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>There are very few people that would dispute that, yet for everything outside of sports there's a subsection of the population that has convinced themselves th
by dawnbreez 11y ago
>There are very few people that would dispute that, yet for everything outside of sports there's a subsection of the population that has convinced themselves that hard work somehow doesn't equal success.
I have worked for Kroger for a little over a year now.
I make 7.55 an hour handling dangerous chemicals; before that, I bagged people's groceries for 7.45. As a bagger, I not only worked hard, I constantly told my supervisor that I was willing to work 40 hours, that I wanted to work a register. They didn't promote me until I gave two weeks notice; my parents convinced me to stay.
Now I get paid ten cents extra to clean floors and cover for absentee cashiers (and, mind you, I'm not actually trained; I had to learn it all myself). Oh, and one of the other janitors cannot figure out basic chemical safety. She is paid just as much as I am, and continues to work as a janitor.
It's not that hard work never pays off. It's that I have a concrete example of hard work not paying off that I see every day.
- ap3 11y agoYou know that the other janitor can't be paid less than min wage. If min wage is increased to $15 she will be paid exactly as much as you.
- dawnbreez 11y agoHowever, the fact that she is paid the same as I am for a service that, in theory, is less valuable (due to greater danger) is fairly annoying. I expect to be more valuable for working in a way that doesn't endanger others. Ideally, I expect someone who tries to mix mustard gas in the mop bucket would be fired. My point is, the message that keeping this lady sends is "I don't care if you do your job right". And if that's the message you wanna send, whh should I do my job right? I end up split between doing my job right on principle and knowing it'll get me nowhere.
- kamaal 11y ago>>It's that I have a concrete example of hard work not paying off that I see every day. You have seen hard work paying off. For the level of work that you do. Of course there is no ideal world where a hair cut could be charged the same as surgery. Or someone who write database code, an OS or a search engine algorithm could be charged equally as some one troubleshooting a faulty CD drive in a call center. What are your contributions? What value are you creating? A clean floor, a good grocery bag may not be that much value. But the guy inventing the floor cleaning chemical, and people selling that for an affordable price are definitely creating a lot of value.
- dawnbreez 11y agoI agree completely. A clean floor is not as valuable as a better floor cleaner. However, basic chemical safety should be valuable--but at Kroger, it apparently isn't, and this drives me insane.