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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

#21

Post by cobrausn »

pnathan wrote: post #20
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.

My last retail job was a decade ago, but yeah, I'm getting the same impression. I think it is because the margins are getting even smaller thanks to a variety of factors (the prevalence of online shopping being the biggest influence, IMHO).

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

#22

Post by bequanna »

alistairSH wrote: post #19

"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).

When a job is low skill, they have a huge pool of labor they can draw from. There really isn't any need to treat employees well, since there are so many applicants.

I think it is fairly simple. The more in-demand your skills are, the better you can expect to treated by your employer because you have options.

Is this 'right'? I don't know. But it seems to be how things work.

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

#23

Post by VLM »

pnathan wrote: post #20
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.

Socioeconomic separation of the consumer class from the servant class. As discussed in the article, humans shop there and buy $25 socks for their $300 shoes, but a thirty-something part time minimum wage no benefits homeless dude is not part of that class.

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

#24

Post by scarmig »

danielweber wrote: post #17
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.

That'd just push down wages for the parts of your schedule you're actually working, though. Minimum wages are the type of thing where if you push on one side, it incentivizes employers to extract more value by any means possible out of you.

I'm a broken record on this, but: an unconditional basic income is the answer to this situation. The only way you can make sure every job has dignity is for every person to be able to quit their job without worrying about starving or being unable to afford any housing. Once everyone is guaranteed that bare minimum, employers have to treat their employees with a basic level of respect and dignity. Otherwise they'll quit.

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

#25

Post by pnathan »

bequanna wrote: post #22
alistairSH wrote: post #19

"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).

When a job is low skill, they have a huge pool of labor they can draw from. There really isn't any need to treat employees well, since there are so many applicants. I think it is fairly simple. The more in-demand your skills are, the better you can expect to treated by your employer because you have options. Is this 'right'? I don't know. But it seems to be how things work.

That's the point of closed shops & unions, right? To limit the pool of labor contractually to force better working conditions...

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

#26

Post by josephschmoe »

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…

Burdening these people by making fewer of them have to do crummy, hellish work? I'm soooo sorry for eliminating work no one wants to do.

Unemployment isn't an engineer or an MBA's fault. It's the fault of shareholders, executives and congressmen: they're the ones hoarding the money at the top. I guarantee you, if the money went to the engineers, we'd have 98% employment right now and the jobs would be a whole lot more interesting than retail. Heck, we'd have to start using graphical user interfaces for stores because we wouldn't be able to find enough people to work retail!

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

#27

Post by cobrausn »

scarmig wrote: post #24
danielweber wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That'd just push down wages for the parts of your schedule you're actually working, though. Minimum wages are the type of thing where if you push on one side, it incentivizes employers to extract more value by any means possible out of you. I'm a broken record on this, but: an unconditional basic income is the answer to this situation. The only way you can make sure every job has dignity is for every person to be abl…

So, what happens if the unconditional basic income becomes 'the new poverty' as the economy adjusts and the price of basic goods and services change? We'd end up in the same spot - they can treat you like crap, because you are replaceable, and you still need the money.

I should say I also have no idea if that's what would happen. Just a concern.

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

#28

Post by VLM »

bequanna wrote: post #22
alistairSH wrote: post #19

"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).

When a job is low skill, they have a huge pool of labor they can draw from. There really isn't any need to treat employees well, since there are so many applicants. I think it is fairly simple. The more in-demand your skills are, the better you can expect to treated by your employer because you have options. Is this 'right'? I don't know. But it seems to be how things work.

"There really isn't any need to treat employees well"

All you have to do is sell your soul and abandon your own humanity. Cheap, right? You can learn a lot about someone, or a culture, by seeing how they treat those less fortunate.

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

#29

Post by gyom »

alistairSH wrote: post #19

"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).

It also sounds like a canned response from Stretch who probably uses that to justify why he himself works there.

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

#30

Post by maxerickson »

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…

I'd like to see harder numbers on the hourly value the store gets from the employees. As a for instance, Dick's Sporting Goods has a per employee operating income of about $15,000. That isn't an amazingly solid number, but it's enough to say they have quite a bit of cash moving around after they pay wages.
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