paypal.me/taliajane, my Venmo is taliajane (no hyphen). Square Cash is cash.me/$TaliaJane. Thank you so much for helping my story be heard.

 
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She set up a GoFund Me account?

#### her.

Here's a tip...don't major in English Literature and don't start your career in one of the most expensive US cities without having the salary to justify it.

 
Coming out of college without much more than freelancing and tutoring under my belt, I felt it was fair that I start out working in the customer support section of Yelp/Eat24 before I’d be qualified to transfer to media.
This was smart. She should have just left it at that.

- I think with Millenials the idea is if it didn't happen on social media it didn't happen at all. That's the meta consciousness part of virtual living, which is actually pretty cool. Or sad. Depends.

With that though comes being really savvy about online life, and that is accentuated by all the cautionary tales of people getting caught sexting, posting inappropriate stuff online, and the like. Millenials should and do know that stuff better than anyone. Somehow the concept of anonymous speech is lost on some of these dummies. They can go online, post their screeds and rants under no name at all, make their point, and as long as they protect their IP add and leave no details tracing back to them they should be fine, point made, the satisfaction of publishing their thoughts to the world accomplished. But no some of these idiots don't seem to get that.

 
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Please god, DO NOT let my kid be this entitled, stoopid, unself-aware, ignorant, and just plain dumb.  Wow.

 
What do you want us to do, Shamrockpride?  I've already donated $100 to her gofundme account.  It's tough on a young woman when you choose to live in an expensive city like San Francisco.  Especially alone in an apartment on a salary of $8 on hour (after taxes).  

 
What do you want us to do, Shamrockpride?  I've already donated $100 to her gofundme account.  It's tough on a young woman when you choose to live in an expensive city like San Francisco.  Especially alone in an apartment on a salary of $8 on hour (after taxes).  
Noone is debating that. Embracing a generation war & generalizing an entire generation off a single incident, for your personal gratification and self worth is no more mature than what this woman did.

 
This is a terrible article on a whole bunch of levels, but allow to me to call out this one in particular:

If you want that employee to come in whenever you want, it doesn’t behoove you to have to have them schlep 60-90+ minutes each way.

I live well over 1000 miles from the bay area, but even I know that San Francisco's real estate market is the product of extremely restrictive zoning laws.  Yelp doesn't have the ability to change that, even though I'm sure they would if they could.  
 
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Noone is debating that. Embracing a generation war & generalizing an entire generation off a single incident, for your personal gratification and self worth is no more mature than what this woman did.
Generalizing an entire generation?  Meh, I have two kids and two in-laws of the generation in question.  Of the 3 only 1 of them reminds me of this person.  And there are people of all generations who feel they are entitled to something or another.  Self gratification and worth?  come on, now.  You know the drill.. this forum is all about dog piling on the rabbit.   

Soap boxes abound.  

 
The first contract I signed stated explicitly that I could not discuss my salary with anyone. If that is still standard practice, then the sacking is justified.

It is also justified since she deliberately damages the reputation of the company

Whether whining online in general is a firing offense (if those two conditions above not met) I'm not so sure. I guess it depends if it is possible to track down your employment

 
We have entered some kind of weird culture of outrage. The more outlandish, the more attention... regardless of how fringe one might be. Twitter is a perfect example of this, normal people aren't on twitter. Normal people don't leave feedback in the comments sections of news articles, youtube videos etc... This is just another example of a fringe weirdo getting attention and now we are attributing her actions to 'millennials.'

I work almost exclusively with millennials.... and yeah, some of them are overly sensitive, need coddling, are entitled little #######, but I get rid of those people because they are ###### employees. The majority of them are good workers, have good attitudes and are great employees. 

The thing I've noticed with millennials is that they seem to be less interested in materials things. They care less about bottom line dollars and more about work hours, vacation time, fringe benefits and the actual work they will be performing. They want to come to work in causal clothes, have a beer in the office on occasion and get a pat on the back every once in a while. 

 
so she got fired for complaining about a CEO who built an entire business around people complaining about businesses?

lol...actually I think she was completely wrong and stupid.... but I dig the irony

 
This has nothing to do with her being a "Millenial".   Stupid title/slant.
You think someone would have written that 20 years ago?

When I was her age I shared an apartment even though I lived in a much lower rent area than she does. That someone right out of school with an English degree think they are entitled to having their own apartment in SF is mind-boggling to me.

 
Next lifetime, Talia, try majoring in petroleum engineering or supply-chain management. These fields teach what are known as “skills” (=demand, =$$$). Having a take on Joan Didion is more of what you might call a “hobby” (=love, =unpaid).
Love this advice.  Comes up a lot in college related threads.  Your major should be in something that pays.  Save your passion for a hobby or a 2nd career.   If you're lucky, your passion will also pay but don't count on it.

 
Millennials are whiny but the job market is crap.  Saddle that down with $20K+ in student loans.

Nobody minds racking up the national debt, so they get to live for free.

 
We have entered some kind of weird culture of outrage. The more outlandish, the more attention... regardless of how fringe one might be. Twitter is a perfect example of this, normal people aren't on twitter. Normal people don't leave feedback in the comments sections of news articles, youtube videos etc... This is just another example of a fringe weirdo getting attention and now we are attributing her actions to 'millennials.'

I work almost exclusively with millennials.... and yeah, some of them are overly sensitive, need coddling, are entitled little #######, but I get rid of those people because they are ###### employees. The majority of them are good workers, have good attitudes and are great employees. 

The thing I've noticed with millennials is that they seem to be less interested in materials things. They care less about bottom line dollars and more about work hours, vacation time, fringe benefits and the actual work they will be performing. They want to come to work in causal clothes, have a beer in the office on occasion and get a pat on the back every once in a while. 
As a millennial, I applaud your take on the situation and agree with your last point especially.

This woman was clearly in the wrong.  If you want to discuss pay, benefits, whatever, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it.  And this open letter was the really really wrong way to do it.  I'd have fired her ### immediately as well.  She'll learn a quick lesson on just how replaceable she is.

 
My niece in Iowa is a high school dropout, got her GED, took some computer classes, and now she's making nearly $50k.

The lesson is don't waste a bunch of money on a worthless degree and expect to get paid a lot for skills that aren't worth much in the market.

 
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She does have a nice looking kitty.  Needs to change that toilet paper role though.

640
If only there were a way for a young woman willing to exploit her kitty to make money. 

 
And the terrible parents that raise these kids.  
She does mention in her letter choosing SF as it's "somewhere close to my dad, since we’ve never gotten to have much of a relationship."

She didn't say "close to my parents", nor did she say "because he and I have had a great relationship."  Sad, really.

 
Call me a petty person from the previous millennium, but if you are writing a letter to the owner of your company, whom you have likely never met, do you address him as 'Jeremy?' Shouldn't you at least call him 'Mr. Stoppelman?'

 
Millennial here (I suppose, ugh I hate that term): Not a cheap shot at all. She seems whiny. Go work harder like the rest of us. Bay area is freakin expensive so people find places that are farther away and deal with a commute, have roommates, etc. This type of crap gets ascribed to everyone in this age group and it sucks. I'm sure there were entitled people in other generations too, they just didn't have social media available to publicize their stupidity.

 

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