Lol, obviously my post is pretty disingenuous. I told Zikzak not to have an opinion and then explained why macdonaldborgar (and by proxy the majority of you) was the one in the wrong. This was pretty unconscious on my part, guess I don’t feel like having an internet argument this morning. Sorry for the cowardice I guess.
Seems like the takeaway should be that refusing to accept your own exploitation is entirely appropriate, but doing so by tearing down somebody else who you feel is less exploited than you isn’t too cool.
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was it dickish? it sounded in my head perhaps with moderate attitude, because we are all used to it on twitter. but looking closer it’s pretty straightforward statement of fact
Ridiculing and suggesting logical replacements for restaurant processes used to be a favorite pastime among my software engineer colleagues whenever we went out to lunch. As if any of us would last one day in any restaurant job.
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I don’t think that it was terribly dickish, but I think it reveals a little of his implicit bias toward the employees at places like Panda Express. I don’t even think he meant to be mean to them, but he didn’t really think through that for his post to have any meaning at all it had to be read as putting down general managers at Panda Express. The twitter post itself presumes that it is obvious that associate professors of math at Westminster College “should” make more than general managers at Panda Express. There’s some cognitive dissonance going on there if he also holds in his mind that he is some kind of progressive that supports “workers”, etc. This does seem to fall neatly into the category of “things alleged liberals say that make your eyes roll all the way out of your head”. Sucks to be that guy, but he accidentally made himself the lightning rod of the day on Twitter for all of us that are frustrated with milquetoast centrists.
I disagree with this pretty strongly. I think there should be a lot more discussion about why the people we rely on to provide all the essentials of civilization are paid so little and considered lower class. I understand this may be an uncomfortable discussion for many.
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Classism I guess? But he’s also a product of the fact that our generation was born and raised on the lie that education was the clear path to financial success – maybe not being rich, but quite comfortable – and that more education got you higher up the ladder. People find out about this lie in a lot of different ways – crippling student loan debt, finding a complete dearth of academic jobs available for people with postgraduate degrees despite grad schools being more than eager to churn them out, seeing that the underperforming kids from high school make more than you as realtors at your reunion, etc. – and this guy is on the brink of seeing it.
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That thread is incredible.
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Thinking back on that guy I definitely grumbled about the people who made more than me as a resident so maybe I should stfu
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Big difference between a “discussion about why” and lazily assuming teachers should be paid more because duh they’re teachers and big corporation drones should be paid less because duh they’re big corporation drones. People bring their own political biases and it’s a waste of time. It’s not thoughtful at all.
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heh I guess even today I grumble about tech bros and admins making more than me. It was definitely more often as a resident though.
A year after college, I had a couple part-time broadcasting jobs that added up to 20-25 hours but didn’t come close to paying the bills, so I needed like a 20-30 hour a week part-time job. I literally applied to every want ad, and walked through every local mall applying for everything open.
After a few times being told the reason I was rejected was being over-qualified, I re-did my resume and eliminated all of the broadcast experience and took my college degree off. I basically made it look like I had been doing freelance gig work after high school and was ready to “settle in” with a “serious and consistent” job in retail.
It got me offers but luckily I had landed a part-time web design and marketing job with a small business by then, doing work that should have paid $50 an hour for $10 an hour… which beat working retail for $7.25 an hour, but wasn’t as good as working at Starbucks. God damn, graduating into the Great Recession was a blast.
I did learn quite a bit about the real world in that job, like it shattered any illusions that small business owners were all the smartest people who understood how to get the most out of their employees’ time or how to make a business run efficiently.
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Thanks for expanding on my post.
If someone is applying for a job they have their reasons and if hired there are many possible outcomes, one of which is they just sit around polishing their resume and applying to better jobs. But other than anecdotes and nebulous fear on the part of employers, what is the evidence that happens often enough to worry about?
It’s too expensive and difficult to hire people for them to use you this way? Well, maybe they get hit by a bus and die, leaving you to hire someone else anyway. Or maybe they stick around but get sick and drain your health insurance. Is that better or less likely than that they leave after some short time?
Idk, maybe but it’s also possible they stick around and do a fine job. Or even a better job than you could expect from someone who was merely ‘qualified’. Maybe good enough you decide to move them into something that fits their qualifications better. Maybe I’m just dumb and employers are knowledgeable hiring experts but having qualifications be disqualifying seems like a chickenshit way to deal with people.
If Sklansky were around I’m sure he would tell you that a math PhD (assuming that is what the guy had) is much harder for a person to attain than competence at managing a Panda Express. Sure, managing a Panda Express is not easy. But if we took 100 high school graduates and attempted to train them to do both of those things, you would come away with a lot more competent Panda Express managers than math PhDs.
Obviously the difficulty of acquiring the requisite skills is not the only factor in determining the value of labor, but it is probably one of the biggest ones. And as it turns out many of the “essentials of civilization” can be provided by a much larger number of people than the number of people who are capable of math PhDs. So, that is why that many of the people that are instrumental in providing those essentials are not paid much.
As far as considering them “lower class”, I think that’s mostly a factor of wealth. If Panda Express managers pulled down seven figures a year, then they would no longer be considered lower or middle class. There are obviously exceptions, but by and large, what class one is has less to do with their specific job than it does their income and wealth. Of course the two are correlated.
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Yeah it’s super frustrating to be in that spot. Like at the time I remember being furious that I “did all the right things” and that a high school dropout could get a job I needed over me because they weren’t worried about him or her leaving in a few months. Like the turnover in retail has to be pretty high anyway, right?
But I do get it from the employer’s perspective.
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That specific Panda Express, which is in a prime location, hasn’t always been well managed. If you can get someone in there who gets it humming, pay the man his money.
Tapatio is miles better than Cholula, Sriracha, and Tabasco. Louisiana style hotsauce is right there though.
Random tangent, but is there a difference between “Tabasco” and “Louisiana style”? Tabaco is made in Louisiana and I kinda always thought that generic Louisiana style sauce were basically copying that style, but maybe I’m wrong and need to be upping my sauce game.
Tapatio is the same style as Cholula, so I should have probably said any type of salsa picante style hot sauce.
I would say that while Tabasco and Louisiana are similar, they are different enough to classify them separately. Tabasco is a lot spicier relatively, while Louisiana hot sauce tends to have more depth of flavor.