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 Piston Honda wrote:
Kind of curious how they expect people to work 2 jobs when it seems as though they are not flexible with their schedules at all.

Know some people who worked at McDonald's and never had a fixed scheduled to be able to coordinated with another job.

there are 6 Mcdonalds within a 1.1 mile radius of me (shameful I know).

There is always a help wanted sign on their doors. All of them have "Must be available all hours."

Look just because those people can't figure out how to be in more than one place at the same time, doesn't mean we should reward them. If "Available at all hours" is what the market demands, than it's what the worker must provide! Simply calling the JOB CREATOR "not flexible" doesn't do anything helpful, the workers should learn to think outside of the box so the scheduling works for them. That's innovating, and America rewards innovators. You're just proving that minimum wage earners don't have the intelligence and drive of the top earners.

Good one Chongara.

 daedalus wrote:


One of our teams in our support center here had half the people jump ship (which should be an interesting warning indicator of its own). Rather than backfill those positions, even after given sufficient call data to rationalize why they needed it, people now handle about twice the calls, clients have twice the wait, any issue below a business critical (clients threatening to cancel) gets disregarded in favor of taking care of the ones that are, and their manager is in hot water because he can't "make them work harder".

So?
Trying to cut costs for short term gains to make yourself look good to be promoted and let the next guy fix the problem(s) or jump ship with your stock options is the american way. The best way of gaining upwards mobility is burning the ladders you used so there is less competition.
why do you hate america?

 Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:
The main problem with I have with a lot of the arguments against the minimum wage is the simple fact that upwards mobility in the US is dying out, and at the same time the wealth gap is gaping wider and wider. Long-term I see a future for America not unlike that envisioned in the satirical novel Snowcrash, a future in which the #1 source of employment is the low-wage service industry and people go to college to get degrees in burger flipping(I did say it was satire). The last 2 generations grew up in an age that was comparatively full of opportunities for moving up the social/economic ladder. The same is not true today. I think you need to wake up and smell the coffee already...

Yeah... pretty much.

When was the last time you got a job just by "getting your resume out there"?

When was the last time that job actually paid enough for you to be able to buy a home, raise three kids, and not worry about making ends meet?

 Piston Honda wrote:
Kind of curious how they expect people to work 2 jobs when it seems as though they are not flexible with their schedules at all.

Know some people who worked at McDonald's and never had a fixed scheduled to be able to coordinated with another job.

there are 6 Mcdonalds within a 1.1 mile radius of me (shameful I know).

There is always a help wanted sign on their doors. All of them have "Must be available all hours."

QFT. Food service jobs rarely have set hours, so it's hard to even pull up such an exact budget. Hours get cut and shifted by scheduling managers to reward and punish workers for a range of explicit or implicit reasons. Working two full-time service jobs is nearly impossible unless both of your scheduling managers really, really like you.

I'm disturbed by the number of *BOOT-STRAPS* proclamations in this thread but then Libertarianism has always been inextricably linked with white privilege.

Anyone claiming they've modeled the effects of raising the minimum wage on the economy is a fool and knows nothing about the field of economics. Micro-economic models are more or less a complete joke. The real-world constraints on the movement of goods and services, not to mention information, makes predicting the distribution of anything on a large scale infinitely complex. Math =/= the real world (just breathe nerds); it's just too big and there are too many unknowns when you get people involved.

Yes, if you raise the minimum wage, some companies will move jobs somewhere else for cheaper labor. China recently lost MILLIONS of manufacturing jobs that moved to cheaper India or Sub-Saharan Africa. Paying 3 dollars a day was just too much for these poor companies to take. So obviously the best solution is to always try and undercut your neighbor where wages and taxes apply because that's what leads to prosperity...

It doesn't make any sense to hold companies generally accountable for such practices and demand world standards in payment and labor rights. Certainly many of these companies aren't sitting on trillions of dollars in capital reserves, so there is no way they could pay their employees more without having it affect their pricing significantly...

And don't get me started on Unions. It's as if they just manifested out of nowhere to suckle on the plump tits of entrepreneurial industry. There is absolutely no historical documentation that points towards the tendency of corporate entities and managerial culture to be as abusive of their employees as possible.

In all seriousness, fast-food jobs are hard. They are not difficult exactly, but they wear you down. Working 15-25 hours a week in school is not the same as working 40 hours a week or more year round. I've run the gamut from bust-my-ass minimum wage jobs to I-can't-believe-how-much-they-pay-me tech jobs. Working in an office is easier, people treat you better, and employers are almost always more flexible.

The minimum wage should be higher to reflect not only the difficulty of the job (rather being depressed by the glut of cheap labor) but also common decency and humanity. The most insidious aspect of this whole debate are the boot-strappers whose union bashing arguments essentially boil down to "I dealt with x terrible things for y amount of time but now I'm a Millionaire!" Rather than asking why things had to be so gakky and trying to work to improve the system, they try to impose its harsh realities on others. It's classic divide and conquer.

Purple Saturday wrote:

 Piston Honda wrote:
Kind of curious how they expect people to work 2 jobs when it seems as though they are not flexible with their schedules at all.

Know some people who worked at McDonald's and never had a fixed scheduled to be able to coordinated with another job.

there are 6 Mcdonalds within a 1.1 mile radius of me (shameful I know).

There is always a help wanted sign on their doors. All of them have "Must be available all hours."

QFT. Food service jobs rarely have set hours, so it's hard to even pull up such an exact budget. Hours get cut and shifted by scheduling managers to reward and punish workers for a range of explicit or implicit reasons. Working two full-time service jobs is nearly impossible unless both of your scheduling managers really, really like you.

I'm disturbed by the number of *BOOT-STRAPS* proclamations in this thread but then Libertarianism has always been inextricably linked with white privilege.

Anyone claiming they've modeled the effects of raising the minimum wage on the economy is a fool and knows nothing about the field of economics. Micro-economic models are more or less a complete joke. The real-world constraints on the movement of goods and services, not to mention information, makes predicting the distribution of anything on a large scale infinitely complex. Math =/= the real world (just breathe nerds); it's just too big and there are too many unknowns when you get people involved.

Yes, if you raise the minimum wage, some companies will move jobs somewhere else for cheaper labor. China recently lost MILLIONS of manufacturing jobs that moved to cheaper India or Sub-Saharan Africa. Paying 3 dollars a day was just too much for these poor companies to take. So obviously the best solution is to always try and undercut your neighbor where wages and taxes apply because that's what leads to prosperity...

It doesn't make any sense to hold companies generally accountable for such practices and demand world standards in payment and labor rights. Certainly many of these companies aren't sitting on trillions of dollars in capital reserves, so there is no way they could pay their employees more without having it affect their pricing significantly...

And don't get me started on Unions. It's as if they just manifested out of nowhere to suckle on the plump tits of entrepreneurial industry. There is absolutely no historical documentation that points towards the tendency of corporate entities and managerial culture to be as abusive of their employees as possible.

In all seriousness, fast-food jobs are hard. They are not difficult exactly, but they wear you down. Working 15-25 hours a week in school is not the same as working 40 hours a week or more year round. I've run the gamut from bust-my-ass minimum wage jobs to I-can't-believe-how-much-they-pay-me tech jobs. Working in an office is easier, people treat you better, and employers are almost always more flexible.

The minimum wage should be higher to reflect not only the difficulty of the job (rather being depressed by the glut of cheap labor) but also common decency and humanity. The most insidious aspect of this whole debate are the boot-strappers whose union bashing arguments essentially boil down to "I dealt with x terrible things for y amount of time but now I'm a Millionaire!" Rather than asking why things had to be so gakky and trying to work to improve the system, they try to impose its harsh realities on others. It's classic divide and conquer.

I like how you called a bunch of posters racists. Classic (and reported).

Pointing out white privilege is not the same thing as calling someone racist.

Wow... generalize much... no?

Purple Saturday wrote:
Pointing out white privilege is not the same thing as calling someone racist.

I'm afraid it is you creepy ass cracker you.

 Frazzled wrote:

Purple Saturday wrote:
Pointing out white privilege is not the same thing as calling someone racist.

I'm afraid it is you creepy ass cracker you.

Wait... isn't that a term of endearment? *goes look for that Floridian decoder ring*

Did you just inadvertently call Fraz a Floridian?

Pretty sure that an insult in Texas

 Grey Templar wrote:
Did you just inadvertently call Fraz a Floridian?

Pretty sure that an insult in Texas

Referencing to Rachel Jeantel's comment in the Zimmerman trial.

I wouldn't insult any Texans... that have have gunz! Girrrlz with ginormous bewbs, and SPICY queso!

I know better than to insult Texans.

 Jihadin wrote:
Think the notion or implied threat to fire someone has a tendency to pick up one production. One person = clean 20 tables in under 20 min can happen

True, if you threaten hard enough you can get one person to clean 100 tables in 20 min.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Did you just inadvertently call Fraz a Floridian?

Pretty sure that an insult in Texas

It is. Under the rules of Duello I affirm on my honor that I am no swordsman, and elect our weapons to be...tamales!

 Frazzled wrote:

I like how you called a bunch of posters racists. Classic (and reported).

Well done for pressing the panic button and disregarding an entire post for something so trivial that I had to read the post twice before I noticed it.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Think the notion or implied threat to fire someone has a tendency to pick up one production. One person = clean 20 tables in under 20 min can happen

True, if you threaten hard enough you can get one person to clean 100 tables in 20 min.

Give me ten bucks and a 3.5 in hose and I'll clean 100 tables in 2 minutes, and anyone sitting at them at the time!

Purple Saturday wrote:

Anyone claiming they've modeled the effects of raising the minimum wage on the economy is a fool and knows nothing about the field of economics. Micro-economic models are more or less a complete joke. The real-world constraints on the movement of goods and services, not to mention information, makes predicting the distribution of anything on a large scale infinitely complex. Math =/= the real world (just breathe nerds); it's just too big and there are too many unknowns when you get people involved.

You're absolutely right. As such, we shouldn't even try. Eat the economists! Burn the textbooks, I say! When graph paper is outlawed, only outlaws will graph!

Yes, if you raise the minimum wage, some companies will move jobs somewhere else for cheaper labor. China recently lost MILLIONS of manufacturing jobs that moved to cheaper India or Sub-Saharan Africa. Paying 3 dollars a day was just too much for these poor companies to take. So obviously the best solution is to always try and undercut your neighbor where wages and taxes apply because that's what leads to prosperity...

It doesn't make any sense to hold companies generally accountable for such practices and demand world standards in payment and labor rights. Certainly many of these companies aren't sitting on trillions of dollars in capital reserves, so there is no way they could pay their employees more without having it affect their pricing significantly...

It's a lot more complicated than that. If you're talking about the companies that can just up and move half their workforce out of your country, then yes, yes they DO have at least millions of dollars in reserves. Maybe CxOs shouldn't make orders of magnitude of orders of magnitude more than the employees of the company who are actually producing product. Maybe we could all stand to pay .50 more for that crappy plastic widget we don't really need anyway.

And don't get me started on Unions. It's as if they just manifested out of nowhere to suckle on the plump tits of entrepreneurial industry. There is absolutely no historical documentation that points towards the tendency of corporate entities and managerial culture to be as abusive of their employees as possible.

You... wait... what?

The Battle of Blair Mountain illustrates the very thing you claim doesn't exist.

Really, capitalism DEMANDS the abuse your employees for profit just up until the threshold of frustration before they quit. Anything less represents inefficiency.

The minimum wage should be higher to reflect not only the difficulty of the job (rather being depressed by the glut of cheap labor) but also common decency and humanity. The most insidious aspect of this whole debate are the boot-strappers whose union bashing arguments essentially boil down to "I dealt with x terrible things for y amount of time but now I'm a Millionaire!" Rather than asking why things had to be so gakky and trying to work to improve the system, they try to impose its harsh realities on others. It's classic divide and conquer.

Yup. You should have pride in your accomplishments, but you should also realize that there exists the possibility that the difference between you and the guy at McD's is several degrees smaller than you'd think it was.

I thought that comment on unions was sarcasm, as that's the only thing that fits bar being insane.

 Frazzled wrote:


Give me ten bucks and a 3.5 in hose and I'll clean 100 tables in 2 minutes, and anyone sitting at them at the time!

I'll do it for five if you give me Jidhadin's water cannon.

Capitalism, baby!

I'll do it for free*

* - You just have to buy me lunch

 MrDwhitey wrote:
I thought that comment on unions was sarcasm, as that's the only thing that fits bar being insane.

This is Dakka OT. We just had a guy post sincerely advocating a Judge Dredd totalitarian state.

At this point, I can make zero assumptions for sarcasm, and have to error on the side of flying rodent gak insane.

 daedalus wrote:


You... wait... what?

The Battle of Blair Mountain illustrates the very thing you claim doesn't exist.

Really, capitalism DEMANDS the abuse your employees for profit just up until the threshold of frustration before they quit. Anything less represents inefficiency.

I was joking. I was being facetious through most of the middle of the post (it's commonly known that the Fortune 500 are sitting on trillions of dollars they don't know what to do with, and we should stop companies from just jumping around the globe to exploit the cheapest labor possible). I fully support Unions and unionization and am well versed in labor history in the United States. Yes, some Unions abuse their power or act in a less than upright fashion, but that is true of.... everything???

I know daedalus I know...

But I have to think this way, I have to hope these people aren't as evil and insane as they post.

And if I do that, I can celebrate them as excellent trolls and hope their views don't get any serious consideration due to them being trolls.

Or something. Sometimes I just hate knowing what scum exist in this world, and get to post on here.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

I like how you called a bunch of posters racists. Classic (and reported).

Well done for pressing the panic button and disregarding an entire post for something so trivial that I had to read the post twice before I noticed it.

Thats because you just wouldn't understand the personal experience of my people, and what we've been through.

I didnt bother reading anything past the first post, so forgive me if I'm re-covering old ground:

I'm not defending McDonalds or the minimum wage (I think it needs to be raised a good bit to at least be livable, or rather, it should be done in two-tiers, one for students and teens, etc. who are claimed as dependents by their families, in which case the current minimum is fine (although lets be generous and hike it up just a little) and the second tier for those who have dependents of their own), but I see a lot of knee-jerk reactions here.

This lists two jobs, but if you assume an $8 minimum (which might be low in some states and high in others), the $1105 monthly income translates to less than 40 hours per week (which makes sense as I know few people working hourly minimum wage jobs that actually get 40 hours per out of it), meaning the second job is taken as supplemental income to make up for the shortfall of hours (which is absolutely 100% reasonable) and in this case it seems to more than cover the shortfall and then some.

Of course, I realized after typing this that this assumes that those incomes are before taxes, which is impossible because the budget doesn't list taxes as an expenditure... if this is what they expect people to pull in AFTER taxes, then they really are total slave drivers since you'd have to be working shy of 80 hours per week to pull that at minimum.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I didnt bother reading anything past the first post.... but I see a lot of knee-jerk reactions here.

Either you are lying about reading or lying about seeing...

And yes, that's full-time+ with both of those jobs. 7.25-8.25 an hour doesn't look like much after taxes (although of course you do get most state and federal income taxes back in the end, although you lose money to Medicare, SS, Property Taxes, Sales Tax, etc...)

Purple Saturday wrote:

 daedalus wrote:


You... wait... what?

The Battle of Blair Mountain illustrates the very thing you claim doesn't exist.

Really, capitalism DEMANDS the abuse your employees for profit just up until the threshold of frustration before they quit. Anything less represents inefficiency.

I was joking. I was being facetious through most of the middle of the post (it's commonly known that the Fortune 500 are sitting on trillions of dollars they don't know what to do with, and we should stop companies from just jumping around the globe to exploit the cheapest labor possible). I fully support Unions and unionization and am well versed in labor history in the United States. Yes, some Unions abuse their power or act in a less than upright fashion, but that is true of.... everything???

Fair enough. It was really hard to notice the change in tone mid-post, but rereading it with the above in mind, it's more understandable. That's the Internet for you, I guess.

I should have made it more obvious, or just, you know, been straightforward. The fault is entirely mine good sir.

Purple Saturday wrote:

 Piston Honda wrote:
Kind of curious how they expect people to work 2 jobs when it seems as though they are not flexible with their schedules at all.

Know some people who worked at McDonald's and never had a fixed scheduled to be able to coordinated with another job.

there are 6 Mcdonalds within a 1.1 mile radius of me (shameful I know).

There is always a help wanted sign on their doors. All of them have "Must be available all hours."

QFT. Food service jobs rarely have set hours, so it's hard to even pull up such an exact budget. Hours get cut and shifted by scheduling managers to reward and punish workers for a range of explicit or implicit reasons. Working two full-time service jobs is nearly impossible unless both of your scheduling managers really, really like you.

I'm disturbed by the number of *BOOT-STRAPS* proclamations in this thread but then Libertarianism has always been inextricably linked with white privilege.

Anyone claiming they've modeled the effects of raising the minimum wage on the economy is a fool and knows nothing about the field of economics. Micro-economic models are more or less a complete joke. The real-world constraints on the movement of goods and services, not to mention information, makes predicting the distribution of anything on a large scale infinitely complex. Math =/= the real world (just breathe nerds); it's just too big and there are too many unknowns when you get people involved.

Yes, if you raise the minimum wage, some companies will move jobs somewhere else for cheaper labor. China recently lost MILLIONS of manufacturing jobs that moved to cheaper India or Sub-Saharan Africa. Paying 3 dollars a day was just too much for these poor companies to take. So obviously the best solution is to always try and undercut your neighbor where wages and taxes apply because that's what leads to prosperity...

It doesn't make any sense to hold companies generally accountable for such practices and demand world standards in payment and labor rights. Certainly many of these companies aren't sitting on trillions of dollars in capital reserves, so there is no way they could pay their employees more without having it affect their pricing significantly...

And don't get me started on Unions. It's as if they just manifested out of nowhere to suckle on the plump tits of entrepreneurial industry. There is absolutely no historical documentation that points towards the tendency of corporate entities and managerial culture to be as abusive of their employees as possible.

In all seriousness, fast-food jobs are hard. They are not difficult exactly, but they wear you down. Working 15-25 hours a week in school is not the same as working 40 hours a week or more year round. I've run the gamut from bust-my-ass minimum wage jobs to I-can't-believe-how-much-they-pay-me tech jobs. Working in an office is easier, people treat you better, and employers are almost always more flexible.

The minimum wage should be higher to reflect not only the difficulty of the job (rather being depressed by the glut of cheap labor) but also common decency and humanity. The most insidious aspect of this whole debate are the boot-strappers whose union bashing arguments essentially boil down to "I dealt with x terrible things for y amount of time but now I'm a Millionaire!" Rather than asking why things had to be so gakky and trying to work to improve the system, they try to impose its harsh realities on others. It's classic divide and conquer.

I personally think that minimum wage should be higher.

But how high is the problem. It would be nice if McDonald's employee could make 40k a year with great benefits. Unfortunately, as many other people have said it's a job skill just about any person can possess . With anyone willing to work at McDonald's they can pay you what they want. The fact McDonald's has a very high turnover rate proves that. Otherwise they would pay a lot more to keep people.

Unfortunately America is in a conundrum with jobs right now and Guvment doesn't care.

I personally feel that a lot of our issues start with our education system and how we prep students for life. Teaching to take tests and having society cry about Evolution, Jesus and sex education doesn't do jack gak.

As far as understanding the plight of a minimum wage worker, been there, done that. Still do it to an extent. Worked at grocery stores, restaurants and many other big chains. Only thing worse than getting paid a very low wage is dealing with ignoble customers.

Still work as a waiter part time, still sucks. I have a small business, sort of. I make furniture for people and repair lawn mowers. I still get nasty people, I guess I can't escape them. There is no possible way I could build a grandfather clock for 1000 bucks.

Also do odd jobs such as fix toilets, lay tile, put in new sinks and work at local indie wrestling promotions. Things I would never have been able to do while I worked at places such as K mart, Target, Olive Garden. Schedules are just to random to organize anything long term with another job. But it has all been worth it. Save enough cash to return to school after my temporary medical leave. If anything, working at unrewarding jobs such as a store clerk makes me want to work harder in school.

A number of my friend's who didn't want to go to college or dropped out ended working at dead end jobs, high recommend them learning a trade. 1 became an electrician after bouncing from store to store as a clerk. Still tough work but makes 25 bucks an hour now. More than his 7.25 and no benefits.

 Piston Honda wrote:

I personally feel that a lot of our issues start with our education system and how we prep students for life. Teaching to take tests and having society cry about Evolution, Jesus and sex education doesn't do jack gak.

If there's one thing I learned after 17 years of education it's how to efficiently gamble on standardized tests.