0 - As a humble, hardscrabble hillbilly myself, I wince at lazy depictions of my Appalachian brethren as lesser than; I am not above poking fun at underdeveloped personal aesthetic sensibilities, but in terms of character, those folks are invariably top drawer.
1 - I believe the impetus behind the upsell was the enhanced profit margin on larger beverage sizes (and fries, to a lesser extent).
2 - I am already a participant in the automated disintermediation of fast food labor markets, as I prefer to place my orders on an app (easier, quicker, there’s usually some incentive to do so).
3 - I recall a McDonald’s at Charles de Gaulle operating on the touch screen only method a few years ago; my father nearly vomited at a McDonald’s near the Galeries Lafayette when a meal for four rang in at nearly $100 (in ~2005).
4 - Didn’t have to click the outlink at the bottom!
Yes, the food cost (ie. net cost) of all drinks is in the cents. Like, less than 5p when I worked for McDs. Milkshakes are another matter, but they still make a good margin. When the extra value meals were added into the UK menu in about 1992? for £2.88 a lot of customers were apoplectic they couldn't get one with a shake, and as our store was decidedly inner city we had to come up with a creative way to add a small surcharge (before head office woke up and did it officially later).
McDonald's used to do good shakes and soft drinks. That mantle has been passed to Wawa.
I remember back in The Before Time, when they'd cook the fries in actual beef fat, they also had really good beverages. You know how liquor tastes better out of a glass bottle than a plastic one? Same thing's true for Coke. A McDonald's medium Coke in an old-style wax-paper cup was the greatest soft drink in the world on a hot day. It just doesn't taste right out of a plastic cup. A vanilla shake in a large wax-paper cup was awesome. Now, they use an inferior recipe, they put whipped cream on them, serve them in plastic cups with dome lids - it's just not the same.
God, I sound like some post-apocalyptic refugee telling stories around a campfire in the wasteland, don't I?
Most of these jobs are not jobs that I would have ever considered supporting a family with. Working at McDonald's is fine as a second income for a wife (low-wage female workers were mentioned elsewhere) or for teenagers (everyone has worked or knows someone who has worked in fast food when they were growing up: my girlfriend worked at Burger King, I worked at a video rental store). Up here, the McDonald's has the pretty girls at the counters and the Bumbles at the fryers the God intended. But that's not the way it is anymore, is it? I have my own hot take, but it could go either way based on my feeling at the moment. Corporations absolutely seem run by lizard people who hate us and do everything they can to disenfranchise us. On the other hand, people need to be responsible for themselves and for the work they do. It's really not my fault if you don't find skills to put yourself in a position to get anything better than a job at your local fast food joint. I lean a little towards the former at the moment because for the past few years we've seen the blatant disregard those at the very top have towards us, but it's still a hot take and I don't have perfect information nor the insight necessary to come down solidly on either side. So I'll take the middle path at the moment and say there needs to be more mutual respect going on.
But more than that, I think there's something else entirely going on. Thomas Sowell says the real minimum wage is $0, which leads to teenagers without job opportunities because they're being taken by adults working dead-end McJobs at $15/hour (or no jobs for anyone at all because $15/hour is simply too much for whatever job it may be). But more than that, there are all the other costs involved with children. Ever larger cars to fit car seats for expanding families. Education. The rising cost of food and the shortages of various critical things like formula (that was a thing recently, thanks to our lizard overlords). All the sports and after-school activities our culture demands our kids join, and all the costs involved in those. Specialized equipment for said activities. Clothing. Larger (and more and more unobtainable) housing. I don't think we're going to find a 4-bed, 2-bath house for anywhere near our price range up here. And we can't have a fourth child because then I'd have to go find two different cars with the seats to put them in. So it seems to me that the McAutomation is just another pat of the cultural swing against children and families. I don't know if it's a main idea or just an accident of converging lizard people goals.
To sort of go along with this, for someone (or, increasingly rarely, two people) raising kids and having to work 2 of these awful, low-wage jobs, you end up having to outsource your own child-raising. Someone else is spending all those quality hours with your kids as you toil away. Perhaps someone who buys into what the lizard people are selling...
Fast food as an industry evolved to take advantage of cheap teenage labor that was useless for the purposes of a modern, specialized economy. It was never intended to be a proper job for an adult.
Paul Graham, in his essay "Why Nerds Are Unpopular," described the modern world as a place where the jobs are too specialized for formerly-useful teenagers to do. It's why public schools are run like prisons - because they essentially are. Have to keep the little monsters off the streets until they're 18, and all that.
Schools and retail jobs are awful for the same reason - because they're not real work.
Another bit of Thomas Sowell's wisdom: every new generation of kids is like a barbarian invasion. It's up to us to civilize them. (I didn't put quotations around that because I'm not sure of his exact words).
When our neighbors tell us how polite our kids are I wonder just who they're talking about. When the teachers tell us how hard-working and diligent they are I almost wonder if there are alien bodysnatchers who inhabit our kids as soon as they cross our threshold.
Same with the ridiculous teacher comments. I am reminded of how terrified I was of parent teacher night as a kid. I never stopped talking, argued with everything, rarely turned in work at all, much less on time. None of that would have sat well with my parents.
Invariably, despite by HS not turning in major assignments the day of PTN just to see what would happen, my parents would come home with all the glowing compliments the teachers said about me.
That is why I don't believe any of the hogwash I hear from school employees. It is just easiest to tell you that your little Timmy or Tammy is the greatest kid they have ever has the privilege of teaching, and then have you walk away smiling.
I tell my son that people think he's too hard on his boys, which is true. He replies by saying people think his boys are very well behaved, which is also true.
With my three grandsons, all it takes is a "what?" in the appropriate tone of voice to elicit forgotten please and thank yous.
Speaking of them, let me brag about my youngest grandson, who is 4. Their parents took them to the Henry Ford Museum today. Going through the car collection there was a '59 Cadillac Eldorado. Yosh said, "That's like the Ghostbusters' car." Pretty good pattern recognition for a four year old.
As I understand it, raising children is fundamentally no different from raising puppies.
People often say they can't control their misbehaving children. What? You're bigger, faster, stronger and smarter than they are. How can you not control them?
Good God, then they grow old and the game shifts! My folks would be better off in an independent-living area of a retirement community, and not trying to take care of a four-bedroom colonial house from which nothing has been discarded over the past 20 years! But try telling my Dad that! “OK, Boomer” indeed! 🙄
To a degree, yes; having raised both/being in the process of raising children: it breaks down rather quickly and there are separate sets of options that open and close.
A child you can ask questions and talk to by the time they're one, another year and they start understanding the concept of things being non-immediate, and it keeps branching from there.
That said, you do employ similar techniques like withholding reward until they do what you want them to do (like waiting instead of grabbing for your food) and then jamming the cracker into their maw.
That's pretty close to what Sowell said, but I can't remember the exact quote, either.
Sowell and Rush Limbaugh are two guys I like a lot, but they often seemed to push the idea that life sucks and the sooner you surrender to that reality, the sooner you get to be kinda-sorta happy. While I generally agree with them on most things, their business of extolling hard work for its own sake never sat well with me. One works hard to accomplish a difficult task, not to demonstrate one's supposed virtue.
I have to admit I scored some points with the lefties in my office because I make fun of the whole "If you only worked harder you'd be a whole lot more successful, you slacker!" mentality. In our society (and plenty of people have touched upon it here) there's an awful lot of schmoozing one must do to reach a certain level of financial success, and if there's one thing I hate doing, it's schmoozing. That's not to say hard work doesn't pay off, or that schmoozing is the only way to become successful, I hate leaving work undone when it reaches my desk and my boss loves me for it, but I'm unlikely to be the assessor for other units up here, or become director of my department (or a related one) because I just don't want to play politics with everyone around me. I don't need an income big enough to afford a VW with a Porsche badge on it to be happy.
You work for a government agency, which seem to me to have no feedback loops when it comes to quality of performance. What's the reward for doing your job well? What's the penalty for doing it poorly?
A quick search shows that workers in the private sector are 45 times more likely to get fired than federal employees. It may be different at the county level where you work but you'll have to pardon me for being skeptical that it's that different. Do you know of anyone with an office job that's gotten fired by your county?
Almost no one ever gets fired from the county. There was a guy who worked in my department before my time who had a very serious alcohol problem, used to keep a fifth in his desk and would show up still drunk from the night before and throw up in the garbage can beside his desk. I think there's a story about him using the county vehicles to go to the bar and get drunk, too (after hours, I believe). I think someone once got fired for getting in an actual fist fight, and another person got herself fired for helping her drug addict friend by messing with his records in the courthouse or something like that. The union protects all the useless workers and prevents me from getting raises for performing efficiently. But at least I can't get fired I guess.
It has happened, Ronnie, but yes, the various unions protect the useless! There’s seemingly an entire class of people working for my jurisdiction that wouldn’t last two seconds in the private sector!
When I was in College, I did some papers on minimum wage and income inequality (which I got As on in spite of refuting a prevailing narrative!). Thomas Macurdy of Stanford has done a lot of good research on the subject. One point that he noted is that the VAST majority of fast food workers are not the primary income earner of the household (IIRC it was <5%). Meaning, the narrative of "you can't support a family on these poverty wages" is practially moot. Of course you can't, (at least in to a modern standard), that was never part of the deal!
Frankly, I agree with a portion of your 2nd point. A lot of the "yoosta be able to support a family on X income" hyperbole has to do with a difference in living standards. Real wages (what you get for what you earn, adjusted for inflation) have gone up over the last half century. How were these households of 40-50 years ago supported by a single working father? A family might have only had 1 shitty car, never ate out, handed down clothes, mended socks, ate less, didn't have 6 streaming services or cable TV, internet, cell phone bills etc. etc. many more luxuries of today. (Yes the job pool changed, but unemployment is low). To do this today in most cases would have you looking like one of teh poors to the outside world.
I'm not going on some boomer rant here to reinforce any type of superiorty/inferiority complex, but to push people to be at least a little intellectually honest or even literate in their arguments about economic oppression. I have no issue with people wanting modern luxuries and a better life, but these things aren't entitlements. Individuals have to manifest them for themselves.
My wife and I made sacrifices for the past several years (some in Japan, some here in Michigan). She stayed home with the kids and I went out and earned a modest income. We were still able to afford ourselves as luxurious a lifestyle as the greatest of the kings of 200 years ago, complete with 2 decent (if old) cars and cell phones and wireless internet and international travel (thanks, father-in-law!). And we didn't go into debt for any of it. There are all sorts of ways you can live on a small budget, and yes, hand-me-down clothes and not eating out are involved in the lifestyle. There are all sorts of silly things people waste money on. I even managed to lose 30 lbs over the past year and never set foot into a gym, because you can do so much at home on your own without even having to buy any fancy equipment (I don't look down on people who can afford toys and I feel a bit of envy towards those who have kettle bells and/or a cool sports car in their garage).
So far as unemployment, I think the current official number is horseshit. It is only counting unemployed among those who are actively looking for work. I don't doubt that ignoring the people who have simply dropped out of the labor market (including a decent amount of able-bodied men) is done on purpose, and that if we knew the actual number people would be shocked. Same thing with the inflation rate. They don't measure the way they used to. I don't remember where I've seen it, but if you measure it the way they measured it during the Carter years it would be something like twice as much. I mean, when you go to the store and see how much more everything costs, and consider the housing market and other things, no way is it only the approximately 8% they've been telling us.
Sounds like my childhood. We lived modestly and my mom only worked when we were IN TROUBLE, and only until the emergency passed, until we were all in high school and old enough to not need constant parenting.
I rather like one proposal for dealing with, okay, it was "homelessness" but I think it'd work pretty well in dealing with unemployment. The government gives the unemployed three choices: You join a work program, you allow the State to commit you to an institution or you go to jail. None of this "Using the social safety net as a hammock" crap.
You're right that the unemployment rate is sort of bullshit, but only if you're trying to infer something from it that's not meant to be. You're right that people who have dropped out aren't technically counted. A low rate could mean people who want jobs are finding them, or that a lot of people have simply dropped out. Regardless, my point was to show that the job vacancy rate is high and thus opporunity is high for those who seek it.
The decline in purchasing power doesn't come as a result of most of the modern luxuries. Food, TVs, streaming services, and (until 2020) even cars have gotten cheaper over time. It's really just three things that are making the difference: housing, health care, and college. Those three things have gotten multiples more expensive even accounting for inflation and changes in living standards, and it is those three things that are straining people's budgets.
I'm doing just fine, but when I realize that the same house my father bought for $400k in 2022 dollars is now two houses worth $4 million each, or that he paid $400 monthly in today's dollars for a family health insurance premium, it puts things in perspective.
I never asserted a decline in purchasing power. With regards to net budgetary strain, I included additional things that are in the average family budget which add up to a lot but weren't part of a budget 40 or 50 years ago.
A point on housing costs. Aside from the most absolute recent bubble and exponential demand markets, the true long term cost of housing was better on average than it was 40 years ago with higher purchase prices, but far lower interest rates. In general, the stagflationary market rates of the supposed golden boomer years for buying "cheap" houses was worse for a family budget. Sure that meme-maker's dad bought a whole house for 50k, but he was paying 18% on it.
20% drop is too low to take that deal. The starter home my parents bought in the early seventies (for less than the average price of a new car today), paid for with a respectable income on a college grad's salary, when interest rates were high has probably increased in value forty fold after decades of ZIRP.
“Which worries me at my very core, honestly. I don’t personally think there is any such thing as a contemptible job; there are only people doing contemptible things, or people doing jobs in contemptible fashion.”
If your opinion was the generally held one, America would be a better place!
This sounds a lot like what Mike Rowe (the “Dirty Jobs” guy) is trying to do with his foundation. He started out trying to close the “skills gap” and has come to realize that a skills gap may not be the real problem. He’s trying to show kids “hey, instead of taking out $200k in loans to get a degree, why not go make good money as a plumber or a welder”. It’s hard work but at least you won’t be paying off loans for the rest of your life.
Having spent a significant part of my youth in the engine rooms of ships and doing other heavy labor I think everyone "pays" sooner or later. You take on $200K in college loans to get a degree or you pay in wear and tear on your body, increased exposure to injurious or life threatening situations, and in other quality-of-life issues and/or health consequences like chronic pain and shortened lifespans created by things like exposure to chemicals.
I think it is great that some Americans want to do real "work" but I think everyone needs to know all the facts when they stand at the crossroads of life and make a decision about the direction they want to go. There is no free lunch.
there's also the sense of workmanship, pride, and permanence that comes with a job well done when you're in the trades. I in no way pretend to have been a tradesman, but about 15 years ago, after being laid off from a journalism job, I did a stint as a general laborer working with a friend who was a general contractor. one day he had me build two steps from the garage to the laundry room of a house. Not a big job, mind you, but when I was done, a master carpenter on the job looked the stairs, looked at me, and asked, "You built that? Nice job" and walked away. They were just a simple set of steps, it's not like I'd built a dovetail joint, but I couldn't have been more proud.
I returned to journalism a short time later. I harbor no illusions that anything I've written or edited since then has been remembered for more than a few days. There's an ephemeral nature to almost everything published online these days. But I'm reasonably sure those two steps will still be there years from now, and that thought always makes me smile.
I work in the trades though sometimes I feel like a bit of a phony. I’m a machinist working in aerospace so I’m in a climate controlled plant (kept at 68-72 degrees year round - a couple degrees can mean scrapping a part when you’re measuring millions of an inch). I ended up here kind of by accident, I was newly married and the job I had been doing ended and because my wife had a good job and was supportive, I had the luxury of thinking about what I actually wanted to do. I thought about what I liked from previous jobs (working with my hands) and what I hated from previous jobs (interacting with customers).
There is definitely something to be said for being able to see what you’ve accomplished at the end of the day. And it’s nice to be able to point to something real and say that you had a part in making it happen. My job isn’t as difficult as the guys who are out there in the weather and in dangerous conditions building bridges or welding ships or whatever. I work in an air conditioned shop surrounded by lcd screens and robots and precision measuring equipment. It gets a little boring sometimes but the pay is decent and the benefits are good. I get to be close to home and have good family time.
An old college friend of mine works for a company that builds skyscrapers in a city that is very unionized. His job is in regards to the electrical systems, usually the automation and fire ones. These days he's inspecting stuff for his company and checking the work before the city inspectors come through.
He told me about a job where he's looking at a wired panel and the insides are not neat and square. It's a mess. It's 'legal' but it's just not a good job and he turns to the guy who did it and complains.
The guy says: 'What? It works! It's right! There's nothing wrong there!'
My friend responds: 'That looks like something a couple of six-Paks would do! That's not the kind of work I'd expect from a union man!'
Guy doesn't say anything, my friend just signs it off and leaves.
Next time he's out at the job site that same guy finds him and brings him back to the panel and shows it to him. NOW it's done perfectly, all nice and square and laid out. My friend turns to the guy and says 'Now THIS is the kind of work I'd expect from a union man! Great job!'
And the guy was beaming at him.
The unions love my friend because he always praises them for doing good work - so they do it for the jobs he oversees. It's all about the work environment and all of the old hands know: people respond better to praise than criticism. So once a job's done right, you make sure people know it.
Sadly way too many of the 'people in charge' don't know this and don't care and they're quick with the whip and slow with the carrot (if they even know what a carrot is).
That master carpenter knew this. He saw a well done task and he made sure you got the reward. Probably went out of his way to make sure you got it too.
(and yes six-Pak is a union slur - or was back then - about crappy non-union workers).
Working in a fleet shop, quality of workmanship is my number two priority, I have very few comebacks, first priority is to make sure they have enough equipment to ship the groceries, I take too long to do things in my job, but no one is bitching...
Not only that, but the tradespeople have the potential to be better off financially. The big degree types get into the workforce much later, thus have a much higher opportunity cost. For example, I have a younger cousin, who after going through veterinary school (particularly expensive ones), and moving about the world, is finally settling into a career at 31 250k in debt, just in time to be pregnant.
A hard working tradesperson could have built very significant net worth by then.
My ex was a vet. Doctor school cost, staff accountant money. It was a raw deal. And the job sucks and hard to keep a relationship doing it. Hence, the ex part.
That's what I understand. Veterinary suicide rates are up there with dentists.
One of the biggest conundrums I've heard is that poor people have the most pets, will bring them in and not pay any bills. Being a hard ass about this means letting puppies and kitties die.
My father was a veterinarian and he loved his job and the challenge of diagnosis with limited tools (vet clinics then didn't have MRI machines). He also had five figures worth of uncollectible accounts receivables. Back in the 1970s, if the vet bill was going to be more than $200-$300 it usually meant euthanizing the animal.
Over the past few decades veterinary medicine has become pretty much a female occupation. I wonder how that ties in to the increased suicide rates.
Seems like EVERYTHING'S become a female occupation.
I saw a video of the USS Ronald Reagan where, apart from the captain, the entire pilot house crew seemed to be female. My first thought was, "Bridge Bunnies?" but then I remembered that Bridge Bunnies are ATTRACTIVE women.
The guy with the JD from Harvard Law and a quarter-million in student loans that'll take 30 years to pay back, or the North Dakota roughneck who just bought his house with cash?
I don’t know that that’s a very fair comparison. I’m guessing someone with a JD from Harvard Law can pay off a $250k school loan with one bonus a few years out of school. Really, if you have the opportunity to go to an Ivy you should take it because it’s very hard to F that opportunity up. What you need to worry about is being the guy with $250k of loans from Directional State U where the payout does not nearly match the earnings upside. I say this as a guy with an MBA from Directional State U that is basically worthless aside from keeping me from being weeded out in the first cut of resumes. Fortunately an ex-employer bought it for me.
A lot of those degrees now cost about a million dollars. Semesters run about a quarter million. Which is a bar to entry for a lot of folks. All of the big colleges are sitting on so much money that they don't need to charge tuition. They got hundreds of billions in the bank.
They do it to screen people out.
Those schools are not about the education either (which is why so many who come out of them ain't that bright) it's about the Connections you make while there. Rich people send their kids there to meet other rich people.
That's it.
The folks that have to bow and scrap and get grants and the like? Who run up huge debts? Those debts have interest. It will take them decades to pay them back unless they get lucky - because those 'high paying' jobs go to the rich kids.
You don't get a better education at Harvard than at Penn State. You go to make friends with J. Pierce Moneybags III, so he can give you a million-dollar no-show board job in 25 years.
I agree...so do my friends. One friend of mine got his JD at Yale. The Yale pedigree opened doors for him at Treasury. That Treasury stint allowed him to jump to a multi-national retailer where he focuses on Latin America. He lives simply and will likely retire early.
My other friend went to Penn State for his JD. He hated his post-graduation JD existence. He turns wrenches for me as well as working in the non-profit world. He enjoys the life-giving work.
It is fascinating listening to the two converse with each other. They are intellectual equals. I simply ask defining or contextual questions every few minutes.
My wife is a pediatric nurse at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center. By her working full-time, our kids are eligible for a tuition discount of 75% at Penn State's main campus and all the other branches around the state. We tell our kids for their college choice, it's either Penn State or it's Penn State!
Sir, I think you need to check your numbers. A year’s tuition at Harvard Law is $70k, and they project half that again for all fees, room and board, etc. so you’re looking at $100k/yr x 3 years.
"I don’t personally think there is any such thing as a contemptible job; there are only people doing contemptible things, or people doing jobs in contemptible fashion.”
Bra-fucking-vo.
95% of the people I interact with daily don't get that. The world would be an immeasurably better place if they would.
We have ended up in a society where the management class has separated itself almost completely from the labor class. There are a number of independent causes for that, but the end result is simple: managers do not see workers as human and do not feel any obligation toward them. Workers (and people too disabled, ill, or drugged to work) are purely objects of contempt, to be exploited and derided, as you saw on your drive through the mountains.
When managers don't see the workers as people, it's easy to write infantilizing policies, subject them to impossible JIT scheduling, relentlessly squeeze every cent of their already meager pay, pay no attention to whether their jobs allow for basic dignity, outsource at the drop of a hat, and simultaneously feel like a hero for being the most effective cost-cutter in the company.
Most of the managers interact only with other managers their whole lives. They live in whole cities where they have priced out the workers by artificially restricting housing construction. They fly to vacation destinations full of people like them, go to schools (and get degrees, cough, MBAs and bachelor's degrees in finance or economics) exclusively for people like them, work in towers or office parks far away from actual work sites or retail outlets, and engage in hobbies approved for their class. They don't form relationships with workers and don't understand a thing about their lives.
The irony, of course, is that there is yet another whole world—the owners—that excludes the managers just as much as the managers exclude the workers, and that systematically takes the managers' money the exact same way the managers take the workers' money. This time, the gates are raised through private aviation and boating, top-10 private schools, a tiny subset of extremely exclusive city and resort areas, and ultra-exclusive events in places like Davos and Aspen.
I strongly wish we'd get to a place where there aren't hierarchical worlds feeling only contempt for those below, where everyone regularly interacts with everyone else, and where anyone who is working and meeting basic social obligations is considered a worthy and full member of society. We've never been in such a place. During the brief era in our history when occupational hierarchies were flatter, we were all too happy to make up the difference with racial and ethnic hierarchies.
When my coworkers in financial services would lament at how poorly they were being treated for doing exemplary work, I would tell them that two levels up the food chain and above, they were nothing more than one cell on an Excel spreadsheet. And like one cell on a spreadsheet, they could be moved, minimized, or deleted with just the click of a mouse. To make sure they got it, I would tell them, “You’re not even a widget”.
I had a theory that the end of the draft had something to do with the disconnect. I know college deferments were available, but military service was the only time future managers and future shop floor workers might have mingled and learned some mutual respect.
I think that hollowing out and maligning our religious institutions had a greater negative effect on a shared sense of community. I say this as someone who spent a lot of his life being openly critical and disdainful of organized religion, and used to describe himself as an atheist.
I'm on the opposite end where I think hierarchies are necessary and good, actually, and attempts to free ourselves from them are liable to end up with more oppressive controls and less room for maneuver.
Nevertheless, I always appreciate when you take the time to comment.
Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate your comments as well, despite our disagreements.
Hierarchies themselves are necessary. Without them, we'd accomplish nothing. Where we lose the plot is where we build a system where levels of the hierarchy live in entirely separate worlds from, and never have contact with, one another. Everyone in every part of the hierarchy needs to see everyone else as a real human being deserving of dignity and respect. My view is that people need to interact to achieve that. It's why I appreciate places where people of varying backgrounds and status levels come together.
Left to themselves, any group of human beings will form a hierarchy. As noted, however, if you distance the levels you incentivize an unpleasant "othering" of anyone outside your own group. The most egregious example that comes to mind from the past: the inexplicable and deranged practice of letting college students avoid the draft.
Funny how four out of the last five presidents blatantly took advantage of that deferment. The fifth one didn't because he was 11 when the war ended.
And of seven their defeated opponents, five served in wartime, four were decorated with at least a Bronze Star, and three had Purple Hearts. The others were a woman and the son of the guy who tanked his 1968 presidential campaign by saying he'd been "brainwashed" about the war. Go figure.
My dad had a low enough number in the '72 draft that he'd have gone in had the government not finally pulled the plug. An older, decidedly not college bound uncle wasn't so lucky; he came back, but was never the same.
Add Selective Service to the list of things that should be abolished, but wont.
it will also remain the one thing that's still restricted to men legally and without opposition.
My comment to my friends was "Just spitballin' here, but, MAYBE, PERHAPS, if businesses shared more of the profits with their employees, and treated them as anything other than easily replaceable parts, those employees would have reason to work with more enthusiasm.
Does anyone remember that Sears used to have full time employees on the sales floor, and those people were actually able to take care of their family on those wages?"
I don't know at what point, exactly, it became _expected_ that working in retail was giving everyone else a license to shit on you, but apparently it has.
I’m of the younger generation and I can confirm the “don’t get paid enough to care” attitude is prevalent.
The squishing of unions has been a big factor in this. They help a lot where they still exist.
I know people who happily and loyally work at retail locations such as Costco and AT&T despite the nature of the work because they are compensated well, have job security, and have decent benefits.
I'm right on the edge of being a zoomer, and many of my buddies don't get paid enough to have a snowball's chance in hell of buying a house or living better than their parent's did. My experience is that the 2 reactions to that are to pick up a side job or to just not care.
Why should someone making chickenshit money care?? If he's never gonna do more than barely make ends meet then he can either kiss ass for a promotion or screw off. Neither seem like great options.
The side job thing is great but working those kind of hours sucks. America either is or should be the best country in the world (depending on who you ask) and I just don't think it's right that a dude's gotta work that much to keep food on the table.
What about having personal standards, integrity, and pride in doing a good job? I've had assholes for bosses but I didn't let that stop me from doing the best job I could do.
I think the inculcation of the value of work itself has been largely lost to this society/culture/cycle and it is compounded in some people when they see the bridges of opportunity being burned in front of them as the last gens light out.
With the tools that are available today to the average person (for example, software, 3D printers, laser engravers, CNC machines, and companies that perform technical services on demand like PCB manufacturing) plus the ability to market and sell to a worldwide audience on the internet I see that there are greater opportunities than ever before.
I have a hard time reconciling the oh woe is me attitude with surveys that show large numbers of young folks have the completely unrealistic expectation of making a living as an "influencer". While that's unrealistic, I see it as expressing some level of hope.
All that equipment and software does cost a lot of money, and is not really within the skillset of the layman. Sure there are dedicated hobbyists making a few bucks on the side, but it's also very time consuming.
Also, not everyone is going to have a natural aptitude for such things. I'm educated to master level and am pretty smart, but if you asked me to learn to code I wouldn't be able to, because my brain just doesn't work that way. It's something I've wanted to try for a long time, but I cannot understand even the basics (ha!).
I'm pretty sure that sometime in the past 15 years, we passed the point where the knowledge, materials and equipment were available online to allow a sufficiently-inclined person to build a functional spaceship in their backyard.
I would say all that stuff is still there, but exists to facilitate intangible things like the computer-related technologies.
There's still a strong bias toward work in computers/apps/the internet, but there's less and less respect for physical things like cars, airplanes and other objects.
Everything started going downhill when the whole concept of The Golden Rule left corporate America and was replaced by a “make every last cent for the shareholders and damn the cost” mentality.
The primacy of shareholder benefit was established a long time ago, in Dodge v Ford. Henry Ford was hoarding cash to build the Rouge Plant (which was started with taxpayer money, btw, to build Liberty ships for the war effort in WWI, which Henry famously opposed as a pacifist) and didn't want to pay his stockholders dividends. From 1903 when FoMoCo was incorporated, until 1914, when the Dodges started their own car company, Dodge Brothers was FoMoCo's primary supplier, pretty much building Ford's cars (in the early days Ford just added bodies and wheels to the "machine" he bought from the Dodges). The Dodges became stockholders when Henry paid them with shares in lieu of the cash he owed. They sued over the withheld dividends. Henry's defense was that he wanted to keep lowering the price of the Model T so he could sell more and employ more people for the benefit of society and that he needed the cash to do that. Lawyers tell me that Dodge v Ford is taught in every law school. The court ruled that corporations don't exist for any other reason than for the benefit of the stockholders.
Any lawyers in the thread are welcome to correct any errors I made.
Exactly. My career is over; has been for about four years (and I realize things are worse now)— but my experience is as follows:
Those who busted their ass got ahead. Eventually.
Those who did not went nowhere. There were people in positions that they landed for the wrong reasons— but that stuff never lasted very long.
Busting your ass also means you end up with more work than those that don’t— not fair. If you expect life to be fair, not sure what to say. Most bosses (no matter how bad) want problem solvers. Doing that will eventually get you noticed/rewarded.
Beyond that, and to your point— what about personal pride? As my career wound down I had no respect for the morons running the company— but “if my name was on it”, the standard was still met. Plus, I cared about the folks that reported to me and the Clients. I worked for them.
Maybe I just don’t understand what it means to be young now. But, I wasn’t always this old…
A few months ago, the 18-yr old daughter of good friends of mine was lamenting her position in life to me. As an employer, I assured her that she had nothing to worry about. She is intelligent and has a great work ethic.
Many employers these days do not care if you have a college degree or any experience. Today, employers just want employees who show up on time, follow instructions, and work reasonably hard. If you do those simple things, they'll be thrilled...and you will likely be promoted!
Like our current political chasm, our skills/motivation chasm is growing wider. I have hired some real duds in their 20s over the last few years and some gems who are in their 20s. It is very difficult to determine the difference. I blame both bad parenting and our educational system for snuffing out problem-solving and creating a debilitating fear of failure. I could go on for hours on this topic.
My current team leader is an excellent boss, incredible knowledgeable, unbelievably hard working, very protective of his team, has college degrees, plus over 30 years of experience.
Yet, when an engineering VP position opened up, the company did not promote him. Instead, they brought in a two-time loser who had washed out at larger companies.
I understand what you're saying, and I do agree that one can get promoted from entry-level positions through hard work and commitment. However, I would add to that: promoted up to a point.
The upper management is a cabal, and they protect the admission into their little club. Based on what I've observed in last 25 years, if you are not *hired* into at least middle-management *to begin with*, your upward movement is quite limited.
Integrity and pride in your work won't feed the bulldog. Your bosses at every level will absolutely be monetizing it in one form or another. The space between 'getting noticed' and 'real material gain' is so wide as to be imaginary. You will also be mercilessly hurled into the void for both petty infractions or systemic machinations. There is at the same time no loyalty nor consequence for phoning it in if you swim under the radar of the commissars or are of a protected class.
I always say “without integrity you have nothing.” I thought pride in your work was its own reward. Maybe I’m quaint.
If you work for sociopaths in a dysfunctional environment — then it doesn’t matter what you do and you must leave. My former place of employment turned into that at the end. Even protected class folks were getting bounced. I understand it’s hard to find a place that’s not dysfunctional— so I really understand where you’re coming from.
Not sure precisely what you mean by “no one ought to be getting more out of you than what they invest in you”. Your employer should give you some sort of training, give you the tools to do your job, and give you enough power internally to carry it out. If those things don’t happen— get out. Beyond that— it’s up to the employee.
Couple questions to mull over regarding the two types of individuals you mention:
Im also on the edge of zoomer myself and I consider myself very lucky to have a job in my field of interest right out of college almost.
many people in my age group that I know are stuck working service jobs they really have no desire to continue other than to earn cash, not because they actually like their job. And its probably only going to get worse from here on out
I get working a side job where you leverage your skills to make 1k-2k for a side job with a decent hourly wage. A side job driving for uber eats to net $8 an hour after vehicle expenses. Why would anyone do that? God I hate the "gig" economy
What I really despise is that the culture has spun what once would have been termed a second job or "moonlighting" as the more easily-digestible and trendy-sounding "side hustle."
Prostitution is a "hustle," too. And, really, using your personal vehicle as a taxi or your home as a boarding house pretty much makes you a prostitute.
1- they are bad at math and/or lack foresight. The pay seems great until you kill your car and need to replace it.
2- freedom and flexibility. In a past life, I managed minimum wage employees in a 24 hour customer service business. Attendance was always an issue. If people didn’t come to work we had to scramble to get coverage and it was a big source of conflict between the line staff and management.
But what do you do if your kid is sick and needs to be picked up from school? Or your replacement at your other job didn’t show up?
If you can earn what appears to be the same amount of hourly pay on your own schedule, why would you come work for us and get written up and lose shifts because something seemingly out of your control came up?
34 years old, happily working in (still underpaid) retail management because I make enough to live, have a 401k and healthcare, and work for a family that at least occasionally nods to employees being people.
I have a huge problem with ANY employer wanting me to be passionate about and dedicated to my job, but only during the hours they specify (because somebody might need to collaborate with me at 7 AM, because the contract has no budgeted overtime and because there are killer bums wandering the neighborhood), to the ends the company deems appropriate and without any arguing or rulebreaking on my part.
Look, if you (The Employer) want me (The Employee) to be passionate about my job, YOU don't get to decide when the argument's over. And you can't honestly expect me to color INSIDE the lines all the time.
Oh, and don't talk to me about "compensation budgeted for my position" two hours after the CEO sends out his quarterly financial report celebrating another consecutive year of record profits.
A Boss I worked for at a company like that once taught me how to manage expectations so I'd get paid for what I was doing. I've learned how to make it very clear that if they want me to work more than 40, then they need to compensate me for it.
And when they start playing games? I move on.
I have learned that the people who go way beyond what's expected, who put in the unpaid overtime, are always held in contempt by upper (and often middle) management. The people who refuse to play their games? Those people are always the last to be laid off.
You'd think the people who worked harder for less would be the ones kept to the very end, but paradoxically they're always the first out the door - because 'They can't get their work done in a 40 hour week' therefore they're worthless (that's how management thinks)
Scott Adams once opined that those who jump on every piddling-crap task the boss needs to have done, in the hopes of appearing to be a promotion-worthy go-getter, actually works against his interests by associating himself, in the minds of the company's decision makers, with a string of meaningless assignments that add no value to the company.
Instead we let many managers and executives off the hook for negligent homicides because it was the company at fault (even if they made the decisions).
We don't just let them off the hook. We give them multi-million-dollar severance packages and make sure they get their next 7 (or 8)-figure-per-year job before the severance is used up.
"My comment to my friends was "Just spitballin' here, but, MAYBE, PERHAPS, if businesses shared more of the profits with their employees, and treated them as anything other than easily replaceable parts, those employees would have reason to work with more enthusiasm."
In-n-Out did this back in the day, and a high school acquaintance of mine went from back-of-the-house to manager after HS because they treated their people well and it was enough money to pay for a 3-way split rent on the outskirts of Cupertino. I guess that last part probably isn't true any more.
In-n-Out is still so much more pleasant of an experience than any of their competitors. Turns out if you pay a bunch of high-school aged kids more money than they know what to do with and their adult managers an actual livable salary, you will have employees who are actually pleasant to be around. As a result, you have lines out the door and can keep prices low and make up any low margins with volume. Win win for everyone...I guess unless you can't get past their shitty fries.
What frustrates me about In-And-Out is that they won't open in the Midwest because the supply lines are too long, as if they're Heinz Fuckin' Guderian in rural France or something!
Chik-fil-a is similar for the exact same reasons. McDonalds used to hire the local highschool kids up front and the mexicans in back. It was my first job at 16. $240 a week was more than I could spend. Now, it's all mexicans all the time. It would bother me as much is the ones up front could speak English.
Good private companies do this because the people in charge want their kids or grandkids to be in charge in 50 years. Public companies want to shave every penny cause the managers are looking to bounce ASAP to another public company with a "Damn the subordinates" attitude. This doesn't apply to venture capital firms who privatize a big public company only to sell it bits and pieces to the highest bidder, sacrificing quality, and leveraging the name until it collapses.
Why? Why should any job pay you more than you're worth? If you're not worth it, guess what? You won't get it.
I grew up poor. I went to engineering school (and ran up a debt that yes I spent over a decade paying back). I was looking to find a job that paid me money I could live off of and be successful. I'd worked enough shit jobs as a kid to know I didn't want to spend my life doing that.
And it's not to say my life hasn't been without hardships. I lost everything at one point in my life and ended up homeless. So I understand that shit REAL well. I took a job that barely keep me fed and figured out how to 'get back on the horse' and get back to making money.
Now I'm rich. Not stupid rich, but I got money for whatever I want to do. And it didn't come overnight it took a long time and a lot of very hard work.
If you want to be really rich you need to inject yourself directly into the revenue stream. Otherwise you're working for the people who do. Forcing companies to give you money you don't deserve leads to said company going out of business rather quickly. CEO's are there to make the shareholders and themselves RICH. Not the workers. Yes, there are companies that are very concerned about their workers and try to listen to them. Try to give them a decent shake. But unless it's an employee owned company, you're never going to be tied into that revenue stream.
But being jealous of the money the CEO makes and thinking you deserve a part of it? No, you don't. If you want to make more money than Home Depot pays, then you need to start your own business or find a better job. The opportunities are there - but so many people don't want to take the risks that come with them.
Places like Home Depot are not meant to be careers. They're meant to be stepping stones. No one OWES you a career or a job that pays you lots of money. That's on you.
I followed a similar path and think similarly. To the rest, we're dismissed as "bootstrappers" followed by 1001 excuses about how the patriarchy (choose your boogeyman) robbed them of the ability to climb any ladder.
To them I ask, "who exactly do you expect to save you?"
Whatever they think, the answer is Nobody. I was reminded very recently of some very specific kindness from some individuals who lent some very generous hands to others who were in an unfortunate situation. But, even the kindhearted will be scorned if one makes little effort to help themselves.
I can't say I grew up POOR, as in, "Didn't have enough to eat" or "Can't keep the lights on." It was more, "We only go to the dentist when something hurts" and "We don't sign for certified letters." Not a good way to live.
Excuse me, but what exactly do you find so troubling about what Marcus said? I'm finding that employees who give a shit about doing a good job for customers are increasingly rare. Whether or not that's on those employees or on there employers (many of who appear to also not give a shit about their customes) can be debated, but the quality of service in general has declined.
If it hadn't been for Bernie Marcus, there's a good chance that Home Depot wouldn't be employing as many people as they do.
>What exactly do you find so troubling about what Marcus said?
As quoted by FT, he said “”Thanks to “socialism”, he says, “nobody works. Nobody gives a damn. ‘Just give it to me. Send me money. I don’t want to work — I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid.’””
First, I don’t agree that this is America’s work culture. People aren’t lazy because they’re entitled. They’re lazy because they’re poorly managed and not incentivized to do high quality work in service jobs.
But even if I did agree with his take on our work culture - to say it’s socialism’s fault is blatantly wrong.
Socialism/Communism (for they are one and the same) is not government handouts. Socialism is not the government setting a minimum wage. Socialism is not the government regulating working hours or tailpipe emissions or mandating overtime or banning the sale of ICE vehicles (bleh).
Socialism is an economic system in which the working class (proletariat) owns and controls the means of production (capital). This can be accomplished multiple ways. A government that is ruled by the working class (a dictatorship of the proletariat) can own businesses and control them. Businesses can also be independently employee-owned and operated democratically. The profits that are created by businesses - whether controlled by the government or independently by workers - are distributed roughly equally to all workers.
This is in comparison to capitalism, in which means of production are owned by capitalists (the bourgeoisie class) and the vast majority of profits are kept by them. Once a capitalist controls enough capital, they no longer need to perform labor to live. Many capitalists are born into the position. Workers must always trade their time and labor in exchange for a small portion of the total profits they create.
Now, whether or not you think Socialism is a good system, it is definitely not the system that exists in America. It is not a system that has ever existed in America. So if it doesn’t exist, how can it possibly be responsible for the development of America’s work culture, as Marcus says it is?
Capitalism has existed. And our capitalism has only ever grown more capitalistic and further away from socialism since the late 1970s, when the capitalist class started weakening the working class’s political power and repealed much of the New Deal.
Capitalism is the system that has developed our modern work culture.
One last thing:
> If it hadn't been for Bernie Marcus, there's a good chance that Home Depot wouldn't be employing as many people as they do.
If Bernie Marcus and the Home Depot didn’t exist, every town in America would still have a hardware/home improvement store. They would either be a similar chain stores run by another man like him, or (in a better timeline) small, locally-owned businesses. All of those people would still have jobs, just at different hardware stores. People need hardware stores, the market will move to the meet that demand. He was not the first person to realize it.
Bernie Marcus didn’t succeed in making the best hardware store in the world, he succeeded in making one of the most efficient, most profitable ones. One that had the economies of scale needed to undercut smaller ones. One that has the logistics power to import cheap goods manufactured overseas, cash for expensive marketing campaigns, and power to crush unionization efforts. One that could offer lower prices and put competitors out of business.
Are his workers better off working at the Home Depot than any other home improvement store? They’re probably about the same, or worse. But Bernie Marcus didn’t create their jobs, Bernie Marcus created the Home Depot.
Because jobs just appear out of thin air, without any capital investment. Right.
On my way to the nearest Home Depot I can stop at two different locally owned Ace Hardware franchises. On my way to the next nearest Home Depot, I can stop at Frentz Hardware, which is likely one of the best traditional hardware stores in the United States. As for small towns, in my experience, hardware stores in small towns tend to be better stocked with a wider variety of goods than similar stores in big cities.
"Repealed much of the New Deal" - yeah, like the NLRA and the FFA have no legal power anymore and that the interstate commerce clause hasn't been used to justify the mammoth expansion of federal power and oversight.
If workers want a larger share of the profits that their labor helps generate they are welcome to invest their time and money into their own ventures.
Let me ask you, though, why should the people who supply labor to a business be more valued than the people who supply all the other things that a business needs to operate? Is someone who sells you labor more valuable than someone who sells you steel?
I'm getting ready to launch the latest iteration of my electric harmonica. I have no employees so I do all of the in-house labor myself. There is no way that labor is as valuable to the project as the custom pickups I use that are in part supplied by Lace Music Products. If I had employees and I told them that they were more valuable to the project than Lace, I'd be lying.
"The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit." Samuel Gompers, father of the American labor movement.
Is it possible that unions have lost their appeal to workers because the unions have been more interested in being adjuncts to the Democratic party and progressive politics than in serving the needs and interests of workers? Are public employee unions a good idea? Are political contributions, in cash or in kind, by public employee unions distinguishable from corruption?
"Is it possible that unions have lost their appeal to workers because the unions have been more interested in being adjuncts to the Democratic party and progressive politics than in serving the needs and interests of workers? Are public employee unions a good idea? Are political contributions, in cash or in kind, by public employee unions distinguishable from corruption?"
I'm in a union and this is the most accurate characterization of modern unions that has thus been related in all of the comments...
...I'm reading a lot of comments supporting unions. I'm not sure if they're from people actually in unions. As with a lot of things these days, there's a pretty significant "idealism/reality gap"...
I’m happy to continue this discussion. But given what I said, do you understand why many find what Bernie Marcus said in accusing socialism for America’s lazy work culture to be wrong? That was the core question I was addressing, so I’d like to know if I answered it well and what you think.
The point wasn’t to make qualitative judgments about Socialism or Capitalism, just describe the situation. I thought a first-principles type description of Socialism would be helpful, though.
Anyways.
>Because jobs just appear out of thin air, without any capital investment. Right.
The creation of jobs does require capital investment, but the capital does not necessarily need to be controlled by the bourgeoisie class. A competently-run Communist government of the proletariat could spin up its own businesses to meet demand. Incompetently-run Communist governments ignore demand, or underproduce, and get black markets.
China’s approach is interesting, since they do allow for private entrepreneurship. Their entrepreneurs can fill demand holes in the market, and successful companies will grow. Then, the state will buy stakes in the companies to bring them under the Communist fold. Private companies can also create a party committee of its leaders and workers, joining the party itself.
>On my way to the nearest Home Depot I can stop at two different locally owned Ace Hardware franchises. On my way to the next nearest Home Depot, I can stop at Frentz Hardware, which is likely one of the best traditional hardware stores in the United States. As for small towns, in my experience, hardware stores in small towns tend to be better stocked with a wider variety of goods than similar stores in big cities.
And the fact that all of these stores exist would indicate that there is market support for all of them. If Home Depot were gone, there would still be enough market support for the profitable opening of another hardware store in these areas. Or maybe other hardware stores would have to be larger (and staff more people) to compensate. Point is, the market has a demand for the goods and services offered by Home Depot, and in American Capitalism, that demand would not be left unmet for long.
>"Repealed much of the New Deal" - yeah, like the NLRA and the FFA have no legal power anymore and that the interstate commerce clause hasn't been used to justify the mammoth expansion of federal power and oversight.
What I said is factual. Much of the new deal has been repealed, dismantled, and weakened. This has been a core political project of the American elite since the thing passed. One such example: the Glass-Steagall Banking Act. This separated commercial and investment banking, prohibiting banks from making risky investments with depositor money. As early as 1960, appointees of the American elite were trying to ease this legislation on banks. It was repealed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in congress and put into law by President Clinton.
This directly opened the door for the market crash in 2008. If Glass-Steagall wasn’t repealed, then you don’t have the financial crash. That said, the American bourgeoisie made a ton of money off the crash especially when the bank-friendly recovery bill signed by Obama in which we bailed out the banks AND allowed them to foreclose on everybody’s homes.
This is one example of of one piece of new deal legislation, and how the American uniparty has dismantled it, and how it only serves in favor of the American elite.
>If workers want a larger share of the profits that their labor helps generate they are welcome to invest their time and money into their own ventures.
The market can’t support literally everybody doing this though - and businesses do need laborers to exist. I personally think that all workers who support a profitable enterprise deserve a share of the company’s profits such that they can afford to have children. What good is any human society if it doesn’t allow for everyone to have a family?
>Let me ask you, though, why should the people who supply labor to a business be more valued than the people who supply all the other things that a business needs to operate? Is someone who sells you labor more valuable than someone who sells you steel?
>I'm getting ready to launch the latest iteration of my electric harmonica. I have no employees so I do all of the in-house labor myself. There is no way that labor is as valuable to the project as the custom pickups I use that are in part supplied by Lace Music Products. If I had employees and I told them that they were more valuable to the project than Lace, I'd be lying.
For what I think? I believe that our time is the single most valuable thing we humans have. We have precious little of it. To each individual, time is basically priceless. But the market is uncaring and indifferent to humanity except for its demands for goods and services - so our time is assigned value.
So, what is actually more valuable to a given project will depend on a bunch of factors. What a business will actually pay more for is almost entirely up to the market.
Labor is as essential to doing anything as the raw materials are. This is why workers have power and strikes work. Without labor to operate the means of production, capitalists can not earn profits. Period. They are essential.
Labor is also required to produce the raw materials. Without labor, nobody has anything.
This is why Socialism places a big emphasis on working class unity (and why America outlaws solidarity/secondhand strikes). It all comes back to labor. If everybody in the working class went on strike tomorrow, the nation would be on its knees by next week. There would be no food, no gas, nothing. So the workers’ time can’t really be worth so little, can it?
For your own example. In your current status, sure. Labor contributes nothing for you because you have a low volume product with low impact to society. If you sold 1 million harmonicas per month and required a factory with dozens of people to do so, then any production greater than what you could do on your own, and all profits you collect greater than what you could do on your own, is thanks to your labor. Do you deserve a greater cut of profits for inventing the thing? Yes! Do you deserve to make millions while your workers have to clock-in at a second job to afford to pay for childcare? No!
>Is it possible that unions have lost their appeal to workers because the unions have been more interested in being adjuncts to the Democratic party and progressive politics than in serving the needs and interests of workers?
No. This is a red herring that especially misses when you consider that even the modern Democratic Party doesn’t do more than lip service for unions. The weakening of unions has been a long-term political project of the American elite. The shipping of good union manufacturing jobs overseas, Right-to-Work laws, etc. It was the democrats who used to represent labor that have really brought them down.
>Are public employee unions a good idea?
Yes.
>Are political contributions, in cash or in kind, by public employee unions distinguishable from corruption?
Are political contributions, in cash or in kind, by businesses and CEOs distinguishable from corruption?
I would say no, to both. How would you answer?
But the Supreme Court decided in Citizens United that the answer is yes - and it applies to both labor unions and corporations. But corporations have a lot more money and power these days, and have much more influence over the uniparty.
George Soros was the biggest individual contributor in the last election cycle and his foundation is #2 on the organizational list. Labor unions are well represented on the list as well, just as ESG promoting "corporations" like Blackstone are.
Back in the 1930s there was a bit of a parler game among US and UK elites, "Who would go Nazi?" where people would guess which of their friends would go along with a Nazi regime. The same could probably done today, substituting the word "commisar" for Nazi.
Just wondering, what do you do for a living? If I was a betting man I'd say it's likely you're part of the PMC.
Can you answer my question: did I sufficiently explain why people take issue with what Bernie Marcus said?
Also: George Soros and his foundation are no friends to workers. Their influence strengthens my point about the American elite’s control over the uniparty - democrats included.
Labor unions donate and they (the unions) get concessions from politicians. They do not get big legislative changes that would actually help working folks, such as card check or legally-required paid maternal leave.
The bipartisan congressional and presidential intervention against the railroad strike again strengthens my point here. Only lip service for labor - nothing that would actually cost the capitalists.
if you’d like to show me labor’s power over our government, please show me bills that have been passed that have benefited unions, made them stronger, and increased the earnings or protections of working class folks. Then, let’s compare with bills and moves that have made the elite vast sums of money while depressing the working class.
Please engage with my ideas - which have nothing to do with my standing in life. I’m not very interested in talking about myself. Making a debate about your opponent does not support your own arguments.
I always appreciate your perspective. Just some of my thoughts on your points in the current context.
**Is someone who sells you labor more valuable than someone who sells you steel?**
To the business owner, suppliers would be as valued as an employee sure. I would hope the steel supplier takes care of their people, values them, charges the right price to sustain the business, otherwise they are a sh***y business owner. Not really something you have control over though, other than choosing suppliers.
**If workers want a larger share of the profits that their labor helps generate they are welcome to invest their time and money into their own ventures.**
I think it's probably mis-stated to make this point as "share in the profits" and I don't think that's really what labor as a collective, wants. That's not the bargain when you take a job. They just want to be paid more. Labor is it's own market. What I see is overall labor is in a transitional stage where the workers feel underpaid, and the bosses are not willing to raise the wages, they'd rather piss and moan about the situation. Kinda like car dealers holding on to the high prices as the auction results fall each week. Eventually you'll be forced to conform to reality. You're either willing to pay what it takes to bring in the employees you want or you aren't. Business owners don't dictate wages, they go out and compete to hire in the market.
That's a very macro take. At the individual level, why are there so many "bad employees" being whined about by business owners...do these people just go without jobs when the labor market isn't tight, or is it mostly the same people with different attitudes, I've no idea.
The nuance here is 'do people HAVE to be managed for them to be productive and efficient - meaning anyone CAN have the same productivity of managed/paid/incentivized sufficiently',
OR
'Is it a cultural thing that is innate to the individual, that can thrive in the right environment and (perhaps) get noticed and rewarded?'
My personal experience makes me lean towards the latter, and that's why I'm MORE in agreement with Ronnie here.
I live two houses down from the mansion of the owner of a local Ace. His house is easily $2M, plus his lake house, and he owns the house of his adult daughter and her husband (perfectly successful in his own right, I don’t know how he stands that dynamic) that’s probably $600k a couple blocks over. He’s a real nice guy, but definitely has that “hey what are you doing so I can tell you why you’re doing it wrong” attitude so prevalent in small hardware stores. I remember when I was finishing my basement I stopped at Ace and was invited to spend $4.99 on an electrical outlet that cost $10/10 at Home Depot but wouldn’t have a “Thanks for Shopping Local” stamp on the receipt. I walked out. I have limits.
Why would anybody give a shit about doing a good job when that's the attitude of their employer? "It's not that the work I give you sucks or that I'm not paying you enough, you guys are just lazy bums."
And that attitude is pervasive in C-suites across America. Every time a past employer - of engineers, not burger flippers or cashiers - has faced a turnover problem, they invariably announce it's a result of bad employee morale and continued on with the beatings. Things like lousy pay relative to experience, broken promises for advancement, and cripplingly bad IT and support infrastructure would never, ever get addressed.
Blaming socialism/communism is nothing but the right arm of the uniparty's version of blaming racism. It's disingenuous at best. We do have a growing societal problem of people feeling so disenfranchised in the workplace that they don't even want to bother, and floating nonsense like UBI is only going to further demotivate. But shitting on those people for feeling that way isn't gonna swing things back in the other direction.
And it's worth mentioning that Marcus and Arthur Blank aren't some hardscrabble small business American values success story. They were executives that, with the help of a Wall Street lizard, founded Home Depot with the explicit purpose of becoming the largest home improvement superstore in the country. The company was already on the NASDAQ two years after it was founded. They expanded in part by gobbling up competitors. They drove others out of business by undercutting them on price. Like Walmart, they (and Lowes), got prices down by pressuring their suppliers, thus they're partially to blame for driving manufacturing overseas. They were also among the very first to replace cashiers with checkout kiosks.
The founders of Home Depot are all huge Republican Party donors. The same Republican Party that is desperately trying to ram through a total corporate whore to be Speaker. Nevermind that the electorate doesn't like him, everyone from Fox to Breitbart to even Trump has been carrying the water for McCarthy. Mind you, I still vote Republican, but I find it increasingly hard to buy the "herp, derp, socialism bad" mantra from that are simultaneously selling me down the river.
"And that attitude is pervasive in C-suites across America. Every time a past employer - of engineers, not burger flippers or cashiers - has faced a turnover problem, they invariably announce it's a result of bad employee morale and continued on with the beatings. Things like lousy pay relative to experience, broken promises for advancement, and cripplingly bad IT and support infrastructure would never, ever get addressed."
I used to work for a very famous bicycle company which name began with an "S." The company is extremely famous for a toxic culture and very high rates of turnover. Low pay (especially given the location), little opportunity for advancement for many of the roles (especially some of the hardest working, revenue driving roles), and a pretty well known sexism problem were major drivers of this turnover. However, unlike your usual burger flipper role, most people DID give a shit out of a passion for the brand, or at least a passion for the industry.
As a result, morale was low, but it usually resulted in people bottling things up until they blew up and left with both middle fingers in the air, as opposed to a bunch of miserable employees not getting anything done. I think this worked for so long because there was always a batch of fresh-faced 20somethings willing to step in and give things a shot. However, my friends who still work there tell me that may be changing as things have gotten bleaker during the COVID/post-COVID world and nobody wants to do many of the roles for shitty pay anymore, and those that do often leave after just a few months.
Theres a huge problem in the accounting profession right now where people do this. “Quiet quitting” we try and treat our employees well. Shocking, we don’t have this problem
I think we're discussing a different "S" - my former employer doesn't have such a storied past. They do certainly go head to head with the creator of your Session though.
However, the story of what happened to GT is so dang sad. Now that they're owned by PON who doesn't seem to want to be a second-fiddle in the industry, I can expect we will see some improvements. Same with the "C" brand.
I am trying to decipher which S as well. I do know when the S I carried hired a new sales manager from the other S, that was the beginning of the end for me and my S.
It was also downhill when one of those Ss took advantage of Ogden's tax breaks and moved.
Ronnie - I found his comments to be disingenuous because the trend for many, many years has been to treat employees with increasingly greater contempt, but at the same time he seems surprised that they are not particularly enthusiastic about working. His contempt is painfully obvious when he characterizes their collective mindset as "...Just give it to me. Send me money. I don’t want to work — I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid".
How bad, exactly, do you feel that employees should allow themselves to be treated before they push back? If you want to get depressed, when you have time, surf over to YouTube. Look up "Camelot331". His channel is mostly about how corporations are mistreating their retail employees. After an hour of watching, I believe that most people will be wondering out loud why there hasn't been a revolution already.
The flip side of this is that corporations are the largest recipients of government largess, by way of tax breaks and policies. The most insane, IMO, example of this is the Fed pushing down interest rates to below the inflation rate, making money "free", and allowing corporations to buy back their own stock, pay back old bonds with zero cost bonds.
Speaking of Home Depot, feel free to research how former GE exec Bob Nardelli nearly drove the company into the ground.
Yeah, I believe this is a "chicken/egg" scenario. Are they that way because they've been poorly treated, and see no reason to care, or that they're not being treated better because they're poor employees? I vote for the former. In my heart, I believe that people want to be respected and valued, and that they respond incredibly well to that. For an extremely timely example, let's compare the Ukrainian military v. the Russian military.
I can't believe that I'm defending a billionaire here, but my dad worked for Home Depot ~25 years ago when Bernie and Arthur ran the company. He was getting paid nearly $25/hour plus bonus running the commercial sales desk. Employees had good insurance and anyone who was around back then and stayed in probably made a killing off of the employee stock option.
Bob Nardelli took over as CEO in 2000 and ran everything but the stock price into the ground. No longer did they hire experienced tradespersons as department heads. It became another faceless retail store staffed by interchangeable nobodies.
It seems that way. My dad has been a merchant (as he puts it) in some form or another almost his entire working life. The way he tells it, a comfortable "Al Bundy" middle-class life could be had on a retail salesperson's salary.
Now, you maybe get that with small mom and pop stores, but he claims even the people at KMart and Woolworth in the late 70s/early 80s were treated well by the company and customers alike.
It's the Wall Street requirement of continual growth and subsequent cuts that has led to a lot of this, IMO. Sure, my retirement increases if $COMPANY can increase their share price, but that does nothing for the part-time worker with no skin in the game aside from the fact that they trade 29.9 hours per week of their time for a few dollars.
You need a lot more than that. I've known and managed plenty of very well paid employees that gave no fucks, and were contemptible people. You need to create an environment of mutual respect where everyone is seen to be doing their part to support one another, work in the same direction and celebrate victories. Not only that, but weed out the piece of shit cancers as they will spread.
Sounds like cheesy LinkedIn influencer nonsense, but from a management standpoint, this is what you have to execute.
A lot of afluent Americans have never had to look at actual poverty. I remember an article in the Detroit Jewish News about someone living in West Bloomfield taking their kid to see the "old neighborhood" where the parent grew up, which happened to be Oak Park, where I live. Neighborhoods range in my near suburb of Detroit range between working class and upper middle class, but the kid kept remarking at how "poor" everything looked.
When my son, my only son, Moshe, whom I love, was in fifth grade, he and I were building a scale model of the Dodge Viper. He asked me if that's how real Vipers were made. I told him that it was an accurate model but that's not exactly how they were put together but that the factory was in Detroit (then on Mack, before they moved to the facility on Conner), that Lee Iococca ran Chrysler, which built the Viper and if he wanted, he could write Mr. Iococca and see if his class could have a field trip to the Viper plant. Chrysler HQ was then in Highland Park. I tracked down an address and had Moe compose and write the letter and address the envelope.
Three weeks later I got a phone call at work from the general manager of manufacturing at Chrysler who said the letter got more attention than if it had been sent by President Clinton and that they'd be delighted to host a bunch of 10 year olds.
It was a great experience for the kids, but I think the most important thing that they learned was seeing the dilapidated housing on Detroit's east side. Most of them had never seen actually poverty before, let alone experience it.
We don't have poverty in America. Not MATERIAL poverty, anyway.
What's interesting is that 150 years ago, rich people were fat and did nothing all day, while the poor were skinny and worked their asses off. The exact opposite of how it's done today.
This is the objective truth, but not the subjective one. People always want more *in comparison to their peer groups*, and will feign to any degree necessary. Of course you're absolutely right, it wasn't long ago where a lack of food was a major issue. Now we're dying from *too much* food. All this *predatory capitalism* brought us a green revolution in farming where instead of 90% of people being consumed with agricultural duties, it's 2%. People who are obviously seriously disconnected might lament this, and insist we return to pagan times, but they'd be the first to wither. Maybe we should?
I think about this a lot, because I now live cheek-by-jowl with a few thousand Amish families. Their lives are neither placid nor perfect, and they often suffer greatly from things that hardly affect me -- like when it was ten degrees below zero last week and I was passing their open carriages in a $78,000 truck. If I had to join the Amish tomorrow, I would probably die shortly afterwards.
And yet... They have intact families. They know who they are, what God expects of them, what their community expects. They are not insane with ambition or greed or perversion -- at least not in the aggregate. Most critically, they have a solid understanding of what life holds for them. I have no idea where I'll be working next month or what I will be doing. Their experience is the reverse of that.
That community they have is a blessing and a curse. Blessing in the sense of support and comfort in a time of need and/or distress, and curse in that everyone knows everything about everyone else.
However, as you say, there are many things that do not trouble them. I suspect they don't worry about their jobs being exported overseas, and they know what they'll be doing next year, next to whom, and with whose help. Anxiety eat your heart out.
I don’t get how you and your brother are both rich and poor at the same time. I make good money but i cant conceive of spending 78k on a truck. Granted I’m cheap and i hate debt.
the Amish are tolerated as a theme park community. Good for these harmless folks, but they'll never be able to serve as a role model or inspiring example. If they could, they would be crushed.
The Amish did not come together in an attempt to be a theme park community. It is the outsiders that treat the Amish as a theme park community. The Amish simply live their lives, and the way they do that is (in my eyes) an inspiring example in itself.
I think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that you are trying to say that if the Amish attempted to *promote* themselves as a role model or an inspiring example, they would be crushed. And you would be correct in that, because that is what has happened to other positive role models and inspiring examples in the modern western society.
A lot of what you say about intact families, expectations from God and community, and what life holds for them can also be said of orthodox Jews, except the part about traveling in sub-zero weather, though I know plenty of people who walk to the synagogue on the sabbath or holy days in inclement weather. Rather than run from technology, though, ortho Jews make it profitable for companies to have "sabbath modes" on their appliances.
Perhaps the most important thing about traditional faith communities is that kids learn that no really means no. In the grocery store line people have looked at me like I have super powers when my kids or grandkids have whined about wanting some kind of impulse item treat. If it's not kosher, I tell them that and the matter ends right there.
One of the most humbling experiences for me was seeing kids my age in my home country selling wares by themselves on the street while I was sitting in a taxi with my mom complaining about traffic after a long day of clothes shopping
My wife had times where her parents used food stamps. I did not grow up in a household like that. In spite of this, my sister told my wife that we "grew up poor" and I about died laughing. We grew up solidly middle class smack dab in the middle of Silicon Valley and while there was no ostentatiousness compared to some of our peers with their parents who were dual incomes, we were far from poor.
My family's economic condition growing up was what I refer to as "Farm Poor". Not on the farm, but the extended family was. There wasn't lots of money for things, but nobody was ever going to go hungry. Looking back I remember seeing (but not really recognizing) an extreme amount of work by my parents keeping Farm Poor from becoming Public Assistance Poor.
I've mentioned a book called "Yankee Boyhood" and it's a fascinating glimpse of farm life in the 1880's. In one story, the author describes a representative of the town showing up looking for his father's tax payment (this was pre-income tax, mind you). The guy wanted $20 - cash. The author's father had no idea how he was going to come up with such a gigantic amount as twenty bucks in cash, and eventually chopped down & sold about ten cords of firewood to get it.
I know money was worth about a hundred times as much back then but still, the culture was different. A man might be worth $20,000, but it was all tied up in the value of his land, house, barn, stock, cattle, tools, wagons, etc, but assembling twenty bucks was a "soul-searing task," as the author put it. Nowadays, a man can kick it New York Style: Ten million in the bank, no car, rent an apartment. He owns nothing and is happy.
I honestly don't know which is a better way to live. Take your pick, I guess.
My dad was a veterinarian but not a great businessman so we lived on the edge of the upper middle class. My folks bought new cars ever 3-5 years and travelled some. We have some affluent relatives (one uncle by marriage was a mortgage banker) and I went to a Hebrew day school with some fairly affluent kids. One friend's father owned a wholesale plumbing supply (my buddy was a 3rd generation country club member who is now a scratch golfer) and another friend inherited the seafood company that now processes much of the Alaskan crab industry. One schoomate's father owned Detroit's Fisher Bldg, and another's grandfather was a principal in the Purple Gang.
I guess as a result while my class consciousness was raised, I also realized that rich folks have to wipe their asses too and that in many cases (schools, synagogues, hospitals) I was benefiting from the largesse of the wealthy.
My family came to the US without a penny when I was 10 years old, from Eastern Europe. Five years later they built and paid for a house on a lake in West Bloomfield. The only advantage they and I had was built in intelligence. I went to two of the best universities in the US and worked my way to a very comfortable living not exploiting anyone. I don't feel bad about being somewhat materially successful.
It's been more than 60 years, but while I remember walking next to the assembly line, what stands out most in my memory was walkng the catwalk above the steel plant, watching them pour molten steel.
What’s weird is that when I was 16 McDs was an aspirational job for summer/part time work. Meet all the chicks! Instead I bussed tables at the Officers Club. I always make a point to be nice to the help, it costs me nothing, and they are working. And there is dignity in that no matter the title.
That's what I always thought. I mean, in my mind any fast food job was temporary (high school) part time work. I was taken aback when I first heard of the "you can't support a family on a minimum wage" argument. I didn't think anyone would attempt to.
I worked in a cafeteria in college, and while it wasn't as bad as fast food places, I never thought anyone would make a life-long career out of it. Hell, I could barely afford to pay for fuel and car insurance, and that was when premium was hovering around $1/gallon.
"was" is the operative word of your second sentence. After one works a temporary McJob through high school there is no high-paying manufacturing/union job with benefits and overtime. Nowadays people can work 60-70 hrs a week at 2+ jobs that each limit them to <30 hours to ensure they don't need to deal with them as full-timers.
"After one works a temporary McJob through high school there is no high-paying manufacturing/union job with benefits and overtime."
I would change this to say that there are no "zero-skill" high paying manufacturing/union jobs with benefits and overtime nowadays. The days of walking into a job without a skill and working your way up are done. It is now up to the individual to prepare themselves for higher-level employment and that means trade school, community college, military service, or whatever it takes. It means hard work, self-discipline and delayed gratification. I means not living the life you want to live until you build the foundation upon which to live it.
It sounds cruel, but a person supporting a family on two 30 hour a week minimum wage jobs have likely put themselves in that position. As a person who did not marry until he was in his late 30s and had his first child at 40, I don't feel a lot of sympathy for people who made "other" choices. They may suffer economically, but they will probably be alive to enjoy their grandchildren.
I could not disagree more. There were choices made by the lizards that directly led to the destruction of the non-college educated middle class and salted the earth for succeeding generations. From Taft-Hartley, to the War on Poverty, War on Drugs (btw congrats to Drugs for winning that one), to granting the People's Republic of China MFN status. I don't think Jonny "three baby momma" Smith had much influence on that.
Furthermore, in the parlance of hack marriage advice columnists everywhere, do you want to be happy or do you want to be right? Let's say you are correct? So what? I would much rather my dumbass neighbor could afford the Married With Children house as a shoe salesman than that he stole my catalytic converter.
There may have been choices made by others that gutted the working class, but I am essentially powerless to change that situation. The only thing I can actually control in life is what I do - the choices I make.
Other people have that power too. They do what they do and I don't feel sorry for them.
If you're too lazy to work at the shoe factory, you deserve to be broke.
If the shoe factory is in Vietnam, making DC shoes for Ken Block at pennies on the dollar using child labor, then you won't even get the choice to be lazy or not.
I'm not saying you should feel sorry for them any more than Jonny 3BM should feel sorry for you. You and Jonny and most all of us were harmed in different ways. "As a person who did not marry until he was in his late 30s and had his first child at 40" did you put yourself in that position? Not the decision itself, having to make that choice?
Blame Obama for that. He was the one that insured that companies wouldn't give people 40 hour work weeks by forcing them to pay for all sorts of benefits that turned minimum wage workers into anything but.
Everyone saw the results of that coming. But now most people don't remember the why of it. Minimum wage was never meant to do anything but keep certain classes of people from getting jobs.
it kinda ties back into what jack said about people doing contemptible things imo
many of the people i worked with in fast food did not speak much english, and our franchise was the only people who would be willing to hire them. Many of them also send money back home as its still significant enough vs wherever they come from. A lot of people in my anecdotal experience also tended to make poor decisions and end up becoming "stuck" working near min wage at fast food or retail until if they can work up to something better.
I worked retail for a couple of years and easily my least favorite part was customers. It was a liquor store which sometimes meant they were already hammered, but even sober people can be unpleasant.
I have never understood being impatient or impertinent toward the people working to serve you the food you want.
Everyone should have to work a retail job for at least two years. Just to get an understanding of what it’s like to be on the other side of the counter. Maybe there would be more empathy.
Having said that, it’s becoming harder to have empathy for people who treat you as if you are an annoyance.
I have worked for places where part of the interview was to take you out to a nice restaurant and watch how you treated the waitstaff. Also they'd offer to buy you a drink (alcoholic) while at lunch. To see of course if you'd come into work hammered or not.
Heard the same thing, but with J.C. Penney instead of IBM. The problem is, today restaurants don't salt their food, so *of course* it needs salt, damn it!
There are many reasons for the supposed low quality of retail employees but like the Big 3, corporate mismanagement is THE problem in retail.
Here are some of the idiotic things I've personally been subjected to during my (thankfully long ago) time in the retail salt mines:
Insistence on employees' use of specific words and phrases to answer phones.
Requiring employees to greet customers verbally upon entrance to store.
Allowing Store Managers absolute minimum of power necessary to execute operations (example - requiring SM's to submit weekly schedules to DM for approval) and involving DM in petty operations decisions properly handled at the store level.
All command decisions concerning store operations and personnel routed through highest-possible level.
Harassment from District Manager with demands for employees to hassle customers over phone with sales pitches seems to be based on said individual attempting to maximize his bonus.
Implementing policies which force Store Managers to draft at least two separate weekly schedules - one "official" schedule for submission to DM for his "on-paper" benefit, and one reflecting actual staffing necessities.
Formal requirement to notify District Manager in case of $5 petty cash variance.
General policy and culture of automatically siding with customers in any dispute, caving immediately to customer complaints and refusing to support company personnel during said disagreements.
Orwellian (and frankly well-explained by presence of ex-military decision makers) practice of company leadership dressing in same uniform as $10-per-hour employees, no doubt designed to encourage feelings of loyalty, solidarity and identification with company among poorly-paid lower echelons.
Installation of security cameras to monitor employees rather than watch for shoplifters.
Requiring employees to wear specific clothing as condition of employment, but not providing said clothing or compensating employees for purchase.
General corporate culture of treating employees as troublesome, disposable assets, viewing them with suspicion and assuming they're of below-average intelligence and in need of constant supervision.
In general, attempting to run the company as if it were the military, or more specifically, implementing all the worst Mickey Mouse Bullshit aspects of the military.
NAPA has been buying up a lot of franchise stores lately and wants to compete for more retail/walk-in business. I give them a few more years until they go to shit like the others.
I worked for AAP. My dad both. You're 100% correct.
My favorite was when they wanted workers to answer every phone call with "Thank you for calling Advance Auto Parts AND BATTERIES" to drive home the point that we sold batteries and did installs.
Inevitably, someone would come in with a Sebring and lose their shit because we weren't removing a wheel to change their battery.
When I was working for the company, they fired four people for not showing up for work the first month. Who knows how much money the company lost in training and sales? Meanwhile, I ran the numbers and figured I could make a decent living working 60 hours a week, so I was constantly pestering my boss for more hours.
His reason for refusal, which he never told me directly, was that one of his guys working that much overtime would fuck up his numbers and wreck his bonus.
Corporate America would rather fire slackers than cultivate workaholics.
I honestly think McDonalds and all the other fast food places 'end game' is to not be forced out of business. Other than the manager there isn't a single job in there that's worth $15 an hour that all of these places are forcing in (and they know it). In states like California the government has written laws that prevent the managers from doing things they once did that made THEM helicious salaries.
Notice that Carl's Junior, a native California chain, hasn't opened a store there in I think the last decade?
The end goal of all of this is that the left wants fast food eliminated from the country. You can't have the kind of world they want if people can by cheap food that is healthy. In California they've been trying to ban fast food stores for the last 20 years (maybe longer) and it wasn't until they hit on this whole $15 dollar an hour thing that they figured it out. Their current goal is to run the fast good stores out of business by making it TOO expensive for them to make a profit and stay in business.
Eventually those places will be run by one person - the manager, and that'll be it. Everything will be automated. The places that wont be automated will be those where it's cheaper to employ people rather than machines. Automation is NOT cheap. It has to be maintained, it has to be repaired, and it has to be CLEANED regularly.
We're witnessing just another front in the war to take away all of our rights and put us in a left wing gulag fantasy land. You need to control people's movement (real id, electric cars, kill switches, all that shit) and you need to control the FOOD supply (remember Stalin? remember the 'war of the sparrows?) which means artificial famines, high food prices, low food availability.
They already control the media and are quickly stamping out all free speech with those stupid 'Hate Speech' laws (where any speech they don't like is hateful).
I've seen the future and you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli milkshake and singing 'I'm An Oscar Meyer Weiner.'
Idiocracy didn't sit particularly well with me. I suppose it seems too much of a stretch for me to believe, has an air of mean spiritedness, and is generally denigrating of humanity. Fine for some, not for me.
Demolition Man is humorous and drives home the anodyne banality with extreme control measures that are necessary for their utopic vision.
Judging by the lines at In-n-Out and the number of Chik-Fil-As opening here in California, as well as the number of taquerias which are essentially our version of fast food, this just reads like some faux-hysterics. The lack of demand for Carl's JR or McDonalds is because the food sucks ass - not because it is the first barrier in putting us all in left wing gulags...
I don't know that in and out are opening any new stores and honestly was never a fan of theirs. Chick-fil-A, yeah, they have been expanding but it will be interesting to see how they do in the long run.
Mcdonalds here starts at 14-15 these days and they cant find workers. If youre competent and show up, you can get entry level jobs paying 20. Every local restaurant is paying $22 and are short staffed. It’s not great money but it is real money and a shot to get ahead
My childhood friend is a partial owner of some mcdonalds franchises. They make money hand over fist. I’m trying to get him to switch to me as an accountant.
'More interesting than my decision to basically manipulate McDonald’s cashiers into following my order flow the way the parasitic liver fluke does an ant: the way people react when I tell them about it. Ten percent say “Oh, that’s neat”, meaning “let’s not discuss it further, you’re creeping me out.” Forty percent say “You have a serious problem,” which is not news to me. But the remaining fifty percent will say something along the lines of, to quote Rodney, “Why the fuck would you spend any time making things easier for McDonald’s cashiers?”'
I thought, "Oh that makes sense. Be all things to all people." Meet them where they're at, which is something I sometimes have issues with.
As to the rest: I merely expect it to lead to fully automated luxury McWhoppers where poor neighborhoods have a variety of items unavailable because maintenance wasn't performed and they think it's normal.
i sure hope i never hang out with the people you do--is that what young? middleage? america has really turned into? i guess it also depends on what part of the country you live in. all 3answers are immature and the last one is just mean. jeepers!
I have to confess that while I was reading about Jack's order optimization, I just kept wondering why anyone would ever eat at McDonald's.
I went there exactly once, early in my college days with a friend who used to work there. He offered to order (after I told him what I wanted), but he had to fuss with the cashier for a while, because he was trying to order in such way that they couldn't give us something that had been sitting under a heat lamp for a while.
Eventually they took his order, we could see them prepare it, I took one bite of it, almost vomited, and threw the rest away. Even today if I get too close and can smell the food, my stomach starts churning.
There is an ingrained revulsion response toward what one's body believes one ate that made one violently ill.
I projectile vomited (thanks for cleaning up after my half ass attempt, mom!) a not-insignificant amount of half digested Cheez-Its during a vertiginous experience where the hallway looked like it was tilting past 45*. I can report that one can retrain oneself to overcome the involuntary response but it takes real commitment.
It's probably not worth the effort McDonald's and I can't say I would bother with Cheez-It training in hindsight.
Also, I stop at a McD's once or twice a year when the kids are screaming and I just want to get them something, anything!
It's funny, I get vertigo from BPPV episodes and while the room spins and the sweat sheets off me enough to need showers, it hasn't made me puke yet. I guess my body saves that for CHS.
I get deficient on potassium if I don't eat enough yogurt, tomato juice, and bananas. A while back I bent over to the right to tie my shoe while sitting and apparently set off a bad cramp in an abdominal muscle. I could see it bulge. It was so painful I thought it I'd ruptured something. I lied down on my back on the floor to try to relax the muscle and as my head flipped back BPPV kicked in. I'm laying there in serious pain, the room is spinning and I'm asking God to stop it or take me now.
as to how and why rich people would so enjoy belittling the poor, I would wager it is because anyone who does so is fundamentally unhappy and ungrateful. they don't know it of course, and would in fact probably tell you they are quite the opposite. but in my experience, people who are genuinely happy and grateful tend to be generally thoughtful and kind.
I used to work at Domino's (often understaffed, often alone) and id love it when customers took the time to place their orders online, instead of calling on the phone and yelling at me in what would appear to be angry English or an attempt of it. It would also make our work faster and it would mean the customer got their estoteric pizza the way they wanted it.
That being said I do not miss working there at all, though I try to tip my favorite local restaurants as much as possible because service jobs DO suck, especially post plandemic . Im grateful for the McDonald's app, as its the only way I can get an OK meal for under $10 there still (seriously the quarter pounder+free med fries+free med drink is a killer, though it also means giving up some privacy to Ronald, but im too hungry to care for that) . The quality though is a hit or miss, the small town mcdonalds here is understaffed and serves cold food, but the one where i went to college in, was pretty prompt and the food wasn't half bad. They even had a working ice cream machine
I wonder if there will be any human element at all in the future of McDonald's food, maybe a McVending machine is next?
There’s a whole story behind the McDonald’s ice cream machines. I think Jack may have even mentioned it at some point. But essentially it’s the John Deere ‘only we can repair it’ situation again. Franchisees have to use certain equipment and are beholden to Prince Castle (I assume) for repair and maintenance. And it was a racket, so a couple of enterprising nerds hacked the ice cream machines and made out like bandits.
Is that like those union jobs where the guy literally standing next to the switch or button isn't allowed to throw it, because that's not HIS job, and they've gotta call a guy who's at the other end of the factory?
Everyone here knows that I think GM sucks dog nuts compared to Ford, but in a Chevy the heated steering wheel button is... wait for it... on the steering wheel! In my F-250 its in a submenu on the right side of a foot-wide touchscreen.
I tend to tip delivery drivers fairly well. Of course, they do the bare minimum to earn those tips. Had a driver deliver to the wrong address last week. Which they would have known, if they'd knocked on the door instead of just dropping it off and leaving.
It's interesting seeing all of the so called "good people" talk all kinds of shit about rural people. I've got a bit of a southern accent most of the time, but I play it up a little when I'm up north for work. Client expectations plummet, which can be very useful at times. Kind of a shame though.
I think McDicks gains the ability to use even cheaper labor, and possibly a path towards more automation. IDK whether they lose anything because there's already low expectations for quality. If someone wants good fast food they'd go to Cookout.
Off and on for the last 17 years I've worked a handful of days each winter at retail store inside a ski resort near my home in Upstate New York. The pay has never been that great but I get a season pass plus a few extra bucks in my pocket during the holidays. Since being taken over by Vail Resorts the POS systems requires logging in with a unique user name in password before every transaction, this is followed by a prompt asking once again for your ID number, then the customer's email. Then, you're finally allowed to scan the customers item, then before accepting payment, you're once again prompted for the customer's email, and then, and only then are you ready to accept payment at which time we inform the customer that we don't accept cash and for reasons no one understands, we don't accept Apple Pay. Then, for the next customer in line the entire process starts over again. Yet, despite this needless layer for complexity, is has made my job multitudes more enjoyable. It seems to be that by making it harder for customers to spend money we've become less busy which has decreased the my work load considerably.
I don't know a single person at any resort who is happy about this Vail consolidation -- there's a mildly funny video out there complaining about it but I can't find it!
I am not very familiar with anti-trust law, but from what I know I don't see how it would apply to any current situation in the ski industry at the moment. There just isn't that much consolidation over all, just at the top.
I wish they would cut off the flow of cheap foreign workers that the big resorts take advantage of to keep wages low. Basically the same arguments as H1Bs that is often talked about on ACF.
The big difference in the ski industry is that it along with modern equipment kills the tiered luxury resort structure that used to exist.
Everything is expensive, but the larger multi mountain corporations have the infrastructure to take advantage of the guest worker programs to keep the restaurants staffed, lodges clean and to an extent the ski schools running without paying wages that would attract people to those jobs otherwise. Places like Vail, Park City, Palisades should be much more expensive than they are given the amenities and service level.
But because they aren't, the smaller places aren't a less expensive alternative, they are just lesser, so more and more customers are funneled into the overcrowded resorts, which is bad.
I think it's just a general complaint to the few companies that appear to be swallowing every competitor: Disney in entertainment, Amazon as the mom & pop corner0store crusher, yada yada.
As bad as Vail is I fear what comes next will be even worse. I predict that in the not so distance future, more than a handful of their current holdings, including the one I work at, will be deemed distressed securities and fall under the conservatorship of Ares, Cerberus or some other firm that specializes in dismantling and selling off once great businesses for pennies on the dollar.
That one is upstate is almost idiot proof, as it and the other large local competitor are 1.5 hours (in my experience with road conditions and traffic, google says a bit less) closer to NYC then the next best options in VT. It is the edge of day trip for many which is why the real estate didn't take off, YMMV, like in southern VT resorts.
There is a book by the former CEO of Steamboat that summarizes things well enough, called Ski INC 2020.
You don't mean that paying customers don't like waiting in mile long lines just to park because Vail oversold too many dirt cheap season passes during the off-season?
I'm surprised there's no mention here of how utterly awful the McDonald's touchscreen UI is.
Want to place an order? Are you sure you don't want to log in to your McDonald's account first?
No check out/pay button, but you can view your order by hitting the view order but... ARE YOU INTERESTED IN PERHAPS PURCHASING THESE RANDOM ADDITIONAL FOOD ITEMS? NO? ARE YOU SURE?
I like to say that, as a general rule, I can tell whether a UI/UX designer is a windoze or Mac user. Occasionally a Mac users will design too much fru-fru into the UI/UX, but by and large they design more thoughtful UI/UX than windoze people.
Speaking as a code monkey, you correctly identified the symptom but misdiagnosed the disease. UI/UX designers optimize the experience differently depending on whether the end users' time (Apple customers) or their engagement (McDs customers) is considered more valuable.
Like so many things it's just a product of class politics; whether management respects the customers as peers or contemptuously perceives them as suckers.
So has it always been and always will be. Said management isn't even wrong; Apple customers really are less willing to have their time wasted than McDs customers while McDs customers really are easier to fool with the simplest cons ("order now to enter the sweepstakes giveaway!") and less trustworthy in their own right (creating duplicate accounts to double dip on signup or birthday promotions, using the ex-roommate's Netflix password).
I don't think there's any conceivable way to force this waterfall upwards—a truly classless society is either impossible or requires "Harrison Bergeron" levels of social engineering—but it's worthwhile to reflect on one's class privilege when one is made aware of it.
McDonald’s in the UK has been transitioning to all touchscreen ordering for a while. Some restaurants you can still counter order, but this is increasingly rare. Tbh I don’t find the UI/UX too bad at all, apart from the ‘continue without logging in?’ prompt because I’m naturally averse to any retail loyalty schemes.
However I recently went to. BK for the first time in years and their touchscreen ordering is a total shit show.
What composer was it that interrupted performance of his own work to yell at the audience "You will take your dissonance in silence!" when he sensed their unrest? I want to say it was in the early 20th century, but I do not recall the name, nor the year.
Anyway, there are far too many enjoyable compositions to have to put up with dissonance.
But you will take your sauce, and you will like it!
To the extent automation goes to the front of the house or the customer service piece this will have a lopsided impact on low income women. It will be interesting to see what impact that has on family formation. If manufacturing makes a comeback you could actually see lower income men becoming marriage eligible. More than likely everyone will be hosed and ubi and more illegal immigration will be pitched as the miracle cure.
I didn't think about the reduction in low skill female jobs might have on family dynamics. You've got a good idea, and I hope it works but I bet your last sentence will happen. They've gotta do UBI or something cause too many young men who (rightly or wrongly) think there's no future in the system can't be good.
We already have UBI, it's called WIC. My wife and I had children before we got married. If we'd have been freeloaders, we could've put her residence at her parents and picked up 30-40 a year in free government benefits. That 5k birth of my child? FREE, medical insurance? FREE, Baby formula? FREE. Our society actively encourages single motherhood through tax incentives and rebates vs healthy family formation. It costs me 5-10k a year to be married without even including all the FREE shit she could've gotten if we didn't. FREE FREE FREE!!! sorry. Sore subject
WIC, to me, is a pragmatic response to the fact that underfed and/or abused children end up being much more expensive to society than any program to address their major issues up front.
The real solution is to have societal mores in place that prevent that behavior without a payout, but the Supreme Court made up the separation of church and state so....
I don't know if this is sarcasm or not but assuming it's not:
We live in a socially revolutionary time where traditional forms of maintaining cohesion, continuity, and shaping people have been eschewed for mass media propaganda and the promise of do-what-you-will which is a devil's bargain because most people end up enslaved by some vice or other.
We quite literally gave UBI a trial here in Canada during Covid. No strings attached $2k a mo (cue THIS ISN'T A LIVING SUBSITY).
Predictably, we spent in a single short period of time MORE MONEY THAN ALL CANADIAN GOVERNMENTS IN HISTORY COMBINED, and received massive labor shortages. The predictable response I get from middle class office worker supporters of this is "bUt It WaS cOvID wE hAD tO" are utterly preposterous, until you consider that they know that if they coudln't go to their "non-essential" coprorate jobs, they'd be forced to work in a greenhouse or food processing plant, which of course would be unacceptable.
I live in an ag town that has thousands upon thousands of acres of greenhouses which are essentially indoor farm factories. I know many people who own, operate and work in them. They rely heavily on migrant labor (and pay them the same prevailing $15/hr min wage), because this work is beneath locals. When the gov wouldn't let the migrants in, and literally paid everyone else to STAY HOME AND STAY SAFE, my greenhouse operator friends were facing major production shortages in the food supply. Predatory capitalism keeps people fed. Socialism kills to the degree we let it.
With regards to UBI, we sort of saw a test run of what that would look like in 2020 with the "summer of love". The CARES act massively increased unemployment benefits and made paying your rent or utilities discretionary. When you give young men funds, abundant time, but no purpose they will find one. And when they do make sure the fire department is ready and you have plenty of Narcan on hand.
Many thoughts:
0 - As a humble, hardscrabble hillbilly myself, I wince at lazy depictions of my Appalachian brethren as lesser than; I am not above poking fun at underdeveloped personal aesthetic sensibilities, but in terms of character, those folks are invariably top drawer.
1 - I believe the impetus behind the upsell was the enhanced profit margin on larger beverage sizes (and fries, to a lesser extent).
2 - I am already a participant in the automated disintermediation of fast food labor markets, as I prefer to place my orders on an app (easier, quicker, there’s usually some incentive to do so).
3 - I recall a McDonald’s at Charles de Gaulle operating on the touch screen only method a few years ago; my father nearly vomited at a McDonald’s near the Galeries Lafayette when a meal for four rang in at nearly $100 (in ~2005).
4 - Didn’t have to click the outlink at the bottom!
Yes, the food cost (ie. net cost) of all drinks is in the cents. Like, less than 5p when I worked for McDs. Milkshakes are another matter, but they still make a good margin. When the extra value meals were added into the UK menu in about 1992? for £2.88 a lot of customers were apoplectic they couldn't get one with a shake, and as our store was decidedly inner city we had to come up with a creative way to add a small surcharge (before head office woke up and did it officially later).
McDonald's used to do good shakes and soft drinks. That mantle has been passed to Wawa.
I remember back in The Before Time, when they'd cook the fries in actual beef fat, they also had really good beverages. You know how liquor tastes better out of a glass bottle than a plastic one? Same thing's true for Coke. A McDonald's medium Coke in an old-style wax-paper cup was the greatest soft drink in the world on a hot day. It just doesn't taste right out of a plastic cup. A vanilla shake in a large wax-paper cup was awesome. Now, they use an inferior recipe, they put whipped cream on them, serve them in plastic cups with dome lids - it's just not the same.
God, I sound like some post-apocalyptic refugee telling stories around a campfire in the wasteland, don't I?
4 - I did. Now I understand the username, Georgia man. What skeletons lurk in your closet, eh? Fry-suspicious.gif
Most of these jobs are not jobs that I would have ever considered supporting a family with. Working at McDonald's is fine as a second income for a wife (low-wage female workers were mentioned elsewhere) or for teenagers (everyone has worked or knows someone who has worked in fast food when they were growing up: my girlfriend worked at Burger King, I worked at a video rental store). Up here, the McDonald's has the pretty girls at the counters and the Bumbles at the fryers the God intended. But that's not the way it is anymore, is it? I have my own hot take, but it could go either way based on my feeling at the moment. Corporations absolutely seem run by lizard people who hate us and do everything they can to disenfranchise us. On the other hand, people need to be responsible for themselves and for the work they do. It's really not my fault if you don't find skills to put yourself in a position to get anything better than a job at your local fast food joint. I lean a little towards the former at the moment because for the past few years we've seen the blatant disregard those at the very top have towards us, but it's still a hot take and I don't have perfect information nor the insight necessary to come down solidly on either side. So I'll take the middle path at the moment and say there needs to be more mutual respect going on.
But more than that, I think there's something else entirely going on. Thomas Sowell says the real minimum wage is $0, which leads to teenagers without job opportunities because they're being taken by adults working dead-end McJobs at $15/hour (or no jobs for anyone at all because $15/hour is simply too much for whatever job it may be). But more than that, there are all the other costs involved with children. Ever larger cars to fit car seats for expanding families. Education. The rising cost of food and the shortages of various critical things like formula (that was a thing recently, thanks to our lizard overlords). All the sports and after-school activities our culture demands our kids join, and all the costs involved in those. Specialized equipment for said activities. Clothing. Larger (and more and more unobtainable) housing. I don't think we're going to find a 4-bed, 2-bath house for anywhere near our price range up here. And we can't have a fourth child because then I'd have to go find two different cars with the seats to put them in. So it seems to me that the McAutomation is just another pat of the cultural swing against children and families. I don't know if it's a main idea or just an accident of converging lizard people goals.
To sort of go along with this, for someone (or, increasingly rarely, two people) raising kids and having to work 2 of these awful, low-wage jobs, you end up having to outsource your own child-raising. Someone else is spending all those quality hours with your kids as you toil away. Perhaps someone who buys into what the lizard people are selling...
edited for clarity in second paragraph
Fast food as an industry evolved to take advantage of cheap teenage labor that was useless for the purposes of a modern, specialized economy. It was never intended to be a proper job for an adult.
Paul Graham, in his essay "Why Nerds Are Unpopular," described the modern world as a place where the jobs are too specialized for formerly-useful teenagers to do. It's why public schools are run like prisons - because they essentially are. Have to keep the little monsters off the streets until they're 18, and all that.
Schools and retail jobs are awful for the same reason - because they're not real work.
Another bit of Thomas Sowell's wisdom: every new generation of kids is like a barbarian invasion. It's up to us to civilize them. (I didn't put quotations around that because I'm not sure of his exact words).
It's amazing how much effort goes into giving children manners. Which is probably why so few people have them.
When our neighbors tell us how polite our kids are I wonder just who they're talking about. When the teachers tell us how hard-working and diligent they are I almost wonder if there are alien bodysnatchers who inhabit our kids as soon as they cross our threshold.
Same with the ridiculous teacher comments. I am reminded of how terrified I was of parent teacher night as a kid. I never stopped talking, argued with everything, rarely turned in work at all, much less on time. None of that would have sat well with my parents.
Invariably, despite by HS not turning in major assignments the day of PTN just to see what would happen, my parents would come home with all the glowing compliments the teachers said about me.
That is why I don't believe any of the hogwash I hear from school employees. It is just easiest to tell you that your little Timmy or Tammy is the greatest kid they have ever has the privilege of teaching, and then have you walk away smiling.
I was a smart kid with a big mouth. Parent-teacher conferences were never fun even when I was getting As.
I tell my son that people think he's too hard on his boys, which is true. He replies by saying people think his boys are very well behaved, which is also true.
With my three grandsons, all it takes is a "what?" in the appropriate tone of voice to elicit forgotten please and thank yous.
Speaking of them, let me brag about my youngest grandson, who is 4. Their parents took them to the Henry Ford Museum today. Going through the car collection there was a '59 Cadillac Eldorado. Yosh said, "That's like the Ghostbusters' car." Pretty good pattern recognition for a four year old.
As I understand it, raising children is fundamentally no different from raising puppies.
People often say they can't control their misbehaving children. What? You're bigger, faster, stronger and smarter than they are. How can you not control them?
Good God, then they grow old and the game shifts! My folks would be better off in an independent-living area of a retirement community, and not trying to take care of a four-bedroom colonial house from which nothing has been discarded over the past 20 years! But try telling my Dad that! “OK, Boomer” indeed! 🙄
To a degree, yes; having raised both/being in the process of raising children: it breaks down rather quickly and there are separate sets of options that open and close.
A child you can ask questions and talk to by the time they're one, another year and they start understanding the concept of things being non-immediate, and it keeps branching from there.
That said, you do employ similar techniques like withholding reward until they do what you want them to do (like waiting instead of grabbing for your food) and then jamming the cracker into their maw.
That's pretty close to what Sowell said, but I can't remember the exact quote, either.
Sowell and Rush Limbaugh are two guys I like a lot, but they often seemed to push the idea that life sucks and the sooner you surrender to that reality, the sooner you get to be kinda-sorta happy. While I generally agree with them on most things, their business of extolling hard work for its own sake never sat well with me. One works hard to accomplish a difficult task, not to demonstrate one's supposed virtue.
I have to admit I scored some points with the lefties in my office because I make fun of the whole "If you only worked harder you'd be a whole lot more successful, you slacker!" mentality. In our society (and plenty of people have touched upon it here) there's an awful lot of schmoozing one must do to reach a certain level of financial success, and if there's one thing I hate doing, it's schmoozing. That's not to say hard work doesn't pay off, or that schmoozing is the only way to become successful, I hate leaving work undone when it reaches my desk and my boss loves me for it, but I'm unlikely to be the assessor for other units up here, or become director of my department (or a related one) because I just don't want to play politics with everyone around me. I don't need an income big enough to afford a VW with a Porsche badge on it to be happy.
Robert Ringer said that if you work like a dog sunup to sundown your whole life, you're only guaranteed to get one thing: OLD!
Isn’t office politics wonderful whilst working for the government?! 😂😂
You work for a government agency, which seem to me to have no feedback loops when it comes to quality of performance. What's the reward for doing your job well? What's the penalty for doing it poorly?
A quick search shows that workers in the private sector are 45 times more likely to get fired than federal employees. It may be different at the county level where you work but you'll have to pardon me for being skeptical that it's that different. Do you know of anyone with an office job that's gotten fired by your county?
Almost no one ever gets fired from the county. There was a guy who worked in my department before my time who had a very serious alcohol problem, used to keep a fifth in his desk and would show up still drunk from the night before and throw up in the garbage can beside his desk. I think there's a story about him using the county vehicles to go to the bar and get drunk, too (after hours, I believe). I think someone once got fired for getting in an actual fist fight, and another person got herself fired for helping her drug addict friend by messing with his records in the courthouse or something like that. The union protects all the useless workers and prevents me from getting raises for performing efficiently. But at least I can't get fired I guess.
It has happened, Ronnie, but yes, the various unions protect the useless! There’s seemingly an entire class of people working for my jurisdiction that wouldn’t last two seconds in the private sector!
When I was in College, I did some papers on minimum wage and income inequality (which I got As on in spite of refuting a prevailing narrative!). Thomas Macurdy of Stanford has done a lot of good research on the subject. One point that he noted is that the VAST majority of fast food workers are not the primary income earner of the household (IIRC it was <5%). Meaning, the narrative of "you can't support a family on these poverty wages" is practially moot. Of course you can't, (at least in to a modern standard), that was never part of the deal!
Frankly, I agree with a portion of your 2nd point. A lot of the "yoosta be able to support a family on X income" hyperbole has to do with a difference in living standards. Real wages (what you get for what you earn, adjusted for inflation) have gone up over the last half century. How were these households of 40-50 years ago supported by a single working father? A family might have only had 1 shitty car, never ate out, handed down clothes, mended socks, ate less, didn't have 6 streaming services or cable TV, internet, cell phone bills etc. etc. many more luxuries of today. (Yes the job pool changed, but unemployment is low). To do this today in most cases would have you looking like one of teh poors to the outside world.
I'm not going on some boomer rant here to reinforce any type of superiorty/inferiority complex, but to push people to be at least a little intellectually honest or even literate in their arguments about economic oppression. I have no issue with people wanting modern luxuries and a better life, but these things aren't entitlements. Individuals have to manifest them for themselves.
My wife and I made sacrifices for the past several years (some in Japan, some here in Michigan). She stayed home with the kids and I went out and earned a modest income. We were still able to afford ourselves as luxurious a lifestyle as the greatest of the kings of 200 years ago, complete with 2 decent (if old) cars and cell phones and wireless internet and international travel (thanks, father-in-law!). And we didn't go into debt for any of it. There are all sorts of ways you can live on a small budget, and yes, hand-me-down clothes and not eating out are involved in the lifestyle. There are all sorts of silly things people waste money on. I even managed to lose 30 lbs over the past year and never set foot into a gym, because you can do so much at home on your own without even having to buy any fancy equipment (I don't look down on people who can afford toys and I feel a bit of envy towards those who have kettle bells and/or a cool sports car in their garage).
So far as unemployment, I think the current official number is horseshit. It is only counting unemployed among those who are actively looking for work. I don't doubt that ignoring the people who have simply dropped out of the labor market (including a decent amount of able-bodied men) is done on purpose, and that if we knew the actual number people would be shocked. Same thing with the inflation rate. They don't measure the way they used to. I don't remember where I've seen it, but if you measure it the way they measured it during the Carter years it would be something like twice as much. I mean, when you go to the store and see how much more everything costs, and consider the housing market and other things, no way is it only the approximately 8% they've been telling us.
Sounds like my childhood. We lived modestly and my mom only worked when we were IN TROUBLE, and only until the emergency passed, until we were all in high school and old enough to not need constant parenting.
I rather like one proposal for dealing with, okay, it was "homelessness" but I think it'd work pretty well in dealing with unemployment. The government gives the unemployed three choices: You join a work program, you allow the State to commit you to an institution or you go to jail. None of this "Using the social safety net as a hammock" crap.
You're right that the unemployment rate is sort of bullshit, but only if you're trying to infer something from it that's not meant to be. You're right that people who have dropped out aren't technically counted. A low rate could mean people who want jobs are finding them, or that a lot of people have simply dropped out. Regardless, my point was to show that the job vacancy rate is high and thus opporunity is high for those who seek it.
The decline in purchasing power doesn't come as a result of most of the modern luxuries. Food, TVs, streaming services, and (until 2020) even cars have gotten cheaper over time. It's really just three things that are making the difference: housing, health care, and college. Those three things have gotten multiples more expensive even accounting for inflation and changes in living standards, and it is those three things that are straining people's budgets.
I'm doing just fine, but when I realize that the same house my father bought for $400k in 2022 dollars is now two houses worth $4 million each, or that he paid $400 monthly in today's dollars for a family health insurance premium, it puts things in perspective.
I never asserted a decline in purchasing power. With regards to net budgetary strain, I included additional things that are in the average family budget which add up to a lot but weren't part of a budget 40 or 50 years ago.
A point on housing costs. Aside from the most absolute recent bubble and exponential demand markets, the true long term cost of housing was better on average than it was 40 years ago with higher purchase prices, but far lower interest rates. In general, the stagflationary market rates of the supposed golden boomer years for buying "cheap" houses was worse for a family budget. Sure that meme-maker's dad bought a whole house for 50k, but he was paying 18% on it.
I’d take 18% interest if home dropped 20% in price. At least that i can pay off early.
20% drop is too low to take that deal. The starter home my parents bought in the early seventies (for less than the average price of a new car today), paid for with a respectable income on a college grad's salary, when interest rates were high has probably increased in value forty fold after decades of ZIRP.
I wouldn't take that deal. At those rates you ain't paying shit off early.
“Which worries me at my very core, honestly. I don’t personally think there is any such thing as a contemptible job; there are only people doing contemptible things, or people doing jobs in contemptible fashion.”
If your opinion was the generally held one, America would be a better place!
This sounds a lot like what Mike Rowe (the “Dirty Jobs” guy) is trying to do with his foundation. He started out trying to close the “skills gap” and has come to realize that a skills gap may not be the real problem. He’s trying to show kids “hey, instead of taking out $200k in loans to get a degree, why not go make good money as a plumber or a welder”. It’s hard work but at least you won’t be paying off loans for the rest of your life.
Having spent a significant part of my youth in the engine rooms of ships and doing other heavy labor I think everyone "pays" sooner or later. You take on $200K in college loans to get a degree or you pay in wear and tear on your body, increased exposure to injurious or life threatening situations, and in other quality-of-life issues and/or health consequences like chronic pain and shortened lifespans created by things like exposure to chemicals.
I think it is great that some Americans want to do real "work" but I think everyone needs to know all the facts when they stand at the crossroads of life and make a decision about the direction they want to go. There is no free lunch.
there's also the sense of workmanship, pride, and permanence that comes with a job well done when you're in the trades. I in no way pretend to have been a tradesman, but about 15 years ago, after being laid off from a journalism job, I did a stint as a general laborer working with a friend who was a general contractor. one day he had me build two steps from the garage to the laundry room of a house. Not a big job, mind you, but when I was done, a master carpenter on the job looked the stairs, looked at me, and asked, "You built that? Nice job" and walked away. They were just a simple set of steps, it's not like I'd built a dovetail joint, but I couldn't have been more proud.
I returned to journalism a short time later. I harbor no illusions that anything I've written or edited since then has been remembered for more than a few days. There's an ephemeral nature to almost everything published online these days. But I'm reasonably sure those two steps will still be there years from now, and that thought always makes me smile.
I think you will be well remembered among your fellow writers and the young people for whom you have been a mentor.
that's very kind of you to say.
I work in the trades though sometimes I feel like a bit of a phony. I’m a machinist working in aerospace so I’m in a climate controlled plant (kept at 68-72 degrees year round - a couple degrees can mean scrapping a part when you’re measuring millions of an inch). I ended up here kind of by accident, I was newly married and the job I had been doing ended and because my wife had a good job and was supportive, I had the luxury of thinking about what I actually wanted to do. I thought about what I liked from previous jobs (working with my hands) and what I hated from previous jobs (interacting with customers).
Building planes is an actual job you can be proud of. You can point to the completed vehicle and say, "I built that."
Yeah, but you fuck one goat...
There is definitely something to be said for being able to see what you’ve accomplished at the end of the day. And it’s nice to be able to point to something real and say that you had a part in making it happen. My job isn’t as difficult as the guys who are out there in the weather and in dangerous conditions building bridges or welding ships or whatever. I work in an air conditioned shop surrounded by lcd screens and robots and precision measuring equipment. It gets a little boring sometimes but the pay is decent and the benefits are good. I get to be close to home and have good family time.
An old college friend of mine works for a company that builds skyscrapers in a city that is very unionized. His job is in regards to the electrical systems, usually the automation and fire ones. These days he's inspecting stuff for his company and checking the work before the city inspectors come through.
He told me about a job where he's looking at a wired panel and the insides are not neat and square. It's a mess. It's 'legal' but it's just not a good job and he turns to the guy who did it and complains.
The guy says: 'What? It works! It's right! There's nothing wrong there!'
My friend responds: 'That looks like something a couple of six-Paks would do! That's not the kind of work I'd expect from a union man!'
Guy doesn't say anything, my friend just signs it off and leaves.
Next time he's out at the job site that same guy finds him and brings him back to the panel and shows it to him. NOW it's done perfectly, all nice and square and laid out. My friend turns to the guy and says 'Now THIS is the kind of work I'd expect from a union man! Great job!'
And the guy was beaming at him.
The unions love my friend because he always praises them for doing good work - so they do it for the jobs he oversees. It's all about the work environment and all of the old hands know: people respond better to praise than criticism. So once a job's done right, you make sure people know it.
Sadly way too many of the 'people in charge' don't know this and don't care and they're quick with the whip and slow with the carrot (if they even know what a carrot is).
That master carpenter knew this. He saw a well done task and he made sure you got the reward. Probably went out of his way to make sure you got it too.
(and yes six-Pak is a union slur - or was back then - about crappy non-union workers).
Brilliant story, well told.
That's what unions need if they want a future: a well-deserved reputation for being the place to get the best craftsmen, expensive though they may be.
Not a home for lazy thugs and Mafia money-laundering.
Working in a fleet shop, quality of workmanship is my number two priority, I have very few comebacks, first priority is to make sure they have enough equipment to ship the groceries, I take too long to do things in my job, but no one is bitching...
Not only that, but the tradespeople have the potential to be better off financially. The big degree types get into the workforce much later, thus have a much higher opportunity cost. For example, I have a younger cousin, who after going through veterinary school (particularly expensive ones), and moving about the world, is finally settling into a career at 31 250k in debt, just in time to be pregnant.
A hard working tradesperson could have built very significant net worth by then.
My ex was a vet. Doctor school cost, staff accountant money. It was a raw deal. And the job sucks and hard to keep a relationship doing it. Hence, the ex part.
That's what I understand. Veterinary suicide rates are up there with dentists.
One of the biggest conundrums I've heard is that poor people have the most pets, will bring them in and not pay any bills. Being a hard ass about this means letting puppies and kitties die.
My father was a veterinarian and he loved his job and the challenge of diagnosis with limited tools (vet clinics then didn't have MRI machines). He also had five figures worth of uncollectible accounts receivables. Back in the 1970s, if the vet bill was going to be more than $200-$300 it usually meant euthanizing the animal.
Over the past few decades veterinary medicine has become pretty much a female occupation. I wonder how that ties in to the increased suicide rates.
Seems like EVERYTHING'S become a female occupation.
I saw a video of the USS Ronald Reagan where, apart from the captain, the entire pilot house crew seemed to be female. My first thought was, "Bridge Bunnies?" but then I remembered that Bridge Bunnies are ATTRACTIVE women.
Who would you rather be?
The guy with the JD from Harvard Law and a quarter-million in student loans that'll take 30 years to pay back, or the North Dakota roughneck who just bought his house with cash?
I don’t know that that’s a very fair comparison. I’m guessing someone with a JD from Harvard Law can pay off a $250k school loan with one bonus a few years out of school. Really, if you have the opportunity to go to an Ivy you should take it because it’s very hard to F that opportunity up. What you need to worry about is being the guy with $250k of loans from Directional State U where the payout does not nearly match the earnings upside. I say this as a guy with an MBA from Directional State U that is basically worthless aside from keeping me from being weeded out in the first cut of resumes. Fortunately an ex-employer bought it for me.
A lot of those degrees now cost about a million dollars. Semesters run about a quarter million. Which is a bar to entry for a lot of folks. All of the big colleges are sitting on so much money that they don't need to charge tuition. They got hundreds of billions in the bank.
They do it to screen people out.
Those schools are not about the education either (which is why so many who come out of them ain't that bright) it's about the Connections you make while there. Rich people send their kids there to meet other rich people.
That's it.
The folks that have to bow and scrap and get grants and the like? Who run up huge debts? Those debts have interest. It will take them decades to pay them back unless they get lucky - because those 'high paying' jobs go to the rich kids.
You don't get a better education at Harvard than at Penn State. You go to make friends with J. Pierce Moneybags III, so he can give you a million-dollar no-show board job in 25 years.
I agree...so do my friends. One friend of mine got his JD at Yale. The Yale pedigree opened doors for him at Treasury. That Treasury stint allowed him to jump to a multi-national retailer where he focuses on Latin America. He lives simply and will likely retire early.
My other friend went to Penn State for his JD. He hated his post-graduation JD existence. He turns wrenches for me as well as working in the non-profit world. He enjoys the life-giving work.
It is fascinating listening to the two converse with each other. They are intellectual equals. I simply ask defining or contextual questions every few minutes.
My wife is a pediatric nurse at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center. By her working full-time, our kids are eligible for a tuition discount of 75% at Penn State's main campus and all the other branches around the state. We tell our kids for their college choice, it's either Penn State or it's Penn State!
Sir, I think you need to check your numbers. A year’s tuition at Harvard Law is $70k, and they project half that again for all fees, room and board, etc. so you’re looking at $100k/yr x 3 years.
Dont forget undergrad. I dont think harvard law is letting my mizzou undergrad in. And that was 150k 15 years ago. Thanks mom and dad.
in general, I agree with your sentiment. but North Dakota is waaaay too cold for my taste :-)
"I don’t personally think there is any such thing as a contemptible job; there are only people doing contemptible things, or people doing jobs in contemptible fashion.”
Bra-fucking-vo.
95% of the people I interact with daily don't get that. The world would be an immeasurably better place if they would.
We have ended up in a society where the management class has separated itself almost completely from the labor class. There are a number of independent causes for that, but the end result is simple: managers do not see workers as human and do not feel any obligation toward them. Workers (and people too disabled, ill, or drugged to work) are purely objects of contempt, to be exploited and derided, as you saw on your drive through the mountains.
When managers don't see the workers as people, it's easy to write infantilizing policies, subject them to impossible JIT scheduling, relentlessly squeeze every cent of their already meager pay, pay no attention to whether their jobs allow for basic dignity, outsource at the drop of a hat, and simultaneously feel like a hero for being the most effective cost-cutter in the company.
Most of the managers interact only with other managers their whole lives. They live in whole cities where they have priced out the workers by artificially restricting housing construction. They fly to vacation destinations full of people like them, go to schools (and get degrees, cough, MBAs and bachelor's degrees in finance or economics) exclusively for people like them, work in towers or office parks far away from actual work sites or retail outlets, and engage in hobbies approved for their class. They don't form relationships with workers and don't understand a thing about their lives.
The irony, of course, is that there is yet another whole world—the owners—that excludes the managers just as much as the managers exclude the workers, and that systematically takes the managers' money the exact same way the managers take the workers' money. This time, the gates are raised through private aviation and boating, top-10 private schools, a tiny subset of extremely exclusive city and resort areas, and ultra-exclusive events in places like Davos and Aspen.
I strongly wish we'd get to a place where there aren't hierarchical worlds feeling only contempt for those below, where everyone regularly interacts with everyone else, and where anyone who is working and meeting basic social obligations is considered a worthy and full member of society. We've never been in such a place. During the brief era in our history when occupational hierarchies were flatter, we were all too happy to make up the difference with racial and ethnic hierarchies.
When my coworkers in financial services would lament at how poorly they were being treated for doing exemplary work, I would tell them that two levels up the food chain and above, they were nothing more than one cell on an Excel spreadsheet. And like one cell on a spreadsheet, they could be moved, minimized, or deleted with just the click of a mouse. To make sure they got it, I would tell them, “You’re not even a widget”.
Everyone is just a “box” that can be filled or shuffled around to a different “functional lead”.
Or the line with your cell can be deleted.
I had a theory that the end of the draft had something to do with the disconnect. I know college deferments were available, but military service was the only time future managers and future shop floor workers might have mingled and learned some mutual respect.
I think that hollowing out and maligning our religious institutions had a greater negative effect on a shared sense of community. I say this as someone who spent a lot of his life being openly critical and disdainful of organized religion, and used to describe himself as an atheist.
See also revolutionary France, Spanish Civil War, Russia with Bolshevism, so on and so forth.
You might imagine that some Western nation would learn the lesson but no, or we don't remember.
No, no, it's "they did it wrong, we'll do it 'right'."
We have a winner!
I'm on the opposite end where I think hierarchies are necessary and good, actually, and attempts to free ourselves from them are liable to end up with more oppressive controls and less room for maneuver.
Nevertheless, I always appreciate when you take the time to comment.
Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate your comments as well, despite our disagreements.
Hierarchies themselves are necessary. Without them, we'd accomplish nothing. Where we lose the plot is where we build a system where levels of the hierarchy live in entirely separate worlds from, and never have contact with, one another. Everyone in every part of the hierarchy needs to see everyone else as a real human being deserving of dignity and respect. My view is that people need to interact to achieve that. It's why I appreciate places where people of varying backgrounds and status levels come together.
No flirting in the comments, gentlemen!
Left to themselves, any group of human beings will form a hierarchy. As noted, however, if you distance the levels you incentivize an unpleasant "othering" of anyone outside your own group. The most egregious example that comes to mind from the past: the inexplicable and deranged practice of letting college students avoid the draft.
Funny how four out of the last five presidents blatantly took advantage of that deferment. The fifth one didn't because he was 11 when the war ended.
And of seven their defeated opponents, five served in wartime, four were decorated with at least a Bronze Star, and three had Purple Hearts. The others were a woman and the son of the guy who tanked his 1968 presidential campaign by saying he'd been "brainwashed" about the war. Go figure.
My dad had a low enough number in the '72 draft that he'd have gone in had the government not finally pulled the plug. An older, decidedly not college bound uncle wasn't so lucky; he came back, but was never the same.
Add Selective Service to the list of things that should be abolished, but wont.
it will also remain the one thing that's still restricted to men legally and without opposition.
How much better would the usa be today if we prioritized college students to be drafted
I would even support the inevitable war in Ukraine if they did that.
Othering is not discussed enough nor vilified enough.
This is a timely piece, because I just got done having a discussion with some friends about this sad excuse for a human: https://www.foxnews.com/media/ex-home-depot-ceo-blasts-socialism-killing-us-work-ethic
My comment to my friends was "Just spitballin' here, but, MAYBE, PERHAPS, if businesses shared more of the profits with their employees, and treated them as anything other than easily replaceable parts, those employees would have reason to work with more enthusiasm.
Does anyone remember that Sears used to have full time employees on the sales floor, and those people were actually able to take care of their family on those wages?"
I don't know at what point, exactly, it became _expected_ that working in retail was giving everyone else a license to shit on you, but apparently it has.
I’m of the younger generation and I can confirm the “don’t get paid enough to care” attitude is prevalent.
The squishing of unions has been a big factor in this. They help a lot where they still exist.
I know people who happily and loyally work at retail locations such as Costco and AT&T despite the nature of the work because they are compensated well, have job security, and have decent benefits.
I'm right on the edge of being a zoomer, and many of my buddies don't get paid enough to have a snowball's chance in hell of buying a house or living better than their parent's did. My experience is that the 2 reactions to that are to pick up a side job or to just not care.
Why should someone making chickenshit money care?? If he's never gonna do more than barely make ends meet then he can either kiss ass for a promotion or screw off. Neither seem like great options.
The side job thing is great but working those kind of hours sucks. America either is or should be the best country in the world (depending on who you ask) and I just don't think it's right that a dude's gotta work that much to keep food on the table.
What about having personal standards, integrity, and pride in doing a good job? I've had assholes for bosses but I didn't let that stop me from doing the best job I could do.
I think the inculcation of the value of work itself has been largely lost to this society/culture/cycle and it is compounded in some people when they see the bridges of opportunity being burned in front of them as the last gens light out.
Demoralization in every sense!
With the tools that are available today to the average person (for example, software, 3D printers, laser engravers, CNC machines, and companies that perform technical services on demand like PCB manufacturing) plus the ability to market and sell to a worldwide audience on the internet I see that there are greater opportunities than ever before.
I have a hard time reconciling the oh woe is me attitude with surveys that show large numbers of young folks have the completely unrealistic expectation of making a living as an "influencer". While that's unrealistic, I see it as expressing some level of hope.
All that equipment and software does cost a lot of money, and is not really within the skillset of the layman. Sure there are dedicated hobbyists making a few bucks on the side, but it's also very time consuming.
Also, not everyone is going to have a natural aptitude for such things. I'm educated to master level and am pretty smart, but if you asked me to learn to code I wouldn't be able to, because my brain just doesn't work that way. It's something I've wanted to try for a long time, but I cannot understand even the basics (ha!).
I'm pretty sure that sometime in the past 15 years, we passed the point where the knowledge, materials and equipment were available online to allow a sufficiently-inclined person to build a functional spaceship in their backyard.
If one were so inclined.
I would say all that stuff is still there, but exists to facilitate intangible things like the computer-related technologies.
There's still a strong bias toward work in computers/apps/the internet, but there's less and less respect for physical things like cars, airplanes and other objects.
Everything started going downhill when the whole concept of The Golden Rule left corporate America and was replaced by a “make every last cent for the shareholders and damn the cost” mentality.
The primacy of shareholder benefit was established a long time ago, in Dodge v Ford. Henry Ford was hoarding cash to build the Rouge Plant (which was started with taxpayer money, btw, to build Liberty ships for the war effort in WWI, which Henry famously opposed as a pacifist) and didn't want to pay his stockholders dividends. From 1903 when FoMoCo was incorporated, until 1914, when the Dodges started their own car company, Dodge Brothers was FoMoCo's primary supplier, pretty much building Ford's cars (in the early days Ford just added bodies and wheels to the "machine" he bought from the Dodges). The Dodges became stockholders when Henry paid them with shares in lieu of the cash he owed. They sued over the withheld dividends. Henry's defense was that he wanted to keep lowering the price of the Model T so he could sell more and employ more people for the benefit of society and that he needed the cash to do that. Lawyers tell me that Dodge v Ford is taught in every law school. The court ruled that corporations don't exist for any other reason than for the benefit of the stockholders.
Any lawyers in the thread are welcome to correct any errors I made.
Exactly. My career is over; has been for about four years (and I realize things are worse now)— but my experience is as follows:
Those who busted their ass got ahead. Eventually.
Those who did not went nowhere. There were people in positions that they landed for the wrong reasons— but that stuff never lasted very long.
Busting your ass also means you end up with more work than those that don’t— not fair. If you expect life to be fair, not sure what to say. Most bosses (no matter how bad) want problem solvers. Doing that will eventually get you noticed/rewarded.
Beyond that, and to your point— what about personal pride? As my career wound down I had no respect for the morons running the company— but “if my name was on it”, the standard was still met. Plus, I cared about the folks that reported to me and the Clients. I worked for them.
Maybe I just don’t understand what it means to be young now. But, I wasn’t always this old…
A few months ago, the 18-yr old daughter of good friends of mine was lamenting her position in life to me. As an employer, I assured her that she had nothing to worry about. She is intelligent and has a great work ethic.
Many employers these days do not care if you have a college degree or any experience. Today, employers just want employees who show up on time, follow instructions, and work reasonably hard. If you do those simple things, they'll be thrilled...and you will likely be promoted!
Like our current political chasm, our skills/motivation chasm is growing wider. I have hired some real duds in their 20s over the last few years and some gems who are in their 20s. It is very difficult to determine the difference. I blame both bad parenting and our educational system for snuffing out problem-solving and creating a debilitating fear of failure. I could go on for hours on this topic.
Well ... I would say that it depends.
My current team leader is an excellent boss, incredible knowledgeable, unbelievably hard working, very protective of his team, has college degrees, plus over 30 years of experience.
Yet, when an engineering VP position opened up, the company did not promote him. Instead, they brought in a two-time loser who had washed out at larger companies.
I understand what you're saying, and I do agree that one can get promoted from entry-level positions through hard work and commitment. However, I would add to that: promoted up to a point.
The upper management is a cabal, and they protect the admission into their little club. Based on what I've observed in last 25 years, if you are not *hired* into at least middle-management *to begin with*, your upward movement is quite limited.
Well said!
Integrity and pride in your work won't feed the bulldog. Your bosses at every level will absolutely be monetizing it in one form or another. The space between 'getting noticed' and 'real material gain' is so wide as to be imaginary. You will also be mercilessly hurled into the void for both petty infractions or systemic machinations. There is at the same time no loyalty nor consequence for phoning it in if you swim under the radar of the commissars or are of a protected class.
I always say “without integrity you have nothing.” I thought pride in your work was its own reward. Maybe I’m quaint.
If you work for sociopaths in a dysfunctional environment — then it doesn’t matter what you do and you must leave. My former place of employment turned into that at the end. Even protected class folks were getting bounced. I understand it’s hard to find a place that’s not dysfunctional— so I really understand where you’re coming from.
I straddle this gap on a daily basis, haven't upended the table and walked away, yet...
Nobody in this age bracket seems to care. The people running shit don't have those qualities, so why should the ones they employ?
Same here. Though I did get out as soon as a decent opportunity presented itself.
Not sure precisely what you mean by “no one ought to be getting more out of you than what they invest in you”. Your employer should give you some sort of training, give you the tools to do your job, and give you enough power internally to carry it out. If those things don’t happen— get out. Beyond that— it’s up to the employee.
Couple questions to mull over regarding the two types of individuals you mention:
Which one would you rather have working for you?
Which one would you rather work for?
Im also on the edge of zoomer myself and I consider myself very lucky to have a job in my field of interest right out of college almost.
many people in my age group that I know are stuck working service jobs they really have no desire to continue other than to earn cash, not because they actually like their job. And its probably only going to get worse from here on out
I get working a side job where you leverage your skills to make 1k-2k for a side job with a decent hourly wage. A side job driving for uber eats to net $8 an hour after vehicle expenses. Why would anyone do that? God I hate the "gig" economy
What I really despise is that the culture has spun what once would have been termed a second job or "moonlighting" as the more easily-digestible and trendy-sounding "side hustle."
Prostitution is a "hustle," too. And, really, using your personal vehicle as a taxi or your home as a boarding house pretty much makes you a prostitute.
Every time I hear somebody talk about "hustling," I always envision him making porn or selling stolen tires.
Two reasons.
1- they are bad at math and/or lack foresight. The pay seems great until you kill your car and need to replace it.
2- freedom and flexibility. In a past life, I managed minimum wage employees in a 24 hour customer service business. Attendance was always an issue. If people didn’t come to work we had to scramble to get coverage and it was a big source of conflict between the line staff and management.
But what do you do if your kid is sick and needs to be picked up from school? Or your replacement at your other job didn’t show up?
If you can earn what appears to be the same amount of hourly pay on your own schedule, why would you come work for us and get written up and lose shifts because something seemingly out of your control came up?
34 years old, happily working in (still underpaid) retail management because I make enough to live, have a 401k and healthcare, and work for a family that at least occasionally nods to employees being people.
Interestingly, in my career, the well paid Union people were among the least give a shit. Perhaps there's more to this puzzle...
I have a huge problem with ANY employer wanting me to be passionate about and dedicated to my job, but only during the hours they specify (because somebody might need to collaborate with me at 7 AM, because the contract has no budgeted overtime and because there are killer bums wandering the neighborhood), to the ends the company deems appropriate and without any arguing or rulebreaking on my part.
Look, if you (The Employer) want me (The Employee) to be passionate about my job, YOU don't get to decide when the argument's over. And you can't honestly expect me to color INSIDE the lines all the time.
Oh, and don't talk to me about "compensation budgeted for my position" two hours after the CEO sends out his quarterly financial report celebrating another consecutive year of record profits.
Did we work for the same company?
We worked in the same ECONOMY. The companies are largely interchangable.
A Boss I worked for at a company like that once taught me how to manage expectations so I'd get paid for what I was doing. I've learned how to make it very clear that if they want me to work more than 40, then they need to compensate me for it.
And when they start playing games? I move on.
I have learned that the people who go way beyond what's expected, who put in the unpaid overtime, are always held in contempt by upper (and often middle) management. The people who refuse to play their games? Those people are always the last to be laid off.
You'd think the people who worked harder for less would be the ones kept to the very end, but paradoxically they're always the first out the door - because 'They can't get their work done in a 40 hour week' therefore they're worthless (that's how management thinks)
Scott Adams once opined that those who jump on every piddling-crap task the boss needs to have done, in the hopes of appearing to be a promotion-worthy go-getter, actually works against his interests by associating himself, in the minds of the company's decision makers, with a string of meaningless assignments that add no value to the company.
Commissioned sales at Sears was how I spent my summers from 2003-06. A tough job but a great experience in hindsight that I wish more people had.
Still met a few of the lifers there at that time, pulling down decent money selling tools, electronics, and lawn tractors.
Eddie Lampert should be more famous (and more reviled) for what he's done.
A real society would have publicly hung Lampert for what he's done.
Something I respect about China is that they execute many of their white collar criminals.
https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-white-collar-criminals-death-sentence-2013-7
Instead we let many managers and executives off the hook for negligent homicides because it was the company at fault (even if they made the decisions).
We don't just let them off the hook. We give them multi-million-dollar severance packages and make sure they get their next 7 (or 8)-figure-per-year job before the severance is used up.
"My comment to my friends was "Just spitballin' here, but, MAYBE, PERHAPS, if businesses shared more of the profits with their employees, and treated them as anything other than easily replaceable parts, those employees would have reason to work with more enthusiasm."
In-n-Out did this back in the day, and a high school acquaintance of mine went from back-of-the-house to manager after HS because they treated their people well and it was enough money to pay for a 3-way split rent on the outskirts of Cupertino. I guess that last part probably isn't true any more.
In-n-Out is still so much more pleasant of an experience than any of their competitors. Turns out if you pay a bunch of high-school aged kids more money than they know what to do with and their adult managers an actual livable salary, you will have employees who are actually pleasant to be around. As a result, you have lines out the door and can keep prices low and make up any low margins with volume. Win win for everyone...I guess unless you can't get past their shitty fries.
What frustrates me about In-And-Out is that they won't open in the Midwest because the supply lines are too long, as if they're Heinz Fuckin' Guderian in rural France or something!
They just announced they are coming to TN! No mention of OH yet though.
Chik-fil-a is similar for the exact same reasons. McDonalds used to hire the local highschool kids up front and the mexicans in back. It was my first job at 16. $240 a week was more than I could spend. Now, it's all mexicans all the time. It would bother me as much is the ones up front could speak English.
And that's why they are "outsourcing" the front end to touch screens and apps...
Ironically all the Mexicans who work at the taquerias here generally speak perfect English.
Good private companies do this because the people in charge want their kids or grandkids to be in charge in 50 years. Public companies want to shave every penny cause the managers are looking to bounce ASAP to another public company with a "Damn the subordinates" attitude. This doesn't apply to venture capital firms who privatize a big public company only to sell it bits and pieces to the highest bidder, sacrificing quality, and leveraging the name until it collapses.
Why? Why should any job pay you more than you're worth? If you're not worth it, guess what? You won't get it.
I grew up poor. I went to engineering school (and ran up a debt that yes I spent over a decade paying back). I was looking to find a job that paid me money I could live off of and be successful. I'd worked enough shit jobs as a kid to know I didn't want to spend my life doing that.
And it's not to say my life hasn't been without hardships. I lost everything at one point in my life and ended up homeless. So I understand that shit REAL well. I took a job that barely keep me fed and figured out how to 'get back on the horse' and get back to making money.
Now I'm rich. Not stupid rich, but I got money for whatever I want to do. And it didn't come overnight it took a long time and a lot of very hard work.
If you want to be really rich you need to inject yourself directly into the revenue stream. Otherwise you're working for the people who do. Forcing companies to give you money you don't deserve leads to said company going out of business rather quickly. CEO's are there to make the shareholders and themselves RICH. Not the workers. Yes, there are companies that are very concerned about their workers and try to listen to them. Try to give them a decent shake. But unless it's an employee owned company, you're never going to be tied into that revenue stream.
But being jealous of the money the CEO makes and thinking you deserve a part of it? No, you don't. If you want to make more money than Home Depot pays, then you need to start your own business or find a better job. The opportunities are there - but so many people don't want to take the risks that come with them.
Places like Home Depot are not meant to be careers. They're meant to be stepping stones. No one OWES you a career or a job that pays you lots of money. That's on you.
I followed a similar path and think similarly. To the rest, we're dismissed as "bootstrappers" followed by 1001 excuses about how the patriarchy (choose your boogeyman) robbed them of the ability to climb any ladder.
To them I ask, "who exactly do you expect to save you?"
Whatever they think, the answer is Nobody. I was reminded very recently of some very specific kindness from some individuals who lent some very generous hands to others who were in an unfortunate situation. But, even the kindhearted will be scorned if one makes little effort to help themselves.
I can't say I grew up POOR, as in, "Didn't have enough to eat" or "Can't keep the lights on." It was more, "We only go to the dentist when something hurts" and "We don't sign for certified letters." Not a good way to live.
Not signing for certified letters is a general good policy.
Excuse me, but what exactly do you find so troubling about what Marcus said? I'm finding that employees who give a shit about doing a good job for customers are increasingly rare. Whether or not that's on those employees or on there employers (many of who appear to also not give a shit about their customes) can be debated, but the quality of service in general has declined.
If it hadn't been for Bernie Marcus, there's a good chance that Home Depot wouldn't be employing as many people as they do.
I’ll take a shot at this.
>What exactly do you find so troubling about what Marcus said?
As quoted by FT, he said “”Thanks to “socialism”, he says, “nobody works. Nobody gives a damn. ‘Just give it to me. Send me money. I don’t want to work — I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid.’””
First, I don’t agree that this is America’s work culture. People aren’t lazy because they’re entitled. They’re lazy because they’re poorly managed and not incentivized to do high quality work in service jobs.
But even if I did agree with his take on our work culture - to say it’s socialism’s fault is blatantly wrong.
Socialism/Communism (for they are one and the same) is not government handouts. Socialism is not the government setting a minimum wage. Socialism is not the government regulating working hours or tailpipe emissions or mandating overtime or banning the sale of ICE vehicles (bleh).
Socialism is an economic system in which the working class (proletariat) owns and controls the means of production (capital). This can be accomplished multiple ways. A government that is ruled by the working class (a dictatorship of the proletariat) can own businesses and control them. Businesses can also be independently employee-owned and operated democratically. The profits that are created by businesses - whether controlled by the government or independently by workers - are distributed roughly equally to all workers.
This is in comparison to capitalism, in which means of production are owned by capitalists (the bourgeoisie class) and the vast majority of profits are kept by them. Once a capitalist controls enough capital, they no longer need to perform labor to live. Many capitalists are born into the position. Workers must always trade their time and labor in exchange for a small portion of the total profits they create.
Now, whether or not you think Socialism is a good system, it is definitely not the system that exists in America. It is not a system that has ever existed in America. So if it doesn’t exist, how can it possibly be responsible for the development of America’s work culture, as Marcus says it is?
Capitalism has existed. And our capitalism has only ever grown more capitalistic and further away from socialism since the late 1970s, when the capitalist class started weakening the working class’s political power and repealed much of the New Deal.
Capitalism is the system that has developed our modern work culture.
One last thing:
> If it hadn't been for Bernie Marcus, there's a good chance that Home Depot wouldn't be employing as many people as they do.
If Bernie Marcus and the Home Depot didn’t exist, every town in America would still have a hardware/home improvement store. They would either be a similar chain stores run by another man like him, or (in a better timeline) small, locally-owned businesses. All of those people would still have jobs, just at different hardware stores. People need hardware stores, the market will move to the meet that demand. He was not the first person to realize it.
Bernie Marcus didn’t succeed in making the best hardware store in the world, he succeeded in making one of the most efficient, most profitable ones. One that had the economies of scale needed to undercut smaller ones. One that has the logistics power to import cheap goods manufactured overseas, cash for expensive marketing campaigns, and power to crush unionization efforts. One that could offer lower prices and put competitors out of business.
Are his workers better off working at the Home Depot than any other home improvement store? They’re probably about the same, or worse. But Bernie Marcus didn’t create their jobs, Bernie Marcus created the Home Depot.
Because jobs just appear out of thin air, without any capital investment. Right.
On my way to the nearest Home Depot I can stop at two different locally owned Ace Hardware franchises. On my way to the next nearest Home Depot, I can stop at Frentz Hardware, which is likely one of the best traditional hardware stores in the United States. As for small towns, in my experience, hardware stores in small towns tend to be better stocked with a wider variety of goods than similar stores in big cities.
"Repealed much of the New Deal" - yeah, like the NLRA and the FFA have no legal power anymore and that the interstate commerce clause hasn't been used to justify the mammoth expansion of federal power and oversight.
If workers want a larger share of the profits that their labor helps generate they are welcome to invest their time and money into their own ventures.
Let me ask you, though, why should the people who supply labor to a business be more valued than the people who supply all the other things that a business needs to operate? Is someone who sells you labor more valuable than someone who sells you steel?
I'm getting ready to launch the latest iteration of my electric harmonica. I have no employees so I do all of the in-house labor myself. There is no way that labor is as valuable to the project as the custom pickups I use that are in part supplied by Lace Music Products. If I had employees and I told them that they were more valuable to the project than Lace, I'd be lying.
"The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit." Samuel Gompers, father of the American labor movement.
Is it possible that unions have lost their appeal to workers because the unions have been more interested in being adjuncts to the Democratic party and progressive politics than in serving the needs and interests of workers? Are public employee unions a good idea? Are political contributions, in cash or in kind, by public employee unions distinguishable from corruption?
"Is it possible that unions have lost their appeal to workers because the unions have been more interested in being adjuncts to the Democratic party and progressive politics than in serving the needs and interests of workers? Are public employee unions a good idea? Are political contributions, in cash or in kind, by public employee unions distinguishable from corruption?"
I'm in a union and this is the most accurate characterization of modern unions that has thus been related in all of the comments...
...I'm reading a lot of comments supporting unions. I'm not sure if they're from people actually in unions. As with a lot of things these days, there's a pretty significant "idealism/reality gap"...
I’m happy to continue this discussion. But given what I said, do you understand why many find what Bernie Marcus said in accusing socialism for America’s lazy work culture to be wrong? That was the core question I was addressing, so I’d like to know if I answered it well and what you think.
The point wasn’t to make qualitative judgments about Socialism or Capitalism, just describe the situation. I thought a first-principles type description of Socialism would be helpful, though.
Anyways.
>Because jobs just appear out of thin air, without any capital investment. Right.
The creation of jobs does require capital investment, but the capital does not necessarily need to be controlled by the bourgeoisie class. A competently-run Communist government of the proletariat could spin up its own businesses to meet demand. Incompetently-run Communist governments ignore demand, or underproduce, and get black markets.
China’s approach is interesting, since they do allow for private entrepreneurship. Their entrepreneurs can fill demand holes in the market, and successful companies will grow. Then, the state will buy stakes in the companies to bring them under the Communist fold. Private companies can also create a party committee of its leaders and workers, joining the party itself.
>On my way to the nearest Home Depot I can stop at two different locally owned Ace Hardware franchises. On my way to the next nearest Home Depot, I can stop at Frentz Hardware, which is likely one of the best traditional hardware stores in the United States. As for small towns, in my experience, hardware stores in small towns tend to be better stocked with a wider variety of goods than similar stores in big cities.
And the fact that all of these stores exist would indicate that there is market support for all of them. If Home Depot were gone, there would still be enough market support for the profitable opening of another hardware store in these areas. Or maybe other hardware stores would have to be larger (and staff more people) to compensate. Point is, the market has a demand for the goods and services offered by Home Depot, and in American Capitalism, that demand would not be left unmet for long.
>"Repealed much of the New Deal" - yeah, like the NLRA and the FFA have no legal power anymore and that the interstate commerce clause hasn't been used to justify the mammoth expansion of federal power and oversight.
What I said is factual. Much of the new deal has been repealed, dismantled, and weakened. This has been a core political project of the American elite since the thing passed. One such example: the Glass-Steagall Banking Act. This separated commercial and investment banking, prohibiting banks from making risky investments with depositor money. As early as 1960, appointees of the American elite were trying to ease this legislation on banks. It was repealed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in congress and put into law by President Clinton.
This directly opened the door for the market crash in 2008. If Glass-Steagall wasn’t repealed, then you don’t have the financial crash. That said, the American bourgeoisie made a ton of money off the crash especially when the bank-friendly recovery bill signed by Obama in which we bailed out the banks AND allowed them to foreclose on everybody’s homes.
This is one example of of one piece of new deal legislation, and how the American uniparty has dismantled it, and how it only serves in favor of the American elite.
>If workers want a larger share of the profits that their labor helps generate they are welcome to invest their time and money into their own ventures.
The market can’t support literally everybody doing this though - and businesses do need laborers to exist. I personally think that all workers who support a profitable enterprise deserve a share of the company’s profits such that they can afford to have children. What good is any human society if it doesn’t allow for everyone to have a family?
>Let me ask you, though, why should the people who supply labor to a business be more valued than the people who supply all the other things that a business needs to operate? Is someone who sells you labor more valuable than someone who sells you steel?
>I'm getting ready to launch the latest iteration of my electric harmonica. I have no employees so I do all of the in-house labor myself. There is no way that labor is as valuable to the project as the custom pickups I use that are in part supplied by Lace Music Products. If I had employees and I told them that they were more valuable to the project than Lace, I'd be lying.
For what I think? I believe that our time is the single most valuable thing we humans have. We have precious little of it. To each individual, time is basically priceless. But the market is uncaring and indifferent to humanity except for its demands for goods and services - so our time is assigned value.
So, what is actually more valuable to a given project will depend on a bunch of factors. What a business will actually pay more for is almost entirely up to the market.
Labor is as essential to doing anything as the raw materials are. This is why workers have power and strikes work. Without labor to operate the means of production, capitalists can not earn profits. Period. They are essential.
Labor is also required to produce the raw materials. Without labor, nobody has anything.
This is why Socialism places a big emphasis on working class unity (and why America outlaws solidarity/secondhand strikes). It all comes back to labor. If everybody in the working class went on strike tomorrow, the nation would be on its knees by next week. There would be no food, no gas, nothing. So the workers’ time can’t really be worth so little, can it?
For your own example. In your current status, sure. Labor contributes nothing for you because you have a low volume product with low impact to society. If you sold 1 million harmonicas per month and required a factory with dozens of people to do so, then any production greater than what you could do on your own, and all profits you collect greater than what you could do on your own, is thanks to your labor. Do you deserve a greater cut of profits for inventing the thing? Yes! Do you deserve to make millions while your workers have to clock-in at a second job to afford to pay for childcare? No!
>Is it possible that unions have lost their appeal to workers because the unions have been more interested in being adjuncts to the Democratic party and progressive politics than in serving the needs and interests of workers?
No. This is a red herring that especially misses when you consider that even the modern Democratic Party doesn’t do more than lip service for unions. The weakening of unions has been a long-term political project of the American elite. The shipping of good union manufacturing jobs overseas, Right-to-Work laws, etc. It was the democrats who used to represent labor that have really brought them down.
>Are public employee unions a good idea?
Yes.
>Are political contributions, in cash or in kind, by public employee unions distinguishable from corruption?
Are political contributions, in cash or in kind, by businesses and CEOs distinguishable from corruption?
I would say no, to both. How would you answer?
But the Supreme Court decided in Citizens United that the answer is yes - and it applies to both labor unions and corporations. But corporations have a lot more money and power these days, and have much more influence over the uniparty.
George Soros was the biggest individual contributor in the last election cycle and his foundation is #2 on the organizational list. Labor unions are well represented on the list as well, just as ESG promoting "corporations" like Blackstone are.
Back in the 1930s there was a bit of a parler game among US and UK elites, "Who would go Nazi?" where people would guess which of their friends would go along with a Nazi regime. The same could probably done today, substituting the word "commisar" for Nazi.
Just wondering, what do you do for a living? If I was a betting man I'd say it's likely you're part of the PMC.
Take a break on this, Ronnie.
Everyone here is too intelligent to go crazy about something some old man said.
Can you answer my question: did I sufficiently explain why people take issue with what Bernie Marcus said?
Also: George Soros and his foundation are no friends to workers. Their influence strengthens my point about the American elite’s control over the uniparty - democrats included.
Labor unions donate and they (the unions) get concessions from politicians. They do not get big legislative changes that would actually help working folks, such as card check or legally-required paid maternal leave.
The bipartisan congressional and presidential intervention against the railroad strike again strengthens my point here. Only lip service for labor - nothing that would actually cost the capitalists.
if you’d like to show me labor’s power over our government, please show me bills that have been passed that have benefited unions, made them stronger, and increased the earnings or protections of working class folks. Then, let’s compare with bills and moves that have made the elite vast sums of money while depressing the working class.
Please engage with my ideas - which have nothing to do with my standing in life. I’m not very interested in talking about myself. Making a debate about your opponent does not support your own arguments.
I always appreciate your perspective. Just some of my thoughts on your points in the current context.
**Is someone who sells you labor more valuable than someone who sells you steel?**
To the business owner, suppliers would be as valued as an employee sure. I would hope the steel supplier takes care of their people, values them, charges the right price to sustain the business, otherwise they are a sh***y business owner. Not really something you have control over though, other than choosing suppliers.
**If workers want a larger share of the profits that their labor helps generate they are welcome to invest their time and money into their own ventures.**
I think it's probably mis-stated to make this point as "share in the profits" and I don't think that's really what labor as a collective, wants. That's not the bargain when you take a job. They just want to be paid more. Labor is it's own market. What I see is overall labor is in a transitional stage where the workers feel underpaid, and the bosses are not willing to raise the wages, they'd rather piss and moan about the situation. Kinda like car dealers holding on to the high prices as the auction results fall each week. Eventually you'll be forced to conform to reality. You're either willing to pay what it takes to bring in the employees you want or you aren't. Business owners don't dictate wages, they go out and compete to hire in the market.
That's a very macro take. At the individual level, why are there so many "bad employees" being whined about by business owners...do these people just go without jobs when the labor market isn't tight, or is it mostly the same people with different attitudes, I've no idea.
The nuance here is 'do people HAVE to be managed for them to be productive and efficient - meaning anyone CAN have the same productivity of managed/paid/incentivized sufficiently',
OR
'Is it a cultural thing that is innate to the individual, that can thrive in the right environment and (perhaps) get noticed and rewarded?'
My personal experience makes me lean towards the latter, and that's why I'm MORE in agreement with Ronnie here.
I live two houses down from the mansion of the owner of a local Ace. His house is easily $2M, plus his lake house, and he owns the house of his adult daughter and her husband (perfectly successful in his own right, I don’t know how he stands that dynamic) that’s probably $600k a couple blocks over. He’s a real nice guy, but definitely has that “hey what are you doing so I can tell you why you’re doing it wrong” attitude so prevalent in small hardware stores. I remember when I was finishing my basement I stopped at Ace and was invited to spend $4.99 on an electrical outlet that cost $10/10 at Home Depot but wouldn’t have a “Thanks for Shopping Local” stamp on the receipt. I walked out. I have limits.
Why would anybody give a shit about doing a good job when that's the attitude of their employer? "It's not that the work I give you sucks or that I'm not paying you enough, you guys are just lazy bums."
And that attitude is pervasive in C-suites across America. Every time a past employer - of engineers, not burger flippers or cashiers - has faced a turnover problem, they invariably announce it's a result of bad employee morale and continued on with the beatings. Things like lousy pay relative to experience, broken promises for advancement, and cripplingly bad IT and support infrastructure would never, ever get addressed.
Blaming socialism/communism is nothing but the right arm of the uniparty's version of blaming racism. It's disingenuous at best. We do have a growing societal problem of people feeling so disenfranchised in the workplace that they don't even want to bother, and floating nonsense like UBI is only going to further demotivate. But shitting on those people for feeling that way isn't gonna swing things back in the other direction.
And it's worth mentioning that Marcus and Arthur Blank aren't some hardscrabble small business American values success story. They were executives that, with the help of a Wall Street lizard, founded Home Depot with the explicit purpose of becoming the largest home improvement superstore in the country. The company was already on the NASDAQ two years after it was founded. They expanded in part by gobbling up competitors. They drove others out of business by undercutting them on price. Like Walmart, they (and Lowes), got prices down by pressuring their suppliers, thus they're partially to blame for driving manufacturing overseas. They were also among the very first to replace cashiers with checkout kiosks.
The founders of Home Depot are all huge Republican Party donors. The same Republican Party that is desperately trying to ram through a total corporate whore to be Speaker. Nevermind that the electorate doesn't like him, everyone from Fox to Breitbart to even Trump has been carrying the water for McCarthy. Mind you, I still vote Republican, but I find it increasingly hard to buy the "herp, derp, socialism bad" mantra from that are simultaneously selling me down the river.
"The job doesn't suck! YOU suck!" says the asshole boss.
"And that attitude is pervasive in C-suites across America. Every time a past employer - of engineers, not burger flippers or cashiers - has faced a turnover problem, they invariably announce it's a result of bad employee morale and continued on with the beatings. Things like lousy pay relative to experience, broken promises for advancement, and cripplingly bad IT and support infrastructure would never, ever get addressed."
I used to work for a very famous bicycle company which name began with an "S." The company is extremely famous for a toxic culture and very high rates of turnover. Low pay (especially given the location), little opportunity for advancement for many of the roles (especially some of the hardest working, revenue driving roles), and a pretty well known sexism problem were major drivers of this turnover. However, unlike your usual burger flipper role, most people DID give a shit out of a passion for the brand, or at least a passion for the industry.
As a result, morale was low, but it usually resulted in people bottling things up until they blew up and left with both middle fingers in the air, as opposed to a bunch of miserable employees not getting anything done. I think this worked for so long because there was always a batch of fresh-faced 20somethings willing to step in and give things a shot. However, my friends who still work there tell me that may be changing as things have gotten bleaker during the COVID/post-COVID world and nobody wants to do many of the roles for shitty pay anymore, and those that do often leave after just a few months.
"Lisa, if you hate you job, you don't quit. You just go in and do it really half-assed! That's the American Way!"
- Homer Simpson.
Theres a huge problem in the accounting profession right now where people do this. “Quiet quitting” we try and treat our employees well. Shocking, we don’t have this problem
The bizarre merger of "S" and, um, "GT" was a disaster on all sides.
I think we're discussing a different "S" - my former employer doesn't have such a storied past. They do certainly go head to head with the creator of your Session though.
However, the story of what happened to GT is so dang sad. Now that they're owned by PON who doesn't seem to want to be a second-fiddle in the industry, I can expect we will see some improvements. Same with the "C" brand.
I think you're right! I mean Schwinn/Pacific
I am trying to decipher which S as well. I do know when the S I carried hired a new sales manager from the other S, that was the beginning of the end for me and my S.
It was also downhill when one of those Ss took advantage of Ogden's tax breaks and moved.
Ronnie - I found his comments to be disingenuous because the trend for many, many years has been to treat employees with increasingly greater contempt, but at the same time he seems surprised that they are not particularly enthusiastic about working. His contempt is painfully obvious when he characterizes their collective mindset as "...Just give it to me. Send me money. I don’t want to work — I’m too lazy, I’m too fat, I’m too stupid".
How bad, exactly, do you feel that employees should allow themselves to be treated before they push back? If you want to get depressed, when you have time, surf over to YouTube. Look up "Camelot331". His channel is mostly about how corporations are mistreating their retail employees. After an hour of watching, I believe that most people will be wondering out loud why there hasn't been a revolution already.
The flip side of this is that corporations are the largest recipients of government largess, by way of tax breaks and policies. The most insane, IMO, example of this is the Fed pushing down interest rates to below the inflation rate, making money "free", and allowing corporations to buy back their own stock, pay back old bonds with zero cost bonds.
Speaking of Home Depot, feel free to research how former GE exec Bob Nardelli nearly drove the company into the ground.
Nardelli, lol. Got paid 9 figures to go away after wrecking the place and then got hired to run Chrysler.
By the way, the other loser in the competition to replace Jack Welch at GE went on to run Boeing, where he was responsible for the 737 MAX.
And "Neutron Jack" and his poisonous legacy across the business landscape merits a whole other discussion of his own.
That employee that he is describing. absolutely does exist in 2022. I've met em.
Yeah, I believe this is a "chicken/egg" scenario. Are they that way because they've been poorly treated, and see no reason to care, or that they're not being treated better because they're poor employees? I vote for the former. In my heart, I believe that people want to be respected and valued, and that they respond incredibly well to that. For an extremely timely example, let's compare the Ukrainian military v. the Russian military.
What's the difference in how a company treats a good employee vs. a bad employee?
Nothing. Therein lies the answer.
"My job as the owner of this company is to ensure that it is worthy of the loyalty it expects of its employees."
At least, that'd be my operating principle in that role.
I can't believe that I'm defending a billionaire here, but my dad worked for Home Depot ~25 years ago when Bernie and Arthur ran the company. He was getting paid nearly $25/hour plus bonus running the commercial sales desk. Employees had good insurance and anyone who was around back then and stayed in probably made a killing off of the employee stock option.
Bob Nardelli took over as CEO in 2000 and ran everything but the stock price into the ground. No longer did they hire experienced tradespersons as department heads. It became another faceless retail store staffed by interchangeable nobodies.
Thanks for the perspective!
I wonder if there used to be more “dignity” or respect in working retail floor positions.
It seems that way. My dad has been a merchant (as he puts it) in some form or another almost his entire working life. The way he tells it, a comfortable "Al Bundy" middle-class life could be had on a retail salesperson's salary.
Now, you maybe get that with small mom and pop stores, but he claims even the people at KMart and Woolworth in the late 70s/early 80s were treated well by the company and customers alike.
It's the Wall Street requirement of continual growth and subsequent cuts that has led to a lot of this, IMO. Sure, my retirement increases if $COMPANY can increase their share price, but that does nothing for the part-time worker with no skin in the game aside from the fact that they trade 29.9 hours per week of their time for a few dollars.
You need a lot more than that. I've known and managed plenty of very well paid employees that gave no fucks, and were contemptible people. You need to create an environment of mutual respect where everyone is seen to be doing their part to support one another, work in the same direction and celebrate victories. Not only that, but weed out the piece of shit cancers as they will spread.
Sounds like cheesy LinkedIn influencer nonsense, but from a management standpoint, this is what you have to execute.
A lot of afluent Americans have never had to look at actual poverty. I remember an article in the Detroit Jewish News about someone living in West Bloomfield taking their kid to see the "old neighborhood" where the parent grew up, which happened to be Oak Park, where I live. Neighborhoods range in my near suburb of Detroit range between working class and upper middle class, but the kid kept remarking at how "poor" everything looked.
When my son, my only son, Moshe, whom I love, was in fifth grade, he and I were building a scale model of the Dodge Viper. He asked me if that's how real Vipers were made. I told him that it was an accurate model but that's not exactly how they were put together but that the factory was in Detroit (then on Mack, before they moved to the facility on Conner), that Lee Iococca ran Chrysler, which built the Viper and if he wanted, he could write Mr. Iococca and see if his class could have a field trip to the Viper plant. Chrysler HQ was then in Highland Park. I tracked down an address and had Moe compose and write the letter and address the envelope.
Three weeks later I got a phone call at work from the general manager of manufacturing at Chrysler who said the letter got more attention than if it had been sent by President Clinton and that they'd be delighted to host a bunch of 10 year olds.
It was a great experience for the kids, but I think the most important thing that they learned was seeing the dilapidated housing on Detroit's east side. Most of them had never seen actually poverty before, let alone experience it.
We don't have poverty in America. Not MATERIAL poverty, anyway.
What's interesting is that 150 years ago, rich people were fat and did nothing all day, while the poor were skinny and worked their asses off. The exact opposite of how it's done today.
This is the objective truth, but not the subjective one. People always want more *in comparison to their peer groups*, and will feign to any degree necessary. Of course you're absolutely right, it wasn't long ago where a lack of food was a major issue. Now we're dying from *too much* food. All this *predatory capitalism* brought us a green revolution in farming where instead of 90% of people being consumed with agricultural duties, it's 2%. People who are obviously seriously disconnected might lament this, and insist we return to pagan times, but they'd be the first to wither. Maybe we should?
I think about this a lot, because I now live cheek-by-jowl with a few thousand Amish families. Their lives are neither placid nor perfect, and they often suffer greatly from things that hardly affect me -- like when it was ten degrees below zero last week and I was passing their open carriages in a $78,000 truck. If I had to join the Amish tomorrow, I would probably die shortly afterwards.
And yet... They have intact families. They know who they are, what God expects of them, what their community expects. They are not insane with ambition or greed or perversion -- at least not in the aggregate. Most critically, they have a solid understanding of what life holds for them. I have no idea where I'll be working next month or what I will be doing. Their experience is the reverse of that.
That community they have is a blessing and a curse. Blessing in the sense of support and comfort in a time of need and/or distress, and curse in that everyone knows everything about everyone else.
However, as you say, there are many things that do not trouble them. I suspect they don't worry about their jobs being exported overseas, and they know what they'll be doing next year, next to whom, and with whose help. Anxiety eat your heart out.
I don’t get how you and your brother are both rich and poor at the same time. I make good money but i cant conceive of spending 78k on a truck. Granted I’m cheap and i hate debt.
I kinda see it the same way, I'd be a bit uncomfortable being unemployed and running a Radical on my own dime.
Having worked more than two dozen contract gigs since 1999, I think of unemployment as a frequent but temporary state.
And they are supremely blessed to live in a nation that tolerates their pacifist ways. Most other societies would eat them alive.
the Amish are tolerated as a theme park community. Good for these harmless folks, but they'll never be able to serve as a role model or inspiring example. If they could, they would be crushed.
The Amish did not come together in an attempt to be a theme park community. It is the outsiders that treat the Amish as a theme park community. The Amish simply live their lives, and the way they do that is (in my eyes) an inspiring example in itself.
I think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that you are trying to say that if the Amish attempted to *promote* themselves as a role model or an inspiring example, they would be crushed. And you would be correct in that, because that is what has happened to other positive role models and inspiring examples in the modern western society.
A lot of what you say about intact families, expectations from God and community, and what life holds for them can also be said of orthodox Jews, except the part about traveling in sub-zero weather, though I know plenty of people who walk to the synagogue on the sabbath or holy days in inclement weather. Rather than run from technology, though, ortho Jews make it profitable for companies to have "sabbath modes" on their appliances.
Perhaps the most important thing about traditional faith communities is that kids learn that no really means no. In the grocery store line people have looked at me like I have super powers when my kids or grandkids have whined about wanting some kind of impulse item treat. If it's not kosher, I tell them that and the matter ends right there.
One of the most humbling experiences for me was seeing kids my age in my home country selling wares by themselves on the street while I was sitting in a taxi with my mom complaining about traffic after a long day of clothes shopping
My wife had times where her parents used food stamps. I did not grow up in a household like that. In spite of this, my sister told my wife that we "grew up poor" and I about died laughing. We grew up solidly middle class smack dab in the middle of Silicon Valley and while there was no ostentatiousness compared to some of our peers with their parents who were dual incomes, we were far from poor.
My family's economic condition growing up was what I refer to as "Farm Poor". Not on the farm, but the extended family was. There wasn't lots of money for things, but nobody was ever going to go hungry. Looking back I remember seeing (but not really recognizing) an extreme amount of work by my parents keeping Farm Poor from becoming Public Assistance Poor.
I've mentioned a book called "Yankee Boyhood" and it's a fascinating glimpse of farm life in the 1880's. In one story, the author describes a representative of the town showing up looking for his father's tax payment (this was pre-income tax, mind you). The guy wanted $20 - cash. The author's father had no idea how he was going to come up with such a gigantic amount as twenty bucks in cash, and eventually chopped down & sold about ten cords of firewood to get it.
I know money was worth about a hundred times as much back then but still, the culture was different. A man might be worth $20,000, but it was all tied up in the value of his land, house, barn, stock, cattle, tools, wagons, etc, but assembling twenty bucks was a "soul-searing task," as the author put it. Nowadays, a man can kick it New York Style: Ten million in the bank, no car, rent an apartment. He owns nothing and is happy.
I honestly don't know which is a better way to live. Take your pick, I guess.
My dad was a veterinarian but not a great businessman so we lived on the edge of the upper middle class. My folks bought new cars ever 3-5 years and travelled some. We have some affluent relatives (one uncle by marriage was a mortgage banker) and I went to a Hebrew day school with some fairly affluent kids. One friend's father owned a wholesale plumbing supply (my buddy was a 3rd generation country club member who is now a scratch golfer) and another friend inherited the seafood company that now processes much of the Alaskan crab industry. One schoomate's father owned Detroit's Fisher Bldg, and another's grandfather was a principal in the Purple Gang.
I guess as a result while my class consciousness was raised, I also realized that rich folks have to wipe their asses too and that in many cases (schools, synagogues, hospitals) I was benefiting from the largesse of the wealthy.
My family came to the US without a penny when I was 10 years old, from Eastern Europe. Five years later they built and paid for a house on a lake in West Bloomfield. The only advantage they and I had was built in intelligence. I went to two of the best universities in the US and worked my way to a very comfortable living not exploiting anyone. I don't feel bad about being somewhat materially successful.
That's a great story Ronnie.
I'm sure you remember when Fords used to have real Rouge River tours for kids.
It's been more than 60 years, but while I remember walking next to the assembly line, what stands out most in my memory was walkng the catwalk above the steel plant, watching them pour molten steel.
Wow
What’s weird is that when I was 16 McDs was an aspirational job for summer/part time work. Meet all the chicks! Instead I bussed tables at the Officers Club. I always make a point to be nice to the help, it costs me nothing, and they are working. And there is dignity in that no matter the title.
That's what I always thought. I mean, in my mind any fast food job was temporary (high school) part time work. I was taken aback when I first heard of the "you can't support a family on a minimum wage" argument. I didn't think anyone would attempt to.
I worked in a cafeteria in college, and while it wasn't as bad as fast food places, I never thought anyone would make a life-long career out of it. Hell, I could barely afford to pay for fuel and car insurance, and that was when premium was hovering around $1/gallon.
"was" is the operative word of your second sentence. After one works a temporary McJob through high school there is no high-paying manufacturing/union job with benefits and overtime. Nowadays people can work 60-70 hrs a week at 2+ jobs that each limit them to <30 hours to ensure they don't need to deal with them as full-timers.
"After one works a temporary McJob through high school there is no high-paying manufacturing/union job with benefits and overtime."
I would change this to say that there are no "zero-skill" high paying manufacturing/union jobs with benefits and overtime nowadays. The days of walking into a job without a skill and working your way up are done. It is now up to the individual to prepare themselves for higher-level employment and that means trade school, community college, military service, or whatever it takes. It means hard work, self-discipline and delayed gratification. I means not living the life you want to live until you build the foundation upon which to live it.
It sounds cruel, but a person supporting a family on two 30 hour a week minimum wage jobs have likely put themselves in that position. As a person who did not marry until he was in his late 30s and had his first child at 40, I don't feel a lot of sympathy for people who made "other" choices. They may suffer economically, but they will probably be alive to enjoy their grandchildren.
I could not disagree more. There were choices made by the lizards that directly led to the destruction of the non-college educated middle class and salted the earth for succeeding generations. From Taft-Hartley, to the War on Poverty, War on Drugs (btw congrats to Drugs for winning that one), to granting the People's Republic of China MFN status. I don't think Jonny "three baby momma" Smith had much influence on that.
Furthermore, in the parlance of hack marriage advice columnists everywhere, do you want to be happy or do you want to be right? Let's say you are correct? So what? I would much rather my dumbass neighbor could afford the Married With Children house as a shoe salesman than that he stole my catalytic converter.
There may have been choices made by others that gutted the working class, but I am essentially powerless to change that situation. The only thing I can actually control in life is what I do - the choices I make.
Other people have that power too. They do what they do and I don't feel sorry for them.
Let me unify your opinions, gentlemen:
If you're too lazy to work at the shoe factory, you deserve to be broke.
If the shoe factory is in Vietnam, making DC shoes for Ken Block at pennies on the dollar using child labor, then you won't even get the choice to be lazy or not.
I'm not saying you should feel sorry for them any more than Jonny 3BM should feel sorry for you. You and Jonny and most all of us were harmed in different ways. "As a person who did not marry until he was in his late 30s and had his first child at 40" did you put yourself in that position? Not the decision itself, having to make that choice?
Blame Obama for that. He was the one that insured that companies wouldn't give people 40 hour work weeks by forcing them to pay for all sorts of benefits that turned minimum wage workers into anything but.
Everyone saw the results of that coming. But now most people don't remember the why of it. Minimum wage was never meant to do anything but keep certain classes of people from getting jobs.
It’s amazing how bad of policy obamacare was and still is. Working 1 55 hour job is better than working to 27 hour jobs
it kinda ties back into what jack said about people doing contemptible things imo
many of the people i worked with in fast food did not speak much english, and our franchise was the only people who would be willing to hire them. Many of them also send money back home as its still significant enough vs wherever they come from. A lot of people in my anecdotal experience also tended to make poor decisions and end up becoming "stuck" working near min wage at fast food or retail until if they can work up to something better.
I worked retail for a couple of years and easily my least favorite part was customers. It was a liquor store which sometimes meant they were already hammered, but even sober people can be unpleasant.
I have never understood being impatient or impertinent toward the people working to serve you the food you want.
Everyone should have to work a retail job for at least two years. Just to get an understanding of what it’s like to be on the other side of the counter. Maybe there would be more empathy.
Having said that, it’s becoming harder to have empathy for people who treat you as if you are an annoyance.
I have worked for places where part of the interview was to take you out to a nice restaurant and watch how you treated the waitstaff. Also they'd offer to buy you a drink (alcoholic) while at lunch. To see of course if you'd come into work hammered or not.
I always heard that you salted your lunch without tasting it first, IBM would withdraw their hiring offer.
Heard the same thing, but with J.C. Penney instead of IBM. The problem is, today restaurants don't salt their food, so *of course* it needs salt, damn it!
Afraid of hypertension in their employees or looking for someone that gets the facts before making a decision? When you frame it that way…
If someone offers to buy me a drink at lunch, I'm saying yes dammit! If I want to play mind game with ditzes, I'll start dating again.
Knowing how to play the game is an important skill
I am now in the position where if I offer someone a drink at lunch and they don't order alcohol, they're not getting the job. I'm kidding, somewhat.
Where and when do you want to meet for lunch? I’ll take the drink, but not the job. I’m retired.
If you’re anywhere near Chicago, anytime!
Where to begin with this.
There are many reasons for the supposed low quality of retail employees but like the Big 3, corporate mismanagement is THE problem in retail.
Here are some of the idiotic things I've personally been subjected to during my (thankfully long ago) time in the retail salt mines:
Insistence on employees' use of specific words and phrases to answer phones.
Requiring employees to greet customers verbally upon entrance to store.
Allowing Store Managers absolute minimum of power necessary to execute operations (example - requiring SM's to submit weekly schedules to DM for approval) and involving DM in petty operations decisions properly handled at the store level.
All command decisions concerning store operations and personnel routed through highest-possible level.
Harassment from District Manager with demands for employees to hassle customers over phone with sales pitches seems to be based on said individual attempting to maximize his bonus.
Implementing policies which force Store Managers to draft at least two separate weekly schedules - one "official" schedule for submission to DM for his "on-paper" benefit, and one reflecting actual staffing necessities.
Formal requirement to notify District Manager in case of $5 petty cash variance.
General policy and culture of automatically siding with customers in any dispute, caving immediately to customer complaints and refusing to support company personnel during said disagreements.
Orwellian (and frankly well-explained by presence of ex-military decision makers) practice of company leadership dressing in same uniform as $10-per-hour employees, no doubt designed to encourage feelings of loyalty, solidarity and identification with company among poorly-paid lower echelons.
Installation of security cameras to monitor employees rather than watch for shoplifters.
Requiring employees to wear specific clothing as condition of employment, but not providing said clothing or compensating employees for purchase.
General corporate culture of treating employees as troublesome, disposable assets, viewing them with suspicion and assuming they're of below-average intelligence and in need of constant supervision.
In general, attempting to run the company as if it were the military, or more specifically, implementing all the worst Mickey Mouse Bullshit aspects of the military.
Advance Auto Parts?
They drove all the small auto parts stores out of my region, even the NAPA franchise.
A couple of indie hardware stores have held on.
NAPA has been buying up a lot of franchise stores lately and wants to compete for more retail/walk-in business. I give them a few more years until they go to shit like the others.
No, the other big one. But they're all the same.
I worked for AAP. My dad both. You're 100% correct.
My favorite was when they wanted workers to answer every phone call with "Thank you for calling Advance Auto Parts AND BATTERIES" to drive home the point that we sold batteries and did installs.
Inevitably, someone would come in with a Sebring and lose their shit because we weren't removing a wheel to change their battery.
When I was working for the company, they fired four people for not showing up for work the first month. Who knows how much money the company lost in training and sales? Meanwhile, I ran the numbers and figured I could make a decent living working 60 hours a week, so I was constantly pestering my boss for more hours.
His reason for refusal, which he never told me directly, was that one of his guys working that much overtime would fuck up his numbers and wreck his bonus.
Corporate America would rather fire slackers than cultivate workaholics.
"Requiring employees to greet customers verbally upon entrance to store."
A long time ago, I heard the reason for doing this was that people were less likely to thieve from you if you had greeters greeting at the door.
(I do wonder how that's measured. Random surveys of sketchy customers?!?)
Delta Delta Delta, can I help ya help ya help ya?
I honestly think McDonalds and all the other fast food places 'end game' is to not be forced out of business. Other than the manager there isn't a single job in there that's worth $15 an hour that all of these places are forcing in (and they know it). In states like California the government has written laws that prevent the managers from doing things they once did that made THEM helicious salaries.
Notice that Carl's Junior, a native California chain, hasn't opened a store there in I think the last decade?
The end goal of all of this is that the left wants fast food eliminated from the country. You can't have the kind of world they want if people can by cheap food that is healthy. In California they've been trying to ban fast food stores for the last 20 years (maybe longer) and it wasn't until they hit on this whole $15 dollar an hour thing that they figured it out. Their current goal is to run the fast good stores out of business by making it TOO expensive for them to make a profit and stay in business.
Eventually those places will be run by one person - the manager, and that'll be it. Everything will be automated. The places that wont be automated will be those where it's cheaper to employ people rather than machines. Automation is NOT cheap. It has to be maintained, it has to be repaired, and it has to be CLEANED regularly.
We're witnessing just another front in the war to take away all of our rights and put us in a left wing gulag fantasy land. You need to control people's movement (real id, electric cars, kill switches, all that shit) and you need to control the FOOD supply (remember Stalin? remember the 'war of the sparrows?) which means artificial famines, high food prices, low food availability.
They already control the media and are quickly stamping out all free speech with those stupid 'Hate Speech' laws (where any speech they don't like is hateful).
Taco Bell is destined to win The Fast Food Wars.
I've seen the future and you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli milkshake and singing 'I'm An Oscar Meyer Weiner.'
I should rewatch the most poignant and visionary film of our time, Demolition Man.
At least you didn't say, "Idiocracy."
Idiocracy didn't sit particularly well with me. I suppose it seems too much of a stretch for me to believe, has an air of mean spiritedness, and is generally denigrating of humanity. Fine for some, not for me.
Demolition Man is humorous and drives home the anodyne banality with extreme control measures that are necessary for their utopic vision.
The best and only good part of idiocracy is the first five minutes.
Judging by the lines at In-n-Out and the number of Chik-Fil-As opening here in California, as well as the number of taquerias which are essentially our version of fast food, this just reads like some faux-hysterics. The lack of demand for Carl's JR or McDonalds is because the food sucks ass - not because it is the first barrier in putting us all in left wing gulags...
I don't know that in and out are opening any new stores and honestly was never a fan of theirs. Chick-fil-A, yeah, they have been expanding but it will be interesting to see how they do in the long run.
Mcdonalds here starts at 14-15 these days and they cant find workers. If youre competent and show up, you can get entry level jobs paying 20. Every local restaurant is paying $22 and are short staffed. It’s not great money but it is real money and a shot to get ahead
Never thought I’d see $5 Big Macs, but here we are!
As others have said, fast food jobs aren’t meant to support a family! It’s a stepping stone.
My childhood friend is a partial owner of some mcdonalds franchises. They make money hand over fist. I’m trying to get him to switch to me as an accountant.
Can hardly wrap my head around the overreach that is AB 257.
It makes it abundantly clear that the left REALLY HATES people being to eat cheaply.
'More interesting than my decision to basically manipulate McDonald’s cashiers into following my order flow the way the parasitic liver fluke does an ant: the way people react when I tell them about it. Ten percent say “Oh, that’s neat”, meaning “let’s not discuss it further, you’re creeping me out.” Forty percent say “You have a serious problem,” which is not news to me. But the remaining fifty percent will say something along the lines of, to quote Rodney, “Why the fuck would you spend any time making things easier for McDonald’s cashiers?”'
I thought, "Oh that makes sense. Be all things to all people." Meet them where they're at, which is something I sometimes have issues with.
As to the rest: I merely expect it to lead to fully automated luxury McWhoppers where poor neighborhoods have a variety of items unavailable because maintenance wasn't performed and they think it's normal.
i sure hope i never hang out with the people you do--is that what young? middleage? america has really turned into? i guess it also depends on what part of the country you live in. all 3answers are immature and the last one is just mean. jeepers!
I have to confess that while I was reading about Jack's order optimization, I just kept wondering why anyone would ever eat at McDonald's.
I went there exactly once, early in my college days with a friend who used to work there. He offered to order (after I told him what I wanted), but he had to fuss with the cashier for a while, because he was trying to order in such way that they couldn't give us something that had been sitting under a heat lamp for a while.
Eventually they took his order, we could see them prepare it, I took one bite of it, almost vomited, and threw the rest away. Even today if I get too close and can smell the food, my stomach starts churning.
There is an ingrained revulsion response toward what one's body believes one ate that made one violently ill.
I projectile vomited (thanks for cleaning up after my half ass attempt, mom!) a not-insignificant amount of half digested Cheez-Its during a vertiginous experience where the hallway looked like it was tilting past 45*. I can report that one can retrain oneself to overcome the involuntary response but it takes real commitment.
It's probably not worth the effort McDonald's and I can't say I would bother with Cheez-It training in hindsight.
Also, I stop at a McD's once or twice a year when the kids are screaming and I just want to get them something, anything!
It's funny, I get vertigo from BPPV episodes and while the room spins and the sweat sheets off me enough to need showers, it hasn't made me puke yet. I guess my body saves that for CHS.
I've had a BPPV puke episode. Do not recommend.
I get deficient on potassium if I don't eat enough yogurt, tomato juice, and bananas. A while back I bent over to the right to tie my shoe while sitting and apparently set off a bad cramp in an abdominal muscle. I could see it bulge. It was so painful I thought it I'd ruptured something. I lied down on my back on the floor to try to relax the muscle and as my head flipped back BPPV kicked in. I'm laying there in serious pain, the room is spinning and I'm asking God to stop it or take me now.
SpaghettiOs for me.
ordering in French, huh? a Royale with cheese?
as to how and why rich people would so enjoy belittling the poor, I would wager it is because anyone who does so is fundamentally unhappy and ungrateful. they don't know it of course, and would in fact probably tell you they are quite the opposite. but in my experience, people who are genuinely happy and grateful tend to be generally thoughtful and kind.
I used to work at Domino's (often understaffed, often alone) and id love it when customers took the time to place their orders online, instead of calling on the phone and yelling at me in what would appear to be angry English or an attempt of it. It would also make our work faster and it would mean the customer got their estoteric pizza the way they wanted it.
That being said I do not miss working there at all, though I try to tip my favorite local restaurants as much as possible because service jobs DO suck, especially post plandemic . Im grateful for the McDonald's app, as its the only way I can get an OK meal for under $10 there still (seriously the quarter pounder+free med fries+free med drink is a killer, though it also means giving up some privacy to Ronald, but im too hungry to care for that) . The quality though is a hit or miss, the small town mcdonalds here is understaffed and serves cold food, but the one where i went to college in, was pretty prompt and the food wasn't half bad. They even had a working ice cream machine
I wonder if there will be any human element at all in the future of McDonald's food, maybe a McVending machine is next?
There’s a whole story behind the McDonald’s ice cream machines. I think Jack may have even mentioned it at some point. But essentially it’s the John Deere ‘only we can repair it’ situation again. Franchisees have to use certain equipment and are beholden to Prince Castle (I assume) for repair and maintenance. And it was a racket, so a couple of enterprising nerds hacked the ice cream machines and made out like bandits.
Is that like those union jobs where the guy literally standing next to the switch or button isn't allowed to throw it, because that's not HIS job, and they've gotta call a guy who's at the other end of the factory?
Not exactly. It's more of a 'right of repair' issue:
https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/
For fuck's sake, why are even ice cream machines computer-controlled?
The computerization of everything is verging on self-parody at this point.
The glove box button moved to a car's touchscreen is my favorite.
Everyone here knows that I think GM sucks dog nuts compared to Ford, but in a Chevy the heated steering wheel button is... wait for it... on the steering wheel! In my F-250 its in a submenu on the right side of a foot-wide touchscreen.
It probably has an IP address too! 🙄
I tend to tip delivery drivers fairly well. Of course, they do the bare minimum to earn those tips. Had a driver deliver to the wrong address last week. Which they would have known, if they'd knocked on the door instead of just dropping it off and leaving.
It's interesting seeing all of the so called "good people" talk all kinds of shit about rural people. I've got a bit of a southern accent most of the time, but I play it up a little when I'm up north for work. Client expectations plummet, which can be very useful at times. Kind of a shame though.
I think McDicks gains the ability to use even cheaper labor, and possibly a path towards more automation. IDK whether they lose anything because there's already low expectations for quality. If someone wants good fast food they'd go to Cookout.
they always say they want to fight for the working class until they actually meet the working class
Truer words never spoken.
See also: Canadian Trucker Protest. It was the Labor party that wanted to put them in jail and seize their bank accounts.
Off and on for the last 17 years I've worked a handful of days each winter at retail store inside a ski resort near my home in Upstate New York. The pay has never been that great but I get a season pass plus a few extra bucks in my pocket during the holidays. Since being taken over by Vail Resorts the POS systems requires logging in with a unique user name in password before every transaction, this is followed by a prompt asking once again for your ID number, then the customer's email. Then, you're finally allowed to scan the customers item, then before accepting payment, you're once again prompted for the customer's email, and then, and only then are you ready to accept payment at which time we inform the customer that we don't accept cash and for reasons no one understands, we don't accept Apple Pay. Then, for the next customer in line the entire process starts over again. Yet, despite this needless layer for complexity, is has made my job multitudes more enjoyable. It seems to be that by making it harder for customers to spend money we've become less busy which has decreased the my work load considerably.
I don't know a single person at any resort who is happy about this Vail consolidation -- there's a mildly funny video out there complaining about it but I can't find it!
I wish the current government would take anti-trust seriously again. Either side of it.
I am not very familiar with anti-trust law, but from what I know I don't see how it would apply to any current situation in the ski industry at the moment. There just isn't that much consolidation over all, just at the top.
I wish they would cut off the flow of cheap foreign workers that the big resorts take advantage of to keep wages low. Basically the same arguments as H1Bs that is often talked about on ACF.
The big difference in the ski industry is that it along with modern equipment kills the tiered luxury resort structure that used to exist.
Everything is expensive, but the larger multi mountain corporations have the infrastructure to take advantage of the guest worker programs to keep the restaurants staffed, lodges clean and to an extent the ski schools running without paying wages that would attract people to those jobs otherwise. Places like Vail, Park City, Palisades should be much more expensive than they are given the amenities and service level.
But because they aren't, the smaller places aren't a less expensive alternative, they are just lesser, so more and more customers are funneled into the overcrowded resorts, which is bad.
I think it's just a general complaint to the few companies that appear to be swallowing every competitor: Disney in entertainment, Amazon as the mom & pop corner0store crusher, yada yada.
I have the same complaint and concerns.
Well said.
As bad as Vail is I fear what comes next will be even worse. I predict that in the not so distance future, more than a handful of their current holdings, including the one I work at, will be deemed distressed securities and fall under the conservatorship of Ares, Cerberus or some other firm that specializes in dismantling and selling off once great businesses for pennies on the dollar.
Because they overextended at low interest rates.
That one is upstate is almost idiot proof, as it and the other large local competitor are 1.5 hours (in my experience with road conditions and traffic, google says a bit less) closer to NYC then the next best options in VT. It is the edge of day trip for many which is why the real estate didn't take off, YMMV, like in southern VT resorts.
There is a book by the former CEO of Steamboat that summarizes things well enough, called Ski INC 2020.
You don't mean that paying customers don't like waiting in mile long lines just to park because Vail oversold too many dirt cheap season passes during the off-season?
Vail bought a joke of a hill in my area a few years back. Now many people I used to respect ride this shithole regularly because of the link to vail.
If im going out west, A basin is more my speed anyway.
Jack,
I'm surprised there's no mention here of how utterly awful the McDonald's touchscreen UI is.
Want to place an order? Are you sure you don't want to log in to your McDonald's account first?
No check out/pay button, but you can view your order by hitting the view order but... ARE YOU INTERESTED IN PERHAPS PURCHASING THESE RANDOM ADDITIONAL FOOD ITEMS? NO? ARE YOU SURE?
Etc through the checkout process.
I cringe every time I use it.
The best one I’ve seen is the Costco food counter.
Two button presses:
1-“hot dog & soda”
2-“pay for order”
I like to say that, as a general rule, I can tell whether a UI/UX designer is a windoze or Mac user. Occasionally a Mac users will design too much fru-fru into the UI/UX, but by and large they design more thoughtful UI/UX than windoze people.
Speaking as a code monkey, you correctly identified the symptom but misdiagnosed the disease. UI/UX designers optimize the experience differently depending on whether the end users' time (Apple customers) or their engagement (McDs customers) is considered more valuable.
Like so many things it's just a product of class politics; whether management respects the customers as peers or contemptuously perceives them as suckers.
So has it always been and always will be. Said management isn't even wrong; Apple customers really are less willing to have their time wasted than McDs customers while McDs customers really are easier to fool with the simplest cons ("order now to enter the sweepstakes giveaway!") and less trustworthy in their own right (creating duplicate accounts to double dip on signup or birthday promotions, using the ex-roommate's Netflix password).
I don't think there's any conceivable way to force this waterfall upwards—a truly classless society is either impossible or requires "Harrison Bergeron" levels of social engineering—but it's worthwhile to reflect on one's class privilege when one is made aware of it.
McDonald’s in the UK has been transitioning to all touchscreen ordering for a while. Some restaurants you can still counter order, but this is increasingly rare. Tbh I don’t find the UI/UX too bad at all, apart from the ‘continue without logging in?’ prompt because I’m naturally averse to any retail loyalty schemes.
However I recently went to. BK for the first time in years and their touchscreen ordering is a total shit show.
Having to click/tap through the pop up asking me if Im interested in adding some random food to my order is what really bothers me.
It's not just upon checking out, you have to go through it every time you want to view your order.
Did I ask for sauce?
Then I don't want sauce, do I?
What composer was it that interrupted performance of his own work to yell at the audience "You will take your dissonance in silence!" when he sensed their unrest? I want to say it was in the early 20th century, but I do not recall the name, nor the year.
Anyway, there are far too many enjoyable compositions to have to put up with dissonance.
But you will take your sauce, and you will like it!
To the extent automation goes to the front of the house or the customer service piece this will have a lopsided impact on low income women. It will be interesting to see what impact that has on family formation. If manufacturing makes a comeback you could actually see lower income men becoming marriage eligible. More than likely everyone will be hosed and ubi and more illegal immigration will be pitched as the miracle cure.
I didn't think about the reduction in low skill female jobs might have on family dynamics. You've got a good idea, and I hope it works but I bet your last sentence will happen. They've gotta do UBI or something cause too many young men who (rightly or wrongly) think there's no future in the system can't be good.
You can't have open borders and UBI. I mean, if you print the world's money you can TRY...
We already have UBI, it's called WIC. My wife and I had children before we got married. If we'd have been freeloaders, we could've put her residence at her parents and picked up 30-40 a year in free government benefits. That 5k birth of my child? FREE, medical insurance? FREE, Baby formula? FREE. Our society actively encourages single motherhood through tax incentives and rebates vs healthy family formation. It costs me 5-10k a year to be married without even including all the FREE shit she could've gotten if we didn't. FREE FREE FREE!!! sorry. Sore subject
WIC, to me, is a pragmatic response to the fact that underfed and/or abused children end up being much more expensive to society than any program to address their major issues up front.
The real solution is to have societal mores in place that prevent that behavior without a payout, but the Supreme Court made up the separation of church and state so....
I don't see ANY underfed poor kids. But I agree with your general real solution
"societal mores" ? Is that like cats and dogs living together, peace in Middle East, and cure for cancer all rolled into one?
I don't know if this is sarcasm or not but assuming it's not:
We live in a socially revolutionary time where traditional forms of maintaining cohesion, continuity, and shaping people have been eschewed for mass media propaganda and the promise of do-what-you-will which is a devil's bargain because most people end up enslaved by some vice or other.
Disability is basically sort of UBI for the NILF set as far as I can tell.
We quite literally gave UBI a trial here in Canada during Covid. No strings attached $2k a mo (cue THIS ISN'T A LIVING SUBSITY).
Predictably, we spent in a single short period of time MORE MONEY THAN ALL CANADIAN GOVERNMENTS IN HISTORY COMBINED, and received massive labor shortages. The predictable response I get from middle class office worker supporters of this is "bUt It WaS cOvID wE hAD tO" are utterly preposterous, until you consider that they know that if they coudln't go to their "non-essential" coprorate jobs, they'd be forced to work in a greenhouse or food processing plant, which of course would be unacceptable.
I live in an ag town that has thousands upon thousands of acres of greenhouses which are essentially indoor farm factories. I know many people who own, operate and work in them. They rely heavily on migrant labor (and pay them the same prevailing $15/hr min wage), because this work is beneath locals. When the gov wouldn't let the migrants in, and literally paid everyone else to STAY HOME AND STAY SAFE, my greenhouse operator friends were facing major production shortages in the food supply. Predatory capitalism keeps people fed. Socialism kills to the degree we let it.
With regards to UBI, we sort of saw a test run of what that would look like in 2020 with the "summer of love". The CARES act massively increased unemployment benefits and made paying your rent or utilities discretionary. When you give young men funds, abundant time, but no purpose they will find one. And when they do make sure the fire department is ready and you have plenty of Narcan on hand.