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> Everybody needs a &^%$ job once in a while to reset their empathy scale. Imho that's trying to solve a symptom, not the actual problem. Why does society tol

> Everybody needs a &^%$ job once in a while to reset their empathy scale. Imho that's trying to solve a symptom, not the actual problem. Why does society tolerate &^%$ jobs in the first place? Why not strive to make jobs non-&^%$? Instead, it somehow has become completely normalized that these kinds of jobs exist, and anybody who doesn't want to work them is considered "too entitled", which all goes back to this notion of "work as a virtue". And while the idea that this experience might help change something from the desk job, the reality is most people will just be glad to be having their desk job, with a lot having a mindset of "I went through the &^%$ jobs to get here, everybody else should have to suffer like I did!".

scarface74 7y ago
So are you saying that we shouldn’t have any jobs like the ones at McDonalds, the convenience store, etc?
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  It's pretty obvious that @freeflight mean these jobs don't necessarily have to be shit. They can be low / lower pay and still be a fairly reasonable place to work with fairly reasonable people to work with. But, if we accept that work conditions fit some kind of natural distribution / bell curve, it's probably unrealistic to believe there will be no shit jobs.
- TomVDB 7y ago
  He's saying that those jobs at McDonalds etc should be made easier on the employees.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  I believe they're saying that we, as a society, could make some effort to make those jobs less soul-sucking.
xyzzyz 7y ago
> Why does society tolerate &^%$ jobs in the first place? Why not strive to make jobs non-&^%$? We do strive, which is why we have non-shit jobs now. After the advent of agriculture, overwhelming majority of people has worked mundane, tiring, repetitive and straining jobs. It’s only recent increases in technology allowed us to produce immense amounts of wealth, finally allowing huge swaths of population to enjoy light, interesting and fun jobs. We still have lots of shit jobs out there, but don’t worry, we’re working on that.
- StacyRoberts 7y ago
  We should pay the most for those jobs. Instead those who move money from this account to that account our convince people to spend more money than they need to make the most. Fake work.
  - freeflight 7y ago
    As radical as this sounds, there might actually be something to it. Service and social jobs are usually those "closest to the base", being in constant contact with people from all walks of life, while at the same time usually the least well paid. That's a lot of exposure compared to many other jobs, in particular, desk jobs and pretty much most management and executive positions. Imho the importance of such real in flesh contact to other people, across peer groups, is vastly underestimated these days. The ever-present social media gives digitally affine people often the misleading idea they can find everybody, with all their issues and opinions, online but from my experience that just holds not true. There's plenty of people out there that don't even know what Facebook is, as unbelievable as that might sound.
    - StacyRoberts 7y ago
      Hypothesis: McDonald's pays brilliant automation or engineering type minds to do difficult to automate work like we are discussing here. Big salaries. Only part time. The other half is spent on the engineering. Make these jobs sought after. Slowly the org transitions to much higher paid people in these roles across the board. I think part of it is mgmt types think they save money reducing wages for the most numerous type of employee and it creates a black hole race to the bottom. High end restaurants have very well paid front of house because they have a financial incentive to perform. Cashiers don't.
soperj 7y ago
They were saying that people complaining about their good job and how they were overworked had never worked a shit job. If you eliminate the shit jobs, people will still complain.
Spooky23 7y ago
Because society has evolved to consider the economic aspirations of people who own stuff to be a higher order virtue than liberty or the public welfare.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  > society has evolved Can you point to any point in human history (since the invention of farming) in which a smaller fraction of people worked menial jobs than now?
  - zanny 7y ago
    By some definitions I would consider subsistence farming a much more meaningful job than what tens of millions of Americans are doing now - middle management, financial advisory, advertising, bureaucracy (medical, managerial, political, regulatory, etc), legal discovery, data entry, tax accountants (which only exist because Turbotax bribes the government to keep taxes broken), and many more. There are tons and tons of bullshit jobs that don't produce anything valuable, don't fulfill anyones need to have a meaningful life, but somehow keep butts in seats often at keyboards getting paid to justify someone elses jobs existence. There is a reason why job satisfaction is abysmal, why depression and opioid abuse is rampant, and why those weren't as large problems two centuries ago when people were almost universally subsistence farmers. The labor wasn't easy but it always justified itself to those doing the work (assuming it was your own farm, growing your own food, which was and has always been pretty rare). You knew why it had to be done, something lacking in many modern careers.
    - iliketosleep 7y ago
      This is where there's a kind of evolutionary gap that comes into play. Sitting in front of a screen for 40+ hours a week, and spending additional time at the screen for recreation doesn't seem conducive to good mental or physical health.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Shit jobs aren't synonymous to menial jobs. Shit jobs are ones where you suffer physically and mentally, and that suffering usually has little to do with actual job responsibilities, and more with a shitty boss (manager or entrepreneur) treating you like a consumable and trying to optimize you. E.g. flipping burgers at McDonald's isn't a shitty job because you're flipping burgers; it's a shitty job because you are paid badly, made to work much faster than it's healthy, and the management is shitty to you both personally and structurally, in how they plan the shifts, etc. I'd argue that any shitty job could have a non-shitty variant with mostly the same tasks and responsibilities, and only the conditions changed. Which leads me to the answer to your question: anywhere between invention of agriculture and the industrial revolution, or perhaps even up to XIX century. Even when people toiled on farms, to then give most of it away to some nobles with swords, at least they weren't micromanaged day-in, day-out by said nobles.
ihm 7y ago
Because people with &^%$ jobs have basically no say in or power over how production/"the economy" is run.
trevyn 7y ago
This is going to be fun when we realize that all jobs are shit jobs. :-)

scarface74 7y ago

So are you saying that we shouldn’t have any jobs like the ones at McDonalds, the convenience store, etc?

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
It's pretty obvious that @freeflight mean these jobs don't necessarily have to be shit. They can be low / lower pay and still be a fairly reasonable place to work with fairly reasonable people to work with. But, if we accept that work conditions fit some kind of natural distribution / bell curve, it's probably unrealistic to believe there will be no shit jobs.
TomVDB 7y ago
He's saying that those jobs at McDonalds etc should be made easier on the employees.
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
I believe they're saying that we, as a society, could make some effort to make those jobs less soul-sucking.

xyzzyz 7y ago

> Why does society tolerate &^%$ jobs in the first place? Why not strive to make jobs non-&^%$? We do strive, which is why we have non-shit jobs now. After the advent of agriculture, overwhelming majority of people has worked mundane, tiring, repetitive and straining jobs. It’s only recent increases in technology allowed us to produce immense amounts of wealth, finally allowing huge swaths of population to enjoy light, interesting and fun jobs. We still have lots of shit jobs out there, but don’t worry, we’re working on that.

StacyRoberts 7y ago
We should pay the most for those jobs. Instead those who move money from this account to that account our convince people to spend more money than they need to make the most. Fake work.
- freeflight 7y ago
  As radical as this sounds, there might actually be something to it. Service and social jobs are usually those "closest to the base", being in constant contact with people from all walks of life, while at the same time usually the least well paid. That's a lot of exposure compared to many other jobs, in particular, desk jobs and pretty much most management and executive positions. Imho the importance of such real in flesh contact to other people, across peer groups, is vastly underestimated these days. The ever-present social media gives digitally affine people often the misleading idea they can find everybody, with all their issues and opinions, online but from my experience that just holds not true. There's plenty of people out there that don't even know what Facebook is, as unbelievable as that might sound.
  - StacyRoberts 7y ago
    Hypothesis: McDonald's pays brilliant automation or engineering type minds to do difficult to automate work like we are discussing here. Big salaries. Only part time. The other half is spent on the engineering. Make these jobs sought after. Slowly the org transitions to much higher paid people in these roles across the board. I think part of it is mgmt types think they save money reducing wages for the most numerous type of employee and it creates a black hole race to the bottom. High end restaurants have very well paid front of house because they have a financial incentive to perform. Cashiers don't.

soperj 7y ago

They were saying that people complaining about their good job and how they were overworked had never worked a shit job. If you eliminate the shit jobs, people will still complain.

Spooky23 7y ago

Because society has evolved to consider the economic aspirations of people who own stuff to be a higher order virtue than liberty or the public welfare.

umanwizard 7y ago
> society has evolved Can you point to any point in human history (since the invention of farming) in which a smaller fraction of people worked menial jobs than now?
- zanny 7y ago
  By some definitions I would consider subsistence farming a much more meaningful job than what tens of millions of Americans are doing now - middle management, financial advisory, advertising, bureaucracy (medical, managerial, political, regulatory, etc), legal discovery, data entry, tax accountants (which only exist because Turbotax bribes the government to keep taxes broken), and many more. There are tons and tons of bullshit jobs that don't produce anything valuable, don't fulfill anyones need to have a meaningful life, but somehow keep butts in seats often at keyboards getting paid to justify someone elses jobs existence. There is a reason why job satisfaction is abysmal, why depression and opioid abuse is rampant, and why those weren't as large problems two centuries ago when people were almost universally subsistence farmers. The labor wasn't easy but it always justified itself to those doing the work (assuming it was your own farm, growing your own food, which was and has always been pretty rare). You knew why it had to be done, something lacking in many modern careers.
  - iliketosleep 7y ago
    This is where there's a kind of evolutionary gap that comes into play. Sitting in front of a screen for 40+ hours a week, and spending additional time at the screen for recreation doesn't seem conducive to good mental or physical health.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Shit jobs aren't synonymous to menial jobs. Shit jobs are ones where you suffer physically and mentally, and that suffering usually has little to do with actual job responsibilities, and more with a shitty boss (manager or entrepreneur) treating you like a consumable and trying to optimize you. E.g. flipping burgers at McDonald's isn't a shitty job because you're flipping burgers; it's a shitty job because you are paid badly, made to work much faster than it's healthy, and the management is shitty to you both personally and structurally, in how they plan the shifts, etc. I'd argue that any shitty job could have a non-shitty variant with mostly the same tasks and responsibilities, and only the conditions changed. Which leads me to the answer to your question: anywhere between invention of agriculture and the industrial revolution, or perhaps even up to XIX century. Even when people toiled on farms, to then give most of it away to some nobles with swords, at least they weren't micromanaged day-in, day-out by said nobles.

ihm 7y ago

Because people with &^%$ jobs have basically no say in or power over how production/"the economy" is run.

trevyn 7y ago

This is going to be fun when we realize that all jobs are shit jobs. :-)