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I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

theatlantic.com

81–90 of 292 posts

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#81

I know that many of us here don't like what labor unions have become in the 21st century. But they do need some labor representation that can ensure the trucks used by drivers have working lights, mirrors, and safe tires, and that the company negotiates use of restrooms around the city. Maybe just a "safety only" union that only deals with safety issues?

A forum mostly frequented by us overpaid workers doing little-more-than-if-any work that society actually needs is not the right place to discuss unions. Of course people in our industry, no matter devs or ops or founders or "founders", despise unions as they get in their way with demands of some basic workers rights. But there are industries where unions are desperately needed to keep workers sane, safe and overall…

Speak for yourself. I write java scripts for Facebook. I’m EXTREMELY valuable to society and deserve every penny I get.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#82
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a lot more melting recently. No, there really isn’t. It may look like there is because of the post WW2 ethnic cleansing leading to more or less monoethnic monolinguistic nation states but the Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman Empires, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were always indifferent to what the peasants “were“, like the peasants themselves, mostly. People cared a lot more about religion t…

I meant more like since schengen and easy travel within the EU. If we keep this up, in a few centuries we might get to a point similar as USA where your identity doesn’t depend on which country your grandma comes from. The bigger question is whether we want to.

> If we keep this up, in a few centuries we might get to a point similar as USA where your identity doesn’t depend on which country your grandma comes from.

As a fellow European I don't think it's going to happen. Not in a hundred years. We speak different languages that alone prevents it from happening. We might get to the point where people will define themselves with dual nationalities, like Polish-German, but this we see even today.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#83
post #33
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get forced to work in jobs they don't want to all of the time. The array of possible jobs could be one or none. If a basic income existed your point could be true. That's not reality today.

I believe that in the USA you would have a much harder time finding an able-bodied person who cannot find an available job vs. someone with multiple options. My news this week is full of stories of employers who cannot find enough labor. We are very far away from a jobs crisis.

Do they mention that pay will be rising to attract more able-bodied people?

Let us know if it's still an issue after the pay increases and work condition perks increased?

What they are not raising wages? Was the article looking at justifying some political point of view?

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#84
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you probably come from a slav tribe. Saxons were a tribe in Germany. Anglos a different tribe. Take an ancestry / 23andme/ myheritage test and see what comes up. You would be surprised.

Slavs were not a tribe in Germany. Slavs speak an entirely different language family from the Germanic one, as different as the Romance one. The Slavic language family stretches from Russian through Ukrainian and Belarusian, Czech, Slovak, Croatian, Serb and Slovene, among others.

Slavic languages are as broad or more broad as Germanic ones. Ethnicity and the mother tongue does not always go together, see for example Wallonia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallonia

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#85
post #12

> Lurching west in stop-and-go traffic on I-80 that morning, bound for Berkeley and a day of delivering in the rain, I had a low moment, dwelling on how far I’d come down in the world. Then I snapped out of it. I haven’t come down in the world. What’s come down in the world is the business model that sustained Time Inc. for decades. I’m pretty much the same writer, the same guy. I haven’t gone anywhere. My feet are t…

Yeah - I liked that part of his essay too, I also just generally liked his writing. There’s something satisfying in this kind of work with clear explicit goals and getting through the list everyday. I think a lot of society issues seem to stem from how he briefly felt, that this kind of thing was a sign of failure or that he was embarrassed to tell friends at the holiday party. The irony to me is that this kind of wo…

There would probably be more respect even if nothing else changed except they paid more.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#86
post #29
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get forced to work in jobs they don't want to all of the time. The array of possible jobs could be one or none. If a basic income existed your point could be true. That's not reality today.

The array of possible unskilled jobs in almost every populated place is almost always >1. It turns out that Amazon actually competes for labor in a vast market for same. So many people work there because they have to be a better option than most unskilled labor jobs because they have so many packages to deliver.

I’d you don’t have a lot of financial resources, and work a low paid job, you also tend not to have the time resources to explore the option. It comes at a high transaction cost.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#87

I know that many of us here don't like what labor unions have become in the 21st century. But they do need some labor representation that can ensure the trucks used by drivers have working lights, mirrors, and safe tires, and that the company negotiates use of restrooms around the city. Maybe just a "safety only" union that only deals with safety issues?

Union shops like UPS have the exact same issues as Amazon or FedEx (including urine bottles).

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#88
post #45

This is a great parody of the WASPy romanticization of a hard days work. Plainly stating the classic implication that shitty jobs are actually humbling learning experiences when white. Even more comical because I don’t think it’s satire.

It sounds like this person is in California making $17/hr. How do you make ends meet like that?

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who invaded England and Italy were called Normans. The people who invaded Ireland called themselves English, and were called English by the Irish.

A different group of Norse invaded Ireland before they did England IIRC (hence why Norse-Gaels is a thing). But the Normans who invaded Ireland came via Wales largely and were not called English until the 16th century https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubgaill_and_Finngaill

The article you link to is talking about the Vikings, not the Normans. If you can find a primary or secondary source saying they called themselves anything other than English of be delighted to see it.

Re: I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

#90
post #45

This is a great parody of the WASPy romanticization of a hard days work. Plainly stating the classic implication that shitty jobs are actually humbling learning experiences when white. Even more comical because I don’t think it’s satire.

> Plainly stating the classic implication that shitty jobs are actually humbling learning experiences when white

I'm familiar with the implication that hard work can be a humbling and rewarding experience, but I'm not aware of any such "when white" qualifiers.

FWIW, I grew up on a farm and did a bit of construction before embarking on a career as a software engineer, and I can absolutely affirm that hard, physical work is rewarding. Though white, I didn't find it especially "humbling" because my family was solidly working class and frankly it never occurred to me to feel ashamed of hard work as though it makes me lesser than those from more delicate stations in life.

That said, I don't know that working as a delivery person for Amazon is comparable to farm work or construction with respect to satisfaction.

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