Does anyone actually think working isn't a scam?

[Purple Rats]

When anything goes wrong, they WILL throw you under the bus. The managers WILL fuck you over if it saves their skin.

As a manager I disagree with this. I encountered this exact situation today as a matter of fact.

There is a difference between leader and a boss, yes.

Some people really do need their workers. And some really do value them as well.

not all, tho.

[Accelerationist Poland-Lithuania]

When anything goes wrong, they WILL throw you under the bus. The managers WILL fuck you over if it saves their skin.

As a manager I disagree with this. I encountered this exact situation today as a matter of fact.

How much of a hit are you willing to take to preserve those under you?

[Pangurstan]

Work hasn't been paid by the hour at a call centre desk for most of human history. Work in Ancient Rome or Northwestern Europe before the black death was very different to what it is now. The only reason I use "work" to refer to wageslavery is because wageslavery has so thoroughly consumed all work and turned it into wage labour.

Most work in Ancient Rome was regular slavery. Work in Northwestern Europe before the black death broke down the existing feudal political structure was slavery serfdom.

[Ethel mermania]

You dont know much history either. Where does the english word "salary" come from?

Not from an hourly wage, that's for sure

The word comes from thr salt wage the roman army was paid.
Roman workmen were paid per diem in denari

[Accelerationist Poland-Lithuania]

Not from an hourly wage, that's for sure

Roman workmen were paid per diem.

The word salary refers to what they gave the soldiers though, doesn't it? Even then, a Roman workday was not like a modern workday, and many Romans did not even work for daily pay (as somebody above has mentioned). The way people are compensated for putting in work hasn't really stayed the same throughout history beyond them being given a certain amount for a certain amount of work.

[Ethel mermania]

Roman workmen were paid per diem.

The word salary refers to what they gave the soldiers though, doesn't it? Even then, a Roman workday was not like a modern workday, and many Romans did not even work for daily pay (as somebody above has mentioned). The way people are compensated for putting in work hasn't really stayed the same throughout history beyond them being given a certain amount for a certain amount of work.

Paid the soldiers. You could be paid for piecework, you could be paid by the day.

An interesting book to read and quite amusing is "working IX to V". Talking about various very weird Roman jobs and what they paid.

[Kannap]

I guess I work because I have to make a living, though it does piss me off that my company's CEO makes $19 million dollars a year but recently said people like me, warehouse worker making $13.75 an hour, are paid too much and he's looking to cut our pay by $2-$3 an hour.

[Jakker]

Let's not get into flaming here.

Edit part 2: I'll keep this thread open for now and I hope it gets into actually productive conversations, but we shall see.

Honestly I would have gone with not your blog, but you are the mod.

It was a bit bloggy, but I thought there was enough questions and engagement for the thread to continue. If another mod feels like it should be locked, they are welcomed to take a look.

[Ethel mermania]

I guess I work because I have to make a living, though it does piss me off that my company's CEO makes $19 million dollars a year but recently said people like me, warehouse worker making $13.75 an hour, are paid too much and he's looking to cut our pay by $2-$3 an hour.

Unionize.

[Rojava Free State]

When anything goes wrong, they WILL throw you under the bus. The managers WILL fuck you over if it saves their skin.

As a manager I disagree with this. I encountered this exact situation today as a matter of fact.

That quote describes my managers well.

[Ethel mermania]

Honestly I would have gone with not your blog, but you are the mod.

It was a bit bloggy, but I thought there was enough questions and engagement for the thread to continue. If another mod feels like it should be locked, they are welcomed to take a look.

This thing needs a thumbs up smilie.

[Kannap]

I guess I work because I have to make a living, though it does piss me off that my company's CEO makes $19 million dollars a year but recently said people like me, warehouse worker making $13.75 an hour, are paid too much and he's looking to cut our pay by $2-$3 an hour.

Unionize.

A coworker and I have talked about that mainly - he's a much older guy originally from West Virginia so he remembers the coal mine unions. But like, we don't mention it to anybody else because we're afraid mentioning it to the wrong person will lead us to getting fired.

Most people just want to keep their jobs and the idea of unionizing is scary for them.

[Victorious Decepticons]

Think about it - nobody really gets rich from selling themselves by the hour.

Regular employment is a huge scam, and the fact that most of the population seems to embrace it with the enthusiasm of a combination of Stockholm Syndrome and massive Kool-Aid chugging has always galled me.

The solution isn't to be on welfare, where you won't get rich either. You need to be self-employed/own your own company. Then all of the profits are belong to you.

You can also do quite well in the gig economy, despite your jab at it at the end of your OP. It might not make you "rich," but it gives you FAR more control over your own life than traditional employment. You decide which work to take (including what pay is acceptable to you), which deadlines to agree to, and any time you're not actively making money it is automatically break time. Contrast that with standard employment, where you would be in charge of NONE of that, and you'd never be able to pick and choose which gigs to accept. With traditional employment, you have to accept the bad with the good, or tell the entire company to lump it. Gigs? If it's bad, you just don't take that particular gig, and you can still use the same platform for the good ones.

Still, owning the company is the ultimate solution, even if its only "employee" is you. Then you make the company rules, AND you make the profits. If you make enough profits, you get rich.

Once you get too much work coming in to do it all yourself, you can hire some of those types who think having a jeerrrbbb is the be-all and end-all (and some will even think it's a moral good), and they'll kiss your butt for it. Try not to let the cognitive dissonance get to you once you reach that point.

[Vetalia]

How much of a hit are you willing to take to preserve those under you?

If it would keep my staff and senior employed in these times I would accept a pay cut of 50% of my salary. I lived on that kind of money before and can do so again, and my savings can cover the rest. Our staff are the future of the firm and I want to keep them on my team to continue developing their skills, and more importantly sticking around.

That being said,it is unconscionable to me that I would ever blame someone under (or over) me for a mistake, error or problem that I should have identified. I owned up to my failures in this situation today and had a very productive development conversation with the partner on the job...had I tried to defect or shift blame I would have been chewed out but it was pleasant. There was another incident on another job this week where I acted rashly leading to client pushback. I owned my mistake in communicating this request to the client. In the end I was right but I still owned up to my failure in communication.

Integrity is the most important virtue in any successful business.

[Farnhamia]

Be Gay - Do Crime

You're using some choice language ("vibrant youth"; "Abdi raiding Tesco's") that I'd expect to hear from some tory backbencher fuckwit, so I don't buy the 'new-found realization of capitalism and its discontents' spiel you've got going, tbh. So please explain what you meant, if you're not too busy LARPing being "blackpilled".

*** Warned for flaming ***

[Neu Leonstein]

-snip-

To be fair, there's a massive difference in the experience of workers and managers in a "professional" job and those in "menial" jobs, including part-time and casual service work.

You can also do quite well in the gig economy...

Meh, that's massively overrated. The gig economy is either being a regular slob without any of the limited protections afforded to regular workers (e.g. delivery drivers) or only applicable to specific fields (e.g. yet another moron "software developer" getting paid too much to add buttons without knowing what they're meant to do). There are plenty of jobs that can only be done effectively within a larger organisation that can muster the scale necessary to perform various economic functions. And especially if those are the sorts of things that you like doing, or are good at doing, starting a small business or contracting is not necessarily feasible. Nor is starting such a business a guarantee. It's a choice between some probability times the great wealth that growing a successful business from zero can bring, and some greater probability of comfortability that regular employment for a large company can bring. Which makes sense depends on circumstance (i.e. the real economic constraints everyone faces to different degrees) and an individual's preferences.

None are inherently better choices.

Except for hiring freelance software developers. That's objectively bullshit.

[Heloin]

Unionize.

A coworker and I have talked about that mainly - he's a much older guy originally from West Virginia so he remembers the coal mine unions. But like, we don't mention it to anybody else because we're afraid mentioning it to the wrong person will lead us to getting fired.

Most people just want to keep their jobs and the idea of unionizing is scary for them.

Then things will never get better. You'll have to talk with others, that's the only way to organise.

[Dylar]

A coworker and I have talked about that mainly - he's a much older guy originally from West Virginia so he remembers the coal mine unions. But like, we don't mention it to anybody else because we're afraid mentioning it to the wrong person will lead us to getting fired.

Most people just want to keep their jobs and the idea of unionizing is scary for them.

Then things will never get better. You'll have to talk with others, that's the only way to organise.

Big problem with unions though is that they often take a portion of your paycheck to pay the union a fee. And also if the union manages to increase everyone's hourly wage and the company can't support that cost, they'll outsource their labor, reduce new hiring opportunities (which is why it is very hard for me to try and get a job at the GM plant), and then they can also increase the prices of their products/services. I'm not saying that unions are terrible, they're just not for every company.

[Ifreann]

Well, most people tend to work so that they can get paid and survive. That makes sense to me. Feel free to go ahead and reject the system and become homeless though

Are those the only options? Since everyone seems to agree that the system is bad, it seems to me that we can make a new system.

---

When you put it like that it doesn't sound fantastic, but the system is so broken it begs the following question - is it really that unethical to mooch off a system built on such uncompensated exploitation?

Yes. It is extremely unethical to mooch off of the system. In what way is it fair? Why should you reap the rewards for the labor of your fellow citizens? People who mooch off the system and make no attempt to find a job don't deserve a dime. If they can't pull their own weight than they can starve.

Why should the people who employ you reap the rewards of your labour?

[Heloin]

Then things will never get better. You'll have to talk with others, that's the only way to organise.

Big problem with unions though is that they often take a portion of your paycheck to pay the union a fee.

Union dues are to pay for what the union does, legal fees, pensions, healthcare funds, and a strike war chest.

And also if the union manages to increase everyone's hourly wage and the company can't support that cost, they'll outsource their labor, reduce new hiring opportunities (which is why it is very hard for me to try and get a job at the GM plant),

And anyone telling you that taking Unions out of that equation will solve those problems is lying to you. Big companies can absolutely afford the cost, outsourcing of labour is a problem mostly caused when employees aren't unionised, and lack of new hiring again has little to nothing to do with the unionisation of workers.

and then they can also increase the prices of their products/services.

No they don't.

I'm not saying that unions are terrible, they're just not for every company.

If you're working in a mom and pop store and are the only employee sure, otherwise no.

[Kannap]

Then things will never get better. You'll have to talk with others, that's the only way to organise.

Big problem with unions though is that they often take a portion of your paycheck to pay the union a fee. And also if the union manages to increase everyone's hourly wage and the company can't support that cost, they'll outsource their labor, reduce new hiring opportunities

Most of the people working in my warehouse are temps who get paid pennies compared to us permanent associates, and they've recently been making the points system for errors more severe in what we believe is an attempt to push all the permanent associates out of the warehouse. Our company isn't bringing new people into the warehouse right now because of coronavirus, but my department has been severely understaffed since September last year and they'd only started listening to our complaints about that and started trying to hire two new people for our department about two or three weeks before this coronavirus stuff - they never finished the hiring process.

[Kannap]

If you're working in a mom and pop store and are the only employee sure, otherwise no.

Unionizing would be incredibly easy if you're the only one who has to unionize.

[Ethel mermania]

-snip-

To be fair, there's a massive difference in the experience of workers and managers in a "professional" job and those in "menial" jobs, including part-time and casual service work.

You can also do quite well in the gig economy...

Meh, that's massively overrated. The gig economy is either being a regular slob without any of the limited protections afforded to regular workers (e.g. delivery drivers) or only applicable to specific fields (e.g. yet another moron "software developer" getting paid too much to add buttons without knowing what they're meant to do). There are plenty of jobs that can only be done effectively within a larger organisation that can muster the scale necessary to perform various economic functions. And especially if those are the sorts of things that you like doing, or are good at doing, starting a small business or contracting is not necessarily feasible. Nor is starting such a business a guarantee. It's a choice between some probability times the great wealth that growing a successful business from zero can bring, and some greater probability of comfortability that regular employment for a large company can bring. Which makes sense depends on circumstance (i.e. the real economic constraints everyone faces to different degrees) and an individual's preferences.

None are inherently better choices.

Except for hiring freelance software developers. That's objectively bullshit.

My only bad boss was in a white collar environment. When as a kid I worked either as a burger flipper, grease monkey, or bartender, all my bosses were good reasonable people.

As to the software development, you work for a bank, or an trading house, those coders are paid and treated very well.

[Nattily Dressed Anarchists on Bicycles]

Big problem with unions though is that they often take a portion of your paycheck to pay the union a fee.

Hey, if you know a union that will work for free, then speak up. I want in on that shit.

Also, if you know a landlord, grocer, and health care provider that will give me everything I want for free just because, that'd be awesome too. Everything does just fall out of the sky! Who knew?

[Ethel mermania]

If you're working in a mom and pop store and are the only employee sure, otherwise no.

Unionizing would be incredibly easy if you're the only one who has to unionize.

I wonder if one person can be considered a bargaining unit.