THE KIDS TODAY JUST CAN’T KEEP A SECRET
Sep. 27th, 2013 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogRe: Ed Snowden and NSA leaks –
Charles Stross and Bruce Schneier have recently pointed out one of the less talked about aspects of the Snowden/NSA leaks – namely, how they reveal an institutional flaw in how the NSA works in an era where young people have a lower sense of institutional loyalty.
Here’s a quick summation:
1. Back in the 40s and 50s, intelligence agencies used to recruit agents young and offer them life-long careers, engendering a sense of long-term loyalty to the “company”, which will also be returned (“The Army always looks after its own”, etc).
2. That mentality/ideology was fairly prominent in the American Work Ethic of the same time period – i.e. get a job with a company, work yr way up the ladder and yr loyalty will be rewarded when you retire, etc.
3. That work scenario barely exists anymore – Gen X and Gen Y have grown up with the idea that it’s normal to change jobs every few years. Job-hopping and contract work is just how things are now. And that’s how many employers like it.
4. The same is now true of intelligence agencies – 70% of the NSA’s budget is spent on outside contracting. For most of those people, it’s just another job. Company loyalty is not part of the job description, especially for the younger employees. Intelligence agencies are trusting these people to keep secrets.
5. Intelligence agencies are also branding more and more things secret (whether they should be or not), and trusting more and more people to keep them secret.
6. Add all that up, and you get a situation where employees no longer feel an ingrained sense of loyalty to the employer, and the employer does next to nothing to encourage it apart from a monthly salary and maybe health insurance, and yet entrusts them with sensitive information. And employees feel less and less inclined to go along silently with any misdeeds the company may be doing, no matter what the internal justification may be.
And then Ed Snowden happens.
Anyway, you can read the articles here and here.
The point for me is that the Snowden leaks appear to be part of a greater macro trend in terms of workforce expectations (which also includes things like the argument over Obamacare requirements, minimum wage and related issues). Many top employers have made clear they prefer a skeleton workforce of part-timers making a wage well below cost-of-living standards and no benefits. That may be good for the bottom line, but it comes with broader consequences.
As Wal-mart appears to be finding out the hard way.
Bad company,
This is dF
Charles Stross and Bruce Schneier have recently pointed out one of the less talked about aspects of the Snowden/NSA leaks – namely, how they reveal an institutional flaw in how the NSA works in an era where young people have a lower sense of institutional loyalty.
Here’s a quick summation:
1. Back in the 40s and 50s, intelligence agencies used to recruit agents young and offer them life-long careers, engendering a sense of long-term loyalty to the “company”, which will also be returned (“The Army always looks after its own”, etc).
2. That mentality/ideology was fairly prominent in the American Work Ethic of the same time period – i.e. get a job with a company, work yr way up the ladder and yr loyalty will be rewarded when you retire, etc.
3. That work scenario barely exists anymore – Gen X and Gen Y have grown up with the idea that it’s normal to change jobs every few years. Job-hopping and contract work is just how things are now. And that’s how many employers like it.
4. The same is now true of intelligence agencies – 70% of the NSA’s budget is spent on outside contracting. For most of those people, it’s just another job. Company loyalty is not part of the job description, especially for the younger employees. Intelligence agencies are trusting these people to keep secrets.
5. Intelligence agencies are also branding more and more things secret (whether they should be or not), and trusting more and more people to keep them secret.
6. Add all that up, and you get a situation where employees no longer feel an ingrained sense of loyalty to the employer, and the employer does next to nothing to encourage it apart from a monthly salary and maybe health insurance, and yet entrusts them with sensitive information. And employees feel less and less inclined to go along silently with any misdeeds the company may be doing, no matter what the internal justification may be.
And then Ed Snowden happens.
Anyway, you can read the articles here and here.
The point for me is that the Snowden leaks appear to be part of a greater macro trend in terms of workforce expectations (which also includes things like the argument over Obamacare requirements, minimum wage and related issues). Many top employers have made clear they prefer a skeleton workforce of part-timers making a wage well below cost-of-living standards and no benefits. That may be good for the bottom line, but it comes with broader consequences.
As Wal-mart appears to be finding out the hard way.
Bad company,
This is dF
