What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world? • Hacker News Board

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#281

Post by paulryanrogers » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 7:31 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #225

Auracle wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can absolutely try and make things better, but most people have very little perspective. Countless times I’ve seen people say things about how they’d never bring a child into the world because of how bad things are now. They mean global warming, Donald Trump, or whatever happens to be in the current news cycle. We’re living in the very best time to be human so far. It wasn’t long ago that the world was living und…

My favorite part about people who use that as justification for not having kids is that they will not have kids. Let them exit the gene pool and the rational people can continue to have children.

It's entirely rational to think twice about the circumstances before having kids, or more kids.

For one thing, micro-plastics weren't in the brains and bloodstream of past populations. That said, doubtful anyone hesitant to have kids is under the delusion everything was always better in the past. I certainly wasn't when the time came to make those decisions.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#282

Post by wonderwonder » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 7:32 PM UTC

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #227

ctoth wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The national median rent was $1,792 last month, up 17% from a year ago, according to a report from Realtor.com. Rent for studio apartments, one bedrooms and two bedrooms all saw double-digit increases over the past year[0]. [0]: https://abc7.com/rent-prices-apartments-cost-of-realtorcom/1...

Why should we expect the minimum wage to afford the median rent?

To be fair, minimum wage is not the $15 an hour that Amazon pays, its half that.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#283

Post by basisword » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 7:33 PM UTC

rurp wrote: post #268

mrjangles wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how modern work for a lot of jobs has become de facto indentured servitude...The average worker can't afford anything without taking on debt. For people from other countries wondering about the veracity of these claims, let's take an example: The typical shitty job everyone on here complains about is working at an amazon warehouse. This is a job people with no skills take on. They pay 15 USD an hour. In other curren…

Comparing income between countries without accounting for cost of living is highly misleading.

Although I don't agree completely with OP's point it is true to an extent. I'm in the UK. My US colleagues earn significantly more (for the exact same job), they pay less for accommodation and get much larger accommodations (even living in comparatively large cities), and general cost of living (food, gas, clothes etc.) is less. I'm talking tech here (so not comparing low-skill/earning jobs) but at least in this industry Americans have it pretty good.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#284

Post by honkdaddy » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 7:33 PM UTC

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #239

At 22, right out of college, I probably would have done basically anything to get a $40k a year job. I applied literally everywhere I could. Still, after 8 months and thousands of applications, I was working for $13.50/hr as a cook. This forced me to rethink my strategy, and I decided to take a program in CS, which changed everything for me. I often think about how my life would have been if I had got one of those jo…

Now at 27, I see some of my oldest friends have fallen into the exact trap you're describing. Unmarketable degree combined with minimal college work experience makes for a very limited job market upon graduation. I watched several of them get sucked into similarly low paying and unfulfilling work largely because it was in an office and therefore made it a "real" job.

Any tips on how to to encourage them to bite the bullet and change industries, ideally into tech? I firmly believe that anyone with an above average IQ can make it as _some_ type of tech worker, even if it's something as simple as spinning up Wordpress sites.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#285

Post by standardUser » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 7:34 PM UTC

cloverich wrote: post #222

Spivak wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your job is in that city then yeah kinda. Workers today are so entitled, demanding an entire studio apartment the audacity.

It’s been a while for me but i always remember single person apartments (even studios) being relatively more expensive than multi bedroom with roommates. Anytime I wanted to save money that was always the first place i started. In that sense i personally would consider an apartment all to yourself a relative luxury.

If it has been a while for you, then perhaps you were much younger and comfortable sharing a living space with relative strangers. Many people working these crappy jobs are not kids in their teens and twenties. They are middle-aged and these are their careers. Also, the workers we are talking about don't "want to save money", they are perpetually spending every cent they earn to cover costs and debt. It isn't some pit stop on the way to the upper-middle class (though upper-middle class people seem to like to pretend it is).

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#286

Post by Rebelgecko » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 7:35 PM UTC

dumpsterlid wrote: post #132

sandworm101 wrote: post #2

>> 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…

> Or any law enforcement. Please don't equate healthcare workers with law enforcement. Healthcare workers have an astronomically harder job and actually make society a better place.

I think in terms of difficulty, law enforcement has much more skin in the game- both jobs have to deal with potential guilt from screwing up but if a surgeon misjudges a situation pretty much the worst outcome is that they get sued and in egregious cases lose their job. Whereas in law enforcement you're more likely to have adversarial interactions with armed people, drunk drivers, etc where your own life is in danger.

Based on my (definitely incomplete so feel free to fill in any blanks I have!) knowledge of places that don't have formal law enforcement, it's impossible to make a good faith argument that they're better places because of it.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#287

Post by seibelj » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 7:35 PM UTC

paulryanrogers wrote: post #281

seibelj wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite part about people who use that as justification for not having kids is that they will not have kids. Let them exit the gene pool and the rational people can continue to have children.

It's entirely rational to think twice about the circumstances before having kids, or more kids. For one thing, micro-plastics weren't in the brains and bloodstream of past populations. That said, doubtful anyone hesitant to have kids is under the delusion everything was always better in the past. I certainly wasn't when the time came to make those decisions.

It means “I would prefer the human race dies off rather than reproduce”. Sure, you can make decisions for your own health and personal reasons. But if you truly decide not to have children because of “global warming” as if the planet gives a fuck (it’s only an issue for humans - the planet will live on for billions of years) then you are saying humans as a species are a cancer that must die off. And I find that totally absurd and illogical.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#288

Post by oh_sigh » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 7:36 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #259

lisper wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had first-hand experience with this but in the opposite direction. Had a cop cut me a break on a ticket and charge me with a lesser offense than the one I actually committed. When I went to pay the fine (this was a long time ago, before the internet) I was told the ticket hadn't been filed and so there was no fine to pay. Fast forward a year and I get a court summons for this ticket. At this point I'm annoyed en…

>> Then the magistrate asks me point-blank if I was guilty. I take the fifth. That's not the fifth. Pleading not guilty isn't considered a statement or an admission of anything. Nor can it be held against you in any way. We don't double down by charging every guilty party with "perjury" because they lost. That was done away with centuries ago.

Yes...I'm confused about OPs story because, as far as I know, you can't just plead the 5th at various parts of a trial where it is not relevant. The judge would generally not move on until you plead something. Or they would hold you in contempt if you refuse to plead guilty/not guilty/alford/nolo contendere etc

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#289

Post by acomar » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 7:36 PM UTC

Nasrudith wrote: post #175

3qz wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the purpose of this comment?

To call out the woefully common hyperbolic rhetoric of calling having to compare the default natural state of being, having to work to survive as slavery. Take any given natural environment no matter how idylic and stick bands of naked humans in it. Plus the whole "demand something with zero regard as to the hows of the process and what it would take to maintain it".

> natural state of being, having to work to survive

yes, the natural state of all human beings is to derive value for shareholders. the profit of our masters before all. it's just in our DNA.

to live requires maintenance and upkeep and work. to live together in a society means doing things for one another. but where in that do you derive a natural state in which people produce things so someone else may profit on their work, and keep the greater part of the fruit? people aren't objecting to the notion of necessary labor. they're objecting to being forced - literally, by threat of starving on the streets - by the organization of the society to labor on behalf of others for produce they will never enjoy.

Re: What does “shitty job” mean in the low-skill, low-pay world?

#290

Post by Beltalowda » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 7:37 PM UTC

rnikander wrote: post #124

abxytg wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cynically untrue. Amazon is not even close to bottom of the barrel. And it's clear you haven't paid market rent in a major city since you bought that starter home back in the 90s - 42k is a joke when your rent is close to $2500 and you get no benefits.

So rent a room and/or don’t live in the best part of the city. That’s what I did near Boston a few years ago. My rent was well under $1000. Do people think they’re entitled to private apartments in the most expensive cities in the world?

I don't know anything about Boston, but where I live in Europe that's not so easy; a lot of properties within commuting distance aren't cheap, either. Sometimes they're even more expensive actually. And living two hours from your workplace isn't cheap either: you pay either public transport costs or fuel for your car, never mind the enormous amount of time you'll spend commuting.

Consider a place like London. It's bloody huge, and much of it is quite expensive. At the end of the day, London is going to need people staffing grocery stores, and cleaners, and that kind of thing. Not the entire population can be software devs or whatnot working from home, and you can't push them all outside of London.