top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 18 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Also, "skilled labour"?

Amazon treat warehouse staff like shit specifically because you ain't. You will be replaced in a second.

Minimum wage is what most people will be on unless they've got something to offer other than desperation to survive.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 18 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    Packing a box is skilled labor?

  • source
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Technically neither are since they don't require a recognised qualification to be eligible to apply.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    I mean... Just as logically though, they both are... Any shit takes practice to get good at really.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    All labour is skilled labor. Unskilled labour was created by capitalists as a flimsy justification for paying people unlivable wages. ANY labour deserves a livable wage. Needing a second job is an injustice.

    Now that being said, packing boxes for Amazon is 100% unskilled labour. A machine spits out the box template sheet with creases where the cardboard sheet should be folded to turn it into a box within seconds. Another machine prints the receipt that goes inside, and Another machine spits out an appropriate amount of packing to make sure the product stays in place inside the box. Another machine spits out a calculated amount of tape. Another machine spits out the info sticker that needs to be stuck on the outside. Does this need a lot of skill or training? I don't think so, no.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 13 points 3 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] 11 points 3 years ago (11 children)

    Is the OP not obvious sarcasm? In what world is packing boxes skilled labour when flipping burgers isn't?

  • source
  • hideshow 12 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I don't think it's too unusual for people to think of their own jobs as super important and complicated and everything else is just simple shit in comparison. Watching someone do something they are trained at (because they do it day-in-day-out) often looks simple ... until the moment you try it yourself and realize the amount of concentration you suddenly need and the many questions that pop up for details you didn't even notice before.

    It's a form of short-sightedness and/or lack of experience. But not uncommon.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago*

    It might be a side effect that we are all well of aware of the smallest of details and hidden complexity of what we do as a job/serious-hobby, whilst having a very high level and ultra shallow idea of everything else, hence tending to think about other people's job that "I could easilly learn do that".

    I've learned a number of expert areas over the years in my career and it's always that which happens for me: I start with the idea that "it should be easy" and about 2 years later I'm keenly aware on just how little I still know about it. Even after being aware of this effect, I still start by significiantly underestimating the true complexity of any new area I'm learning.

    It's the same "underestimating of the complexity of what we don't know in depth" that's behind the Dunning-Krugger Effect IMHO.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (10 replies)
    [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    People have been taught to punch down, when they should be punching up.

  • source
  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Does packing boxes really count as skilled labor? I would have assumed it would be unskilled labor just like the burger flipper.

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    As a former warehouse worker and shipping clerk, it is 100% unskilled labor. We would sometimes hire temp workers for really busy periods, and it would take about 30 minutes to train them.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    Yeah, and as someone who works in QA for a carrier repacking some of those boxes I can tell. Shippers really don't seem to care that their packages don't even make it to the shipping phase, let alone through our damn building.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 8 points 3 years ago

    That's the big lie the right wants you to believe; there's no such thing as unskilled labor. You have to learn every job you start. Flipping burgers, packing boxes, cleaning, washing dishes, etc all have a learning curve. There is no job you can walk in off the street and start doing without previous knowledge.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    Isn't this the american way? as long as someone is doing worse, then you're doing better? If a guyu fliping burgers makes more than you, go flip burgers!

  • source
  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    skilled labor is capitalist propaganda to keep wages low

  • source
  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    This is an example of how capitalists have spent decades manipulating people into thinking their enemy was anyone else except the capitalists.

  • source
  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    @BarterClub That person should be mad that Amazon pays so little, not that another worker gets the same as them. This is one of the huge problems in the U.S., the lack of worker solidarity.

    Amazon *CAN* pay more for example, but chooses not to, so Bezos, etc. can make more money for themselves.

  • source
  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    The most “unskilled” people I have met have been white collar yuppies. This whole “skilled” and “unskilled” terminology is a scam

  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    load more comments
    view more: next ›