Is "Paying Your Dues" an Outdated Concept?

Published by jrw2868 on September 21st, 2007 in Work | 11 Comments

When I was in high school, I was completely consumed and obsessed with theatre. My high school put on exactly one musical per year — it was my life. I planned and schemed all summer about my audition in the fall. I took voice lessons from the sister of the musical director (a little networking there) and paid for them by working all summer at JCPenney's. When the musical was over, I was depressed for weeks–until I started thinking about next year.

The way the casting at my school worked was this: the seniors always got the lead roles. Every so often, a talented junior would get a lead, but this was the only exception. So when I was a freshman in the chorus, I didn't mind — I knew I had to pay my dues. When I was a sophomore in the chorus, I didn't mind that either — there was always next year. And when I was a junior with three lines, well…my time would come.

Senior year rolled around, and I took stock of my situation before auditioning. I knew who all the other players were: the competing seniors who would be going for the lead roles. And I knew I was a likely candidate. I was talented, passionate, and driven. Not to mention, I'd paid my dues. The director knew me—I had been in the musical for three years now. I had never missed a rehearsal, never goofed off during practice time, and always knew the songs weeks in advance.

But that year—the beginning of my senior year—the old musical director quit. And the new one came from the nearby middle school. He knew a lot of kids in the incoming freshman class. And guess what? He casted the people he knew. I didn't get a lead, and nobody else in the senior class did, either.

I know this mini-tragedy is not important in the grand scheme of my life. But it did teach me one thing that I haven't forgotten — to be extremely skeptical of people who tell you to pay your dues. You can do everything right, and still get passed by.

I'm always interested in conversations about the clash of generations. And when older employees talk about younger ones, someone eventually brings it up — we all need to pay our dues. We're not supposed to want more—not before our time. And from the perspective of those who've been there longer, I can understand how frustrating it must be to see new employees with no experience come into their company demanding things like more vacation time and more responsibility—things they themselves had to work for years to get.

But the problem from the younger employee's perspective is that the world doesn't always reward the due-payers. A lot of people my age have seen parents laid off multiple times. Employer loyalty is more difficult to come by, and the company man is a dying breed. We didn't grow up watching dues-payers cash in. We watched them lose out.

This is one reason Gen-Y employees have a reputation for being impatient and entitled. We see that paying dues and waiting patiently might not get us anywhere. A new boss can still come in and change the rules at the last minute. Our company can still decide to outsource our jobs to the Philippines. Life isn't fair or predictable. So we want to grab what we can as soon as we can get it.

I'm not advocating that Gen-Y employees should all be given high-level jobs, months of vacation time and great salaries the moment they set foot in the door. Experience matters, and most entry-level hires don't feel ready for a huge amount of responsibility from the get-go. But I think we do need to feel like we're in an environment where we can learn, achieve our goals and be happy. And we need to feel that soon, or we'll start looking for other options. Not because we're impatient or entitled, but because life is short—and no matter how long you pay your dues, there are no guarantees.

Why I Don't Have Health Insurance (Hint: It's Not Because I'm Lazy)

Published by jrw2868 on September 7th, 2007 in Entrepreneurship | 20 Comments

Compared to other twenty-somethings I know, I'd say I'm pretty together.

I own my own business as a freelance writer. And business has been good. I pay my rent and bills, feed myself, pay off my credit card every month, and I'm slowly making a dent in my student loans. I even save for retirement. I'm a college-educated, productive member of society.

But I don't have health insurance.

When I tell people this, the responses sometimes surprise me. For example, a friend of mine is an internist at a local hospital. We were talking about a mutual friend who recently hurt her foot and had to go to the emergency room. She didn't have health insurance. I mentioned that I didn't either. He looked at me as though I had told him I never finished high school. "Well, you just need to get it," he said in a flat voice.

I suspect that among the haves, there's an idea that the have-nots should—and can—just get insured. If they can't, it's their fault somehow. But it isn't that simple. Here are some common misconceptions about the uninsured—and why they're false.

People without insurance are just too lazy to earn enough.

I wouldn't call myself lazy. I work harder now than I ever did in any of my previous jobs or in college. And someday I may make enough to afford to pay for individual health insurance.

But it takes time to build a business. There are millions of people all over the country who are self-employed, work very hard, and still can't afford insurance. There are also plenty of hardworking people whose companies have unaffordable health care plans—or none at all.

The uninsured could get insurance if they took the initiative to change jobs.

Some of the insured would probably say that it's our choice to work where we do—and that we could get insurance if we just switched jobs. But it's more complicated than that.

Some people don't have the education or qualifications to move to white-collar work that's more likely to include health insurance. And that's not necessarily their fault. There are plenty of no-fault reasons why some don't go to college, including badly-timed pregnancies, sick or absent parents, and inability to pay.

Some fields just don't pay well: nonprofits, for example. I worked in a nonprofit for two years, and we were lucky to have the meager coverage we got. But nonprofits do great work for society, and you wouldn't want the people who do that work to quit en masse because they don't have health insurance.

It's also easier said than done to just "get a job" nowadays. For some people, it can take years—some start sole proprietorships just to make ends meet during long stretches between jobs.

People without insurance spend their money on other things.

Okay, I admit it: I don't have health insurance because I fritter away my money on useless extravagances. A roof over my head, for example. Food—that's something I've never been able to live without. Oh, and electricity, heat, that kind of thing. I know, I know. I really should cut back.

There seems to be a belief among the insured that if we just budget better, we uninsured could get our acts together and buy insurance. But that just isn't true. I'm a very frugal person. I don't buy designer clothes, I don't have an expensive latte habit, and I live with three roommates. Believe me, I do everything I can to cut down.

But the least expensive individual plans I've found cost about as much as my rent. And that's just not possible for me. It's not a matter of better budgeting. It's as financially out of reach for me as a house in the Hamptons. I won't be able to afford it, no matter how I tweak my budget. And I know I'm not the only one.

People without insurance should just get married.

This one is more prevalent than you'd think. Remember my friend who hurt her foot? Her brother took her to the emergency room. When she told the doctor she didn't have insurance, he looked at her brother, standing next to her, and asked if he had coverage. He said he did. The doctor said, "You two really should consider getting married."

Of course, it was funny because he didn't know the guy with her was her brother. But it also wasn't funny at all, because he was partially serious. Is this what we've come to, in the most powerful nation in the world? In less enlightened times, women had to marry because they had no other way to support themselves. Is that the case for the uninsured now? Must we be forced into it because we can't get covered any other way?

Of all the stereotypes and misconceptions about the uninsured, this one horrifies me the most. Marriage is something you should only do when it's the right time in your life and you've met the right person. I'm not willing to compromise on marriage, of all things, just because I can't get coverage.

You know the situation is bad when the uninsured are expected to make unreasonable compromises in terms of basic happiness to get insurance. In my case, I could get insured right now in one of two ways: by giving up my writing business, or by getting married. The second one is absolutely out of the question: I refuse to let lack of health insurance force me into a premature decision here, and I don't think that's unreasonable.

As for the first one, I probably could get insurance if I applied for jobs at advertising agencies and other offices. But running my own writing business has always been my dream, and I've never been satisfied working any other job. Not to sound overdramatic here, but the choice for me was between being happy with no coverage and being miserable and covered. And in America—a country with the right to pursue happiness written into the constitution—nobody should ever have to make such a choice.