5mo ago

Gen Z job seekers should be willing to work for free, long hours, ‘willing to do anything,’ says Squarespace CMO

finance.yahoo.com Gen Z job seekers should be ‘willing to do anything,’ says Squarespace CMO, who cold-called firms from the phonebook for her first role

After landing her first job thanks to the Yellow Pages, Kinjil Mathur has climbed the ranks of Conde Nast, Saks Fifth Avenue and Squarespace to the C-suite.

Gen Z job seekers should be ‘willing to do anything,’ says Squarespace CMO, who cold-called firms from the phonebook for her first role

Work Reform @lemmy.world

finance.yahoo.com /news/squarespace-cmo-cold-called-firms-100000661.html

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86 comments

You first, asshole.
- Talking about assholes, that's where she can put it.
- ...She literally did do it.
  
  She literally was already privileged person that didn't have to worry about providing for herself. So no. She didn't.
  
  Did she have a fat bank account while she did it or was she skating on the edge like the people she's criticizing. Cause one is meaningful and the other is performative.

“Squarespace Exec Wants Slave Labor”
- Nepo baby thinks everyone's daddy can bankroll their slave labor

Great! Let's up your income tax rate to 90% and add a 1% per annum wealth tax over 25mil in assets, so all tertiary education can be free and people can earn a universal basic income, while they get settled into a career path they love.
- Hey that way we would have time for hobbies and socializing. They won't let us have any of that shit.

Guillotine.
- Why do I want that as a tattoo?
  
  Good bot!

Reminder that unpaid internships are almost always illegal in the USA. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-internships

She was able to work, for free, in her freshman summer, while going through for a finance degree. So many questions:
Where did the money come from? Who paid her tuition?
Why not go through for Co-op, where you obtain a job as part of schooling? Or why did she have to hunt for internships? Even my wife, who had unpaid internships and family to back her up during the same time, had help from the school to find it. How jank is U of Texas?
Why, pray tell, is a finance degree holder the CMO?
I mean, I'm happy for her, but how useful is her recommendations? If you don't have a family who can pay your tuition and summer living costs, this is useless.
And ignoring how people need money in order to have shelter and food, what does she think happe s if everyone starts doing this? Should I be calling up everyone at SquareSpace and asking for a job?
- It really does sound like one of those "with a small donation from my parents" story. And even if it's not, great for her, she was lucky. Does she really believe most students just smoke weed and fuck all day or something? Every single person I knew from the US that went to uni worked during uni. Hell, even as a European I had to work despite the state money I got.
  I know people who donated blood and plasma just to get by - and they had scholarships!
  How can employers be "in dire need of employees" and people still have to hustle to get a job? They obviously aren't in dire need.
- prey tell
  🙃 [my joke correction, no mistake on part of referencee]

G̶e̶n̶ Z̶ j̶o̶b̶ s̶e̶e̶k̶e̶r̶s̶ Squarespace CMO should be willing to work for free, long hours, ‘willing to do anything.'
- There's an old Soviet joke.
  We pretend to work. They pretend to pay us.

No no, guys. She's right. We should TOTALLY bring back slavery!!! What? That's whats being discussed here, right? Long hours, doing anything thats asked, without any compensation. That sounds like slavery to me.
Soooooo, who's ready to bring back slavery??? Guys? Guys???
Well there you have it. The nays have it.
- I think you vastly underestimate the number of people who are willing to bring back slavery today.
  
  Aristofascists. All of them.
- we already have slavery here. it was never gone..

Adding Squarespace to the black list...

Well, I'm never using Squarespace again.

that's slavery, Karen
- Its one full-time GenZ employee, Michael. How much could it cost? $10?
  
  Woah, hold your horses there: Full time? 39 hours, no more.

The key takeaway of the article is she was so unemployable when she started that she had to apply everywhere and be willing to put in extra effort and accept lesser pay to get started. Then after that, she got lucky.
That's usually how it goes - especially for those who don't have any defining traits.
- Agreed. She had the right connection, had the right look, was in the right place at the right time, etc. Not saying she's not intelligent, creative, etc--she probably is or wouldn't be in these roles. She definitely didn't get to where she is through hard work, though.
- Not to mention Travelocity broke the law by allowing her to work for free while benefiting their company.
  In general, as long as an employee is engaging in activities that benefit the employer, regardless of when they are performed, the employer has an obligation to pay the employee for that time.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act_of_1938
  
  Limp dick regulators don't care...
  These people know this that's why they are ae to shill crime as "story"
  
  They did. They paid her a rate of $0/hr, which she agreed to.

Working full-time for free is impossible without another source of income (like a trust fund, or exceptionally generous parents) that most of us don’t have access to. It irritates me that the article doesn’t even mention that. All I’m asking for is ONE sentence.
- Why would corporate propaganda undermine itself?
  This ain't journalism boy

What is a CMO? Chief Medical Officer? Completely Moronic Outburster? Certainly not Chief Morale Officer?, with those views.
- Chief marketing officer
  
  Of course, the most cancerous and toxic career field. Marketing.
  I swear 98.9999% of marketing is just scamming people.

The woodchipper calls to me. It's starving it says. Feet. It wants feet.
- Damn guess I'm a woodchipper then 👅
- Make sure to leave the shoes out so we can take a picture for PR purposes later
- Feet first are you out of your mind?

What's this willing to do anything thing? Did she sell sex to get where she is now?
- Yes, but not using her body.

It’s easy to work for free when you’re already rich.
And continue to insist on payment…

lmao.. not even surprised. I've only had one Indian boss, that guy thought salaried employees have to work 60+ hours a week. Then the sob convinced the CTO to eliminate half of the IT staff across the board (14 people total) and replace them with off shore Indian labor to save money. Once I realized what had happened I decided it was best to resign. Especially when my boss expected me to lead team meetings with the off shore Indian team at 4AM PST / 4:30PM IST. And still come into work at 7AM til 5-6-7PM
- Soo...did this place eventually collapse under its own hubris? I went through similar when I used to work for Silicon Valley Bank. Eventually their hubris caught up to them.
  
  I didn't keep up with their current events. Ever so often I would ponder what happened with the rest of the IT team members but I never reached out to any of them (LinkedIn) for gossip.

Eat the rich

Good dammit, how I hate this ducking world.
- Yeah, the whole nightmare capitalist workplace is just absolutely quackers.
- 🦆

Hey Kinjil, you're an asshole.

I'm sure the Squarespace CMO works long hours for free.

Yeah, nothing new it was the same 20+ years ago too.

time to let every content creator who accepts their sponsorship know about this
- I haven't has a squarespace ad read on my feed for years. Now I know why.

Nah companies who have this way of thinking should go out of business instead.

I rather be a hooker than do that. Fuck that honestly.
- I respect hookers way more than people working for squarespce, wurdpress or wix
  
  Honestly same here tbh! At least sex workers are transparent unlike people who work for big corporations. Society should change the people who they respect but doubt it tbh cuz misogyny and capitalism.

And if I don't?
- Well then you just won't get the LUXERY of spending your whole day doing unpaid often times humiliating labor.

I graduated with a BFA, concentration in fashion design, just after a major economic crash. It was expected, even before the crash, that design students would take "internships" at design companies and studios where the would be free labor, doing shit like sweeping, fetching coffee, and so on, while learning nothing beyond what they got in school, and not earning any credit (because, y'know, you had already graduated). It was understood that you would do this for 18-24 months after graduation.
I was not able to do this; my (now) ex-wife was not willing to move to NYC or LA with me so I could pursue this, and I wasn't going to be able to work enough hours at a real job to support myself while also working at an "internship".
This is why I am not working in the fashion industry now.

Take control of that line from independence day, with a slight change. "In the words of YOUR generation. UP YOURS!"

she should lead by example

So square, man

I'm gen X. I worked for free in my chosen field to get experience. I worked shitty jobs at the same time for rent.
It sucked, but it landed me a super sweet job compared to my young peers, as I had experience on the ground, and they did not. That was the only difference.
It's a shitty thing starting at the bottom. That's how I stepped up, and got out of my young man poverty.
Now I know I'll get down voted, so you do that. But, that was my reality. That's what happened. That's what gave me my start. Such is life.
- You're getting down voted because it's not 1990 anymore. Working for free just gets you abused, not a foot in the door.
  
  Many people had that same attitude then as well. It's always been like this. It's not like anything is different.
  The only thing different now is the huge costs of living which would make it a lot more difficult to do versus when I did it back in the day. It definitely was financially easier for me because the economy was not so screwed as it is now.
- What time period did you work for free while also working shitty jobs for rent?
  Lots of people are working two full time jobs to barely survive...
  I'm not saying you're wrong, but you have to look around and understand that a 1 bedroom apartment can easily be one full time jobs worth of salary to rent if you're a GenZ, then your second full time job is utilies and food... And depending on where they live, that's WITH a roommate.
  Once you've worked 16 hours a day, plus commute time, unpaid lunches...you basically only have time to sleep.
  Where in that schedule do you propose someone donate their time working for free?
  
  This was definitely in a time when things were heaps cheaper. It was the 1990s and the cost of living was nothing like it is now so it was definitely easier for me.
  But I do remember working from some time in the afternoon until about three in the morning on a project for free to demonstrate that I can do what I needed to do.
  That project got me a foot in the door and it got me my first job that I would consider my real road to success.
  It wasn't fun, it wasn't easy, and i remember being so tired that my eyes were shuttering/shaking, but I knew that if I could get that out the door and show them what it was I could do, that it gave me a good chance.
  It did more than that, it put me straight into salary in their company within a week.
  Absolutely fantastic, and I might have been lucky, that I didn't get screwed, but that it is what happened.
- You boomimg lol
  How many people provide free labour and get ahead in life?
  How many non whites get lucky?
  Asking for a friend.
  It is a system that's relies on everyone to deal value their labour so you and that clown can tell us cute stories lol
  At this age you should know better
  
  I made a choice. It worked. I got an amazing job out of it.
  Much in life is a calculated gamble. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you don't.

86 comments