I spent about 7 years as an assistant manager for a restaurant in the late 90’s early 00’s… I would laugh my ass off any time other managers tried to pull this shit on staff. Like the job was something special. The owner wanted to drug test employees and we all laughed said good luck finding any employees. Firing someone for not working hours they weren’t scheduled for? Yeah right.
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Funny how quickly the bullshit evaporated about jobs not needing better pay because the people working them are just kids and bored housewives looking for pin money and so don’t need money that could pay rent or anything like that.
Now it’s “OH NO how can we continue to turn a profit without the helpless desperation of thousands of low paid workers!?”
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I worked a consulting gig sort of like that at least I was paid all my hours. I think I did 93 hours one week. Then I worked for a start up for almost two years that was minimum 60 hours a week. After that I did what I said I’d never do… go back to DOD consulting work but at least they never ask me to work more than 40 hours a week.
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Yeah. I went from NASA to this other job, and left shortly after a year for a more reasonable software dev position that has never expected me to do more than 40 or work on my weekends or evenings. Any company working its employees over 40 hours, especially since most full time employees are exempt from overtime, are companies I recommend nobody actually work for.
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This is actually a basic function of quality of life and women’s rights that has been identified. As quality of life goes up, birth rates go down. Some European countries have negative birth rates now and are offering increasingly generous immigration and citizenship to stabilize their population.
It’s also why the “population bomb” scare of the 1970s fizzled. For a while there all anyone could talk about was the hockey stick chart of the time, which was population. They thought we’d be at 30 billion by now and all starving. However it turns out that if you get quality of life up and empower women, the problem fixes itself.
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Fuck Bill Gates personally, but that slime ball is very much right that increasing QOL for women, directly leads to prosperity in your civilization.
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The reality is that even women who want to have families, very few want large families or for that to be their only identity (mother and wife). Women want the same freedom to make reproductive and career choices that men have.
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Yup. And empowering means not discriminating! My mom was empowered to get a BS summa cum laude etc, with a double major in math and physics. But the only jobs she got offered were secretarial. That was in 1954. So she got married and had me in 1955 (oh hey, exactly 66 years ago today).
It was interesting growing up, knowing I wouldn’t exist if there were no sexism.
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Totally totally off topic, but today is 10-21-2021 (in US nomenclature). I tend to put month-year on things (like files or freezer foods), so all month I’ve been writing 10/21 and saying oh hey, my birthday. Enjoy the little things that will never recur!
Here’s more not-quite-numerology that nobody but me cares about. Mom was born in 33. She had me when she was 22 in 55. So in 66, 77, 88, and 99 we shared multiples-of-11 birthdays. I also married in 77.
Of course, duplicated digits are everywhere. I live on 55th Ave and used to live in zip code 55xxx. I say again, find ways to enjoy the little things.
My series got broken by Y2K, but now I’m 66 and my superstitions project a great year. Hmmmm.
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Low paid? Luxury!
And you try and tell the old people of today that … they won’t believe you
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As a freelancer, I’ve had clients who want me to be part-time on-call. As in, we might suddenly have a rush 50-hour project (but we’ll pay only for actual work). It’s amazing how few are willing to understand why anyone would say NO to that.
And that brings us back to points made up-thread: employers and clients can be amazingly stupid when blinded by greed.
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“They should be greatful they have any job at all! Working for less than minimum wage is better than being homeless without a job.”
My boomer mother.
I sometimes point out it’s better not to work and be homeless than to work your ass off and go deeper into debt every day.
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I’ll allow that your family can be idiotic. But I’ve been talking about my age here (66) and saying the opposite. So if you’ve been reading the thread, you’ll understand that I’m insulted by you attributing her idiocy to being a boomer. Now, MY mother (b. 1933) would’ve agreed with her, so my family, too, can be idiotic.
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Obviously #notallboomers
But, it certainly were boomers who dismantled all the social safety nets after they got all their entitlement spending delivered.
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From the “yes, and” camp - Yes, and when they presume the workers are blinded by desperation.
And also -
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that’s wild. my understanding is that many companies require truckers to lease the semi from them, and/or pay for training - so often a large chunk of the money they do earn goes straight back to the company
something something unions. something something labor laws
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60 hours a week, still part time. Only full time employees were eligible for overtime pay, but no one ever told me they’d got any overtime. Those who’d been put in charge of a specific store section got big raises, and lots more hours, but b/c they were salaried they got no overtime. The section managers told me their positions weren’t worth it.
They’d started me in early Sept at 30 hrs/wk, then dumped more hours on me, same pay, no bennies. No raises, either. I quit near the end of the following March, so I’d been there more than six months. Despite my coming in w/loads of experience, they also paid me min. Insult upon insult.
Maybe a month after quitting, I learned B&N’s high mucky-mucks had fired that manager during her last evaluation. Not for employee abuse and breaking multiple labor laws (I wasn’t the only one screwed out of being full time, and she habitually scheduled our lunch breaks 2+ hours past what the law demands, etc etc), but b/c she never sent in any of the returns.
Chain bookstores regularly send their shops lists of books that aren’t selling at the desired speed. They’re sent back to a corporate warehouse, where they’re sent to stores where they do sell, or are remaindered, etc. There was an massive wall of shelves in the back room full of returns she’d never sent back, and upper mgmt freaked TF out. I’d asked her for a returns list one V slow day, not long after I’d been hired, and she told me, “Oh, we don’t do that here.” Having worked at another chain for ages, I knew it was BS.
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The situation with truck drivers has been coming up in reports for a while now. The corporate response we also see in the MSM? Automate it ASAP. This is what makes me glad it’s more technically challenging than some believed, and systems aren’t ready for prime time yet:
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