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Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

dirt.fyi

121–130 of 153 posts

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top comment is this sub thread very clearly included the words “even” to imply that while most would not assume software engineers are not exploited because they’re relatively wealthy, they are still being exploited. This very clearly implies that SEs are less exploited—there was absolutely nothing in the original comment that supports your mischaracterization of their point.

That is, other than the second of its two sentences, which reads “In fact, I think that sometimes, companies consider high pay, a license to humiliate.” What do you suggest that means? It seems to me that if high pay is a “license to humiliate” that means that highly-paid workers are due for extra humiliation.

> What do you suggest that means? It seems to me that if high pay is a “license to humiliate” that means that highly-paid workers are due for extra humiliation.

Approximately everyone is aware that low-paid service and agricultural workers get -figuratively- shit on.

As someone who was not in the industry, I expected workers who were paid $120k, $250k, $500k, and more, per year to be treated as people who are highly knowledgeable in their field - to have their opinions carefully considered, and to be treated with respect. In short, to be treated as the Key Employees that their employment contracts often asserted (and their paychecks certainly suggested) that they are.

I was very surprised (and very disappointed) when I discovered that there are managers and businessmen who have opinions that can be roughly summed up as "I'm paying you a lot of money, so you work on whatever I say, do the work however I say to do it, and you take whatever shit I dish out without complaining. You are -after all- taking a _ton_ of my (or our company's) money, so you have no room to complain."

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#122

I gave up on this article about 1/3 of the way through. I could fill dozens of pages with my aimless years after I quit college, but I wouldn’t think to bore people with it.

It was a boring and predictable story of a young American woman. So unique and fascinating.

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#123

I gave up on this article about 1/3 of the way through. I could fill dozens of pages with my aimless years after I quit college, but I wouldn’t think to bore people with it.

The author knows how to write, but unfortunately she doesn't have anything to say.

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#126

I gave up on this article about 1/3 of the way through. I could fill dozens of pages with my aimless years after I quit college, but I wouldn’t think to bore people with it.

yeah it's a rambling incoherent piece, i don't know what people are connecting to in this - i admit there are decent ideas scattered all over it but none of them are pursued meaningfully.

it outright contradicts itself at points.

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#127
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long though? I.e. when you have more money, don’t you start valuing your time and dignity more?

There's no such thing as enough money to me. I'm always one cancer diagnosis away from being destitute. I need millions and millions and millions before I'd be comfortable not prioritizing money. Nothing else matters nearly as much as money. Love? Fuck that. Love doesn't pay bills.

... or, you could be forced into it, like I was.

You see, I'm a criminal. I've committed the felony of getting old, so I am not supposed to work in tech, anymore (at least, not as an IC).

I probably could have gotten a job as a manager. I was a very good manager.

But I hated it. I just wanted to be a coder (and architect -I'm pretty good at that, as well).

I wasn't given the opportunity. In fact, it seemed as if some folks used the interview process to scratch itches they had, with their own parents.

After a few of these "interviews," I realized that this industry no longer had any room for me, and came to understand that, although I was not rich, I did have the means to walk away.

I spent my life, living humbly, frugally, and modestly. Many folks on this forum would sneer at me, for living the way that I do (but they can no longer sneer from a position of power). I have to be a caregiver to a couple of family members, and being forced to retire, actually coincided with them needing more care, so it has worked out.

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#128
post #2

I don't know. I never graduated to waiter, but I worked as a busboy a few times. I have much sympathy for wait staff. My recollection is that the waitresses were always decent to me. Still I don't buy, "I suspect it’s easier to teach a waitress to be a writer than an intellectual to be a waiter." One of my other low-paying jobs was as a copy editor, and I have seen how commonly schools have failed to teach PhDs to be…

> I don't see why the randomly selected waitress should be better

More than a few of them may already posses an English degree (:

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#129
post #5
post #2

I don't know. I never graduated to waiter, but I worked as a busboy a few times. I have much sympathy for wait staff. My recollection is that the waitresses were always decent to me. Still I don't buy, "I suspect it’s easier to teach a waitress to be a writer than an intellectual to be a waiter." One of my other low-paying jobs was as a copy editor, and I have seen how commonly schools have failed to teach PhDs to be…

> Still I don't buy, "I suspect it’s easier to teach a waitress to be a writer than an intellectual to be a waiter." Yeah, I don't buy that either. I know that the best software engineering work I've done in my entire life happened when I was working as a hotel housekeeper, before I was programming professionally. It was because cleaning hotel rooms is a purely physical, and highly repetitive job. Every day at work,…

That you think waiting is a job that doesn't require mental presence tells me you have never done it.

Sure, set up and clear down have plenty of routine zone out time - but service is maintaining multiple concurrent to do lists in your head whilst keeping an eye out on the environment for additional tasks.

I was terrible at the job because I have poor short term memory (my lists dropped items all the damned time). But I sure as hell was too busy to contemplate some higher order problem

Re: Bad waitress: Dying on your feet

#130
post #115
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain is this article, but about a thousand times more interesting. It's on my list of books I recommend to people about to enter the corporate world, even though it's about the life of a drug addict chef.

Why do you recommend it to people going to the corporate world?

It's stuffed with anecdotes explaining how to succeed in an extremely complicated and competitive business. With a very small bit of creativity you can construct clear analogies to white-collar work. Here's an example, in a story about a restauranteur nicknamed "Bigfoot":

> In Bigfootland you showed up for work fifteen minutes before your shift. Period. Two minutes late? You lose the shift and are sent home. If you're on the train and it looks like it's running late? You get off the train at the next stop, inform Bigfoot of your pending lateness, and then get back on the next train. It's okay to call Bigfoot and say, 'Bigfoot, I was up all night smoking crack, sticking up liquor stores, drinking blood and worshipping Satan... I'm going to be a little late.' That's acceptable-once in a very great while. But after showing up late, try saying (even if true), 'Uh... Bigfoot, I was on the way to work and the President's limo crashed right next to me... and I had to pull him out of the car, give him mouth-to-mouth... and like I saved the leader of the free world, man!' You, my friend, are fired. I fondly recall how once, after a long-time waitress arrived back late from vacation, claiming her flight arrived fifteen minutes after scheduled time, Bigfoot called the airport to check her story and then fired her for lying. Treating Bigfoot like an idiot was always a big mistake. He lived for that. In the man's three or so decades in the life, he'd seen and heard every scam, every bullshit story, every trick, deception, ploy and gag that ever existed or that a human mind could conceive-and was always happy to prove that to anyone foolish enough to try. If Bigfoot asked you a question, and you didn't know the answer, he always preferred an 'I dunno' to a long- winded series of qualified statements, speculation and half-truths. You kept Bigfoot informed of your movements. He would never allow himself to fall victim to 'manager's syndrome'-constantly watching the clock, wondering if and when his employees were going to show up. Where Bigfoot ruled, he knew when they were showing up: fifteen minutes before start of shift. That's when. Bigfoot understood--as I came to understand--that character is far more important than skills or employment history.

This is of course a very blue way to tell a story, but it also sets a very clear model for what a demanding and competent boss wants out of his competent employees. Anyone in the corporate world who is always 15 minutes early and says "I don't know" instead of BSing is going to be a rare asset to any company, and that's just one dimension of what Anthony Bourdain outlines as a competent chef in his book.

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