5 ms·

It's fine and dandy for people in tech but if you're a single parent with a narrow set of skills who's struggling and been applying for jobs for over a month th

by n4r9 7y ago

It's fine and dandy for people in tech but if you're a single parent with a narrow set of skills who's struggling and been applying for jobs for over a month then you're going to take the offer. And then you're not going to have much time to continue job searching.

guntars 7y ago
Who’s responsible for you being a single parent with limited skills? The corporation?
- falcolas 7y ago
  They made a bad decision in the heat of passion, and didn't have a safety net to let them stand back up? Fuck'em. Who wants those kinds of people in our society? </angry sarcasm> To be slightly less angry and sarcastic - such a person has typically fallen through the cracks, and is vulnerable to being shoved into a "hold multiple jobs so you can afford your basic needs" position. Yes, we should be protecting these kinds of people. Having to work more than 40 hours a week to meet your basic needs is barbaric; it reflects poorly on us as a society.
- grecy 7y ago
  The better questions is do you want to help your neighbours and people in your community who are in such a situation, or do you just say "It's your problem" and turn a blind eye. What kind of world do you want to live in? Keep in mind you're only one serious medial disaster (massive car crash, cancer, etc.) away from bankruptcy, so it would be extremely quick for the tables to turn. Do some reading into people who were steadfastly against universal healthcare until they had a major medical emergency in their family. It's funny how people need a very personal experience of being on the s--t end of the stick before they want to change how the stick works.
  - sneak 7y ago
    I’m thinking that the best way to help those sorts of people is, when the opportunity exists for one, to choose employers that don’t abuse their potential staff. Not everyone has that choice, of course, but those that do should take it and do everything else possible to disadvantage such abusive organizations. That’s how I choose to help. If everyone with a skilled trade adopts that sort of approach and suggests that others do the same, these kinds of places will eventually go away and their abusive practices with them.
    - ianai 7y ago
      Companies can only offer benefits in proportion to their own finances and employees. A company with 5000 employees has much less bargaining power with an insurance company than a 15000 employee business. There’s no need to make moral judgements about the desire of the smaller company to explain why their employees have worse insurance than their smaller size. Now, mind you, we’re all supposed to be staunch capitalists here who prefer a large economy made up of many small, efficient businesses. It’s not always a clear-cut this is better than that choice. Even if you were to have all of the information up front. Which you will not.
  - rayhendricks 7y ago
    This is entirely true. I’d much rather pay 5% more in taxes and have Medicare for all rather than the current system (although Canada/rest of the commonwealth actually spend less per capita with a longer life expectancy), where healthcare pricing is almost entirely opaque. So cool you work at your favorite FANG making 200k/yr + 50k in RSU, but what happens when you get cancer in 2 yrs and they lay you off? Maybe you get unemployment for a year? Then you have to apply for Medicaid and how you don’t die while also losing your house. Your partner/spouse may also lose your healthcare coverage.
  - guntars 7y ago
    Having kids when you're not ready for them and getting cancer or into a car crash are two very different things, I hope you can see that. And if people change their opinions when they end up on the opposite side of the situation, those opinions probably weren't worth much to begin with and will likely change again once things turn around.
- basilgohar 7y ago
  No everyone has the same experiences, opportunities, or blessings that would lead to the set of circumstances that make these decisions easier for others. Therefore, we should all be concerned when a system makes people in different, unchosen circumstances from us suffer more or go through more difficulty. Without this compassion for others we are no better than beasts roaming the lands looking for mates and territory.
- cheyne_nz 7y ago
  Responsibility is a moot point. When systems like these are rolled out to a population, different cohorts will behave differently. The example given is just one of many who might have little choice. Many others will just accept the new practices. Once this is normalized and widespread, it gets increasingly harder to opt out.
- pintxo 7y ago
  Statistics tell us: their ancestors. (as in: the best predictor for personal success is the income of ones parents)
- maest 7y ago
  I think I see why you'd say that, but I think it's a very narrow viewpoint. I'd argue that it's in _everybody's_ interest that a social safety net exists for people like the GP.
- hysan 7y ago
  Or what if your significant other was the one working while you were a stay at home parent taking care of N children only for them to die in an accident at a young age. What then?
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged. -- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations It may be said that of this hard lot no one has any reason to complain, because it befalls those only who are outstripped by others, from inferiority of energy or of prudence. This, even were it true, would be a very small alleviation of the evil. If some Nero or Domitian were to require a hundred persons to run a race for their lives, on condition that the fifty or twenty who came in hindmost should be put to death, it would not be any diminution of the injustice that the strongest or nimblest would, except through some untoward accident, be certain to escape. The misery and the crime would be that any were put to death at all. So in the economy of society; if there be any who suffer physical privation or moral degradation, whose bodily necessities are either not satisfied or satisfied in a manner which only brutish creatures can be content with, this, though not necessarily the crime of society, is pro tanto a failure of the social arrangements. -- John Stuart Mill, Chapters on Socialism
- n4r9 7y ago
  Personal responsibility is obviously something that should be encouraged. To employ it as a scapegoat in order to avoid social change is not. A world in which some classes of people find it hard to freely choose their employer is one in which the free market will not work.
  - ianai 7y ago
    This. Building out the social net with things like UBI and universal medical benefits makes it easier to hire people for companies and easier to work for a wider range of companies as individual citizens.

by n4r9 7y ago

guntars 7y ago

Who’s responsible for you being a single parent with limited skills? The corporation?

falcolas 7y ago
They made a bad decision in the heat of passion, and didn't have a safety net to let them stand back up? Fuck'em. Who wants those kinds of people in our society? </angry sarcasm> To be slightly less angry and sarcastic - such a person has typically fallen through the cracks, and is vulnerable to being shoved into a "hold multiple jobs so you can afford your basic needs" position. Yes, we should be protecting these kinds of people. Having to work more than 40 hours a week to meet your basic needs is barbaric; it reflects poorly on us as a society.
grecy 7y ago
The better questions is do you want to help your neighbours and people in your community who are in such a situation, or do you just say "It's your problem" and turn a blind eye. What kind of world do you want to live in? Keep in mind you're only one serious medial disaster (massive car crash, cancer, etc.) away from bankruptcy, so it would be extremely quick for the tables to turn. Do some reading into people who were steadfastly against universal healthcare until they had a major medical emergency in their family. It's funny how people need a very personal experience of being on the s--t end of the stick before they want to change how the stick works.
- sneak 7y ago
  I’m thinking that the best way to help those sorts of people is, when the opportunity exists for one, to choose employers that don’t abuse their potential staff. Not everyone has that choice, of course, but those that do should take it and do everything else possible to disadvantage such abusive organizations. That’s how I choose to help. If everyone with a skilled trade adopts that sort of approach and suggests that others do the same, these kinds of places will eventually go away and their abusive practices with them.
  - ianai 7y ago
    Companies can only offer benefits in proportion to their own finances and employees. A company with 5000 employees has much less bargaining power with an insurance company than a 15000 employee business. There’s no need to make moral judgements about the desire of the smaller company to explain why their employees have worse insurance than their smaller size. Now, mind you, we’re all supposed to be staunch capitalists here who prefer a large economy made up of many small, efficient businesses. It’s not always a clear-cut this is better than that choice. Even if you were to have all of the information up front. Which you will not.
- rayhendricks 7y ago
  This is entirely true. I’d much rather pay 5% more in taxes and have Medicare for all rather than the current system (although Canada/rest of the commonwealth actually spend less per capita with a longer life expectancy), where healthcare pricing is almost entirely opaque. So cool you work at your favorite FANG making 200k/yr + 50k in RSU, but what happens when you get cancer in 2 yrs and they lay you off? Maybe you get unemployment for a year? Then you have to apply for Medicaid and how you don’t die while also losing your house. Your partner/spouse may also lose your healthcare coverage.
- guntars 7y ago
  Having kids when you're not ready for them and getting cancer or into a car crash are two very different things, I hope you can see that. And if people change their opinions when they end up on the opposite side of the situation, those opinions probably weren't worth much to begin with and will likely change again once things turn around.
basilgohar 7y ago
No everyone has the same experiences, opportunities, or blessings that would lead to the set of circumstances that make these decisions easier for others. Therefore, we should all be concerned when a system makes people in different, unchosen circumstances from us suffer more or go through more difficulty. Without this compassion for others we are no better than beasts roaming the lands looking for mates and territory.
cheyne_nz 7y ago
Responsibility is a moot point. When systems like these are rolled out to a population, different cohorts will behave differently. The example given is just one of many who might have little choice. Many others will just accept the new practices. Once this is normalized and widespread, it gets increasingly harder to opt out.
pintxo 7y ago
Statistics tell us: their ancestors. (as in: the best predictor for personal success is the income of ones parents)
maest 7y ago
I think I see why you'd say that, but I think it's a very narrow viewpoint. I'd argue that it's in _everybody's_ interest that a social safety net exists for people like the GP.
hysan 7y ago
Or what if your significant other was the one working while you were a stay at home parent taking care of N children only for them to die in an accident at a young age. What then?
dredmorbius 7y ago
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged. -- Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations It may be said that of this hard lot no one has any reason to complain, because it befalls those only who are outstripped by others, from inferiority of energy or of prudence. This, even were it true, would be a very small alleviation of the evil. If some Nero or Domitian were to require a hundred persons to run a race for their lives, on condition that the fifty or twenty who came in hindmost should be put to death, it would not be any diminution of the injustice that the strongest or nimblest would, except through some untoward accident, be certain to escape. The misery and the crime would be that any were put to death at all. So in the economy of society; if there be any who suffer physical privation or moral degradation, whose bodily necessities are either not satisfied or satisfied in a manner which only brutish creatures can be content with, this, though not necessarily the crime of society, is pro tanto a failure of the social arrangements. -- John Stuart Mill, Chapters on Socialism
n4r9 7y ago
Personal responsibility is obviously something that should be encouraged. To employ it as a scapegoat in order to avoid social change is not. A world in which some classes of people find it hard to freely choose their employer is one in which the free market will not work.
- ianai 7y ago
  This. Building out the social net with things like UBI and universal medical benefits makes it easier to hire people for companies and easier to work for a wider range of companies as individual citizens.