Magazines, advertising and PR agencies, publishing companies, and literary agencies all still operate on an apprenticeship system—the person answering her boss’s phone is, theoretically, learning how to do her boss’s job one day. And because the industries are so hierarchical, there’s almost no chance of breaking in if you haven’t followed the prescribed path.
‘Many of the smart people I know who have disappeared into assistantships are people who should be, you know, writing. But they’re willing to subsume actual creative endeavor to the drudgery of ‘paying your dues’ in a way they never would for, say, Citigroup.’”
Doree Shafrir on Ivy League Slaves in The Observer
