Business Trends

Trapped in a Cycle of Internships With Little Pay and No Job Offers – NYTimes.com

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While the idea of slaving away in two, three or four quasi jobs without a clear path for advancement may seem unimaginable to an older generation, those in their 20s seem to respond to their jobless fate with a collective shrug. To them, internships are the new normal. “For some people, being an accountant, taking a safe route, is perfectly fine, but that’s not where my values lie,” Ms. Thomas said.

via Millennials Feel Trapped in a Cycle of Internships With Little Pay and No Job Offers – NYTimes.com.

Passion is overrated.  The real question is how long are you willing to chase your dream before you understand all you are doing is letting other people totally screw you over?

Beer Delivery By Drone? The FAA Shoots It Down

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The company in question is a Minnesota Micro Brewery called Lakemaid Brewery and the product it had hoped to deliver by remote control airplane to ice fishermen is beer.

via Beer Delivery By Drone? A Reality, Until The FAA Shoots It Down | Zero Hedge.

Beer by drone?  If the company had not posted a video on YouTube would the FAA have noticed at all?

The Dangerous Rise of “Entrepreneurship Porn”

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A good friend who runs a professional services firm told me with some shock that his most profitable employee is a single mother who works part time. So this year, she got a big bonus. Despite working for someone else, she feels recognized and rewarded. And by being part of a larger organization, she gets to have more time with her kids. This sort of story is rare – but it doesn’t have to be.

Companies Take Steps to Curb Worker Burnout – News OK

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One strategy Goldman Sachs has been trying is to make people feel less at risk in their jobs. That\’s not easy in most companies, much less so in investment banking.

To keep junior analysts from burning out, the bank has decided to start hiring first-year analysts as permanent employees, instead of taking them on as contract workers. It is also encouraging them to not work weekends.

via Companies take steps to curb worker burnout | News OK.

Life/work balance is a choice, not another corporate initiative.  You have one life.  Make the right choice.

READ THIS NOW – Writing Wednesdays: “Poof Goes the Middle Class”

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People are becoming entrepreneurs. The mind-set of the employee is vanishing like the factory where it was born. It has to. We’ll all die if we wait for some force outside ourselves—business or government—to bring us jobs or teach us who we are or how we ought to live.

We have to invent our own ways, and that’s just what we’re doing.

via Writing Wednesdays: “Poof Goes the Middle Class”.

Poof goes the middle class – latimes.com.

A couple of weeks ago I caught up with my old college buddy on the phone.  I asked how his son was doing after taking refuge in his parents’ basement post college graduation.

“Michael’s doing great.  He moved out to Brooklyn and is doing project work.  Very happy, very busy.  Michael has four or five projects on the go.”

Call it what you want – freelancer, contract worker, portfolio careerist.  The employee mindset is becoming a thing of the past.

Blue Bunny to Lay Off 58 workers – The Des Moines Register | desmoinesregister.com

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The cut comes at a time when Iowa also is being buffeted by big layoffs at Wells Fargo & Co. and the former Aviva USA insurance company, now known as Athene. The Iowa unemployment rate increased to 4.9 percent in August from 4.8 percent in July, but it remains one of the lowest in the U.S.

via Blue Bunny ice cream manufacturer to lay off 58 workers | The Des Moines Register | desmoinesregister.com.

Memo to Blue Bell and Braum’s:

Bigger is not always better.