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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.


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  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday March 24 2017, @05:37PM (6 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Friday March 24 2017, @05:37PM (#483758)

    How do you actually justify people working full time jobs for less than a living wage?

    So much fallacy in so few words. What do you define to be a 'living wage' is the first failure. I promise you that somebody can 'live' on a lot less than you think.

    But before that lets question the premise itself, where is it graven on stone tablets that anyone who works forty hours -must- get a 'living wage' however defined? You minimum wage morons refuse to notice you are outlawing a LOT of the jobs people learn how to work at, earn spending money as teens working at, used to work while going to college, the elderly working as a door greeter at Walmart because sitting at home was f*cking boring after a year or two of retirement, etc. None of those workers need earn enough to support themselves, they just want to work a few hours a week and make a little money.

    Now lets attack 'living wage'. Google will tell you how many billions of people manage to live on what fraction of what you are likely defining as 'living wage.' Again, show us the stone tablets in God's own handwriting saying that being born in His Promised land of America assures one of a standard of living high enough to live in a home/apartment of one's own, drive a car / hail Uber at will, watch cable tv or Netflix and carry an iPhone. Some unfortunate people might have to live like illegals, six to an apartment, working their asses off to pay the bills and still make time to take some night classes to better themselves so they can get out of that situation and into one where women might find them attractive.

    Do you not tip at restaurants cause they just carry food and write down orders?

    Of course not! Tips are pure capitalism and I celebrate it by instantly rewarding above average service and punishing failure. Enough people do likewise that wait staff learn the lesson well, those who suck do not stay in it long while those who are competent can make a fair living at it.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @09:57PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 24 2017, @09:57PM (#483884)

    Sweet jesus take your circle jerk sessions somewhere else! I know you and your buddies love to troll through these things and pat each other on the back for such keen observations as "None of those workers need earn enough to support themselves, they just want to work a few hours a week and make a little money." You are beyond delusional! Most of those employees DO need the work and it is not about some extra spending money. Comparing livable wages in China to the US? Idiot.

    "Some unfortunate people might have to live like illegals, six to an apartment, working their asses off to pay the bills and still make time to take some night classes to better themselves so they can get out of that situation and into one where women might find them attractive."

    So it is totally fine to have shitty living conditions because... reasons? Did you just miss the last ten thousand years of human progress?

    "I celebrate it by instantly rewarding above average service and punishing failure"

    Yup, sociopath. Delighting in the near-meaningless opportunity to wield some petty power and judgment over someone else. You've got serious issues bud, part of which is ignoring reality. Lots of servers get less than minimum wage because their bosses can play tricks due to expected tips. your favorite website I'm sure [motherjones.com]

    You are a clueless moron promoting horrible cultural values. Maybe you should try using your obviously functional brain to learn some more about the issues beyond your circle-jerked "logic".

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:43AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:43AM (#483986)

      Lots of servers get less than minimum wage because their bosses can play tricks due to expected tips.

      Yeah, it really burns me up inside that restaurant owners are legally allowed to balance their own books on the backs of their under paid staff. How they can live with themselves after doing that is beyond me. Which is why I now typically leave cash as a tip. That way, the server can decide for themselves whether or not they want to give the boss a cut of their tip. If they decide they would rather not, I'm completely OK with that.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 24 2017, @10:13PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 24 2017, @10:13PM (#483893) Journal

    Do you not tip at restaurants cause they just carry food and write down orders?

    Of course not! Tips are pure capitalism and I celebrate it by instantly rewarding above average service and punishing failure. Enough people do likewise that wait staff learn the lesson well, those who suck do not stay in it long while those who are competent can make a fair living at it.

    And you call this capitalism, eh?

    I tell you what I'd do: I'd sue the restaurant for deceptive practices, for advertising (in the menu) lower prices that those actually charged by including the tip. it is a break of (adhesion) contract to ask me to tip your waiters.

    Fortunately, I live in a country where one doesn't need to tip to receive good services.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 1) by Chrontius on Saturday March 25 2017, @09:49PM (2 children)

    by Chrontius (5246) on Saturday March 25 2017, @09:49PM (#484203)

    Don't forget that living like an illegal is, itself, illegal in many places. What's this? Only two unrelated families can share an address? Bollucks. Combined with zoning laws setting minimum dwelling sizes puts a floor on cost of living before we get out of "somewhere to sleep".

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 27 2017, @10:04AM (1 child)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday March 27 2017, @10:04AM (#484567) Journal

      Don't forget that living like an illegal is, itself, illegal in many places. What's this? Only two unrelated families can share an address? Bollucks. Combined with zoning laws setting minimum dwelling sizes puts a floor on cost of living before we get out of "somewhere to sleep".

      There are plenty of examples of people living outside the rules, illegal immigrants, gangs, Uber and the "gig economy", etc. Perhaps, we should start looking at the rules and how those rules are stifling us. When working outside the rules pays off so well, it's often a sign that the rules need reforming badly.

      • (Score: 1) by Chrontius on Wednesday April 05 2017, @12:14AM

        by Chrontius (5246) on Wednesday April 05 2017, @12:14AM (#488910)

        There are plenty of examples of people living outside the rules, illegal immigrants, gangs, Uber and the "gig economy", etc. Perhaps, we should start looking at the rules and how those rules are stifling us. When working outside the rules pays off so well, it's often a sign that the rules need reforming badly.

        My point exactly! Many of those rules are there because someone did something stupid, though, and are there because we don't want to see something bad happen again. 'Course, some of them are protectionist bullshit designed to keep "those people" from living in certain regions - blacks, millennials, poor, whatever. Illegals? Because they're willing to live like illegals because of low standards or desperation, or drive. They're easy to take advantage of, sadly, and their drive is rarely really rewarded. Gangs? Business is always more lucrative if you're willing to engage in violence and murder, I guess, but that's probably something that should stay illegal. Uber? It's easy to get into, it's flexible, but doesn't pay well enough to sustain a lifestyle on it, and if you don't have a vehicle you can't get into it. It's a decent trampoline for someone who's taken a knock that could have pushed them out of the middle class, I guess, but America can do better by our citizens, I think.

        But you're right, we need to re-examine the rules we live by when they demonstrably don't work right.