That's a fair point. My first job was retail, and I was accidentally late for a shift _once_ and I got put on probation for weeks and wasn't even allowed to take sick leave during the probationary period. The better the job the less you're treated like trash. People float all sorts of explanations for why this would be, but I think fundamentally people just don't know how to move away from class hierarchy. I think it's built into us.
I believe it's because if you are easily replaceable, then screwing up means you're not worth the trouble. If you aren't easily replaceable (whether it's because you have demonstrated you're a good employee or you're working a high-demand role), you are worth the trouble and you'll get more chances. There are other reasons too, such as jurisdictions where suing after being laid off is more common, which makes more chances, PIP and severance packages more likely.
>I believe it's because if you are easily replaceable, then screwing up means you're not worth the trouble.
These ideas work great when you have a large/growing labor population, we're seeing it start to fall apart in a tight/shrinking labor population. "nobody wants to work" is the drum beat of the employers that used to burn employes.
Well, then they're not easily replaceable. Which implies those workers have other options. And thus employers that treat workers worse than other employers will see workers leave and/or find it harder or more expensive to hire. So it all works out.
Well, maybe fast-food restaurants were a low-interest-rate phenomenon or whatever the equivalent term is (a high-labour-supply phenomenon?). If that kind of business can't afford good enough working conditions to get a decent supply of labour while selling its products at a decent price, then yeah, the whole industry will burn. But if there's a demand for it then sooner or later someone will start offering it. I think that probably looks like a decoupling between middle-class-oriented (e.g. Costco or Chipotle) and working-class-oriented.
During COVID a new kind of food business sprung up called a virtual restaurant (or a ghost kitchen), where instead of having to rent a restaurant space and hire wait staff, they just had a kitchen and delivery drivers. Lower expenses, fewer staff.
Eventually, those delivery drivers will be replaced by delivery drones.
I promise I’m not that whiggish when it comes to automation, but there was a time when a good portion of human labour was washing clothing, and now that’s become much less of a thing for much of the world.
Perhaps food service and in-person retail will start to go that way too. It’s my hope we can navigate that and still make a place where it won’t be so bad.
Sometimes we do our own laundry, sometimes we pump our own gas, and sometimes we prepare our own meals. Not having a servant to do those things for us doesn’t make us destitute; it makes us human.
Why don't I cut my own hair? Because I'm shit at it.
If you went to a barber, and you sat down for a haircut, and they handed you a pair of clippers, would you go back? Fuck no!
The problem with having customers do their own checkout isn't that the fat and lazy customers have to get off their fat asses. No. It's that customers are unbelievably shit at that.
Have you noticed that, despite there being, like 10x as many self checkout lanes than before, the lines are longer than ever? Go ahead and do the math on that. Not only are people doing more work, they're paying more for it too, and it's a much worse service. Lose, lose, lose. Unless you're the corporate overlords.
Often I hear "I wouldn't take a higher paying job. It's not worth the stress". But I find the opposite to be true. The better paid the job, the less that's expected of you.
