<p>mcat,
Can’t say what Microsoft did or didn’t want, but many companies, especially when the economy took a downturn and layoffs and cutbacks were huge, put more and more work onto less and less people. Working hard is not an unreasonable expectation.</p>
<p>There is an EMR company outside of Madison,WI called “Epic” that tries to be “fun” with its setup and layout (several who worked there called it "googlesque’). They hire a lot right out of college and worked them hard, but I hear that turnover is high.</p>
<p>As an aside, one poster seemed to want to incite or create an issue that had not been there. </p>
<p>^Funny, I was thinking of posting about Epic. Very, very similar in terms of the perks and amenities offered in exchange for hard work and long hours. </p>
<p>All of early high tech needed young folks who could give 120%- very, very much people who saw “the box” differently. (Think about it- they were reinventing the world.) Of course, you need drones or little guys in every biz. But I thought then and still do, that those who did what it took to move the company and its ideas ahead, got a heck of a lot further than those who coasted. Sure, that can mean kids not dividing their time with many family needs.</p>
<p>You could work hard, work smart- and still have weekends. Maybe leave early to hit the slopes…but your work was either done or would be done on target. Your ideas were/are viable. MS and Apple were our clients. They didn’t slack off. (Nor did they invent the play time ideas, btw.) In fact, it bugs me people stereotype these minds as children. I don’t care who does their laundry or whether the haircuts are on-prem. They produce results. </p>
<p>But, a manger did once say to me, maybe 25 years ago: “it used to be one person/one job. Now we wear lots of hats- one person, multiple responsibilities.” </p>
<p>jym626, I do not deny that a company like Google is perceived a good company to work for by many or even most people (in US and even overseas - that is the reason why I mentioned the case about Korea as an example.) All companies in that industry work their employees hard (actually a larger or a more successful company may give their people some slack.) For youngmen or women, if they have what these top companies want, I think it is better for them to work there, in general. They will be worked so hard in this field anywhere, why don’t they just take a company with more perks?!</p>
<p>Since this is CC, it may be relevant to mention that historically speaking, these top companies tend to recruit their employees from a top college (esp. at the UG level) in general. This inflames the craze of parents struggling to send their offsprings to the so-called top colleges. (Again, use Korea as an extreme example, their parents are more crazy about sending their offsprings to the top UG colleges - UG is the key here, not the graduate school, because their route to that prestigious salaryman position is mostly through UG college at least as a short cut.) But I do not know that, in the engineering field, the play is more “leveled” between the very top college or the other colleges. This is because many state colleges tend to produce the bulk of the workforce for the engineering field. The bigger issue there is the H1B issue which all the large global companies are involved, IMHO. But it is a topic that is beyond this thread, maybe beyond the scope of CC.</p>
<p>I feel that our next generation just had no choice but to worker harder, no matter what field they are in. (So, as long as the child can still break into his/her field of his/her choice, I am a big believer that they should have some wonderful college experiences as UG students - it may be the last time in their lives they will not be asked to work so hard.)</p>
<p>Well, Epic (the Wisconsin company mentioned above) hires extensively from small LACs (many that don’t get a lot of attention on this site). Of course, they have plenty of grads of “top” colleges too–but they are looking for certain attributes in employees more than their academic pedigree.</p>
<p>I’d also disagree that everyone has to work harder these days. What I see in my field (advertising/marketing) is the juxtaposition of very ambitious, hard-working young people against the entitled types who think they deserve opportunities and promotions just by virtue of their very existence. There are plenty of clock-punchers in the under-30 set too, as well as those who have figured out at a relatively young age that a work-life balance is more important to them than money or career advancement.</p>
<p>No doubt about it. If someone’s has no issues dropping $10k/week for 4 years of undergrad to buy clothes he’d only wear once for the week before repeating it all over again, first-class is very likely a drop in the bucket. </p>
<p>That and he once stated his regrets he couldn’t do these weekly shopping trips to/from Paris on the Concorde because they were no longer being flown. </p>
<p>There is an EMR company outside of Madison, WI called Epic that. Hires lots of young kids out of college and offers perks an an environment attractive to young employees. </p>
<p>The posts are showing up out of order and obviously some have been deleted due to the “agitator” who was subsequently removed. I agree, jym–Epic’s “perks” are similar to what Google offers. Few young people want to work out in the country where its HQ is (even though it only takes 20-25 minutes to get there from downtown Madison) so there are buses to shuttle employees back and forth. The campus is like a fantasyland with every imaginable amenity. The employees work hard and some burn out, but I know people doing very well there–including opportunities to travel abroad and even be based in Europe for years. I would be happy for either of my kids to give it a try if it suited them.</p>
<p>It really depends on the individual person concerned and his/her life situation at the time. Some people thrive in companies where the prevailing environment is all-consuming with long sometimes unpredictable hours* and sometimes possibly being on-call during one’s off-time. </p>
<p>For others, that working environment isn’t their cup or tea or they may thrive in it at first only to find it gets old after several years. </p>
<ul>
<li>The unpredictability aspect my techie colleagues and I had was something my former medical intern/resident roommates felt was worse than their situation. While they may work exceedingly long hours and are on call some of the time, it is often set in stone ahead of time so they could plan their genuinely off-time much more effectively.<br></li>
</ul>
Apple employees are rarely allowed to slack off, especially if they are a part of their bread-and-butter division like RF that is key to their revenue stream (i.e., iPhone).</p>
<p>Many of them are young and ambitious and work hard and occasionally play hard. An employee might ride his bike 5 miles at 9 pm on Friday to another company to work with them (it happened that it rained heavily while he was on the way to that company. He completed the work there by mid-night luckily and rode his bike back to Cupertino. And his flight to Foxconn in Shenzen China would take off early next morning on Saturday. (He rides bike to various sites both as an exercise and as a “de-compress” activity.) They have a bus which may take them to work. The time for them to start working is likely when they get on the bus - The wifi connection to their company’s intranet is available on the bus. They are on the fast lane in their daily life. It was rumored that when Steve Job was still around, he liked employees who were there mostly because they enjoy the work, not someone who care about the money.</p>
<p>It is likely that these companies like somebody who enjoys their work so much that he or she put everything else (like cleaning their house and do laundry themselves) into a list of very low priority. If the employee is not “mature” enough as a grownup in the traditional sense, the company (and the person himself) just does not care. It is called the division of work in the modern society.</p>
<p>Thats true for almost any field, Cobrat. People work long hours and many burn out or change careers. The honeymoon wears off at all new jobs after a while.</p>
<p>Epic! Son’s friend is there, met his long-term g/f who also works there. I heard good things, but no details.</p>
<p>Not all Googlers “live” there. Some prefer to do work at home. It is not the hours, but the product they produce. Some would rather skip the free dinners, with long lines, and get home early. If I was working there, I’d be taking Pilates classes there and making the most of their delicious food.</p>
cobrat, I do not know anything about that line of work but I am glad to hear what you have said (and cross my finger and hope it is true.) I have been a little bit “guilty” about leading my loved one toward that line of work. (This “guilt” might be clearly shown in my screen name. LOL.) I hope he would not complain too much about it to me in the future. He already “complained” quite loudly to us in the past year when the hours were bad, even though he has not reached the more grueling phase you were talking about.</p>
<p>Odd-- posts seem to be written in disappearing ink! Will repost:</p>
<p>Thats true for almost any field, Cobrat. People work long hours and many burn out or change careers. The honeymoon wears off at all new jobs after a while.</p>
<p>And:
Oops, I thought my original post about Epic sprouted legs,so repeated it. My bad. Didnt see it was still there.</p>
<p>Thats true for almost any field, Cobrat. People work long hours and many burn out or change careers. The honeymoon wears off at all new jobs after a while.</p>
<p>Oops, I thought my original post about Epic sprouted legs,so repeated it. My bad. Didnt see it was still there.</p>
<p>“One Boston area friend knew a wealthy student who’d go off to Paris every weekend to drop $10k on clothing for the following week, wear them once, toss/give away to others, and rinse and repeat the next weekend to graduation.”</p>
<p>Now that’s a good one. It’s about a seven hour flight over there, eight hours coming back. Add onto that a couple of hours for driving to the airport and checking in and getting to the gate, and you’re spending much of your weekend flying. Very little time to shop or even sleep. I’ve done a short trip like that once (with nothing I had to do but sleep, no shopping), and it just about killed me. I call BS.</p>
<p>"No doubt about it. If someone’s has no issues dropping $10k/week for 4 years of undergrad to buy clothes he’d only wear once for the week before repeating it all over again, first-class is very likely a drop in the bucket.</p>
<p>That and he once stated his regrets he couldn’t do these weekly shopping trips to/from Paris on the Concorde because they were no longer being flown.</p>
<p>Must have been some time ago, as the Concorde was retired in 2003.</p>
<p>Perhaps an effective H-1B reform would be to limit their use in subcontracting situations. Then the companies trying to direct hire actual top talent on H-1B visas (the actual intent of the visa class) won’t have as many problems getting them, but the outsourcing subcontractors that currently hog the H-1B visas would not be able to use them as much.</p>