A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier • Hacker News Board

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#301

Post by jfk13 » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:53 PM UTC

ameister14 wrote: post #245

Miner49er wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yang's implementation is very regressive. You have the regressive VAT tax, but then you also have the fact that you are cutting government benefits then giving everyone $1000. So the poor just end up net poorer. Example: Now: $12,000 a year + $12,000 in benefits = $24,000 $50,000 a year + $0 in benefits = $50,000 UBI: $12,000 a year + $12,000 in UBI = $24,000 $50,000 a year + $12,000 in UBI = $62,000 The poorer perso…

You're missing a couple of things - first, it isn't zero sum. I don't care if I'm poor relatively as long as I'm not poor absolutely. Second, the average benefit isn't $1,000 a month and in almost all cases the $1k per month is an increase on existing benefit numbers. Third, since it doesn't come with strings, you don't have to worry about losing your benefits when you get a job or a kid leaves the home, when you rel…

> I don't care if I'm poor relatively as long as I'm not poor absolutely.

This might be true for you personally, but it is not true in general; whether people are dissatisfied with their level of wealth/poverty has a great deal to do with how it compares to others.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#302

Post by michaelmrose » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:54 PM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #91

larnmar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think the solution is emigration. There are places in the world where you can make a living without any particular skill set, but I don’t think the US, or any other first-world country, should really be among them. The US needs immigration reform to bring more high-skilled people into the country, but it also needs emigration reform to find new homes for people who can’t necessarily make a reasonable livin…

Why do you think that people without skills will have better life in developing countries? The salaries there are even lower, for example, in Russia hourly rate in McDonalds is $2-4 depending on the city. The only kind of housing the employee can afford is a room in a shared apartment or sharing a room with a friend or living with parents for free.

If your skill set is cashier you will almost certainly be denied moving even to Russia

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#303

Post by Scoundreller » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:54 PM UTC

Phenix88be wrote: post #74

x2f10 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not impossible in the United States. This individual qualifies for both Mcdonald's tuition assistance ($2,500 / year) and FAFSA. FAFSA will more than likely pay for her schooling + books if she's starting at a community college.

> This individual qualifies for both Mcdonald's tuition assistance ($2,500 / year) Is it a real thing ? Or just something they do to have a good image ?

Both? Take up may not be big.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#304

Post by AnimalMuppet » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:54 PM UTC

lurquer wrote: post #164

thinkloop wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no bigger lie than hard work = prosperity. It is literally the exact opposite. Think of the hardest shittiest jobs and they are almost always the least paying. The richer you get the less hard work is, until you're able to reach the pinnacle of doing absolutely nothing but managing your money and taking advantage of discounted cap gains taxes. I grew up rich with every opportunity and never had one of these…

>There is no bigger lie than hard work = prosperity. It is literally the exact opposite. Hard work leads to prosperity. That's not the same as equating prosperity to hard work. Most prosperous people achieved prosperity due to earlier hard work and sacrifice of themselves (or their immediate ancestors.) Clearly, the 'value chain', as you put it, exists as evidenced by the numerous posts on this thread of describing t…

Other things being equal, hard work is more likely to lead to prosperity.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#305

Post by to1y » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:55 PM UTC

itqwertz wrote: post #257

justinsaccount wrote: post #28

> It’s 8 p.m. and my scheduled shift is over, but they asked me to stay later > The bus stops running at 10 p.m. on Sunday, but McDonald's asked me to stay until close at 1 a.m. They asked me to stay because they need my help. Thats not a job, that's an abusive relationship.

Unfortunately, this seems to be the norm for a lot of low-level jobs in the United States. You end up giving in because the job market for such jobs is saturated and others will take it for lower wages/off-the-books. When I was 18 (many years ago), I remember having a job that did the same "we need you to stay later" BS. The buses stopped running at 8PM in the suburbs and I had to regularly walk 5-6 miles back home.…

Part of the problem are the actual employees. Many let themselves be abused and do accept these ridiculous shifts making you 'a bad employee' in the eyes of the boss.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#306

Post by therealcamino » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:56 PM UTC

owlninja wrote: post #113

jammygit wrote: post #19

I worked as a cashier once and it wasn’t the same as it is for my friends who still do. These days, they all have employment contracts, non-competes, and self checkouts taking their jobs. Back in my day, you could just leave any retail job like that and go across the street

>employment contracts, non-competes What retail stores have this in place for cashiers?

Until 2016, Jimmy John's was doing this to employees, until NY State made them stop.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-drops-non-compet...

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#307

Post by Scoundreller » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 10:57 PM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #217

dpq wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect we'll see high-paying jobs getting automated even faster, so her newly acquired skills may become obsolete before she graduates (also, she won't be able to afford the tuition fees). I don't think there's an answer to this problem: Nash equilibria cannot be easily beaten unless someone is imposing the rules and enforcing compliance... which probably won't happen.

Lots of skilled trades won't be automatable because of diversity of operation and location. For example plumbers.

There’s no shortage of companies coming out with products that constantly reduce the need for expensive profession X.

On the residential side, you have more solderless fittings, YT videos and even pre-fab bathrooms in a box.

The plumbers themselves will be fine as they’ll just reduce training seats, but that makes it harder to become one.

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#308

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 11:07 PM UTC

michaelmrose wrote: post #302

codedokode wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that people without skills will have better life in developing countries? The salaries there are even lower, for example, in Russia hourly rate in McDonalds is $2-4 depending on the city. The only kind of housing the employee can afford is a room in a shared apartment or sharing a room with a friend or living with parents for free.

If your skill set is cashier you will almost certainly be denied moving even to Russia

Who knows, maybe they want to take advantage of cheap unskilled American labor.

Seriously though, countries with labor shortages will allow unskilled people to visit and work for awhile at least (eg Australia).

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#309

Post by maxaf » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 11:08 PM UTC

dv_dt wrote: post #168

maxaf wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yang's plan would require that the cashier has to choose between the "UBI" or her existing benefits. I'm neutral on Yang's campaign, but I like the idea of a UBI because administering it will be much cheaper than running existing benefits. Means-testing has a real and very sizeable cost. What will happen to all the guvment workers who will get laid off once existing benefits have been supplanted by the UBI? They wi…

I think UBI is definitely interesting, but it can't wholesale replace benefits. For example, a major illness like cancer now can wipe out your income, your savings, and a UBI quite easily. I think UBI might be better than a range of some lower end benefits - but the also exists a variation of needs where we should commit to helping people with, that is going to exceed almost any general UBI threshhold in many cases,…

Which existing means-tested government benefits are capable of paving over a major illness such as cancer?

Re: A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

#310

Post by jniedrauer » Thu, Dec 05, 2019, 11:11 PM UTC

eyepea2007 wrote: post #271

jackhack wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. Everybody needs a &^%$ job once in a while to reset their empathy scale. Walmart does something interesting for their software development process. Say a developer is working on a warehouse automation system -- that dev. is then trained and works in the warehouse for a month. Same goes for checkout/cashier, or customer service, or whatever. You WORK that job for a month and you'll un…

...and imagine if the moonlighting software devs were only getting paid what the warehouse workers were receiving, instead of their normal developer pay.. the work becomes a lot "harder" / more thankless when your pay is 1/3 or 1/4 as much.

Add on the stress of wondering where your next meal is coming from, or how you're going to pay rent this month... every day, for the rest of your life, and your quality of life sinks dramatically.