The richest one percent spending their money to keep everyone else poor. I’m shocked, shocked i tell you. Well, not that shocked, maybe just hungry? Eat the rich.
Trebuchets won’t give you indigestion, are environmentally and economically friendly, easy to assemble, and require no permits to own or operate. They are also capable of flinging the fattest of fatcats at least 150m, which is either far enough, or we fire again.
In today’s episode of “White male cisgender affluent, mentally disconnected from reality, emotionally immature CEO, has an irrational hissy fit in public over someone or something that doesn’t let him be cruel and controlling over other humans”…
Have you noticed that most (almost all) CEOs are white male cis gendered? I’m sure it’s a coincidence though, they definitely deserve their wealth beyond imagination, as they are objectively superior human beings, and I’m 100% sure they didn’t do anything unethical to amass their incalculable power and affluent life style.
What does that have to do with the makeup of CEOs in the US? If you look at the demographics of CEOs here vs the demographics of the population here, the CEO demographics aren’t even close to that of the population. They usually aren’t even close to the demographics of the companies they head. Doesn’t that seem kinda odd?
In the top 10, 7 are cis white men, along with these 3:
Karen Lynch, CVS
Amin Nasser, Aramco
Sundar Pachai, Alphabet
Bringing up sexual orientation, gender Identity, and racial identity is what these billionaires want. Plenty of “girl bosses” have shown they are perfectly capable of exploiting labor. Peter Thiel is a perfect example of how you don’t have to be straight to oppress people. The CEO of Microsoft isn’t white.
UAW just announced a strike against 3 manufacturers today, including GM whose CEO is Mary Teresa Barra.
Then of course there’s tons of CEO’s and billionaires from Asia, Mexico, and the Middle-East. Calling out Cis White Men does nothing but cause further divisions between members of the working class. There’s plenty of CIS straight white men out there laboring and being repressed by a variety of different demographics.
Let me get this straight. These absolute psychopaths want you to:
Pay them
To employ
CHILDREN
AS YOUNG AS FIVE
Are you FUCKING joking with me right now what the FUCK is this dystopian hellhole bullshit
Okay, okay. I wasn't thinking clearly when I wrote this, it makes no sense for this to be a thing during opening hours. I think it's understandable why I read it that way, and I think at least a few others did too, but I can recognise I was wrong, that this is an actual "summer camp" kind of thing, and that the company isn't being cartoonishly evil here.
I do not doubt that whoever approved it thought that it might add to the crop of future applicants in a "butterfly effect" manner, and smiled at the thought, but it would be too much even to say that's a secondary goal.
Christ. You're right that it's not better. Work experience I can get behind, apprenticeship I can get behind, but this is so blatantly exploitative and dangerous the only thing that surprises me more is that parents are dumb enough to fall for it.
Yeah, just wanted to make sure people knew this wasn’t some new thing. It’s been going on since at least the 90’s, and I’d bet if you found someone older, they’d say it’s been going on longer
kids are dumb, they like things that we as adults wouldn't even consider 'enjoying', an afternoon behind the counter of a fast food restaurant they like going to would absolutely be a blast for a child. same reason why we had the macca's fisher price thing back in the 90s, or Barbie sets with real world grocery items, it's a different type of playground for them.
I think it boils down to the whole "we learn by doing" thing that's at the heart of a lot of play. And especially for kids, imitating what you see the adults in your life do all the time holds some mystique and new-ness that makes boring tasks seem like exciting activities. To us, filing taxes and loading the washing machine are repetitive tasks we do out of necessity, but to kids, it's a "grown-up thing" to be able to do.
I mean, the kids aren't capable of doing actual work that would actually be profitable for the company. They're going to slow the entire restaurant way down and probably break things. Honestly this sounds like a bad idea for the restaurant. Imagine the pure fucking chaos if all 30 kids are five years old.
I agree with this in part, but even if they can't do the literal work listed in the actual ad itself, then that just makes it dangerous. They're going to be around hot surfaces and boiling oil and sharp kitchen implements I presume they will be kept away from hot surfaces, boiling oil, and sharp kitchen implements while the real employees do all that stuff, and that there won't be customers in the restaurant at the time. But I'll lay money a kid is gonna get hurt by those things anyway, because they're as young as five and... well, anyone who's dealt with children knows they get into everything. You're bang-on right that there is no way in fuck this is a good idea.
Edit: I also want to clarify, I'm not aiming any hostility at you. I'm just really upset about adding yet another bead to the child labour bracelet America's making itself.
I'd never send my kids there, for sure. Although $50 to watch and feed my kid for a whole day does sound tempting.
The increase in child labour in America does seem concerning. I'm not American so I haven't heard too much but I did hear there are some 14 year olds packing meat? Meat processing plants are awful places to work for anyone but especially kids.
There have been several teenagers severely injured or killed working on and around dangerous industrial equipment in sawmills and meat processing facilities already, yeah, and one company alone had illegally employed over 100 kids for the night shift or illegally hired 13 year-olds (under the minimum age of 14). It's galling and more than a little chilling, in the context of the sustained attacks on reproductive rights and access to contraception.
There's a cynical humor in imagining some poor fast food employees trying to be like "Okay settle down, children, we're gonna show yo--Hey put that down, okay quiet down now PLEASE!" , trying not to lose their minds to a bunch of sugared-up "Braedens" and "McKeinLeighs" who are unaccustomed to listening to anybody that's not living in their iPads. 😂
Define exploitative? As a person that had led these events (not organized them), work basically halts during these events. You are literally showing children how to operate machines. It's a show for the parents. The kids are not being exploited anymore than if you took them to a ranch and they brushed a horse. The children are not improving operations or efficiency. Bu all definitions, they make work worse.
Obviously brushing a horse is an unusual and fun experience, but that guy is right that they're the same amount of exploration. Kids want to play pretend at a restaurant. It's fun. Didn't your school do an "enterprise village" type field trip where you all play act grown up jobs for a day? It's fun!
This is not exploration. The children are not providing anything of value period, except perhaps good will towards the brand in the future.
Kids should have nothing to do with the corporate world until they are old enough to deal with it rationally. Whatever the rationale is for doing so, fast food joints want to materially exploit people and having kids as young as 5 play as burger slingers is beyond creepy. Feel free to have alternative views about it.
Like the absolute only reason I'd be a tiny bit okay with this (and that's still insanely iffy) is if the parents were also going to be doing it with the kids as kind of a bonding experience or something, but even then...
Employ? I might be missing some info but on this image, they only talk about learning. I am aware of some states legalizing child labor, but this could as well be nothing more than fun activity to discover how things work for kids, especially if they enjoy going there to eat, they may be curious about what happens behind the counter. I would like my kids to understand some of the work that happens before they can enjoy their meal.
You're absolutely right, of course, they'd be insane to do this during opening hours for their restaurants. I overreacted. I gave an upvote, but here's a delta too: Δ
My only defense is Chick-Fil-A's atrocious record with regard to worker's rights, their already hiring actual children due to multiple states legalising child labour, my outrage at the children maimed or killed on the job at other companies, the image describing some of the basic duties of an employee, my extreme fatigue from being sick for five days and not sleeping at all last night, and the fact that it also seems like a way to glow up the experience to "get them early" so at least some of them will provide cheap exploitable labour in let's call it 3-7 years.
All these locations were franchised, but the corporation didn't sever ties or implement internal review processes. They didn't even denounce violating child labour laws or endangering children. They're awful.
Congratulations on feeding a demonstrably terrible company, and being proud of it just to be contrarian. You know what, that phrasing wasn't the best way to get my sentiment across. I understand why the cost is so attractive, and it gets the kids out of the house during the summer. I think there are better activities of course, but I'm sure you're kids will have a blast - and I do mean that sincerely, I hope they enjoy it if you send them. I also sincerely hope they don't get hurt.
Uhhh, isn't it just 3 possible days where you choose from? And pay them $35 for 3 hours to do this shit? It's not a camp at all it seems. Or I'm missing something.
Most of us without meaningful capital are either forced to do it in practice with our labor, or be cast out to serve the owners in another way: as capitalist scarecrows. Our homeless exist on purpose, it wouldn’t be that expensive to provide minimal shelter. They exist to die slowly and publicly of exposure, and constant police capital defense force harassment, to terrify the capital batteries into continuing to show up to their jobs to produce value for their owners.
One way or another, those without capital are forced to serve the owners. Nothing “voluntary” about modern market capitalism, short of slitting one’s own throat.
You will serve the owner’s insatiable greed directly, or you will serve as an example and threat to the others.
Our homeless exist on purpose, it wouldn’t be that expensive to provide minimal shelter.
This is literally the truth. The state of California spent billions on serving the homeless over the past several years, and studies found that it would have been cheaper to simply pay their rent. At market rates.
“But I go to work so it isn’t faiiiiiiir if they don’t die in the gutter!”
-Someone struggling to make rent/mortgage, and having 95% of the value they produce extracted to run up the ego scores of our con-men owners.
They propagandize us through the media they own, and the curriculum they influence, to look down and to the side for who to blame, because our benevolent job creators would never work against us, would they? It’s in-fucking-sane.
It's ironic because the cost of labor would be cheaper if the economic conditions that cause homelessness didn't exist. I wouldn't have to demand a six-digit salary if I could maintain my standard of living on five digits.
our society just rewards capitalism. it’s a simple economics problem, really. same product being made with fewer people to pay means company stock value goes up. if we really want to change, we need to flip that model over or heavily regulate it. things like increased hiring, pay raises, and societal contribution should be things that dictate the worth of a company to society, but we don’t speculate on stocks based on non monetary things like that. we just care about the bottom line at the end of the day…
Unionize people. I joined a union and there's no "we're a team" bullshit or the boss going "do me a favor".
4pm hits, you drop what you're doing and go home. You get paid for your job, and the union fees are nothing considering the pay is way higher for union workers in my field.
My unionized company changed our mandated hours from 45 hours a week to 50 hours a week like 2 weeks after I joined it was one of the shittiest jobs I ever had. Pay was good but only because I was forced to sit there for 10 hours a day lol
I don't think these problems should be dismissed out of hand. There is guidance out there on how to take back a shitty union.
The UAW has long been neutered with poor leadership, and sometimes leadership that gets thrown in jail for good reasons. They've recently rebuilt and are making huge gains.
I'm in the UAW, we used to not be able to vote on leadership. Now we can, and with a guy like Shawn Fain in the big chair I feel like we've already come a long way. I voted for him and I'll do it again.
It's fine though I quit it and got a normal non union job that's incredible. Better starting pay better benefits more time off no forced OT while I can work as much OT I want. Gravy job so glad I quit.
One of the very few interviews in my life that I ended early was the one where in the third hour of it, they usually mentioned that the (competitive) salary was based on a 45 hour work week, with "occasional" mandatory overtime as the needs of the company dictated.
Knowing from earlier that they were very short at the position I was interviewing for, I asked for a more specific answer on what I could expect as "occasional" and the response was, "Well the work for your position has been backlogged since the previous employee quit, so for the first 3 to 6 months you can expect to work 50-60 hours each week, every week. After that, it will probably only be two weeks a month. But you can work those extra hours on the weekends too, so it's not as bad as it sounds!"
I was already done but I did some quick mental math and realized that dividing even their higher salary by that many more hours, not only was it insanely more work but was actually like a 15% pay cut, in terms of hourly rate, than the job I currently had.
I explained this to the guy and asked how much wiggle room there was on salary and he basically said something to the effect of, "Maybe in a few years you can negotiate salary, but coming in you're really in no position to argue for more pay."
So I thanked him for his time and told him the interview was over.
Depends on the Union, sadly. My wife was a Union rep, she had a grievence, the higher up union leaders and the employer met ahead of her scheduled meeting and screwed her over in the grievance meeting. I'm not sure if she was more mad at losing the grievance, or having to pay dues to be screwed by the union.
This happens at my job too. Overall the benefits of my union far outweigh how shit they are and the union dues. I'd rather have a crappy union than none at all.
I know my company would screw me over much worse than my union and company combined if there was no union.
I've found having a spine is much more beneficial than remaining at a job a person hates and expected some union rep to do the looking out for yourself on your behalf.
Being in a union is as much about sticking up for your fellow workers as is it is about "looking after No1".
Sure, if you don't like your job you could just quit and move on, but that's not always a choice. You could organise as a workforce that fights to make work better not just for yourself and your colleagues, but for your fellow countrymen and your children's generation too.
One of my biggest social media pet peeves. A screenshot of a headline is a useless post. They either took the screenshot and chose to not include the link or - more likely - they copied it from some Instagram page
It denies everyone the article, it's not searchable, and it's inaccessible for people using things like screen readers. People who screenshot text deserve a special place in hell.
Not the point...and the guy I was replying to posted the link already. My issue is that posting a screenshot without the article means you have to then look it up
Workers who receive 11 to 15 days of PTO each year are more likely to use up their days, Rodney says, but there's a significant drop-off once people get 16 or more days.
And here I am, thinking my 30 days are too little.
No, I think my supervisor would approve as many days as I want as long as I also get all of my work done. There’s always just too much work to do, it seems.
But that's not your problem. If you cannot handle the work assigned to you, you are overworked and that's the fault of your employer. I think what millennials and zoomers are doing is just not falling for the bullshit we've been living with for so long.
I think this bullshit is more prevalent today than in the past. Companies found more loopholes to go around (for example unlimited vacations[1]), the worker protections aren't enforced as strictly.
I believe this phenomenon is likely US specific.
[1] unlimited vacations look great on paper, but with them the company no longer needs to track of 2 weeks of vacations, so they no longer need to pay them when you leave the company and not used them and also doesn't have to force you to use it. The peer pressure makes you unlikely to take more anyway to not look like a slacker.
God, same. But please realise that it's not your fault if you have more work than can be done. Take the time off to refresh. Both your mental health and your work performance will be the better for it.
I've recently got in the habit of scheduling all of my time off for the year in one go. Sure sometimes I regret it, because I'm right in the middle of something when time off comes, but ah well
There’s always just too much work to do, it seems.
I remember reading a quote from someone that said something along the lines of "No one on their deathbed ever says 'I wish I'd spent more time at the office'".
Fair! I suppose find myself with sooo much excess vacation time since WFH means I don’t have to take “me” days to recharge like I did when I had to go into a horrible open office every day.
Also, in the US, employers have to pay departing employees for any unused PTO. If the PTO is "unlimited," there's (perhaps counterintuitively) nothing to reimburse.
Honestly, having had both paid out PTO and unlimited, I'll take unlimited. It sounds like you're getting fucked by not getting your PTO paid out, but you also aren't incentivized to hold onto your PTO on the off chance you get paid out if you leave. I've found my mental health to be better now that I'm actively taking my leave instead of rationing it since I can just take it without wondering if I'm going to have to take an unpaid day late in the year.
If your employer is halfway decent, sure. Unfortunately some (like mine) will start denying pto requests once you hit 2 weeks. So then you say "fine, I'll take it unpaid" and they say "that's not an option." The fuck it is...
That's only true in California. Accrued PTO does not have to be paid out, nor rolled into the next year. Some employers will pay it out but it's not a law. Except in California.
“Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.”
― George Carlin
Many parts of the system were designed to disenfranchise various groups. One of the most effective of those parts is the message that your vote doesn’t matter.
Voting is like taking public transportation, it’s not going to take you to your exact destination but you get on the bus that gets you closer.
Not getting on the bus because it doesn’t go exactly where you want to, or you don’t like the bus driver is allowing others to take you in the exact opposite direction.
Voting alone might not but it's an important part of the process. You should agitate and organize, but also go vote and get your friends to go with you.
I love that there’s always someone who brings this one thing up…
Nobody’s right 100% of the time. But he was right far more often than not, and far more correct than most anyone else running their mouths about the same subjects.
He wasn’t wrong. During this time the parties although different and Republicans being shitter, were much closer together. They were both pro corporate with differences on social issues.
Today… The Republicans have gone full batshit trying to overthrow democracy. I guarantee you, if George was alive he’d be saying VOTE and vote for Democrats until we’ve gotten rid of the dangerous fascists.
I work for the Canadian government. During an all-staff meeting for my department, our Deputy Minister said in front of God and everyone that he figured the carbon emissions were about the same between working from home and commuting to government offices. A couple months later he got promoted to be the Deputy Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada.
The guy has only studied political science… Imagine if they put people with a background actually related to their ministry in place instead…
Fucking hell, he’s been the DM of six different ministries since 2015… No wonder we keep receiving emails telling us a new DM is in charge, it’s a game of musical chair!
Wait until the dumb asses in our country put Pierre Peckerhead in power. He also studied Political Science and then went straight to government. Actually I think he studied IR, but you say Potato, I say Potaato.
No disrespect to people that studied Political Science (I studied Political Science), but people that studied Political Science and then just went straight to government have absolutely no idea what the real world is like. There was a type when I went to school, for example do you remember when you went to elementary school and you saw little Peter and you just knew he was going to grow up to be a cop? You just knew, like there’s a certain personality type that you can absolutely predict their future profession, right? Well same thing, there were a few ding dongs that I was forced to suffer through my University days, none of which have disappointed my predictions in that they all work in government, and they are all insufferable knobs who wouldn’t know an honest days work if it kicked them in the ass.
The Commission also finds that instead of using noncompetes to lock in workers, employers that wish to retain employees can compete on the merits for the worker’s labor services by improving wages and working conditions.
The push to return to the office was always about the value of commercial mortgage backed securities. Worker satisfaction is not even a topic to the people who decided it must be so.
I'm sure that's part of it, but most office-based companies do not own commercial real estate. They're renters of it. Having workers return to the office does nothing for the value of their property, as they don't own any.
While it does give management a sense that they're paying rent on those long-term commercial leases for a reason, it's pretty clear that the real value for them is in being able to directly see employees when they're not in-camera. Managers and ownership have demonstrated that they do not trust their employees, and pulling them back into the office is much more about feeling like they can control their lessers than it is about anything else.
It’s something of a prism of top-down class warfare, there are so many layers to it. I’m sure middle managers have exactly the same motivations as you (edit: as you mention. sorry), because I’ve had those managers doing exactly what you’re describing to me right in the middle of lockdown.
If after 3 years of a pandemic, a manager is unable to achieve success with remote employees, that manager is failing and should be let go.
I led a team on two continents at my last company, and my CEO had the nerve to tell us that RTO was so we could “get the crucial face to face time that ensures cooperation and efficiency”
Face to face. With Europe. From Ohio. Okay.
She could’ve just told us she has no idea how to function in a remote environment, but Forbes articles about how our company’s value was “deteriorating rapidly” was a big enough clue.
Preaching to the choir. I left my last job because they mandated return to office so that I could work remotely with teams in Montreal and Paris.
The only difference between doing that in my home office and doing it from their office was they could watch over my shoulder from there.
It's not about managing remote teams. It's about controlling workers, and those are very different things. These people are worried that you might be getting your laundry done between work tasks, or that you're actually working 5 jobs, or other ridiculous bullshit, not about whether you're achieving your assigned tasks.
Remote work is cheaper, more efficient, and leads to happier workers, and they'd rather wreck the first two to ensure the don't have the third.
I’d argue that if you’re worried about what your salaried employee is doing between tasks, when their tasks are being completed, you’re a bad manager full stop.
That’s what I meant by saying people were incapable of managing remote teams.
You and I both know it’s always entrenched senior leadership, too, and they’re never the ones losing their jobs to incompetence.
This whole shift in working has been eye-opening and frustrating in equal measure.
The training costs are not the craziest part of this claim from my perspective: The Skin and Cancer Institute was trying to make her repay US$38,000 in training costs and more than US$100,000 for “loss of business” caused by the company’s inability to transfer Ms Lakey’s responsibilities to someone new.
They we’re probably paying a fraction of that as a salary and then want to hold the employee accountable that they can’t find a replacement. Crazy world…
Ok, I also don't like glamorizing a cooperation but I'll let folks in on something as a parent; kids genuinely are interested in occupational stuff, especially if they see it regularly. Just at Target, for instance, they sell kid sized target branded cashier make believe stuff. And I do mean branded, with all the store brand names and everything.
I'm not getting my kid this mostly cause I'd rather not support the brands, but I do think it's important to let kids know that it's ok to work these jobs if that's your deal. If anything, we as adults need to make the jobs give a living wage and not be expoitive, and to do that, you also have to teach the next generation that these jobs have value.
(And honestly, I prefer it over glamorizing police or military, which we've done with toys and events since forever!)
i do feel like they could just skip the fucking cost for it, i get that they need to cover the food and tshirt and stuff, but also they are a massive corporation that is getting to propagandize to their future workers, so like maybe just eat that cost so it doesn't leave a dystopian aftertaste?
Put a different way: if a poor family is able to get their kid into this so the kid gets a free meal and a better shot at landing a job, that's probably the closest they can get to doing something wholesome.
This. Kids love "dramatic" play...that is, imaginative play in a costumed role.
Plenty of kids with day-glow vests and hardhats, nobody is knocking them. Plenty of kids with cop costumes, or cowboy hats, or spacesuits, or fireman jackets.
I agree with you entirely...it's a bit "weird" on the surface, but this is really great play for kids. Kids are absolutely interested in what happens behind the scenes (or at least behind the counter) and building independence by making their own snacks and stuff.
Just as long as they aren't having kids working at factory chicken farms. Because that would likely scar them for life. Then again, maybe they should.
Maybe at a cushy white collar office job. I work at a hospital. There is no down time when you are on the clock, that’s true for nurses, doctors, housekeeping, pharmacy, lab, food service - I’d imagine the same is also true for all sort of service industry workers, and also factory workers, farmers, construction, and so so many others. Let’s stop pretending that everyone just sits in front of a computer all day.
I just posted the same thing. I used to be a bartender/ server and work in retail. You DON’T rest. Not on your own schedule at least
My work is hybrid these days and I have tasks to complete instead of just drink from the firehose of task garbage being thrown my way. I can control the ebb and flow of my workday and slack or be a champion as needed.
Oh, I work 4 9 hour day weeks too. My quality of life is better in every way and i STILL dick around certain days. You probably make a lot more than I do but it’s not worth it to get home and have zero bandwidth
To be fair, for those jobs the 5 day workweek, as it is known traditionally, has never been true. They were always either doing starnge shifts like 24 hours twice then 2 free days, repeat or working way more than 5 days a week, based on demand (which of course has been increasing since businesses hire less and less for some fuckin reason).
Those are the first jobs we need to change into 4 hours for 3 days shifts or something. It’s dangerous for everyone to work without sufficient recovery
Exactly. I definitely would not want a nurse or a doctor to operate on me when there on the last stretches of a 12 hour shift, running on 5 hours of sleep. The only question I ask any doctor, nurse or dentist before they start any procedure on me is “how many hours of sleep did you get last night”… Anything less than 6-7 hours puts me in more risk than I’d accept!
It’s criminal how you are all treated because of purposeful under-staffing. Everyone needs downtime. The human mind does not go full throttle for 8-12 hours straight, and I’m well aware you often have longer shifts than that in a hospital! If medical staff had some downtime during their shifts, patient outcomes would improve, and not just by a little bit.
I’m a doctor and intentionally set my own hours to four day work weeks whenever I can, because I run my own practice and can do that. Let’s not pretend it’s a badge of honour to grind ourselves into a twitching mess.
This is exactly my problem as well… We wanted to try a 4 day work week at my factory but they said no because we need to ship things 5 days a week… Except for the fact that we almost never ship more than 1 or 2 things in any given day and they are rarely things that need to go asap… One day wouldn’t kill them but they’re stuck in the past.
I work five days in a warehouse. If I go more than five minutes without scanning a box then it alerts the manager and they’ll come down and see what’s occurring.
So yeah. I feel like this stat is more for office sorts who (and I may be wrong here) spend a lot of time on Reddit and Facebook during the work day.
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