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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

#491

Post by gonational »

baroffoos wrote: post #485
gonational wrote: post #479

I was born and raised just above dirt-poor, by American standards; e.g., lived in a poor area (now a full-fledged ghetto), we reused milk to each have a bowl of cereal with the same milk, we wore all hand-me-downs, any toys we had were hand-me-downs from church friends, nobody in my extended family had ever graduated high school, we never left the state once, we ate at restaurants a few times ever, etc. Both of my pa…

This is either a troll comment or a mountain of survivors bias. For every person who tries to "Pull themselves up by the bootstraps and start a business" Most of them failed and likely ended up with less money than before. You might as well advise people to buy lottery tickets because they give away $1M for only $5

This is neither a troll nor survivor’s bias. My brother also makes great money.

What does it have to do with lottery? I’m suggesting that hard work and diligence makes you successful. Sure, I’m moderately intelligent (or I might not have been able to learn web dev, etc.), but if others are not intelligent enough to pull themselves up in the world, it’s not my job to pay them more for not being intelligent. People that are less intelligent can do labor jobs and get paid less. It’s not an insult. It’s common sense and it has always been the case. Even the poorest of poor laborers in America have a better life than the middle class in some countries. Anybody who’s got $1000 phone (read: just about everyone) has no right to complain about how expensive it is to afford an apartment and that somebody else should help them pay for that by forcing them to pay higher wages... this nonsense is completely nuts.

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

#492

Post by taurath »

scarface74 wrote: post #475
taurath wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Because people who need jobs to live shouldn’t have to suffer for those people you mentioned. All those people you mentioned it’s a fucking optional thing - don’t optimize for the optional.

So it’s “optional” for the single mom who was married and whose husband left/died? Is it “optional” in any circumstance for the kids?

She should get a living wage. The kids should take less hours so they have more time to do things other than being a wage slave. Everyone who works should get a living wage.

If everyone has a living wage, the businesses will do better because people will have more money to spend. That’s the point of investment. Our economy is built off of the consumer, who has been stagnating for decades. We could be doing far better with a stronger middle class.

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

#493

Post by Spooky23 »

apatters wrote: post #457
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…

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 wi…

It is funny that the dog whistle for conservatism these days are the immigrants whom are supposedly taking peoples jobs.

When the Reagan administration changed the regulations around meatpacking to break the unions and ship the industry back to 1910 standards to rural places, none of the principled conservatives were complaining about cheap meat packing and illegal workers who didn’t collect workers compensation or have pesky demands for health insurance.

Likewise, none of the large apple growers around me were too concerned about guest worker visas when they were able to hire on Jamaicans for a few months, house them in onsite dormitories and pay below market rates. They love to bitch about Mexican construction guys though.

When I worked in the mall in the 90s, the struggle of unskilled workers was obvious and sad. At that time, most workers made $4.25, and the barrier to moving up for folks not in college was a car. Getting a $12/hr job as a line cook at Pizza Uno or $15/hr job cleaning offices meant freedom for those people.

If labor standards didn’t allow the abysmal working conditions that only desperate Latin American or other immigrants are willing to take, the market would take care of that problem. Instead of shipping in Apple pickers from 4,000 miles away, you could hire folks 10 miles away and bus them in.

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

#494

Post by paulcole »

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…

> Hard work leads to prosperity.

Any guesses on when the people working hard at a fast food restaurant will have prosperity arrive?

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

#495

Post by dbtx »

jammygit wrote: post #129
dbtx wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada very likely disagrees on this being a good idea in many individual cases, such as mine...

You’re right, but I have met a lot of successful immigrants who did have a good experience. I’m sure experiences vary dramatically

I'm sure many others' experiences are great. The point was that from what I've heard, such an opportunity exists mainly for people who are not me.

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

#496

Post by scarface74 »

taurath wrote: post #492
scarface74 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it’s “optional” for the single mom who was married and whose husband left/died? Is it “optional” in any circumstance for the kids?

She should get a living wage. The kids should take less hours so they have more time to do things other than being a wage slave. Everyone who works should get a living wage. If everyone has a living wage, the businesses will do better because people will have more money to spend. That’s the point of investment. Our economy is built off of the consumer, who has been stagnating for decades. We could be doing far better…

So since the living wage is different for a single mom with two kids than a single person living alone, should the minimum wage be different for one than the other?

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

#498

Post by paulcole »

jijji wrote: post #460

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…

Hey, looking to pull myself up by my bootstraps and came across your really insightful comment. Can you give a list of normal jobs that might suit me?

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

#499

Post by kube-system »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #471
stefan_ wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then maybe a business that can't make enough money to pay livable wages should cease to exist? I thought this was the idea all along?

> " Then maybe a business that can't make enough money to pay livable wages should cease to exist? " Sounds like a recipe for business closures en masse and ballooning unemployment, which I don't think is something anyone wants.

McDonalds is run well enough that they'd never do that anyway. They'd phase in changes to adapt to market conditions.

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

#500

Post by bzbarsky »

excalibur wrote: post #451
whack wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 weekl…

It doesn't have to take the form of an annual tax refund. It could take the form of lower, or negative, paycheck withholdings. The hard part is making sure that people don't end up owing a bunch of money at tax time, of course, because they're not going to have it lying around.
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