My Life as a Retail Worker: Nasty, Brutish, and Cheap • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by richardjordan » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 7:02 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #60

hershel wrote: post #38

Sweden offers a nice solution to this: responsible unions. In Sweden there are 2 unions, One for white collar workers and one for blue collar employees. The salary rates/hikes are industry wide.They are usually determined by the competitive part of the economy - the export sector and than applied to everybody. The unions understand their role as protectors of employees, but on the other hand, understand the need for…

I feel like this would remove all incentive.

Well you could trust your 'feelings' or you can look at the evidence and determine whether or not Sweden is a prosperous society with a good standard of living, competitive businesses and motivated people.

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

#72

Post by nicholas73 » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 7:03 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #31

I kind of did a double take at this: > Even though I was living rent-free in a guest bedroom, my every-other-Thursday paycheck couldn’t help me climb out of my hole, particularly after the state took half my pre-tax, $300 weekly salary for child support payments. > * got the opportunity to leave Sporting Goods Inc. for a temporary job as a communications director for a Capitol Hill nonprofit, a gig that paid twice as…

What happened to everyone's math skills here?

$300 * 2 * 52 = $31,200.

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

#73

Post by richardjordan » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 7:03 PM UTC

dx4100 wrote: post #55

hershel wrote: post #38

Sweden offers a nice solution to this: responsible unions. In Sweden there are 2 unions, One for white collar workers and one for blue collar employees. The salary rates/hikes are industry wide.They are usually determined by the competitive part of the economy - the export sector and than applied to everybody. The unions understand their role as protectors of employees, but on the other hand, understand the need for…

I'd say this is easier in a society like Sweden, with a homogeneous culture and relatively small population.

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.

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

#74

Post by sliverstorm » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 7:04 PM UTC

dx4100 wrote: post #55

hershel wrote: post #38

Sweden offers a nice solution to this: responsible unions. In Sweden there are 2 unions, One for white collar workers and one for blue collar employees. The salary rates/hikes are industry wide.They are usually determined by the competitive part of the economy - the export sector and than applied to everybody. The unions understand their role as protectors of employees, but on the other hand, understand the need for…

I'd say this is easier in a society like Sweden, with a homogeneous culture and relatively small population.

No kidding. Just think of all the political squabbles that would vanish overnight if the USA was, for example, 99% WASP

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

#75

Post by rfrank » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 7:05 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #68

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…

The crux of your argument is unconvincing. Service jobs have to be near the wealthy? What kind of myopia is that? Un-wealthy people go out to eat and get their car repaired just as much as Richie Rich. Yes, if nobody but tech workers come to San Francisco, the city will collapse. But that doesn't mean everybody else has to live there too. It's also awful presumptuous to say, "Well I'm wealthy, this is where I want to…

That situation also means that the lowest wage workers have to commute the furthest, often (as the author of the article experiences) spending most of their daily pay just getting to and from work. "Move further from your job" is rarely an option.

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

#76

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 7:07 PM UTC

mox1 wrote: post #51

krstck wrote: post #35

It seems to me that working retail has gotten a lot worse since the recession. I worked retail after high school before deciding to go to college, and then worked the same job on summers home from school. What was interesting was that between when I started that job in 2005 and when I left for the final time in 2010, my coworkers went from being mostly high school and college kids to all sorts of folks of varying age…

I'd like to point out that this story takes place in one of the highest cost of living areas in the country. $10 / hour goes a lot further in Kansas than it does D.C. I think a lot of people could live OK in the Midwest on $10 / hour. 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. If 10% of the populations of Cali a…

OK, you go first.

Those areas are empty and emptying out because people don't want to live there.

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

#77

Post by onezerozeroone » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 7:09 PM UTC

quasse wrote: post #54

morgante wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not surprised that a journalist managing an 80-person team was paid $200k+. What I am surprised by is how he ever ended up working retail with a salary like that. I'd expect him to have saved up enough to last a year or two of low expenses.

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!

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

#78

Post by gknoy » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 7:09 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #16

bluedino wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "person who's had white-collar job for years doesn't get how difficult service jobs are" Or, sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day is really, really easy compared to having to actually DO something at a service job.

I believe you did not read the article, as less than one paragraph was on the topic of physical labor, and the rest of the article was about extremely toxic occasionally outright illegal employee / employer relations. Luckily, due to the "retailapocalpse" or whatever its called, soon virtually no one will have to labor under those conditions, because there will be almost no positions like that. Not that Amazon's ware…

  > Not that Amazon's warehouses are some kind of workers paradise.

I read an article a while back (apologies for no links) that basically had a reporter go work at an Amazon warehouse as a stocker. It sounded like the type of hell I wouldn't wish on an enemy.

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

#79

Post by vijayr » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 7:12 PM UTC

I guess [you] don’t care about hard work or loyalty.

Wow, just wow - humiliating him by checking his bag every day, making him do extra work (after work hours) for free, restricting him to less than 30 hours so the store doesn't have to give him benefits .... Even after all this, the author seemed to have worked hard. All of this is still not enough.

Incredible.

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

#80

Post by derekp7 » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 7:15 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #70

jackmaney wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $10 / hour goes a lot further in Kansas than it does D.C. True. > I think a lot of people could live OK in the Midwest on $10 / hour. Ridiculously false. Yes, the cost of living is cheaper in the Midwest, but a lot of people seem to have the idea that it's this land lost in time where a loaf of bread still costs a nickel and where gas is 25 cents a gallon.

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 much left for food, heat, and lights.

Now it gets a bit better when two people are living together. But then that usually means a family (kids) eventually, so it then starts to get much worse.