Live data from Hacker News

I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

vice.com

61–70 of 246 posts

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#61
post #53

America needs an equivalent to the EU working time act.

People like that work the same hours in the EU.

Working 7 days a week all the time is not legal in the EU, see [0]. Also, many EU countries have even stricter local regulations in that regard.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/human-resources/workin...

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a very good question. I think in general it is important to realize that a significant amount of "design" work goes in to creating economies. Local, state, and national decisions will lead to certain conditions. How were those decisions made, and under what conditions? For any given place the answer will be different. How does one place compare to another? It is my view that it is perfectly feasible to design eco…

as nice as that utopia would be, the fundamental flaw with trying to limit working days/hours is that some people will still pour their whole lives into work, which creates an iterated game that pushes the equilibrium for everyone toward working more. there's no practical way to mitigate this powerful, arguably inate, incentive. the other option is actively coercing a daily/weekly work limit, and that not only severe…

I can't believe people are even having this conversation. As a civilization we solved this problem about a century ago. We know the solution. In the US labour law has been subverted and undermined. Thats the problem. It's not that nothing can be done about it. Lots can be done and has been done around the globe (but predominately in advanced economies, of which the US is one).

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#63
What percentage of labor cost would a company like Frito lay have to reach before they consider moving the company to another country?

I think about Oreos and how they are made in Mexico now, and I always wonder what was the calculus behind that. How much money are they saving?

Is there a generally recognized point where labor is so expensive that outsourcing begins to make more sense?

Edit: my bad grammar

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Factories aren’t generally in cities. In a rural town, your job choices may be work at Walmart, one of two factories, or on a farm. The “hard” factory job may be the “best” bet among the choices. The bigger question is usually why don’t people move from a rural location? And the answer is usually “it’s complicated “. Old parents to take care of. It’s familiar. Friends. Maybe own your simple home. Maybe your church is…

The best thing about moving to remote work is that it will enable people to live in these smaller communities while having the increased income of the city. I hope this will bring more money back to local economies and revitalize rural areas.

All this will do is drive up the cost of housing as remote workers compete for it, driving out the locals.

Remote workers also don’t fully contribute to the economy of the rural area because their place of employment is not in that area. If the company the remote worker works for does well and grows, that won’t grow the rural community.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#66
post #2

Anyone knows why people decide to do this kind of time consuming work? Is the world getting hard enough that there is no alternative? Whenever I see people working really hard in other parts of the world, especially when the country is filled with other opportunities, I always wonder is it just everyone else that is raising the bar and now the standard is very time consuming work. For example, there's year long touri…

[deleted]

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#67
post #58
post #2

Anyone knows why people decide to do this kind of time consuming work? Is the world getting hard enough that there is no alternative? Whenever I see people working really hard in other parts of the world, especially when the country is filled with other opportunities, I always wonder is it just everyone else that is raising the bar and now the standard is very time consuming work. For example, there's year long touri…

No choices. This is in the Midwest in the middle of no-where. No you can't realistically move - every other location is far more expensive and would require significant relocation expense, and you'd have to leave your community, likely where you were born and raise(d) your family.

And yet during the Great Depression poor people moved by the thousands to find work in other states. Sure it was hard but they did what they had to in order to survive.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#68
post #2

Anyone knows why people decide to do this kind of time consuming work? Is the world getting hard enough that there is no alternative? Whenever I see people working really hard in other parts of the world, especially when the country is filled with other opportunities, I always wonder is it just everyone else that is raising the bar and now the standard is very time consuming work. For example, there's year long touri…

Anyone knows why people decide to do this kind of time consuming work? Is the world getting hard enough that there is no alternative?

As someone who had to do similar work for years the answer is that there were no alternatives.

No one takes a shitty job on purpose.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a very good question. I think in general it is important to realize that a significant amount of "design" work goes in to creating economies. Local, state, and national decisions will lead to certain conditions. How were those decisions made, and under what conditions? For any given place the answer will be different. How does one place compare to another? It is my view that it is perfectly feasible to design eco…

as nice as that utopia would be, the fundamental flaw with trying to limit working days/hours is that some people will still pour their whole lives into work, which creates an iterated game that pushes the equilibrium for everyone toward working more. there's no practical way to mitigate this powerful, arguably inate, incentive. the other option is actively coercing a daily/weekly work limit, and that not only severe…

if people want to work more that’s fine but the others should not be punished for it.

you see: some people push very hard because their life is their work. They don’t have time for something else because they work a lot, and they work a lot effectively consuming what should be their free time because they don’t have the mental energy to so something else.

Once you create a bit of space and disentangle yourself from your work not a lot of people want to work extra time. ideally life should be split between work and creative pursuits and the percentage of work should decrease until it eventually hits 0. People will still do stuff, but your livelihood should not be tied to your job. You should pursue your “hobbies” because they are fun and/or fulfilling.

Automation is good enough today that we should not have to work more than 15-20 hours per week. Knowledge workers already do this but “butt in seat” mentality still says 40 hours per week. It’s a tragedy really. We took all the productivity gains our technological advances brought and use them to create more bs work instead of reducing the amount of work we have to do.

Re: I'm a Frito-Lay Factory Worker. I Work 12-Hour Days, 7 Days a Week

#70
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a very good question. I think in general it is important to realize that a significant amount of "design" work goes in to creating economies. Local, state, and national decisions will lead to certain conditions. How were those decisions made, and under what conditions? For any given place the answer will be different. How does one place compare to another? It is my view that it is perfectly feasible to design eco…

These are NOT "design" jobs. They aren't "knowledge/service" jobs either. And fun fact: retraining absolutely does not work. Less than 10% can be retrained and usually they are the segment that could have retrained themselves without specific retraining.

I think you might have misunderstood the comment you're replying to: they're saying that economies (and related policies) are often built through some form of design process, not that factory jobs are design jobs.
Post reply on HN