When did it become ok to hire based on skin color and ethnic origin? And when did the feds stop asking for proper education for someone they want to handle financial operations? I'm offended and I'm not a visible minority!!

[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: shelby9 ]

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APPLICANTS MUST CLEARLY STATE THEIR CITIZENSHIP AND DEMONSTRATE THAT THEY POSSESS THE REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS AND ARE WITHIN THE AREA OF SELECTION OR YOUR APPLICATION WILL BE REJECTED

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[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

AS THIS POSITION WILL BE STAFFED THROUGH DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES' EMPLOYMENT EQUITY PROGRAM, ONLY VISIBLE MINORITY PERSONS WILL BE CONSIDERED. APPLICANTS MUST CLEARLY STATE IN THEIR COVERING LETTER OR RESUME THAT THEY ARE VISIBLE MINORITY

VISIBLE MINORITY
A PERSON IN A VISIBLE MINORITY GROUP is someone (other than an Aboriginal person as defined above) who is non-white in colour/race, regardless of place of birth.

I know a lot of people get pretty defensive about these programmes. Why not just identify where there had been hiring biases in the past, stop it, and have colour blind hiring policies? Doesn't work, cause it's too hard to prove and police. Getting visible minorities in there soonest changes the corporate culture for the better and everyone will become more comfortable with a diverse workplace.

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When did it become ok to hire based on skin color and ethnic origin?

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The entire country was based on this principle from its origins onwards. Only whites were to apply for all higher-level jobs.

After it became a no-no to openly demand whites only, employers continued to do so less openly. Or, (the Walkerton principle), employers hired the sons and sometimes daughters of their employees, who were almost all white.

Finally, about fifteen years ago, it was decided to try to right this crime against minorities.

The Charter of Rights makes it clear that a programme to do so meets with constitutional requirements.

No other programme begins to deal with the
fact that white people are entrenched in the job market, and that this is due substantially to previous wrongful favoritism on racial grounds.

In this context, "colour-blind hiring" means insuring that the effects of discrimination are continually reproduced.

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Affirmative action causes a partial reduction in the continual harm being done.

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My only problem with this is: who is considered "non-white"? For example, a Maghrebian (North African) might be considered non-white, while a Sicilian or Andalusian of identical complexion and features is seen as white... Is it a question of past or present discrimination?

And in a lot of families of racially-mixed background, some siblings are much darker than others. One of my grandfathers was from Trinidad (and would definitely be considered "Black") but I just look "Mediterranean", "Semitic" or what have you. Others in my family are far darker - but may have straight hair. It is good that the human cocktail is getting more and more complex!

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My only problem with this is: who is considered "non-white"? For example, a Maghrebian (North African) might be considered non-white, while a Sicilian or Andalusian of identical complexion and features is seen as white... Is it a question of past or present discrimination?

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I believe this is an important point. It IS painful to have to measure blackness, brownness, etc.

But historically, they didn't have much problem with it when it came to exclusion.

Am I the only one who find this unacceptable? It implies that the education standards were lowered for this particular position and that visible minorities are less educated than caucasians. It doesn't get much more blatantly racist.

edited to add, somewhat contritely: It's just that your points are getting out of hand, and you're hitting all the stereotypically neocon pseudo arguments - besides,

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What happens when a city is desparately short of police officers or firepeople but there isn't enough visible minorities employed already?

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...is not a cogent question.

[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: scrabble ]

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So, it's perfectly ok to hire someone who qualifies as a visible minority yet only has high school level education, when all other administrative positions require both secondary AND post secondary education?

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Which is why I support the aims of affirmative action, but don't favour AA as a good long-term approach to dealing with diversity issues.

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It's a bit of a blunt instrument, and I don't doubt it's been inappropriatly used, and incompetently used. I really believe though that when most people get used to the idea of a more diverse workplace, and experience it, the defensiveness toward the whole idea evaporates. That leaves hard core bigots, and what I call habitual bigots. This leaves other interventions of varying efficacy. You can only do what you can do.

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Are you trolling?

edited to add, somewhat contritely: It's just that your points are getting out of hand, and you're hitting all the stereotypically neocon pseudo arguments - besides,

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In the old days if you wanted to work at a gas station they checked three things:

1. Can you breathe?
2. Can you add and subtract?
3. Can you read?

Boom, you're hired.

Now they make you jump through a million and one hoops just to work at a freakin' GAS STATION, never mind a doctoral thesis adviser's job.

Plus of course, all the ass-patting that goes on in good-paying jobs in this country. The epidemic of hiring just your pals and kids rose to a height in the dot-com craze of the 1990s, when unqualified people who were secretaries of junior-level managers were hired away and made Chief Financial Officers, Chief Technical Officers, etc of companies their friends started up solely on the basis of the fact that their friend(s) happened to get the right venture capitalist with money to burn and called himself "President and CEO of DotComFlashinthePan, Inc."

I think this credentialism in the workplace deserves far more of an assault than on some silly-assed rant about affirmative action, which doesn't, as indicated above, have much prevalence in Canada.

We're heading into a period where there's going to be a labor shortage because the boomers are retiring and getting heart attacks by the trainload, and what do we have to replace them? Overeducated bitter Gen-Xers who've never exercised the skills they took years to get educated in.

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So, it's perfectly ok to hire someone who qualifies as a visible minority yet only has high school level education, when all other administrative positions require both secondary AND post secondary education?

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Wrongity-wrong. Plenty of federal government positions don't require post-secondary education. My wife was recently interested in working for the feds -- wrote the civil-service exams, even -- and saw probably scores of such listings.

Edited to add:

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Which is why I support the aims of affirmative action, but don't favour AA as a good long-term approach to dealing with diversity issues.

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ObligatoryNitpick (ON): "Affirmative action" is a USian term. The terminology in Canada is "employment equity."

[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: 'lance ]

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We're heading into a period where there's going to be a labor shortage because the boomers are retiring and getting heart attacks by the trainload, and what do we have to replace them? Overeducated bitter Gen-Xers who've never exercised the skills they took years to get educated in.

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I graduated almost two years ago (my second BA) and this summer I've been working as a landscaper. I have a job interview lined up with a magazine, but I don't know how many people I'm up against, and how much experience they have. If I don't get that job, I have to go back to office temping and movie extra work until I can get something better. But who knows when that will be.

Meanwhile my alma maters keep calling me every few months asking for donations. "The suggested starting donation is $1,000." Right. I tell them maybe someday when I get a good job and my student loans are paid off.

Bitter? Hell yeah!

Most government ads for a clerk or secretarial type position only required experience, high school education, and knowledge of the tools of the trade, like word processing, excel, etc. That's all I have, and I've had no problem being not only one of the top admin temps of a large agency in Toronto, but also getting a job with the Toronto District School Board as an admin assistant doing contract work for the Federal Government. And being in such close contact with the Federal Government offices (and having two parents who work for the Provincial Government), I saw the job ads for the secretarial positions with the government - and for most of them I easily qualified.

Skills and experience only - no post-secondary required

Skills and Experience only, no post-secondary required

Skills and experience only, no post-secondary required

In fact, Shelby9, I dare you to try to find even one government admin assistant job (I'm not talking the specialized IT positions or senior administrator type of job - I'm talking just the basic type of secretarial work that was in the job ad that YOU posted) that DOES require post-secondary education. Sure, some of them require specialized skills, but I can't imagine a secretarial job that requires a college diploma or a university degree unless it actually ISN'T a secretarial position.

Here's a nice big list of clerical jobs with the Ontario Government. Find me a secretarial job that requires a university degree.

[ August 27, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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All you older workers, please retire soon so us young 'uns can get a chance

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I'm not old yet, but if you can come up with a satisfactory revenue stream for me, I'd gladly give you my job.

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IMHO, the best person, regardless of race, color or gender, should bet the job

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Unfortunately, over centuries of oppression and as a result of institutional unconscious and conscious racism, the job has often gone to not the best person but the person who fits the interviewers' stereotype of who they think is the best person. In an attempt to redress this balance, and it is always at the lower grades (which is important, bear with me), they are limiting the scope so that of all equally qualified individuals, they are giving preference to underrepresented groups. In time, these will then progress up the job ladder like anyone else has in the past, and if they are suitable, will get the higher grades.

Fifty years later, the hope and belief is, representation is equal to proportions (or thereabouts) in the general population. This in turn has spurred other minority people to see that they are represented and thus are more likely to apply, plus the stereotypes that used to exist have been reduced and so the discrimination is less.

I would be a shitty Admin Ass. anyways because I don't have much experience.

I found a job after a lot of work. I spent an average of 4 hours a day sending off resumes, cover letters, and going to interviews. I had to work at London Drugs for 4 months after graduation and I had to be patient.

I wrote a bazillion Government exams - in fact if you are taking one in the near future, talk to me because I bet I took it. Hah!

Uhm and now I need to write something that pertains to the thread. Yes I am really tired of white men complaining about being discriminated against. I never hear anyone else complain about discrimination! They are actually NOT dscriminiated against, they usually pick scenarios that are very unrealistic like

" what if I have a child, then get divorced? I will have no chance in hell of custody."

or

"I can't get a job in Gov't because I am a white male"

There is an age difference (he's probably 10-15 years older than I, me being a young 'un, just out of university) But we both have B.A.'s in history, he's a writer, I'm an actor. So we're fairly similar in those aspects.

So here's what's bugging me. I heard through the grapevine when he got hired that they didn't even want to interview him, because they thought a man would "want to move up quickly, become one of the suits, not stay for very long, etc..." However, they did interview him, and hire him. Turns out he's looking for a low-stress job while he keeps writing.

I'm annoyed for two reasons. One, that they made that assumption about him. Two, that they didn't make that assumption about me. They assumed, because I'm a woman, even though I have a degree too, that I'll be perfectly happy spending the rest of my life as a secretary. This isn't just me reading too much into this, because they keep telling me that they want to keep me "forever." (The last person took this job right out of high school and stayed 20 years) I do intend to try to move up, most particulary because I could do this job with my eyes closed.

So, let me get this straight. You have to borrow oodles of money for 4 years to get a degree so you can do grunt work at a university which doesn't involve bupkiss in the way of the skills you paid so much good money for.

[ August 28, 2002: Message edited by: DrConway ]

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"I can't get a job in Gov't because I am a white male"

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So I'm annoyed at the reflexive attitude that because I'm female, I have no ambition. Well, they'll find out in a year or two, whenever a great university job comes up.

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Yeah, Alix, welcome to Queen's, huh? The old boys network is alive and well here.

Doc, that's just not true. You have a major chip on your shoulder about universities and qualifications to teach or to work places that I have just not experienced. There are lots of jobs you can get at universities that don't require a degree, and they're the same type of jobs you can get in the outside world without one. Clerical positions at university don't require a university degree any more than they do with the government unless the position is actually something like being a research assistant.

And yes, you DO have to have a university degree in order to teach in a college or university. Because a university degree shows your employer and the people who are paying you for your knowledge that you actually know what the heck you're talking about. Sorry, but I don't want to learn philosophy at the university level from someone with a community college diploma in ECE. I would also not want to take a university course in computers or engineering or anything else from someone who did not have at least a Master's Degree in the subject. That's the POINT of universities - those who have studied more intensively and devote their professional lives to reseaching their subject teach the newcomers to the field. If that's "credentialism" then that's fine.

Well, tell that to my interview.

The boss dude there actually asked me why *I* thought I was the best person for full serve.

FULL SERVE!

Come ON, Michelle. You yourself said that the job could be done by a grade 8 kid on weekends for minimum wage. Yet I got asked a million and one questions none of which were relevant to the nature of the job.

Like, give. me. a. friggin' break. It's a gas pumping job, not nuclear physics.

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And yes, you DO have to have a university degree in order to teach in a college or university.

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I wasn't talking about the teaching positions in the first place.

I was talking about the clerical slash administrative jobs. I've applied for a million and one of these jobs over the last few years and never once gotten a callback, and I'm more than eminently qualified. I have good grades coming out of high school and I already have a partial post-secondary education (witness: My ChemE diploma).

Define irony, Michelle. This person who has a "giant chip on his shoulder" is *IN* the post-secondary system, fully cognizant of what it takes to get a degree, and may end up teaching in the post-secondary system.

They do the same thing at all service occupations because it weeds out the people who say, "Uhhhhhhh, I dunno" from the people who say, "Because I'm friendly and outgoing and I like people, so I think I'll be good at working with your customers."

You take that one manager and say that credentialism has gotten ridiculous in the whole field? Baloney. Maybe the guy was asking about your education because he wanted to see if you were OVER-qualified. Maybe he was trying to have a conversation with you to see what kind of a person you're like, to see if he wanted to work with you on a regular basis. Maybe you didn't get the job because the guy didn't like you. Who knows why? I'm willing to bet it wasn't because you didn't have a post-secondary education though.

As for clerical jobs in universities, what, you figure because you didn't get the job it had to be because of credentialism? YOU come on, Doc. There could be lots of reasons why you didn't get those jobs. Maybe you didn't make a good impression in the interview. Maybe they thought you were over-qualified. Maybe someone came along who had a better skill-set, or managed to communicate their skill-set better than you did. There are a million reasons why someone could have been picked over you, and they don't necessarily have to be education credentials.

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I've applied for a million and one of these jobs over the last few years and never once gotten a callback, and I'm more than eminently qualified. I have good grades coming out of high school and I already have a partial post-secondary education (witness: My ChemE diploma).

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At one time I applied for plenty of those jobs too, Doc, with no success. In retrospect, I'm neither surprised nor bitter.

In the first place, there's a lot of competition for those jobs. They're generally union, so they pay a lot more than equivalent jobs in the private sector, and they have benefits.

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Oh come on, Doc, you don't get one gas bar job and you figure it's because you don't have a university degree? Please. Sure they ask you why they should hire you out of the many others they are interviewing - that's a standard interview question, and one that's meant to test your ability to think about something and form a decent thought.

They do the same thing at all service occupations because it weeds out the people who say, "Uhhhhhhh, I dunno" from the people who say, "Because I'm friendly and outgoing and I like people, so I think I'll be good at working with your customers."

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I got the job, in case it wasn't clear to you.

The point is that all these questions are getting asked today, and for what? These are low-skill, low-paid service sector jobs that, frankly, depend on exactly three things:

1. Can you breathe, and speak coherently?
2. Can you add and subtract, multiply and divide?
3. Can you read and write?

But the broader impact of this is that people who have the skills and the abilities to do jobs well beyond what they are currently doing are forced into these lower-wage, lower-skill jobs because of credentials inflation.

In effect, the value of a degree is being diminished over time and I certainly have no illusions that I'll walk into a teaching job when all is said and done.

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The 1950s and 1960s may have their warts, but I'll tell you this. From my perspective they were a helluva lot better for someone who wanted to get a job.

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There is absolutely no reason at all why the primary income-earner cannot be a woman. No earthly reason whatsoever.

And the nuclear family is not crucial to grafting the economic structure of that era onto the social structure of this one.

For some reason, some people in my office thought that her solution to this would be to stop working altogether, stay home with the kids, let her husband be the primary breadwinner, etc. And weren't they surprised when instead she got another job within the university, that's a level up and is only 70% time! The fact that despite having kids she might have more ambition than our "level 4" jobs completely took management by surprise. Like I said, they always assumed her response might be to quit and stay home with the kids.

On another note, I think sometimes for my type of job (for which you emphatically do not need a university degree) it can hurt to have one. I don't know if I would have been hired if they had just gone by my resume, and not gotten to know me because I temped in the job for 5 months beforehand. My partner, who has his M.A., has had a really hard time finding a job since quitting Indigo in disgust (followed a few months later by me). Right now, he's not really looking, because we're quite comfortable living on what I make, and he's taking this time to do some writing. But before, when we were both unemployed, he was having a really hard time.

When a friend of mine was subletting her student housing apartment to someone else when she moved, she had to deal with this woman. Basically the woman had a clerical job, giving out keys, filing papers, having people sign leases, and perhaps keeping up databases of clients. Normal secretarial stuff. And the office hours there are 22.5 hours per week (5.5 per day) so it's not like it's an overly-taxing job. And when my friend and the new renter met at the office to sign over the lease, the new renter was being nice to the woman. But during the course of the conversation, she made some kind of comment like, "If any of the students that come in here had to do my job, they wouldn't last a day," as if it was so difficult. I laughed when my friend told me that. I told her, "She'd better hope she doesn't say that to me - I'll tell her I did that kind of job for years, FULL TIME, not part time, and could probably do her job in my SLEEP - and that's why I went back to university, because that kind of work is so BORING." Yes, it would be a snobby thing to say, but I get so sick of this pious "I'm better than you because I didn't go to university" crap.

They'll also give you 3 hours a week to go to a class - which is how much time 1 class normally takes

As for the attitude of university staff, at the start of the summer, something that shouldn't have been overlooked was, and ended up on my desk when my manager went on vacation. It was the pay requisition for summer studentships for a couple of students. A couple of weeks after they should have been in to be paid for June. Eek. I started getting panicky type calls from someone for one of the students, who was running out of money (obviously). So I was doing everything in my power to get this money to these students as quickly as possible. But I kept running into the attitude that it didn't matter, it would be all right if they didn't get paid till the end of July, no problem (we get paid once a month here).

I recently interviewed for a job at another university. Like most job searches, it's been a kind of brutal process that's in turns ego-boosting and ego-whithering. I wanted this job for a variety of reasons, one of the most important of which has to do with being closer to someone I care about very much, and so am very disappointed to learn that I haven't made the short list for a second interview. I have a great resume, have qualifications up the yingyang, and I show well in interviews, but the candidates they chose had more expertise than I in one crucial area. I'll keep looking, but at least I already have a good job.

Sure, for alot of reasons it's harder to get a job now than it was, even when you're obscenely well-qualified. But periods of time where employment is almost a given have historically been few and far between, the exception, not the norm. So nobody's handing out plumb jobs like they did in the 50s and 60s. Sucks to have to work hard for what you want, doesn't it?

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

Also, I think that a lot of the people who work at a uni are in the same financial straits a lot of people find themselves in - if they lose even a little off their paycheck due to illness, time off, or whatever, they'll run smack dab into financial disaster.

So I think these people feel the strain of being so close and yet so far, if you understand my meaning; they can take advantage of a university education because of their location, but they can't because they'll lose enough off their paychecks that it would screw up their finances.

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But periods of time where employment is almost a given have historically been few and far between, the exception, not the norm. So nobody's handing out plumb jobs like they did in the 50s and 60s. Sucks to have to work hard for what you want, doesn't it?

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I'd like to see you tell that to someone who lived through the Great Depression.

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[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

I remind you that the recession of the 1980s was made less harsh primarily because of two things that didn't exist in the thirties - UI and welfare.

It also defines irony for me that you, someone who has experienced some of the same wrenching episodes of unemployment as your parents probably once did, rationalize it not by arguing that the deck is stacked in favor of employers, but instead buying into the ideology that employers like to promote - a Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest doctrine that is compatible with chronically high unemployment.

[ August 29, 2002: Message edited by: DrConway ]

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I remind you that the recession of the 1980s was made less harsh primarily because of two things that didn't exist in the thirties - UI and welfare

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Because you decided to sport your "cred"

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Disclaimer: My dad doesn't know Paul Martin and isn't a lawyer.

So it gravels me more than a little bit when people such as yourself validate the rhetoric and the attitudes expected of workers who should be hollering blue murder about the way things have changed.

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Because you decided to sport your "cred".

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Look. Everybody here has got their own hard-luck story to tell

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I have obviously made a serious error in judgement in thinking that the most difficult periods in my life should ever see the light of day, or that the sharing of personal experience could ever be beneficial or pertinent.

P.S.

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It also defines irony for me that you, someone who has experienced some of the same wrenching episodes of unemployment as your parents probably once did, rationalize it not by arguing that the deck is stacked in favor of employers, but instead buying into the ideology that employers like to promote - a Darwinian survival-of-the-fittest doctrine that is compatible with chronically high unemployment

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[ August 30, 2002: Message edited by: Rebecca West ]

I think you're a little stuck on the ideological and are missing some of the practical.

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That's the point. They can afford to play all these games with making people jump through hoops to get jobs because the unemployment rate is chronically higher.

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Speaking as somebody who winds up on a hiring committee, or who hires temporarily from time to time, I don't think most employers are having people jump through hoops just to see how high they'll go.

You have a certain number of applicants, you need to decide which one is going to do the best job. It's not so simple as looking at qualifications and saying "Okay, that's the the one." You have to be the right fit for the workplace. I've interviewed exceptionally well-qualified people who just didn't have the right people skills for an artist-run centre, although would have been great in a more intense business atmosphere. They just weren't quite right for the job.

I applied for tons of jobs when I first got out of university, and when I didn't get a position, I'd ask for feedback. A lot of the time I heard that I was too educated, too ambitious, too articulate for the clerical jobs and they knew I wasn't going to be long term. Sure, I could have done the job and done it well, but I wasn't what they were looking for.

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Maybe it's because I've paid my dues that I don't like the way the system works, hmmmmmmmmmmmm?

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Well, some wouldn't say that you have, DrC. You're pretty young, and you have a diploma. Some of the underemployed 30-somethings with 4 year degrees that I know would certainly argue the paid dues thing with you.

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Poor children were also steered to office or trades training too, no matter how high their marks were. I was one who had always been near the top of the class who was forced into this deadend education because of being orphaned.

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JOB POSTING
New Democratic Party of Canada
Temporary/full time bilingual Receptionist/Clerk
(This is a temporary full-time position to January 31, 2003.)
Information: [email protected]

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Well, some wouldn't say that you have, DrC. You're pretty young, and you have a diploma. Some of the underemployed 30-somethings with 4 year degrees that I know would certainly argue the paid dues thing with you.

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And guess what? I didn't get a job in the field I spent two years of technical school for either. Just like all the underemployed 30-somethings with degrees you mention.

And I'm 26, almost 27. That ain't old, but it's not wet-behind-the-ears young either.

Since I am called upon to post a resume of my experience, I'll do so.

From 1993 to 1994, I worked weekend clean-up in a sawmill. You couldn't pay me enough to go back to this work.

1994 - office job (clerical, mostly) at said sawmill.

1995 - same type of job, lumber trading company. Found out two years later that everybody got downsized except the vice-president in that Vancouver division.

1996 - 1997 - gas station, working part-time while attending school.

1997 - 2000 - Lush Manufacturing. Physical labor, shipping/receiving, and later on, office geek. Lest you think I got paid a lot (and this was after my 1997 commencement from BCIT), I earned the princely sum of a whole 9 dollars 25 cents an hour.

2000 - now. Lumber remanufacturer. Got laid off in Jan 2001, rehired a few months later. I earn the princely sum of eleven dollars an hour, but at very part-time hours - no more than 30 hr/week since rehirement.

I also will note that many jobs involving chemical engineering (assaying, analysis, etc) are either not available to me in Vancouver or they simply disappeared after the Asian crisis hit in late 1997-early 1998. A lot of the work that analytical labs get depends on samples coming in from mining and exploratory concerns that have their head offices in Vancouver but their field offices anywhere in the world.

No jobs in Asia, no mining. No mining, no sample collecting. No sample collecting, no analysis. No analysis, NO FREAKIN JOBS!

One company, they hired half my graduating class in 1997 and kicked them ALL off after just 6 months.

Such is the carnage of recessions.

Addendum to Rebecca West:

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Sure, for alot of reasons it's harder to get a job now than it was, even when you're obscenely well-qualified. But periods of time where employment is almost a given have historically been few and far between, the exception, not the norm. So nobody's handing out plumb jobs like they did in the 50s and 60s. Sucks to have to work hard for what you want, doesn't it?

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If something you "loathe" so much is the Darwinist survival of the fittest rhetoric often trumpeted by CEOs and managers of corporations who have managed to obtain very tender seats indeed for their fat butts, then why would you snarkily say "Sucks to have to work hard for what you want, doesn't it?"

I've worked a large number of scut jobs in my time, too, from waiting tables to cleaning the homes of the wealthy (live like pigs, some of 'em, expect you to pick up their dirty underwear -- ech!). In the end, I had to create my own work, and was fortunate enough to want to be in an industry where that's possible.

I also think you're misinterpreting Rebecca's point, although I should let her speak to that. Suffice it to say that getting a job is a competition, and it's hard. Sometimes it's worth it, and there's nothing wrong with being proud of how hard you've worked for what you have.

Edited to add: This is a strange conversation for me to be in... I finally got the much desired gov't gig, top in-scope pay level and all, did it for 5 years and hated it. Best thing I ever did was quit that job... To hell with security! Now I can breathe!

[ August 31, 2002: Message edited by: Zoot Capri ]

This era of economic security for CEOs and economic insecurity for the rest of us produces this kind of widespread phenomenon where several people can all get together and find out that none of them got jobs in the field which they put a lot of time and energy into.

And the security thing, it's all illusory. Even in seemingly solid union positions, if they want to turf you, they can. Gov't departments can be eradicated, positions eliminated... Companies, like Nortel, go down.

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University is for more than getting a job.

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Shhhhhhhh! Don't let those business execs hear that! They'll be horrified that someone still shows independent thought!

Zoot, I'm not attacking you either (to reciprocate what you said earlier). We're all in this boat together.