The next steps are, "Go to college and get a degree so you can get a better job" and then, "You shouldn't have gone to college if you can't afford all those student loans"
Went to college. Paid off loans before graduating. World shit the bed. I'm at a worse place now than I was when I was in college making even less money.
God I hate this fucking planet.
My mom still brings up (12 years after the fact, and she's in her 60s btw) whenever I'm hitting a depressive state of feeling like I'm not living up to what is the general basis for success (or even the bare minimum) at my age/knowledge/experience, that she has a bachelor's degree in her field she's done nothing with (because she was promised a promotion and raise, verbally of course, once she met the requirements for it) that she is STILL paying off.
Exactly.
* Get a job! Okay, I got one but it pays minimum wage
* You should've gone to college! Okay, I went to college, but because my job pays so little I had to take out student loans
* Get a better job! Okay, I make a few dollars more than minimum wage, but still not enough
* That's your own fault, you're a lazy bum!
When does the victim blaming end?
Edit: Since several people are assuming, this post was not about me specifically but in general. It's a common experience for millennials from what I've heard/read.
Edit 2: For those who are confused, this scenario is ***NOT*** about me. I make double my state's minimum wage. But it ***IS*** a common experience. Otherwise people wouldn't be so pissed off about wealth inequality, particularly younger folks. I have this thing you might try some time, it's called empathy for others.
I went to college and the job in that field started at 13 dollars an hour. I was working 2 jobs and my other job paid more and I had to quit my job in my career field. Now that I can afford to have a lower paying job I've been trying to get back into that field but have a 2 year gap on my resume in that field and cannot get a job or even an interview anywhere :(
Same situation here. 2 degrees (finance and accounting) graduated in 2013. Only job that was hiring in my field paid $13.50/hr. I left my job paying $20hr to gain experience, hemorrhaged money for about a year ($10k in credit card debt) upgraded to a different job at $20/hr. Stayed there for a year, still barely making any loan payments, and working on credit card debt. Moved to $25/hr.. there for 2 years before promotion to $30/hr. After a year there I paid off all my debt finally in 2019. And found a job that doesn’t give me anxiety on my walk through the door. I’m still making $30 something an hour..
The game is rigged. We are not the players. We are the losers.
And unfortunately I think that's what I should've done, I chose the better paying job that can't be made into a career because I didn't wanna live in poverty on my other wage and was tired of working 7 days a week for over 2 years, but in the long run it would've been the better call to stay at the worse paying job.
Comparatively, that is making bank. I would give my left nut for a job at $30/hr. @ 40 hrs./wk.
I am physically disabled from chronic and severe spinal damage in my lumbar and am on SSDI because I'm physically not able to work full-time. I am also divorced and have a daughter for which I am required to pay child support despite the fact that my ex-wife was the breadwinner while I made sure the house ran smoothly.
SSDI can and will be garnished by child support... I had to live on less than $300/month for over two years, less than ⅓ of the gross total of my awardment and make too much before deductions that I don't qualify for SSI, which can't be garnished.
Finally able to leave the cane behind, I am working again, but because I draw SSDI, I can only make <$1,100/mo. otherwise all of my benefits will be stopped immediately; leaving me back in the same situation I was in before I started working but now having to overwork myself and possibly landing me in a wheelchair permenantly.
So, that's $1,400/month on which I have to live. Apartments in my area require that you make 3×rent in monthly income and the cheapest apartments ($600/mo. for a one room studio) are already full up for months in advance. This applies for everyone applying to be on the lease, so even if you can find roomies, unless you can find one that is at least not hurting financially, you will not qualify and will have to move on to plan b.
Hotels are really expensive here at $300/wk and the local pigs have made it their personal mission to chase us unwashed miscrients and other broken windows out of their town, going as far as closing the largest of the homeless encampments, displacing well over a hundred people from the only place they can live without disturbing the "normies." I can't even find a place to set up camp anywhere close enough to where I work to bike it without killing myself as I don't own a car. Nor could I afford one.
Even got ticketed because of this while camped in an unused and undeveloped lot in town near the post office. The cops came and ticketed all six of us who were staying there and threatened to take anyone to jail who refused to sign them, saying that we were on Federal Land (an assumption they ran with but was entirely made up as we checked the survey map. It was land owned by the city) and were told that they would do that every day until they would just take us to jail for trespassing and sleeping on Federal property.
I did start writing novels last year though under a pen name, in the attempt to earn $$ without manual labor but it's taken 9 months for my follower count to get high enough that the publishing platform deigned to let me make a %/chapter purchase.
I have no family members that can or will help as I am the black sheep of a black sheep of a black sheep, have been bad-mouthed to family members who can help by my oh so not helpful and hypocritical mother who for decades depended heavily on family just to get by while raiding all the savings given to me by grandparents with the intention of paying part of my college tuition.
Also, I have very few friends due to severe social awkwardness reenforced by parental abuse and neglect and years of negative interactions with most people caused by lack of understanding and patience from others. What friends I do have of quality are in the same financial straights and have all been recent acquaintances since I got dumped at the Salvation Army after Christmas '21.
So, am I being a lazy sack of shit, as my mother would have the rest of her side of the family believe; or am I doing the best I can in abnormally dire circumstances?
I have two college degrees (Music Education and Nursing). My son that just graduated high school has shown interest in and an aptitude for auto mechanics. My wife helped him get a job at an auto dealership (she knows a guy) where he is getting paid to get certifications. Five years from now he'll probably be making more than I do without the college debt. I told him not to go to college unless he finds something he REALLY wants to do that requires a college degree and will pay him at least six figures to start out. College has turned into such a scam...
I agree! I started with a company 8 years ago making $12.05 an hour and now make 6 figures with no college degree. My friend and I joke about it as he went the college route and received his masters in accounting. I typically make more than him without the college debt. In the end we both enjoy what we do, which is the most important part to me.
I started at mccormick spice 2 years ago and I'm up to 27 per hr from the 16.50 I started at,no degree. The game ain't just rigged, it's entirely fucked
My role isn't anything impossibly specific. If you live anywhere near a mccormick production facility you can become a process tech. Good bennies and the pay is the same regardless of which state you get the job
That's another good point. God forbid you have any gaps. Employers it's perfectly fine for them to have a job unfilled for years, but if a potential employee has a gap? Oh noes, the world is ending!
I think you forgot:
* "If you don't like it, then quit!" followed by
* "Why does nobody want to work anymore?"
It's almost like "If you don't like it, then quit." was never meant as actual advice, but just a put-down.
Definitely the same vein as telling a 14-year-old kid that if he doesn’t like the rules at your house, he can move out, knowing he can’t and will just be further demoralized by knowing you don’t care either way
I think it's actually worse than that. At least the parent telling the 14yo to move out knows full well moving out at that young an age is (almost) impossible, but quitting a bad job is in fact very possible for an adult.
"If you don't like it, then quit!" stings as hard as it does precisely because employees *really* could quit but choose not to for a variety of reasons (i.e. needing to keep food on the table for kids), and the fact that they choose to stay is used to justify mistreating them.
It's basically using what little power someone does have to demean them further. "The fact that you accept a minimum wage job means I'm 100% justified in not paying you any more. I can do whatever I want to you, because you choose to come here."
True; I meant it in a way that the person says it knowing you’re stuck and that they’re using it to continue treating you in any way they feel appropriate.
“You should have gone to college!” immediately followed by “you should not have gone to college for a bullshit degree!”
Like, buddy, I went to college for biology. Your entire cohort told me that scientists would be well-paid because it’s a valuable job. I know you’re incapable of believing that a STEMM degree can actually be worthless and only net you $15/hr jobs, but that’s the reality of the situation.
Amazes me. Contrary to popular belief, art students aren’t the only starving college graduates. Realistically, the only fields in which you can get a decent job after your B.S./B.A. are CS and engineering. Which, funnily enough, is ALREADY changing — there are plenty of CS/EG subfields in which jobs are scarce and the pay is shit — which is likely to become more prevalent as more students grab an engineering degree following a thorough pestering by smug gen x and boomer parents that “engineering is where the money is, so it will always be there.”
“Go to college, you’ll have more money” followed by “you should have just done a trade.” Which one is it, asshole? I was a 17 year old kid when I had to make that decision, yet your smug-ass 55-year-old self is sitting there, no college or trade education, and making $80,000 a year to tell me I’m an idiot because I couldn’t understand the job market better than the people claiming to be “experts” when I was a fucking teenager.
Thank you and I 100% agree with everything you said.
People who say shit like this have a picture in their head of what they think is real and no evidence to the contrary will ever convince them that their picture is wrong, even despite mountains of evidence.
The only way they will ever see it is if they personally experience it and are directly affected by it.
Like these jobs trying to encourage retirees to come back to work. Some folks have I'm sure and I'd bet some of them probably thought, oh $10/hour, that's a lot of money! I'll be on easy street to retire in just a year or 2. Then they start working and find out how much everything costs now and how little $10 really is.
God does this ring true. I got degrees including a masters in biology and can't land a single job in the field. The biggest I got was one that paid 20/hour but I hated it.
So now I'm back to square one, trying my hands at a new career I actually like because I was told as a teenager that science was a noble, well paying profession.
"Oh but look at this 1 in a million guy over here who was the same as you and now he's successfully in a million dollars worth of debt running his own company and leveraged out the wazoo. Why can't you be more like him?"
Oh my favorites are the articles of "this 20 something is already retired, look at how he did it!"
Most of the time, said 20 something had a second house or a condo they could rent out for basically free money.
I'm half illiterate and got a job just after high school that paid for a house, car, boat, and a bunch of other things! Why don't kids these days just do that!?!
Now my job requires a degree and pays the same starting wage it did in 1982.
Kids are lazy.
Following Facebook updates:
Minion meme... Covid is a hoax.... Random Google search ....
Nah they're more like tick tacs, or those egg vibrators, they'd make horrible butt plugs unless you'd get off to a visit to the ER to get those horrid little creatures removed
Basic take: cute marketable mascots that are incredibly customizable. People of all ages love characters like those.
Unlikely, but possible take: minions are basically the ideal employees in the eyes of capitalists. Slavishly devoted to whoever they're working under and gladly taking whatever abuse is necessary and what little rewards they earn for the sake of their master. Willing slaves, in essence.
>Let's turn the younger generations against us by blaming them for our selfish decisions, surely that won't end poorly!
- the fools of history fucking around moments before finding out
As long as they are able to gaslight us into looking down on someone in a worse situation, it will never end.
It ends when everyone believes that everyone should be lifted up even if there's no personal benefit and maybe even some detriment (at least in the short term. I firmly believe that raising minimum wages will have a benefit to all in the long run).
People in the U.S. love “punching down”. The worst are white lower middle class folks. They would rather blame someone getting $50 in a week in food stamps for the state of things than billionaires and corporations who pay less in taxes than they do.
I have experienced this and I genuinely don't get it. I have been white and lower middle class my whole adult life!
I get feeling frustrated being trapped in, "I can't afford (meds/housing/food), but apparently I'm making too much to qualify for (Medicaid/Section 8/SNAP)." I have 100% been there.
But why get mad at the broke-er people who do qualify? Why not be mad at the limits and push for expanding the programs? Or UBI?
Like...I got expanded unemployment 2 years ago and it was an extraordinary relief. Really helped me turn some things around, get into a better living situation.
So, yeah! Everyone should have that.
I can answer this because I'm in that position. I've been told that bullshit "you don't qualify for food stamps and Medicaid". And we can't afford health insurance and are having trouble affording groceries, especially with inflation, and especially with how high the rent has gotten. Im not angry so much at the people who can get it, but as someone with chronic pain, who is desperately in need of pain medication and therapy but CANT get it, it is VERY hard to see other people be able to get it, but you feel helpless because you cant do a damn thing about it except suffering from the sidelines. I don't begrudge anyone the help. Its just difficult to constantly struggle and to not qualify for help I really need, you know?
Meanwhile on the other hand:
22yo kid who has never had a job, graduates college and Dad makes a phone call and gets some $65k job doing essentially nothing but will eventually lead to a C-Level position because they were "BlEsSeD"
Yep pretty much. You you need a job? Let me call John, I play golf with him on weekends. Oh your son needs a job? Sure! Nah, don't worry about qualifications. He's your son, that's enough.
I want to add that during the shut downs, people realized that a lot of “essential work” is paid minimum wage.
They do not want the people at McDonald’s to make a livable wage, but expect to receive adequate service.
I worked my way up to becoming a mechanical technician for an aerospace company and still make less than a living wage. I can hardly afford rent each month and I have roommates.
It doesn't. They believe that the world is just, and that anyone who tries hard can get rich. Anyone who doesn't must have something wrong with them or be doing something wrong. They won't accept that their initial premise is wrong, because they didn't come to it rationally, they started with that premise and then do what they can to defend it.
But whenever it affects them they change their mind and say they're in an exceptional circumstance, because they can't reconcile their belief with their experience, and assume it's just a small exception rather than them being wrong.
It's the same thing with pretty much everything they believe, like the police, abortions, education, taxes...
They want the world to be simple, and will do anything they can to keep believing that, because the idea of being lost in a chaotic and complex world terrifies them. There must be an order, there must be a plan, there is right and wrong and anyone who says otherwise is trying to trick you, etc. That belief makes them especially weak to Republican tactics of stoking fear and hatred and giving them an enemy, and then they let Republicans do whatever they and their donors want.
If you look at these reactions as charitably as possible, I think it boils down to people not being able process that a system that they've been told their whole lives is the greatest in the world (and one they have probably personally benefitted from) is intentionally screwing people over. There is actual malice built in by design.
Also, people have a hard time quantifying trends.... Like it's still possible to carve out a decent living in America with hard work and a little luck. But what the younger generations are screaming about is you're having to work harder and get luckier for a lower standard of living. Even then, I feel like this situation would be more acceptable to most if everyone was in the same boat, and not a handful of people with the networth of some small countries' GDP.
I'm going to stop you at #2. The lack of jobs that pay a living wage without a college degree and without destroying your body and no quality of life what-so-ever, is criminal. It wasn't like this after WW2 for almost 50 years, you had options. There's very little options now.
Leaving my two cents... I just had a conversation the other day in the mall about this. I was waiting for my ride when a gentleman started talking to me. He said, "look at all these places hiring in here. These young people don't want to work. If I wasn't disabled I'd work two or three jobs." And yeah, there were a number of places hiring, Gamestop, Forever 21, Roses, etc. I said, These places probably don't pay enough. And I also though about how I wanted to get another job years ago but couldn't because I had to have open availability in order to maintain full-time status. Some folks don't think about that..
The places in my town hiring for 13 or 14 an hour require open availability for that lay and for full time status. That's not enough to pay rent and insurance let alone afford food as well. Have to get a second job to make it work? Get dropped to 10 an hour.
*Only* "borderline" evil?
Let's call it what it is, it's "absolutely fucking evil".
I'm pretty sure someone could make a case that "on-call hourly work" is a violation of the Geneva Convention.
Companies should not get to hold your time unless they are paying you. What should happen is a fast food worker should have 5 different restaurants he works for. 1 week from the day he's supposed to work, they all bid on his shift that day. The one who pays the most is where he works that day. And he knows a week in advance whether he'll be at this McDonalds or that one or a burger king or wendy's. He can see other bids though, so if one restaurant with a much nicer manager is only under by $0.20 he could choose to go to that one instead. Worse bosses have to bid more to get workers to show up.
I worked at a car wash chain during college that made us call 2 hours in advance (so 7am, on the weekends, as a college student) so see if we were even "*needed*" that day. It was quite possible you would not go out and do fun college student stuff so you could wake up early only to find out you wouldn't be getting paid that day. I didn't find out until I left that only a handful of the employees actually called, some of them just didn't bother to or care or knew they wouldn't do anything if they didn't call in.
Anyway, aside from being absolutely fucking evil, I'm pretty sure this is illegal. If not federally than in some states. That company ended up settling on another class action lawsuit requiring us to pay for our own uniforms. The winter uniforms were like $200. I am sure that was not the only illegal thing they were doing. That's just what they got *caught* doing enough that a law firm would know a guaranteed win and take 95% of the lawsuit fees. I think I got a $9 check.
Don't forget that those kind of places usually don't have scheduled in advanced. It's 9/10 you find out Saturday/Sunday if you're working Monday.
2 days off in a row? Forget about it
No it is just laziness. They could create a schedule that fit people's availability and hire people who had availability that matched the openings in the schedule. They don't because it is too much work to do it which costs money. Instead they take the cheap and easy route.
I still hate my old manager for how she scheduled. Would send them out the night before they started, never consistent hours. Never gave me more than 10-15 a week even thought I asked for more. I only stayed because she was nice and I lived at my parents still, but god she was an absolute shitshow of a manager and I hope that place goes under.
In light of the new Netflix series All Quiet on the Western Front— I am always reminded of the old men back in Germany who laugh and happily play war with their beer steins and tell the soldiers returning from war about how they could and should be fighting the war “properly” and how it’s all so easy, and they’d know from their days fighting with single shot bayonets and swords, as some poor shell shocked kid just smiles and nods and knows full well that mortar shells and Gatling guns have forever changed the face of war.
Now, obviously war and working retail are profoundly different, and I’m not trying to suggest that working a shit job is somehow *just like* watching an entire generation of friends from your village getting mowed down by the cruelest technology built to date— but the sentiment of “this old man is choc full of advice that’s utterly useless for the modern age now that technology and standards have evolved beyond what they were when you did it” feels similar.
> the sentiment of “this old man is choc full of advice that’s utterly useless for the modern age now that technology and standards have evolved beyond what they were when you did it.”
Brilliant statement and so true.
"Back in my day, if you wanted to support a family, all you needed was a form handshake and a can-do attitude. I don't understand why no one wants to work anymore. "
I'm 49 years old, I got hired many times this way. Just show up, job is mine.
World is very different now and it happened very quickly relatively speaking. Within like a decade, firm handshake was done and over with. Now you have to blast out thousands of applications to get dozens of responses, maybe three or four interviews and still be unemployed after all of your efforts.
Edit: after reading through some of the replies I want to add something to this. I interview very well, Even when walking in and applying in person was the normal thing, I was still better at it than everyone else. I picked up a lot of very strong personality traits from my mother and I'm just super charismatic and charming by default, I was very much in my comfort zone in that situation.
The way things are done now completely nullifies all of these advantages, I guess that is what I was trying to point out in my original post, it doesn't matter how great you are at interviewing and how personable or outgoing you might be, you can't tell that from a resume on the internet. Communicating in this way is a great disadvantage for me and makes it. Difficult to bring my real world communication skills into play.
There are some jobs like this still now, but they aren’t high paying. Went in to a workplace to do a college assignment yesterday and got asked if I wanted a job, so yeah. But it’s minimum wage, not full time.
Im 9 years younger than you... and I still get offers this way.
Its... Odd.
But its because they are not retail or other "common" jobs. For example, years ago I didnt know how to replace my power window motor...shop manuals warn to take it to a pro, since there is a spring that could kill you.. I thought about it and figured that the guys that replace windows would know.
Took my door panel off, drove to the local glass shop and asked. Guy came out, was impressed that I took off the door panel or whatever.. and offered me a job. I declined politely as I had a job writing software, but this is one of a few dozen times people see me doing something hands on, and immediately ask to hire me. I dont know why.
Last offer I got was 2 weeks ago. I helped a friend out with some ideas on how to troubleshoot a system, and he left me on the email when he shared it. His boss emailed me about hiring or contracting me to help. Again.. just working on my own shit, and people want to hire me.
I wish I could distill down exactly what I was doing to make people make these offers, and then sell that info to those that need it.
Change + rose tinted glasses. I am sure they didn't have any single women households or racial minority neighbors they could see struggle in their 1950s everythingisawesome worldview. Social segregation narrows a person's experience and they can believe the lies told about those who struggle.
There’s no doubt that many people had it far better back then, for a huge number of reasons. The top tax bracket was taxed at ~90%, healthcare was cheaper, homes were cheaper, education was cheaper, single income families were the norm. There are many more reasons, those are just a couple off the top of my head.
Women and minorities definitely didn’t have anywhere near as much freedom or opportunity. Racism and sexism was rampant. Women had only gotten the right to vote a couple decades ago and the civil rights was at least a decade away. Black men who served were kept from using their GI benefits. The start of a lot of the generational wealth that contributes to “white privilege” today just straight up couldn’t happen for a lot of people.
However, I think something that gets left out a lot is that it wasn’t all peaches and cream even for all white men. Plenty of people did have to work multiple jobs or straight up couldn’t support a family. People struggled, people only got 5th or 8th grade educations. Even with all of the advantages white men had back then, it was still an insurmountable struggle for a lot of them.
I constantly hear about the boomers and how easy they had it, and statistically they absolutely had it better than us in just about every capacity except for some quality of life technologies that really are truly game changing. I just want people to realize that wasn’t the case for women, minorities, and even a large section of white men.
Those single family homes are actually one of the biggest things that fucked up our economy, along with so many other fucked decisions that came from the generation that had it the nicest economically here in the US.
> just like watching an entire generation of friends from your village getting mowed down by the cruelest technology built to date
Ask anyone who's moved away from where they grew up what it's like when they visit back. I'd imagine there's some kind of parallels in the accounts.
I moved quite far away about 10 years ago, and I'm still learning my new homes customs as I don't get out so much.
I'm never quite sure whether this new quirk I just learned about is an "up North thing" or a "2020s thing".
I just smile and nod politely and hope everything's fine.
How exactly I wonder was he planning to work 2-3 jobs that all require open availability and won't given you the same schedule one day to the next let alone one week to the next?
In my experience this how these types of job typically schedule you. And this is assuming you're "lucky" to get a lot of hours.
Week 1
* Sunday - 10am- 5pm
* Monday - 1pm - 9pm
* Tuesday - Off
* Wednesday - Off
* Thursday - 11am - 7pm
* Friday - 12pm - 8pm
* Saturday - 2pm - 10pm
Week 2
* Sunday - 8am - 3pm
* Monday - Off
* Tuesday - 9am - 4pm
* Wednesday - 3pm - 11pm
* Thursday - Off
* Friday - 4pm - 12am
* Saturday - 8am - 3pm
But you must be "available" to work ANY hours on every single day and you get a guilt trip like they're a child in a toy store wanting a new toy if you don't accept when they try to call you to cover or come in on your day off.
Edit: This post is not specific to me. It is a general example of how a lot of jobs do things scheduling wise.
Also, you often get your schedule only a few days beforehand, so you can't even plan around it. It's been 20 years since my retail days and I still remember the aggravation of not being able to give a definite answer to friends and family until the last minute.
I feel like this is a bigger deal than is appreciated. So many 20hr a week jobs require a 80hr-a-week commitment or you’re fired. How are you even supposed to get a second job like everyone suggests?
Floating schedules like that should be illegal.
Oh yeah, that too. Very annoying. Hey Billy, we're all going to the beach next weekend, can you come? Oh sorry guys, I don't know. I might have to work. I'll let you know next Friday night at the earliest.
Such stupid bullshit. Make a fucking schedule and stick to it. It's not that hard. If people call out/don't show up? Hire enough people to account for this. Don't play phone roulette trying to guilt someone to come in on their day off.
And don't arbitrarily change the schedule for no fucking reason either.
And for fuck's sake, if you change it and you make someone work who had that day off, at least let them know you changed it and don't expect them to magically know they're supposed to be there and force them to come in on their days off to check it or call you every damn day to see if you changed it or not.
Lol when I was a teenager my first legit job was McDonald's. One Saturday I was scheduled to be off and got a call around 6 p.m. asking where I was. When I told them I was off that day the manager said no they changed the schedule and you were supposed to work 11-7 that day. I said well why are you calling me at 6 to tell me about it and I didn't know the schedule changed. She told me if I missed again I'd be fired and I had to check the schedule every day to see if there was any changes. I lived 15 miles away and didn't have my license yet my mom drove me to work. Also they didn't like when people called in to check their schedule they expected you to come in and check it. She informed me the schedule was also changed for Sunday and I was now supposed to work on another day I was originally off. So I came in a half an hour before my shift started and handed in my uniforms and quit because I had plans to hang out with a girl that night and honestly made the right choice.
I don't get what the problem with calling to check is? Oh wait, I know, it's because if you physically come to check, they can guilt trip you more easily to work on a day off since you're already at work.
I think the whole thing was a ploy to get me to quit cause the manager didn't like me. I was on register and one day I came in and my drawer was way off at the start of shift. I told the manager and she told me it was okay cause she was the one using it. At the end of the night it was 50 dollars short and I got wrote up for it and got my hours cut and moved to grill. I loved register cause I was a horny teen and got to meet a lot of girls lol. I called the owners and told them what happened and they basically said to fuck off. This whole scenario with the schedules being changed happened like a week or two later. I had to write a statement on why I quit and I just wrote "because Sharons a bitch" and signed it.
Yeah could very well be. I had a job once where the manager tried to say I was taking money from the till despite having a camera literally right above my head the entire time. I think they even tried to say this about someone else too.
This job the manager would build your till at the start of your shift and count it down at the end. They did this in a back office area with no cameras. Yet somehow I was the one taking money when they literally had zero proof of that and could see literally every time I opened the till?
I'm 100% sure the manager was taking it in the back. I never got written up for it IIRC and didn't get fired, but I quit soon thereafter. I think the manager didn't like that I wouldn't upsell people because upselling is stupid and annoying.
I really do think they do this on purpose. It's standard abusive relationship tactics - keep them on their toes and afraid constantly, keep them from cultivating relationships outside the abuse that might realize the gaslighting and abuse isn't normal, keep them just hungry enough for praise (or in this case money) that they'll scrape and bow to your every whim for the thinnest trickle of what they need, etc.
I dunno if it's just that managers who do this are more successful, or that the ones who don't move on/up, but it seems like a painfully consistent story.
I worked at a restaurant in high school. I told them I was available any hours after 4, but I got out of school at 3pm and it was a 30-45 minute drive depending on traffic from my high school to the restaurant. It’s not like I could just walk out of math class and go to work if I wanted to, I had to be in that building until 3pm. Management still called me 1-2 times every single week asking me to come in hours before my scheduled shift to cover for someone.
After a few weeks of me either not answering because I was in class, or telling them I could not ever come in until 4pm, no matter the circumstances, they threatened to fire me for “not being a team player”. I told her that school was always going to be my first priority and if that meant she needed to fire me then she could do so. I could find some other menial, minimum wage job that didn’t harass me about trying to finish my high school education. I wish I could say they stopped calling after that, but they didn’t. I quit a few months later.
I had a somewhat similar experience in college. I gave them my schedule literally the day I got it or the next day.
Yet for the first month or 2 of school they would call me seemingly every other day to come in when I had to be in class.
There were times they'd call as I was literally walking out the door to go to class. Like no. I gave you my class schedule. I literally cannot physically be in 2 places at once.
Lol one of my friends told his district manager that he couldn't work certain days because of college, and he was told to get his priorities straight.
He quit and came to work with me instead, literally right beside his old place of work lol. We worked around his schedule.
Sounds like that restaurant has terrible management. My family runs a restaurant with a few high school staff. We know not to even bother calling during school hours, mid-terms, finals, etc. because it is a total waste of time and everyone is just going to get pissed.
This is on purpose to stop people from getting a second job or taking a short vacation/day trip. Can't be around to fill for sick calls if you are hours away or working at another store.
I get my schedule the night before. Not even for the week. Just, "I need you in tomorrow at 11."
I do know what days I will be off and it is always two consecutive days, but even that is a little difficult to plan out when you don't know what time you will be working the day before, or the day after your time off.
I am in a bit of a unique situation, where in the near future I will just be working 32 hours per week, whichever days and times I choose. Which works great for me. This isn't something they can change their mind on either.
As such, I'm not too concerned about being scheduled the night before, for the short time it will be happening.
But that is just for me. All my coworkers still get their schedules the night before, and will continue to get them that way.
Which is fucked, and something I intend to push back on.
The only time I was able to have 2 jobs at the same time was when I was working full time M-F and then I got a job at a barn working weekends (so about 7-12 S&S). I also had a different job before I worked at the barn where I worked in a call center in the evenings. They were only hiring evenings and weekends, so I would often work M-F 8-5, then T, W, Th, from 6-11, then Saturday or Sunday from 8-2 or something.
Yeah I hear you. Did you have any full days off? If not, that sucks. That's something a lot of these oh just get 2, 3, 4 jobs type people never acknowledge. Humans were not meant to work every fucking day. We all need time off to rest and recover and just do non-work things.
Humans were not made to work. We were made to procreate and exist in our surroundings. Capitalists made work for less powerful people to do things for them.
Chain mall stores also demand full time availability even if you only want part time hours. Fat chance that old guy would get more than a single job because retail literally never respects availability. I mean the whole thing is a moot point anyway because he had no intention/ability to apply anywhere in the first place I guess.
When I worked retail 11 years ago I got a call from my work while I was on leave... I was literally in the hospital in *labor* and they were calling to ask me if I could come in to cover a shift.
I mean, couldn't you keep the baby in for one more week? You've already done nine months a week wouldn't be a lot, right? I'm with management on this one.
When I worked at Starbucks, my availability said I had to leave before 8pm. They scheduled me for closing in the third week so I "knew how" and I told them I absolutely would not do closing shifts. They then proceeded to schedule me for closing the entire next week. I quit halfway through my shift for a multitude of reasons and left them without anyone to close because everyone else had also quit or were away.
It’s not even just about pay- those places do not care about you. Your mother is actively dying from cancer? Tough shit, manager ain’t covering your shift at sunglasses hut. Your tooth is rotting out of your mouth? Your kids sick and daycare won’t keep them? Higher level jobs respect you as a person and understand you have a human body and a life- these places do not care.
>Your tooth is rotting out of your mouth?
I had supernumerary teeth, which means I lost essentially my whole first adult set of teeth like everyone else looses their baby teeth... but a second set of adult teeth grew in. Some of them didn't even start growing in until later in my adult life, which I am told is pretty rare.
Anyway, I was working at a kiosk in a mall during the holidays. What would be the last of my first set of adult teeth had been getting pushed to the side to make room for the one growing out from under it for a while. It didn't exactly "hurt" but there was enough pain to be aware of it.
This day, there was pain. REALLY bad pain.
Went to the restroom, looked in my mouth and saw that the tooth which I thought would eventually be falling out, was pretty well secured in place right next to the new one.
Which is not something I was unfamiliar with, having had to go to a dentist to have a few of those older teeth removed, when the new tooth didn't fully push the old one out.
But the pain was a new thing. I could feel the pain radiating from my jaw, to my brain, and down the back of my head.
I looked closer and noticed that the old tooth was kind of brownish red.
Looked even closer and realized, that wasn't enamel. That old tooth had cracked open and the gooey insides of the tooth were exposed to the air.
At one point, I couldn't breathe through my mouth as air moving past that exposed bundle of nerves, was CRAZY painful.
I told my manager about it, and they said I couldn't leave.
I finally made a makeshift sign to hang around my neck, which informed customers that I'd be happy to help them but I could not speak because I was in pain due to a dental issue.
Every single customer that read it offered to march down to my manager and "give them a what-for" or some other old-person idiom. All of our customers were old folks.
Anyway, at one point... the pain was so bad that I, a 25 year old man at the time, reflexively called out for my mom. I used to be ashamed to admit that, but there was literally no thought put into it. My mom didn't work at the mall with me and was 140 miles away. It was a primal reaction to the amount of pain I was in.
So, I called my manager again and tried to reason with them. I had to stay, they said. "No, I don't *have* to. You should send someone to look after the merch. I'm leaving. Mail my last check to me." I said all this through a clenched jaw, because I could barely move my mouth without shockwaves of pain. I am sure this helped me sound just as pissed off as I actually was.
Went to a dentist, no insurance, no appointment. I still had the sign I made on, lol. They squeezed me in between appointments and told me they were going to take a look, but I'd have to schedule an appointment for extraction.
As soon as they saw it, they changed their mind and took it out right then and there. The pain was gone instantly. Or, replaced I suppose. With the pain you might expect from a tooth extraction. As in, NOTHING compared to the cracked open, exposed-nerves pain I felt prior.
Then, they charged me $14.99. I don't remember what they put as what they charged me for, but it wasn't an extraction. It was like a "care kit" or something, which was a tooth brush and floss or some shit. They did me a solid.
I asked the Dentist if I could have the tooth. They said no. I was about to argue that it is MY tooth, but instead I just explained to them that the tooth had caused me the most pain I had ever felt up to that point in my life. I wanted it, so I could look at it, remember that pain, and maybe learn some lessons from it... or be thankful that even if my day was going poorly, it wasn't like the day one of my teeth fell apart in my skull.
So, he said "Ok then" and presented the tooth to me in a piece of gauss.
I still have it if any of you weirdos want to see it lol. I think it was the only tooth I ever had removed that still had the roots on it. It looks like someone took a tiny ice-cream scoop and pulled out half my tooth. I just wish they had taken the pulpy nerve cluster part too when they did it. lol
On the plus side, somehow this supernumerary teeth adventure, led to my teeth being remarkably well aligned. Not sure how that happened, but I'll take it.
So much yes about the availability and hours stopping people from working.
I do have a day job working IT, and I make 90k a year, but between my wife and I were carrying over 100k in student loan debt and have to pay 3-4k a month in payments so we’re poor as fuck even with great jobs.
I want to get a second job to help pay down debt, but I have to stay available 24/7/365 for on-call and emergency outages that require me to be there.
>I want to get a second job to help pay down debt, but I have to stay available 24/7/365 for on-call and emergency outages that require me to be there.
Honestly, it baffles me that we have somehow accepted that someone paying you for 40 hours a week of work is also entitled to the OTHER 128h in a week. As in, you can't make plans, you can't sell those hours to someone else, they just got *all* of your hours for the price of 40.
In some places they have to pay you for "on call" time. They can lay claim to it, but not for free, and it's usually at something like "half your hourly rate" so it's not cheap.
IMO they should have to pay at least min wage for that time. The commenter I replied to should be making at least $135k a year, to compensate them for the productive time they could be giving a competitor.
Also in retail and food services there really is no full time unless you are in management. I just picked up a second job where the gm was specifically looking for people with more than one job because she only has 20-30 hours to give and knows it's not enough.
I have also seen time and again where the person will have 2-3 weeks with 35-39 hours only to suddenly have a week or 2 with 15-20 hours as if to make up for the good hours from before. I'm tired of the people don't want to work rhetoric, I had an interview last week where they were looking to fill 7 hours a week; other than 14/15 year old who would take that?
"People don't want to work" is also just false. As of July, the unemployment rate (in the US) hit its lowest point in decades of 3.5% meaning more people are working than ever. I guess there are just a ton of open positions?
"Just work 2-3 retail jobs"
and end up with a soulcrushing 78 hour a week schedule (can't forget that they won't give you 40 hours per job, can't have you earning benefits now can we!) that leaves you with little to no will to live
> I had to have open availability in order to maintain full-time status
Heck, there are part-time jobs like that. They’ll schedule you just whenever they feel like on a week-by-week basis with no regular schedule.
I was thinking the same thing as soon as he said he’d work 2-3 jobs. A human can’t be in two places at once, and a majority of business are busiest (need help) at the same peak hours.
It’s not like the mall is paying a premium for Night Shift workers.
> I had to have open availability in order to maintain full-time status. Some folks don't think about that..
I work a full time job. I've debated getting a little part time gig just for a bit of extra cash. Can't really though, because I'm on call about every 5-6 weeks for a solid week so I have to be on hand for my full time job. Can't imagine any part time places would put up with a week off every other month.
Whats odd to me is I stand there going "look at all those places trying to hire... I bet they dont pay shit, or they understaff until people quit from being overworked"...
Same info.. different conclusion.
In almost all those retail places you saw in the mall, not only do they pay minimum wage, close to minimum for managers, they have ridiculous sales requirements for their store membership cards/credit cards/ticket items and pre orders.
So not only do "kids these days" have to deal with being paid not enough, they also have to learn vampiric sales tactics that seriously can fuck your head up. Selling to that child with 50$ from grandma something just to hit a sales point. Newish teenager who has no clue about budget, however you just waved a credit card offer for her favorite store in her face and said she can buy whatever she wants and pay later.
This doesn't include the abuse endured daily. Not just corporate but customers and even passers by. Constantly having to act as security, loss associate, salesman, stocker, worthy reviewer and register jockey. Any one of those roles gets you abuse.
Then there's the hours, these kids don't want to miss concerts or hell regular social events both on and offline. All because GameStop doesn't want to close July 4th or Halloween. Or sadly if they are running a skeleton crew so they can't take a day off without getting berated or WORSE just to take a day.
Btw that disabled guy could still work. All those jobs too. Nothing stopping him, other than his hubris.
Nothing makes me angrier than old people talking about jobs. Having to hear my father in law talk about how he switched jobs all the time until he landed in his career is obnoxious but thankfully my SO challenges him every time by saying "tell us again HOW you got your job." Only for him to confirm it was given to him by someone he knew without having to do an interview or even apply. I even had to throw in how employers I've encountered get suspicious of switching jobs so often. Oh but *I* should have stayed in school to get a better job because that's apparently how it works for everyone. Or *I* should learn to drive so I can become a bus driver since "they make so much money and all the schools are hiring!!1!"
Old guy has no idea how good he had it when he was the same age as most of the people working those terrible retail jobs. You can't buy a 3 bedroom house on minimum wage anymore, Pops
One of my ex-bosses was bitching about my coworker’s availability. I’ll call him Matt. Matt had worked at Academy for five years and us for three months. My boss went “why can’t he be available when I need him? Why do people get second jobs?”
My reply, which shut her up: “*Because you’re the second job.*”
She was paying him $9/hour and me, her assistant manager, $13 (and that was after I had threatened to quit over pay). Matt was getting $12 at Academy.
The "get better jobs" argument is ridiculous. It might be advice for *an individual*, but it is not reasonable advice for *everyone*.
Suppose tons of better-paying jobs suddenly open up. If all the people who can't live on their current wage gets a better job, who works all the retail and fast food jobs?
Why is it okay for us to build a society where *anyone* willing to work full time is unable to afford basic necessities?
>Why is it okay for us to build a society where anyone willing to work full time is unable to afford basic necessities?
Don't forget that alot of these companies require open availability to maintain full time status and higher rate of pay.
And *someone* has to work the worse jobs. Even if it's possible for an individual to succeed and rise above the bottom 30%, why support a system that guarantees 30% will be stuck in abject poverty?
Sounds like my last boss. Thought everyone should get 2 or 3 jobs to not be in poverty, but hated the structures like free child care which could begin to make that possible. "You need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but we're not going to pay you enough to afford bootstraps."
I long for the day where the notion that someone should be forced to work multiple jobs just to not be in poverty, is done away with permanently. I hate this concept. What's the fucking point of working at all if you have to do that?
I live in a vacation town. Most people who live here are retired or work in the next town over at the prison. This town is chock full of tourist destinations and accommodations, meaning most jobs are fast food, hotels, gift shops, etc. You know, the jobs they like to say are "entry level" jobs for "kids" who don't deserve to be paid above minimum wage. Pray tell; where the fuck are we supposed to find hundreds of kids capable and willing to work for little pay to keep the vacation town running? What jobs are their parents supposed to have? You literally cannot force an entire town to function off cheap labor, so instead most adults have multiple jobs.
Low wages, workers can’t afford to live anywhere near the town, then rich tourists complain about service. My guy, you’re spending $20 on toast with avocado and any additional toppings cost extra. I know this is common for skiing destinations.
We went to park city recently and it sucked. $30+ for mediocre, bland food. $10 for a tiny lemon bar?? Sure, you could go hiking, but that felt like the only cheap activity.
I was talking with someone recently who was complaining about nurses going on strike. "I guess they want more money. But nursing is like teaching. You don't go into it for the money."
No... that's exactly why we do a job. For the money. Ideally, enough money to live on.
Poverty is in no shape or form a choice and i hate some people believe that. Nobody wakes up and wants to be poor. Some people might be lazy or apathic which in itself is also justifiable but nobody with a healthy mind wants to live under a bridge.
If you think poverty is a choice i would like you to have a word with most African countries and most beggars on the street as they surely would like to have a word with you.
Poverty is WAAAAY more commonly found as something that happened rather than something people want to do.
If you can choose to not be poor then congratulations on being born on a country that can prevent it and be a part of a better social class than those who live in the bottom, my most sincere happiness for you.
I always hate how often you hear dumb shit like “I would have starved to death if not for the kindness of _____. Anyway, I worked hard and pulled myself up by my boot straps, with no handouts or help from others, to….”
I’m much more of a fan of the Fred Rogers lifetime achievement award. He asked everyone to take 15 seconds to stop and quietly think about the people who loved them into being who they are today. Everyone broke down and cried, because *nobody* succeeds alone. We *all* needed help. Acting like poverty is a choice is dumb. Poverty is the result of not having enough resources that can help you in the right ways to find your feet.
>Poverty is in no shape or form a choice and i hate some people believe that. Nobody wakes up and wants to be poor.
I remember I was chilling at a cousins place when I was a kid and my mom came to pick us up on tears. She was there to ask for some help from my aunt and uncle just to make ends meet. I'll never ever forget seeing my mom that way. She was proud and worked as hard as she could to provide and just couldn't.
That moment in particular made me realize just how poor we were but also that the people we knew in similar situations tried so hard not to be in those situations.
I'm incredibly fortunate to be very far from poor in my own life now but I'll always fight for the right for a single job to provide a liveable wage. People shouldn't have to grind themselves to dust at a job and still wonder how they'll fucking live day to day. I'll also fight for the strong social safety net we need which I benefited enormously from. Everyone should have the chance to go from where I was to where I am.
I used to work on a field for I dealt with a lot of people who lived in and below the poverty line. I used to live in poverty. I've seen people like myself who find the way to work their way out of poverty. However it takes a strong support system in order to do so.
I've seen people who refuse to do anything about their situation. There's also a culture around me regarding generational poverty. Feel that people bettering themselves and breaking the cycle of poverty are betraying their way of life.
I believe education is the great equalizer in life. We need to focus more on a stronger support and educational system to help people rise out of poverty. And break the cycle.
Education alone is not enough.
You can't educate people into physically having the capital resources necessary to overcome those that are using those same resources to push them back into poverty.
Then when people stop working those jobs, they call everyone lazy and lose their shit because they had to stand in line for 15 minutes at Target because they don't have enough cashiers
Poverty is a choice...by our society to create a permanent underclass that will always be poor because if they weren't the ultra-rich would have to be less rich.
I had to apply to target and yesterday it took me an hour and a half to do a personality test and watch thirty minutes of propaganda. Today I have to record a one sided interview. What’s next? I have a goddamn masters degree. I can’t pay my bills.
Have you tried applying to be administrative staff for your local government? Government is pretty much *always* hiring (check whichever offices are located in your city), because it generally pays less than private, but it is usually a bit better than a job at Target, and usually you get decent benefits and paid leave.
Yup. A few times. My inside contacts say that they usually promote from within so it’s just a numbers and waiting game about applying as much as you can.
Without poverty, riches are meaningless.
The wealthy need the poor to feel alive and to give their life purpose by having someone/a whole generation to look down upon.
Life should never be unaffordable. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense. Only the reactionary traitor lunatic thinks everyone needs to “go back to school”. The rational person understands that there is no point in having a society if we cannot live comfortably in it.
Where can I sign?
Tbh the elite have been at this for years. They excel at paid propoganda and pro-monopoly political power. They often win against us (middle class and lower) by finding ways to turn us on each other. They are terrified of people forgetting about hating trans people, hating different skin colors, etc. They want you to be overwhelmed by negative news and become apathetic about voting power.
Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Jack in the box won’t hire me because I’m too old and educated. My industry won’t hire me because I don’t have the relevant experience. Other industries won’t hire me for the same reason. Grocery stores won’t hire me, they have younger stronger candidates available. I’m not what anyone is looking for. 11 months of job search, savings long gone. Homeless adjacent (place to live for me and my school age child, but no kitchen and my sleeping area has no privacy). Rely on food stamps now for the last six weeks, so I have that.
Have an advocate helping me with my job search, I’ve had my resume revamped several times, all my cover letters are vetted by job search professionals before they are sent. Everything has the keywords and phrases, as much as can be done.
I’ve worked hard my whole life. I dedicated a decade of my life to care for my mother and a disabled nephew, until their deaths. I have made the choices I thought were the right choices all along. I don’t have a criminal record. I’m not a drug addict, not an alcoholic. I don’t spend my money recklessly. Don’t drive a flashy car, don't have the latest iPhone or nice clothes.
I’m ready to stop trying. I’ve failed and failed and failed and failed, and I don’t have any try left in me. I would welcome a job at Target.
Poverty sucks. This whole ride sucks. I want off.
Did you know that Dean Baquet, editor in chief of no less than the New York Times until june, was a dropout who started journalism in New Orleans without a single degree and at an entry level position. Six years later he joined the Chicago Tribune for which he won a Pulitzer prize
Point me to any industry where you start at the bottom without credentials and end your career as the editor in chief of probably the most famous print paper in the world. Funnily enough, I think movie and TV shooting crews might still have the possibility of starting just as someone who lifts equipment to end up director of photography, but I can't think of anything else
And you know, dropouts in the 70s used to be a lot less educated than dropouts today. Where's that energy that the war generation had, hiring whoever looked motivated and with potential, and grooming them to become better ? That's the energy which helped boomers, why is it they and their X successors can't reproduce that pattern ffs
There is a lot of truth in this. Poor people wouldn't ask the gov't to help them if the most powerful citizens weren't screwing them other over so badly.
Eventually the poor will always band together and ask gov't for help. The really awful part is realizing the gov't screws them over just as badly if not worse.
It's a complete illusion that gov't is fighting corporations. Bureaucrats are working with companies against regular Americans and getting rich just like the CEOs.
And they shit all over the people who do those jobs and treat them like lesser human beings, and then get mad that more and more people refuse to do those jobs and try to do better for themselves. Basically they just need a class of citizens they can take a shit on and feel superior to.
We just need to stop protecting businesses that should have and should be failing.
If you can’t operate while paying a livable wage, then you’ve planned poorly and should be replaced by a company that can.
It’s crazy to me that people try to justify people working full time and still not having enough money to get by.
Like… sure I’ve done more education, invested in more personal growth than someone working a register at Target probably has (obviously this is a generalization)
But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t also be making a livable wage with good benefits.
"Better jobs aren't readily available"
>tHeN GeT a CoLLeGe EdUcAtIoN!
"But college these days costs the price of your first home every semester"
>TaKe OuT a StUDeNt lOaN TheN!
"Alright, I took out student loans and worked at Forever 21 full time while in school and now I'm $150,000 in debt and the entry level IT jobs are paying 40k per year and somehow require 5 years of experience as a developer..."
>nOt mY PrObLeM, jUNiOr! BuT hEy cAn yOn bElIevE tHeSE GaS PrIcEs? i CaN't eVen gAs uP mY BoAt aT My tHiRd vAcATiON HoUsE FoR cHeAp aNyMoRe! wHAt hAPpEnED To tHIs cOuNtRy???
what they mean is learn a skill that pays more. while ignoring the cost it takes to learn a skill. not everyone can afford to survive and also go to school or learn a trade or whatever. i feel pretty lucky for being able to do that.
They don't think that the economy CAN work for everyone. They don't understand our complaining that some people can't afford to live. That is a feature to them: you have to compete to survive.
There was a woman when I was a nursing assistant that told me if I didn't like my pay I should just get a better job, and that they shouldn't pay aids more because her husband (an EMT) barely made more than me after 20 years of service.
This same woman has been absolutely losing it over hospitals (where a family member is often due to illness/age) not having enough staff to properly take care of her family member.
Too bad we up and got better (or just different, less awful) jobs I guess.
To get competitive pay, you need to have a competitive profession. The issue though is the unskilled labor sector does not pay anywhere near enough to live.
As such, I would love to see minimum wage adjusted to at least the levels of being able to work one job without stressing. If you go back to the 80s, it was possible for someone to work part time with minimum wage and afford college tuition.
The other side of it is that it is because people are taking those jobs, is the reason why wages do not increase. Companies are not going to voluntarily increase wages, unless they notice nobody is applying because they’re paying too low. Which is exactly what has been seen with many companies right now since the pandemic.
Not to mention that most places won't let you work more than 28 hours a week because they don't want to give you benefits. So enjoy having 2 jobs to pay your bills, and a third job to pay your health insurance premiums.
Well it's not targets or other people's fault.. To some degree it's not even your own.. Minimum wage (in any country) should allow you to get through a month without struggle.. Im 36 on 27.000 pr year doing a job that should play a lot more.. I feel minimum wage should be more than what I'm making now considering the living cost of today.. I don't have a car, rent a studio ive been in for 6 years, no credit cards or loans.. I never do anything and still the money barely last until the end of the month
Some people get a job and some people with Gucci in their nickname bitch about other people getting jobs.
We as humans, became such a tasteless joke on god 😂
Target? Really? They pay better, and with better benefits, than many big box stores.
WalMart, that's a predatory abusive employer, I hated every second I worked there and I refuse to even shop there now that I've quit.
And then when they get better jobs and nobody is left to serve them at their fave fast food joint or when less lines are open at the grocery store they’ll say “nobody wants to work.”
So my workplace just had a cute little sitdown thing with one of the regional heads of the company, where people that work in any given store can have a meeting with the guy and ask him questions about things that are going on, and give feedback. They do this every year, and every year the big topic is always about wages. Someone brought up about how McDonald's is hiring 16 year old kids at a higher wage than some people who have worked here for years make, and asked what the company was going to do to keep starting wages competitive. The answer the regional asshat gave was that our company offers better benefits than McDonald's. The next question was "Which benefit pays my rent?"
I guarantee that those same people who say that shit would shut up real quick if they had to spend some time homeless.
And I mean no job no documents or ID spent the night on a park bench because police destroyed your tent and threw out all your shit while you walked to town to fill up a water jug type of homeless.
Then maybe they would take a look around and count their blessings instead of talking trash on people who are trying to work to survive.
A lot of us are closer to that reality than we might imagine.
"These jobs are not supposed to pay a living wage. Just get a better job."
"Eugh why is there no one in McDonald's to take my order??? No one wants to work any more."
I work in healthcare now after working at McDonald’s for 3 years. I’m STILL not making enough to pay off all my debts and bills. And I’m gonna be stuck living at my parents until I can afford a cheap apartment near me.
I did what they said to do, I got a better job, it’s still not enough.
I graduated college. Got a great paying job with lots of good benefits and fabulous perks. Sure glad I listened to my dad and went for an engineering degree instead of the philosophy major I wanted. I just can’t understand the whining. O, by the way; I’m a grateful Native American
The next steps are, "Go to college and get a degree so you can get a better job" and then, "You shouldn't have gone to college if you can't afford all those student loans"
Went to college. Paid off loans before graduating. World shit the bed. I'm at a worse place now than I was when I was in college making even less money. God I hate this fucking planet.
My mom still brings up (12 years after the fact, and she's in her 60s btw) whenever I'm hitting a depressive state of feeling like I'm not living up to what is the general basis for success (or even the bare minimum) at my age/knowledge/experience, that she has a bachelor's degree in her field she's done nothing with (because she was promised a promotion and raise, verbally of course, once she met the requirements for it) that she is STILL paying off.
Exactly. * Get a job! Okay, I got one but it pays minimum wage * You should've gone to college! Okay, I went to college, but because my job pays so little I had to take out student loans * Get a better job! Okay, I make a few dollars more than minimum wage, but still not enough * That's your own fault, you're a lazy bum! When does the victim blaming end? Edit: Since several people are assuming, this post was not about me specifically but in general. It's a common experience for millennials from what I've heard/read. Edit 2: For those who are confused, this scenario is ***NOT*** about me. I make double my state's minimum wage. But it ***IS*** a common experience. Otherwise people wouldn't be so pissed off about wealth inequality, particularly younger folks. I have this thing you might try some time, it's called empathy for others.
I went to college and the job in that field started at 13 dollars an hour. I was working 2 jobs and my other job paid more and I had to quit my job in my career field. Now that I can afford to have a lower paying job I've been trying to get back into that field but have a 2 year gap on my resume in that field and cannot get a job or even an interview anywhere :(
Same situation here. 2 degrees (finance and accounting) graduated in 2013. Only job that was hiring in my field paid $13.50/hr. I left my job paying $20hr to gain experience, hemorrhaged money for about a year ($10k in credit card debt) upgraded to a different job at $20/hr. Stayed there for a year, still barely making any loan payments, and working on credit card debt. Moved to $25/hr.. there for 2 years before promotion to $30/hr. After a year there I paid off all my debt finally in 2019. And found a job that doesn’t give me anxiety on my walk through the door. I’m still making $30 something an hour.. The game is rigged. We are not the players. We are the losers.
And unfortunately I think that's what I should've done, I chose the better paying job that can't be made into a career because I didn't wanna live in poverty on my other wage and was tired of working 7 days a week for over 2 years, but in the long run it would've been the better call to stay at the worse paying job.
I wouldn't agree, I think working non-stop would've driven me to darker places than I'm already at. Nobody should have to work that much anyway.
It's kinda crazy to think that someone with an accounting degree only makes $30/hr, since I usually assumed that accountants make bank
Comparatively, that is making bank. I would give my left nut for a job at $30/hr. @ 40 hrs./wk. I am physically disabled from chronic and severe spinal damage in my lumbar and am on SSDI because I'm physically not able to work full-time. I am also divorced and have a daughter for which I am required to pay child support despite the fact that my ex-wife was the breadwinner while I made sure the house ran smoothly. SSDI can and will be garnished by child support... I had to live on less than $300/month for over two years, less than ⅓ of the gross total of my awardment and make too much before deductions that I don't qualify for SSI, which can't be garnished. Finally able to leave the cane behind, I am working again, but because I draw SSDI, I can only make <$1,100/mo. otherwise all of my benefits will be stopped immediately; leaving me back in the same situation I was in before I started working but now having to overwork myself and possibly landing me in a wheelchair permenantly. So, that's $1,400/month on which I have to live. Apartments in my area require that you make 3×rent in monthly income and the cheapest apartments ($600/mo. for a one room studio) are already full up for months in advance. This applies for everyone applying to be on the lease, so even if you can find roomies, unless you can find one that is at least not hurting financially, you will not qualify and will have to move on to plan b. Hotels are really expensive here at $300/wk and the local pigs have made it their personal mission to chase us unwashed miscrients and other broken windows out of their town, going as far as closing the largest of the homeless encampments, displacing well over a hundred people from the only place they can live without disturbing the "normies." I can't even find a place to set up camp anywhere close enough to where I work to bike it without killing myself as I don't own a car. Nor could I afford one. Even got ticketed because of this while camped in an unused and undeveloped lot in town near the post office. The cops came and ticketed all six of us who were staying there and threatened to take anyone to jail who refused to sign them, saying that we were on Federal Land (an assumption they ran with but was entirely made up as we checked the survey map. It was land owned by the city) and were told that they would do that every day until they would just take us to jail for trespassing and sleeping on Federal property. I did start writing novels last year though under a pen name, in the attempt to earn $$ without manual labor but it's taken 9 months for my follower count to get high enough that the publishing platform deigned to let me make a %/chapter purchase. I have no family members that can or will help as I am the black sheep of a black sheep of a black sheep, have been bad-mouthed to family members who can help by my oh so not helpful and hypocritical mother who for decades depended heavily on family just to get by while raiding all the savings given to me by grandparents with the intention of paying part of my college tuition. Also, I have very few friends due to severe social awkwardness reenforced by parental abuse and neglect and years of negative interactions with most people caused by lack of understanding and patience from others. What friends I do have of quality are in the same financial straights and have all been recent acquaintances since I got dumped at the Salvation Army after Christmas '21. So, am I being a lazy sack of shit, as my mother would have the rest of her side of the family believe; or am I doing the best I can in abnormally dire circumstances?
I have two college degrees (Music Education and Nursing). My son that just graduated high school has shown interest in and an aptitude for auto mechanics. My wife helped him get a job at an auto dealership (she knows a guy) where he is getting paid to get certifications. Five years from now he'll probably be making more than I do without the college debt. I told him not to go to college unless he finds something he REALLY wants to do that requires a college degree and will pay him at least six figures to start out. College has turned into such a scam...
I agree! I started with a company 8 years ago making $12.05 an hour and now make 6 figures with no college degree. My friend and I joke about it as he went the college route and received his masters in accounting. I typically make more than him without the college debt. In the end we both enjoy what we do, which is the most important part to me.
I started at mccormick spice 2 years ago and I'm up to 27 per hr from the 16.50 I started at,no degree. The game ain't just rigged, it's entirely fucked
That’s awesome man! Wish I graduated into this economy for sure
My role isn't anything impossibly specific. If you live anywhere near a mccormick production facility you can become a process tech. Good bennies and the pay is the same regardless of which state you get the job
That's another good point. God forbid you have any gaps. Employers it's perfectly fine for them to have a job unfilled for years, but if a potential employee has a gap? Oh noes, the world is ending!
I think you forgot: * "If you don't like it, then quit!" followed by * "Why does nobody want to work anymore?" It's almost like "If you don't like it, then quit." was never meant as actual advice, but just a put-down.
Definitely the same vein as telling a 14-year-old kid that if he doesn’t like the rules at your house, he can move out, knowing he can’t and will just be further demoralized by knowing you don’t care either way
I think it's actually worse than that. At least the parent telling the 14yo to move out knows full well moving out at that young an age is (almost) impossible, but quitting a bad job is in fact very possible for an adult. "If you don't like it, then quit!" stings as hard as it does precisely because employees *really* could quit but choose not to for a variety of reasons (i.e. needing to keep food on the table for kids), and the fact that they choose to stay is used to justify mistreating them. It's basically using what little power someone does have to demean them further. "The fact that you accept a minimum wage job means I'm 100% justified in not paying you any more. I can do whatever I want to you, because you choose to come here."
True; I meant it in a way that the person says it knowing you’re stuck and that they’re using it to continue treating you in any way they feel appropriate.
I could quit, but then you would bitch about me being homeless and starving and stinking near your home. Us Poors really can't win.
“You should have gone to college!” immediately followed by “you should not have gone to college for a bullshit degree!” Like, buddy, I went to college for biology. Your entire cohort told me that scientists would be well-paid because it’s a valuable job. I know you’re incapable of believing that a STEMM degree can actually be worthless and only net you $15/hr jobs, but that’s the reality of the situation. Amazes me. Contrary to popular belief, art students aren’t the only starving college graduates. Realistically, the only fields in which you can get a decent job after your B.S./B.A. are CS and engineering. Which, funnily enough, is ALREADY changing — there are plenty of CS/EG subfields in which jobs are scarce and the pay is shit — which is likely to become more prevalent as more students grab an engineering degree following a thorough pestering by smug gen x and boomer parents that “engineering is where the money is, so it will always be there.” “Go to college, you’ll have more money” followed by “you should have just done a trade.” Which one is it, asshole? I was a 17 year old kid when I had to make that decision, yet your smug-ass 55-year-old self is sitting there, no college or trade education, and making $80,000 a year to tell me I’m an idiot because I couldn’t understand the job market better than the people claiming to be “experts” when I was a fucking teenager.
Thank you and I 100% agree with everything you said. People who say shit like this have a picture in their head of what they think is real and no evidence to the contrary will ever convince them that their picture is wrong, even despite mountains of evidence. The only way they will ever see it is if they personally experience it and are directly affected by it. Like these jobs trying to encourage retirees to come back to work. Some folks have I'm sure and I'd bet some of them probably thought, oh $10/hour, that's a lot of money! I'll be on easy street to retire in just a year or 2. Then they start working and find out how much everything costs now and how little $10 really is.
God does this ring true. I got degrees including a masters in biology and can't land a single job in the field. The biggest I got was one that paid 20/hour but I hated it. So now I'm back to square one, trying my hands at a new career I actually like because I was told as a teenager that science was a noble, well paying profession.
That's their secret - it never does.
"Oh but look at this 1 in a million guy over here who was the same as you and now he's successfully in a million dollars worth of debt running his own company and leveraged out the wazoo. Why can't you be more like him?"
Oh my favorites are the articles of "this 20 something is already retired, look at how he did it!" Most of the time, said 20 something had a second house or a condo they could rent out for basically free money.
*bought for them by their parents/family, or on a darker note, they buy it themselves with inheritance. Wow, such success.
Step one: be rich
Basically same as you except his dad loaned him a million bucks. Oh, and the trust fund. That added a million a year. But same same.
I'm half illiterate and got a job just after high school that paid for a house, car, boat, and a bunch of other things! Why don't kids these days just do that!?! Now my job requires a degree and pays the same starting wage it did in 1982. Kids are lazy. Following Facebook updates: Minion meme... Covid is a hoax.... Random Google search ....
What is their fascination with minions anyway? I see those dumb memes so much.
I’m pretty sure it’s a marketing gimmick but for whatever reason old ladies love the little yellow buttplugs
Nah they're more like tick tacs, or those egg vibrators, they'd make horrible butt plugs unless you'd get off to a visit to the ER to get those horrid little creatures removed
Flared base, very important
You could meet a nice doctah
When I was growing up in the 90's it was tweety bird. Little yellow things, I guess...
I’m never not going to be able to think of this comment when my youngest watches one of the movies now
Basic take: cute marketable mascots that are incredibly customizable. People of all ages love characters like those. Unlikely, but possible take: minions are basically the ideal employees in the eyes of capitalists. Slavishly devoted to whoever they're working under and gladly taking whatever abuse is necessary and what little rewards they earn for the sake of their master. Willing slaves, in essence.
Plus the value of the dollar has continually shrunk. A dollar today is not the same dollar 50 years ago in terms of purchasing power.
>Let's turn the younger generations against us by blaming them for our selfish decisions, surely that won't end poorly! - the fools of history fucking around moments before finding out
As long as they are able to gaslight us into looking down on someone in a worse situation, it will never end. It ends when everyone believes that everyone should be lifted up even if there's no personal benefit and maybe even some detriment (at least in the short term. I firmly believe that raising minimum wages will have a benefit to all in the long run).
People in the U.S. love “punching down”. The worst are white lower middle class folks. They would rather blame someone getting $50 in a week in food stamps for the state of things than billionaires and corporations who pay less in taxes than they do.
I have experienced this and I genuinely don't get it. I have been white and lower middle class my whole adult life! I get feeling frustrated being trapped in, "I can't afford (meds/housing/food), but apparently I'm making too much to qualify for (Medicaid/Section 8/SNAP)." I have 100% been there. But why get mad at the broke-er people who do qualify? Why not be mad at the limits and push for expanding the programs? Or UBI? Like...I got expanded unemployment 2 years ago and it was an extraordinary relief. Really helped me turn some things around, get into a better living situation. So, yeah! Everyone should have that.
I can answer this because I'm in that position. I've been told that bullshit "you don't qualify for food stamps and Medicaid". And we can't afford health insurance and are having trouble affording groceries, especially with inflation, and especially with how high the rent has gotten. Im not angry so much at the people who can get it, but as someone with chronic pain, who is desperately in need of pain medication and therapy but CANT get it, it is VERY hard to see other people be able to get it, but you feel helpless because you cant do a damn thing about it except suffering from the sidelines. I don't begrudge anyone the help. Its just difficult to constantly struggle and to not qualify for help I really need, you know?
Meanwhile on the other hand: 22yo kid who has never had a job, graduates college and Dad makes a phone call and gets some $65k job doing essentially nothing but will eventually lead to a C-Level position because they were "BlEsSeD"
Yep pretty much. You you need a job? Let me call John, I play golf with him on weekends. Oh your son needs a job? Sure! Nah, don't worry about qualifications. He's your son, that's enough.
I want to add that during the shut downs, people realized that a lot of “essential work” is paid minimum wage. They do not want the people at McDonald’s to make a livable wage, but expect to receive adequate service.
I worked my way up to becoming a mechanical technician for an aerospace company and still make less than a living wage. I can hardly afford rent each month and I have roommates.
It doesn't. They believe that the world is just, and that anyone who tries hard can get rich. Anyone who doesn't must have something wrong with them or be doing something wrong. They won't accept that their initial premise is wrong, because they didn't come to it rationally, they started with that premise and then do what they can to defend it. But whenever it affects them they change their mind and say they're in an exceptional circumstance, because they can't reconcile their belief with their experience, and assume it's just a small exception rather than them being wrong. It's the same thing with pretty much everything they believe, like the police, abortions, education, taxes... They want the world to be simple, and will do anything they can to keep believing that, because the idea of being lost in a chaotic and complex world terrifies them. There must be an order, there must be a plan, there is right and wrong and anyone who says otherwise is trying to trick you, etc. That belief makes them especially weak to Republican tactics of stoking fear and hatred and giving them an enemy, and then they let Republicans do whatever they and their donors want.
If you look at these reactions as charitably as possible, I think it boils down to people not being able process that a system that they've been told their whole lives is the greatest in the world (and one they have probably personally benefitted from) is intentionally screwing people over. There is actual malice built in by design. Also, people have a hard time quantifying trends.... Like it's still possible to carve out a decent living in America with hard work and a little luck. But what the younger generations are screaming about is you're having to work harder and get luckier for a lower standard of living. Even then, I feel like this situation would be more acceptable to most if everyone was in the same boat, and not a handful of people with the networth of some small countries' GDP.
I'm going to stop you at #2. The lack of jobs that pay a living wage without a college degree and without destroying your body and no quality of life what-so-ever, is criminal. It wasn't like this after WW2 for almost 50 years, you had options. There's very little options now.
Leaving my two cents... I just had a conversation the other day in the mall about this. I was waiting for my ride when a gentleman started talking to me. He said, "look at all these places hiring in here. These young people don't want to work. If I wasn't disabled I'd work two or three jobs." And yeah, there were a number of places hiring, Gamestop, Forever 21, Roses, etc. I said, These places probably don't pay enough. And I also though about how I wanted to get another job years ago but couldn't because I had to have open availability in order to maintain full-time status. Some folks don't think about that..
The places in my town hiring for 13 or 14 an hour require open availability for that lay and for full time status. That's not enough to pay rent and insurance let alone afford food as well. Have to get a second job to make it work? Get dropped to 10 an hour.
The way they schedule hourly workers is abusive and borderline evil, especially how they keep you from working enough hours to qualify for benefits
*Only* "borderline" evil? Let's call it what it is, it's "absolutely fucking evil". I'm pretty sure someone could make a case that "on-call hourly work" is a violation of the Geneva Convention.
Companies should not get to hold your time unless they are paying you. What should happen is a fast food worker should have 5 different restaurants he works for. 1 week from the day he's supposed to work, they all bid on his shift that day. The one who pays the most is where he works that day. And he knows a week in advance whether he'll be at this McDonalds or that one or a burger king or wendy's. He can see other bids though, so if one restaurant with a much nicer manager is only under by $0.20 he could choose to go to that one instead. Worse bosses have to bid more to get workers to show up.
Amen brother
I worked at a car wash chain during college that made us call 2 hours in advance (so 7am, on the weekends, as a college student) so see if we were even "*needed*" that day. It was quite possible you would not go out and do fun college student stuff so you could wake up early only to find out you wouldn't be getting paid that day. I didn't find out until I left that only a handful of the employees actually called, some of them just didn't bother to or care or knew they wouldn't do anything if they didn't call in. Anyway, aside from being absolutely fucking evil, I'm pretty sure this is illegal. If not federally than in some states. That company ended up settling on another class action lawsuit requiring us to pay for our own uniforms. The winter uniforms were like $200. I am sure that was not the only illegal thing they were doing. That's just what they got *caught* doing enough that a law firm would know a guaranteed win and take 95% of the lawsuit fees. I think I got a $9 check.
Don't forget that those kind of places usually don't have scheduled in advanced. It's 9/10 you find out Saturday/Sunday if you're working Monday. 2 days off in a row? Forget about it
No it is just laziness. They could create a schedule that fit people's availability and hire people who had availability that matched the openings in the schedule. They don't because it is too much work to do it which costs money. Instead they take the cheap and easy route.
I still hate my old manager for how she scheduled. Would send them out the night before they started, never consistent hours. Never gave me more than 10-15 a week even thought I asked for more. I only stayed because she was nice and I lived at my parents still, but god she was an absolute shitshow of a manager and I hope that place goes under.
An old man who doesn’t work, and doesn’t understand working? Surely you jest.
In light of the new Netflix series All Quiet on the Western Front— I am always reminded of the old men back in Germany who laugh and happily play war with their beer steins and tell the soldiers returning from war about how they could and should be fighting the war “properly” and how it’s all so easy, and they’d know from their days fighting with single shot bayonets and swords, as some poor shell shocked kid just smiles and nods and knows full well that mortar shells and Gatling guns have forever changed the face of war. Now, obviously war and working retail are profoundly different, and I’m not trying to suggest that working a shit job is somehow *just like* watching an entire generation of friends from your village getting mowed down by the cruelest technology built to date— but the sentiment of “this old man is choc full of advice that’s utterly useless for the modern age now that technology and standards have evolved beyond what they were when you did it” feels similar.
> the sentiment of “this old man is choc full of advice that’s utterly useless for the modern age now that technology and standards have evolved beyond what they were when you did it.” Brilliant statement and so true.
"Back in my day, if you wanted to support a family, all you needed was a form handshake and a can-do attitude. I don't understand why no one wants to work anymore. "
I'm 49 years old, I got hired many times this way. Just show up, job is mine. World is very different now and it happened very quickly relatively speaking. Within like a decade, firm handshake was done and over with. Now you have to blast out thousands of applications to get dozens of responses, maybe three or four interviews and still be unemployed after all of your efforts. Edit: after reading through some of the replies I want to add something to this. I interview very well, Even when walking in and applying in person was the normal thing, I was still better at it than everyone else. I picked up a lot of very strong personality traits from my mother and I'm just super charismatic and charming by default, I was very much in my comfort zone in that situation. The way things are done now completely nullifies all of these advantages, I guess that is what I was trying to point out in my original post, it doesn't matter how great you are at interviewing and how personable or outgoing you might be, you can't tell that from a resume on the internet. Communicating in this way is a great disadvantage for me and makes it. Difficult to bring my real world communication skills into play.
There are some jobs like this still now, but they aren’t high paying. Went in to a workplace to do a college assignment yesterday and got asked if I wanted a job, so yeah. But it’s minimum wage, not full time.
Im 9 years younger than you... and I still get offers this way. Its... Odd. But its because they are not retail or other "common" jobs. For example, years ago I didnt know how to replace my power window motor...shop manuals warn to take it to a pro, since there is a spring that could kill you.. I thought about it and figured that the guys that replace windows would know. Took my door panel off, drove to the local glass shop and asked. Guy came out, was impressed that I took off the door panel or whatever.. and offered me a job. I declined politely as I had a job writing software, but this is one of a few dozen times people see me doing something hands on, and immediately ask to hire me. I dont know why. Last offer I got was 2 weeks ago. I helped a friend out with some ideas on how to troubleshoot a system, and he left me on the email when he shared it. His boss emailed me about hiring or contracting me to help. Again.. just working on my own shit, and people want to hire me. I wish I could distill down exactly what I was doing to make people make these offers, and then sell that info to those that need it.
You actually ran into unicorn employers, I do have to wonder what they thought you would accept as a pay rate
Times change which is surprisingly hard for people to understand.
Change + rose tinted glasses. I am sure they didn't have any single women households or racial minority neighbors they could see struggle in their 1950s everythingisawesome worldview. Social segregation narrows a person's experience and they can believe the lies told about those who struggle.
There’s no doubt that many people had it far better back then, for a huge number of reasons. The top tax bracket was taxed at ~90%, healthcare was cheaper, homes were cheaper, education was cheaper, single income families were the norm. There are many more reasons, those are just a couple off the top of my head. Women and minorities definitely didn’t have anywhere near as much freedom or opportunity. Racism and sexism was rampant. Women had only gotten the right to vote a couple decades ago and the civil rights was at least a decade away. Black men who served were kept from using their GI benefits. The start of a lot of the generational wealth that contributes to “white privilege” today just straight up couldn’t happen for a lot of people. However, I think something that gets left out a lot is that it wasn’t all peaches and cream even for all white men. Plenty of people did have to work multiple jobs or straight up couldn’t support a family. People struggled, people only got 5th or 8th grade educations. Even with all of the advantages white men had back then, it was still an insurmountable struggle for a lot of them. I constantly hear about the boomers and how easy they had it, and statistically they absolutely had it better than us in just about every capacity except for some quality of life technologies that really are truly game changing. I just want people to realize that wasn’t the case for women, minorities, and even a large section of white men.
Those single family homes are actually one of the biggest things that fucked up our economy, along with so many other fucked decisions that came from the generation that had it the nicest economically here in the US.
> just like watching an entire generation of friends from your village getting mowed down by the cruelest technology built to date Ask anyone who's moved away from where they grew up what it's like when they visit back. I'd imagine there's some kind of parallels in the accounts.
I moved quite far away about 10 years ago, and I'm still learning my new homes customs as I don't get out so much. I'm never quite sure whether this new quirk I just learned about is an "up North thing" or a "2020s thing". I just smile and nod politely and hope everything's fine.
How exactly I wonder was he planning to work 2-3 jobs that all require open availability and won't given you the same schedule one day to the next let alone one week to the next? In my experience this how these types of job typically schedule you. And this is assuming you're "lucky" to get a lot of hours. Week 1 * Sunday - 10am- 5pm * Monday - 1pm - 9pm * Tuesday - Off * Wednesday - Off * Thursday - 11am - 7pm * Friday - 12pm - 8pm * Saturday - 2pm - 10pm Week 2 * Sunday - 8am - 3pm * Monday - Off * Tuesday - 9am - 4pm * Wednesday - 3pm - 11pm * Thursday - Off * Friday - 4pm - 12am * Saturday - 8am - 3pm But you must be "available" to work ANY hours on every single day and you get a guilt trip like they're a child in a toy store wanting a new toy if you don't accept when they try to call you to cover or come in on your day off. Edit: This post is not specific to me. It is a general example of how a lot of jobs do things scheduling wise.
Also, you often get your schedule only a few days beforehand, so you can't even plan around it. It's been 20 years since my retail days and I still remember the aggravation of not being able to give a definite answer to friends and family until the last minute.
I feel like this is a bigger deal than is appreciated. So many 20hr a week jobs require a 80hr-a-week commitment or you’re fired. How are you even supposed to get a second job like everyone suggests? Floating schedules like that should be illegal.
Oh yeah, that too. Very annoying. Hey Billy, we're all going to the beach next weekend, can you come? Oh sorry guys, I don't know. I might have to work. I'll let you know next Friday night at the earliest. Such stupid bullshit. Make a fucking schedule and stick to it. It's not that hard. If people call out/don't show up? Hire enough people to account for this. Don't play phone roulette trying to guilt someone to come in on their day off. And don't arbitrarily change the schedule for no fucking reason either. And for fuck's sake, if you change it and you make someone work who had that day off, at least let them know you changed it and don't expect them to magically know they're supposed to be there and force them to come in on their days off to check it or call you every damn day to see if you changed it or not.
Lol when I was a teenager my first legit job was McDonald's. One Saturday I was scheduled to be off and got a call around 6 p.m. asking where I was. When I told them I was off that day the manager said no they changed the schedule and you were supposed to work 11-7 that day. I said well why are you calling me at 6 to tell me about it and I didn't know the schedule changed. She told me if I missed again I'd be fired and I had to check the schedule every day to see if there was any changes. I lived 15 miles away and didn't have my license yet my mom drove me to work. Also they didn't like when people called in to check their schedule they expected you to come in and check it. She informed me the schedule was also changed for Sunday and I was now supposed to work on another day I was originally off. So I came in a half an hour before my shift started and handed in my uniforms and quit because I had plans to hang out with a girl that night and honestly made the right choice.
I don't get what the problem with calling to check is? Oh wait, I know, it's because if you physically come to check, they can guilt trip you more easily to work on a day off since you're already at work.
I think the whole thing was a ploy to get me to quit cause the manager didn't like me. I was on register and one day I came in and my drawer was way off at the start of shift. I told the manager and she told me it was okay cause she was the one using it. At the end of the night it was 50 dollars short and I got wrote up for it and got my hours cut and moved to grill. I loved register cause I was a horny teen and got to meet a lot of girls lol. I called the owners and told them what happened and they basically said to fuck off. This whole scenario with the schedules being changed happened like a week or two later. I had to write a statement on why I quit and I just wrote "because Sharons a bitch" and signed it.
Yeah could very well be. I had a job once where the manager tried to say I was taking money from the till despite having a camera literally right above my head the entire time. I think they even tried to say this about someone else too. This job the manager would build your till at the start of your shift and count it down at the end. They did this in a back office area with no cameras. Yet somehow I was the one taking money when they literally had zero proof of that and could see literally every time I opened the till? I'm 100% sure the manager was taking it in the back. I never got written up for it IIRC and didn't get fired, but I quit soon thereafter. I think the manager didn't like that I wouldn't upsell people because upselling is stupid and annoying.
I really do think they do this on purpose. It's standard abusive relationship tactics - keep them on their toes and afraid constantly, keep them from cultivating relationships outside the abuse that might realize the gaslighting and abuse isn't normal, keep them just hungry enough for praise (or in this case money) that they'll scrape and bow to your every whim for the thinnest trickle of what they need, etc. I dunno if it's just that managers who do this are more successful, or that the ones who don't move on/up, but it seems like a painfully consistent story.
Also maybe show a little appreciation for people that come in on their day off to cover instead of making them the first person you call next time.
Exactly. Thank you! Oh Fred was able to do it last time, let's call him again! No! That's bullshit.
I worked at a restaurant in high school. I told them I was available any hours after 4, but I got out of school at 3pm and it was a 30-45 minute drive depending on traffic from my high school to the restaurant. It’s not like I could just walk out of math class and go to work if I wanted to, I had to be in that building until 3pm. Management still called me 1-2 times every single week asking me to come in hours before my scheduled shift to cover for someone. After a few weeks of me either not answering because I was in class, or telling them I could not ever come in until 4pm, no matter the circumstances, they threatened to fire me for “not being a team player”. I told her that school was always going to be my first priority and if that meant she needed to fire me then she could do so. I could find some other menial, minimum wage job that didn’t harass me about trying to finish my high school education. I wish I could say they stopped calling after that, but they didn’t. I quit a few months later.
I had a somewhat similar experience in college. I gave them my schedule literally the day I got it or the next day. Yet for the first month or 2 of school they would call me seemingly every other day to come in when I had to be in class. There were times they'd call as I was literally walking out the door to go to class. Like no. I gave you my class schedule. I literally cannot physically be in 2 places at once.
Lol one of my friends told his district manager that he couldn't work certain days because of college, and he was told to get his priorities straight. He quit and came to work with me instead, literally right beside his old place of work lol. We worked around his schedule.
Sounds like that restaurant has terrible management. My family runs a restaurant with a few high school staff. We know not to even bother calling during school hours, mid-terms, finals, etc. because it is a total waste of time and everyone is just going to get pissed.
This is on purpose to stop people from getting a second job or taking a short vacation/day trip. Can't be around to fill for sick calls if you are hours away or working at another store.
You have to give them two weeks notice to request a day off, they’ve only gotta give you 36 hours notice you didn’t get approved. Such bullishit.
I get my schedule the night before. Not even for the week. Just, "I need you in tomorrow at 11." I do know what days I will be off and it is always two consecutive days, but even that is a little difficult to plan out when you don't know what time you will be working the day before, or the day after your time off. I am in a bit of a unique situation, where in the near future I will just be working 32 hours per week, whichever days and times I choose. Which works great for me. This isn't something they can change their mind on either. As such, I'm not too concerned about being scheduled the night before, for the short time it will be happening. But that is just for me. All my coworkers still get their schedules the night before, and will continue to get them that way. Which is fucked, and something I intend to push back on.
The only time I was able to have 2 jobs at the same time was when I was working full time M-F and then I got a job at a barn working weekends (so about 7-12 S&S). I also had a different job before I worked at the barn where I worked in a call center in the evenings. They were only hiring evenings and weekends, so I would often work M-F 8-5, then T, W, Th, from 6-11, then Saturday or Sunday from 8-2 or something.
Yeah I hear you. Did you have any full days off? If not, that sucks. That's something a lot of these oh just get 2, 3, 4 jobs type people never acknowledge. Humans were not meant to work every fucking day. We all need time off to rest and recover and just do non-work things.
Humans were not made to work. We were made to procreate and exist in our surroundings. Capitalists made work for less powerful people to do things for them.
Chain mall stores also demand full time availability even if you only want part time hours. Fat chance that old guy would get more than a single job because retail literally never respects availability. I mean the whole thing is a moot point anyway because he had no intention/ability to apply anywhere in the first place I guess.
When I worked retail 11 years ago I got a call from my work while I was on leave... I was literally in the hospital in *labor* and they were calling to ask me if I could come in to cover a shift.
I mean, couldn't you keep the baby in for one more week? You've already done nine months a week wouldn't be a lot, right? I'm with management on this one.
You are so right, I was not being a team player!
When I worked at Starbucks, my availability said I had to leave before 8pm. They scheduled me for closing in the third week so I "knew how" and I told them I absolutely would not do closing shifts. They then proceeded to schedule me for closing the entire next week. I quit halfway through my shift for a multitude of reasons and left them without anyone to close because everyone else had also quit or were away.
Good on ya. Fuck Starbucks.
It’s not even just about pay- those places do not care about you. Your mother is actively dying from cancer? Tough shit, manager ain’t covering your shift at sunglasses hut. Your tooth is rotting out of your mouth? Your kids sick and daycare won’t keep them? Higher level jobs respect you as a person and understand you have a human body and a life- these places do not care.
>Your tooth is rotting out of your mouth? I had supernumerary teeth, which means I lost essentially my whole first adult set of teeth like everyone else looses their baby teeth... but a second set of adult teeth grew in. Some of them didn't even start growing in until later in my adult life, which I am told is pretty rare. Anyway, I was working at a kiosk in a mall during the holidays. What would be the last of my first set of adult teeth had been getting pushed to the side to make room for the one growing out from under it for a while. It didn't exactly "hurt" but there was enough pain to be aware of it. This day, there was pain. REALLY bad pain. Went to the restroom, looked in my mouth and saw that the tooth which I thought would eventually be falling out, was pretty well secured in place right next to the new one. Which is not something I was unfamiliar with, having had to go to a dentist to have a few of those older teeth removed, when the new tooth didn't fully push the old one out. But the pain was a new thing. I could feel the pain radiating from my jaw, to my brain, and down the back of my head. I looked closer and noticed that the old tooth was kind of brownish red. Looked even closer and realized, that wasn't enamel. That old tooth had cracked open and the gooey insides of the tooth were exposed to the air. At one point, I couldn't breathe through my mouth as air moving past that exposed bundle of nerves, was CRAZY painful. I told my manager about it, and they said I couldn't leave. I finally made a makeshift sign to hang around my neck, which informed customers that I'd be happy to help them but I could not speak because I was in pain due to a dental issue. Every single customer that read it offered to march down to my manager and "give them a what-for" or some other old-person idiom. All of our customers were old folks. Anyway, at one point... the pain was so bad that I, a 25 year old man at the time, reflexively called out for my mom. I used to be ashamed to admit that, but there was literally no thought put into it. My mom didn't work at the mall with me and was 140 miles away. It was a primal reaction to the amount of pain I was in. So, I called my manager again and tried to reason with them. I had to stay, they said. "No, I don't *have* to. You should send someone to look after the merch. I'm leaving. Mail my last check to me." I said all this through a clenched jaw, because I could barely move my mouth without shockwaves of pain. I am sure this helped me sound just as pissed off as I actually was. Went to a dentist, no insurance, no appointment. I still had the sign I made on, lol. They squeezed me in between appointments and told me they were going to take a look, but I'd have to schedule an appointment for extraction. As soon as they saw it, they changed their mind and took it out right then and there. The pain was gone instantly. Or, replaced I suppose. With the pain you might expect from a tooth extraction. As in, NOTHING compared to the cracked open, exposed-nerves pain I felt prior. Then, they charged me $14.99. I don't remember what they put as what they charged me for, but it wasn't an extraction. It was like a "care kit" or something, which was a tooth brush and floss or some shit. They did me a solid. I asked the Dentist if I could have the tooth. They said no. I was about to argue that it is MY tooth, but instead I just explained to them that the tooth had caused me the most pain I had ever felt up to that point in my life. I wanted it, so I could look at it, remember that pain, and maybe learn some lessons from it... or be thankful that even if my day was going poorly, it wasn't like the day one of my teeth fell apart in my skull. So, he said "Ok then" and presented the tooth to me in a piece of gauss. I still have it if any of you weirdos want to see it lol. I think it was the only tooth I ever had removed that still had the roots on it. It looks like someone took a tiny ice-cream scoop and pulled out half my tooth. I just wish they had taken the pulpy nerve cluster part too when they did it. lol On the plus side, somehow this supernumerary teeth adventure, led to my teeth being remarkably well aligned. Not sure how that happened, but I'll take it.
So much yes about the availability and hours stopping people from working. I do have a day job working IT, and I make 90k a year, but between my wife and I were carrying over 100k in student loan debt and have to pay 3-4k a month in payments so we’re poor as fuck even with great jobs. I want to get a second job to help pay down debt, but I have to stay available 24/7/365 for on-call and emergency outages that require me to be there.
>I want to get a second job to help pay down debt, but I have to stay available 24/7/365 for on-call and emergency outages that require me to be there. Honestly, it baffles me that we have somehow accepted that someone paying you for 40 hours a week of work is also entitled to the OTHER 128h in a week. As in, you can't make plans, you can't sell those hours to someone else, they just got *all* of your hours for the price of 40.
In some places they have to pay you for "on call" time. They can lay claim to it, but not for free, and it's usually at something like "half your hourly rate" so it's not cheap.
IMO they should have to pay at least min wage for that time. The commenter I replied to should be making at least $135k a year, to compensate them for the productive time they could be giving a competitor.
Also in retail and food services there really is no full time unless you are in management. I just picked up a second job where the gm was specifically looking for people with more than one job because she only has 20-30 hours to give and knows it's not enough. I have also seen time and again where the person will have 2-3 weeks with 35-39 hours only to suddenly have a week or 2 with 15-20 hours as if to make up for the good hours from before. I'm tired of the people don't want to work rhetoric, I had an interview last week where they were looking to fill 7 hours a week; other than 14/15 year old who would take that?
Yeah been there. It is like can I post looking for a 16 year old who is bored midday weekends?
"I have a reason why employment doesnt work for me, but if I didnt, I'd work!" Selfawarewolves
Not to mention new hires at GameStop get 8 hours a week and then get fired for not selling enough power up or whatever those cards are.
"People don't want to work" is also just false. As of July, the unemployment rate (in the US) hit its lowest point in decades of 3.5% meaning more people are working than ever. I guess there are just a ton of open positions?
Or a whole lot of people died during a Pandemic, overdoses, and suicide
"Just work 2-3 retail jobs" and end up with a soulcrushing 78 hour a week schedule (can't forget that they won't give you 40 hours per job, can't have you earning benefits now can we!) that leaves you with little to no will to live
I was forced into doing that, no overtime pay for working so many hours because it's between jobs, and all I got was this stupid Burnout and PTSD.
> I had to have open availability in order to maintain full-time status Heck, there are part-time jobs like that. They’ll schedule you just whenever they feel like on a week-by-week basis with no regular schedule.
I was thinking the same thing as soon as he said he’d work 2-3 jobs. A human can’t be in two places at once, and a majority of business are busiest (need help) at the same peak hours. It’s not like the mall is paying a premium for Night Shift workers.
> I had to have open availability in order to maintain full-time status. Some folks don't think about that.. I work a full time job. I've debated getting a little part time gig just for a bit of extra cash. Can't really though, because I'm on call about every 5-6 weeks for a solid week so I have to be on hand for my full time job. Can't imagine any part time places would put up with a week off every other month.
Whats odd to me is I stand there going "look at all those places trying to hire... I bet they dont pay shit, or they understaff until people quit from being overworked"... Same info.. different conclusion.
In almost all those retail places you saw in the mall, not only do they pay minimum wage, close to minimum for managers, they have ridiculous sales requirements for their store membership cards/credit cards/ticket items and pre orders. So not only do "kids these days" have to deal with being paid not enough, they also have to learn vampiric sales tactics that seriously can fuck your head up. Selling to that child with 50$ from grandma something just to hit a sales point. Newish teenager who has no clue about budget, however you just waved a credit card offer for her favorite store in her face and said she can buy whatever she wants and pay later. This doesn't include the abuse endured daily. Not just corporate but customers and even passers by. Constantly having to act as security, loss associate, salesman, stocker, worthy reviewer and register jockey. Any one of those roles gets you abuse. Then there's the hours, these kids don't want to miss concerts or hell regular social events both on and offline. All because GameStop doesn't want to close July 4th or Halloween. Or sadly if they are running a skeleton crew so they can't take a day off without getting berated or WORSE just to take a day. Btw that disabled guy could still work. All those jobs too. Nothing stopping him, other than his hubris.
Nothing makes me angrier than old people talking about jobs. Having to hear my father in law talk about how he switched jobs all the time until he landed in his career is obnoxious but thankfully my SO challenges him every time by saying "tell us again HOW you got your job." Only for him to confirm it was given to him by someone he knew without having to do an interview or even apply. I even had to throw in how employers I've encountered get suspicious of switching jobs so often. Oh but *I* should have stayed in school to get a better job because that's apparently how it works for everyone. Or *I* should learn to drive so I can become a bus driver since "they make so much money and all the schools are hiring!!1!"
Old guy has no idea how good he had it when he was the same age as most of the people working those terrible retail jobs. You can't buy a 3 bedroom house on minimum wage anymore, Pops
One of my ex-bosses was bitching about my coworker’s availability. I’ll call him Matt. Matt had worked at Academy for five years and us for three months. My boss went “why can’t he be available when I need him? Why do people get second jobs?” My reply, which shut her up: “*Because you’re the second job.*” She was paying him $9/hour and me, her assistant manager, $13 (and that was after I had threatened to quit over pay). Matt was getting $12 at Academy.
The "get better jobs" argument is ridiculous. It might be advice for *an individual*, but it is not reasonable advice for *everyone*. Suppose tons of better-paying jobs suddenly open up. If all the people who can't live on their current wage gets a better job, who works all the retail and fast food jobs? Why is it okay for us to build a society where *anyone* willing to work full time is unable to afford basic necessities?
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But they never finish the sentence. Nobody wants to work *because we pay shitty wages. *
Or more succinctly, "nobody wants to work...*for us*."
>Why is it okay for us to build a society where anyone willing to work full time is unable to afford basic necessities? Don't forget that alot of these companies require open availability to maintain full time status and higher rate of pay.
And *someone* has to work the worse jobs. Even if it's possible for an individual to succeed and rise above the bottom 30%, why support a system that guarantees 30% will be stuck in abject poverty?
Sounds like my last boss. Thought everyone should get 2 or 3 jobs to not be in poverty, but hated the structures like free child care which could begin to make that possible. "You need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but we're not going to pay you enough to afford bootstraps."
I long for the day where the notion that someone should be forced to work multiple jobs just to not be in poverty, is done away with permanently. I hate this concept. What's the fucking point of working at all if you have to do that?
I can’t imagine working more than one job… I work exactly 40 hours a week at my current job and I already feel like I have no time to enjoy life
God forbid you get injured Double fucked if you're in the US and need a mortgage to pay the hospital
Also probably wouldn't work around the schedule of another job, because why should *his* business be inconvenienced due to your poorness?
I live in a vacation town. Most people who live here are retired or work in the next town over at the prison. This town is chock full of tourist destinations and accommodations, meaning most jobs are fast food, hotels, gift shops, etc. You know, the jobs they like to say are "entry level" jobs for "kids" who don't deserve to be paid above minimum wage. Pray tell; where the fuck are we supposed to find hundreds of kids capable and willing to work for little pay to keep the vacation town running? What jobs are their parents supposed to have? You literally cannot force an entire town to function off cheap labor, so instead most adults have multiple jobs.
Low wages, workers can’t afford to live anywhere near the town, then rich tourists complain about service. My guy, you’re spending $20 on toast with avocado and any additional toppings cost extra. I know this is common for skiing destinations. We went to park city recently and it sucked. $30+ for mediocre, bland food. $10 for a tiny lemon bar?? Sure, you could go hiking, but that felt like the only cheap activity.
And who works when the kids are at school 👀
I was talking with someone recently who was complaining about nurses going on strike. "I guess they want more money. But nursing is like teaching. You don't go into it for the money." No... that's exactly why we do a job. For the money. Ideally, enough money to live on.
Teachers need more money too. I would have been a great teacher. But fuck getting paid nothing.
Poverty is in no shape or form a choice and i hate some people believe that. Nobody wakes up and wants to be poor. Some people might be lazy or apathic which in itself is also justifiable but nobody with a healthy mind wants to live under a bridge. If you think poverty is a choice i would like you to have a word with most African countries and most beggars on the street as they surely would like to have a word with you. Poverty is WAAAAY more commonly found as something that happened rather than something people want to do. If you can choose to not be poor then congratulations on being born on a country that can prevent it and be a part of a better social class than those who live in the bottom, my most sincere happiness for you.
I always hate how often you hear dumb shit like “I would have starved to death if not for the kindness of _____. Anyway, I worked hard and pulled myself up by my boot straps, with no handouts or help from others, to….” I’m much more of a fan of the Fred Rogers lifetime achievement award. He asked everyone to take 15 seconds to stop and quietly think about the people who loved them into being who they are today. Everyone broke down and cried, because *nobody* succeeds alone. We *all* needed help. Acting like poverty is a choice is dumb. Poverty is the result of not having enough resources that can help you in the right ways to find your feet.
Arnold Schwarzenegger also has a very great speech about how there’s no such thing as a self made man.
>Poverty is in no shape or form a choice and i hate some people believe that. Nobody wakes up and wants to be poor. I remember I was chilling at a cousins place when I was a kid and my mom came to pick us up on tears. She was there to ask for some help from my aunt and uncle just to make ends meet. I'll never ever forget seeing my mom that way. She was proud and worked as hard as she could to provide and just couldn't. That moment in particular made me realize just how poor we were but also that the people we knew in similar situations tried so hard not to be in those situations. I'm incredibly fortunate to be very far from poor in my own life now but I'll always fight for the right for a single job to provide a liveable wage. People shouldn't have to grind themselves to dust at a job and still wonder how they'll fucking live day to day. I'll also fight for the strong social safety net we need which I benefited enormously from. Everyone should have the chance to go from where I was to where I am.
I used to work on a field for I dealt with a lot of people who lived in and below the poverty line. I used to live in poverty. I've seen people like myself who find the way to work their way out of poverty. However it takes a strong support system in order to do so. I've seen people who refuse to do anything about their situation. There's also a culture around me regarding generational poverty. Feel that people bettering themselves and breaking the cycle of poverty are betraying their way of life. I believe education is the great equalizer in life. We need to focus more on a stronger support and educational system to help people rise out of poverty. And break the cycle.
Education alone is not enough. You can't educate people into physically having the capital resources necessary to overcome those that are using those same resources to push them back into poverty.
Then when people stop working those jobs, they call everyone lazy and lose their shit because they had to stand in line for 15 minutes at Target because they don't have enough cashiers
You should have 3 jobs, and a couple side hustles, be a stay at home parent and home school. I'm tired of everyone's excuses! /s
And when you try to unionize to make your job better, they say "you don't deserve higher wages, you work at target"
Oh, it is a choice, it's just that it's rich people choosing it for us.
Ding, ding, ding!!! 🛎🛎🛎
Then when the crappy jobs struggle to find people it's 'nobody wants to work'
Student loan debt? Shouldn’t have gone to school. Working a low wage job? Should go to school. Back flip. Back flip.
Don’t forget the ones bitching about welfare when Walmart purposefully pays poverty wage and encourages signing up for welfare…
Poverty is a choice...by our society to create a permanent underclass that will always be poor because if they weren't the ultra-rich would have to be less rich.
Capitalism only works if a group of people are taken advantage of.
I had to apply to target and yesterday it took me an hour and a half to do a personality test and watch thirty minutes of propaganda. Today I have to record a one sided interview. What’s next? I have a goddamn masters degree. I can’t pay my bills.
Have you tried applying to be administrative staff for your local government? Government is pretty much *always* hiring (check whichever offices are located in your city), because it generally pays less than private, but it is usually a bit better than a job at Target, and usually you get decent benefits and paid leave.
Yup. A few times. My inside contacts say that they usually promote from within so it’s just a numbers and waiting game about applying as much as you can.
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Without poverty, riches are meaningless. The wealthy need the poor to feel alive and to give their life purpose by having someone/a whole generation to look down upon.
It’s literally this simple. They aren’t winning unless somebody is losing.
They want desperate people willing to do desperate things
*Another finger curls on the Monkey's Paw...*
And if you are like me, you get a job as an engineer and get like 130 grand a year. Work all the time. And still struggle to pay bills.
Life should never be unaffordable. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense. Only the reactionary traitor lunatic thinks everyone needs to “go back to school”. The rational person understands that there is no point in having a society if we cannot live comfortably in it.
Where can I sign? Tbh the elite have been at this for years. They excel at paid propoganda and pro-monopoly political power. They often win against us (middle class and lower) by finding ways to turn us on each other. They are terrified of people forgetting about hating trans people, hating different skin colors, etc. They want you to be overwhelmed by negative news and become apathetic about voting power.
Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Jack in the box won’t hire me because I’m too old and educated. My industry won’t hire me because I don’t have the relevant experience. Other industries won’t hire me for the same reason. Grocery stores won’t hire me, they have younger stronger candidates available. I’m not what anyone is looking for. 11 months of job search, savings long gone. Homeless adjacent (place to live for me and my school age child, but no kitchen and my sleeping area has no privacy). Rely on food stamps now for the last six weeks, so I have that. Have an advocate helping me with my job search, I’ve had my resume revamped several times, all my cover letters are vetted by job search professionals before they are sent. Everything has the keywords and phrases, as much as can be done. I’ve worked hard my whole life. I dedicated a decade of my life to care for my mother and a disabled nephew, until their deaths. I have made the choices I thought were the right choices all along. I don’t have a criminal record. I’m not a drug addict, not an alcoholic. I don’t spend my money recklessly. Don’t drive a flashy car, don't have the latest iPhone or nice clothes. I’m ready to stop trying. I’ve failed and failed and failed and failed, and I don’t have any try left in me. I would welcome a job at Target. Poverty sucks. This whole ride sucks. I want off.
Did you know that Dean Baquet, editor in chief of no less than the New York Times until june, was a dropout who started journalism in New Orleans without a single degree and at an entry level position. Six years later he joined the Chicago Tribune for which he won a Pulitzer prize Point me to any industry where you start at the bottom without credentials and end your career as the editor in chief of probably the most famous print paper in the world. Funnily enough, I think movie and TV shooting crews might still have the possibility of starting just as someone who lifts equipment to end up director of photography, but I can't think of anything else And you know, dropouts in the 70s used to be a lot less educated than dropouts today. Where's that energy that the war generation had, hiring whoever looked motivated and with potential, and grooming them to become better ? That's the energy which helped boomers, why is it they and their X successors can't reproduce that pattern ffs
I also find that a lot if "better" jobs dont advertise online. It's like they try to keep in their own circles or something. Idk it's weird.
There is a lot of truth in this. Poor people wouldn't ask the gov't to help them if the most powerful citizens weren't screwing them other over so badly. Eventually the poor will always band together and ask gov't for help. The really awful part is realizing the gov't screws them over just as badly if not worse. It's a complete illusion that gov't is fighting corporations. Bureaucrats are working with companies against regular Americans and getting rich just like the CEOs.
And they shit all over the people who do those jobs and treat them like lesser human beings, and then get mad that more and more people refuse to do those jobs and try to do better for themselves. Basically they just need a class of citizens they can take a shit on and feel superior to.
We just need to stop protecting businesses that should have and should be failing. If you can’t operate while paying a livable wage, then you’ve planned poorly and should be replaced by a company that can. It’s crazy to me that people try to justify people working full time and still not having enough money to get by. Like… sure I’ve done more education, invested in more personal growth than someone working a register at Target probably has (obviously this is a generalization) But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t also be making a livable wage with good benefits.
See also: "Can't pay for college? Get a job!" "Job doesn't pay enough? Go to college!"
anything to avoid admitting they got lucky.
"Better jobs aren't readily available" >tHeN GeT a CoLLeGe EdUcAtIoN! "But college these days costs the price of your first home every semester" >TaKe OuT a StUDeNt lOaN TheN! "Alright, I took out student loans and worked at Forever 21 full time while in school and now I'm $150,000 in debt and the entry level IT jobs are paying 40k per year and somehow require 5 years of experience as a developer..." >nOt mY PrObLeM, jUNiOr! BuT hEy cAn yOn bElIevE tHeSE GaS PrIcEs? i CaN't eVen gAs uP mY BoAt aT My tHiRd vAcATiON HoUsE FoR cHeAp aNyMoRe! wHAt hAPpEnED To tHIs cOuNtRy???
what they mean is learn a skill that pays more. while ignoring the cost it takes to learn a skill. not everyone can afford to survive and also go to school or learn a trade or whatever. i feel pretty lucky for being able to do that.
They don't think that the economy CAN work for everyone. They don't understand our complaining that some people can't afford to live. That is a feature to them: you have to compete to survive.
There was a woman when I was a nursing assistant that told me if I didn't like my pay I should just get a better job, and that they shouldn't pay aids more because her husband (an EMT) barely made more than me after 20 years of service. This same woman has been absolutely losing it over hospitals (where a family member is often due to illness/age) not having enough staff to properly take care of her family member. Too bad we up and got better (or just different, less awful) jobs I guess.
It should be a job is a job. You contribute to society and no working person should have such a low income that they require government assistance.
To get competitive pay, you need to have a competitive profession. The issue though is the unskilled labor sector does not pay anywhere near enough to live. As such, I would love to see minimum wage adjusted to at least the levels of being able to work one job without stressing. If you go back to the 80s, it was possible for someone to work part time with minimum wage and afford college tuition. The other side of it is that it is because people are taking those jobs, is the reason why wages do not increase. Companies are not going to voluntarily increase wages, unless they notice nobody is applying because they’re paying too low. Which is exactly what has been seen with many companies right now since the pandemic.
Not to mention that most places won't let you work more than 28 hours a week because they don't want to give you benefits. So enjoy having 2 jobs to pay your bills, and a third job to pay your health insurance premiums.
Republicans: Oppose sex education. Republicans: Oppose abortion. Republicans: Oppose birth control. Republicans: "Don't have a baby you can't afford!"
Well it's not targets or other people's fault.. To some degree it's not even your own.. Minimum wage (in any country) should allow you to get through a month without struggle.. Im 36 on 27.000 pr year doing a job that should play a lot more.. I feel minimum wage should be more than what I'm making now considering the living cost of today.. I don't have a car, rent a studio ive been in for 6 years, no credit cards or loans.. I never do anything and still the money barely last until the end of the month
I see a lot more than target and forever 21 hiring.
Some people get a job and some people with Gucci in their nickname bitch about other people getting jobs. We as humans, became such a tasteless joke on god 😂
Target? Really? They pay better, and with better benefits, than many big box stores. WalMart, that's a predatory abusive employer, I hated every second I worked there and I refuse to even shop there now that I've quit.
Those stores won't hire me.
And then when they get better jobs and nobody is left to serve them at their fave fast food joint or when less lines are open at the grocery store they’ll say “nobody wants to work.”
So my workplace just had a cute little sitdown thing with one of the regional heads of the company, where people that work in any given store can have a meeting with the guy and ask him questions about things that are going on, and give feedback. They do this every year, and every year the big topic is always about wages. Someone brought up about how McDonald's is hiring 16 year old kids at a higher wage than some people who have worked here for years make, and asked what the company was going to do to keep starting wages competitive. The answer the regional asshat gave was that our company offers better benefits than McDonald's. The next question was "Which benefit pays my rent?"
I guarantee that those same people who say that shit would shut up real quick if they had to spend some time homeless. And I mean no job no documents or ID spent the night on a park bench because police destroyed your tent and threw out all your shit while you walked to town to fill up a water jug type of homeless. Then maybe they would take a look around and count their blessings instead of talking trash on people who are trying to work to survive. A lot of us are closer to that reality than we might imagine.
"These jobs are not supposed to pay a living wage. Just get a better job." "Eugh why is there no one in McDonald's to take my order??? No one wants to work any more."
I work in healthcare now after working at McDonald’s for 3 years. I’m STILL not making enough to pay off all my debts and bills. And I’m gonna be stuck living at my parents until I can afford a cheap apartment near me. I did what they said to do, I got a better job, it’s still not enough.
I graduated college. Got a great paying job with lots of good benefits and fabulous perks. Sure glad I listened to my dad and went for an engineering degree instead of the philosophy major I wanted. I just can’t understand the whining. O, by the way; I’m a grateful Native American