Where are the working students?

[Mander]

I’ll add my two cents as a “lazy entitled young person”.

I grew up in a tiny town where board was no more than $250/mo at decent facilities (no professional barns in the area, but private ones). My parents couldn’t afford to pay for lessons for me (not that there were any English trainers within a 2-3 hr radius anyways) so I taught myself as much as I possibly could and spent countless hours at the barn cleaning stalls, learning and riding my free lease OTTB, trying my very very best to be a sponge.

In college, obviously still broke, I worked summers at a dude ranch - 10hr days, 6 days a week for $200/wk plus housing and meals. During the school year I was a full time student, a collegiate athlete, worked a part time job AND STILL chose to be a part time WS 30 minutes away where I got ONE 30 minute lesson on a dead broke school horse at a mediocre barn for every 15 hours of labor I logged. I knew I was getting taken advantage of and I did it anyways because it was the only opportunity I had to learn and be around horses. I woke up at 7:00 every morning and went to sleep at 11pm and every 15 minutes of my day was planned out, just to keep on top of it all.

After I graduated, I wanted to take a gap year and just be a working student with an eventing trainer to really learn more and improve under an actual trainer (instead of just watching hours of clinics on youtube). And yet, being a largely self-taught rider without any real equestrian resume to speak of that would show off how qualified I was to ride their horses, the only one who considered me was a woman who didn’t pay anything and offered one stall of free board (to bring a horse that I obviously couldn’t afford to buy, let alone tack or vet bills) and promised exactly zero ride time. So I didn’t do it. Not because I was lazy, or felt entitled to ride time or because I didn’t think the lady knew anything and I didn’t respect her experience and knowledge, but because I simply couldn’t afford to and if ANYTHING had gone wrong, I would be royally f*&#^d. No medical insurance, no money to move if she had been a horrendous person. Even as it were, I would have had no money to pay for groceries, let alone gas and car insurance and my parent’s sure as hell weren’t going to subsidize my “hobby year”.

So now I’m 26 and have a 9-5. I still can’t afford my own horse, but can afford a cheap partial lease on a fresh OTTB 45 miles away (yes–I literally pay to train someone else’s horse for them), and I still work several hours a week at the barn (on top of my full time job) for a weekly lesson. But!! I have health insurance in case I get bucked off, an emergency fund for when Dobbin decides to injure himself, a retirement fund, and can pay my bills and provide for my family. So I guess there’s that.

OP’s situation sounds wonderful, and if I were in a different stage of life I’d jump at the chance to learn so much, and I’m not even a dressage rider. But at the end of the day most WS jobs are a very high risk, low reward gig and more and more it seems like the ends simply don’t justify the means. I’ve been given more free rides as a paying client who just tries to be helpful and a general pleasure to have in the barn, than I’ve ever gotten as a WS.
But idk, I guess I’m young and dumb and don’t care enough about horses enough because if I did, I’d just work harder.

[eightpondfarm]

@anon67413619

If I remember correctly, you are retired. You have your own farm. So I’m assuming you have money saved up and not concerned about not being able to pay the next bill. You work for yourself, up to your standards.

ahhh…well, you fail to understand that i just didn’t land at this point in my life by magic. i earned the money that got me to this place in life. And that was working (*salaried) about 80 or more hours per week for many years (at more than one firm i might add) So, my habit has always been working long and working hard. And sometimes in life it happens that hard work has financial rewards. i never schmoozed, i don’t think i could even if i tried. It just wouldn’t work. And all the times when i managed others, brown nosing me didn’t work either.

We are all forged by our experiences. Mine is that hard work gets me places i want to be. And i appreciate that same kind of extra effort in other people. And in animals. I love the dogs that have heart and drive. I love horses that have spirit and try.

[anon67413619]

@eightpondfarm

ahhh…well, you fail to understand that i just didn’t land at this point in my life by magic. i earned the money that got me to this place in life. And that was working (*salaried) about 80 or more hours per week for many years (at more than one firm i might add) So, my habit has always been working long and working hard. And sometimes in life it happens that hard work has financial rewards. i never schmoozed, i don’t think i could even if i tried. It just wouldn’t work. And all the times when i managed others, brown nosing me didn’t work either.

We are all forged by our experiences. Mine is that hard work gets me places i want to be. And i appreciate that same kind of extra effort in other people. And in animals. I love the dogs that have heart and drive. I love horses that have spirit and try.

I didn’t fail to understand. I’m sure you did work hard to get to where you are currently. All I’m saying is that it’s more complicated than “the younger people just don’t want to do physical work.”

[Cowgirl]

I don’t have any data on working students and can’t tell you why you can’t find one, but I can tell you that I’ve been looking to fill an open position in my staff (attorneys) since April and finally have decided to lower expectations on experience and import from another state and pay moving expenses. I was speaking to another lawyer in prestigious local firm and he told me that it has gotten so difficult for them to hire young attorneys that they are recruiting from east coast, have had to reduce hourly billing requirements to offer a work/life balance, and increase salaries by a significant amount. The job market for us is super tight, and I have been hearing it is that way across the board–whether it is that people are refusing to give up their personal lives or that they don’t want to move away from families, support systems and friends. It might be useful to talk to some other colleagues who employ WS and offer attractive benefits (like going to Fla., for example) and find out if they are having the same struggles and how they are dealing with it? This may be a long needed correction to the overall work force, who knows.

[anon67413619]

@HorseAlter

You should stop taking my posts out of context.

I cited a specific example about a certain individual’s expectations that are unrealistic.

My post had nothing to do about brown-nosing to work up the corporate ladder. As a site note, not all promotions work that way, and if you are in the corporate sector, you should understand that. Sure, some people brown-nose and don’t work that hard and still get promoted. Some people work hard and don’t get noticed. However, that doesn’t mean that all promotions happen on the basis of brown-nosing.

I have been careful not to generalize in my comments. I never said all promotions work that way. When you say promotions are about working hard, exceeding expectations, etc, I’m saying it isn’t always that way. It’s complicated. The idea of “work hard” is being pushed hard, when sometimes working hard is not the way to climb the ladder but instead, leads to be taken advantage of. No, you didn’t mention anything about brown nosing, but I’m mentioning a different viewpoint. I worked my butt off in the horse industry with low pay, only to be taken advantage of, be burned out, and have related medical bills.

[TheDBYC]

@HorseAlter

these days people are throwing in a ton of perks and still not finding people to take any sort of gig.

Like what?

[SillyHorse]

@Cowgirl

. . . it has gotten so difficult for them to hire young attorneys that they are recruiting from east coast, have had to reduce hourly billing requirements to offer a work/life balance, and increase salaries by a significant amount.

This reinforces my belief that there is not a shortage of workers, but a shortage of jobs that treat employees like human beings. It’s no secret that newer associates in law firms are treated horribly with regard to required working hours and required billable hours. People don’t want to be worked to death and are declining that type of employment.

[SuzieQNutter]

@HorseAlter

o

I wish the OP was near me. I would take that opportunity in a heartbeat. I wish.

[Cowgirl]

Maybe…the local firm is recruiting from top ten east coast firms that churn and burn but pay $$$$$. But it doesn’t explain my troubles in hiring. I am hiring for an in house position, largely 40 hour work weeks, very generous pay, but can’t find anyone with enough experience or even ANY experience in my industry. I finally hired from out of state, experience adjacent, and regraded the position one grade lower and am resigned to having to put in extra hours (my own) in training. I am working 70 hour work weeks, but that has been because I can’t fill my open position and because of the pandemic (which changed requirements for employers, and changed our work environment, requiring us to draft and enforce new policies, deal with employent issues we haven’t had to deal with before). I hope that young lawyers are demanding a work/life balance now. When I started in big law, there was such a glut of lawyers that the employers could expect billables of 2,200 per year. Not the case now. But I don’t know where the work force has gone off to. I did not have this difficult a time hiring pre-pandemic.

[lenapesadie]

@eightpondfarm

years (at more than one firm i might add)

Right. At a firm. Not a farm. The odds of any individual making enough money out of a horse career to ever retire with their own farm is slim to none. Kids aren’t lazy. They are smart enough to know a horse education is a low ROI

[sportyspicepony]

@Cowgirl

But I don’t know where the work force has gone off to. I did not have this difficult a time hiring pre-pandemic.

Well we have had over half a million people die in the past year or so

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

@eightpondfarm

i just didn’t land at this point in my life by magic. i earned the money that got me to this place in life. And that was working (*salaried) about 80 or more hours per week for many years (at more than one firm i might add) So, my habit has always been working long and working hard. And sometimes in life it happens that hard work has financial rewards. i never schmoozed, i don’t think i could even if i tried. It just wouldn’t work. And all the times when i managed others, brown nosing me didn’t work either.

While it’s admirable that you’re using your time and money in retirement to work hard and live your dream of having a small farm, surely your example illustrates that the best path to living that dream is to get a stable, white-collar job that hopefully offers benefits and allows you to save money for retirement?

Those stable jobs are fewer and far between, although they do exist in tech. Unfortunately, not every person is scientifically gifted. (I’m not.) But if I could offer advice to “the next generation” it would be to acquire a technical skill that is well-paid and indispensable, and to keep sharpening that skill, like engineering, tech, or so forth. Easier said than done. As I said, I’m not technically gifted and made many mistakes after I graduated (with a MA) career-wise. But soft skill jobs increases the necessity of being the sort of person who is fun to be around, versus someone the company needs to function.

Technical skills like plumbing, electricians and so forth are also very valuable. But just working hard at manual labor (which is often the case in the horse industry) isn’t financially valued in our society. Training horses is hard as hell, and certainly a specialized skill, but it’s a niche skill, and for those without extreme wealth in the industry, many were born to horsey parents (and had some family wealth too).

[HorseAlter]

Your experience in the legal field is similar to mine albeit in a different industry. Several of my colleagues and I are having a tough time finding qualified people for jobs (very high level technical stuff) regardless of what type of compensation package is offered.

Some of my colleagues have chosen to do exactly what you have done, regrade the position, and provide extra training to help that person get to the appropriate level eventually. It takes them an enormous amount of time to hand-hold those people.

I’ve left one position unfilled because I’ve decided it is easier to do the work myself or delegate it amongst the remaining people than it is to hire someone not fully qualified.

It’s a very individual situation, there is no one right answer on how to approach this sort of challenge.

One thing I have noticed is that fewer people are willing to move to a new area. In some regions, people simply don’t seem to move at all.

competitors are also upping their game on options for remote work so that is also a challenge. I have some discretion as a manager on what I can allow my employees to do in terms of remote work, but there is also corporate policy that we are bound to. One of my colleagues is very worried about losing people who have a long commute when there are other employers who will allow people to work from home more frequently.

@Cowgirl

Maybe…the local firm is recruiting from top ten east coast firms that churn and burn but pay $$$$$. But it doesn’t explain my troubles in hiring. I am hiring for an in house position, largely 40 hour work weeks, very generous pay, but can’t find anyone with enough experience or even ANY experience in my industry. I finally hired from out of state, experience adjacent, and regraded the position one grade lower and am resigned to having to put in extra hours (my own) in training. I am working 70 hour work weeks, but that has been because I can’t fill my open position and because of the pandemic (which changed requirements for employers, and changed our work environment, requiring us to draft and enforce new policies, deal with employent issues we haven’t had to deal with before). I hope that young lawyers are demanding a work/life balance now. When I started in big law, there was such a glut of lawyers that the employers could expect billables of 2,200 per year. Not the case now. But I don’t know where the work force has gone off to. I did not have this difficult a time hiring pre-pandemic.

[eightpondfarm]

@Impractical_Horsewoman

While it’s admirable that you’re using your time and money in retirement to work hard and live your dream of having a small farm, surely your example illustrates that the best path to living that dream is to get a stable, white-collar job that hopefully offers benefits and allows you to save money for retirement?

Those stable jobs are fewer and far between, although they do exist in tech. Unfortunately, not every person is scientifically gifted. (I’m not.) But if I could offer advice to “the next generation” it would be to acquire a technical skill that is well-paid and indispensable, and to keep sharpening that skill, like engineering, tech, or so forth. Easier said than done. As I said, I’m not technically gifted and made many mistakes after I graduated (with a MA) career-wise. But soft skill jobs increases the necessity of being the sort of person who is fun to be around, versus someone the company needs to function.

All the while i was working in an office i also had a horse (or two or three). And whenever my work waned, the time i could volunteer at firedepartment increased… Looking back on my life, i don’t know when i ever slept…
My happiness level is at it’s best when i am physically very active. I’ve never been a working student, though had there been even the most remote opportunity i would have…Never had a stable nearby! but when i was in college i did a variety of physically demanding jobs during summers off. And occasionally in-between my ‘white collar’ jobs i pitch-hit for a) a landscaping company b) a house cleaning service and even once for an electrician that really needed help. It never hurt my feelings to do manual or low-status jobs. Had someone been around to pay me for mucking out stalls i’d have done it in a heartbeat! Much nicer to do hard work and have the luxury of being around horses!

[Angela_Freda]

Yes, at about this age I was working two jobs, sharing a cheap apartment with my sibling, driving an old used car…
But because I had no health insurance, when I fell off my horse hard, injuring my back, I sucked it up and kept putting one foot in front of the other even though I probably shouldn’t have.
I got very lucky.
If I hadn’t, where would I be now? Where would that horse have ended up? I had him 24 years, the rest of his life after leaving the track at six.

My point; those who have done work or a career in barns rely very, very heavily on luck.
Which will be the demise, though slow moving perhaps, of the sport/hobby we love.

.

[Cat.J95]

That’s awesome you were able to do all that. However, if you really wanted to be a working student you would have. Most of us moved to do it. Also the WS position was the sole source of income with maybe help from our parents.

You can’t have a white collar job and be a working student. It’s far far more than just cleaning stalls. It’s all the hours you put into your career and fire fighting with no health insurance, no sick days, minimal pay, no PTO.

I don’t regret being a working student at all. I would have done things a bit differently in hind sight but I still would have done it.

I really don’t blame kids today for not wanting to do it. A good paying job and a good life/work balance can get you the same benefits without living pay check to pay check and I can’t see any barn turning down weekend help for those amateurs that want to be “immersed.”

That’s exactly what I did when I got my career. I still couldn’t rationalize $100 and up for lessons, so I worked it off. Weekend warrior working student if you will.

ETA spelling and @Angela_Freda nailed it about luck. I was lucky to never need to be in a hospital from injury. I was lucky I worked for some awesome people that weren’t necessarily advertising but got positions through word of mouth. I was lucky my parents helped me out and I was lucky I didn’t have to worry about sexual assault and the like.

[mvp]

I believe demographer/economist types have established that people (Americans?) born after 1975 are likely to accumulate less wealth than their parents.

So I think the older generation talking about how they made it to their positions of owning farms and the way hard, non-career-type work figured into that are unqualified to extrapolate to the present.

I think it has actually gotten harder (and more expensive) to get to the top or even the respectable middle of horsing. It cannot be the case that an entire generation of people are all categorically lazier than a previous one. I think there are other causal factors that better explain the current kiddos’ predicament. Some of those come from that older generation.

[Texarkana]

@Angela_Freda

My point; those who have done work or a career in barns rely very, very heavily on luck.
Which will be the demise, though slow moving perhaps, of the sport/hobby we love.

.

Luck, talent, and wealth. You need all 3.

If you don’t come into horses with wealth behind you, you are going to need a lot of luck and talent.

There are a lot of top riders and trainers who came from humble beginnings. But they all have one thing in common: someone wealthy took them under their wing and funded them. “I was a working student for umpteen years before an heiress hired me to live in her barn apartment and show her horses.”

Another story you hear: “I was a working student, realized I would never make any money, so I took a real job for XX years. After years of saving, I was able to fund my dream of becoming a horse professional.”

Almost never do you hear people today say, “I got my start cleaning stalls and after 20 years of hard work and saving, I had enough money to purchase my own farm for my own business.”

[HorseAlter]

A top horse is significantly more expensive than it used to be.
Schuler Riley was quoted in an interview saying that when she first started out as a young pro, it was sufficient to be a millionaire in order to acquire a string of top horses. She said years later as a well-established adult that one now needs to be a billionaire. I think she was partly saying this in jest, at least it appeared that way from the interview, but there is a ring of truth to this.

The more expensive it becomes to acquire a top international horse, the more we will see the sport dominated by the ultra-wealthy who have the money to acquire that type of horse. Or we will see people with very serious sponsors get stronger, while the talented trainers with average means having a harder time making a go of it at least as far as international competition goes.

@mvp

I believe demographer/economist types have established that people (Americans?) born after 1975 are likely to accumulate less wealth than their parents.

So I think the older generation talking about how they made it to their positions of owning farms and the way hard, non-career-type work figured into that are unqualified to extrapolate to the present.

I think it has actually gotten harder (and more expensive) to get to the top or even the respectable middle of horsing. It cannot be the case that an entire generation of people are all categorically lazier than a previous one. I think there are other causal factors that better explain the current kiddos’ predicament. Some of those come from that older generation.

[Liz_Steacie]

Thank you all for your thoughts. Some good points have been raised. I will take another look at my phrasing and the compensation package. Things could change.

Happy Holidays and all the best for 2022.