Chapotraphouse

The following is all 100% real advice I got from a corporate worker today.

1. We expect you to be independent as soon as you come in

2. It's OK to ask questions, but we won't baby you through the work (aka, clearly showing all the steps. You're expected to figure out the steps on your own*)

3. If you have a PhD It's seen as low work experience. We expect you to get a PhD on the side (which also means no pay and you're working while doing the PhD). BTW, PhDs are counting as working employees for the purpose of getting student discounts and housing. They are given salaries.

4. Companies these days prefer to keep low headcounts and off-load the work onto interns and agency flexible workers

5. This country is a "relationship based country" so you need good social skills (and nepotism) to get a job. If you make friends during your internship it matters more than doing a good job because then your friend will recomend you to the recruiters and the recruiters won't even bother posting jobs online.

*this is genuinely what she said. I'm not exaggerating. Imagine being at an engineering company and expecting the new hires to fucking do the thing on their own and I guess fuck up whatever experimental/proprietary/institutional/tech debt/whatever tf process you have.

This is the state of capitalism here. In any socialist revolution we are 100% going to have to destroy the scrouge known as "networking" (aka corruption). All jobs should go through a common online portal that takes anonymous applications!