#all so i can do fucking minimum wage menial labor.

[yourheartinyourmouth]

being the only person you know who is struggling is so fucking humiliating.

we’re talking about getting me a job at a gas station. my friends all make $60K plus.

i have to work in a gas station.

[iris-eyez]

Like here's the thing...

Some people like working retail. They like folding clothes and helping people buy things and managing a store.

Some people like working as teachers. They like going into work and helping children learn and grading papers.

Some people like being librarians and helping people discovering books. And coming up with programs to give to their patrons.

Some people like being baristas. They like making coffee and getting creative with the drinks that they make. They like chatting with regulars and helping people discover what flavors they do and don't like.

Some people like working fast food. They like the fast pace. They like the almost game like aspect of it where you have to get people what they need as fast as people. They like prepping the food in the same way every time being it relaxes and soothes them.

Some people like cleaning garbage. They like beautifying and organizing space. They like knowing that the work that they do helps the world stay beautiful and keeps plants, animals, and people safe and clean. They like the meditative quality of it and sometimes they can teach others the importance of keeping spaces clean or maybe just finding new and interesting people to talk to.

BUT WE CANNOT DO THAT BECAUSE NO ONE IS PAYING A LIVING WAGE.

I wish I could just stay at home and spend my life reading and reviewing books and writing my silly little stories on my silly little tumblr. Self publish a book or two maybe once or twice a year and just spend my life in my own personal library just encouraging others to read.

BUT I CANT DO THAT. BECAUSE THAT DOESN'T PAY ME ENOUGH. SO I AM STUCK HERE WORKING MY ASS OFF IN A JOB I DON'T LIKE BUT DON'T HATE SLOWLY GRINDING MY LIFE AWAY.

I think that is why I am so stuck on wage transparency and pressuring Congress to raise the minimum wage. Like people want to do those jobs that seem menial and stupid. They LIKE those jobs. They deserve to be able to do them and live the lives they want.

A Garbage Collector deserves to collect the garbage and take their family to Disney should they want to.

A Librarian deserves to shelve their books and then go home and spend however much they want on their Pokemon collection.

If a teacher who spends way too much time on grading wants to spend their summer backpacking across Europe to unwind from the school year they should be able to do that with having to worry about losing their house.

All jobs are worthy of dignity and respect and this is why we need labor unions and higher minimum wage and companies to stop buying up all the fucking houses. Like there are so many problems in this country I have no idea which one to tackle first, but I know who to blame.

Fuck you Ronald Reagan.

[rametarin]

The duality

I think back to my childhood and I realize two truths.

1.) Child Labor laws are good.

2.) I really, really, really wanted to be able to hold a normy ass register job and do shit for frivolous spending cash when I was sub-16 years of age.

No joke. Sincerely. Fuck. At age 8 I wanted a color television for my room so bad. I saved up birthday and Christmas money and did chores for change.

And then I bought myself a fucking 13″ television from General Electric.

I just wish it was possible to have both child labor laws but also, if a young person demonstrates will and maturity, some sort of vocations, some sort of occupations, some way in which they can join the job market and earn money. If only for frivolous things.

Perhaps some sort of monetary extension of the child welfare system, or something. Some way to ensure that if a young person is working, that it’s NOT just to subsidize the parent’s job to provide for them. A program that’d let them keep their money, but could not just have it jacked by some crackhead parent- some way to show that the kid isn’t being exploited by their parents.

And perhaps make it apply to federal minimum wage laws, so you can’t just hire a kid for below-minimum-wage work.

SOME system that would let young people contribute in some way and profit off the experience. Some system that’d better protect them while also giving them more freedom.

As for “that’s not fair! Those jobs belong to those over 18 that need them!” people? Well, most of you folks are happily applauding as those lower menial jobs get priced out of existence by declaring burger flippers need to make $15-$25 an hour, or the jobs need to disappear anyway. So you’re contributing more to the problem of poor people unable to find gainful employment far worse than parent-subsidized pint sized scabs.

Being unable to work before 16 or 18 means you’re all but REQUIRED to buy with credit, not cash you have on you. Living on credit is a form of slavery putting the value on the creditor, not you as the consumer. And I just wish I could’ve done it.

I would’ve loved some sorta system that’d let me use my weekends, maybe use some sorta self-driving electric car, get to the supermarket and just.. mop and sweep floors or something for minimum wage. When you’re a kid and your clothes and rent and electricity and water is all paid for already? Fuck you can save bank like woah. Any job will do. Families would appreciate the frivolous spending load being lifted, kids would get more freedom in what they buy, the economy would pick up, people would grow into more autonomous adults.

But I also realize the horrific way child labor can be abused and exploited and undersold or used as a weapon against the adult poor. So figuring out how to have this cake and eat it too is beyond me right now, but it’s something I think about a lot.

[broccococcoli]

I hate the question "why do you wanna work here" because the short answer is that I don't and the long answer is that I need this job to pay for college and if I didn't have to be working it I wouldn't but employers don't wanna hear that they wanna hear "because i want to foster a rewarding career that benefits both myself and the company :)" this woman wants me to lie to her fucking face that I want to work at Walmart stocking shelves for 11.50 an hour so I can have a "rewarding career". the rewarding career I'm actually looking for is one where I get to draw for a living like I always wanted to and not end up doing menial labor for a rate slightly above minimum wage for a company I only slightly tolerate for the sake of convenience. like I'm selling you my labor but employers, what ever company they work for, make it like they want your undivided devotion to them and their profit when really all this is for me is a transaction where I am being paid to provide a service to this company. like I wish I could treat it as such but I'll get fired if I say that so.

[darkarm66]

Minimum Wage

So a couple of days ago, I saw a post that said minimum wage is going up in California. This was met with concern and worry because it went to the same dumb conclusion: ‘its gonna make everything more expensive’. I wanna take a moment and gawk at the cognitive dissonance it takes to live in Los Angeles and think people making a bigger hourly wage is the thing that makes Los Angeles ‘expensive’.

This lead to an argument at work where people were upset and that went to the another dumb conclusion: it hurts businesses and owners shouldn’t have to pay employees higher wages to keep operating.

Honestly, I never engaged with this debate because the other side always reveal their inhumanity by doing this. To believe that cooks, cashiers, janitors, and wait staff do not possess any intelligence and their skills are interchangeable is fucking heartless. And then to jump to ‘they don’t deserve to be paid’ is stupid. And it’s always fast food/restaurant workers who get put front and center of this. As if people who make you food don’t deserve better pay. How in the fuck do people walk around thinking people who feed your non-cooking ass don’t deserve a better standard of wages? 

And the reason why they deserve it is not necessarily because of their skills. IT’s because these corporations can fucking afford it. McDonalds and Taco Bell ain’t bleeding profit margins. A higher wage may mean the employees you have may be more motivated to show up and work harder and can depended on through an entire shift. That means the service can stay at a high level, that means people who buy from those places would actually like to return and keep spending. Which means that place becomes more valuable.

In order for more money to come into a place, people need to have more money to spend which comes from giving them higher wages. When people are squeezed to basic necessities being all they can buy, forget about paying your employees. No money is coming in because will forgo using what could’ve been disposable income on necessities elsewhere. Utilities, hygiene, sustenance, medicine, transportation-that’ll stop revenue in any fast food place because staying alive just became more important than a Happy Meal. And add in rent, which is just skyrocketing in LA, people are having to forgo actually food to afford a place to stay in. 

Rent is truly one of the things that are making things worse and nobody looks at it and says ‘this is actually bad’. Nope, people want to invest and flip to other people, inflating market value to made up numbers and it prices people out of being to afford to stay in it. And there’s nothing done about generations of families being displaced because a new property owner thinks a studio is now worth 1200 dollars. It’s part of cycle to keep people right on the poverty line and stay desperate enough to take anything to stay afloat: like low wages and shitty living conditions. We see the jig. 

‘But, but-why don’t they go to school and get smarter to pull their self up by their bootstraps?!?’ I’m glad you asked, dummy. Because going to school requires money and time. If you have money in short supply, you can’t take the risk of less hours, paying for classes, and trying to learn a skill to get a better job. And trying to work a 40 hour job, then doing classes throughout an entire week and not go insane is madness. Working people to point of exhaustion is dangerous because that person is gonna make a mistake that will require more time to clean up and that person will be in such bad health that they’ll be stuck on meds that can barely afford because their lack of hours doesn’t qualify them for their employer’s health coverage, leading them to probably a second job. My CEO actually fucking said that corporations should just pay into a fund that allows for education and training for people to learn more work skills......so, taxes. Because these order takers and fry cooks people love to denigrate are coming from a system that doesn’t care for funding education on level that actually educates. Just enough to be menial labor that doesn’t think beyond that.

And this notion that fast food employees aren’t educated is a lie as well. That last little recession that hit back in 2007 forced so many people who had great jobs into that workforce. So, it’s not just pimply teenagers trying to save up for a car that’s taking your order. There are parents, sisters and brothers who provide for their siblings, someone who’s sending that money back to their home country, where they would’ve been a doctor or lawyer. 

So what happens to that worker who’s gonna be making 15 an hour. In that month, if they happen to do 40 hours every week, that check will allow them to pay rent without getting a pay day loan, they can keep the lights and heat on at their own place. And their own place can now be filled with things they can enjoy, like books, games, movies, music, television, or a hobby they can enjoy to a point and then decide they may wanna make a business of it. And when they spend money on things they enjoy, that money goes to a place that sells that and will restock it because now that place has a product in demand and other people are willing to spend money on it, like clothes. That clothing store will need to order materials to make sure its in stock because people will have money to spend on clothes and if enough people have money, then they will have enough stock to meet demand and make their money back on the supply they bought. And now: 2 businesses are growing because now that clothing store has to pay for employees to make sure they can take the money for the purchases and ensure that the customer gets what it wants. And the money that goes back to the cashier allows them to possibly save and go to school in their off time to learn other skills so they can have their own clothing store because there needs to be more than one store since people all of sudden has money to spend on clothing. Or instead of going back to school, that cashier can use that well paying job to take a trip. That means having enough to pay for 2 plane tickets, a way to get there, traveling around the city, paying for a hotel room, which goes to the staff that makes the stay beyond pleasant by cleaning that person’s room, bringing food, and generally being helpful. 

A person on a decent living wage is now supporting multiple businesses and industries, which allows them to hire other people to be engaged to do the same. And it allows people to....KEEP DOING THAT. Paying people a decent living brings a peace of mind that shakes people out of their own despair and those make feel people trapped under a system that exploits labor and money to a point people won’t fight back. Speaking of which...

It’s no coincidence that Trump being president and wages and stores are closing. Deep down, people have bought into the fact that this ‘taxes’ boogeyman is stopping ‘you’ from living your best life. And it’s not a coincidence that people of color bought into it because they want to be that person at the table buying the fancy plates, sitting at the best tables. They never realize that after they buy into it and start thinking they’ll sit at those tables, they’re gonna have their chair yanked from them as soon as they try to sit down. Selling out and punching down your own people is white supremacy’s greatest tool to keep POCs fighting with one another and not advancing our own cultures. Trying to be a better class of people won’t stop the cops from thinking a college grad is a ‘nigger’, believing fast food people are stupid won’t stop a Latino from being looked at as the help at a dinner party. They truly do not want people to become smarter and more skilled. A smarter population won’t rebel.

When people in LA are against a higher minimum wage because of ‘the fast food workers’, they’re really saying that they don’t want blacks, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, and all the other ‘minorities’ from ever escaping the bubble that allows them to be exploited. And the ones who never have to deal with that don’t want others to escape it because it means they no longer have to be on the pedestal of ‘I made it!’. They want to keep that prestige to their selves because they believe it’s their invite into a better world. They think they’ll lose all they have.

When in truth, all it can do is destroy these myths of elitism and prestige and see we all people and everyone can win. We all don’t need out own pizza to eat, if we can get fed from a decent slice if we make enough pizza to go around. And people don’t need to be MVPs to be fed well.