I agree with the suggestion from @ Angela_Freda about potentially opening the opportunity to an older adult. Changing the name “working student” would go a long way as well. I still have the memories of being a naive working student in my early 20’s.
I am a 40+ adult, with a tween & teenager who need me less as they grow, the OP’s position is interesting. Realistically, I am at the “right age/stage in life”. Not too old, with few health issues, and still plenty of working years ahead of me. The opportunity that the OP is offering would appeal to me simply by allowing me to find a way to improve my riding & horsemanship skills, bring in an income and really make a dream that seems financially unobtainable, come true.
If I could figure out how to swing an opportunity like this, I certainly would. Sadly, the OP lives too far away from me.
What will not suffice is bad mouthing the (hoped for) working class and waxing wistful about the ‘good old’ days.
Amen to that.
Especially the “waxing wistful” part. I worked sun up to sun down seven days a week while half the underage girls in the barn were being groomed and raped by the predatory trainer. And for what?
Who the h*ll would wish that on anyone?
But yeah, let’s bash lazy kids these days and their smartphones. Clearly that’s the problem.
Your non-horse friend has made a huge mistake! I work in a tack store with other “horse girls” of all ages. They all have a work ethic. And, IME, the closer to professional work they did in the horse industry, the more incredible the work ethic. Those who were ammies who dabbled have less.
IMO, employers should look for “professional groom” as a key word in their search.
Do you find that WSs need to come with family money in order to make that gig work, either in the short term (i.e. they can afford to be there, or afford to show, or afford to buy the good quality project horse that they’ll develop), or in the long run (i.e. can afford to stay in the industry long enough to compete, create a résumé and build a business, or buy a farm to serve a home base)?
I ask because I think a huge part of the deterioration of the WS thing, or any kind of serious bartering or barn ratting has to do with those kind of work becoming a dead-end rather than a stepping stone for someone.
I do think all of the finger wagging at the lazy youth of today has to do with a deep lack of appreciation for just how exploitative work culture has become. This isn’t the middle of the 20th-century where you (you. being the canonical “you”-- the white male) could go to work for a company out of college or high school, move up and up and retire from the same place a the end of your career. Rather, just about everyone in every industry (and not just the shitty Amazon/19th-century factory jobs) is not just selling their labor to the highest bidder for what it will bring that day. I don’t think there’s a whole lot of loyalty or employee development today.
If that message is so and trickles down to the young 'ns, and they know the can’t ever become the pro because there isn’t family money to do the rest of the investment in them that it will take to turn this serious work into a career as a horse trainer, they’d be wise to limit just how much of their time and effort they’ll give to BO or trainer. It might be no one’s fault, but the WS gig just can’t pay the same dividends to the middle-class kid of today that it did for the pro or does for the wealthier one. Why fault the kid for making a rational decision?
I recently visited home (in the NE) from where I live now (warmer place). When I lived in the NE I worked at a horse farm, paid, 10 hours a day. While I was home It was cold AF, every fast food place was advertising $15 an hour starting, and all I could think about was there was no way in h*ll I would do that again. Granted, the economic conditions were alot different 10 years ago.
But… there is a huge labor shortage. Working in the cold really sucks. There is good money to be made at basic jobs. If I was young again, unless you have a national reputation and a place in Florida, I am not interested.
I quite agree with you that it was a lot of work. I guess I’m looking at it like a normal office job (I will not argue that the normal professional horse job is much more physically gruelling), where you work 8 hrs, plus I would then go ride my two horses, and now I have a ten hour day.
I don’t think 25 hrs a week is attractive to many young working students because the idea in those positions is to learn by immersion. It takes ~10k hours to master something, and they want to meet their hours sooner rather than later.
I think the OP is offering 25 hours of paid work not including any riding. The riding and lessons are added on. This is much more transparent than the usual structure. Perhaps this should be emphasized in the ad? (And also be honest about any extra work or"pitching in" expected)
Ultimately the OP may have better luck hiring a groom and doing paid lessons for a select clientele if her place is near any population centers.
Oh, I agree! But his assumption was that she was wealthy, because she rode dressage. Of course, it’s silly to assume that all people who work with horses/ride are very wealthy. But the assumption is out there. Or, conversely, the assumption might be it’s just mucking stalls. Regardless, it’s a lot of work for a position that doesn’t necessarily translate well to a resume.
The comments you make about how the typical white male employee could expect cradle-to-grave stability in a middle-class office job is interesting. I think one constant in the horse industry is that very few men who fit that description have historically been working students. It makes me half-wonder if the “mystery” of why fewer men ride is just that it’s such bloody hard work and has often been much easier to do other things.
Because it hasn’t been stated above, a WS should go into any opportunity with a view as to what their end goal is. As the OP stated, her former WSs have found futures in training and in their own businesses. Perfect goal.
That said, if the WS has “Olympic dreams,” then another situation might be more appealing, one in which they would have access to a string of Olympic potential horses. The WSs that I have known have come with family money, a high quality horse, and olympic dreams. They want to train their own horse in a facility that has Olympic credentials or potential, while attaining mileage and experience on the owner’s or client horses. That is a different kind of student.
The OP’s opportunity is legit. She has a lovely facility in a beautiful touristy area within reasonable proximity of metro areas. She has nice quality horses coming in for training. Depends where you are in life and what your goals are. I wish her luck in finding the right person.
There really does seem to be a generational divide regarding the benefits of physical labor. Personally, i think it builds strong bodies -not break them down at an early age. Moving, bending, lifting (appropriate weight to age) makes muscles strong, makes people sleep well at night and helps keep excess weight off. Older rural folks were raised helping out around the farm doing labor. Youngsters growing up on farms still do today, but there just aren’t that many little farms anymore. AND physical labor is generally looked down upon by youth. At least the ones i encounter anyway.
I think the WS shortage is societal, and i feel it will just continue to grow, and that it’s a two-pronged problem: 1) young folks place no value on using their muscles especially for employment. They value using their minds and their SM influence. They know their time and attention has ‘great value’. 2) horses are income burners. There is no money to be gained even if you really would like to earn your living in horses. There is not much money and a WHOLE lot of responsibility/effort/time.
And i’m agreeing that ‘horses’ is increasingly becoming a rich-people’s hobby. Or at least the country-club urbane sort of thing. And they rarely want to do physical labor. Sports and activities sure, but work? nuh-uh.
This whole thread has made me think more about ‘paying your dues’. I think that’s no longer a thing. Though my actual experience with it is in disaster dog training, not horse training.
That was what I was trying to get across with my posts as well. The kids I run into these days don’t seem to want to do physical work, even if they are paid a fair wage for it.
I just don’t agree with this. Many people I know have worked physically demanding jobs for not even their entire lives and it’s just simply not sustainable. My boyfriend is a carpenter and he’s 38 and is already coming to terms with the fact that there’s no way he could do this forever. His father is a truck driver and has had to have back surgery because of how much his job wears on his body. Even my sister in law who was a ballet dancer had to quit in her 30s because her body was quite literally breaking down… she invested her entire life up until that point into dance.
I agree that physical activity is good for you, but generally when it’s your job/ career, it wears on your body in permanent, irreversible damaging ways. That’s just the nature of work!
And I have never seen any evidence that “physical labor is looked down upon by youth”. More like, jobs that involve physical labor are considered unskilled by the job market and the pay, benefits, hours, and upward mobility associated with them reflect that. Just look at the undocumented workers that harvest all of our food for us and get paid pennies. It’s not young people who are undervaluing those jobs……
I recommend everyone on this thread check out the Twitter account for the United farm workers of America to get concrete evidence at how our entire society treats farm workers, not “young people”. Maybe then you’ll understand why no one wants those jobs!
Hm by that math at 10hrs a day 6 days a week with no vacations they’ve mastered being a professional horse manager/trainer in about 3.2 years. Or burned out from overwork.
Im sure you weren’t serious about that, and I’ve read that the 10k hours idea has been debunked, but I’m also sure that while students want to learn, only very naive people think they can work extremely long hours of physical labor and still have the mental capacity to learn, or that those hours are sustainable for years.
It’s just that Victorian work standards somehow remain acceptable for young horse pros. Its not that they want to work like that.
Paying your dues is still a thing. What’s not a thing is paying your dues via slave labor which is what a lot of WS positions are unfortunately.
I’ve had great WS positions and terrible ones. The model as it currently stands isn’t sustainable. It’s not about the younger generations being afraid of physical labor or not wanting to do it or SM. It’s about actually being able to live off the wages and not beating your body up week after week all while being treated like crap.
IME, there is a huge difference between being a working student in a mediocre to bad place, and working on the family farm.
The OPs position sounds great, however I think the location right now is hindering her finding someone, as well as finding someone who doesn’t need more than 25 hours a week.
Of course younger folks are going to disagree with me. And their doting parents will also. But maybe farmers might.
Well then, i guess i am an exceptional person. I work hard to keep my farm going, all by myself. I basically quit and come in for supper when i gets dark, so i LOVE the short hours of winter time. 10-12 hrs / day is normal for me. In the summer, in high heat and humidity. For 20 years here on this particular farm. I don’t ‘get to’ train until my main chores are finished, and that’s usually around 2 or 3 pm. I figure if i’m able to do it, my horses should be. Summer or Winter, though i think our days of ever seeing a White CHristmas are over. It was 72 yesterday and will be high sixties, perhaps 70 today. Flies are coming back out…on Christmas. Anyhow, i digress… I have YET to see one single young person willing to work for 15-20$/hr, their hours, not mine. I’m here working all the time, so what time a person can come is fine by me. I pay cash at the end of every day. I have a family of two brothers and their boys (who usually will not come) occasionally come help with fencing and big chainsaw projects with me. Had a 55 yr old woman working with me for a summer too. But every single person. under 30 has been unable / unwilling to do hard work (pitching manure/hauling rock cutting saplings etc, for good money. They want ac. They want to have their phones (zero cell service here so they are unconnected and they hate that).
@Cat.J95, Our disagreement is about the what paying your dues means. To me, it’s an internship and basically unpaid and work to learn. You call it slave labor, i do not.
I personally have given of myself and my labor to learn-on-the-job. And in a few different realms…
When former working students tell you how it really is, it’s beneficial to listen. I still have a physically demanding job. I just get paid more to do it.
If you (g-you) have never been a working student I suggest you listen to those of us who have.
