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I think the most pertinent question is why don't they quit? It says a great deal about how broken the United States' job market and social safety net are. If m

• enibundo 7y ago
  Maybe they think that flagging shit online is easy and pays well to later find themselves with anxiety in the house. This kind of stuff is never easy to pin point
  • _bxg1 7y ago
    Maybe when they apply. But from the sound of things that idea would vanish in the first week.
    • Barrin92 7y ago
      many do leave as the turnover rate is extremely high, but with an increasingly underempoyed white collar workforce and rising rent and healthcare and education cost there's a pretty huge pool of reserve labour to churn through. This is really just a giant meatgrinder for the population outside of the "cognitive elite" class and probably a good sign of things to come for the workplace of the future of half of the population.
• spamizbad 7y ago
  It also sounds like they are sold on the empty promise that these jobs will get your foot through the door into the lucrative technology industry.
  • _bxg1 7y ago
    It seems pretty clear that they stayed after any illusion of that fell away.
    • 6cd6beb 7y ago
      It's dark, but you can manipulate and abuse people into staying through pretty much anything. See abusive relationships or this handy article http://www.issendai.com/psychology/sick-systems.html http://www.issendai.com/psychology/sick-systems.html
    • darkpuma 7y ago
      Maybe it's an illusion, or maybe it isn't. That depends on the individual in question. If somebody's previous work experience is laying tar down on roofs, they may consider the change to an office job to be well worth the added emotional toll. Due to the low physicality of the work, there are likely people who consider it easy work, despite the psychological impact that seems obvious to you or me.
      • chris11 7y ago
        I had a really short contract at a major tech company. It was a completely different situation, I felt that I was respected and treated well. But it was a very low paid/low skilled job. I didn't see much of any room for growth. The biggest benefit to me was that it got me an interview for an internship with that company when I went to school for CS. I don't expect these contractors to get much long term benefit from the position. And it sounds like most quit or get fired.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
• bena 7y ago
  That is true, but a common theme among many of the stories is how much more they pay compared to other places. These people are literally trading dollars for their mental health. That is the choice they are making.
  • _bxg1 7y ago
    Except those dollars amount to $28,800/year. Hardly enough to live on in the cities where these offices are, yet more than twice minimum wage ($15 full-time, versus $7.25 at what are often inconsistent hours [Edit: in Florida it's $8.46, but I think the point still stands]). They aren't hustling because they want some extra cash. They're trading their mental health for the basic ability to be a living, eating human being.
  • jedimastert 7y ago
    Yeah, 28,000 was barely a livable wage in the incredibly low-cost city I used to live in. I can't even imagine trying to live on it in the cost-of-living-helscape that is silicon valley.
    • _bxg1 7y ago
      Technically the offices are in Phoenix, Austin, and Tampa. Still, those are major U.S. cities.
• zodiac 7y ago
  > If minimum wage were $15, they could find another job that paid their basic living expenses. Why is this necessarily true? Couldn't it be the case that minimum wage were $15 but they still couldn't find any other job?
  • _bxg1 7y ago
    Currently we have a surplus of actual jobs, it's just that a large number of them pay sub-living wages. If those were forced to pay more - even if it meant some of them disappeared - many more people would have the opportunity to climb out of poverty. Edit: I may have misspoken when I said "surplus". What I was referring to is the very low unemployment rate we currently have, despite large numbers of people - with "jobs" - continuing to live in near-poverty.
    • smileysteve 7y ago
      If there is a surplus of actual jobs, then they are being forced to pay more already; but they're not, hence the surplus.
    • will4274 7y ago
      Or we'd see a bump in automation and a reduction in the number of jobs available. When you raise the price of something (labor), corporations will reduce their consumption of it.
    • dragonwriter 7y ago
      > Currently we have a surplus of actual jobs No, we don't. An actual job is what happens when the willingness to pay for labor connects with the willingness to provide it for pay. What you are seem to be referring to (additional willingness to purchase labor at prices below that that people are willing to accept) is not a surplus, it is is the normal condition of demand (and a parallel thing exists normally with supply, where there are people willing to provide something beyond what is currently being transacted in the market, but at higher-than-market prices.)
  • erikpukinskis 7y ago
• baron_harkonnen 7y ago
  In general folks working in in-demand areas of tech are pretty out of touch with how hard it is it "just quit" a job. If you're an engineer or data scientist making $200k+ then you very likely have some moderate savings to cushion you between jobs and will have no trouble finding a new job and getting a slight raise. If you make over $200k, you are getting that much because your skills are in demand and employers need to pay that much. If you're making $30K you certainly don't have any kind of buffer to hold you over between jobs, and don't have skills that are attractive to employers. Even basic things like interviewing are much harder. An engineer or data scientist can pretty much disappear from their desk for an entire day and no one will ask questions, you don't need time off for an interview, and if you do you likely have tons of leave. Someone making 30k most likely has to give notice of vacation many weeks in advance, if they even have leave benefits at all. And because your skills are less in demand your interview success rate is going to be much lower so you'll need even more time to interview. It's likely very hard for these people to find new jobs even if they hate their current one, they are probably happy just to have income.
  • _bxg1 7y ago
    You clearly only read the first line.
    • SomeOldThrow 7y ago
      ...of what? It seems to integrate well with both the parent comment and the article. Given that you are the parent comment, is it so hard to read conversation like this as building on each other rather than an assumption of being relentlessly contrarian? This is needlessly hostile to someone who clearly agrees with you.
      • _bxg1 7y ago
        I read it as an attempted counter-argument, but I could have misinterpreted.
• jm4 7y ago
  I'm not following this logic. They can't quit a job that pays double minimum wage unless minimum wage is increased to the amount they are currently getting paid? If minimum wage was $15 there would be some other crummy employer paying more than minimum wage to incentivize people to take a shitty job. Would they be stuck in that one too because the alternatives pay less?
  • _bxg1 7y ago
    They aren't necessarily trying to maximize, they're trying to keep their heads above water. If they had alternative option for doing that, they would take it.
  • baroffoos 7y ago
    If it was possible to live a normal life on the minimum wage then many would chose to instead of destroying their mental health to be able to pay rent.
    • jm4 7y ago
      Choose to do the bare minimum because we change the system to make it comfortable enough? That’s a good idea. I’m not necessarily against raising minimum wage. It should probably be reviewed and adjusted more often than it is. But wouldn’t we be better off with a system where people are incentivized to do more than the bare minimum? I don’t think minimum wage should be intended to be the baseline for a comfortable life. It should be high enough that people want to work in the first place rather than take handouts but not so high that it’s an opportunity to stagnate. Frankly, minimum wage is for first time workers and people who have zero marketable job skills or some other issue that prevents them from doing more productive work. Most people can achieve much more with a little work experience.
• dennisgorelik 7y ago
  > If minimum wage were $15 ... then low-skilled candidates would NOT be able to find any job at all, because if low skilled candidate's expertise does not support $15/hour salary, and employers who could, potentially, pay less (e.g. $10/hour) are legally prohibited from employing people at that lower rate -- then there are no other jobs available to that low skilled candidate at all. Which means forced and hopeless unemployment.
  • chillwaves 7y ago
    Yes, and if we got rid of the minimum wage just think of all the wonderful job opportunities that would abound! Why, if you only pay people $1/hr, you can employ 7x as many people vs the current min. wage! It's simple economics.