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My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Cheap

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Cheap

#11

Post by VLM »

acheron wrote: post #5
scarmig wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but I'm betting more than a few HN folk qualify as a "person who's had white-collar job for years [who] doesn't get how difficult service jobs are." I'm actually impressed that we don't (yet) have a chorus of people saying he's overpaid or that he deserves it.

The guy was a reporter who made racist jokes and comments about people he was supposed to be covering, and subsequently got fired for it. And then, surprise, no one else wanted to hire him to do reporting. [1] "deserves" is a strong word, but actions have consequences. [1] Until now, I guess?

Actually, he made a fairly accurate observation about the behavior of a guy he was covering. Some extremist supporters of the guy he was covering were not very happy with that, but it doesn't matter if 95% of the population says "duh, obviously".

(edited to add, reporting that the emperor has no clothes is not just a firing offense, but an economic death penalty, or if not an economic death penalty its at least incredibly harsh... I saw that fable as a theatrical play as a child, and have often thought the inevitable conclusion, as shown in this example, is more interesting than the play as portrayed.)

Re: My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Cheap

#12

Post by zilbernet »

ForHackernews wrote: post #6
acheron wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy was a reporter who made racist jokes and comments about people he was supposed to be covering, and subsequently got fired for it. And then, surprise, no one else wanted to hire him to do reporting. [1] "deserves" is a strong word, but actions have consequences. [1] Until now, I guess?

Source? I'd never heard of this guy before.

He discusses it in the first few paragraphs of the article.

Re: My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Cheap

#13

Post by cobrausn »

My first job was retail, and I worked it for about four years total, including during college and after service in the Navy. At the time I had skills that translated into being valuable enough to not work in retail that didn't involve a lot of risk (police, security, etc), so it seemed about the best option.

I don't think I quite experienced anything like this, but sometimes it was close. If I felt like a replaceable cog, it's because I was, and I was a replaceable cog in a machine already operating on razor thin margins, which means I had to be a good cog. The funny thing was that due to my Navy experience, I didn't perceive it as all that bad, though the pay was pretty miserable even at two dollars above minimum wage.

I'll say this - working retail was very motivating. I knew I didn't want to do that forever. But I don't know what the 'solution' is as applied to everybody, but I know the solution for me was to finish college and make myself valuable.

Re: My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Cheap

#14

Post by Domenic_S »

joshreads wrote: post #2

A lot of this is just "person who's had white-collar job for years doesn't get how difficult service jobs are", but making your already low-paid employees do unpaid overtime work is s-k-e-t-c-h-y, and actively illegal.

Between ages 15-21 I worked a lot of retail. I had managers who would do the "on time is late" thing, or make me clock out and then wait for 20 minutes for them to unlock the door at closing time. I knew those things weren't legal, and I'd make a stink about it. I was an exemplary worker, which I'm sure afforded me some leeway, but more importantly I was young, white, and living at home with my middle-class parents. I didn't need the job. I wanted the job of course (56k modems aren't free!) but I didn't have the fear that I or my family might starve if I talked back.

What's the solution? Mandatory severance for every job?

Re: My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Cheap

#15

Post by raving-richard »

acheron wrote: post #5
scarmig wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but I'm betting more than a few HN folk qualify as a "person who's had white-collar job for years [who] doesn't get how difficult service jobs are." I'm actually impressed that we don't (yet) have a chorus of people saying he's overpaid or that he deserves it.

The guy was a reporter who made racist jokes and comments about people he was supposed to be covering, and subsequently got fired for it. And then, surprise, no one else wanted to hire him to do reporting. [1] "deserves" is a strong word, but actions have consequences. [1] Until now, I guess?

Racist jokes? Can you please link or quote some of these racist jokes? In the article, he quotes himself saying: “Romney is very, very comfortable, it seems, with people who are like him. That’s one of the reasons why he seems so stiff and awkward in town hall settings … But when he comes on ‘Fox and Friends,’ they’re like him. They’re white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company.”

Which I don't think is racist. Presumably, he also could have said "they're men", or "they're middle aged", but would not have been accused of being sexist or ageist.

This while article adds weight to my opinion that the USA is not a civilized country. Sure, there are the trappings. But a society that can afford to, but does not, look after those on the margins, is not civilized.

Re: My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Cheap

#16

Post by VLM »

bluedino wrote: post #7
joshreads wrote: post #2

A lot of this is just "person who's had white-collar job for years doesn't get how difficult service jobs are", but making your already low-paid employees do unpaid overtime work is s-k-e-t-c-h-y, and actively illegal.

>> "person who's had white-collar job for years doesn't get how difficult service jobs are" Or, sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day is really, really easy compared to having to actually DO something at a service job.

I believe you did not read the article, as less than one paragraph was on the topic of physical labor, and the rest of the article was about extremely toxic occasionally outright illegal employee / employer relations.

Luckily, due to the "retailapocalpse" or whatever its called, soon virtually no one will have to labor under those conditions, because there will be almost no positions like that. Not that Amazon's warehouses are some kind of workers paradise.

I worked my way thru school in retail supermarkets roughly contemporaneous with the author's youthful experiences a couple decades ago. I see things have gone somewhat downhill since then...

Re: My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Cheap

#17

Post by danielweber »

rayiner wrote: post #8

I accept that the market drives down the wages of service workers, but their working conditions are just outrageous to me. Automation and optimization has turned retail into a hellish job. On demand scheduling, zero tolerance policies, wage theft, etc. Its MBAs and programmers making a buck by burdening the people who are least equipped to find a job doing something else. See also: http://www.thenation.com/article/17…

Thinking aloud, I wonder if there should be some sort of minimum wage for the part of your schedule you are on-demand for.

Re: My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Cheap

#18

Post by pnathan »

joshreads wrote: post #2

A lot of this is just "person who's had white-collar job for years doesn't get how difficult service jobs are", but making your already low-paid employees do unpaid overtime work is s-k-e-t-c-h-y, and actively illegal.

When I did retail & fast food work, I don't recall having to do unpaid work. Showing up "on the floor" at time was expected, but that was no more than stuffing my bag in the break room and going out.

That said, if I was looking at the prospect of working in these shops long-term, I'd also be seeing what I could do to unionize the shop - they are a pretty crummy environment with abhorrent pay for anyone over the age of 16 (as the author points out).

Re: My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Cheap

#19

Post by alistairSH »

"I guess [you] don’t care about hard work or loyalty." -- Stretch

That's ripe. Pay your employees a low wage, treat them like shit, and then expect loyalty? Gimme a break. Loyalty is a two-way street and I don't see any reciprocation from corporate America (in this case, or in general).

Re: My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Cheap

#20

Post by pnathan »

cobrausn wrote: post #13

My first job was retail, and I worked it for about four years total, including during college and after service in the Navy. At the time I had skills that translated into being valuable enough to not work in retail that didn't involve a lot of risk (police, security, etc), so it seemed about the best option. I don't think I quite experienced anything like this, but sometimes it was close. If I felt like a replaceable…

My impression is that retail has gotten worse over the last 20 years.
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