Are educated youth today more lazy or placed with too many demands?

Its apples and oranges, but as a consulting engineer, I usually bill 1800+ hours per year. But then again, when we get a big contract with lots of road-y goodness, I'm routinely 100% billable during a 40 hour week.

 

Educated and Youth are synonymous?

 

I'd say they (we) can be just as work-aholic as 10 years ago, but the cocncept of loyalty to a company has disappeared. And they (we) need to genuinely like and appreciate a project to want to get involved in it.
In other words, even an ambitious and hard-working young gun will be part of the big turnover statistic if he's told to do "this" and "that" within tight deadlines over and over.

Just my guess here.

 

can you explain "billing hours" to us lay dudes? i wasn't sure what those numbers you were throwing around indicated, so i divided them by 52 (weeks), and 2400 hours is only 46 hours a week... hardly a strain to someone who is driven and/or enjoys what they do. for the last couple months i've been putting in anywhere between 60-100 hours a week on my projects, beyond 80 you find all you're doing is sleeping when you can't function anymore, and werking as soon as you wake up.

so my only guess is that "billing hours" are beyond normal hours or something...

 

OK, lets see if I can try to answer some of this without sounding like a whiner:

Your quote : "Basically, many partners apparently feel that young associates today don't work as hard, aren't as dedicated to the law and most large corporate firms have shocking turnover. They are educated but don't have drive, and don't appreciate their opportunities."

I've seen this myself in my field (science), and I think I know why. Back in the old days (before my time), it seemed that you could work hard, and be greatly rewarded. You were loyal to a company, and they were loyal to you. Now, there is no loyalty. We can be fired any time, for any reason. The company wants to get every last bit of productivity from you, and if you are not at your peak at all times, bye bye.

Also, depending on what level you are, you don't always get the bonus and perks. A real life example: At my company, in the R&D department, if you are not at a certain level (senior scientist, I think) you are essentially eliminated from the bonus track. It becomes very hard to motivate some of these people when they know that if they work really hard, their boss will get a nice fat bonus, but they will get nothing.

Therefore, the new attitude is: I will work hard (but not too hard- there is only so much BS that they will put up with), get as much money from the company, and move on. No loyalty. No dedication. Everyone is in it for the quick buck.

Egads, I think I'm sounding like Horsefly.

Dom

 

makes sense.

what i'm wondering then, if so much weight is given to time spent rather than service provided or final outcomes, then how much artificial inflation could there be?

from the perspective of a call-centre environment, my current company is service oriented. they keep stats on call duration and stuff, and will query the operator on any incongruencies, but not ride them as they care about giving good information. however in a previous company the "team leaders" spent most of their time checking the call times and number of calls fielded per hour and stuff, and the person who answered the most calls was held under a beaming light of shininess, which i thought was just wrong. i heard some of these "stars" calls, and if they couldn't answer right away, they'd be like "sorry i don't have that information i'll put you back through to switch, goodbye", when others would go to the effort of getting the info personally etc.

sadly, stats can be made into a pretty graph, service quality and customer satisfaction can't.

 

All good examples of time costing in the workplace.

Here at work, we employ a time-costing/billing system that makes it a lot easier to gauge the cost to us, by giving me an itemized account come billing time. All the employees have different “rates”, and we go by 6 minute “units”. I know quite a few accountancy firms that employ the same system as us. But instead of using to gauge cost to the firm, they use it monitor and gauge an employee’s performance. Everything that they do throughout the day gets recorded. Every phone call, every email, every dismemberment, and every ounce of work they put into a client.
Everything comes to “One” number at the end of the day. And that magic number is 70. Get below 70 consistently, and your performance gets pulled into question. Keep going, and you are now on a “Time Cost Audit”, whereas someone will scour through all your units at the end of the day, and consult with you about how you spend your work day.
Its very demoralizing for the employees to be considered a “number” at the end of the day. And I know quite a few people that have left firms like that, and they seem to have lost their “heart”. Sometimes people forget to record the units. Sometimes they put too little to avoid a high cost, and the risk of an audit. The whole thing sucks, and it will never get better.

My firm does not judge the performance of the employee’s through that method. We only use the time cost method to calculate an accurate bill at the end of a client’s job. That entails them recording their “Units”, but we don’t go off that. We constantly review and encourage our staff to have “time-outs” here and there. And the atmosphere is very relaxed. But the knowledge that if you step out of line then you will be caught is instilled in them. A lot of them respect that and are great workers to have around. Others need a few warning here and there, but im a flexible type of guy, so I can understand. I mean, look how much time I spend on here!!

There are no set hours/units to achieve in a set period for us. But we do keep a close eye on the performance of staff through non-technological means. And I think that is fair.

 

I can't speak for how well this relates to law, but one thing I've noticed is the lack of the concept of the "journeyman". Everyone wants the fast track to Mahogany Row -- Manager in six months, CEO in two years ... the "get rich quick" mentality applied to careers.

One of the biggest challenges in my career is trying to find the "technical track" -- trying to convince managers that I don't have any desire to become a manager. I'm good at what I do, and like the work.

I've seen too many people move up the ladder but try to keep their hands in the day to day work ... without the time to do it properly. These people become "micro-managers" and are a disaster to work for. Why would I want to go from being a really good engineer to being a really bad manager?

For the money? Too often, "money buys happiness" is a seller's perspective. You might not be able to buy happiness, but you can lose it quick for a little money.

I had a friend that, after two years in FDA law, chucked it to build cabinets. Because, at the end of the day, he could see what he'd accomplished.

I get the impression that law firms expect the associates to reflect the attitudes of the senior partners. That would imply that you can't just go for the most "prestigious" firm, but need to find one that matches your own sense of balance. Go for the big aggressive firms if you want to climb the ladder quickly (and accept the loss of personal time). Go with a more laid back firm if you want more time for yourself. But know your own goals, and accept the consequences. You can't have a laid back career that climbs the ladder quickly.

Perhaps it's the desire, in young starters, to have it both ways that gives older partners the impression that the young aren't focused.

(rant mode)This focus may be especially difficult to maintain in aggressive firms, where too many of the cases are based on the clients trying to have their cake and eat it too -- and the law firm trying to get it for them.(/rant mode)

 

Ash, try this as an experiment. Keep track of your time for five days. Assume that your billing rate is $250 a hour. Now, go and see if you can find 6 hours a day that are worth billing.

Dr "Been there; ain't doing that no mo" Who

 

Not really, Ryan. What Dom is saying is that nobody is willing to pay dues anymore because the way the game is played, you can't win.


Law and CPA firms used to be MLM. The partners went out and sold the work. They then hired green recruits to do the work. The newbies would get paid top dollar, but they were expected to grind it out so the partners could hustle more work on the golf course. When a newbie would gripe, the partner would say, "Listen, I was in your shoes 10 years ago, but look at me now. So shut up and get to work and maybe someday you'll be singing the blues just like me."

Problem is that fee pressure, yes fee pressure, changed all that. The pyramid no longer worked. Instead of paying dues, the motto changed to "Eat what you kill." Firms adopted a pancake structure where everybody worked. If you didn't kill anything, you lost weight.

Dale

 

Too many lawyers = diluted talent pool!

Blame the "blindfolded" recruiters and the "mill" law schools!

DL

 

Ryan, the real problem is that we have too many professionals in all categories. I graduated from high school in 1970. (Yes, I'm old. Now what was I talking about?) 90% of the boys in my class had college acceptances because the alternative was getting your ass shot off.

Getting a student deferrment or using your GI bill money resulted in an explosion in all professional schools, including lawyers, during the mid-60s through the 70s. Thus, a small army of eager beavers invaded the legal profession in the 80s.

Unfortunately, a good number of these people were not lawyers or doctors or CPAs. Yes, they had the training. Yes, they had the license. But they probably should have gone a different direction in life.

You see, just being smart doesn't mean that you will be a great lawyer. There is something called talent, and the great ones have it. The rest of us don't.

My prediction is that the trend has already started to where people go into law, med, or accounting because they want to, not to make a "lot of money." If you enjoy your work, you will put in the time. If you don't, sooner or later, you will be like a big juicy horsefly hitting a bug zapper. ZZZZap!!!!

Dale

 

Humble of you to consider yourself part of "the rest", though I suspect it's the other way around

A couple years ago I dated a girl who was closing in on partnering up in her law firm. As a result I spent a lot of time around partners, attorneys and interns, who, as it seemed, spent ALL their time around partners, attorneys and interns. Any way, it seemed to me that not only is there an abundance of attornies, old and aspirant, but too many who feel that, since they spent 3 years at a law school and passed the bar they are inherently smarter than the general population. I agree with your bug zapper theory. As far as the medical field, I think you have to have a little more conviction going into it, since it's a tougher haul.

 

yes

 

2400/50 = 48 hours a week, that's grueling? Open a small business and you will be working 80+ hours a week to get it off the ground. 48hrs/week = a 9.6 hour work day if you have to have Saturday and Sunday off each week. If you work Saturdays you have to work 8hrs/day six days a week. I propose no business owner making over $100,000 works less, at least not in the first decade.

 

WalMart only let's you work 32hrs/week to keep from paying you benefits, they should apply there.

Why do people enter the field if they do not like the hours? Employers obviously feel there are more applicants than there are jobs. Young applicants do not seem to appreciate the time and money that went into building the firm prior to their arrival, they seem to want to be treated as equals from day one.