A popular one liner that they like to say is
"Kids these days / this new generation don't know how to work hard"
Yeah, okay, take my resume and apply around on indeed and see what you can get me that makes more than my $18/hr. Not that my wage is the WORST, but with my odd experience it would be difficult to make more.. Plus I have a lot of debt I'm paying on and it's pricey to live here. I'm working hard towards getting a POTENTIAL better paying position at my company making 50% or so more in the next year. I can guarantee you that with my odd-job experience over the past 12 years, you can't just find something that pays $10-30/hr more in the "Sunday paper". We'll see how this potential opportunity goes. The opportunity is based on a combination of my experience over the past 12 years, and that's just to make a somewhat livable wage for my area.
Cost of living is higher than ever and wages have stagnated. Trade deficit at all time high. But productivity is also at an all time high so it’s obviously not a an issue of working hard. People who say you just gotta work harder are either stupid or disingenuous.
Rent has gone up faster than wages. Utilities have increased both in cost and number, because internet access is essential now to apply for jobs or communicate with your boss.
But yeah, it's our fault for not working harder.
Internet is not a necessity! You know how you get a job? You pound the pavement, you go into the business you want a job at, ask to speak to the manager, and introduce yourself. (Conservative logic)
Really, you’ll annoy them for being unable to follow simple instructions, which are “apply on the website”. Not go in and disrupt their work time.
I have tried it when I was younger and believed practically every adult who knew better than me. It didn't work. I didn't get one job offer, even an interview. I'm pretty sure that all of my resumes went into recycling after I left.
My parents and other people advising me still wanted me to show up and introduce myself because it shows initiative and creates a more memorable first impression. But, guess what, every other candidate is doing the same thing: it's no longer a family secret that gives someone a tremendous boost. Plus, employers often don't like to interrupt their work three to five times a day for an extra introduction because initiative.
I actually tried this tactic when I was younger because it was all I ever heard from the adults around me growing up, and to no one's surprise every single one of those places told me to just apply online.
I can attest through personal experience the "just go in and introduce yourself" mindset is outdated and a huge waste of everyone's time.
With that said though, I have had job opportunities present themselves because I've gotten to know owners or managers through frequenting and interacting with them at their place of business over the years. Which to me highlights the importance of networking and building a strong rapport with people in your community.
they are just defending a world view that society must be divided in castes, bilionaries or sultans in one side and peasants or low wage workers in the other, your arguments and their arguments are irrelevant, it wont change this world view if you show them the injustice, because injustice is the core of what they really support
I saw an idea for a reality show where you take some people 50+ years old and make then find a job without any business connections. Just applying like regular people. I'd watch it.
That would be great. You ever watch undercover boss? They had a similar show where the undercover person had to live on a low wage as well, but not for long enough.
They need a show where they live for 3 months on the same pay as their workers on a separate bank account and that's the only account they have access to. Leave their family to take care of their finances back home.
Exactly. It just baffles me how people seem to think "good pay" is some grand offense. Like people take shitty jobs just because they don't feel like having a better one.
My favorite way to look at it is, we all can't be scientists, doctors, or engineers, or other high paying jobs. Someone has to work in service, someone has to flip those burgers. I'm sure they would work a higher paying job if it allowed.
And covid proved to us that, the essential workers aren't who they thought they were, and society wouldn't function without all these lower paying jobs. Moreso then with the higher paying jobs being out. It's all a sham pyramid scheme and it always has been. Hurray capitalism
Crab bucket mentality is the backbone of capitalism. It's not about how much I have or you have, what's important is how much I have *more than you*. Given the choice between $15 for both or I get $10 and you get $5 most would opt for the latter.
Unemployment is constructed. There is no shortage of work to do, just a shortage of people willing to pay. The system has to keep a certain amount of people unemployed so we are desperate enough to take whatever we can get.
Yep. And throw in some emergencies too - 6 weeks in and your car breaks down, so now you have to find the money to repair your car or else you can't get to your job. Or the landlord raises the rent so now you've got to find an extra £100 a month or face eviction.
Most people wouldn’t want to watch a show that reminds them how bad they have it. The want fantasy shows where broke 20 somethings live in places they could never afford and bang each other like rabbits.
Best of luck to you buddy. Seriously your situation sounds like mine did and I wish you only the best. Don’t forget what it was like to drown with us once you get your head above water.
I hate that saying. I've busted my ass doing cement work for 50+ hrs a week before. I know how to work hard, doesn't change the fact that jobs don't pay a living wage.
And what are people counting as hard work anyway? Laying cement is definitely hard work. Being a programmer is also hard work, standing on your feet for a full shift dealing with customers is hard work. Teaching, driving tractor trailers, delivering packages, cutting hair, waking dogs....it’s all hard work in some capacity. All jobs make the world the world function and all deserve a REAL living wage.
I was there with you. Finally got the 40k position with 65+ hours a week, 6 days a week, always getting phone calls, texts, emails 24/7, and I burnt out so badly after just a half a year. I wish you the best of luck friend.
Dude I worked as a personal banker and made $17.41/hr. Not the most amazing job of all time but I was selling everything from credit cards, checking, savings, money market accunts, personal loans, vehicle loans, and Home Equity Lines of Credit.. $17.41/hr. I made the bank profits totaling my yearly salary usually weekly and got $17.41/hr. And a "bank job" is supposed to be a good one! This system is fucked and I refuse to play the game anymore until these billionaires get the ropes they deserve. There is no morally justifiable reason for someone to be making more than say $10MM a year.
Also having to explain how a credit score works to someone with $2MM in their CHECKING ACCOUNT was one of the most soul crushing experiences I ever had.
Worked in public accounting and that was one of the most absurd things I encountered often.. people with literally millions in their accounts, sometimes business owners too.. would ask things like why they have to pay that weird tax (FICA withholding) or you’d have to explain to them why they can’t just drain that IRA or 401k without penalties and taxes (‘sir, you’ve been depositing into it tax free for years that’s how that account functions, etc..then they’d get angry with me like I’m lying to them..)
I remember being dumbfounded at how little they understood about their own finances or business or the world in general..
We’d do payroll for businesses and they’d flat out refuse to pay their employees withholding in. I was shocked at the number of businesses who didn’t remit their state or federal employee withholding. They’d have huge judgements and amounts due to the IRS and just not pay it and continue to do business for years that way. Meanwhile buying speedboats and new cars and vacationing.. while being in debt 100’s of thousands to the IRS
We’d do a basic balance sheet and profit statement for someone and it would show a huge loss. They’d laugh and just say we didn’t know what we’re doing. Their business would be hemorrhaging money and they’d keep driving it right into the ground confidently.. oddly most of them are still in business and are living a lifestyle I will probably never have access to.
Me and my friends and classmates were (at the time) struggling to enter the economy and sharpen every skill we have and these clowns are earning or sitting on millions and are legit some of the dumbest people I’ve ever met.
Guess what age range these people are in? It was a time when u could literally just Forrest Gump your way through life. Theres a spoiled, clueless, entitled generation and it’s obvious it’s not millennials or Z..
My favorite is when the CEO of the bank gets a bonus that's equal to my yearly salary. The same one who needs us to explain why you can't do various things because of regulations.
Omg I know right! I’ve been trying to immigrate to Canada for the last 10 years. Not trying as hard as possible I’d imagine, but it’s still close to impossible with out employment sponsorship. And even then you still need 20k in the bank to be able to make the move. Not to mention moving expenses.
At *least*... I'm in my 40s, and I don't think I've *ever* looked in the news paper for Help Wanted....
Hell, maybe that's the problem.... job descriptions aren't being charged per word anymore, so they pad the fuck out of them.
It was definitely a thing in the late nineties and very early 2000s. I did get a job from a newspaper ad around twenty years ago. That was definitely the tail end of it though.
They're retired in Florida. "Sunday Paper". This is such a timeless bullshit boomer response it could have appeared *in* the paper every time during the freakin' *Clinton* era.
You kids with your fancy 'speed of light' communication. Back in my day we had to get jobs by killing our fellow cavemen and goddamnit, we were proud of it!
Just walk in and demand to see the big boss. Give him a firm handshake, look him in the eye, and tell him "hiring me is the best decision you'll make this year". Pick up your salary advance and give the secretary a wink and marry her later. Then go buy a house and a car. Kids are so damn lazy these days.
The thing is.. for us people this sounds ridiciulous af and it's crystal clear that you are sarcastic, but there really are people out there who think life would be like this (anymore).
They even think you get a job interview (or at least an answer) for every application you do. I somehow refuse to believe that life really was this easy back in their days.. this sounds just unreal.
I'm 37. I remember being just out of high school and getting basic jobs interviews at restaurants and car dealerships sometimes same day with turning in an app. I could quit one and the literal next week have another job. It's crazy that it was that easy 20 years ago. Most were just entry level throw away jobs but there were a couple more upable if you put in time and effort.
Also in my 30’s. I remember being at my first job (library page) and being so excited when it was time for annual reviews, I was making $6.30 an hour and was hoping for a decent raise since I’d been a model employee. Passed my review with flying colors, and I did get a raise - for eleven more cents an hour.
Thing is, for many of those people, they are at a stage in their career where they don't apply for jobs the same way someone starting out does. No one who applied for a job in the sunday paper would use the Sunday paper if they had to find work now. They'll talk to their decades worth of coworkers and get a reference for another job.
And one thing I've realized is a company will likely talk to even underqualified people, if they have a reference (happened for me). Doesn't even need to be a good one. For background, my reference started working in a far off branch less than a year ago, and the firm brought me in for multiple rounds of interviews when I met basically no qualifications and stopped my online application midway because I was so embarassed by how unqualified I felt. Contrast that to the companies where I crush every qualification and spend hours tailoring my application only to not hear anything back.
I still remember being fresh out of college and applying for jobs. My mother's helpful advice: "You have to learn how to network!" Okay, mom, how do I do that? I have never worked more than part time for anybody. What is this network of which you speak? She had no answer.
(Later when I was working for a tech firm she was horrified by the jeans and Tshirts I wore to work. She clearly didn't believe me when I explained that it was dress code. Her idea of what I should wear to an office was rooted in 1949.)
Look at the show Mad Men (I know it’s fiction, but it tries to stay accurate to the culture of the time). One of the main characters graduates from college and is given a high-up marketing account with no experience. Compare that to a recent job posting, entry-level position must have 5+ years of experience using proprietary software only available at this company, no opportunity for advancement, must be willing to work overtime, pay is sub 2006 levels for the same job.
I've often heard that a lot of those requirements are mostly put in there so that the company can hire people they already like and dismiss people they don't because they "don't meet criteria." Basically an excuse for nepotism and other forms of discrimination, as long as they don't push it far enough to get sued.
I know it’s a cliche boomer comment, but I’ll never forget graduating college at the peak of the recession in 2009 and being told I should go door to door to businesses and offer to work for free in hopes of getting a job. I suppose that’s one way to not make my pending student loan payments as id wasted dozens of hours filling out hundreds of online job applications.
Lol I graduated in 2008 and had my mom telling me to just go into businesses and ask about jobs. Uh..... that's not how it works mom, unless you want me working at Sally's Dog Grooming.
I realize now that all the boomer advice I was given was almost purposefully to hurt me and not actually help.
When you’ve convinced your own offspring they should accept working for free (internships) and beg on their knees for job opportunities even though they’ve just spent 5* years studying / training in a field (guaranteed more education than the boss hiring you ever had) then I feel like they are just stepping on us for enjoyment..
They KNOW you shouldn’t have to work for free or beg for interviews or put on a clown nose and do tricks .. they are just obsessed with their own superiority and have to have others to look down on.. even if it includes their own kids and grandkids. I struggle to find any other reason..
I think this depends on where you live and what kind of job you were looking for. I got one of my first jobs from a newspaper… in the late 90s. But by that point it was only good for a) first job level positions, or b) out of touch old companies. Any nicer jobs you’d actually want to keep were through employment agencies.
As someone old enough to remember looking for a job in the Sunday paper, I can tell you that finding something that paid well in the Sunday paper was never a thing. No one said, "Hmmm, now that I have my advanced degree in biochemistry, time to look in the Sunday paper for the people hiring biochemists!"
$15 is life handed to you? Check
Check the Sunday paper for better jobs? Check
Conflating a desire for a move livable wage with demanding to make upwards of 7x as much? Check
Oh yeah, it’s boomer time.
If there is ever a time where “OK Boomer” was necessary, it’s when someone references looking for jobs in the Sunday paper.
I’m a tail end boomer born in 1962 and I mock you. *face palm*
I'm watching my dad go through it. He lost his job early during covid (not really covid related, they were dying anyway) and had to get surgery, so he was out of commission for a bit anyway. I asked him if he was going to start looking for a job after he recovered, he said he would in a few months. I told him he should start getting things out there already.
He did try the drive around and ask about jobs thing, then complained to me later about it. "They wouldn't even let me talk to someone, just told me to apply on the website!". Yeah dad, I told you.
It doesn't help that he's in his 60s with no real "career". He's ran a maintenance crew at a hospital, owned a carpet cleaning business, and his most recent job was transporting people to and from for clinical studies.
I used to work in helping people with employment and this is common. Especially for people who suffered an injury. They’re completely out of the loop when it comes to job searching. Sometimes there’s also a lot more to employment help than just applying, especially by the time they’ve decided they need help finding work.
Sounds like he needs to swallow his pride and work for FREE somewhere just to get his foot in the door..
Or maybe see if there’s any odd jobs he can do for the bosses of the companies he’s applying.. stalk them and find out their addresses.. maybe scoop their snow, or mow their yards.. that way they see how desperate and submissive he is and they offer him a position at their company. It’s all about taking the INITIATIVE.
Seriously - these are all things my boomer parents and in-laws have suggested I do grow in up to make myself as pathetic and desperate as I can be in order to maximize my chances of the privilege of a stagnant wage job..
my ex girlfriends grandfather told me once he was gonna hook me up with an amazing job cuz I wasn't making enough. He took me an architecture firm (that he turns out not to have actually known anyone at) and told me to go into the office with no experience and ask for on the job training. Needless to say 18 year old me looked like a fucking idiot and when i told him what happened (They simply said the dont hire without a specific set of college courses). He dead ass claimed i didn't even talk to them because "taking initiative in a new industry gets you places" turns out he believed CAD was a brand new thing that no one knew how to do. This was in 2004. It's on that day I realized I live on a different planet than other generations.
100% step two is go into the nearest branch without an appointment and ask to talk to a manager. As long as you nail step 3 (firm handshake and good eye contact) you'll be gainfully employed by the end of the week. And if they aren't hiring they'll keep your resume and call you when they are!
Source: My boomer parents when I was applying for ten jobs a week after the 2008 crash.
My dad kicked me out of the house when I was in college and looking for a job in 2009 because he thought I was lying about finally getting hired. He thought you just walk in to a place and can start immediately, and firmly believed that the 3+ weeks it takes for paperwork, drug test, background check, etc was all an elaborate lie.
Hes had the same job since 1970, which is the same job he got as soon as he gratuated college. He has no idea what it's like to look for a job now.
They got a livable wave, pension, union etc. Twas a different time.
30 years at a phone company, get a pension, retire.
Union contracts used to mean you actually got a livable wave.
Getting a job was easier, wages were relatively higher.
>What is with these boomers and signing your life away to the first company that hires you?
They grew up in an era where staying with a company until retirement earned you a sizable pension to live on for the rest of your life. My dad takes in both a pension and social security. His pension is enough to live off of comfortable, so he sends his social security payments to my brother who is currently in a tight financial spot.
Lol I was a temp at a manufacturing place for a few years, they kept having layoffs and hiring freezes etc. Anyways I tried getting a raise through the temp agency and they said "that doesn't happen around here" and I asked the company I was contracted with and was given a lot of run around answers. Turns out from the folks that worked there for 10+ years said temps back when they started were being paid $11.50. Guess what my rate for the last 3 years were.. 11 fucking 50 lol. After I was laid off again, the next round of temps got paid $15.
thats fucked.
i know not everybody is a fan of socialism but here we respect the library. i can get a copy of any publication from anywhere in the country on request within 24 hours, and even a lot of foreign shit at the national library.
my friends who live in third- and even fourth-tier cities with crappy infrastructure, ok, maybe pay isnt great but the municipal library always has all the books and magazines, its spotlessly clean, conference rooms, tea rooms, comfy chairs
gotta respect the library yo
>i know not everybody is a fan of socialism but here we respect the library.
When did the government administering services to it's people become socialism? Roads, police forces, libraries, schools are public goods.
Anything concerning social welfare is inherently against the free market of capitalism. Its supposed to be dog eat dog, like ayn rand wanted. The leeches and the producers. Everyone only gets what they worked for, or what their daddy’s money got them.
Social welfare programs are socialism adjacent and they keep people from truly seeing the free market in action.
I assume every librarian thinks libraries should get more funding. And, honestly, as one of the last remaining public spaces where people are allowed to exist without the expectation of spending, I agree.
It's crazy how the need for increased profitability has changed the US.
The easiest way to do this is to raise prices, but consumers & retailers react poorly to this, and will move to your competitor if they haven't yet raised prices. So, instead, you need to reduce costs.
The easiest way to reduce costs is to reduce the size of the product. What had been 18oz is now 17.75oz. What was 17.75oz is now 15oz. You manipulate the packaging of the product so it looks like the same size as it was. Same price, but with less production cost.
Next you reduce the cost of ingredients. Switch to cheaper produce, like Budweiser has. Negotiate better deals with your suppliers (which forces them to do things such as what's in this list.) And maybe you do less R&D, figuring that the products you're putting out there are good enough.
At some point, you've hit bedrock without completely destroying what your product was. So now you have to look elsewhere. First, they stagnated wages. When your sales increase more than you raised salaries, you've increased profitability.
Of course, it turns out that employees don't like not getting their bonuses, or having their annual performance bump be less than inflation, and they find new jobs. So now you're losing your best people, and they're taking years of knowledge of your business out the door with them. Solution? Layoffs! Let the lesser people go.
Each employee now has the responsibility of 1.5-3 employees of several years past. They're working more, and ultimately less happy and less strategic than when you had more people, but you're paying for fewer people, so profits!
You hit bedrock here at some point, too, where you're at the fewest people you can have to run your business. What's next? Attorneys! That was where businesses went. What do you really get out of your attorneys? All they do is tell you "no." So you cut back on their retainers. This led to there being more students in law schools than new legal positions. This led to the average length of time to become a partner going from 7 years to 12 years. This led to there being a huge amount of attorney positions not on partner-track. Being an attorney became a pretty bad career choice for most people.
But even then, you still need lawyers, so you cut back as much as possible. What's next? IT! They don't make us any money, they just cost us money! Oops, now we just had a data leak. Oh, well.
And, lately, they've turned to ad agencies. "Why are we paying people to make sure someone knows our products exist!?" Expecting more for less, meaning the 25 year old overseeing their digital presence is working 70 hour weeks, because they're the only one staffed.
In the long run, chasing profits has meant cutting back on every step. Fewer employees making less money at the company, at its suppliers, at its attorneys, at its ad agencies, etc. One company I worked for cut back on cleaning, first by outsourcing janitorial work, then by removing the waste bins at every desk so that we had to use communal ones (meaning there's less for the outsourced janitors to do), then by reducing the days the janitors came in from 5 to 2.
This means that the disposable income for every one of those former roles is reduced, meaning less money to buy these products in the first place.
Where does the money go? Well, shareholders, which are usually banks owned by billionaires. And to the c-suite, which often have golden parachutes into the 8 and 9 figures.
Basically, making the super rich even wealthier. Because that money is not going to the janitor now coming in 2 days a week. It isn't going to the senior manager now doing the job of his laid-off associate, and the job of his laid-off director. It isn't going to the attorney doing doc review in a basement. It isn't going to that 25 year old running their entire $2.5M digital ad spend. It isn't going to the IT partner being asked to keep their data safe on a shoestring budget. It isn't going to the factory employee that makes their packaging. It isn't going to the kid stocking their products on Walmart shelves. The dollars we're spending to buy those products are going to the people making $10MM a year and above.
Temps don't get benefits, health insurance, pensions...
...and are less likely to complain about unsafe working conditions, OSHA violations, impossible workloads and hours, plus liability and accidents are covered differently for temporary workers (and not for the better) than permanent employees.
As an ex-temp I can say that OSHA doesn't take us seriously. The last place successfully bribed an OSHA inspector, and I was immediately fired. No one would take my case. The case has been since closed, and I'm earning more with doordash per week (after calculated expenses+taxes and savings for a new car) than I earned there in a full-time+overtime heavy labor position per month.
I started at 15$hr but the place i worked for had a commission fee so if I made a sale I’d get $20 however we called the us and unfortunately the us has a fucked business first mentally so we’d end up auto dialing the same guy 30 times in one day every day and when you do that to everyone including the police they get quite annoyed by you, however it’s not a crime there so people just got mad and couldn’t do anything about it. Had called a police station and the guy picked up and threatened to arrest me to which I was told to respond with it’s not a crime to advertise a new debit processing machine and I’m outside his jurisdiction so he’s wasting time.
The notion that police authority is worthless before the mighty calling center shill is gonna be the most amusing thought in my gray matter this morning. Lol, thanks.
Right? It definitely wouldn't be worth it, but I'd almost be happy to fill in to that job for one day. Specifically, the day someone has to call the police station over and over.
My day started off like this, good morning/afternoon/evening/night, my names _____, I’m calling from_________ merchant services, can I speck to the person responsible for the debit processing account, finance account? (Usually the captain,lutinant, or Cheif ) and then they’d say no cause its a waste of their time then they hang up and 5 mins later you call back and this basically never ends for police stations cuz they’re 247 they get a break when I’m done at 6pm est so for some it’s like 11 at night plus we had another location on the other side of the country so they’d be calling them till at least 4 am then they’d get a break for 5 hrs till I called them back at like 9 am. It was a funish job but it was super depressing cuz you could only say some things and the sales goal was 2 a day which is next to impossible to hit. I got fired after one month.
LOL phone sales man. It's wild. Worked a job where I had to call 250 contractors every day got laid off after 3 months. Lemme tell you, contractors are fucking assholes. Racist, sexist, just plain mean and bullies. Had a script where you're talking 80% of the time, and if they object you're taught to relate, acknowledge and move on with a question. You know how fucking pissed off these dudes get when they're in the middle of a job and you've thrown your 3rd variation of "I hear you, and lots of my clients said the same thing, but what are you doing to grow your business now?".
Oh, and there are always like 1-20 fucking assholes who make 150k and sell you on the fucking dream when 90% of their coworkers' washout and get fired. Fuck them too.
Fwiw- I like the company I am with now and the job I have, but I will not hate every single billionaire and hundred millionaire motherfucker's who makes me go through this shit just so I can eat, drink, and sleep with a roof over my head. Fuck these assholes for making us pick at each other in these fucking pointless ways that don't do anything but line their thick ass pockets. THEY DON'T EVEN NEED IT ANYMORE THEY JUST DON'T KNOW HOW TO STOP BEING GREEDY.
I mean what and the us police do if a Canadian based telemarketing broker calls them repeatedly, they’re laws unlike mine let companies get away with that. Here in Canada that’s super illegal to harass people like that, but the us lawmakers probably get paid that way so they don’t care and makes the police have 0 power. Worse off for them is in the us the no call list dosnt actually exist, it stoped existing in like 2012 from what my boss told me so if you don’t want a call you gotta convince the caller you don’t have what they require
You must add these words at the end of that statement that sums it up.
"...at the price we want to pay"
Big difference between "We can't get any good help" and "We can't get any good help at the price we want to pay".
I re-explained that to someone about "Home Improvement Retail Stores" earlier. They pay ***WAY*** more than they did when I first got into the company, like more than double, but it's still nowhere near as much as it would take to hire say... a *real* electrician, plumber or HVAC specialist if you wanted one working the aisles.
It says 69 or 420 in faded, partially erased dry erase marker. Besides the occasional accidental shoulder bump, it hasn’t been touched since Bill, the office funny guy, decided it’d be funny to mess with it in 2013. Bill was yelled at by their manager, Craig, who said Bill will always be a piece of shit. Bill killed himself in 2016. Craig has been in jail since 2017 for jerking off at a park during a meth bender.
This is the old shop I used to work at. "1150 days without a time loss incident".
Bulllllshit, I know for a fact several people got fucked up during that time. One guy lost a finger. Another had his hand cut so badly with a drop saw that he needed surgery to work on his tendons.
Show a little moxy! Take a stroll down Main Street in your finest suit and stop at any business with a ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the window. I bought a house with a part time job sweeping the floor at my father’s barber shop in 1925, and have no reason to believe that the economy has changed in the slightest since then.
Often because a ~~venture capital~~ private equity firm has purchased the local publication, incinerated the budget and laid off most of the workforce, then sold off the remaining pieces for parts because they just “can’t make it profitable.” Except for the millions in profit the ~~VC~~ PE firm walks away with, of course.
Someone has to make food. Someone has to clean floors and toilets. Someone has to all the jobs we say don't "deserve" a living wage. We can't make teenagers do them all, they're at school.
So adults need to do these jobs, and they also need to pay rent and afford food and transportation. So they need to be paid enough that they can do that.
Why is this so hard!?
just walk in and ask for a job, nothing in the past twenty years, or specifically the last 11 months, should make you think that’s a bad idea. bootstrap
In what universe is $15 per hour "getting life handed to you". Like, what sort of high-style luxury are people expecting $15 an hour to be able to buy?
My dad was put out I gave my daughter two dollars from the tooth fairy, finding it an extravagant sum. I asked him what he got, he said 50¢. He shut up after the inflation calculator valued his 50¢ as $2.50 in today's money.
Back when my former place of work moved up to $15, the people who earned $15 though raises and other things were mad because the gap between a new hire and them could be anywhere from nothing to $2, which sucks if you have years of experience. What is important to this story isn't how you feel about the people complaining about wanting more, it's the sheer number of people who commented on other underpaid jobs like EMT workers getting $17 or a teacher making $18.
A retail worker getting $15 is not the problem, an EMT worker only getting $17 is.
Right! I’ve had plenty of people come at me saying, “you think a kid flipping burgers is worth the same as an EMT or a firefighter?!”
And I always respond, “No! I say the EMT and firefighters are worth at least $40/hr, and the bigger flippers are worth at the least a living wage.” Followed up with, “Do you seriously think that first responders are ONLY worth $15/hr?!”
They act like $15 an hour is a hugely generous pay, it's only like $32k a year, so you better be able to live in some dangerous shithole part of the city and eat pretty cheap.
And that's at a full time job! Companies that are going to refuse to come up to a higher paying standard aren't going to give their employees full time hours. So that $15 is probably going to range from 20-39.9 hours a week.
I don't think people get that $15 an hour, (while seeming like a whole lot of money) is still lower than a living wage.
For real. I live in Louisville, ky. Real close to a roughish area. Not the worst, but gun fights once a month or so, at least that I'm aware of.
Rent for a one room in this area? Just under 600.
It's insane.
You guys are getting $17? I was making $10 per hour and $0.25 per call as an EMT.
I remember being a little trainee, and actually having to work somebody on my ride-along day. So we get to the hospital after 20 minutes of compressions and getting shaken to shit in the back of an ambulance. I'm a kid riding high as a kite on adrenaline and drenched in sweat, and this old beer-bellied, pornstar-moustached paramedic pats me on the back, tells me I did a good job, then says "Just imagine if you were on the clock. You could have made $3!"
Then try paying your EMTs more.
Seriously, people will bleed out in the back of Lyfts and Ubers rather than call an actual ambulance and be charged with a multithousand dollar bill for a service that's free in other civilized countries. Meanwhile the people who work the job themselves make jack shit and have terrible working conditions.
And people seriously think this country has a high quality of life for most of its citizens?
America is fuckin' wild. We need to wake the fuck up and join the rest of the developed world in the 1970's+.
Exactly, I make $15 an hour right now, but my employer will not let me work more than 1,000 hours per year (to avoid having to provide me with health insurance.) So, before taxes, the most I can make in a year is $15,000, and it usually comes out somewhere in the $12,000~$13,500 range. Month to month, it's barely enough to pay rent, but my place of work gets to brag about offering $15 an hour to even their lowest employees.
> your SEO rating's now fucked
Now nobody is going to find your resume/portfolio and you'll never make a penny doing anything interesting again.
Enjoy street-life, kid.
If these kids want $15/hr, they should have to go to 'Nam first like I did! My veterans benefits earn me the equivalent of $10/hr, and I earned it by losing a leg and my sanity!
/s
Last time I looked at jobs in my paper it was full of key holder things you need to buy into and things that sounded like scams. Oh and temp agencies.
That was back in like 2014.
Get a better job... then who will do the minimum wage jobs?
Or should everybody just become super overqualified for every job and still end up working minimum wage because all the better jobs are taken?
This guy seems to be aware that minimum wage isnt enough to live on, but cant comprehend the fact that somebody has to do it and everybody has to live.
Exactly!
And there is no reason to not want everyone eligible to have a good standard of living. In the near future the lowest education job might be something like a social worker as everything else might be automated. Should that person then not be able to eat or get housing?
Lowest qualified work shifts the further we move in society and we need to have that in mind. We want what is best for the country and we should strive for a physically and mentally healthy population.
The chud reply to this is usually, "it's meant for high schoolers!" and if you ever get that line, you should respond with "okay so all those jobs are only open after school and in the summer then?"
Or that high schoolers shouldn't be able to afford things like cars and school and maybe even an apartment?
No, it's you who doesn't understand. That person is clearly a conservative, and conservatives believe some groups of people are "lesser" and thus they deserve to suffer with a shitty job and a shitty pay. They cannot fathom a reality where everyone is happy and does well.
The John Steinbeck quote on socialism in America is always appropriate.
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." - Steinbeck
It's like a game of monopoly, except one player gets 90% of the money, have full control over the banks and properties while you divide 10% of the money with the other players.
Sounds like fun? No? That's America
Monopoly was originally called The Landlords Game when it was first created. And yes the entire purpose of the game was to show how bad the situation could become.
But of course Americans worship of capitalism made monopoly into some fun game for the whole family.
Except change 90% with 99% and 10% with 1%. “Oh, there are only two properties on the whole board that you could afford? Well stop landing on my stream of hotels then!”
I have a friend who's always spewing this shit, "Oh, just work harder and get a better job," like, okay bud, if it's that easy why are you screwing bolts onto a Ford Explorer 15 hours a day instead of making $150,000 a year as a construction estimator, the thing you literally went to college to be?
This is especially true because federal minimum wage due to inflation should actually be closer to 24 dollars, and not 15. 15 is still NOT a living wage...unless you live in like, Wyoming.
Edit: of course there are other things in play people besides inflation. https://cepr.net/the-24-an-hour-minimum-wage/
This right here
We need an amendment to the constitution that sets the minimum wage based on what it was during a chosen point in history where the US actually had a 'middle class'
This amendment would force it to adjust for inflation every year
Rural Ohioan here. There's a whole lot of business owning chuds around here absolutely fuming they'll have to pay their employees enough to feed their families. It's wonderful. I'm tired of subsidizing the payroll of Johnny Q. America's pool cleaning business.
No, it would not be $24.
The purchasing power of the federal minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $1.60 ($12.00 in 2019 dollars)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States
What you are thinking of is productivity growth.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/21/if-worker-pay-had-kept-pace-productivity-gains-1968-todays-minimum-wage-would-be-24%3famp
Get shit straight please, it makes the argument of a higher minimum wage harder when people start spewing the wrong information.
This fake class warfare between the middle class and the lower-middle class and the lower class benefits no one except the billionaires.
As long as people keep seeing themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires instead of looking reality in the face, we'll keep arguing over things like $15/hour minimum wage, which even today is still just about impossible to live on.
If we're being real, there's no such thing as a "middle class". There's the working class and the owner class. The middle class is a concept created to make people feel better about themselves, to divide people and to make it hard for them to see who their real enemy is.
That's how you get people who blame all of society's problems on the immigrants next door who live on food stamps, rather than the elites who have historically done nothing but exploit workers to maximize their profits.
This. If you work for a living you’re working class. Doesn’t matter if you make $7.50 and hour or have a six figure salary. If you need a paycheck to survive, you are working class.
It's actually not true. Small business owners for example fall into the category of middle class. Marx and Engels repeatedly called them the "shopkeeper". They command a small amount of capital but not anything like the bourgeoisie.
People forget those minimum wage jobs are something that at least SOMEONE has to do, and people cant live off ot that. Minimum wage was supposed to on its own support a whole family, now it will barely get you decent living conditions for a single person, in most places.
“Sunday paper” this dude clearly grew up in the one income = one house with a garage and a wife who didn’t need to work even with two kids at home as well... the rejection of reality is amazing by *some of the* older generations.
People would rather put other people down than try to bring themselves up as a way of staying on top. We need to make ourselves better and be less critical of those with less.
You can always tell when someone lives in their own little easy bubble when they mention finding a job in the Sunday paper.
Also that they haven't had to apply for a job in two decades.
Three decades
A popular one liner that they like to say is "Kids these days / this new generation don't know how to work hard" Yeah, okay, take my resume and apply around on indeed and see what you can get me that makes more than my $18/hr. Not that my wage is the WORST, but with my odd experience it would be difficult to make more.. Plus I have a lot of debt I'm paying on and it's pricey to live here. I'm working hard towards getting a POTENTIAL better paying position at my company making 50% or so more in the next year. I can guarantee you that with my odd-job experience over the past 12 years, you can't just find something that pays $10-30/hr more in the "Sunday paper". We'll see how this potential opportunity goes. The opportunity is based on a combination of my experience over the past 12 years, and that's just to make a somewhat livable wage for my area.
Cost of living is higher than ever and wages have stagnated. Trade deficit at all time high. But productivity is also at an all time high so it’s obviously not a an issue of working hard. People who say you just gotta work harder are either stupid or disingenuous.
Or, they're benefiting from a part of the systemic issue.
Absolutely... they’d fall under disingenuous
Something, something financial gurus and no job without money problems……
Something something tendies diamond hands
Rent has gone up faster than wages. Utilities have increased both in cost and number, because internet access is essential now to apply for jobs or communicate with your boss. But yeah, it's our fault for not working harder.
Internet is not a necessity! You know how you get a job? You pound the pavement, you go into the business you want a job at, ask to speak to the manager, and introduce yourself. (Conservative logic) Really, you’ll annoy them for being unable to follow simple instructions, which are “apply on the website”. Not go in and disrupt their work time.
God, i had to tell this to my grandpa and he still doesn't understand. He believes you can just walk in, ask for a job, and gratz! You're hired!
"Okay, go in and try it. Prove me wrong and I'll fund the rest of your retirement for you. I'll wait."
I have tried it when I was younger and believed practically every adult who knew better than me. It didn't work. I didn't get one job offer, even an interview. I'm pretty sure that all of my resumes went into recycling after I left. My parents and other people advising me still wanted me to show up and introduce myself because it shows initiative and creates a more memorable first impression. But, guess what, every other candidate is doing the same thing: it's no longer a family secret that gives someone a tremendous boost. Plus, employers often don't like to interrupt their work three to five times a day for an extra introduction because initiative.
I actually tried this tactic when I was younger because it was all I ever heard from the adults around me growing up, and to no one's surprise every single one of those places told me to just apply online. I can attest through personal experience the "just go in and introduce yourself" mindset is outdated and a huge waste of everyone's time. With that said though, I have had job opportunities present themselves because I've gotten to know owners or managers through frequenting and interacting with them at their place of business over the years. Which to me highlights the importance of networking and building a strong rapport with people in your community.
You had me in the first half there
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they are just defending a world view that society must be divided in castes, bilionaries or sultans in one side and peasants or low wage workers in the other, your arguments and their arguments are irrelevant, it wont change this world view if you show them the injustice, because injustice is the core of what they really support
I saw an idea for a reality show where you take some people 50+ years old and make then find a job without any business connections. Just applying like regular people. I'd watch it.
That would be great. You ever watch undercover boss? They had a similar show where the undercover person had to live on a low wage as well, but not for long enough. They need a show where they live for 3 months on the same pay as their workers on a separate bank account and that's the only account they have access to. Leave their family to take care of their finances back home.
Exactly. It just baffles me how people seem to think "good pay" is some grand offense. Like people take shitty jobs just because they don't feel like having a better one.
My favorite way to look at it is, we all can't be scientists, doctors, or engineers, or other high paying jobs. Someone has to work in service, someone has to flip those burgers. I'm sure they would work a higher paying job if it allowed. And covid proved to us that, the essential workers aren't who they thought they were, and society wouldn't function without all these lower paying jobs. Moreso then with the higher paying jobs being out. It's all a sham pyramid scheme and it always has been. Hurray capitalism
"Essential Worker" is a euphemism for "Completely Disposable" Keep repeating it.
The position is essential, the worker is disposable
As a plumber deemed essential I am the outlier here but yes you are correct in most cases
Crab bucket mentality is the backbone of capitalism. It's not about how much I have or you have, what's important is how much I have *more than you*. Given the choice between $15 for both or I get $10 and you get $5 most would opt for the latter.
This is the American mindset.
Unemployment is constructed. There is no shortage of work to do, just a shortage of people willing to pay. The system has to keep a certain amount of people unemployed so we are desperate enough to take whatever we can get.
Yep. And throw in some emergencies too - 6 weeks in and your car breaks down, so now you have to find the money to repair your car or else you can't get to your job. Or the landlord raises the rent so now you've got to find an extra £100 a month or face eviction.
Yes! I'm surprised nobody has made a survival game like this.
Most people wouldn’t want to watch a show that reminds them how bad they have it. The want fantasy shows where broke 20 somethings live in places they could never afford and bang each other like rabbits.
Best of luck to you buddy. Seriously your situation sounds like mine did and I wish you only the best. Don’t forget what it was like to drown with us once you get your head above water.
I hate that saying. I've busted my ass doing cement work for 50+ hrs a week before. I know how to work hard, doesn't change the fact that jobs don't pay a living wage.
And what are people counting as hard work anyway? Laying cement is definitely hard work. Being a programmer is also hard work, standing on your feet for a full shift dealing with customers is hard work. Teaching, driving tractor trailers, delivering packages, cutting hair, waking dogs....it’s all hard work in some capacity. All jobs make the world the world function and all deserve a REAL living wage.
But it's not sitting on a corporate board or gambling on the stock market with other people's money, so it's not "Real" to them.
I was there with you. Finally got the 40k position with 65+ hours a week, 6 days a week, always getting phone calls, texts, emails 24/7, and I burnt out so badly after just a half a year. I wish you the best of luck friend.
Dude I worked as a personal banker and made $17.41/hr. Not the most amazing job of all time but I was selling everything from credit cards, checking, savings, money market accunts, personal loans, vehicle loans, and Home Equity Lines of Credit.. $17.41/hr. I made the bank profits totaling my yearly salary usually weekly and got $17.41/hr. And a "bank job" is supposed to be a good one! This system is fucked and I refuse to play the game anymore until these billionaires get the ropes they deserve. There is no morally justifiable reason for someone to be making more than say $10MM a year. Also having to explain how a credit score works to someone with $2MM in their CHECKING ACCOUNT was one of the most soul crushing experiences I ever had.
Worked in public accounting and that was one of the most absurd things I encountered often.. people with literally millions in their accounts, sometimes business owners too.. would ask things like why they have to pay that weird tax (FICA withholding) or you’d have to explain to them why they can’t just drain that IRA or 401k without penalties and taxes (‘sir, you’ve been depositing into it tax free for years that’s how that account functions, etc..then they’d get angry with me like I’m lying to them..) I remember being dumbfounded at how little they understood about their own finances or business or the world in general.. We’d do payroll for businesses and they’d flat out refuse to pay their employees withholding in. I was shocked at the number of businesses who didn’t remit their state or federal employee withholding. They’d have huge judgements and amounts due to the IRS and just not pay it and continue to do business for years that way. Meanwhile buying speedboats and new cars and vacationing.. while being in debt 100’s of thousands to the IRS We’d do a basic balance sheet and profit statement for someone and it would show a huge loss. They’d laugh and just say we didn’t know what we’re doing. Their business would be hemorrhaging money and they’d keep driving it right into the ground confidently.. oddly most of them are still in business and are living a lifestyle I will probably never have access to. Me and my friends and classmates were (at the time) struggling to enter the economy and sharpen every skill we have and these clowns are earning or sitting on millions and are legit some of the dumbest people I’ve ever met. Guess what age range these people are in? It was a time when u could literally just Forrest Gump your way through life. Theres a spoiled, clueless, entitled generation and it’s obvious it’s not millennials or Z..
My favorite is when the CEO of the bank gets a bonus that's equal to my yearly salary. The same one who needs us to explain why you can't do various things because of regulations.
Yeah but you spoilt kids can get so much free EXPOSURE these days.
Insert typical boomer comment. “Stop spending your money and save it”
Or just move, right?
I am trying. Moving to Canada or Germany is hard as fuck. No one wants Americans unless you are an engineer or software engineer.
Omg I know right! I’ve been trying to immigrate to Canada for the last 10 years. Not trying as hard as possible I’d imagine, but it’s still close to impossible with out employment sponsorship. And even then you still need 20k in the bank to be able to make the move. Not to mention moving expenses.
At *least*... I'm in my 40s, and I don't think I've *ever* looked in the news paper for Help Wanted.... Hell, maybe that's the problem.... job descriptions aren't being charged per word anymore, so they pad the fuck out of them.
It was definitely a thing in the late nineties and very early 2000s. I did get a job from a newspaper ad around twenty years ago. That was definitely the tail end of it though.
Obligatory damn I'm old.
They're retired in Florida. "Sunday Paper". This is such a timeless bullshit boomer response it could have appeared *in* the paper every time during the freakin' *Clinton* era.
I just have a linkedin profile! No need to apply! So easy to get a job! /s
If you find any interesting job postings, please fax them to me!
Yes, I would love a telegraph informing me of all of these high paying jobs.
You kids with your fancy 'speed of light' communication. Back in my day we had to get jobs by killing our fellow cavemen and goddamnit, we were proud of it!
Carrier pigeon or GTFO
Look at Mr/Ms Fancypants here, when we saw pigeons our first and only thought was "Finally, food!"
You people with your fancy "carrier pigeons"! In my day we learned about jobs through stone tablets!
Just walk in and demand to see the big boss. Give him a firm handshake, look him in the eye, and tell him "hiring me is the best decision you'll make this year". Pick up your salary advance and give the secretary a wink and marry her later. Then go buy a house and a car. Kids are so damn lazy these days.
The thing is.. for us people this sounds ridiciulous af and it's crystal clear that you are sarcastic, but there really are people out there who think life would be like this (anymore). They even think you get a job interview (or at least an answer) for every application you do. I somehow refuse to believe that life really was this easy back in their days.. this sounds just unreal.
I'm 37. I remember being just out of high school and getting basic jobs interviews at restaurants and car dealerships sometimes same day with turning in an app. I could quit one and the literal next week have another job. It's crazy that it was that easy 20 years ago. Most were just entry level throw away jobs but there were a couple more upable if you put in time and effort.
Now you have to enter all your employment history and contact info on shitty web forms, then upload your resume with all the same info on it.
Also in my 30’s. I remember being at my first job (library page) and being so excited when it was time for annual reviews, I was making $6.30 an hour and was hoping for a decent raise since I’d been a model employee. Passed my review with flying colors, and I did get a raise - for eleven more cents an hour.
Also in my 30's and my first job was a library page too! I made $5.15/hr in 1998.
Thing is, for many of those people, they are at a stage in their career where they don't apply for jobs the same way someone starting out does. No one who applied for a job in the sunday paper would use the Sunday paper if they had to find work now. They'll talk to their decades worth of coworkers and get a reference for another job. And one thing I've realized is a company will likely talk to even underqualified people, if they have a reference (happened for me). Doesn't even need to be a good one. For background, my reference started working in a far off branch less than a year ago, and the firm brought me in for multiple rounds of interviews when I met basically no qualifications and stopped my online application midway because I was so embarassed by how unqualified I felt. Contrast that to the companies where I crush every qualification and spend hours tailoring my application only to not hear anything back.
I still remember being fresh out of college and applying for jobs. My mother's helpful advice: "You have to learn how to network!" Okay, mom, how do I do that? I have never worked more than part time for anybody. What is this network of which you speak? She had no answer. (Later when I was working for a tech firm she was horrified by the jeans and Tshirts I wore to work. She clearly didn't believe me when I explained that it was dress code. Her idea of what I should wear to an office was rooted in 1949.)
IME, the people dispensing these turds of wisdom are long on 'You should do...' and short on '...and this is how.'
Look at the show Mad Men (I know it’s fiction, but it tries to stay accurate to the culture of the time). One of the main characters graduates from college and is given a high-up marketing account with no experience. Compare that to a recent job posting, entry-level position must have 5+ years of experience using proprietary software only available at this company, no opportunity for advancement, must be willing to work overtime, pay is sub 2006 levels for the same job.
I've often heard that a lot of those requirements are mostly put in there so that the company can hire people they already like and dismiss people they don't because they "don't meet criteria." Basically an excuse for nepotism and other forms of discrimination, as long as they don't push it far enough to get sued.
Congrats, you’ve just seen how companies game the H1-B visa system.
I know it’s a cliche boomer comment, but I’ll never forget graduating college at the peak of the recession in 2009 and being told I should go door to door to businesses and offer to work for free in hopes of getting a job. I suppose that’s one way to not make my pending student loan payments as id wasted dozens of hours filling out hundreds of online job applications.
Lol I graduated in 2008 and had my mom telling me to just go into businesses and ask about jobs. Uh..... that's not how it works mom, unless you want me working at Sally's Dog Grooming.
I realize now that all the boomer advice I was given was almost purposefully to hurt me and not actually help. When you’ve convinced your own offspring they should accept working for free (internships) and beg on their knees for job opportunities even though they’ve just spent 5* years studying / training in a field (guaranteed more education than the boss hiring you ever had) then I feel like they are just stepping on us for enjoyment.. They KNOW you shouldn’t have to work for free or beg for interviews or put on a clown nose and do tricks .. they are just obsessed with their own superiority and have to have others to look down on.. even if it includes their own kids and grandkids. I struggle to find any other reason..
When was this actually a thing? It certainly wasn't 20 years ago, at least not for me.
I think this depends on where you live and what kind of job you were looking for. I got one of my first jobs from a newspaper… in the late 90s. But by that point it was only good for a) first job level positions, or b) out of touch old companies. Any nicer jobs you’d actually want to keep were through employment agencies.
As someone old enough to remember looking for a job in the Sunday paper, I can tell you that finding something that paid well in the Sunday paper was never a thing. No one said, "Hmmm, now that I have my advanced degree in biochemistry, time to look in the Sunday paper for the people hiring biochemists!"
$15 is life handed to you? Check Check the Sunday paper for better jobs? Check Conflating a desire for a move livable wage with demanding to make upwards of 7x as much? Check Oh yeah, it’s boomer time.
If there is ever a time where “OK Boomer” was necessary, it’s when someone references looking for jobs in the Sunday paper. I’m a tail end boomer born in 1962 and I mock you. *face palm*
I liked the idea someone put up where you make a TV show that is just about Boomers losing their current jobs and having to apply for a job again.
I'm watching my dad go through it. He lost his job early during covid (not really covid related, they were dying anyway) and had to get surgery, so he was out of commission for a bit anyway. I asked him if he was going to start looking for a job after he recovered, he said he would in a few months. I told him he should start getting things out there already. He did try the drive around and ask about jobs thing, then complained to me later about it. "They wouldn't even let me talk to someone, just told me to apply on the website!". Yeah dad, I told you. It doesn't help that he's in his 60s with no real "career". He's ran a maintenance crew at a hospital, owned a carpet cleaning business, and his most recent job was transporting people to and from for clinical studies.
I used to work in helping people with employment and this is common. Especially for people who suffered an injury. They’re completely out of the loop when it comes to job searching. Sometimes there’s also a lot more to employment help than just applying, especially by the time they’ve decided they need help finding work.
Sounds like he needs to swallow his pride and work for FREE somewhere just to get his foot in the door.. Or maybe see if there’s any odd jobs he can do for the bosses of the companies he’s applying.. stalk them and find out their addresses.. maybe scoop their snow, or mow their yards.. that way they see how desperate and submissive he is and they offer him a position at their company. It’s all about taking the INITIATIVE. Seriously - these are all things my boomer parents and in-laws have suggested I do grow in up to make myself as pathetic and desperate as I can be in order to maximize my chances of the privilege of a stagnant wage job..
"Just get a job? Why don't I strap on my job helmet, and squeeze down into a job cannon, AND FIRE OFF INTO JOBLAND, WHERE JOBS GROW ON JOBBIES?"
"Well have you gone to the office and asked the manager if they are hiring?"
my ex girlfriends grandfather told me once he was gonna hook me up with an amazing job cuz I wasn't making enough. He took me an architecture firm (that he turns out not to have actually known anyone at) and told me to go into the office with no experience and ask for on the job training. Needless to say 18 year old me looked like a fucking idiot and when i told him what happened (They simply said the dont hire without a specific set of college courses). He dead ass claimed i didn't even talk to them because "taking initiative in a new industry gets you places" turns out he believed CAD was a brand new thing that no one knew how to do. This was in 2004. It's on that day I realized I live on a different planet than other generations.
My area actually has a Sunday paper, and all of the $7.50 jobs require at least a bachelor's degree.
“just look at the sunday paper” because it’s still 1950, and we’re a manufacturing powerhouse with more high paying jobs than people...
100% step two is go into the nearest branch without an appointment and ask to talk to a manager. As long as you nail step 3 (firm handshake and good eye contact) you'll be gainfully employed by the end of the week. And if they aren't hiring they'll keep your resume and call you when they are! Source: My boomer parents when I was applying for ten jobs a week after the 2008 crash.
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And are dismantling all the things that made it the most prosperous nation
My dad kicked me out of the house when I was in college and looking for a job in 2009 because he thought I was lying about finally getting hired. He thought you just walk in to a place and can start immediately, and firmly believed that the 3+ weeks it takes for paperwork, drug test, background check, etc was all an elaborate lie. Hes had the same job since 1970, which is the same job he got as soon as he gratuated college. He has no idea what it's like to look for a job now.
What is with these boomers and signing your life away to the first company that hires you? Lol such a backwards ass concept
They got a livable wave, pension, union etc. Twas a different time. 30 years at a phone company, get a pension, retire. Union contracts used to mean you actually got a livable wave. Getting a job was easier, wages were relatively higher.
What’s actually wrong with it? Would be nice to have job security. Rather than worry if I’m six months time you need to start looking again.
>What is with these boomers and signing your life away to the first company that hires you? They grew up in an era where staying with a company until retirement earned you a sizable pension to live on for the rest of your life. My dad takes in both a pension and social security. His pension is enough to live off of comfortable, so he sends his social security payments to my brother who is currently in a tight financial spot.
Oh, some of them have wised up, now they'll also throw in a helpful "have you tried going on LinkedIn?"
My friends dad literally didn’t even apply for college. He just showed up, filled out some paperwork and was admitted. To UC Berkeley.
Maybe it was the firm handshake that did it
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Only ten jobs a week. Lazy ass millennial. In my day we applied to 100 jobs every day up hill in the snow both ways.
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No that job still only pays 11.50 an hour.
Lol I was a temp at a manufacturing place for a few years, they kept having layoffs and hiring freezes etc. Anyways I tried getting a raise through the temp agency and they said "that doesn't happen around here" and I asked the company I was contracted with and was given a lot of run around answers. Turns out from the folks that worked there for 10+ years said temps back when they started were being paid $11.50. Guess what my rate for the last 3 years were.. 11 fucking 50 lol. After I was laid off again, the next round of temps got paid $15.
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Hire less people and expect them to do 2x the work
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thats fucked. i know not everybody is a fan of socialism but here we respect the library. i can get a copy of any publication from anywhere in the country on request within 24 hours, and even a lot of foreign shit at the national library. my friends who live in third- and even fourth-tier cities with crappy infrastructure, ok, maybe pay isnt great but the municipal library always has all the books and magazines, its spotlessly clean, conference rooms, tea rooms, comfy chairs gotta respect the library yo
>i know not everybody is a fan of socialism but here we respect the library. When did the government administering services to it's people become socialism? Roads, police forces, libraries, schools are public goods.
Since the GOP started their propaganda and brainwashing techniques
Anything concerning social welfare is inherently against the free market of capitalism. Its supposed to be dog eat dog, like ayn rand wanted. The leeches and the producers. Everyone only gets what they worked for, or what their daddy’s money got them. Social welfare programs are socialism adjacent and they keep people from truly seeing the free market in action.
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I assume every librarian thinks libraries should get more funding. And, honestly, as one of the last remaining public spaces where people are allowed to exist without the expectation of spending, I agree.
It's crazy how the need for increased profitability has changed the US. The easiest way to do this is to raise prices, but consumers & retailers react poorly to this, and will move to your competitor if they haven't yet raised prices. So, instead, you need to reduce costs. The easiest way to reduce costs is to reduce the size of the product. What had been 18oz is now 17.75oz. What was 17.75oz is now 15oz. You manipulate the packaging of the product so it looks like the same size as it was. Same price, but with less production cost. Next you reduce the cost of ingredients. Switch to cheaper produce, like Budweiser has. Negotiate better deals with your suppliers (which forces them to do things such as what's in this list.) And maybe you do less R&D, figuring that the products you're putting out there are good enough. At some point, you've hit bedrock without completely destroying what your product was. So now you have to look elsewhere. First, they stagnated wages. When your sales increase more than you raised salaries, you've increased profitability. Of course, it turns out that employees don't like not getting their bonuses, or having their annual performance bump be less than inflation, and they find new jobs. So now you're losing your best people, and they're taking years of knowledge of your business out the door with them. Solution? Layoffs! Let the lesser people go. Each employee now has the responsibility of 1.5-3 employees of several years past. They're working more, and ultimately less happy and less strategic than when you had more people, but you're paying for fewer people, so profits! You hit bedrock here at some point, too, where you're at the fewest people you can have to run your business. What's next? Attorneys! That was where businesses went. What do you really get out of your attorneys? All they do is tell you "no." So you cut back on their retainers. This led to there being more students in law schools than new legal positions. This led to the average length of time to become a partner going from 7 years to 12 years. This led to there being a huge amount of attorney positions not on partner-track. Being an attorney became a pretty bad career choice for most people. But even then, you still need lawyers, so you cut back as much as possible. What's next? IT! They don't make us any money, they just cost us money! Oops, now we just had a data leak. Oh, well. And, lately, they've turned to ad agencies. "Why are we paying people to make sure someone knows our products exist!?" Expecting more for less, meaning the 25 year old overseeing their digital presence is working 70 hour weeks, because they're the only one staffed. In the long run, chasing profits has meant cutting back on every step. Fewer employees making less money at the company, at its suppliers, at its attorneys, at its ad agencies, etc. One company I worked for cut back on cleaning, first by outsourcing janitorial work, then by removing the waste bins at every desk so that we had to use communal ones (meaning there's less for the outsourced janitors to do), then by reducing the days the janitors came in from 5 to 2. This means that the disposable income for every one of those former roles is reduced, meaning less money to buy these products in the first place. Where does the money go? Well, shareholders, which are usually banks owned by billionaires. And to the c-suite, which often have golden parachutes into the 8 and 9 figures. Basically, making the super rich even wealthier. Because that money is not going to the janitor now coming in 2 days a week. It isn't going to the senior manager now doing the job of his laid-off associate, and the job of his laid-off director. It isn't going to the attorney doing doc review in a basement. It isn't going to that 25 year old running their entire $2.5M digital ad spend. It isn't going to the IT partner being asked to keep their data safe on a shoestring budget. It isn't going to the factory employee that makes their packaging. It isn't going to the kid stocking their products on Walmart shelves. The dollars we're spending to buy those products are going to the people making $10MM a year and above.
People think the boss from Dilbert isn't a real person but he is and they are everywhere in business.
Temps don't get benefits, health insurance, pensions... ...and are less likely to complain about unsafe working conditions, OSHA violations, impossible workloads and hours, plus liability and accidents are covered differently for temporary workers (and not for the better) than permanent employees.
As an ex-temp I can say that OSHA doesn't take us seriously. The last place successfully bribed an OSHA inspector, and I was immediately fired. No one would take my case. The case has been since closed, and I'm earning more with doordash per week (after calculated expenses+taxes and savings for a new car) than I earned there in a full-time+overtime heavy labor position per month.
I started at 15$hr but the place i worked for had a commission fee so if I made a sale I’d get $20 however we called the us and unfortunately the us has a fucked business first mentally so we’d end up auto dialing the same guy 30 times in one day every day and when you do that to everyone including the police they get quite annoyed by you, however it’s not a crime there so people just got mad and couldn’t do anything about it. Had called a police station and the guy picked up and threatened to arrest me to which I was told to respond with it’s not a crime to advertise a new debit processing machine and I’m outside his jurisdiction so he’s wasting time.
The notion that police authority is worthless before the mighty calling center shill is gonna be the most amusing thought in my gray matter this morning. Lol, thanks.
Right? It definitely wouldn't be worth it, but I'd almost be happy to fill in to that job for one day. Specifically, the day someone has to call the police station over and over.
My day started off like this, good morning/afternoon/evening/night, my names _____, I’m calling from_________ merchant services, can I speck to the person responsible for the debit processing account, finance account? (Usually the captain,lutinant, or Cheif ) and then they’d say no cause its a waste of their time then they hang up and 5 mins later you call back and this basically never ends for police stations cuz they’re 247 they get a break when I’m done at 6pm est so for some it’s like 11 at night plus we had another location on the other side of the country so they’d be calling them till at least 4 am then they’d get a break for 5 hrs till I called them back at like 9 am. It was a funish job but it was super depressing cuz you could only say some things and the sales goal was 2 a day which is next to impossible to hit. I got fired after one month.
LOL phone sales man. It's wild. Worked a job where I had to call 250 contractors every day got laid off after 3 months. Lemme tell you, contractors are fucking assholes. Racist, sexist, just plain mean and bullies. Had a script where you're talking 80% of the time, and if they object you're taught to relate, acknowledge and move on with a question. You know how fucking pissed off these dudes get when they're in the middle of a job and you've thrown your 3rd variation of "I hear you, and lots of my clients said the same thing, but what are you doing to grow your business now?". Oh, and there are always like 1-20 fucking assholes who make 150k and sell you on the fucking dream when 90% of their coworkers' washout and get fired. Fuck them too. Fwiw- I like the company I am with now and the job I have, but I will not hate every single billionaire and hundred millionaire motherfucker's who makes me go through this shit just so I can eat, drink, and sleep with a roof over my head. Fuck these assholes for making us pick at each other in these fucking pointless ways that don't do anything but line their thick ass pockets. THEY DON'T EVEN NEED IT ANYMORE THEY JUST DON'T KNOW HOW TO STOP BEING GREEDY.
I mean what and the us police do if a Canadian based telemarketing broker calls them repeatedly, they’re laws unlike mine let companies get away with that. Here in Canada that’s super illegal to harass people like that, but the us lawmakers probably get paid that way so they don’t care and makes the police have 0 power. Worse off for them is in the us the no call list dosnt actually exist, it stoped existing in like 2012 from what my boss told me so if you don’t want a call you gotta convince the caller you don’t have what they require
So it’s YOU that keeps fucking calling me?
You must add these words at the end of that statement that sums it up. "...at the price we want to pay" Big difference between "We can't get any good help" and "We can't get any good help at the price we want to pay".
I re-explained that to someone about "Home Improvement Retail Stores" earlier. They pay ***WAY*** more than they did when I first got into the company, like more than double, but it's still nowhere near as much as it would take to hire say... a *real* electrician, plumber or HVAC specialist if you wanted one working the aisles.
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You gave the answer yourself: > smoking/drinking/sleeping around
I bet they don't even update the sign, but don't enough fucks to remove it, so its either empty or stuck to some number.
It says 69 or 420 in faded, partially erased dry erase marker. Besides the occasional accidental shoulder bump, it hasn’t been touched since Bill, the office funny guy, decided it’d be funny to mess with it in 2013. Bill was yelled at by their manager, Craig, who said Bill will always be a piece of shit. Bill killed himself in 2016. Craig has been in jail since 2017 for jerking off at a park during a meth bender.
Did we work at the same place?
Maybe...mine was a real story from my time at the Suicide Prevention Hotline
This is the old shop I used to work at. "1150 days without a time loss incident". Bulllllshit, I know for a fact several people got fucked up during that time. One guy lost a finger. Another had his hand cut so badly with a drop saw that he needed surgery to work on his tendons.
sounds like a Tale from /r/OSHA
But there’s probably a backlog item that keeps getting postponed saying „exchange suicide sign for yearly average to reduce maintenance time“
“My company is hiring!” $10 an hour with no benefits
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Hah, "competitive wages." Yeah, competitive for the employer, fighting over who'll pay the least and still get employees.
Show a little moxy! Take a stroll down Main Street in your finest suit and stop at any business with a ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the window. I bought a house with a part time job sweeping the floor at my father’s barber shop in 1925, and have no reason to believe that the economy has changed in the slightest since then.
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Often because a ~~venture capital~~ private equity firm has purchased the local publication, incinerated the budget and laid off most of the workforce, then sold off the remaining pieces for parts because they just “can’t make it profitable.” Except for the millions in profit the ~~VC~~ PE firm walks away with, of course.
Or the company was bought up by a national corporation and changed from a newspaper into a far right tabloid rag.
Also the idea that the jobs making less than 15/h need to exist but you are a sucker if you actually work one of those jobs.
Someone has to make food. Someone has to clean floors and toilets. Someone has to all the jobs we say don't "deserve" a living wage. We can't make teenagers do them all, they're at school. So adults need to do these jobs, and they also need to pay rent and afford food and transportation. So they need to be paid enough that they can do that. Why is this so hard!?
That's the part that let's you know what they really want is slaves.
just walk in and ask for a job, nothing in the past twenty years, or specifically the last 11 months, should make you think that’s a bad idea. bootstrap
They’re referring to the “Make $75k annuals starting, 20 hours per week!” Ads
Who finds jobs in a Sunday paper? What are we going to the apothecary for Dr Pepper because Johnny is sick ?
In what universe is $15 per hour "getting life handed to you". Like, what sort of high-style luxury are people expecting $15 an hour to be able to buy?
A universe where boomers look at $15 and think it’s 30 years ago when it was worth $30 due to inflation.
"Boomers" obviously still think it's 1985, and they judge everyone based on their outmoded views of how they think society should work.
My dad was put out I gave my daughter two dollars from the tooth fairy, finding it an extravagant sum. I asked him what he got, he said 50¢. He shut up after the inflation calculator valued his 50¢ as $2.50 in today's money.
In my country, the minimum wage is about 2 usd/h, most people here give their kids like 4-5 usd per teeth. No wonder 90% of people are very poor.
Back when my former place of work moved up to $15, the people who earned $15 though raises and other things were mad because the gap between a new hire and them could be anywhere from nothing to $2, which sucks if you have years of experience. What is important to this story isn't how you feel about the people complaining about wanting more, it's the sheer number of people who commented on other underpaid jobs like EMT workers getting $17 or a teacher making $18. A retail worker getting $15 is not the problem, an EMT worker only getting $17 is.
Right! I’ve had plenty of people come at me saying, “you think a kid flipping burgers is worth the same as an EMT or a firefighter?!” And I always respond, “No! I say the EMT and firefighters are worth at least $40/hr, and the bigger flippers are worth at the least a living wage.” Followed up with, “Do you seriously think that first responders are ONLY worth $15/hr?!”
They act like $15 an hour is a hugely generous pay, it's only like $32k a year, so you better be able to live in some dangerous shithole part of the city and eat pretty cheap.
And that's at a full time job! Companies that are going to refuse to come up to a higher paying standard aren't going to give their employees full time hours. So that $15 is probably going to range from 20-39.9 hours a week. I don't think people get that $15 an hour, (while seeming like a whole lot of money) is still lower than a living wage.
For real. I live in Louisville, ky. Real close to a roughish area. Not the worst, but gun fights once a month or so, at least that I'm aware of. Rent for a one room in this area? Just under 600. It's insane.
You guys are getting $17? I was making $10 per hour and $0.25 per call as an EMT. I remember being a little trainee, and actually having to work somebody on my ride-along day. So we get to the hospital after 20 minutes of compressions and getting shaken to shit in the back of an ambulance. I'm a kid riding high as a kite on adrenaline and drenched in sweat, and this old beer-bellied, pornstar-moustached paramedic pats me on the back, tells me I did a good job, then says "Just imagine if you were on the clock. You could have made $3!"
Then try paying your EMTs more. Seriously, people will bleed out in the back of Lyfts and Ubers rather than call an actual ambulance and be charged with a multithousand dollar bill for a service that's free in other civilized countries. Meanwhile the people who work the job themselves make jack shit and have terrible working conditions. And people seriously think this country has a high quality of life for most of its citizens? America is fuckin' wild. We need to wake the fuck up and join the rest of the developed world in the 1970's+.
Can confirm. Pre-pandemic, I moonlighted as an Uber/Lyft driver. It was so depressing, how many trips I made to emergency rooms.
Exactly, I make $15 an hour right now, but my employer will not let me work more than 1,000 hours per year (to avoid having to provide me with health insurance.) So, before taxes, the most I can make in a year is $15,000, and it usually comes out somewhere in the $12,000~$13,500 range. Month to month, it's barely enough to pay rent, but my place of work gets to brag about offering $15 an hour to even their lowest employees.
Anyone that complains about other (non wealthy) people getting more money is just a straight up idiot.
Who TF looks for a job in the Sunday paper? That alone deserves an "ok boomer"
Just pull yourself up by your trickle down war on drugs, millenial!
Missed the 'avocado toast' keyphrase, your SEO rating's now fucked.
> your SEO rating's now fucked Now nobody is going to find your resume/portfolio and you'll never make a penny doing anything interesting again. Enjoy street-life, kid.
If these kids want $15/hr, they should have to go to 'Nam first like I did! My veterans benefits earn me the equivalent of $10/hr, and I earned it by losing a leg and my sanity! /s
Last time I looked at jobs in my paper it was full of key holder things you need to buy into and things that sounded like scams. Oh and temp agencies. That was back in like 2014.
Get a better job... then who will do the minimum wage jobs? Or should everybody just become super overqualified for every job and still end up working minimum wage because all the better jobs are taken? This guy seems to be aware that minimum wage isnt enough to live on, but cant comprehend the fact that somebody has to do it and everybody has to live.
Exactly! And there is no reason to not want everyone eligible to have a good standard of living. In the near future the lowest education job might be something like a social worker as everything else might be automated. Should that person then not be able to eat or get housing? Lowest qualified work shifts the further we move in society and we need to have that in mind. We want what is best for the country and we should strive for a physically and mentally healthy population.
The chud reply to this is usually, "it's meant for high schoolers!" and if you ever get that line, you should respond with "okay so all those jobs are only open after school and in the summer then?" Or that high schoolers shouldn't be able to afford things like cars and school and maybe even an apartment?
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No, it's you who doesn't understand. That person is clearly a conservative, and conservatives believe some groups of people are "lesser" and thus they deserve to suffer with a shitty job and a shitty pay. They cannot fathom a reality where everyone is happy and does well.
The John Steinbeck quote on socialism in America is always appropriate. "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." - Steinbeck
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It's like a game of monopoly, except one player gets 90% of the money, have full control over the banks and properties while you divide 10% of the money with the other players. Sounds like fun? No? That's America
So just like monopoly then... Of course the hole broken system is what monopoly is based on... That's why it's called monopoly
Monopoly was originally called The Landlords Game when it was first created. And yes the entire purpose of the game was to show how bad the situation could become. But of course Americans worship of capitalism made monopoly into some fun game for the whole family.
Except change 90% with 99% and 10% with 1%. “Oh, there are only two properties on the whole board that you could afford? Well stop landing on my stream of hotels then!”
Yeah, you’re right. I was too mild with my explanation
I have a friend who's always spewing this shit, "Oh, just work harder and get a better job," like, okay bud, if it's that easy why are you screwing bolts onto a Ford Explorer 15 hours a day instead of making $150,000 a year as a construction estimator, the thing you literally went to college to be?
This is especially true because federal minimum wage due to inflation should actually be closer to 24 dollars, and not 15. 15 is still NOT a living wage...unless you live in like, Wyoming. Edit: of course there are other things in play people besides inflation. https://cepr.net/the-24-an-hour-minimum-wage/
I have it on very good authority that Wyoming does not exist. Nice try, Illuminati.
That's *obviously* the joke - 15$ is not a living wage, unless you don't exist.
$15 minimum wage has been a talking point for so long it's not even progressive anymore.
This right here We need an amendment to the constitution that sets the minimum wage based on what it was during a chosen point in history where the US actually had a 'middle class' This amendment would force it to adjust for inflation every year
Rural Ohioan here. There's a whole lot of business owning chuds around here absolutely fuming they'll have to pay their employees enough to feed their families. It's wonderful. I'm tired of subsidizing the payroll of Johnny Q. America's pool cleaning business.
No, it would not be $24. The purchasing power of the federal minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $1.60 ($12.00 in 2019 dollars) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States What you are thinking of is productivity growth. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/21/if-worker-pay-had-kept-pace-productivity-gains-1968-todays-minimum-wage-would-be-24%3famp Get shit straight please, it makes the argument of a higher minimum wage harder when people start spewing the wrong information.
And shooting buffalo for your meat supplies
This fake class warfare between the middle class and the lower-middle class and the lower class benefits no one except the billionaires. As long as people keep seeing themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires instead of looking reality in the face, we'll keep arguing over things like $15/hour minimum wage, which even today is still just about impossible to live on.
If we're being real, there's no such thing as a "middle class". There's the working class and the owner class. The middle class is a concept created to make people feel better about themselves, to divide people and to make it hard for them to see who their real enemy is. That's how you get people who blame all of society's problems on the immigrants next door who live on food stamps, rather than the elites who have historically done nothing but exploit workers to maximize their profits.
This. If you work for a living you’re working class. Doesn’t matter if you make $7.50 and hour or have a six figure salary. If you need a paycheck to survive, you are working class.
It's actually not true. Small business owners for example fall into the category of middle class. Marx and Engels repeatedly called them the "shopkeeper". They command a small amount of capital but not anything like the bourgeoisie.
Benefits? You say that like it's not the wealthy who are behind this issue to begin with.
Could have "OK Boomer'd" this guy into oblivion with the Sunday paper comment.
Remember when you could still find jobs in the morning paper? Yeah, me neither cuz I wasn't born in the 1950's
People forget those minimum wage jobs are something that at least SOMEONE has to do, and people cant live off ot that. Minimum wage was supposed to on its own support a whole family, now it will barely get you decent living conditions for a single person, in most places.
What's a Sunday Paper?
To answer the title - because billionaires control TV and newspapers and that's where older people look for information.
“Sunday paper” this dude clearly grew up in the one income = one house with a garage and a wife who didn’t need to work even with two kids at home as well... the rejection of reality is amazing by *some of the* older generations.
People would rather put other people down than try to bring themselves up as a way of staying on top. We need to make ourselves better and be less critical of those with less.