Humanities majors have gone on a citywide strike in New York City.
“There’s no need to bother anymore,” says Anna Diggs, a 27-year-old former marketing employee. “My rent has gone up every year, but I’ve never gotten a raise. And I just got a big tax refund since I made less than $18,000 last year, and I realized it was actually enough to cover my expenses for a couple months. So, I quit.”
While the humanities majors hold many different positions over a wide spectrum of industries, the actual job descriptions for all of them are strikingly similar.
“I basically surf the Internet and occasionally answer the phone,” says Marie Johnson, administrative assistant at a financial firm. “My two roommates both have nearly identical positions at other firms. I make $14/hour, Trish makes $18/hour and Erin makes $25/hour. We were all three placed through the same temp agency that’s been making $35/hour off each of us for the past year-and-a-half. Which is about how long it’s been since I went to a dentist.”
In the wake of the striking humanities majors, HR managers and temp agencies have been deluged with resumes from retail, restaurant, hotel and other minimum-wage workers.
“Frankly, I’ll do anything,” says Becca Horstead, a 48-year-old single mother of two, who currently works at a Borders. “They can pay me whatever they want, just so long as it’s over $7.15 an hour, and they let me sit my ass in a chair.”
These resumes, however, have been not been greeted with enthusiasm.
“I don’t know,” said Myra Beckinridge, HR-manager at Wees & Luxembaum LLC. “Since Katy [the file clerk for the heath care law division] left, Beatrice from word processing has been doing her work. And she’s applied for the position, but she’s…well, I don’t…”
Beckinridge paused for a moment before continuing.
“What I mean to say is, this position just demands too much responsibility for someone without a college degree.”
Asked for comment, Beatrice Jones replied, “I have a B.A. from CUNY! Did she even glance at my damn resume?”
Many employers are doubting whether they’ll replace the humanities majors at all.
“I’m thinking it’s really not that big a workload,” says Dennis Masterson at Techmode, a strategizing and data management firm. “What I might do is, just turn that paid position into several, part-time unpaid internships. We could get a couple smart, young college kids to come in a couple times a week and do this for college credit or something.”
Unpaid internships are nothing new to jobhunter, Matthew Bender, a 28-year-old former assistant copywriter.
“I’d been working at this trade publication for two years, through a temp agency,” Bender explains. “And I had my performance review, and my boss said he was really happy with me. I asked for benefits and a raise, and he said that I was a temp, and they couldn’t afford to hire me on right now. So, I quit and started looking for other editing or copywriting jobs – all the ones I found were fulltime jobs, but the publications had them listed as unpaid internships. What freaking idiots are doing all this work for free?”
When asked about his plans, Bender is noncommittal.
“I mean, being unemployed is nice, and not really that different,” Bender says. “I still sit at my computer all day for no money, only now I can wear jeans, and I don’t spend $10 on lunch.”
“In this economy,” says Techmode’s Masterson. “We really can’t afford to pay our employees.”
