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

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

#131

Post by lcfg »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #122
mox1 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely not "Ridiculously false". I've lived in the midwest most of my life. You can live ~1 hour within a major metropolitan area (minus chicago) and rent an apartment for $500-$800 a month. $10 / hour is $20,800 a year. At that rate your effectively paying 0% tax and you probably qualify for heat assistance, free insurance, etc. I didn't say live like a King. I basically said meant live life.

A salary that qualifies for and requires public assistance is not a liveable salary.

Public assistance is offered to maintain livable conditions. It would seem that qualifying for assistance does the opposite of what you think it does- it produces a "livable salary".

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

#132

Post by pessimizer »

jacalata wrote: post #99
w1ntermute wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish more people would move away from the super high cost of living areas (California, New England, ...etc) and "vote with their feet" so to speak. This is (and has been) happening for years now. Poorer people are reverse-migrating from the denser parts of the country to the Sun Belt. And it's a problem. The high cost of living in many of the "desirable" parts of the country is artificially created by government…

That's not true actually - migration between states is lower than it used to be and still falling. I can't remember where I first read about this, but here's a random paper on the overall decline of movement [0] and an NYT article specifically about declining migration to the Sun Belt [1]. [0] http://www.minneapolisfed.org/research/wp/wp697.pdf [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/us/americans-migration-pat...

It's not migration between states that's important, it's migration away from unaffordable big cities.

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

#133

Post by jasomill »

derekp7 wrote: post #80
sliverstorm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the (foolish) idea that I have in my head is that when the median house price is NOT one million dollars (I'm looking at you, San Francisco), people who make $10 / hour won't have to devote nearly as much of their income to housing, dramatically increasing their spending power.

Apartment prices in the Midwest (I'm north of Chicago, but same goes for further south) are 600 - 1000 per month. 10 bucks an hour is 1750 a month before taxes -- fed, fica, and state taxes get you down to less than 1400. There is no public transportation to speak of (outside of big cities such as Chicago and Atlanta, etc), so kill another $175 for gas, plus $150 for a car payment (cheap used car, high interest). Not…

True. This is why people living on $10/hour tend to work more than 40 hours / week. Unfortunately, this increasingly means one or more part time jobs, because service industry jobs don't generally offer overtime.

Speaking of couples living together with kids, I personally wish Americans, rich and poor, were vastly more open to adult living arrangements other than the "traditional nuclear family". Not that there's anything wrong with it, I just think the world would be a better place if there were a larger variety of equally "acceptable" living arrangements with no obvious default, to make people more comfortable seeking out the particular set of circumstances that work well for them. Some people might be happier living as an extended family, say, or communally, or alone or with platonic room-mates, even when in a committed relationship, if it weren't for strong societal pressures to conform. I'm not at all "dogmatically anti-dogmatic" about this, it's just a train of thought I've had on many occasions.

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

#134

Post by brianpgordon »

primitivesuave wrote: post #83
richardjordan wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason it's easier in Sweden is the key cultural value of fairness. America is more of a "mine" society, where everyone cares about what's "mine" and lacks an ability to self-moderate based on what's fair or right.

I wouldn't generalize here since there are people in every society who are above petty desires for material gain. It's just that in the US, we have significantly more wealth-addicts than any other country, and it leads to a bad perception of the nation as a whole. Another thing about self-moderation: my consulting firm gets an occasional contract at a public school. I know it sounds terrible to say this, but if these…

> I know it sounds terrible to say this, but if these kids are the future of the US, I want to move somewhere else.

> fucked up sense of entitlement, an addiction to social media, and a lack of desire to explore anything beyond the assigned schoolwork.

Has it occurred to you that since your generation is responsible for the profoundly sad state of our economy, educational system, and justice system, you don't have much room to criticize Generation Y?

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

#135

Post by peteforde »

I'm a bit late to the game on this one, but I'm a bit saddened to see no discussion about the fact that this man assaulted his wife.

It's good that he's not hiding the conviction, but I find it hard to empathize with someone that carries out violence against women.

His situation sucks, but he wouldn't have been in such dire straights if he hadn't been angry enough to hit his spouse. To me, that violence is the most urgent detail of this story.

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

#136

Post by brianpgordon »

valar_m wrote: post #81
ufmace wrote: post #58

What struck me as really odd about his job was the obsession with anti-theft measures. How big is is this store that they have enough to hire a full-time loss prevention officer? I've never heard of any retail store giving employees bag-checks and pat-downs every time they entered and left the building either. It's been a long time since I've worked any job like that, but I've never heard of anything like that. From…

Bag checks are fairly common, usually occurring at ends of shift or closing. Pat downs are less so, mostly because it's generally not a good idea to require employees to touch each other. Retail internal theft really is a serious problem, though. According to the National Retail Security Survey at UF, it costs retailers (read: consumers) $14.9 billion annually [1]. What you may find surprising is that most major reta…

> Ike's conviction strongly suggests a tendency to act dishonestly, which is further reinforced by his attempt to cover it up when applying for the job.

I wouldn't make it out to be such a personal moral failing. Given the job climate described in the article, I wouldn't expect him to be able to get a job by telling the truth about his conviction. If they were actually concerned about producing profit instead of covering their butts, Corporate would sweep it under the rug with the realization that he is effectively required to lie about it in order to participate in society.

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

#137

Post by ufmace »

valar_m wrote: post #81
ufmace wrote: post #58

What struck me as really odd about his job was the obsession with anti-theft measures. How big is is this store that they have enough to hire a full-time loss prevention officer? I've never heard of any retail store giving employees bag-checks and pat-downs every time they entered and left the building either. It's been a long time since I've worked any job like that, but I've never heard of anything like that. From…

Bag checks are fairly common, usually occurring at ends of shift or closing. Pat downs are less so, mostly because it's generally not a good idea to require employees to touch each other. Retail internal theft really is a serious problem, though. According to the National Retail Security Survey at UF, it costs retailers (read: consumers) $14.9 billion annually [1]. What you may find surprising is that most major reta…

I have heard that, for most retailers, most of their losses are due to internal theft. Hence lots of video cameras, and background checks to a degree that seem a little absurd, plus loss prevention investigations, record keeping, and lots of internal audits. What really sounds odd are the bag checks and pat-downs. Pat-downs especially, at least partly since they seem likely to lead to sexual harassment suits. I can't think of a solid legal reason not to do bag checks, but it sounds so demeaning and pointless, unless you work somewhere where tens of thousands in inventory could legitimately be snuck out through somebody's backpack. If you're selling diamonds or gold jewelry, I could see it, but sporting goods? What are they supposedly stealing that can be snuck out in a backpack and will lead to a meaningful loss before somebody figures it out?

Ike's situation is what bothers me about the current criminal justice system, though. If you get a conviction on your record for anything moderately serious, you're just done. He could tell the truth, and get locked out right off the bat, or lie, and maybe get caught later. We've probably all done dumb stuff when we were young. If you happen to get busted for something at the wrong time, well, good luck ever getting a semi-professional job again. Years and years of dedicated service are nothing against some dumb mistake a decade ago.

I'll admit that I tend to think that a lot of petty thieves are doing it for the thrills rather than desperation for survival. But what do we really expect them to do after they get caught? Even if they do some time and learn their lesson, it looks like they have damn few options for making a clean living, no matter how skilled and dedicated they are. I don't have any idea how many ex-cons are making a legit effort to live a clean life after they do their time, but we sure don't seem to be making it easy for them. And we're surprised that most of them go back to crime and get busted again? I'm not sure exactly how to solve it, but it surely needs some work.

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

#138

Post by sxtxixtxcxh »

lcfg wrote: post #131
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A salary that qualifies for and requires public assistance is not a liveable salary.

Public assistance is offered to maintain livable conditions. It would seem that qualifying for assistance does the opposite of what you think it does- it produces a "livable salary".

no it doesn't produce a "livable salary", it pushes costs of "livable-salaried" employees to the public.

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

#139

Post by primitivesuave »

brianpgordon wrote: post #134
primitivesuave wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't generalize here since there are people in every society who are above petty desires for material gain. It's just that in the US, we have significantly more wealth-addicts than any other country, and it leads to a bad perception of the nation as a whole. Another thing about self-moderation: my consulting firm gets an occasional contract at a public school. I know it sounds terrible to say this, but if these…

> I know it sounds terrible to say this, but if these kids are the future of the US, I want to move somewhere else. > fucked up sense of entitlement, an addiction to social media, and a lack of desire to explore anything beyond the assigned schoolwork. Has it occurred to you that since your generation is responsible for the profoundly sad state of our economy, educational system, and justice system, you don't have mu…

That's a strange argument.

I'm a person. I didn't cause economic or education downturns, and my firm actually does the opposite - we create jobs in education and improve core standards. This is a classic situation of critic meets the generalist.

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

#140

Post by morgante »

onezerozeroone wrote: post #77
quasse wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, I'm just consistently shocked at how many people making huge amounts of money don't even manage to put away $20k or so to survive if needed. Additionally, no one seems to be able to stomach cutting costs until they're already homeless and on the street. Every time I see one of these stories, it seems like the person tries to hold on to the exact standard of living they're at up until the moment they can't…

The $25 socks his manager gave him were an "impulse buy" in his former life. Wonder no more!

> The $25 socks his manager gave him were an "impulse buy" in his former life. Wonder no more!

Anything <$50 is also an impulse buy for me, but I've still managed to sock away a year or so of expenses.

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