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A Week in the Life of a McDonald’s Cashier

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

#311

Post by therealcamino »

larrywright wrote: post #43
jdkee wrote: post #9

Unions, unions, unions.

There’s a compelling argument that unions, combined with the fight for $15 minimum wage, will do nothing but make the situation worse. Nobody is going to pay $20 for a burger and fries. McDonald’s would either have to go almost entirely automated or cease to exist as a company.

Many localities in the US have instituted higher minimum wages. In DC, the minimum wage is $14, and I can assure you that a burger and fries is not $20, the local McDonald's have not automated, and they seem to be doing fine.

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

#312

Post by jniedrauer »

leeoniya wrote: post #282
nlfwhulsdhouv wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree that something needs to happen. The way we treat less-fortunate people is shameful and undignified. My biggest concern with UBI specifically is that it will be absorbed by landlords and other societal rent-seekers. My personal opinion is that we should democratize workplaces, through unions in the short-term and co-ops in the long term. McDonalds cashiers should have a say in their working conditions beyon…

> The way we treat less-fortunate people is shameful and undignified. i think the crux has always been separating the unfortunate from the lazy. i don't think anyone would have serious a problem with supporting the former if the latter could be sieved.

Teams suffer tremendously when they are forced to include lazy people. You get the additional Mythical-Man-Month complexity without any gain in productivity.

Society would be better off if lazy people were excused from the workforce. The weird obsession with forcing everyone to run on a treadmill has got to go.

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

#313

Post by doctorhandshake »

sebringj wrote: post #32

Before I had a programmer job when i was younger, i completely 100% empathize with her in having those types of thankless jobs and constantly being tired. I can't imagine being trapped in that going forward. I bootstrapped my situation but I had a nice parents, a middle-class upbringing and a decent school to start everything, and a knack for programming... but I know/met so many who do not have this leg up in whatev…

I think about this a lot. I’m not a web developer but the accessibility of the tools for web development (an RPi, a keyboard/mouse, and wifi), the democratization of learning materials for web development, and the commodification of dev services (even through platforms like Fiverr and Upwork) make me feel like it could be possible to set up people of limited means with all they need to self-teach their way to a better career. I know not everybody has the knack or inclination for development work or even autodidacticism, but for those that take to it, $45 worth of hardware and a few hours of pointing in the right directions could be life-changing. Am I wrong about this? What significant barriers am I missing?

I envision an open-source disk image (likely a NOOBS) with learning materials, support resources, and community tools built-in. One could sell pre-loaded SD cards and/or full hardware packages to make it turnkey, or as turnkey as RPi gets, further reducing the barrier to entry. Perhaps even donations and grant money could subsidize hardware.

Has something like this been done? Is web dev a good fit? Thoughts?

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

#314

Post by archeantus »

The higher I climb the corporate ladder, the higher my salary goes. This is all well and good, but the expectations and stress climb with it too. I like working and applying my brain to solving problems, but I sometimes pine for a job that pays little and expects little. I can’t afford to make that change now and there is a good chance I wouldn’t actually enjoy bagging groceries at the store again, but it’s nice to dream about every now and then.

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

#315

Post by scottlocklin »

oh_sigh wrote: post #229
scottlocklin wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seems affordable. What am I missing here? 40 * 4 * 9.50 = $1520 370/1520 = 25% of your GROSS income to stay alive. She doesn't pay $370 a month in taxes, and the tax credit doesn't come out of Social Security tax, which is her largest tax.

She isn't paying $370 out of pocket though. She could be paying $0 out of pocket using the advanced payments to pay for her premium. And tax credits can make it so you are owed money by the government - it doesn't matter if she pays $370/mo in taxes or not. As other posters have said, bronze doesn't buy you much - but I can't understand why she can't afford it if it is $0 out of pocket.

Well maybe you should fly out there and explain to exhausted mickey-d's worker how she could magically get free health insurance. Seriously; it would be an epic good deed assuming you're actually right.

I know people who have been in this position: just because you read something on a website doesn't make it necessarily true.

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

#316

Post by TOGoS »

dv_dt wrote: post #182
ambicapter wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the cushy upper middle class programming job and I'm still tired every day. I must be doing something wrong.

Do you snore, snort, or startle awake at night? Consider if a sleep quality/apnea test might help you. (ugh, this sounds like a commercial...)

Nope. Just tired.

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

#317

Post by TurkishPoptart »

oh_sigh wrote: post #233
TurkishPoptart wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do the tax credits work? As in, you get the money back on your tax refund? This woman makes about $500 a month. And those plans are typically $8000+ deductible, basically shit plans. In most states, people qualify for Medicaid when they make less than $1,200 a month. Which is completely free care.

You can take the tax credit and apply it to your taxes at EOY, or you can have advanced payment where the tax credits are paid out monthly to your insurance company to help cover your premiums. Using the latter method, she basically just gets free health care - she doesn't need to wait a full year to recoup her $370*12

I suspect that for most people making, say, less than $60,000 a year, paying cash for insurance and then expecting to be reimbursed by filing incomprehensible tax forms is not an option. This person simply can't afford it. Tax credits are useless when you are living paycheck to paycheck from two crappy jobs. She is probably eligible for Medicaid.

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

#318

Post by matz1 »

to1y wrote: post #279
matz1 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone is different, I have plenty of friend who work in food service, they wouldn't want to trade for my developer job.

Perhaps you have some interesting friends, but to me this sounds like it is based in no real-life experience. It's a very stressful job for little reward that leaves you completely depleted at the end of the day to do anything to dig yourself out.

From their perspective, my job is the stressful job. Sure that physically my job is easy but to them my job is stressful because it requires a lot of thinking, not to mention a lot of learning and studying. Its a different kind of stress.

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

#319

Post by mschuster91 »

sebringj wrote: post #32

Before I had a programmer job when i was younger, i completely 100% empathize with her in having those types of thankless jobs and constantly being tired. I can't imagine being trapped in that going forward. I bootstrapped my situation but I had a nice parents, a middle-class upbringing and a decent school to start everything, and a knack for programming... but I know/met so many who do not have this leg up in whatev…

The key problem with UBI, as much as I love the idea, is that any UBI amount will instantly be sucked up by landlords using every trick in the book. What the landlords leave on the table, will be sucked up by rising costs for energy (petrol, electricity, gas) as honestly all three will at least double or triple by efforts to save the climate.

In the end the workers will be as fucked as they were before UBI. The problem is modern capitalism itself. Ford-era capitalism where capital owners were proud in paying employees a wage they could live on... that could possibly work for a long time, but many equate even this level with outright "communism".

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

#320

Post by jdkdnfndnfjd »

jackhack wrote: post #207
derg wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I often work with people who have never worked such jobs. They're upset that they're 'overworked' and spend their time in the fancy break room with all the perks. Many I suspect have no clue. Not that it's a realistic idea but damn if everyone had experiencing working in the demanding, underpaid, crappy jobs in the service industry, we might be more empathetic and better off as a whole.

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…

This is an excellent policy. I think people should also be forced to live in a dangerous ghetto before voting to take away my guns and capital punishment. I wasn’t a staunch supporter of either of those things until I had experience with situations that they are relevant to.
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