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from the work-like-a-dog-/-fingers-to-the-bone-/-nose-to-the-grindstone dept.
Mary’s story looks different to different people. Within the ghoulishly cheerful Lyft public-relations machinery, Mary is an exemplar of hard work and dedication—the latter being, perhaps, hard to come by in a company that refuses to classify its drivers as employees. Mary’s entrepreneurial spirit—taking ride requests while she was in labor!—is an “exciting” example of how seamless and flexible app-based employment can be. Look at that hustle! You can make a quick buck with Lyft anytime, even when your cervix is dilating.
[...] It does require a fairly dystopian strain of doublethink for a company to celebrate how hard and how constantly its employees must work to make a living, given that these companies are themselves setting the terms. And yet this type of faux-inspirational tale has been appearing more lately, both in corporate advertising and in the news. Fiverr, an online freelance marketplace that promotes itself as being for “the lean entrepreneur”—as its name suggests, services advertised on Fiverr can be purchased for as low as five dollars—recently attracted ire for an ad campaign called “In Doers We Trust.” One ad, prominently displayed on some New York City subway cars, features a woman staring at the camera with a look of blank determination. “You eat a coffee for lunch,” the ad proclaims. “You follow through on your follow through. Sleep deprivation is your drug of choice. You might be a doer.”
[...] At the root of this is the American obsession with self-reliance, which makes it more acceptable to applaud an individual for working himself to death than to argue that an individual working himself to death is evidence of a flawed economic system. The contrast between the gig economy’s rhetoric (everyone is always connecting, having fun, and killing it!) and the conditions that allow it to exist (a lack of dependable employment that pays a living wage) makes this kink in our thinking especially clear. Human-interest stories about the beauty of some person standing up to the punishments of late capitalism are regular features in the news, too. I’ve come to detest the local-news set piece about the man who walks ten or eleven or twelve miles to work—a story that’s been filed from Oxford, Alabama; from Detroit, Michigan; from Plano, Texas. The story is always written as a tearjerker, with praise for the person’s uncomplaining attitude; a car is usually donated to the subject in the end. Never mentioned or even implied is the shamefulness of a job that doesn’t permit a worker to afford his own commute.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday March 24 2017, @01:13PM (17 children)
taking ride requests while she was in labor!—is an “exciting” example of how seamless and flexible app-based employment can be.
You are fucking with the primal forces of the universe here, Lyft.
But what the hell do I care. Feminists fuck with the health care of people I care about (in addition to myself) because they are too cowardly to do anything but fuck with people who are basically defenseless in retaliation for YOUR shit.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday March 24 2017, @01:21PM (10 children)
All-male White House health bill photo sparks anger [bbc.com]
You goddamned feminists out there think you can just heap all the blame for what's going to happen on assigned males, don't you. You fucking voted for Trump for this solitary reason. You want to control my body? You can have my cold, dead corpse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @01:46PM (3 children)
Uhhhh - nobody WANTS your fucking corpse. Please, just die quietly, so we can screw you into a hole in the ground and forget about you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @02:34PM
Up mod +5 Insightful
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 24 2017, @02:58PM (1 child)
Your insightful comment may be true today. But tomorrow corporations may indeed want your corpse. It could be a valuable food additive so that people can eat 19% less beef. And, it won't take up real estate. What you call a cemetery plot, corporations call floor space for 2 more bunk beds.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @04:07PM
Which is why I plan to be cremated when I die. Just sayin'.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday March 24 2017, @02:28PM (5 children)
Yes, it's all men in that photo deciding to remove maternity coverage as part of new health 'care' bill.
But the astute will also observe that no dark-skinned people are present.
Unknown: are they also all christian, heterosexual, and wealthy?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @02:37PM (4 children)
And this is significant because we all know that vegan trans female moslems of color are SO much more intelligent, compassionate, and taste good with or without sprinkles?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 24 2017, @03:00PM (3 children)
Please be aware that those brightly colored sprinkles are made from insect parts. Look it up.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @03:32PM
"colored sprinkles are made from insect parts"
I knew it! A sprinkle bigot!
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday March 24 2017, @05:47PM (1 child)
You say that like it is a bad thing...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 24 2017, @07:22PM
Eating insect parts could endanger the livelihoods of Twinkie farmers. This would in turn affect sales of large farm equipment for harvesting Twinkies.
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(Score: 2) by Sulla on Friday March 24 2017, @02:45PM (5 children)
Or, you know, she could have gone to the hospital. Nothing requires her to take on more clients. She can't get canned for not taking on clients because she is in labor. The choices made were all hers to make, then she blaimed it on someone else.
If you are a worker who is unable or too unskilled for a real job your options are retail/fast food or apparently lyft. Lyft provides a more flexible schedule than retail/fast food, but provides less safety in clientelle and assured workable hours. So she still made a choice there.
We currently have healthcare, some states much better than others, so that should not have been an issue. Even if it was to choose to work to make more money to pay for the delivery is kind of pointless if the kid dies in labor because of personal bad decision.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday March 24 2017, @03:12PM (4 children)
That's not the point. This is part of the “misogynerd narrative.” It's all about the evil assigned males who keep women out of programming jobs at Lyft with a grand conspiracy to make computers inaccessible to womyn-born-womyn forcing pwecious innocent Hunnies to drive while they're in labor.
Why programming jobs? Because feminists know that nobody is going to stand up for dorks. Like any bully, they pick on those who cannot defend themselves. If that weren't the case, they'd be going after the cocaine-snorting Masters of the Universe instead. But feminism has no problem with sexual harassment and sexism on Wall Street. Gee, I wonder why.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 24 2017, @04:05PM
You're fucking delusional, Kurenai. You're describing one small, loud, overprivileged set of white radfems. Most of us are *nothing* like this. I keep offering you an olive branch, I keep telling you I'm trans-inclusive, and you just shit all over it by saying *all* feminists are evil manhating trans-hating assholes.
You know what? You *deserve* to suffer for that.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @04:15PM (2 children)
I'm a plasma physicist who does a fair bit of programming. I can assure you that I do know how to defend myself. Quite a bit of it is just avoiding situations where I present myself as a convenient target. It's actually not that hard, really.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @06:47PM (1 child)
How does one do this? Do you cloak yourself in a field of ionized radiation on something? TELL ME!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:59AM
Do you really need basic instruction on how not to pick fights with your co-workers? Seriously?!?