It's practically a condemnation of the readership the extend to which the author has to build a complex network of rhetorical and example based fortification around what are fundamentally simple points that are plain as day and could be discussed frankly and freely among the demographics and employment situations he/she is describing but which the readership has scant if any direct experience working with. It pains me to think about all the writing and re-writing and very specific word choice that must have gone into this.
What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?
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Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?
#12Many things in life are to some degree what you make of them, but a lot of low skill jobs don't even offer the hope of learning or advancement. This seems like a real situation of despair to me.
Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?
#13I always have to think about this when people say "buy more at small businesses!" Most small businesse owners I met were just as shitty as the ones of big businesses, they just weren't as smart as them.
There is also the issue that big companies are usually watched more and have regulatory teams making sure they follow rules. I believe in the UK that small businesses are far worse for minimum wage violations.
Small businesses are far worse at all regulatory compliance, because unlike big businesses they can’t afford a compliance department. I see this as more a problem with excessive regulation than small businesses, but reasonable minds can differ.
And yes I’m a strong proponent of worker’s rights, it just sucks that being a small employer is a kafkaesque nightmare. I know one who was recently fined for paying his employees too much because they happened to be migrant workers.
Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?
#14It means subsistence at someone else's benefit.
Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?
#15Verbose article with little substance.
Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?
#16Worked a wide variety of low-skill, low-pay temp jobs during college. Lots of the people I worked with there were juggling multiple gigs, and were sort of locked into that system of work.
By the time I graduated, it was mostly temp firms that handled the recruitment - and FYI, they absolutely follow the "hire fast, fire fast" mantra. So while you could land work the next day, you could just as easily get fired from the same gig 2 hours into work. That's how fast it went.
This is turn made people stick around shitty gigs, if they knew that meant job security for the next 3-6 months. And once you start turning down other gigs, you might not get called up again, ever again. It's not that you're implicitly getting "blackballed", but rather that by the time you're calling back for work, they've gotten N new candidates working, and ready to go.
And the worst part? These gigs do next to nothing for your resume. I worked with college graduates stuck in such positions, graduates with decent and hard degrees. One year turns into two, two into three, three into five...and before they know it, they've worked these shitty gigs long enough that their degrees start to lose value. But you gotta pay rent each and every month, so what can you do?
For some more meat to this story - my least favorite gigs, which I consider stereotypical "shitty jobs" in this segment of jobs:
1. Warehouse worker for huge transportation corporation: 12 hour shifts, extremely high tempo, employees pretty much throwing every parcel that can be thrown, to work faster. If the supervisor caught you slipping for even 2 minutes during that shift, you could be removed from that job. Shit pay. No wonder people receive broken packages, when the warehouse workers are throwing them like basketballs.
2. Construction helper. You're just carrying stuff up and down stairs, all day long. That's it. Imagine carrying bags of cement up 5 floors, for 10-12 hours. Again, bottom bucket pay, and you'll be constantly monitored.
3. Roofer hand/helper. Same as 2, but you'll be spending your time on a roof, often time just getting stuff up there. I once spent the whole month of February shoveling a warehouse roof, that's all I did for 8 hours a day.
Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?
#17Any job that doesn’t holistically build your skill set (antithetical to a career). As in, the money is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. If you stock Shampoo on a shelf, and you can’t flip that into something useful, it’s a worthless job. It’s better to get paid $0 being in the right field for a bit than actually being paid in the wrong path. It’s negative money unless you are using it to pivot into the right…
>It’s better to get paid $0 being in the right field for a bit than actually being paid in the wrong path. I am going to make the guess that you either have a lot of money right now or have an amazing support system to help you because such options aren't available to everyone who is making sure their food budget is correct down to the penny.
Your guess is wrong then. I’m more of a person that has been at the upside and downside of things. I know what it’s like to just need the paycheck. But I never looked at it like that, it was mostly a paycheck to create the opportunity via stability to evolve another path. In that case, holistically, that dead-end job had a purpose for creating financial groundwork (once upon a time for me it was literally to buy some server hosting or a domain name - yeah, that’s how broke).
Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?
#18It's practically a condemnation of the readership the extend to which the author has to build a complex network of rhetorical and example based fortification around what are fundamentally simple points that are plain as day and could be discussed frankly and freely among the demographics and employment situations he/she is describing but which the readership has scant if any direct experience working with. It pains m…
Have you considered that innocence inspires unparalleled actions?
Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?
#19>> A meatgrinder job is a job that pays more not because there are fewer people who can do it, but because there are fewer people that will. They have insanely high turnover, because some aspect of the job is so bad that the vast majority of people who try it don’t stay. Maybe it’s long hours that never stop or maybe it’s constant on-call work. Maybe it’s an insane, stress-intensive workload you can’t begin to keep u…
> Pediatric oncology. That job must be nightmarish for anyone who isn’t a full-blown sociopath. I’m not a particularly empathetic person and I couldn’t start that job let alone stay in it for years. Edit: > One of the attractions of pediatrics is, surprisingly enough… This is the opposite of surprising. I imagine one of the appeals of pediatrics is significantly fewer of your patients die. That’s why pediatric oncolo…
There was a young woman in my high school and University class, she was a bit strange. Extremely bright beyond her years, sociable, and got along well with both the teachers and most of the students.
There was always something a bit off with her though.
From early high-school, as soon as “career” talk got more serious, she had only one job that she claimed she wanted to do, “Pediactric Oncology”. Some of the teachers were also taken aback by her fervor and intensity, but also her consistency.
Last I checked she’s in Med school somewhere prestigious, I’m sure she’ll be a great doctor, and that a lot of children will get the attention they deserve, but something worries me about the whole situation.
Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?
#20>> A meatgrinder job is a job that pays more not because there are fewer people who can do it, but because there are fewer people that will. They have insanely high turnover, because some aspect of the job is so bad that the vast majority of people who try it don’t stay. Maybe it’s long hours that never stop or maybe it’s constant on-call work. Maybe it’s an insane, stress-intensive workload you can’t begin to keep u…
> A working day surrounded by kids undergoing painful treatments, particularly when you are the person prescribing those treatments, grinds down one's soul.
This is why psychopaths are overrepresented in such professions. I guess it makes it easier to cut into people, and to make dispassionate decisions.
edit: are the downvotes because you think I'm implying this is a bad thing? Am I wrong?