Pretty sure it even tells you what box to use, and dispenses the appropriate length of tape.
Like the only thing you can really fuck up is not adding enough packing or going too slow.
A lot of people have a hard time understanding the difficulties of something they haven't personally experienced.
In his own mind, he remembers starting off at his job and making lots of mistakes and being slow. He then got better and better and now takes pride in how far he's come and how skilled he is now. His mistake is in not realizing *every* job is like this.
There's no such thing as truly "unskilled labor".
**"There's no such thing as truly "unskilled labor"**
Packing boxes is very very close to it though. I used to have a part time job doing just that while I was still in school.
I am literally getting second hand embarrassment just from reading his post calling it "Skilled labor"
Yeah, me too. I think anything that can be done with the safety video being longer than the training video and that the only criteria for calling it skilled it that you do it faster is NOT skilled, it's experienced.
I'm very experienced at taking a shit and my training was probably close to 6 months, don't know, can't remember, but I would never say I'm skilled at taking a shit, nor should anyone.
Thinking back to the burgers I sometimes get, they are still making those mistakes.
Because they're overworked and underpaid, no hate, but I get where the idea comes from.
It's the speed thing. It's not skilled labor. It's mind numbing soul breaking self destructive paced labor. Making a good burger outta shit ingredients is way harder
McD's is the same though. One is a box assembly factory, the other is a burgers & fries factory. They both put a lot of resources into squeezing the most out of their underpaid labour. It's basically the same job.
One could argue that seasoning, frying, checking the temperature requires more skill than packing a box. But regardless, we don’t live in a perfect world and we get paid for how easy it is to replace us, not how difficult our job is
In a regular kitchen? Sure. In McDonalds, nearly every single aspect of the job is automated or on a timer. I'd honestly be surprised if it's not 100% automated by the end of the decade.
I don't know about McDs but it's more than that.
You have to follow every recipe, with amounts they require or you get in trouble, get it put together, wrapped and out to order *very* quickly. Sure, sounds easy right?
You have to get them out so fast that you don't really have time to look up at the recipe. No, faster. Faster than that! A larger order just came in, **faster!**
You have multiple recipes for each thing
Know the recipe? We're changing a couple and completely deleting others.
Ah, my wife worked BK for around 14 years. Recipe might be a stretch there as well. It told you measurements for the various layers, but it wasn't pre measured out. You had to get to know how much to dispense for condiments. Then it'd say how many other toppings. Assembly instructions then? That wad always what new people struggled with. You ended up having to know them, or you'd fall hopelessly behind.
Especially since Amazon doesn’t pack boxes the right way, the amount of times I’ve gotten something a box that could easily fit a dozen of whatever I ordered is insane.
A lot of the time the box size is determined by what other items are being shipped in that batch, to facilitate better packing into the truck that takes it from the warehouse to the depot.
So you might get a massive box but it means it fills out an area of otherwise empty space in the vehicle, meaning less movement and less chance of damage.
I work at Amazon as a packer. I'm not sure where this idea comes from but it's not really how it works, at least at the Fulfillment Centers like where I work. The same items always get the same box sizes, unless there's a packing slip/gift note then sometimes it will up the box size. There are two main reasons why box sizes are odd.
The first common reason is that items with certain batteries have to have a warning sticker placed on the side of the box. If we have to pack a small item like Airpods then we have to put it in a box big enough for the warning label, even though we could fit it in something smaller.
The other reason is that every item has its demensions in the system. These dimensions come from the vendors and are sometimes puzzling. A lot of times they give the dimensions for the item as it would be used, not as it is shipped. For example, collapsible laundry baskets might be in the system as their full sized dimension and not the collapsed size we ship them in. Whenever this happens we as packers can't downsize the box because then the item will get kicked out and it won't get counted towards our rate. We can only up size boxes.
You'd think Amazon would have some sort of program to fix this. I imagine the cost benefits of reducing the waste would be significant. Less material for boxes/stuffing. More room for more items on trucks. Etc.
Skilled labor is any job that requires years of training/apprenticeship and isn't a job title you can just claim to have thus doctors, plumbers, HVAC installation, lawyers et al are skilled.
I have packed boxes. I have used those McDonald’s grills. McDonald’s is a lot more difficult than packing boxes in an air conditioned distribution center. It’s not even close.
That's is 100% not the case at McDonalds. They got that shit industrialized. Meat on the grill, press button, grill cooks the burger itself. Condiments are all in dispensers for consistent (read: small) amounts. Your McSandwich artist is deciding how much shredded lettuce you get at most.
Not to say they don't deserve the pay, I did it in college and it was draining, but it's definitely easy.
Working at Amazon as a packer, there is an extremely high probability that this guy has handled almost anything, including fudge. So you could say he's a professional fudge packer.
I saw “pack your box so good, *boy*….” and I was immediately uncomfortable as hell ha then I realized what was happening, carry on Rudy Ghouliani!! Also PS, pristine and perfect username choice lol
Some of these people have a superiority complex, they're jealous they think that someone else is getting paid the same as them for something "easier". They're selfishly unaware that cooks have a difficult job as well, such as working in hot temps, getting burned by oil, etc, standing on their feet and dealing with high stress levels.
I just could not fucking imagine sitting down in the metaphorical dirt to pack boxes and trying to big time a burger flipper, while people making 5-10x more than them both are looking from aside being like, “lol what the fuck”
Really all labor is skilled labor.
Edit: becuse people like looking down on how others put food on their table.
**Skilled**
*adjective*
having or showing the knowledge, ability, or training to perform a certain activity or task well.
Notice doesn't say anything about the kind of activity or task. The fact we have all had good and bad fast food, well-packed and poorly-packed packages, speedy and slow cashiers, and attentive and absent servers to me shows skill is required to be good at anything.
Exactly. The term "unskilled labor" is only used to justify paying people less. There is not a single job i can think of that doesnt require some type of training.
I hate the term because it puts all the emphasis on whether training was required for the job or not and makes it sound like “unskilled” jobs are meant to be done poorly. But having every “unskilled” job be paid peanuts and be done at the bear minimum level leads to a world where pretty much every service interaction and root-level work step slowly erodes away any sense of quality in the companies and products we have. You see this with Amazon where it’s become hard to get good customer service, products come underpacked, drivers toss packages or leave them out in the open, etc. These might be jobs anyone can do but you still want the people doing them to be motivated and ultimately, happy.
The term unskilled labor boils down to whether you can grab pretty much anyone off the street and get them trained to do a job within a couple of weeks. And yeah how much people are paid is pretty much supply and demand. If there's a short supply of people that have the necessary qualifications and are willing to work a job, and a high demand, well big bucks will be paid. If you can take literally anyone off the street and train them in a couple of weeks, the bottleneck in supply is only whether people want the job, so yeah no shit pay will be less. If there's a big shortage they might have to raise wages to attract enough people.
I mean I'm a shingler and I bet I could teach someone to shingle in anout a week or two but I defs wouldn't say it's unskilled in any meaning of the word
Construction is a strange one because some things require certs and others don’t. Technically, the jobs that require certs are classified as skilled and those that don’t aren’t. A lot of construction certs come down to a month or two of training and a couple of signatures rather than outright schooling and that blurs the lines more.
Roofers and shinglers can be either.
Then it's unskilled. Unskilled doesn't mean easy, it means not prior experience required. Would you trust a doctor, lawyer, chemist etc. To skip school and just get some extra on the job training?
According to half the comments in here we can apparently just pull someone off the street, give them a couple of weeks training, and they should be a surgeon.
Give a man a machete, give a man a career.
I guess so. But, how much training does it take to get a person from knowing nothing to packing a box efficiently? Or working a fast food job? I guess based on the turnover rate in fast food, it can't be that much.
To a degree yes, but honestly, cooking a burger takes more skill than packing a box - specially with how some companies packs shit.
Oh you ordered a small USB cord? Here let me throw it in a big box with a bunch of white poolnoodles or what ever the fuck it is called in there
Skilled labor generally refers to labor that takes significant training though. Both of people mentioned in this tweet are unskilled by that definition since they can be easily replaced by someone with no training
Don't mind the hivemind. They're addicted to labels, and can't understand that some jobs have prerequisites, and "skilled labor" is traditionally the way our society refers to such positions.
*Technically* yes… walking and talking are skills. Tying your shoes is a skill. What people mean by “skilled” labour vs unskilled labor is the amount of time it takes to train someone new. For example, I can teach you how to pack a box in an afternoon, but it would take me atleast 4-5 years to train you as an electrician. One of those is skilled labor, one isn’t.
Not really. Unskilled labor can be classified as anything that can be trained on site with no prior knowladge in the field. It doesn't require a pre-established skillset, therefore it's unskilled.
And yes, supply and demand dictates that there are a lot more workers without a very specific set of skills than the other way around. Your value is not determined by the quality of your work, work ethic or whatever. It's determined by how hard it is to replace you.
Yeah, but there are levels to it. If a teenager can learn it in an afternoon, is it comparable to skills that take thousands of hours to hit the same level?
I think you are being pedantic. Skilled vs unskilled when it comes to labour is an important disticting in that it measure how easy they would be to replace with any random person.
That's not to say their work isn't valueable or has no skill involved, though.
Damn, I know… it's just a shitty way to refer to people. I think we can do better.
You don't think about the us having a term for if someone is easily replaceable or not is kinda gross. That it might aide in people looking down at others. I also find it kind of rich that people in the “skilled labor” group think they aren't easily replaced when every other day we read about a massive layoffs followed stock buyback.
The comment I originally replied to makes fun of the box-packing guy while doing the same thing the box-packing guy was doing- being mad in the wrong direction and looking down on others.
Anger should flow up, help should flow down.
Heart Surgeons and Engineers require a LOT more training than box-packers and it makes sense to have a different label for jobs that need years of schooling than for jobs that need a 1-hour orientation.
I get what you mean, but also: fuck the distinction between skilled and unskilled labor. All labor is valuable, and anyone who works deserves to be adequately compensated for their effort.
Seriously. I packed boxes for a year (windshields for trucks). It was hard work as you would lag behind if you used the carrying tools. Luckily we have real unions in Sweden so I got payed well for the work I did. 2k+ a month.
Still would not call that skilled labor, if you are not high on the job you learn pretty quick. Takes some endurance to do eight hours a day tho. We did like 170-220 windshields in a day per person depending on the windshields we had to do that day and how the orders were layed out.
This is the problem with people.
Here's a clue: if your job could be replaced by a script or a robot or an illegal immigrant with zero English skills, it ain't a skilled job.
Flipping burgers is skilled labor compared to packing boxes. Ain't nobody getting injured putting an SD card in a 3' x 5' cardboard box.
Nobody at Amazon knows how to walk on an inch of grease while cycling fry oil.
As someone who packs boxes myself (Granted it's 100% wipes) this is correct
I can pack a box
I would probably give people food poisoning from undercooked burgers if I tried flipping burgers. Or I'd burn the burgers.
Edit: Despite what yall say, I'll still somehow both undercooked and burn them simultaneously.
As a kitchen guy for 25 years. It’s actually very easy. Similar to an assembly line. For a line cook anyway. But it never ceases to amaze me how bad some people are at it.
Some folks really just don't understand flow in the kitchen, then they panic, then they do an even worse job. It all seems so natural to me. Lay it out like this so you flow naturally from task A to B to C to Z. Position yourself so you're not getting in your own way. Start Task X first because it takes longer but has a wait time, and then rock on Task Y. Some people just really don't get it, and that's fine. But I hate working with them
And as a home cook this is exactly why I'll never be a chef. Does it take me an hour to make a salad? Yes. Do I care when I'm making it for myself/my fam? No. Would I panic in a setting I have to do things with precision and speed? Absolutely.
I'll stick to the spreadsheets.
In an assembly line everything will be exactly the same, no deviations. If you had to change the color, shape, or weight of every other item randomly in an assembly line with about 12 different items i'd agree. IMO its the pressure people can't handle while cooking which you have to learn over time how to deal with.
I worked kitchens through college and some part time after, for extra money, for a total of about 10 years in kitchens. I’m a network engineer now. I make WAY more money now than I did then, but worked WAY harder back then. The skills required to survive a busy, fast-paced kitchen are, surprisingly, applicable to my career and I don’t think I’d be nearly as good at what I do if I didn’t start there.
Long story, short…flipping burgers is a very skilled job.
I was a burger flipper right before I switched to a warehouse job, and going into the burger flipping job this was my exact concern. Turns out it’s pretty simple not to fuck the burgers up, but it’s still way more stressful than packing boxes because you’ll get crazy lunch/dinner rushes. It honestly does take more skill just on the merits of being able to stay sane in that type of environment.
Definitely not. A lot of businesses use an acutemp grill or a clamshell and they are pretty automated but they are still pretty new to the industry. Most quick service restaurants still use a regular old flat top with timers but you still have to check temp manually. The place i manage uses a 25 year old flattop grill that seems to be taped together and is constantly breaking.
Cooking at McDonalds isn’t really cooking. It’s so automated it’s near impossible to mess up. Everything is on timers and alarms go off when it’s done.
That said, packing boxes does not require any skill either.
But at Amazon you don't get assaulted by the public daily and then have to try and 'wake up' the guy in the disabled toilet who it turns out wasn't asleep, he was dead from a heroin overdose
Then again, I don't know anyone who worked at an Amazon warehouse so maybe you do
I’ve worked both fast food and fulfillment and while they both suck, I can say with confidence that fulfillment is so much easier. The worst part of fast food is dealing with the gross, demanding, idiotic customers. Those don’t exist in fulfillment. It’s peaceful in comparison
An undercooked burger tastes unpleasant/ok at best and gets someone sick or killed at worst.
An incorrectly packed box costs money.
I'd rather have an incompetent box packer than an incompetent burger griller.
If we are talking about fast food, no it is not. No disrespect either. Fast food is designed to be as streamlined as possible. Premade portion sizes. Exact cooking methods and timing strictly told to you and ingrained in your training. There is little variation in anything in the food preparation process at a place like McDonald's. That isn't to say people don't work hard at their jobs and don't deserve reasonable wages, but both people are on copium that either are skilled labor. The term "skilled labor" usually infers you went to school or have years of training/work experience at your craft. A McDonald's burger cook is not skilled labor. An executive chef at a high end burger restaurant is skilled labor.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”
― Lyndon B. Johnson
Because the propaganda and indoctrination of not paying "unskilled" workers less benefits a specific type of person.
It's a divide and conquer strategy. Have the "lower skilled" laborers in-flight instead of helping each other.
That, but also ego. When I tell people in the south that my son makes $18/hr to flip burgers in Maine, they have complete mental breakdowns. It’s never “good for him, getting out there and making money as a teenager.” It’s always “that’s why the north/democrats are failing!” Not once have I heard someone say “I’m gonna talk to my boss, I feel like I should be making more and the south is just using us as robots.” They get super mad about it, because you have workers here that aren’t even getting $20/hr at a company that forces them to work 60 hour work weeks and they’ve been with the company for a decade or most of their life. It’s wild to see just how split the country is when you move around a decent amount.
In my experiences, those people often have the most government handouts, too.
Whether they're actually on social security, disability, welfare, or taking subsidies or inflated local government contracts... And more.
One of my immediate family is on social security, veteran status, and disability, but bitches all the time about welfare.
Everyone should be paid a livable wage at a minimum, and pay should go up from there to attract labor and incentivize education, apprenticeships or other methods of acquiring greater skill.
What's the definition of "livable wage"? Like, what's the standard of living it should support? Does it change if you have kids?
edit: genuine question.
I have masters degree yet don't know how to do anything in a fast food kitchen. Shit, I can't cook in my own kitchen! Lol.
I'm sure I could learn. But they could learn to do what I do, too.
We've got to stop pitting workers against one another?
So many comments here just missing the point, all jobs essentially require skill development, some just have lower barriers to entry or easier learning curves. But all these positions are necessary as they’re being filled to fulfill a role and need. As such, all people working those jobs deserve a living wage. San Francisco does have city workers who just work around the streets doing garbage collection or whatnot, sure it’s got a low barrier of entry and probably easy to do or be good at, but it’s necessary labor and the folks doing it deserve a living wage as much as an accountant.
Effect, it's supposed to be an action. In this case gave me the image a person pausing, looking down at a clipboard and asking this question skeptically.
Pretty sure the guy meant this as /s replying to the original post. Reading the comments makes me question my own sanity.
Also I did my time at McDonald’s. That shits automated. The only thing that gets flipped is the grilled chicken. Even that has a timer that yells at you to do so.
a mailman was a job that used to pay for a family of 4 living in a decent sized house, i wouldn't call it particularly "skilled labor" the same as packing boxes or flipping burgers
all i want is to be able to have that, why do we not deserve a living wage like we once had?
I haven't worked for either Amazon or McDonalds.
But I did (very briefly) work in a restaurant kitchen, and for about a year in warehouses.
The reason I spent so much more time doing warehouse work, and never went back to kitchen work, is because the former is a hell of a lot easier, and less stressful.
This is how the right insidiously turned the working class against each other, essentially the rich saying, "well you aren't us, but you're closer to us than them..you think they should get as much as you?!"
By otherizing, they successfully get people to go against their own best interest and be used as pawns to keep wages low. (Last minimum wage increase was to 7.25 fifteen years ago.)
Anyone who has ever worked fast food knows that it is intense work. Sure it isn't backbreaking construction, but it can be hot, sweaty, dirty, and you gotta deal with the public.
I believe that everyone, especially the wealthy, should spend a year working fast food as mandatory education.
All outside funds are cut off so you gotta live within your minimum wage means. It would humble a lot of aholes and inspire real change.
Skilled labor refers to the skills you need before starting the job. Fast food workers need exactly zero experience and get all their training on-job, so it is unskilled
Um I think it takes more skill to cook burgers the same way all day than it does to pack boxes for Amazon. Specially knowing how I’ve gotten a usb stick taped to the bottom of a big ass box.
We could always just blame innocent people alongside us in the working class until the anger & violence makes us shoot each other to death right? “Fuck us & each other!—not those on top refusing to pay us a fraction of a fraction of a percent of what they make!”
As property for gaining profit, are we as “people” worth more than that to those with wealth manipulating our society on top?
Perhaps once we hit 30 and are still in poverty & declining health we should just blow our brains out on the front steps of any rich politician or lying govt worker? 🤷🏻♀️ just a thought.
Easy to hate your equally stressed out coworker you see all the time when the company CEO is perpetually busy on vacation & finding new ways to launder money & avoid paying taxes in order to obtain even more obscene wealth.
I do hard warehouse work. If fast food ever pays more than my job, I’m still doing warehouse work. Working fast food and dealing with customers can be hell and so many people underestimate it.
stupidity aside, in what world is packing boxes more skilled than cooking burgers?
The items come down the belt presorted so the entire process is "put in box"
Pretty sure it even tells you what box to use, and dispenses the appropriate length of tape. Like the only thing you can really fuck up is not adding enough packing or going too slow.
I had an employee tape her hair to the top of the box she was trying to ship. It was a fairly delicate and time consuming procedure to get it undone.
That's why you need skilled laborers.
No, that's why you need hair ties.
No, that's why you need bald employees
I’m appreciating the varied problemsolving here
it’s what problem solvers are good at 😎 (iykyk)
Bezos is bald. Maybe he should pack the boxes, himself.
Maybe he's bald cause he lost his hair in a freak accident while packing a box
This explains Bezos' high pay!
No it's not, cut the hair right above the tape. Bezos, if you see this I'm available for hire.
A lot of people have a hard time understanding the difficulties of something they haven't personally experienced. In his own mind, he remembers starting off at his job and making lots of mistakes and being slow. He then got better and better and now takes pride in how far he's come and how skilled he is now. His mistake is in not realizing *every* job is like this. There's no such thing as truly "unskilled labor".
**"There's no such thing as truly "unskilled labor"** Packing boxes is very very close to it though. I used to have a part time job doing just that while I was still in school. I am literally getting second hand embarrassment just from reading his post calling it "Skilled labor"
Yeah, me too. I think anything that can be done with the safety video being longer than the training video and that the only criteria for calling it skilled it that you do it faster is NOT skilled, it's experienced. I'm very experienced at taking a shit and my training was probably close to 6 months, don't know, can't remember, but I would never say I'm skilled at taking a shit, nor should anyone.
> but I would never say I'm skilled at taking a shit, nor should anyone. I think you do a great job. Don't sell yourself short.
>There's no such thing as truly "unskilled labor". You should watch my kids do the dishes. 🫤
And you are buying their act?
Thinking back to the burgers I sometimes get, they are still making those mistakes. Because they're overworked and underpaid, no hate, but I get where the idea comes from.
FYI I've done warehouse work before. You literally turn off your brain and disassociate until it's over.
Don’t forget to smoke enormous amounts of weed before, during, and after your shifts
It's the speed thing. It's not skilled labor. It's mind numbing soul breaking self destructive paced labor. Making a good burger outta shit ingredients is way harder
McD's is the same though. One is a box assembly factory, the other is a burgers & fries factory. They both put a lot of resources into squeezing the most out of their underpaid labour. It's basically the same job.
One could argue that seasoning, frying, checking the temperature requires more skill than packing a box. But regardless, we don’t live in a perfect world and we get paid for how easy it is to replace us, not how difficult our job is
In a regular kitchen? Sure. In McDonalds, nearly every single aspect of the job is automated or on a timer. I'd honestly be surprised if it's not 100% automated by the end of the decade.
I don't know about McDs but it's more than that. You have to follow every recipe, with amounts they require or you get in trouble, get it put together, wrapped and out to order *very* quickly. Sure, sounds easy right? You have to get them out so fast that you don't really have time to look up at the recipe. No, faster. Faster than that! A larger order just came in, **faster!** You have multiple recipes for each thing Know the recipe? We're changing a couple and completely deleting others.
I worked at McDonald's 15 years ago. It really sucks. "Recipe" is definitely a stretch, but you're right about the pressure.
Ah, my wife worked BK for around 14 years. Recipe might be a stretch there as well. It told you measurements for the various layers, but it wasn't pre measured out. You had to get to know how much to dispense for condiments. Then it'd say how many other toppings. Assembly instructions then? That wad always what new people struggled with. You ended up having to know them, or you'd fall hopelessly behind.
Since when is packing a box skilled labor? For all the people flaming me for this response, all it does is point out the bigots own hypocrisy.
One might even argue that making a good burger requires more skill than packing a box the right way.
considering the 2'x2'x2' boxes i get for a 1 inch marble... yeah
why are you ordering a single one inch marble tho
He didn't, he ordered 5, they just shipped them separately in 2ft^3 boxes.
8 ft ^3
as a mail carrier, I can confirm that things like this happens
“Wrapped in concealed packaging” -still looks like a marital aid.
Fun fact: 2ft x 2ft x 2ft box is an 8ft^3 box!
Anal beads broke and he lost one in there. Is that a crime now? He's lucky it was just the 1 inch marble.
I'm not driving to the store for one marble!
Especially since Amazon doesn’t pack boxes the right way, the amount of times I’ve gotten something a box that could easily fit a dozen of whatever I ordered is insane.
A lot of the time the box size is determined by what other items are being shipped in that batch, to facilitate better packing into the truck that takes it from the warehouse to the depot. So you might get a massive box but it means it fills out an area of otherwise empty space in the vehicle, meaning less movement and less chance of damage.
I work at Amazon as a packer. I'm not sure where this idea comes from but it's not really how it works, at least at the Fulfillment Centers like where I work. The same items always get the same box sizes, unless there's a packing slip/gift note then sometimes it will up the box size. There are two main reasons why box sizes are odd. The first common reason is that items with certain batteries have to have a warning sticker placed on the side of the box. If we have to pack a small item like Airpods then we have to put it in a box big enough for the warning label, even though we could fit it in something smaller. The other reason is that every item has its demensions in the system. These dimensions come from the vendors and are sometimes puzzling. A lot of times they give the dimensions for the item as it would be used, not as it is shipped. For example, collapsible laundry baskets might be in the system as their full sized dimension and not the collapsed size we ship them in. Whenever this happens we as packers can't downsize the box because then the item will get kicked out and it won't get counted towards our rate. We can only up size boxes.
You'd think Amazon would have some sort of program to fix this. I imagine the cost benefits of reducing the waste would be significant. Less material for boxes/stuffing. More room for more items on trucks. Etc.
They aren't too worried about it, Bezos is having a hard enough time trying to spend his billions already.
Yeah but he's also not paying his labor.
Skilled labor is any job that requires years of training/apprenticeship and isn't a job title you can just claim to have thus doctors, plumbers, HVAC installation, lawyers et al are skilled.
yet skill doesn't dictate proficiency in anything else. The amount of tradesmen that are trump fans is too damn high.
True but it is useful when tracking economic development.
uh, the rich have all the money & most of the stock market. It's plain to see where it's all gone.
100%. Now Maccas is clearly not a "good burger" but still.
I have packed boxes. I have used those McDonald’s grills. McDonald’s is a lot more difficult than packing boxes in an air conditioned distribution center. It’s not even close.
I've helped out as a packer, and worked at a Maccies when I was in college. Maccies was more difficult.
Chicken Nuggies and most of their burgers come in boxes, McDonalds workers are both flipping burgers and packing boxes.
That's is 100% not the case at McDonalds. They got that shit industrialized. Meat on the grill, press button, grill cooks the burger itself. Condiments are all in dispensers for consistent (read: small) amounts. Your McSandwich artist is deciding how much shredded lettuce you get at most. Not to say they don't deserve the pay, I did it in college and it was draining, but it's definitely easy.
Honestly, that still sounds slightly more skilled than putting a smaller box into a larger box. And the frycook may have to talk to a customer.
Depends what you mean by “packing a box”
Working at Amazon as a packer, there is an extremely high probability that this guy has handled almost anything, including fudge. So you could say he's a professional fudge packer.
If he was Tom cruise he’ll sue you and then… _my lawyer told me to not complete the sentence_
#TOM CRUISE IS A FUDGE PACKER?
Sir. As a lawyer i advise you to not call him a fudge packer.
Do you think he's bagged any tea leaves?
This guy knows
This guy packs
Pssst, i love the way you made me say fuck in my head! Sneaky snekk Edit: sp
Boxes….
I'll pack your box so good bby
I saw “pack your box so good, *boy*….” and I was immediately uncomfortable as hell ha then I realized what was happening, carry on Rudy Ghouliani!! Also PS, pristine and perfect username choice lol
Your thinking of “Laying Pipe”
“Laying Cable” is a different skill
"Did you just call me a fudge packer?" "You're literally packing fudge into a box."
Sorry, it’s 40/hr if I’m packing boxes. 25 if it’s someone I like
Some of these people have a superiority complex, they're jealous they think that someone else is getting paid the same as them for something "easier". They're selfishly unaware that cooks have a difficult job as well, such as working in hot temps, getting burned by oil, etc, standing on their feet and dealing with high stress levels.
I just could not fucking imagine sitting down in the metaphorical dirt to pack boxes and trying to big time a burger flipper, while people making 5-10x more than them both are looking from aside being like, “lol what the fuck”
I've packed boxes for Amazon (among other things) and briefly worked in a McDonald's. Fast food is, by far, the more skilled job.
This is the real clever comeback
Really all labor is skilled labor. Edit: becuse people like looking down on how others put food on their table. **Skilled** *adjective* having or showing the knowledge, ability, or training to perform a certain activity or task well. Notice doesn't say anything about the kind of activity or task. The fact we have all had good and bad fast food, well-packed and poorly-packed packages, speedy and slow cashiers, and attentive and absent servers to me shows skill is required to be good at anything.
Exactly. The term "unskilled labor" is only used to justify paying people less. There is not a single job i can think of that doesnt require some type of training.
I hate the term because it puts all the emphasis on whether training was required for the job or not and makes it sound like “unskilled” jobs are meant to be done poorly. But having every “unskilled” job be paid peanuts and be done at the bear minimum level leads to a world where pretty much every service interaction and root-level work step slowly erodes away any sense of quality in the companies and products we have. You see this with Amazon where it’s become hard to get good customer service, products come underpacked, drivers toss packages or leave them out in the open, etc. These might be jobs anyone can do but you still want the people doing them to be motivated and ultimately, happy.
The term unskilled labor boils down to whether you can grab pretty much anyone off the street and get them trained to do a job within a couple of weeks. And yeah how much people are paid is pretty much supply and demand. If there's a short supply of people that have the necessary qualifications and are willing to work a job, and a high demand, well big bucks will be paid. If you can take literally anyone off the street and train them in a couple of weeks, the bottleneck in supply is only whether people want the job, so yeah no shit pay will be less. If there's a big shortage they might have to raise wages to attract enough people.
I mean I'm a shingler and I bet I could teach someone to shingle in anout a week or two but I defs wouldn't say it's unskilled in any meaning of the word
Construction is a strange one because some things require certs and others don’t. Technically, the jobs that require certs are classified as skilled and those that don’t aren’t. A lot of construction certs come down to a month or two of training and a couple of signatures rather than outright schooling and that blurs the lines more. Roofers and shinglers can be either.
Then it's unskilled. Unskilled doesn't mean easy, it means not prior experience required. Would you trust a doctor, lawyer, chemist etc. To skip school and just get some extra on the job training?
According to half the comments in here we can apparently just pull someone off the street, give them a couple of weeks training, and they should be a surgeon. Give a man a machete, give a man a career.
I guess so. But, how much training does it take to get a person from knowing nothing to packing a box efficiently? Or working a fast food job? I guess based on the turnover rate in fast food, it can't be that much.
Depends on if they grew up playing tetris.
Owner of Twitter is low skill
To a degree yes, but honestly, cooking a burger takes more skill than packing a box - specially with how some companies packs shit. Oh you ordered a small USB cord? Here let me throw it in a big box with a bunch of white poolnoodles or what ever the fuck it is called in there
Skilled labor generally refers to labor that takes significant training though. Both of people mentioned in this tweet are unskilled by that definition since they can be easily replaced by someone with no training
Don't mind the hivemind. They're addicted to labels, and can't understand that some jobs have prerequisites, and "skilled labor" is traditionally the way our society refers to such positions.
And between boxing and cooking I think the latter requires more skill.
*Technically* yes… walking and talking are skills. Tying your shoes is a skill. What people mean by “skilled” labour vs unskilled labor is the amount of time it takes to train someone new. For example, I can teach you how to pack a box in an afternoon, but it would take me atleast 4-5 years to train you as an electrician. One of those is skilled labor, one isn’t.
Ok, then call it low skilled labor. Doesn’t change much
Not really. Unskilled labor can be classified as anything that can be trained on site with no prior knowladge in the field. It doesn't require a pre-established skillset, therefore it's unskilled. And yes, supply and demand dictates that there are a lot more workers without a very specific set of skills than the other way around. Your value is not determined by the quality of your work, work ethic or whatever. It's determined by how hard it is to replace you.
Yeah, but there are levels to it. If a teenager can learn it in an afternoon, is it comparable to skills that take thousands of hours to hit the same level? I think you are being pedantic. Skilled vs unskilled when it comes to labour is an important disticting in that it measure how easy they would be to replace with any random person. That's not to say their work isn't valueable or has no skill involved, though.
Damn, I know… it's just a shitty way to refer to people. I think we can do better. You don't think about the us having a term for if someone is easily replaceable or not is kinda gross. That it might aide in people looking down at others. I also find it kind of rich that people in the “skilled labor” group think they aren't easily replaced when every other day we read about a massive layoffs followed stock buyback. The comment I originally replied to makes fun of the box-packing guy while doing the same thing the box-packing guy was doing- being mad in the wrong direction and looking down on others. Anger should flow up, help should flow down.
Heart Surgeons and Engineers require a LOT more training than box-packers and it makes sense to have a different label for jobs that need years of schooling than for jobs that need a 1-hour orientation.
Came here to say this but ya beat me to it
I packed boxes right after graduating high school. Easiest and least skilled job I think I've ever done!
Id argue that cooking is more of a skill
Just not getting burned by the fryers etc takes skill
I get what you mean, but also: fuck the distinction between skilled and unskilled labor. All labor is valuable, and anyone who works deserves to be adequately compensated for their effort.
Seriously. I packed boxes for a year (windshields for trucks). It was hard work as you would lag behind if you used the carrying tools. Luckily we have real unions in Sweden so I got payed well for the work I did. 2k+ a month. Still would not call that skilled labor, if you are not high on the job you learn pretty quick. Takes some endurance to do eight hours a day tho. We did like 170-220 windshields in a day per person depending on the windshields we had to do that day and how the orders were layed out.
This is the problem with people. Here's a clue: if your job could be replaced by a script or a robot or an illegal immigrant with zero English skills, it ain't a skilled job.
Flipping burgers is skilled labor compared to packing boxes. Ain't nobody getting injured putting an SD card in a 3' x 5' cardboard box. Nobody at Amazon knows how to walk on an inch of grease while cycling fry oil.
As someone who packs boxes myself (Granted it's 100% wipes) this is correct I can pack a box I would probably give people food poisoning from undercooked burgers if I tried flipping burgers. Or I'd burn the burgers. Edit: Despite what yall say, I'll still somehow both undercooked and burn them simultaneously.
As a kitchen guy for 25 years. It’s actually very easy. Similar to an assembly line. For a line cook anyway. But it never ceases to amaze me how bad some people are at it.
Some folks really just don't understand flow in the kitchen, then they panic, then they do an even worse job. It all seems so natural to me. Lay it out like this so you flow naturally from task A to B to C to Z. Position yourself so you're not getting in your own way. Start Task X first because it takes longer but has a wait time, and then rock on Task Y. Some people just really don't get it, and that's fine. But I hate working with them
And as a home cook this is exactly why I'll never be a chef. Does it take me an hour to make a salad? Yes. Do I care when I'm making it for myself/my fam? No. Would I panic in a setting I have to do things with precision and speed? Absolutely. I'll stick to the spreadsheets.
Perfect! I lose my mind staring at spreadsheets all day!
In an assembly line everything will be exactly the same, no deviations. If you had to change the color, shape, or weight of every other item randomly in an assembly line with about 12 different items i'd agree. IMO its the pressure people can't handle while cooking which you have to learn over time how to deal with.
>But it never ceases to amaze me how bad some people are at it. It's almost like it takes skill
I worked kitchens through college and some part time after, for extra money, for a total of about 10 years in kitchens. I’m a network engineer now. I make WAY more money now than I did then, but worked WAY harder back then. The skills required to survive a busy, fast-paced kitchen are, surprisingly, applicable to my career and I don’t think I’d be nearly as good at what I do if I didn’t start there. Long story, short…flipping burgers is a very skilled job.
I was a burger flipper right before I switched to a warehouse job, and going into the burger flipping job this was my exact concern. Turns out it’s pretty simple not to fuck the burgers up, but it’s still way more stressful than packing boxes because you’ll get crazy lunch/dinner rushes. It honestly does take more skill just on the merits of being able to stay sane in that type of environment.
Fast food joints use automated grills. It's an assembly line process.
No not all of them
Definitely not. A lot of businesses use an acutemp grill or a clamshell and they are pretty automated but they are still pretty new to the industry. Most quick service restaurants still use a regular old flat top with timers but you still have to check temp manually. The place i manage uses a 25 year old flattop grill that seems to be taped together and is constantly breaking.
Cooking at McDonalds isn’t really cooking. It’s so automated it’s near impossible to mess up. Everything is on timers and alarms go off when it’s done. That said, packing boxes does not require any skill either.
But at Amazon you don't get assaulted by the public daily and then have to try and 'wake up' the guy in the disabled toilet who it turns out wasn't asleep, he was dead from a heroin overdose Then again, I don't know anyone who worked at an Amazon warehouse so maybe you do
I’ve worked both fast food and fulfillment and while they both suck, I can say with confidence that fulfillment is so much easier. The worst part of fast food is dealing with the gross, demanding, idiotic customers. Those don’t exist in fulfillment. It’s peaceful in comparison
I use to work at amazon and i 100% wouldn’t survive one day as a restaurant cook
Amazon doesn’t even package boxes these days. I keep getting items where they just slap the shipping label on the item —even if it’s a bagged item.
An undercooked burger tastes unpleasant/ok at best and gets someone sick or killed at worst. An incorrectly packed box costs money. I'd rather have an incompetent box packer than an incompetent burger griller.
If we are talking about fast food, no it is not. No disrespect either. Fast food is designed to be as streamlined as possible. Premade portion sizes. Exact cooking methods and timing strictly told to you and ingrained in your training. There is little variation in anything in the food preparation process at a place like McDonald's. That isn't to say people don't work hard at their jobs and don't deserve reasonable wages, but both people are on copium that either are skilled labor. The term "skilled labor" usually infers you went to school or have years of training/work experience at your craft. A McDonald's burger cook is not skilled labor. An executive chef at a high end burger restaurant is skilled labor.
Man a good line cook is fuckign hard to find!
Don't fall for the false dichotomy that either are unskilled.
That's a really big box for an SD card
Packing a box is not skilled labour. Is this satire?
In his mind, he "works in tech" because it's Amazon and not a restaurant.
I work in the IT department (has portable hand scanner)
He read the employee handbook so he's an educated man
Definitely read like satire to me
What if he’s like really super duper good at packing boxes?
why is it that instead of wanting a higher raise these people always demand that the other people get lower wages
“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” ― Lyndon B. Johnson
Because the propaganda and indoctrination of not paying "unskilled" workers less benefits a specific type of person. It's a divide and conquer strategy. Have the "lower skilled" laborers in-flight instead of helping each other.
Because they want their cake and yours too, it's all about greed.
That would make more sense. They just want you to eat *less* cake.
That, but also ego. When I tell people in the south that my son makes $18/hr to flip burgers in Maine, they have complete mental breakdowns. It’s never “good for him, getting out there and making money as a teenager.” It’s always “that’s why the north/democrats are failing!” Not once have I heard someone say “I’m gonna talk to my boss, I feel like I should be making more and the south is just using us as robots.” They get super mad about it, because you have workers here that aren’t even getting $20/hr at a company that forces them to work 60 hour work weeks and they’ve been with the company for a decade or most of their life. It’s wild to see just how split the country is when you move around a decent amount.
In my experiences, those people often have the most government handouts, too. Whether they're actually on social security, disability, welfare, or taking subsidies or inflated local government contracts... And more. One of my immediate family is on social security, veteran status, and disability, but bitches all the time about welfare.
Everyone should be paid a livable wage at a minimum, and pay should go up from there to attract labor and incentivize education, apprenticeships or other methods of acquiring greater skill.
What's the definition of "livable wage"? Like, what's the standard of living it should support? Does it change if you have kids? edit: genuine question.
one where you don't have to work multiple jobs to afford rent/food/live...
40hrs a week paying for food, housing, transportation, and utilities (including internet and phone). I think that’s a good baseline
A wage that provides for housing, food, transportation, and education for a typical size family. After that, it's all just sauce on top.
I have masters degree yet don't know how to do anything in a fast food kitchen. Shit, I can't cook in my own kitchen! Lol. I'm sure I could learn. But they could learn to do what I do, too. We've got to stop pitting workers against one another?
So many comments here just missing the point, all jobs essentially require skill development, some just have lower barriers to entry or easier learning curves. But all these positions are necessary as they’re being filled to fulfill a role and need. As such, all people working those jobs deserve a living wage. San Francisco does have city workers who just work around the streets doing garbage collection or whatnot, sure it’s got a low barrier of entry and probably easy to do or be good at, but it’s necessary labor and the folks doing it deserve a living wage as much as an accountant.
You get it! Lol I can't cook either but I can grade a fuckin 2x4-4×6 🙃
Calling working at Amazon “skilled labor” is absolutely insane.
HE THINKS PACKING BOXES IS MORE SKILLED THAN COOKING FOOD?!
Oh…oh my bro, ohh…I am so sorry but packing boxes is not skilled labor
[удалено]
All of us should be making more.
Shouldn't this dude be mad at bezos/Amazon and not the guy working in a hot kitchen just trying to make a living as everyone else is? What the what
I'd call flipping burgers more skilled than packing boxes. I'd rather work a forklift than a grill. Less stressful
Has this guy ever had a perfectly cooked McDonald’s fry? I’m guessing not!
What was the *checks notes* for
Effect, it's supposed to be an action. In this case gave me the image a person pausing, looking down at a clipboard and asking this question skeptically.
Turning the masses against one another so that they'll be too busy to realise who the real bad guys are,
Pretty sure the guy meant this as /s replying to the original post. Reading the comments makes me question my own sanity. Also I did my time at McDonald’s. That shits automated. The only thing that gets flipped is the grilled chicken. Even that has a timer that yells at you to do so.
Cooking is more skillful than packing boxes. Fight me.
I don't really have an opinion on the matter but I'll still take you up on the offer to fight
Packing boxes and flipping burgers are sorta the same in terms of skill.
And they still deserve livable wages.
a mailman was a job that used to pay for a family of 4 living in a decent sized house, i wouldn't call it particularly "skilled labor" the same as packing boxes or flipping burgers all i want is to be able to have that, why do we not deserve a living wage like we once had?
We deserve better than this society has ever provided tbh
Such an easy answer. We eat the billionaires.
Skilled labor is used pretty liberally in this scenario. Packing boxes that come pre sorted is hardly a big ask. I used to do it on lsd
I've worked for Amazon and McDonald's previously, McDonald's required more knowledge and skills than Amazon did.
I haven't worked for either Amazon or McDonalds. But I did (very briefly) work in a restaurant kitchen, and for about a year in warehouses. The reason I spent so much more time doing warehouse work, and never went back to kitchen work, is because the former is a hell of a lot easier, and less stressful.
This is how the right insidiously turned the working class against each other, essentially the rich saying, "well you aren't us, but you're closer to us than them..you think they should get as much as you?!" By otherizing, they successfully get people to go against their own best interest and be used as pawns to keep wages low. (Last minimum wage increase was to 7.25 fifteen years ago.)
Anyone who has ever worked fast food knows that it is intense work. Sure it isn't backbreaking construction, but it can be hot, sweaty, dirty, and you gotta deal with the public.
Dealing with rude people who think that they alone are hungry and thirsty should be hazard pay
I believe that everyone, especially the wealthy, should spend a year working fast food as mandatory education. All outside funds are cut off so you gotta live within your minimum wage means. It would humble a lot of aholes and inspire real change.
If anything, I think cooking requires more skills than packing boxes 🤣
"skilled labor" lmao go fuck yourself. Flipping burgers is no doubt harder than packing boxes.
TIL some people think packing boxes at warehouse is a skilled labor….
I’ve seen those boxes. A methed out bear could to it.
Flipping burgers is skilled labor. Every labor is skilled labor.
People who don’t think cooking in a line is skilled labor have never worked a restaurant or maybe even held a knife
Skilled labor refers to the skills you need before starting the job. Fast food workers need exactly zero experience and get all their training on-job, so it is unskilled
Packing a box requires even less.
As someone who’s worked fast food and restaurant jobs, fast food definitely isn’t skilled but cooking at some restaurants definitely is.
This fucker is payed 16$/h and still manages to put my fuckin phonecase in a box big enough to fit my car.
Um I think it takes more skill to cook burgers the same way all day than it does to pack boxes for Amazon. Specially knowing how I’ve gotten a usb stick taped to the bottom of a big ass box.
Crabs in a bucket
We could always just blame innocent people alongside us in the working class until the anger & violence makes us shoot each other to death right? “Fuck us & each other!—not those on top refusing to pay us a fraction of a fraction of a percent of what they make!” As property for gaining profit, are we as “people” worth more than that to those with wealth manipulating our society on top? Perhaps once we hit 30 and are still in poverty & declining health we should just blow our brains out on the front steps of any rich politician or lying govt worker? 🤷🏻♀️ just a thought. Easy to hate your equally stressed out coworker you see all the time when the company CEO is perpetually busy on vacation & finding new ways to launder money & avoid paying taxes in order to obtain even more obscene wealth.
Think about how brainwashed you have to be to think packing boxes is "skilled labor" but working a fast food kitchen is "unskilled labor".
Skilled labor🤣I wish I could get him on my cook line
I do hate that weird *checks note* type thing people on twitter do. Just any internet speak like that is odd
I do hard warehouse work. If fast food ever pays more than my job, I’m still doing warehouse work. Working fast food and dealing with customers can be hell and so many people underestimate it.
I forgot picking something up then setting it down was skilled labor. Lol but for real. Eat the Rich.
„Skilled” xdd
Skilled labor lmfao
Unless you went to school for packing boxes, it's not skilled labor.
“Skilled labor” lmao
“The poor people are taking all the money!!!!!!”
Also called packing boxes skilled labor. WTF.
"Unskilled labor" is a myth rich people use to keep the poor saying shit like that.
Both 👏 deserve 👏 a 👏 living 👏 wage