
I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave  - jamesbritt
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor
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nodata
This is the article where one of the author's warehouse colleagues is fired
because he attends the birth of his son without giving seven days notice.
Can't find the quote though - was it removed, or am I searching for the wrong
thing?

Edit: thanks vhf. Here is the horrible quote I was looking for:

"Brian already went through this training, but then during his first week his
lady had a baby, so he missed a day and he had to be fired."

Frightening.

~~~
jiggy2011
Yes, I've worked in a few pretty bad places in the past (though not this bad).

Problem is that the main incentives for an employer to provide decent working
conditions are so that A) They don't leave for a competitor and B) Make people
happy and more productive.

A doesn't really apply, because if these people had options they wouldn't
working there. Also it costs so little to train up a new hire and there is a
constant pool of unskilled , unemployed people to pick from.

B doesn't really apply either, because these type of jobs suck almost by
definition, there is also unlikely to be much difference between a more and
less productive employee due to the repetitive nature of the job.

These people are also very unlikely to sue you for wrongful termination or
whatever, so it means that it is worth it to get the small productivity
increase you might get from being unreasonable.

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tisme
What a depressing read. At some point robotic warehouses will be the norm.
Until then there will be lots of places like this. Commerce often means that
the lowest bidder gets to deliver the goods. What they don't tell you is how
much the lowest bidder is squeezing their employees just so they can be the
lowest bidder.

Don't end up like Brian, get yourself some marketable skills other than
running around a warehouse to pick orders. Or you might very well find
yourself fired just when you need your job the most - for instance when your
wife has just delivered a baby (which with any normal company run by people
with some heart would result in paid leave).

And when those robotic warehouses roll around these jobs will simply cease to
exist.

~~~
Tloewald
Don't assume robots will always replace people. We have, after all, seen robot
factories replaced by poorly paid humans in China.

If low skilled jobs keep being handed over to robots, eventually we get a lot
of people with no valuable skills. These people will be poor and largely
unemployed. If you take away welfare, collective bargaining, minimum wage, and
a safety net then these people will work for literally crumbs (ocnsider people
who live on garbage dumps in India). For many many roles these people will be
cheaper than robots.

This is, incidentally, the lot of the poor before the welfare state was
created, and it's what the Tea Party wants to recreate.

~~~
pc86
Just because it's a MoJo article doesn't mean this is the place to wax
philosophic about your personal political beliefs.

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VMG
No, you have not been a slave. Slaves did not have the option to stay at home
and get fired. They were not getting paid.

You just had a shitty job at a warehouse.

~~~
nodata
If you can stay at home and get in more debt, or work and have less debt (but
still lose money month-on-month) does that make you a slave? Does it make you
enslaved to your debt?

What if the wage earns you only enough to live on? Some slaves were provided
with sustenance and not much else. What's the difference?

~~~
VMG
_This_ is why I criticize using the term "wage slave". People actually think
the lives of people who _literally_ didn't have any human rights and were
bought and sold as property are comparable to people who work under poor
conditions.

The author mentions that she earned $60 a day after taxes.

~~~
nodata
> This is why I criticize using the term "wage slave".

But "slave" != "wage slave", as explained in the Wikipedia article linked
above.

~~~
VMG
> But "slave" != "wage slave"

Exactly my point.

~~~
ktizo
You have no point. The term wage slave has been around since the industrial
revolution and has a very well understood meaning.

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smartician
Repost from half a year ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3641184>

~~~
jamesbritt
Did not realize that, and the dupe-detector didn't catch it.

~~~
prophetjohn
After a while, you can repost. "Teach Yourself Programming in 10 Years" has
been posted about a dozen times.

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jamesjguthrie
This is a great read. I've been a call centre worker in the past (sitting
through 400 automated number dials a day, half of which are straight to
voicemail and I was targetted to sell to 2 a day. Horrible job) and this just
reminds me that I'm lucky that I have skills and options.

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sasoon
Foxconn sounds better than this...

~~~
Natsu
The Chinese have it bad, but American factory workers don't have it all that
much better. You're still dealing with a lot of easily-replaceable people who
have little or no leverage to push back at unreasonable demands.

That's a recipe for unhappiness no matter where you live.

------
jheriko
this sounds pretty bad - however i find it hard to have sympathy given past
experiences.

the real problem here is that people feel they are entitled to things and
don't have to earn them. if you lack the ability to get out of these kinds of
situations (which is difficult a lot of the time) then you just have to suck
it up and survive - and be grateful you are being paid money for a job instead
of having to survive at even lower levels.

on the other hand, bravo for doing your bit to raise awareness of the poor
quality of life that many people must endure to survive. a nice reminder that
we are in the top 1% of the top 1%...

just my opinions as a former starving african child who once had to steal and
find food to survive... actual survival where if you don't do it you die - and
where things like law and society mean nothing because they are mere
fabrications and reality is king.

