In this private pk-8 elementary (tuition approaching 20k/year) that request is seen by admin as disrespectful toward our parent community, whose time is really valuable.
1 Like
Musicians, authors and painters are never going to have it easy. It’s the teachers, nurses and social workers who I’m worried about.
3 Likes
It’s strange that people don’t seem to consider that expecting to exploit our passion and duty just ensures a workforce that protects itself from feeling passionate or dutiful because it’s always a risk. That’s exactly what happened with me. They made us install a new app that tries to pigeonhole our work style. I got caretaker, the app actually warned me about getting taken advantage of which was rich considering… if that wasn’t true I wouldn’t have had to install their obnoxious corporate spyware to have the “advice.” I took that advice to heart a little too much and got laid off.
13 Likes
A buddy of mine was a co-pilot at a regional carrier. He learned one day (shortly before he quit, coincidence?) that some of the flight attendants were paid more than him.
1 Like
Except at the very top, where you need to pay executives top dollar because that’s how you attract the best talent.
8 Likes
I just left a very abusive relationship that was the perfect example of this. And, like most (all?) abusive relationships, I knew at the time. But love is a funny thing and they bloody well know that.
8 Likes
Congrats. Sincerely. That moment when you say “I’m not taking this anymore” and you know it’s really true this time is amazing.
5 Likes
That’s meta-capitalism, a whooooole different realm
1 Like
Thanks. I do rather miss the direct deposit, but the farther from the situation I get, the clearer it becomes that, while I’m sure as hell not perfect, that shit really was nuts. And not exactly good for me, in so very many ways.
I’m currently doing an intensive homeschool bootcamp to re-earn my vaunted Full Stack Dev title after a three year pivot to video. And I gotta say, the hours are even worse, as is the pay. But at least now my situation includes reasonable hope of improvement.
5 Likes
Just came out of 2 decades in the nonprofit sector. I just quit a job after 11 years that was largely defined by ‘passion’.
I was ready to go years ago, but didn’t want to leave important work undone. I finally announced that I would shift to part-time 18 months ago - to much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and recriminations. The idea that I would care about something else more was taken as a personal affront by my boss. We had similar issues when I wanted to spend Xmas morning with my preschool aged children (boss has none) or perhaps take a day off on Halloween or my child’s 5th birthday.
After 17 months of this, I gave a full month of notice that I was going to leave entirely. At the very end of my last shift the boss came in and then spent a full hour yelling at me about how I lack consideration and am thoughtless and selfish for leaving - now nobody would be able to take vacations this summer. This after announcing my intentions 18 months prior, then giving a full month notice.
11 Likes
Don’t forget: Your value is determined by how much surplus value you generate, and how much of that gets kicked up to the bosses. It’s why teaching pays so poorly – there’s almost no surplus value, outside of paying Administrators to prosper and multiply. I teach public school in a Major City, and there’s a Private school next to my apartment that charges tuition, per student ,that is more than my current annual salary. Every day I don’t burn that building down feels like cowardice to me.
2 Likes
Holy shit. That’s dreadful!
Ironically enough, my decade at a non-profit was, in hindsight, the overall healthiest working environment of my career. But I didn’t yet have enough experience of truly shitty situations to appreciate it. Maybe I should email my old bosses there and tell them exactly that.
3 Likes
Man, i don’t want to disparage all non-profits, but I have delt with several of them early in my career as a web designer. And oof, even the really big ones… it seems like you have like 10% of them who are there as power trip and/or for the presitge. You have another 10-15% who are the true believers in the cause and who are very capable and compentent. 25%ish that are true beleivers who try hard, but aren’t very capbable. And the rest are low level grunt workers who usually aren’t very good with or with out passion, but at least their tasks are simple and get the job done.
I imagine the lower than average pay results in many of the good ones eventually moving on 
This is why when there are scandals for even big charities, it surprises me not.
I hope you find a better job that values you!
My work made us waffles today, so I guess I don’t have it too bad.
5 Likes
I once read some cautions to executive types about the personality traits of an embezzler. I will try to find a list and add it in edit, but the overlap between ‘passionate and underpaid’ and ‘textbook embezzler’ would seem to be more than a general coincidence.
#4. "Diligent and ambitious
An embezzler may come in early and leave
late, and never take vacations. This can
appear to be dedication to the company,
but in fact it is an effort to keep from being
found out. "
#5. “Disgruntled
An employee who feels they are being
treated unfairly may be tempted to ‘even the
score.’ They may be unable to relax, or may
experience severe changes in behavior.”
5 Likes
Exploitation of workers becomes more socially acceptable if the workers are perceived as “passionate” about their jobs
This seems pretty common-sensical to me. We equate passion with job satisfaction, and when we consider exploitation, most of us use a whole set of factors that include job satisfaction to determine “do we feel someone is exploited”.
This applies to ourselves as well, or at least to me. I’ve taken jobs that at rates that I would not have taken otherwise because I did enjoy the job. In other words, my passion did factor into the global satisfaction with the job. Should I be angry that my employer factors my job satisfaction into their wage offer when I do the same?
And exploitation is often a bit subjective. Having been around the book industry, I’m well aware that bookstore employees are often paid way below market value for their services. (I’m amazed at people who are coding fairly sophisticated bookstore web sites for a third of what they’d earn elsewhere.)
But the reality is that any bookstore that paid their employers their worth would be bankrupt within the month.
Should bookstores be shamed for exploiting their workers, which they surely are?
I have no idea if you are female, but I have to say that this matches what I have heard many women relate, especially in smaller firms (although your anecdote is turned to 11). These sorts of bosses believe men are animals and cannot be expected to have a shred of decency or loyalty, but women are “better than that” and thus are expected to understand the difficult trade-offs and make sacrifices for the ‘family’.
The ‘hurt’ the boss feels is often truly genuine, but it’s no less a nasty trap, and one that leads to any number of women being exploited.
Okay, I’ll bite. Why?
2 Likes
Because the very existence of Private education is a direct attack on community, equality, education and egalitarian enlightenment thought. Private Education is either racist, classist, caught up in medieval religious ideas, or all three – and the idea that rich parents can pay for better education while both damaging and sidestepping everyone’s public system is wrong.
7 Likes
So true! Pay and conditions are converging on the 3rd world everywhere.
1 Like
Interesting. Would you be willing to elaborate?
Specifically, do you believe that the state should have a monopoly on all forms of education or just what we would consider day-time school. (Since supplementary lessons are certainly inegalitarian and can contain non-state approved curricula as well.)
the idea that rich parents can pay for better education while both damaging and sidestepping everyone’s public system is wrong.
Do you believe that the damage comes from the student’s withdrawal from the system (i.e. high performing students are side-stepping what should be (given their usually considered positive influence to the educational environment) mandatory service to the state)?
Or is the damage strictly a result of less support for an increase in taxes used to support education?
1 Like
there are multiple problems with private schools, especially private schools partially funded by vouchers which take money from the public education system. there is an immediate and direct impact by the money going out of the public system. tied to public funding flowing to private schools there is also the fact that private schools are not held accountable by the same standards that public schools are held to, that is high stakes testing which allows a comparison of educational outcomes between schools. why is accountability supposed to be good for public schools but not needed for private schools?
the extremely wealthy and the deeply religious have both moved children out of the public schools and into either “elite” or parochial school systems of some sort or another for more than 100 years. at one point it would have been considered “rioting in the streets” level ridiculous to put public money into either type of institution. a concerted, 40 year effort by the republican party to undercut and disinvest in public education has been one more front in their overall effort to enrich the wealthy to the immiseration of everyone else.
destroying the public education system is not a winning strategy unless what you are hoping to accomplish is the dumbing down of the populace to the point that they won’t want anything better than subsistence wages.
7 Likes
Absolutely true. I consider that possibility absurd enough that I’d failed to even consider the it in my question, but a little bit of googling indicates this is not nearly as rare as I had thought. However, 13 of the 14 states that have voucher systems seem to apply only to poor or special education students, which don’t seem to be the demographic of concern here with respect to [DeclanMcManus]'s (https://bbs.boingboing.net/u/DeclanMcManus) reply. (My information is from Policy Research)
I think the more interesting philosophical question is whether private schools should be banned even if they don’t take money from the state.
I think the public nature of public schools leads to greater calls for accountability. If we as voters call for greater testing (as evidenced by who we elect), then everybody gets testing. In a non-public-subsidized system, there’s an argument that the private aspect allows greater freedom in the same manner that I expect my public transit to be designed for the majority, but my private transportation to fit me.
I’d agree, but I think the School Choice movement has been fairly clever about mostly targeting poorer students. Subsidies of that nature are less likely to trigger the massive feelings of unfairness, regardless of its detrimental effects on the public school system.
Indeed, DeclanMcManus’ remarks were quite clearly aimed at a class of citizen that (rightly) do not receive subsidies.
Which is why I’m curious to see what areas of ‘damage’ he sees that I may have not considered.
(Addendum: The reason I’m probing this is because I found DeclanMcManus’ comment so striking. The idea of a failure to commit arson as a moral or ethical failing was so memorable, I was (and am) curious about the thinking behind it. (And I quite liked his first response - he has a way with words.))
1 Like
