2022 LC Thread—New Year, New Thread

How about that it’s dumb to ever put down someone in the middle class for making too much?

2 Likes

What about if that middle class person is making fun of another middle class person (or lower) for making too much? Can we take the gloves off then?

Okay, but why bring up the fast food workers at all?

Why not something like “the cost of tuition over the last 10 years has gone up X percent, while professor salaries have only gone up Y percent”?

1 Like

Plus pension

It really shouldn’t be difficult to see the inherent classism in that guy’s tweet.

“Never bring statistics to a story fight.” This guy’s mistake was he told a fucked up story.

Brisack had been working toward this moment since she was a home-schooled teenager in Alcoa, Tenn., and read a speech delivered by the legendary American socialist Eugene Debs that hit her with the power of a revelation.

While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free,” Debs told a jury that was about to convict him of inciting resistance to the draft during World War I.

“It was so radical,” Brisack said. “So, in your face.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/12/rhodes-scholar-barista-fight-unionize-starbucks/

There is a reason some employers don’t hire overqualified people.

Is it a one weird trick kind of thing? I’m being a bit snarky but if I’m hired for a job I’ll be either overqualified or lying about my qualifications.

What?

What’s the reason employers won’t hire overqualified people?

It’s very common. Among other reasons, they don’t want someone just biding their time until they find something else better. Hiring people is expensive, so you want to minimize turnover. Finding a good fit is one way to accomplish that.

It seems like they don’t trust people. Which people recognize. And so they lie. Maybe the overqualified should be just be considered qualified.

Maybe. It’s not my personal policy.

1 Like

Hmm I’m not super familiar with the US academic system and I may be biased here since this is my job.

but the truth is that most people with sufficient skills to get tenured academic math positions could have made 3x or 4x more money by going into the private sector. I’m obviously not saying they should complain since as Trolly said the job has some advantages, but it is a bit silly to claim that they are overpaid.

(That said I did google the Twitter guy and that may not apply to him since he’s not an actual mathematician. He got his PhD in “mathematical education” which may mean he’s actually better at teaching low level classes…).

1 Like

Yes, what sort of society values the production of food over teaching advanced mathematics to rich kids at some terrible private liberal arts college. Scandalous.

University staff suffer from the same issue as a lot of workplaces. 90% of University staff are underpaid so that the University can have a bunch of overpaid (and largely worthless) administrators. Who while being the reason that the 90% are underpaid, also are there just to be a giant PITA to that 90%.

1 Like

One good option is to have no opinion at all. When people post some villian of the day’s tweet the suggestion is that they are trying to make some grand public political statement. More likely, this guy is just complaining about his salary to a handful of friends and colleagues. This guy spent years getting a PHD and another 7 to get tenure and he only makes 2x minimum wage. Whining about that a bit is normal human behavior. I probably wouldn’t take notice of a post like this if it came on my feed.

The real lesson here is that Twitter is terrible and we should all stop using it .

2 Likes

This is not exactly unheard of in the private sector workforce too. I don’t think many large corporations have figured out a management strategy more effective than having 10 (or 100) managers for every 1 that you need because it’s almost impossible to evaluate manager performance in a large enterprise so you need to have 9 (or 99) fillers just to make sure that you have the one person to jump in and stave off disaster when needed.

1 Like

I would say this is true, plus an additional lesson is that examining the wage levels of different people in the labor market and making grand pronouncements on the unfairness of actual wages vs. True Value To Humanity is a futile and stupid exercise that never goes anywhere. Nobody knows what anyone’s labor is worth.