Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday March 24 2017, @11:16AM   Printer-friendly
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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday March 24 2017, @04:16PM (2 children)

    Guess again. I've never had anyone quit a job with me who wasn't moving on to something better because of the skills they'd picked up working with me. And I don't for a second begrudge them that. If they become worth more than I'm paying, and I pay what the job is worth, then they should absolutely find something better. The unskilled labor that would normally pay chicken feed I've generally done myself because it's not worth the trouble of hiring anyone to do.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday March 27 2017, @01:33PM (1 child)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday March 27 2017, @01:33PM (#484595) Journal

    You presume the labor market works better than it does. I've seen it on both sides. Hard to find the job you want, and hard to find someone to hire for the job you have to fill.

    It's the latter in particular that leads me to believe you're not being honest when you say you don't begrudge the employee who leaves you for a better job. You do. You have to stop doing productive work and start reading resumes and interviewing people again. As mercenary a market as this has become, that still takes time and is a pain in the ass.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 27 2017, @09:13PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 27 2017, @09:13PM (#484879) Journal

      It's the latter in particular that leads me to believe you're not being honest when you say you don't begrudge the employee who leaves you for a better job. You do. You have to stop doing productive work and start reading resumes and interviewing people again. As mercenary a market as this has become, that still takes time and is a pain in the ass.

      Sounds like Buzz has successfully impedance matched his expectations to reality. Perhaps you could give that a try sometime.