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from the all-work-and-no-pay-makes-Jack-a-litigious-boy dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following (paywalled) story:
July 26, 2018
Starbucks Corp. must pay employees for off-the-clock work such as closing and locking stores, the California Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in a decision that could have broad implications for companies that employ workers paid by the hour across the state.
The decision is a departure from a federal standard that gives employers greater leeway to deny workers’ compensation for short tasks, such as putting on a uniform, that are performed before they clock in or after they clock out.
More details are available from pbs.org:
The ruling came in a lawsuit by a Starbucks employee, Douglas Troester, who argued that he was entitled to be paid for the time he spent closing the store after he had clocked out.
Troester said he activated the store alarm, locked the front door and walked co-workers to their cars — tasks that required him to work for four to 10 additional minutes a day.
An attorney for Starbucks referred comment to the company. Starbucks did not immediately have comment.
A U.S. District Court rejected Troester’s lawsuit on the grounds that the time he spent on those tasks was minimal. But the California Supreme Court said a few extra minutes of work each day could “add up.”
Troester was seeking payment for 12 hours and 50 minutes of work over a 17-month period. At $8 an hour, that amounts to $102.67, the California Supreme Court said.
“That is enough to pay a utility bill, buy a week of groceries, or cover a month of bus fares,” Associate Justice Goodwin Liu wrote. “What Starbucks calls ‘de minimis’ is not de minimis at all to many ordinary people who work for hourly wages.”
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @07:49AM (69 children)
The difference between a wage slave and a regular slave is the whole 'wage' thing.
(Score: 3, Troll) by BsAtHome on Sunday July 29 2018, @08:12AM (67 children)
Well, yes, but when you are "one paycheck away from poverty", then you could argue that the 'wage' thing is overrated and the 'slave' part is more relevant.
(Score: 0, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 29 2018, @10:35AM (66 children)
Wait, did someone pass a law or hold a gun at someone's head to keep them from learning a marketable skill while I wasn't looking? The only things people are enslaved by are their own ignorance of how to better themselves and the willpower to do so. The former we can help with but the latter nobody can or even should do anything about.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @10:59AM (2 children)
Though you are correct, that does not excuse Starbucks from paying these people for the work that they do. If these tasks are required by their job, and these tasks are required for them to keep their job, then they should get paid for it.
The amount of money this equates to is peanuts for Starbucks. The amount of morale and goodwill they could have bought for this money is ridiculous. Plus, how many employees did they lose because of this measure of disrespect, and what were the costs to replace them?
Nickel and diming your employees will always cost you more in the long run (and often the short run).
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 29 2018, @12:43PM
Yeah, I said that below. This was just a narrowly scoped reply.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @03:04PM
Bad luck for Starsucks having an employee who could afford several trips to court, just to get some nickels and dimes they cheated him for.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by BsAtHome on Sunday July 29 2018, @11:09AM (33 children)
That is (neo)liberal drivel. Sure, there are lots of ignorant people, but it does not follow that the disenfranchised are therefore ignorant. A cow is an animal, but an animal is not necessarily a cow.
Looking historically, there is a fine balance between paying your workforce too much and too little. Pay them too little for too long and they will rebel and make revolutions. Pay them too much and they want to have decent working conditions. The social-capitalism from most western European states have enforced the latter, while too much capitalism will result in the former (although west EU countries are going backwards).
There are only very few individuals that will escape their (poor) heritage and that is almost always by good luck and timing. You do not want too many people to be successful; because then the rich need to share and that is not what being rich is about.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @11:15AM (9 children)
Oh, FFS! This is SN, goddamit. Use car analogies. The only animals we care about are those that produce bacon, and those poisoned by Monsanto.
(Score: 3, Funny) by BsAtHome on Sunday July 29 2018, @11:20AM (8 children)
A car has wheels, but wheels do not necessarily make a car.
Happy now?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @01:16PM
Moooo
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday July 29 2018, @03:25PM (6 children)
Thank the Gods I'm here to fix this stuff.
The appropriate automobile analogy is the UAW union exists to prevent factory workers from being paid to assemble a car and then being forced to paint the car off duty while unpaid if they want to keep that sweet factory job.
Or maybe the factory workers are paid to assemble the engine; now if you want sand from casting removed, or oil put in before starting it for the first time, thats unpaid.
Although honestly I don't understand what's happened in the last quarter century; as a retail supermarket night shift manager a long time ago (while going to school in the day) it was a firing offense FOR ME to have employees working off the clock due to insurance liability reasons and also, for the teens, youth labor regulations (Its illegal to have teens working more than three hours per school night... note the law is specifically written as "working" not "being paid for"). Somehow WRT labor regulations and insurance regulations, unpaid slavery is now both standard and immune to workmans comp or something. The idea that we had no slavery in the USA from 1865 to turn of the century-ish, but its back again, is really weird. I guess slavery is OK in 2018 as long as you're not telling black people to pick cotton, only empty trash cans, or something.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:58PM
Although honestly I don't understand what's happened in the last quarter century
It's simple. The rich have convinced the less intelligent conservatives to elect people who will endeavor to ruin unions, and they've been wildly successful at it. Unions are now weaker than ever.
Like weekends? Thank unions.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 29 2018, @07:35PM (4 children)
People who think like you caused this, VLM. Don't you fucking dare sit there with that injured "who me?" expression. You have a problem with this? Get out there and stump for labor rights.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @03:48AM (2 children)
They're not rights. You're not entitled to be treated well or even reasonably by your boss unless he's violating labor laws. If you were a slave you might be but you can down tools any time you like and go elsewhere. We're sitting on damned good unemployment numbers at the moment, so the jobs are there. Take a page from Johnny Paycheck [youtube.com], it feels fantastic.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday July 30 2018, @07:20PM (1 child)
No one asked you, shitbird. I hate you Lawful Evil types more than anything else on the grid, precisely because you pervert the entire purpose of Law like this.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @07:55PM
Following = perversion, check. The purpose of law in this country is not to give you what you want. It is to prevent the government and your fellow citizens from infringing upon your actual rights. Not entitlements, not furthering the greater good, not anything else. Spend any amount of time studying our founding and this becomes abundantly obvious.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 31 2018, @06:42PM
Technically its those nice people who passed the 1965 immigration reform laws that resulted in a flood of supply; its all supply and demand.
You can stump till you're blue in the face; won't do nothing unless it aligns with supply and demand.
You'd be surprised how many people want pre-65 immigration reform, plenty of stumping for it. That would help quite a bit.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by khallow on Sunday July 29 2018, @12:42PM (3 children)
I suppose it's merely a coincidence then that the ignorant and low willpower people tend to be the poor people.
What a stupid argument. There's not a single boss out there losing sleep over the fact that their working conditions are too decent. They might lose sleep over things like turnover or employee incompetence however which can be addressed by higher wages.
"Their (poor) heritage" is code for ignorance and lack of willpower. Have you ever tried to succeed at something?
(Score: 0, Troll) by VLM on Sunday July 29 2018, @03:32PM (1 child)
Dude... this is Starbucks... those kids just spent four years getting a degree in Wymens Stydies or psych or Ed or art or music or ... They might be dumb in the youthful lack of wisdom sense, and certainly are heavily propagandized into insanity, but they're not medically mentally disabled in the sense of mental brain damage. They may be mentally disabled in the sense of being unable to usefully function in a modern economy, by intentional design of certain people, but they're not mentally disabled in the sense of being unable to tie their shoes or do "a fair days manual labor for a fair days wage" or whatever.
I'm quite sure, at least where I live, that the average percentage of Starbucks workers with degrees approaches 100% whereas the skilled tradesmen at a construction site making perhaps 10 times starbux wage have nearly 0% degrees.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday July 29 2018, @11:18PM
Depends how permanently damaging propaganda-based insanity is. Some of it seems to stick a lifetime.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mcgrew on Sunday July 29 2018, @05:00PM
The poor are ignorant because they don't have decent schools. The rich kids always get excellent schooling.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 29 2018, @12:48PM (17 children)
Timing, somewhat, luck, no. It doesn't take any luck at all to get out of poverty. It takes knowing how and being willing to do it. That's all. Most of the people living in poverty fail on the first count but some fail on the second and cannot be helped.
And you really need to drop some of that envy and greed. They're not part of the seven deadly sins without reason.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday July 29 2018, @02:13PM (9 children)
There's more requirements than that. The game must be fair and rules must be enforced. Ever had an employer who cheated you of your pay? Offered you a job on a 1099 basis only, so they could dodge all the rules concerning wages, such as overtime pay? But they still want to have the wage rules that benefit them. They agree to pay you peanuts, and you take it because you don't have several job offers to think about, you have only the one and that's because jobs are hard to get. And then they cheat on even that. Now that's greed. They've already lowballed you, and then they use unethical ways to chisel you further. Further, it could be entirely legal, thanks to them having bribed lawmakers for favorable legislation. A case in point is the exception to the minimum wage that restaurants enjoy, because waitstaff supposedly gets lots in tips.
Yeah, yeah, you could sue. Lot of problems with that. Lawsuits are costly and time consuming, and the odds of winning what would seem to be even a slam dunk case are way less than 100%. Then, even if you win, collecting is highly uncertain. The employer has ways to evade a settlement, such as going through a bankruptcy, and dragging out the case even longer through appeal after appeal to name just 2.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 29 2018, @03:30PM (8 children)
Untrue. You will never find fairness in life. Fairness is entirely subjective; one person's idea of it will rarely be the same as another.
Which is entirely beside the point. It's not about fairness, it's about what is and how you deal with that. If you want to crusade against how things are, do that in your spare time after you've got a roof over your head and food on the table.
You are never, ever going to get out of poverty working shit jobs that a monkey can do. It's not going to happen. Not ever. Knowing this is the first and most important step to getting out of poverty. The only way you are going to get out of poverty is to pick a job that pays enough in your area and has openings in your area and acquire the skills for that job. This has always and will always be true, a few half-trained monkeys that could use a good firing in union shops aside.
What you think a job should pay is entirely irrelevant. You're not the one doing the paying. So, you have to deal with the facts as they stand. If carpentry pays shit in your area, don't pick carpentry as your career path. If you do, knowing it pays shit in your area, you have no right to bitch.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:49PM (7 children)
> Untrue. You will never find fairness in life.
To the contrary. Yeah, we know the expression "life isn't fair". That's too black and white. Life will never be 100% fair, but there is a lot of fairness in the world. That's what the entire justice system is supposed to be about. It's the cynics and sociopaths who don't believe it, in part because it suits them not to. You don't need fairness when you're strong enough to just take what you want. Fairness is a hindrance and a check on the desires of the powerful. It's a fine excuse when they've just screwed someone over and are getting away with it.
> Fairness is entirely subjective
No. That's a gaslighting kind of attitude. You saying people can't agree on what is fair? Can't judge? That the method of fairly diving a cake between 2 people (1st person makes the cut, 2nd person chooses who gets which slice) doesn't work or isn't really fair according to some impossibly high standard of fairness?
> It's not about fairness, it's about what is and how you deal with that
It is totally about fairness. That's what civil cases are about. Yeah, how do you deal with it when someone cheats you, or someone else? Do nothing because you feel the system is hopelessly corrupted and you have no chance? Now that's an attitude for which my sympathies are limited. That's like complaining about your elected representatives when you didn't even try to vote. The opposite extreme, arm yourself to the teeth and shoot everyone you can, is an approach I have no sympathy with at all, with the exception of the purpose of the 2nd amendment, the possibility of armed rebellion to keep government in check, so that they won't dare try to be too blatant and extreme in their unfairness. You understand that, I believe.
In any case, there will be times when you are unable to fight or even discern that you are being cheated. For instance, if you've just been severely injured and are dazed, confused, or even unconscious. Yet we are batshit nuts enough to expect healthcare to function like a market when one of the parties to the bargaining could be severely incapacitated and unable to bargain.
> only way you are going to get out of poverty is to pick a job
Pick? Except that it's been a total employer's market for most of the time over the past several decades.
> What you think a job should pay is entirely irrelevant.
Ahh, you admit it. Job candidates have no bargaining power at all. Otherwise, what they think a job should pay would be relevant.
(Score: 4, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 29 2018, @07:37PM
The thing to remember about Uzzard is his position reduces down to precisely the same one as Mr. Vim's; he just cloaks it in a lot of bullshit bravado and coarse humor.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2018, @03:19AM
You got it all ass-backwards. Fairness is a viral concept, used by the powerful to gimp the competiton, i.e. you. It's been implanted into societies by the vehicles of at first religion, then later by codified laws. Ever notice how laws don't seem to apply to those of wealth and power? This is by design.
You believe in your fairytales, ignorance is bliss.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @03:24AM (4 children)
Sigh. Look, I get you want to crusade against all the evils of the world but talking like that should be a priority over making a living is absurd. I'm here trying to explain that people need to forget that bullshit and work on getting themselves enough out of the red that they have the luxury of free time to be pissed off in.
Now, could you please stop reading what you want to argue against into my words instead of taking them as they're intended? That's a little bitch move.
Example:
Either you're deliberately misunderstanding me or you're fucking stupid. Employers don't do a single damned thing to keep people from picking whatever profession they feel like going into and you fucking well know it.
The rest of it's equally bullshit for the same reason and has been ignored.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday July 30 2018, @11:38AM (3 children)
> Employers don't do a single damned thing to keep people from picking whatever profession they feel like
Oh come on. Do you really believe that? At the least, the market speaks. Engineering pays better, and everyone knows that. Surely you realize students are strongly influenced by that? I've seen plenty of engineering students who hate engineering but struggle to do it anyway, for the money.
Market rates is hardly all they do. Employers are constantly complaining that schools don't teach the skills that they need in employees. In exchange for donations, they ask universities to jump through hoops that they believe will reduce their own college educated employee expenses, in particular, training. The pushing they do threatens to pervert college into mere vocational training. Thanks in part to that, we get travesties of education such as biology graduates who believe in Intelligent Design. Employers don't just cry for more STEM, they manipulate everyone to get more STEM at the lowest rate they can. H1B, for instance. It sure doesn't start at the college level either, witness all this noise about elevating programming to a fundamental skill that should be taught in elementary.
> talking like that should be a priority over making a living is absurd.
Many engineers wish we could focus entirely on the technical matters that we love. But no one can safely ignore evils of the world. They have great impact on the ability to make a living.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @02:35PM (2 children)
Oh, I get it... You're wanting people to be able to pick whatever career path they like without consequences. See, I never said anything like that was true or gave advice implying it was true though. I was in fact advising them to not pick poorly paying careers if they did not want to be paid poorly. You'd think an engineer could figure out something so basic.
It damned well needs to be. I dunno about you but a lot of people are pissed the fuck off that they went a hundred grand or more into debt because everyone told them college would land them an white collar job that they didn't have to do much actual work in and now they're having to sling coffee at Starbucks to keep from starving.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday July 30 2018, @06:01PM (1 child)
>> The pushing they do threatens to pervert college into mere vocational training.
> It damned well needs to be
No, and that so many people could think otherwise points up one of the biggest failures of current education. Students study all kinds of science all through K-12, and yet many totally miss the boat about the foundations of science. A large part of that is the fault of educators, for not emphasizing it enough. They have a lamentable tendency to gloss over these crucial foundational understandings, to dive directly into the gory details in the hopes that if the students will eventually figure out the big picture themselves. Often, those hopes are in vain.
> everyone told them college would land them an white collar job
The point is a better life. A good job is only one part of that puzzle. There's an infinite amount of bullshit in the universe, and education is crucial for developing the critical thinking skills and habits necessary to sort through it. It's more, much more, than just memorizing a bunch of facts. One of the saddest things to see is ignorant people screwing up their lives or worse, their children's lives, out of fear of nonsense. For instance, the anti-vaxxers who put their children through horrible childhood diseases, perhaps scarring them for life, or even killing them, because they've stuffed themselves full of quackery and conspiracy nonsense over vaccines. Some people still go for palm readings and seances, sort of believe in ghosts, and other superstitious nonsense. There's also prejudice. Education, especially college education, can really open eyes, get young people out of the echo chambers, where they can see for themselves that the world is a more diverse and less vicious and scary place than they were taught.
Education can be one of the most rewarding and fun things to do, when free of the pressure to pass tests and earn grades.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @06:42PM
No, it's not. I give you our current higher education system that is turning out indoctrinated little sexist, racist, and otherwise biggoted drones incapable of the tiniest amount of thought that goes against the approved narrative en masse while the welders, electricians, and plumbers are calling bullshit. Either education is not in fact the key or our colleges are doing the opposite of educating.
I agree but you need a formal setting and a six digit debt right out of highschool like tanks need training wheels. If college cannot give you much better odds at a decent living (It doesn't. The improvement is small and decreasing.), it is a luxury and it's cocktacularly stupid to acquire six digits of debt for a luxury unless you already make seven digits or more a year.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Sunday July 29 2018, @03:45PM
My decades of experience with "luck" indicate lazy people see the result of hundreds if not thousands of hours of very hard work, and call it "luck".
Sure, its just "luck" that my biceps are bigger than your neck, or I got that sweet EE job, or that I can write software. To a lazy person everything is "luck" and suspiciously they're never personally to blame for not having any of it. Usually comes with some side dishes of entitlement and disparagement of those who put in the hours. I mean, you'd almost think "luck" comes from thinking hard, sweat, and invested time...
In recent years its slowly turning to "privilege". Yeah it was a "privilege" to study diff eqs all night while the wymens studies affirmative action majors partied, and now its "privilege" once again that I now make like ten times their income. Lazy people gotta be lazy... Well, I gotta hire someone to pour my coffee at Starbucks, may as well be a whiner without any of that mysterious "luck".
There was an old scif fi book series with an obscure plot line along the lines of dog whistling eugenics by race WRT breeding people for "luck" aka "whiteness but I don't want to get attacked for racism". There is SOME truth that to some extent a winning combo of the precise ratios of thinking, sweating, and patience is a very white privilege, and "diversity as a concept of holiness" is mostly about sabotaging attempts at min-max optimizing that ratio. See for example, successful blacks being attacked mostly by other left wing blacks for "acting white".
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday July 30 2018, @12:40AM (5 children)
Of course luck comes into it. The biggest factor in how successful you will be in life is which family you are born into. Upward mobility in the USA is declining. [phys.org]
If you are born into a poor family, you are unlikely to have the opportunity to learn the skills required to pull yourself out of poverty. Even if you do get an education, you will probably have huge student loan debt that will be a lifelong drag on your prospects. If you are born into a wealthy family, you are more likely to be able to afford to take risks to build businesses.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @03:27AM (4 children)
That's not luck, that's a conscious choice your parents made.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Whoever on Monday July 30 2018, @03:35AM (3 children)
Those parents chose to be born into poverty? Wow! I didn't know it was possible to choose your parents.
Nevertheless, that doesn't refute my point.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @03:50AM (2 children)
Your parents chose to have you. The choice was not yours but neither was it luck.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Monday July 30 2018, @05:14AM (1 child)
Are you dense or something? I guess we know the answer.....
Something over which you have no choice determines your likely success in life and you claim that this isn't a matter of luck? We are looking at this from the child's perspective, not the parents'.
Even for the parents, these issues are multi-generational. Donald Trump Jr. hasn't shown that he could have achieved his wealthy status without the help of his father, and that also goes for Donald Trump Sr..
I guess I should be glad that you acknowledge that having wealthy (or at least middle class) parents gives someone a big advantage in life and that success in life take more than hard work.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @05:58AM
Do you know what luck even is? Luck is chance. Something being done by design precludes it being chance. If your parents made a choice to have a child it is not luck that said child shares their financial situation.
No, we are not. We are looking at the relevant facts. There is zero chance in who children are born to. They are always born to their parents. If your parents had decided not to have children, you do not go back in line to get dished out to some other couple.
What has that got to do with anything? Chaining non-luck events together does not make them spontaneously become luck events.
On average, yeah. So what? It's not an unearned advantage. The parents earned it and gifted it to their child.
Yeah, I never said anything remotely like that. You have no need whatsoever of rich parents to succeed in life. It makes things a bit easier but only initially. You're just regurgitating the mantra of every failure throughout human history. He did better than me so he must have cheated. Sorry but no. He did better than you because he put in the thought and effort required to do better than you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @05:49PM
Would you care for peace if you're hungry and cold...?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @11:55AM (2 children)
Yes. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 29 2018, @02:44PM (1 child)
That whole apportionment thing seems just a little silly. If every American is taxed on the same scale, then taxes are automagically "apportioned" according to wealth, population, or just about anything else you care to scale the taxes to. Of course, the problem as I see it is, not all Americans are taxed on the same scale. The dirt poor pay nothing, because you can't wring blood from a turnip. The filthy rich pay near zero, because they can bribe the various officials necessary to get away with tax evasion.
My overall tax burden (federal, state, local, sales taxes, real estate, everything) is near to 33% of my income. Sales taxes are the most variable item in the list, but 30% to 35% has held pretty true for all of my adult working life.
If every other American and American corporation, along with all foreign corporations operating in the US, paid the same, we could probably come pretty close to balancing the budget.
It's the corporations, even more than the individual rich Americans, who screw that all up.
If you make money, pay the damned taxes! THAT is a proper apportionment.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 30 2018, @02:02PM
We could solve a lot of budget woes simply by eliminating the maximum income that FICA (Social Security, Medicare) taxes are applied to. It's really strange that we have what is ostensibly an income tax where an engineer making $130K a year pays exactly the same total amount in that kind of tax as a hedge fund manager making $3 million a year.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Informative) by srobert on Sunday July 29 2018, @02:53PM (18 children)
"Wait, did someone pass a law or hold a gun at someone's head to keep them from learning a marketable skill while I wasn't looking?"
What kind of "blame the victim" bullshit is that? Are you a complete sociopath? Let me guess. Ayn Rand is one of your heroes, right. I was one of these people when I was young. I was cheated out of wages and pretty much powerless to do anything about it. It is 30 years and millions of dollars later and I'm still infuriated over being cheated out of $3.35 an hour for a couple of hours a week. Something about your comment nauseates me. I envision you as privileged and naive about how the real world works.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 29 2018, @03:19PM
Bingo. These liberturds won't understand though. They think a person is 100% in control of their own fate, thus only undeserving slackers are poor. It has been years of these debates, no hopw for tmb or khallow. I think runaway is too old of a dog, but maybe he can learn aomw new tricks.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 29 2018, @07:38PM (13 children)
It's the just world fallacy. As the somewhat shaky AC below you explains, these people are so invested in their own ego that they *have* to believe everyone doing worse than them chose/deserves to, else their own worldview and self-esteem will collapse.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by srobert on Sunday July 29 2018, @08:32PM (12 children)
You and the AC are both insightful. It occurs to me that I've been pretty successful at this point in my life. But I'm realistic enough to know that it's about half because of my own efforts, and the other half because of serendipity. Without a lot of dumb luck, I'd still be mopping the floors at Burger King. It does seem like it would frighten the crap out of them if they acknowledged the extent to which their success arose because of circumstances beyond their control.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @04:11AM (11 children)
You know, people who look ahead, see hurdles that may come to be, expect unforeseen hurdles to crop up now and then, and plan accordingly do in fact exist. Making the implied claim that it's an unattainable skill belittles every human being you declare a victim of circumstance.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 30 2018, @02:23PM (10 children)
Here's where I think you go wrong: You believe you got where you are today because you planned ahead. I think you got where you are today because you planned ahead, and you had access to the resources needed to make those advanced plans something you could actually do.
For instance, you might have planned ahead to attend college, and did so, and that gave you a chance to work in a lucrative profession. Good job, you probably did well in school to make that happen. But I know for certain that I had high school classmates who were smart and did well in school (acing calculus and top-track physics without any difficulty whatsoever) who didn't attend college because their families couldn't afford to help no way no how, and there basically weren't avenues for them being able to attend via work or scholarships or something (and no, it wasn't like they didn't make an effort to look). A couple of them shipped out with the Navy, one was working as a medical secretary last time I checked, so they weren't exactly in the poorhouse, but they didn't get as far as I did academically solely because their parents had no assets.
Or you might have saved up to buy a home. Smart move, and congratulations. But impossible for the majority of Americans who cannot save anything, and not because they're profligate spenders or something.
And I'm guessing you have health insurance. Even now, with Obamacare, about 1 in 20 Americans don't. Before Obamacare, closer to 3 in 20 Americans didn't. And what that means is that any injury or illness could blow away any savings you have. Well, back in those days I was one of those without insurance, because my employer was tiny and couldn't offer me a policy, and nobody was willing to even consider selling me an individual policy due to conditions I was born with that barely affect me today, and I had to lie there one day thinking "Do I go to the ER for belly pain that may be appendicitis or may be just be a minor problem with something I ate? If I don't go, it could cost me my life, if I go it will cost me my life savings." I didn't go, and it turned out to be the right call, but that was luck, not planning.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @03:21PM (9 children)
Look, you're assuming some massive amounts of bullshit here. In something like three years or so I took myself from having a GED and no college, living in the woods, bathing in the drainage ditch, and detailing cars for under minimum wage to charging $350/hr consulting fees. Now not everyone's as smart as me and can teach themselves anything they like, so it may take them longer, but it's no way in hell impossible for anyone in the US to get out of poverty if they're willing to put in the thought and effort necessary to do so.
Don't take that to mean I'm saying it's easy. It's fucking well not. Not even a little bit. You have to bust your ass both mentally and physically for a nontrivial amount of time. It's very much possible for pretty much everyone though. Individually. It's not practically possible for everyone to get out of poverty because of the way it's calculated, short of communism which really just makes sure everyone is in poverty rather than only some of the people.
Man, you have missed the mark on every single assumption you made above. I have free healthcare if it's worth driving 600 miles to get it but I don't otherwise have anything. Short of an expensive ailment that I can see coming ahead of time, I'm in the same boat as everyone else. I do not go to the doctor unless I'm about to die, have a broken bone that needs properly set, or the like. It's a waste of time and everyone's resources. Mine in particular but also the healthcare folks who have to spend time on me instead of doing important shit that won't go away with some neosporin or an aspirin.
Now let's get to an important bit here... how many people have you seen in your life who spent more on their car than they did on their house/apartment/etc... over a year's span? Me, I see quite a lot. Every. Single. Day.
You think it might help to put some effort into getting people to choose not to make abysmally stupid financial decisions?
Have you ever thought to yourself "I may be eating ramen noodles twice a day but at least I can quote Shakespeare,"? Yeah, neither has anyone else. Why are we teaching it in highschool instead of how to not be a fucking moron with your money?
Our priorities are so fucked up in this nation that we pretty damned well deserve the shitstorm we're reaping from them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 30 2018, @08:43PM (5 children)
How?
Because if someone comes up to me and says something along the lines of "I have no official education or experience, but I'm the world's best at _______, believe me! I'm only available if you pay me $350 per hour!" I'm going to respond with something along the lines of "You probably aren't the world's best" and have nothing to do with you whatsoever. Even if you came to me with 1-2 years of experience on your resume, I'm not paying that rate, no matter what your sales pitch. Oh, and if you conveniently left that out of your sales pitch, make no mistake, I'm going to look up you or your company to find out what your reputation is before hiring you.
All that means somebody gave you a big break. And you were lucky you were the one to get the big break and not the other people easily found at public libraries across the country trying to do what you did.
So you know: 6 months ago, I lost one friend who had taken that approach to health care, because he had taken that approach to health care, had a seizure, and froze to death. Yesterday, I came scarily close to having to bury another one (he stopped breathing long enough to turn blue), for the same reason. A relatively cheap basic physical can and not infrequently does save you a much bigger problem later on.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 31 2018, @02:53AM (4 children)
The local library's books and its Internet connection for starters. Half a semester of CS in college before I decided it was too fucking slow and wasting my time with irrelevant but required courses. A year or so after I made the decision I took a shit job building/repairing computers at a shop that also ran a local ISP. Less than a year after that I was lead admin. A year after that I was charging that company what they used to bill me out for to customers.
Those are just points in time though. The real "how" is I was sick of being poor, found something that could make me otherwise, and trained myself to be able to do it. The entire time I was reading and learning absolutely everything I possibly could that looked like it could make me more valuable. Eight hours a day then go home and play video games, smoke pot, and hang with friends? Yeah, no. Add another six or seven on to that every workday and probably closer to twelve on days off. I built and wiped Linux servers for practice until I could do it in my sleep and even a few FreeBSD ones even though it was obvious that would never be a first class server environment. Then I started breaking them to see how to fix them. I got everyone at the ISP to have root wars on a clone of our primary server so I could learn better security. In short, I worked my entire ass off all day long pretty much every single day until I was where I wanted to be.
Probably, yeah. I'm not concerned with living as long as humanly possible though. It holds no attraction to be so old and feeble that someone else has to wipe my ass for me. I'd rather die while I'm still able to do what I like. In fact, I'd very much prefer it to be a surprise as to spend years knowing something is going to kill me soon and trying to avoid it anyway. That's not life, that's just death by installment.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 31 2018, @04:16PM (3 children)
I'd say that your self-improvement was definitely one of the factors leading to your current success. Another factor was the owner of the shop that you worked at hiring you in the first place when you might not have even had an address, recognizing your skill level as an admin, promoting you up to lead, and then hiring you as a contractor for basically zero profit - I hope you give that person a lot of credit when you think about your life story. And yet another factor has nothing to do with you at all, which is that business was good enough for that shop that they could afford to hire you, and had an opening for that promotion or were able to create the position.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 31 2018, @07:12PM (2 children)
That wasn't luck. I didn't randomly pick places to apply for a job, I picked the ones that would do me some good to get hired at. Then I sold myself in the interviews. The boss man, though we did get along on a friendly enough basis, made a lot of money on me, so thanks are not warranted. As for the contracting work, that was for them not subcontracted from them. They got themselves in a pickle and I was no longer there to bail them out, so they had to hire me at consultant wages.
See, this tells me that you think I'm a moron who just drifts around on the tide of life. That was by design, not in any way luck. If business hadn't been good in the field, I would have never picked it to begin with. If business for that company had not been good or it had not had the path forward I wanted, I would have never applied. Believe it or not, it's not mandatory to let life just throw you wherever it wants. Whoever sold you this line of bullshit needs their ass beat for ruining your life.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 31 2018, @07:47PM (1 child)
My thinking is that this seems like it was a mutually beneficial arrangement: You got a way to break into a field you had no experience or formal education in, and he got a top-quality employee for a while. You got paid, he got paid. That sounds like a relationship that should be friendly at least, even now that you are no longer working for them. You may have also had co-workers who helped you improve your skills. I'm not saying you have to be effusively praising him from the rooftops, but he didn't have to invest in you and he obviously chose to.
For comparison's sake, I consult for a number of my former employers, in no small part because I got along great with the bosses at those places, and didn't burn bridges on the way out the door.
As for your final paragraph, you are under a very mistaken impression if you think that my life is ruined. I would use more money if I had it, but I'm doing just fine: I live exactly where I want to, work about as much as I'd like to (considerably less than 8 hours a day, I might add) mostly on stuff that I benefit from directly, have good people around me, and no debt sucking cash out of my pocket. I spent a week on a relaxing and enjoyable vacation in exchange for a couple of hours of work providing musical entertainment. A lot of people would love to swap situations with me.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 31 2018, @09:07PM
He didn't hire me for my benefit. He hired me for the benefit of his company in an entry-level job that didn't require experience or training. We had a friendly relationship because he had a good sense of humor, knew the value of the employees he had, and treated them according to their value. See, when you exchange value for value, neither party owes any sort of debt to the other.
And before you go down that road, no, it was not luck that I had a good boss. The people he answered to also knew what they were doing and hired someone who would administer the company the way they wanted it administered. I knew this before I ever walked in the door.
The only arguable bit of luck was that someone better than I did not show up asking for that entry-level job. It wouldn't have mattered if someone had though. I don't put all my eggs in one basket and I planned for a whole lot more setbacks than I got. "Luck" is just an excuse for those who let the universe be in charge of their lives instead of taking charge themselves.
As for your final paragraph, good for you. Sincerely. I don't wish failure and misery on anyone; I just recognize it's a hell of a lot more likely for those who just let life do whatever it likes to them and spend their time thinking up excuses instead of solutions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 30 2018, @09:44PM (2 children)
At a certain time in my life, I was poorer than you have ever been. Possibly poorer than you can imagine. I'll tell you, I was with Ivanka -- my favorite daughter -- we were in the limo. I said to the driver, stop for a moment. And I said to Ivanka, "see that bum? He has a billion dollars more than me." That's how deeply in debt I was. I owed a billion dollars. And now I'm very rich, I have more than $10 billion. But it wasn't easy. It has not been easy for me. And you know I started off in Brooklyn, my father gave me a small loan of a million dollars. Marco said I got $200 million from my father. I wish. I wish. I got a very, very small loan from my father many years ago. I built that into a massive empire and I paid my father back that loan. The number is wrong by a factor of hundreds, I mean, by a fortune. I got a small loan. I started a business. I came into Manhattan and I had to pay him back, and I had to pay him back with interest. But I came into Manhattan, I started buying up properties, and I did great. I did a good job. But I was always told that would never work. I made it work. With a lot of sweat. A lot of negotiating. And a lot of VERY HARD THINKING!
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday July 31 2018, @02:23AM
(cont) In the early 1990s, I owed billions of dollars and many people thought I was finished. I refused to give in to the negative circumstances and I never lost faith in myself. I didn't believe I was finished even when the newspapers were saying so. I refused to give up. Defeat is not in my vocabulary.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Tuesday July 31 2018, @02:40AM
LOL. You are in top form today sir.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 30 2018, @03:41AM (2 children)
Me? Privileged? You're quite literally the stupidest motherfucker ever to converse with me. You want to see privilege? Look at the dumb son of a bitch who has the leisure time to be pissed off on behalf of others (without their request or even permission) instead of worrying about his own shit. You can find him in the mirror.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Tuesday July 31 2018, @03:25AM (1 child)
I suppose you're overwhelmed by the multitude of irate reactions to your comments, and frustrated in your efforts to defend them, so I'll forgive the ad hominem attack on me.
You're right about one thing though. When I look in the mirror I see someone who's privileged in quite a few ways, white heterosexual American male of the late 20th century, educated in good public schools. And that's even more to my point. Those privileges weren't sufficient to keep me from sinking to the bottom. And without those continued privileges, good luck, and the kind and coordinated assistance of others, my efforts alone would not have been sufficient to lift me out of it. I fight for those on the bottom because I was there and know it's still possible I'll wind up there again some day. No man is an island.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 31 2018, @03:52AM
Actually, that was me being pissed off at having a caffeine headache. That's an explanation not an excuse, mind you. I meant what I said. I probably would have otherwise said it with more tact but it does not overly concern me.
What others feel about my comments is entirely irrelevant to me (except for the humorous ones). I post them looking for people to try to prove me wrong or offer a good argument that conflicts with mine. It very rarely happens but it doesn't cost me anything except a few minutes to try again. Plus the salty tears of the butthurt does amuse me. People too fragile to even acknowledge reality are just hilarious.
You know those aren't privileges, right? None of them. Look up the meaning of the word. Think on it a while. Then have another look at what you're calling privileges.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday July 29 2018, @03:15PM (2 children)
This is Starbucks; so someone talked those kids into getting liberal arts degrees.
For example, my state uni system intentionally produces twice as many education majors per year as there are job openings for K12 school teachers (even including the church schools that pay minimum wage, not just public K12). And the average career length of a teacher is about half the time it takes to pay off the student loans.
There's obviously a slight problem with propaganda when kids are getting thrown to the wolves like the above anecdote.
Note that the starbucks education majors are not the cream of the crop of non-education education grads; I'm sure my favorite waitress makes FAR more money in tips using her Education degree than a barista would make. Still its quite in indictment of the 25th percentile Education major graduate that they're so heavily propagandized that they're little better than ignorant lazy slaves. Also that doesn't make, for the sake of argument, 75th percentile education degree holder look very good, if you're sitting there at graduation and the girl next to you getting the same meaningless sheet of paper is a certified moron, maybe you went into the wrong field and didn't figure it out for years?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 30 2018, @08:55PM (1 child)
All the Starbucks employees I know don't have liberal arts degrees. I know that's the stereotype, but that doesn't mean it matches reality. In most cases, they don't have any degree past high school. Plus some are working at Starbucks because they have a college tuition reimbursement program.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 31 2018, @06:45PM
I suspect it varies immensely by location; I live in a large suburb or small city with three uni and two of them have education degree programs. I couldn't even count how many schools exist in the semi-adjacent big city.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Monday July 30 2018, @08:10PM (3 children)
I take exception to the word only.
So, tell me. What do you propose happens when someone has a major illness or injury?
For sake of example, I came down with a bad case of sciatica [wikipedia.org] a year ago last January from which I recovered. Unfortunately, I'm am now going through another (thankfully less severe) bout right now.
Didn't do anything to precipitate the condition; it just came upon me one day. The pain was so intense that I could not stand, unaided, for more than a couple minutes. Just walking the 100 yards from where I parked my car to get to my department was a 3-stage effort. Walk from car to employee entrance; recuperate for a minute or two. Walk from there to the selling floor. Take another 1-2 minute break. Finally, walk from there to my actual department. Were it not for the fact there were counters where I worked that I could lean on during my shift, I would have been unable to work. Oh, did I mention I am on my feet all day long?
It took at least a couple months for that to get manageable, and 3-4 months to finally clear up.
Now, for me, no work means no pay. Which makes it a struggle to pay rent and buy food.
You've seen the work I've put into this site. Would you call me lazy? A slacker? Do I lack willpower?
Had it been a more serious condition, I would have had to depend on the kindness and generosity of friends and relatives.
Those who have their health and intellect... thank your lucky stars that you do. But, please, do NOT look down on those who do not.
It only takes a single accident to quickly move from one category to the other.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 31 2018, @03:09AM (2 children)
I was going to point to Stephen Hawking but you're your own best example of my answer, man. Did you give up and let it stop you or did you do what you knew you had to do, hardships be damned? Everyone has obstacles. It's how you deal with them that determines what results you're going to get. Perseverance isn't a guarantee of success but making excuses and giving up is an absolute guarantee of failure.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday August 02 2018, @07:46PM (1 child)
I appreciate the kind words. Thank-you.
But, I also see that I failed to make my point.
It has taken a long time, but I finally saved away a bit of money. Maybe a month or two's expenses. Had I not had that financial cushion, had I not had good medical coverage, had my condition been worse, I would have ended up homeless.
It was only simple good fortune that saved me. You're still [relatively] young. Think ahead when walking is painful and you need to use a cane, or a wheelerator(sp?). When you wake up each day, in pain. Hard labor is no longer an option. The body betrays you.
The mind betrays you, too. Can't absorb things as quickly as before. Can't remember things that used to be always at the ready. More frequent bouts of trying to recall something and... there's a 'wall', a hesitation, which sometimes gives way, and sometimes does not.
Now imagine someone who did not even have that starting advantage of good health and intellect.
All it takes is something as common as a major car accident to turn *everything* on its head.
Enjoy your virility while you can, but please do not look down on those who may not have been as gifted from the start, or who once had it but have now lost it.
Someday you will be old and weak... how would you like to be treated? Might be a good idea to treat the less fortunate that way, now.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 02 2018, @08:26PM
Marty, you have an absolute gift for debugging things. It boggles my mind that you haven't turned that scrutiny upon life and dealt with every care you could possibly have in it. I mean I know my situation is because I have very modest desires and am generally lazy but I have no idea why you're not lighting your hookers with hundred dollar bills.
To answer your point though, that's where just a little bit of planning and preparedness comes in. You had some money stashed back. Why? Because it's bloody insane not to even if it means Top Ramen twice a day and coffee for breakfast. You don't need to foresee every little thing, you just have to make sure you have enough of a cushion ready for when things go sideways. Because they always go sideways sooner or later. For everyone. It's not luck, it's damned near an absolute certainty. Luck is when it doesn't happen for a stretch.
You know me. If there's someone needs help I'll bend over backwards to help them. If I'm having to help them because they were a damned fool idjit though, they're going to get an ass chewing while I do it. Not because it pisses me off but so they'll be disinclined to repeat the same mistake or even make a similar one.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Sunday July 29 2018, @12:05PM
And the difference between fake diamonds and regular diamonds is the whole "fake" thing. Adjectives are exciting things for those who pay attention. They can even destroy the original meaning of the word.