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

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

#451

Post by excalibur » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:12 AM UTC

whack wrote: post #407

excalibur wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it should be society's responsibility, but until we all accept it as a group the onus remains on employers. I haven't qualified for the Earned Income Credit in quite a few years, but I have nonetheless claimed it a number of times. I experienced none of the magical properties you seem to think it has.

The only "magical property" I claimed, is cash in your wallet, funded by taxes. I'm not sure what other magical properties you were expecting. My proposal is that instead of increasing the minimum wage, we beef up the amount of support provided by EITC

You suggested that this existing tax credit that we've all been accustomed to since the '70s was a suitable replacement for a decent wage. Completely aside from the SUBSTANTIAL increase in cost it would take to make the numbers fit, what leads you to believe that an annual tax refund is an appropriate substitute for a regular paycheck? Do you expect them all to save it all in a bank account and only spend a set weekly amount? If they were in a financially stable enough position to pull that off, they wouldn't be working at McDonald's.

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

#452

Post by Kaveren » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:13 AM UTC

thinkloop wrote: post #136

duxup wrote: post #112

I worked a pizza (among others) job through high school and college. I've been overworked at many professional technical jobs in different roles before. I'm paid a great deal more now, and yet I was never more tired or worn out or found it hard to study than when I worked the ovens at the pizza place. I often work with people who have never worked such jobs. They're upset that they're 'overworked' and spend their tim…

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…

The hard work part is studying so you have a skillset.

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

#453

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:14 AM UTC

grrowl wrote: post #408

whack wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it very interesting that most people assume it should be the employer's responsibility to provide for the employee's wellbeing. Call me naive, but I think it should be society's responsibility. What about Hedge Funds, Technology companies, Law Firms and every other company that hires primarily 6-figure white collar employees. Should they be completely off the hook, just because their business model only requir…

> Minimum wage laws are fundamentally a tax on low-margin businesses "For the fiscal year 2017, McDonalds reported earnings of US$5.2 billion" Why are you making this sound like a bad thing? What's with the EITC drum-beating in this thread?

Just a reminder that revenue != profit. McDonald's net income for 2017 was US$698.7 million [EDIT] which is only 13% the number cited in the above post.

Don't be misled by people unintentionally (we hope) citing revenue numbers to bolster their case.

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

#454

Post by smileysteve » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:14 AM UTC

cnasc wrote: post #297

smileysteve wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 80 year old man was remarking how Gen Z (and late millennials) aren't even getting their licenses as teens anymore. It's amazing to think that he was the first generation of the ubiquitous automobile in the US and now can't comprehend how the generation before him got around.

> now can't comprehend how the generation before him got around. The generation before him _didn’t_ get around, relatively speaking. Widespread use of the automobile changed transportation patterns dramatically.

Trains, busses, and street cars were much more common in my city until the 50s. Every major town around me (within 4 hours), and my city was established by because they were a rail stop.

I feel this is most pronounced when I go to the mountains 2 hours North; which was a popular summer destination at the turn of the 20th century to the mid century. Now it's a long drive away and no longer has the visitors it used to have.

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

#455

Post by Gibbon1 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:16 AM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #419

cnasc wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now can't comprehend how the generation before him got around. The generation before him _didn’t_ get around, relatively speaking. Widespread use of the automobile changed transportation patterns dramatically.

Yep, look at the incredibly limited streetcar and trolley system in Portland in the early 1900s. Really wonder how people survived. http://myplace.frontier.com/~trolley503/HistMaps.html

A friend found an old San Francisco bus schedule from the 1920s. I just remember it was faster to get from downtown to the Outer Richmond in 1925 by bus than it now. And actually faster than it is by car too.

Also remember San Francisco to Yosemite was I think 6-7 hours by train at one time.

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

#456

Post by cmuguythrow » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:16 AM UTC

Teddy_Kaz_Bruv wrote: post #447

minikites wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at his own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological support-systems. When motor vehicles were introduced, they appeared to increase man's freedom. They took…

omg so edgy!! I quote Unabomber!!! I'm so enlightened

Don’t do this here please. Either offer something constructive that is related to the content of the parent comment or don’t post at all.

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

#457

Post by apatters » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:18 AM UTC

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…

You can tell who was born with a silver spoon in their mouth by their response to this. The "why can't we just make all jobs great forever" responses crack me up. It's classic virtue signalling by liberal elites: demand that life be a perfect fantasy land for everyone, then put forward zero realistic proposals to achieve it. Doesn't matter that it will never happen because you've already gained your social capital with your circle of people who think and act just like you.

It seems to me like it used to be a lot more common for people to take up a "shitty" (e.g., low paying, menial, and hard) job when they were young, to help pay their way through school, for some extra pocket money, etc. You would do this during the summers, or part-time, or both. This was just considered an ordinary part of life and a character building experience.

It seems like this experience is a lot less common now. In part because we're coddling our children and our young adults (hard work increasingly seems to be a dirty word and something no one should ever have to do), in part because we're handing off all the worst jobs to illegal immigrant labor.

I'm sure this will prompt some "ok boomer" type responses (I'm not that old btw) but that's just how it was when and where I grew up. I was expected to work and make money as soon as I was able, because my family wasn't rich. They were also super clear with me that there was no free rent after I turned 18, and that if I wanted to go to college I needed to pay for it myself. So this fantasy land "we'll have only perfect jobs for everyone and work will always be a fulfilling endeavor" crap does not connect with me and I suspect does not connect with 90% of Americans. It is popular with techno-fantasists who went to Stanford and work in SV and drink the kool-aid from their employer about how they are changing the world by optimizing the profitability of some billionaire's advertising inventory.

(None of this is to suggest that Cierra Brown's situation is fine and we don't need to change anything about the system btw! Biggest practical issues I saw in that article were that she doesn't have healthcare and she walks away from 2 weeks of work with only $215, something is very wrong there.)

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

#458

Post by brandonmenc » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:18 AM UTC

slg wrote: post #332

slavik81 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be disappointed. Sometimes the least sympathetic people are the ones that have been there before. Shared experiences don't necessarily translate into compassion.

It is the hazing mentality. "I had to survive through it and so should you." In the end, some people are just unsympathetic assholes regardless of their experience.

As someone who spent years working service jobs, it's more like - I know that you don't have to be an incompetent asshole just because you're running a cash register or whatever.

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

#459

Post by Gibbon1 » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:19 AM UTC

andrewem wrote: post #418

cnasc wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now can't comprehend how the generation before him got around. The generation before him _didn’t_ get around, relatively speaking. Widespread use of the automobile changed transportation patterns dramatically.

The automobile also changed land use patterns dramatically, and the truism is that transportation is land use. See eg Cleveland, Ohio, which now has roughly the same population as it did in I think 1940, but takes something like 4 times the land. So people in 1900 didn't have to travel as much to access a similar amount of opportunity, because things were closer together.

I remember some pictures of Pittsburgh from the 1940's. With the steel mills belching smoke. You can imagine why people fled to the Suburbs. Seems like considering environmental regulations and the resulting clean up that that was ultimately a mistake.

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

#460

Post by jijji » Fri, Dec 06, 2019, 3:21 AM UTC

the story of a 29-year old working in fast food sounds pretty disturbing. it sounds like a lack of planning more than anything. McDonalds is meant for kids in high school living with their parents. It's pretty disturbing that a 29-year old would have failed to plan for over 15 years wasting her time and working in a job meant for kids half her age. I would say she should start getting some real skills to get a higher paying, normal job, or better yet a career. Don't blame other people for your lack of planning or lack of skills. The internet has leveled the playing field and allows average people to get skills without ever leaving their home.