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Service for Some, Slavery for Others

gerrymcgovern.com

1–10 of 41 posts

Re: Service for Some, Slavery for Others

#2
Good customer support agents are highly valued by many tech companies where support is a key value-add to their solution. Three of the companies I have worked for paid very well for top-tier CX employees.

Just like some developers are treated by their companies as an expense, other companies highly value developers and pay them well. This is the same with customer support, and good support agents who are feeling mistreated find higher-end jobs.

Good waiters at restaurants work at high-end establishments and make good salaries. In a free society, people flow towards better jobs that are a better match for their skillset.

You don't need to feel that you live in a digital hellscape populated by slaves, as the author proposes. The person driving your Uber likely chose that to make money, rather than all the other ways they could have made money, because they prefer it.

There is a popular theme lately being promoted by educated, well-off people that society is being destroyed by mobile apps, Facebook, on-demand food-delivery service, etc. It's really not. Go enjoy your day and stop getting yourself worked up.

Re: Service for Some, Slavery for Others

#3
Uber is making life of Uber drivers better, by giving them the option to be an Uber driver and providing customers and rules of engagement. It creates new means of earning a living, instead of taking it away. What is even the question? It is not the best job in the world, but surely beats no job at all.

Re: Service for Some, Slavery for Others

#4
post #2

Good customer support agents are highly valued by many tech companies where support is a key value-add to their solution. Three of the companies I have worked for paid very well for top-tier CX employees. Just like some developers are treated by their companies as an expense, other companies highly value developers and pay them well. This is the same with customer support, and good support agents who are feeling mist…

> The person driving your Uber likely chose that to make money, rather than all the other ways they could have made money, because they prefer it.

or didn't perceive the other ways, or didn't have resources for other ways, or wasn't approved for the subset of other ways that they both perceived and had resources for

Re: Service for Some, Slavery for Others

#5
post #2

Good customer support agents are highly valued by many tech companies where support is a key value-add to their solution. Three of the companies I have worked for paid very well for top-tier CX employees. Just like some developers are treated by their companies as an expense, other companies highly value developers and pay them well. This is the same with customer support, and good support agents who are feeling mist…

[deleted]

Re: Service for Some, Slavery for Others

#6
post #4
post #2

Good customer support agents are highly valued by many tech companies where support is a key value-add to their solution. Three of the companies I have worked for paid very well for top-tier CX employees. Just like some developers are treated by their companies as an expense, other companies highly value developers and pay them well. This is the same with customer support, and good support agents who are feeling mist…

> The person driving your Uber likely chose that to make money, rather than all the other ways they could have made money, because they prefer it. or didn't perceive the other ways, or didn't have resources for other ways, or wasn't approved for the subset of other ways that they both perceived and had resources for

You assume that uber drivers are ignorant. I assume that people know how to live their own lives. They had the resources to acquire a car and a driver's license. There are many, many worse jobs out there than driving a car.

Re: Service for Some, Slavery for Others

#8
Hmm I feel like Billionaires are an easy target. And while the narrative is easy to sell, I doubt it’s the real answer. My belief is that wrong kind of complexity created the current state. Take Healthcare, Manufactured scarcity of doctors, lawsuits, layers of insurance, pharmacy benefits managers, mergers of hospitals all lead to the present dysfunctional state. Did few billionaires profit off of it sure, but the blame lies on overly complex system of intermediary agents all bleeding the system. The answer might as well be Medicare for All.

Re: Service for Some, Slavery for Others

#9
post #3

Uber is making life of Uber drivers better, by giving them the option to be an Uber driver and providing customers and rules of engagement. It creates new means of earning a living, instead of taking it away. What is even the question? It is not the best job in the world, but surely beats no job at all.

"no job at all" means welfare, which may give you the time and training opportunity to get a better job

Re: Service for Some, Slavery for Others

#10
If the proverbial 'man from mars' took a look at developed Western society what might he see? A middle aged man gets up at 7am and climbs into a car, conveniently parked right beside the shabby dwelling he sleeps in. He then spends the next 18 hours ferrying other people from location to location stopping only to use the toilet. He eats when he can - maybe a rushed sandwich during a 5 minute quiet period until he is again summoned to the next person. At the end of the day he returns to his starting point and, exhausted, collapses into his bed. The next day he repeats this.

The man from mars concludes that this person must be a slave.

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