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We Will Do Anything to Get You to Work for Us Except Pay You Enough [McSweeneys]
- randycupertino 5y agoMcSweeneys is an internet writing/parody site. Their lists section is always amusing: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/columns/lists https://www.mcsweeneys.net/columns/lists
- effingwewt 5y agoThis is why I think downvotes aren't necessary for HN comments. I can't, for the life of me, figure out why this was downvoted. It's accurate, and the lists are funny to me, and I didn't know about them before. When people's feelings get in the way of facts it makes the world a shittier place. Thanks for the info bud.
- randycupertino 5y agoIt's weird! I was just posting some context re: background of what kind of site McSweeneys was... in case people weren't aware that it's a parody piece. :shrug:
- rdtwo 5y agoI mean it’s true but the reverse sucks too. If my company spent 2-3k per employee to make the work environment better is appreciate that way more than the 5k bonus that’s 3k after taxes we get and it would improve my quality of life more. We get paid quite fairly but not being able to get decent cafeteria food or coffee is a huge drag
- version_five 5y agoI had the opposite experience (in my well funded tech company days). We got free food at my job, and we had to pay tax on it as a benefit (for which we were reimbursed). The food, and cafeteria, were not my thing at all, and 95% of the time I either skipped lunch or grabbed something outside. I had no problem with my salary, but given the choice, I would have been happy to get more money and no food. (Just to be clear, it was very popular, I just would have liked the choice)
- rdtwo 5y agoYeah I guess it depends on priorities we’re in a big campus so it’s hard to go anywhere. I don’t always have time to pack a lunch so I’d like to have a healthy non prison style food option as a backup. Also I’d like to not get changed 5x if I need a snack and not have to provide my own coffee and tea
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kingofspain 5y agoIf an employer offered me a 5k paycut so they could ply me with coffee and snacks that’s not a deal I would take. So in reverse, I’d like the 5k please.
- therealdrag0 5y agoFor snacks no. But for breakfast and lunch, that’s a 20$/d or 5.2k/yr value, so I’d take that for the convenience. I got tired of bringing lunch to work after about 4 years. Most places I’ve worked have had few takeout options. (Of course WFH changes calculus)
- elliekelly 5y agoYou’re probably saying that as someone with a much more comfortable income than the typical low wage worker. An extra $3000 to a McDonald’s worker means a lot more. If you’re someone who is struggling to make rent every month you’d probably take a one-time bonus of $300 cash over $3000 in ongoing workplace amenities.
- therealdrag0 5y agoDo min wage workers get much of 3k amenities?
- rdtwo 5y agoOf course you can estimate my income just off the tax rate I’m describing
- robotresearcher 5y agoMeanwhile it's pretty normal to need to save up for multiple pay periods to buy shoes for your 4 year old. $3k/yr in the pocket makes a difference worth more than delicious coffee to many or most people, even in California.
- jkhdigital 5y agoI’m a PhD student living on a stipend that puts my family well below poverty level, and I can easily buy shoes for my 7-year old whenever he wants. Spare me the unfalsifiable histrionics about how hard it is to be poor, please.
- MagicWishMonkey 5y agoCongrats on having a spouse who makes decent money. Shoes for my toddler are $30-$40, and while it’s not a burden for me, it certainly would be if I was only bringing home $1200/month.
- robotresearcher 5y agoPerhaps it’s possible to be more poor than you? As a PhD student I was considerably better off than I had been at any time before that.
- realce 5y agoJust rolled through McDonald's and every lane has huge signs saying they'll pay for your college and training and sign-on bonus and.... I want money to purchase housing, land, and food. Just give me the money. There's only 4 people in that building serving 100+ people an hour - how does it not make sense to just pay them 20$ an hour?
- rdtwo 5y agoThe college stuff is a scam because most can’t collect and the hours aren’t flexible enough to allow it. It might also get preferential tax treatment
- MattGaiser 5y agoA lot of the college stuff offered by places like Walmart is a select few online degrees at places like Southern New Hampshire. Basically programs with a very low marginal cost.
- Godel_unicode 5y agoThe first result of a Google for this program tells you that the criteria for McDonalds is: """Courses must be taken at a degree or certificate granting college or university, accredited by the U.S. Department of Education."""
- jdavis703 5y agoI don’t know about the collection part, but folks can take virtual classes these days (this was true even before the pandemic.)
- chrismcb 5y agoUnless things have changed, how are the hours not flexible? I thought that was half the point of McDonald's.
- MagicWishMonkey 5y ago
- tick_tock_tick 5y agoTaxes and government is the answer. Almost every bonus listed is tax incentivize vs just paying people more. The real question we should ask is how did we get all the laws that make this the reality.
- hundreder 5y agoThis. Payroll taxes incentivize lower wages and encourage alternative compensation. This is very similar to how government programs influenced market incentives that gave rise to employer sponsored health insurance: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/upshot/the-real-reason-the-us-has-employer-sponsored-health-insurance.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/upshot/the-real-reason-th... Instead of vilifying employers who are (in most cases) just responding to market incentives, we should be advocating for lower payroll taxes.
- not2b 5y agoAnd then people have nothing to retire on, unless the lowering of payroll taxes is combined with bringing back pensions (employer paid retirement income).
- alisonkisk 5y agoDo you mean, advocate for disallowing exemptions from payroll taxes?
- wilde 5y agoIf we removed those incentives, companies would just give the rest to executives. https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-surged-14-in-2019-to-21-3-million-ceos-now-earn-320-times-as-much-as-a-typical-worker/ https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-surged-14-i...
- savanaly 5y agoCould you expand on your model?
- mastrsushi 5y agoDepending on where you work parking is a factor in your salary though. I was paying $200 a month, that's a pretty significant dent.
- brailsafe 5y agoNot needing to park or have a car at all would be even better, you'd just get an extra $500/month cash. ($200 + whatever gas and other bs the car costs)
- matthewaveryusa 5y agoI was doing the amortized cost of owning a car the other day and it’s pretty terrible: 50 gas, 75 car insurance, 20 maintenance, 100 amortized cost, 40 excise tax. That’s around 300 a month for a no frills Honda HRV. The way I amortized was 20k over 15 years, maintenance is oil change and tire rotation
- brailsafe 5y agoI did this after my last car died a few years ago, and I had to make the argument for myself whether I'd replace it or not. The numbers really don't work out (as you discovered) unless you're very directly using the thing for something that you can't solve another way. In my case, it's more like probably $90/month for gas, $190/month for insurance, probably $600/year on maintenance unless you're under warranty with a brand new car, and then there's taxes and depreciation that you immediately lose thousands to. Amortizing them paints less of a bleak picture, but again, you gotta be directly profiting with the thing. Maybe you're already living in a walkable neighborhood, but for some reason you work nowhere remotely close and there aren't viable alternative companies or transportation options. Maybe you're constantly traveling (say 30+ times a year) to the mountains in a way that would surpass the viability of renting a car frequently. Maybe you run a company that requires the fastest last mile transportation and storage almost all the time. Since then, I've used car share and rentals when I absolutely need them, and the numbers would have to be dramatically different for those options not to make more sense, because I do live in a city that prioritizes transit and other transportation options, and I'll do anything possible to avoid needing a car (as in owned) in the future. If my hobbies change significantly && my financials improve significantly, then that's where I'd reconsider.
- MattGaiser 5y agoThat's because most of these things have no real cost or a very low real cost to the company. Free college at Walmart lets you pick from one of a few online educational factories. 10% off stuff in a store means they are still probably making a profit on it. I used to work for a parking agency. Companies might only have paid 50 cents on the dollar and even less for large buyers for that parking.
- tdeck 5y agoNot only that, but if you're working a low wage job you likely have to take multiple jobs just to survive, so you a) don't have the money to make many purchases, even at a discount and b) don't have the time to enroll in a degree program and take classes. What people need is enough money or resources to have some savings and breathing room.
- spaetzleesser 5y agoI think that's why a lot of companies quickly embraced diversity initiatives. They are basically free. don't threaten the power structure and give a lot of good PR.
- pugworthy 5y agoIt's interesting for me to read this, because it's very much the trope(s) of what high tech jobs are - or what people imagine them to be. Interesting, because I work for a large tech firm (Fortune 50) that's been around for a while. We don't have basically any of the stuff listed. No free meals, no fancy break rooms, kegs, parties, vacations, etc. But what we have is pretty good pay. Not sports cars in the parking lot pay, but pretty good. The other thing is that the site I work at is in a smaller college town (< 60k population) in a nice, relatively quiet part of the US. So quality of life is pleasing. Personally as far as my work career goes, I rather like this arrangement.
- musicale 5y ago"There's a labor shortage! Nobody is willing to work for the wages we are offering!"
- mrfusion 5y agoI remember a couple years ago on HN someone offered 100k to their employees for recruiting a new employee. I was thinking to myself if you just put that toward salaries you wouldn’t need all the recruitment gimmicks.
- missedthecue 5y agoThe $100k bonus is one time, the salary is annual.
- mrfusion 5y agoI edited my comment. It’s not quite as impressive but I think it’s the same idea
- Arainach 5y ago100k once is a way better deal than 100k a year. It's better than 25k a year if you expect to retain employees.
- jkhdigital 5y agoKnowledge and incentives. Just offering big salaries doesn’t mean you’ll attract the best employees.
- ArtB 5y ago> Jobs aren’t for financially sustaining you—they’re for financially sustaining us. That is the crux. I feel like most businesses actually don't produce enough value to justify their own existence and therefore require below cost-of-living wages to keep them afloat.
- smabie 5y agoIf they didn't justify their own value they would be out of business.
- yossarian1408 5y agoWell when you take into account GST, income tax their employees pay, corporate tax, payroll tax, import&export duties (and every business up and down the supply chain has the exact same tax burden), there is not a lot left over for the business or the employees. The reason businesses exist is for creating profitable returns on capital investments. W/o profit, you simply do not have jobs in the first place.
- wilde 5y agoWhoever runs the company is currently taking it all. Not the gov’t or employees. https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-surged-14-in-2019-to-21-3-million-ceos-now-earn-320-times-as-much-as-a-typical-worker/ https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-compensation-surged-14-i...
- jkhdigital 5y agoI tried and failed to find a relevant statistic, but I’m pretty sure total CEO compensation is not “all” of net corporate profits.
- jkhdigital 5y agoNo, it’s just that globalization means that laborers in wealthy countries who expect a high standard of living are indirectly competing against laborers in poor countries who expect a relatively lower standard of living. It’s just competition and expectations.
- musicale 5y agoI think it was Tim Cook who made an interesting point about there being far fewer manufacturing engineers in the US than in China. Presumably it might be possible to improve the domestic supply by investing in training, offering higher wages, etc., but companies are more likely to simply hire abroad.
- legerdemain 5y agoCome work with us at Fringe, building the future of employee work benefits! Visit https://fringe.breezy.hr/ https://fringe.breezy.hr/ to see open roles! True to our name, our free breakfast muffins and cold-brew coffee on tap are second to none!
- throwawaylinux 5y agoSo how much do your open roles pay?
- legerdemain 5y agoWe offer free laundry service through Purple Tie and a (fully vaccinated) massage therapist who comes in twice a week!
- ivraatiems 5y agoThis is a joke, right? Please say you're joking and I'm just not good at reading sarcasm in text.
- tonyedgecombe 5y agohttps://richmondbizsense.com/2021/03/04/capital-raises-net-nearly-6m-for-two-richmond-tech-startups/#djPop https://richmondbizsense.com/2021/03/04/capital-raises-net-n...
- throwawaylinux 5y agoHah, I was wondering the same thing. I would be almost sure it was except for the very elaborate site -- too much even for a very dedicated joke. Well, I admire their chutzpah.