Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last? • Hacker News Board

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#181

Post by throwawayjava » Tue, Nov 21, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

skellera wrote: post #139

logfromblammo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just give an automated field-sobriety test for alertness, judgment, and reflexes at the start of each shift? Pass the test, and you can clock in and get to work. Fail the test, hit the nap room (unpaid) for a while, and try again when you wake up. It would catch people who are drunk, high, having a stroke, or just sleepy, rather than just the guy who used cannabis two weekends ago and is perfectly capable of…

No one is required to give you a job. The increased cost to do that everyday is not worth it to the company if they can weed out possible irresponsible workers from a drug test. It’s work, not a babysitter. All everyone is talking about is weed which I’m sure most of us agree shouldn’t be tested for but we don’t even know what the failed tests failed for.

> No one is required to give you a job

And no one is required to work for you at the wages you can afford to pay...

Want affordable workers? Increase supply or decrease demand. If you can't do the latter, focus on the former.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#182

Post by turc1656 » Tue, Nov 21, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

DavidWoof wrote: post #103

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The younger crowd seems to be largely detached from the idea of responsibility that was drilled into previous generations. My father graduated college making $42k/yr. Inflation adjusted, that was about $60k/yr in today's dollars. I just graduated, have experience in the field, and am getting a salary of $35k/yr in today's dollars. Meanwhile, upper management is getting millions. In that kind of work environment, wh…

I'm always kind of fascinated by posts like this on this site. Could I ask what field you're in that pays 35k/yr, apparently in the US, is in the field of your degree, and yet is somewhat related to Hacker News? Or are you not in tech at all and this site is an outside interest? Or maybe you're just in a rural area? I don't mean this to sound challenging out all, I'm just kind of curious.

I'm not surprised. There are a lot of jobs outside of the main metro areas that don't pay that much. They could be, for example, a DB admin for a non-tech company where their priority is not IT because IT is viewed as a cost center. Or perhaps a third party B2B company that is the low cost solution for a larger, more recognized company. You might be surprised what some people make in those cases.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#183

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 21, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

skellera wrote: post #139

logfromblammo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just give an automated field-sobriety test for alertness, judgment, and reflexes at the start of each shift? Pass the test, and you can clock in and get to work. Fail the test, hit the nap room (unpaid) for a while, and try again when you wake up. It would catch people who are drunk, high, having a stroke, or just sleepy, rather than just the guy who used cannabis two weekends ago and is perfectly capable of…

No one is required to give you a job. The increased cost to do that everyday is not worth it to the company if they can weed out possible irresponsible workers from a drug test. It’s work, not a babysitter. All everyone is talking about is weed which I’m sure most of us agree shouldn’t be tested for but we don’t even know what the failed tests failed for.

[deleted]

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#184

Post by ashark » Tue, Nov 21, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

DavidWoof wrote: post #103

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The younger crowd seems to be largely detached from the idea of responsibility that was drilled into previous generations. My father graduated college making $42k/yr. Inflation adjusted, that was about $60k/yr in today's dollars. I just graduated, have experience in the field, and am getting a salary of $35k/yr in today's dollars. Meanwhile, upper management is getting millions. In that kind of work environment, wh…

I'm always kind of fascinated by posts like this on this site. Could I ask what field you're in that pays 35k/yr, apparently in the US, is in the field of your degree, and yet is somewhat related to Hacker News? Or are you not in tech at all and this site is an outside interest? Or maybe you're just in a rural area? I don't mean this to sound challenging out all, I'm just kind of curious.

$35k isn't an unusually low starting salary for lots of tech jobs outside major hubs. IT positions, starting network techs/sysadmins, hacking on PHP/Wordpress, that kind of thing.

Under the broad umbrella of jobs-you-can-land-with-a-degree-containing-the-word-"computer", there are a great many that aren't making Facebook creepier, or making Gmail's interface worse, or other, similar, very high-paying jobs.

There are even, believe it or not, many that don't pay as well as not really understanding how to write code, but nonetheless somehow landing a position writing enterprise Java or DotNet at some boring bigcorp, then never leaving because you never actually get any better at programming than when you started, but these people don't seem to care and there are a few competent people here picking up your slack, so why risk going somewhere else? AKA the broad middle-tier of people working as software developers.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#185

Post by emerged » Tue, Nov 21, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

throwawaytime wrote: post #113

danielvf wrote: post #9

I worked with small / medium manufacturers in the prosperous part of the Southeast. Hiring is brutal currently. Last week one company setup interviews with 20 possible new workers. One showed up for his interview, and one wandered in the next day. 18 nonshows. Another local company is seeing 50% of new hires failing their first drug test. Anecdotaly, about 20% of new hires under 30 don’t understand the concept of sho…

I see a lot of latent anger in this thread against lazy software programmers who don't show up on time. In case it's helpful, here's my story from two years ago about living with undiagnosed narcolepsy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10984478 One of my memories of that job was sleeping fully-dressed for work, then leaping out of bed when my alarm goes off. I'd carefully balance on my feet and wait for the tired…

Ultimately, my solution was remote work. Interestingly this also solved the problem of high cost of living on the west coast (moved to the Midwest). It also helps distribute economic and social influence across the whole of the country instead of densely packing it into a few privileged areas.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#186

Post by watwut » Tue, Nov 21, 2017, 5:40 PM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #17

I work at a medium-sized software company. We've had similar problems with younger employees. Guys literally posting in company-wide Slack channels that they're "feeling a little sleepy this morning, gonna be in later." Can you even imagine somebody saying that to their boss in some black-and-white movie from the 1940s? "Hey, how about instead of coming in later you hit the bricks and never come back?" The culture ha…

> Guys literally posting in company-wide Slack channels that they're "feeling a little sleepy this morning, gonna be in later."

That is primary advantage of flexible working time, which is something everyone up to now praised as huge improvement. I dont do that because I have family, but dont see a problem assuming a.) they work full time when you cont worked time and b.) I can come sooner as norm + leave sooner and not be punished for it by management assuming everyone gotta stay late.

> Can you even imagine somebody saying that to their boss in some black-and-white movie from the 1940s?

Movies are not representation of society as it exists. It is not true now and it was not true back then, especially because censorship back then was heavier and because 1940 was second world war time.

Notably, films could only present "correct standards of life" (for the times) unless the plot called for something else. Alcohol consumption, could not be shown unless the plot called for it. The law had to be respected and upheld.

I remember old movies from later eras where both white collar and blue collar dudes drunk on the job and were various grades irresponsible.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#187

Post by itkillsbrnsells » Tue, Nov 21, 2017, 5:41 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #124

killjoywashere wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Past performance != future performance But it's the best signal we've got. Ignore it at your peril. Perhaps you are too young or live in too modern a world to understand how dangerous rare events are. Constructive paranoia has helped select evolutionary survivors for a very long time. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/science/jared-diamonds-gui...

Drug test measure whether you smoked weed anytime last weeks, up to three months if I recall right. It has little to do with whether you are high first day on the job. It has more to do with drug war then with incidents.

You actually think potheads will have the self-control not to toke up the night before? And any time they fail a drug test, they totally didn't smoke pot for like a full month bro, it was the poppy seeds in my bagel dude!

LOL. Grow up, get a life, stop smoking pot you lowlife. Weed doesn't make you cool, it just makes you a loser.

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#188

Post by opportune » Tue, Nov 21, 2017, 5:41 PM UTC

Y7ZCQtNo39 wrote: post #144

enraged_camel wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about whether they can or can't. It's about the massive liability for the company if they fuck up on the job and cause property damage or bodily injury.

Yeah, but a non-pot smoking worker (vs the pot smoker), both sober while on the job, are equally as likely to make a mistake.

That could be true in a causative sense, but not a correlative* one. Not that it's ethical to do so, but by testing for marijuana smokers, businesses/insurance companies may by proxy be testing for other traits likely to cause accidents

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#189

Post by southphillyman » Tue, Nov 21, 2017, 5:42 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #108

>> "Anecdotaly, about 20% of new hires under 30 don’t understand the concept of showing up on time (or at all)" Don't kid yourself. Those new hires are at other jobs making more money. I am booked for a roofer in feb 2018 (fingers crossed - friend of a friend). Blue skills are in extremely high demand. And those guys are working extremely hard making really high incomes (400k+). These guys are highly paid and are not…

Where can one go to learn these "blue collar" skills? As a recent home owner I'm learning first hand how valuable these skills are by way of my wallet. Seems like most people I meet who do these kinds of jobs were "born into it", and learned by helping a family member who was already in the industry. Are there IIT type schools which teach these kinds of things on a part time basis?

Re: Blue-collar wages are surging. Can it last?

#190

Post by itkillsbrnsells » Tue, Nov 21, 2017, 5:42 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #78

bkohlmann wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about manufacturing jobs is that they often involve operating heavy machinery. Drug use and intoxication drastically increases the chance of death or dismemberment - for the inebriated, or often, others around them. As a pilot, I seriously don’t care if you show up to work high or not - unless you’re doing maintenance on the jet I’m supposed to fly.

Why not just give an automated field-sobriety test for alertness, judgment, and reflexes at the start of each shift? Pass the test, and you can clock in and get to work. Fail the test, hit the nap room (unpaid) for a while, and try again when you wake up. It would catch people who are drunk, high, having a stroke, or just sleepy, rather than just the guy who used cannabis two weekends ago and is perfectly capable of…

Why not just not cater to druggies or enable their behavior at all?