7 ms·

Retail jobs are treated as a temporary bridge to something better, but why?

36 points by hhs 5y ago

quantumBerry 5y ago
It's treated as a bridge for those who need some life skills before moving onto something else. A lot of jobs requiring responsibility don't want to hire a kid who has no experience other than smoking dope and video games, and retail will give them some proof they can deal with some progressive responsibility. Not a bridge for others. It's fine that it's a bridge for some and not one for others. If stores decide retail is a career job, then they will pay career ladder wages, otherwise market forces make retail as a bridge a self fulfilling prophecy. The issue is if the government dictates a certain minimum wage for retail workers, then they've just outlawed any jobs that provide less value than that wage. You don't gain jobs by outlawing jobs, and those desiring the bridge to something more will be hurt the worst.
- rubicon33 5y ago
  No surprise you are getting downvoted. Nobody wants to hear anything about personal responsibility these days. The second you highlight that someone’s life position might be due to in part to some of their own decisions, you get downvoted. Today, everyone is seen as infallible by nature and surely their current lot in life is entirely unfair and based on some history of prejudice/luck/system failure. It’s a completely toxic mindset, but one that has taken hold culturally and only time will illuminate how detrimental it is. Belief that ones circumstances are entirely outside of their control (even if mostly true) is a surefire way to kill the determination and motivation of even the most driven individual.
  - Clubber 5y ago
    Real life is somewhere in between. Some people are lazy and expect $150k/yr jobs for doing nothing, but many people work their ass off to barely get by because low wages, or cutting hours deliberately to pad the bottom line, and many other nefarious reasons. It's the latter most people are concerned about. If you don't go through high school and into college in a specific degree, chances are, you're hosed. There are of course outliers, but most people with just a high school degree, or even a college degree in something that isn't in high demand are hosed for life. That wasn't always the case.
    - rubicon33 5y ago
      Absolutely. I agree completely that the current economy only serves a smaller and smaller subset of the population. Each decade that passes seems to squeeze the middle class tighter and tighter. It’s emblematic of a totally derailed system. That said, I don’t think we should be downvoting into oblivion everyone who calls for some notion of personal responsibility and growth. You need to believe that life isn’t stacked against you to have any chance of succeeding in this word. We shouldn’t be ostracizing someone because they propose that another’s position is due to their own lack of work ethic. The truth may be somewhere in the middle between character and circumstance.
      - Clubber 5y ago
        >That said, I don’t think we should be downvoting into oblivion everyone who calls for some notion of personal responsibility and growth. Agree. People downvoted mine to oblivion as well. All it does is devalue the voting system, stifle rational discussion, and push groupthink. It's the internet and HN isn't immune to that sort of thing, so it is what it is. It's not like I get to turn in karma for an eraser or anything, so to hell with the down voters.
    - merpnderp 5y ago
      Those latter people have avenues to growth they likely just don't know about or don't understand are near sure fire ways to advance. A local fast food chain pains its store managers 1.5x the median household income in my state. Anyone who can run a construction crew can earn real money. In my city you can't find anyone to put up fencing for any price. And your comment points out the real villain in our economy. Institutions that happily accept 20 year loans from students in exchange for a degree that will never earn them a dime. How evil to sell a degree program as a pathway to a successful career, knowing the opportunities to actually make use of that degree are statistically zero.
      - Clubber 5y ago
        >A local fast food chain pains its store managers 1.5x the median household income in my state. Anyone who can run a construction crew can earn real money. In my city you can't find anyone to put up fencing for any price. What you said is true, but for every manager, there are 20 people under him that don't make a good living and that's just the nature of the pyramid structure. All of those 20 people can't be managers or foreman, so 19 out of 20 are stuck every cycle, until the manager quits or moves or whatever. It's like the lottery, anyone can win the lottery and be rich, but it doesn't mean everyone will. It wasn't always like this, but business practices moved to squeeze every dollar out of every resource in the name of efficiency regardless of the human cost in most cases. That's certainly a cause.
  - KittenInABox 5y ago
    > Belief that ones circumstances are entirely outside of their control (even if mostly true) is a surefire way to kill the determination and motivation of even the most driven individual. Wait, so people shouldn't believe something that is mostly true? Genuinely asking. I agree that we we shouldn't absolve people of all personal responsibility, but rhetorically the quoted statement appears to suggest people shouldn't believe things that are true.
    - rubicon33 5y ago
      There are countless examples in life where choosing optimism over pessimism will serve you well. Sometimes, being pessimistic is the “realistic” and “right” outlook, but entirely destructive to personal growth. So yes, there are times when you should choose ideals that support a healthy mind, like believing for example that life is not entirely random, that your circumstances ARE malleable, and that despite whatever histories suggest your disadvantage you can’t let it control your destiny. As a collective culture we have swung way too far toward this idea of explaining away everyone’s situation based on factors outside of their control. I’ve heard it used to justify some truly disgusting behavior. The truth is that someone’s lot in life is some blend of chance and self determination.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - KittenInABox 5y ago
        I think you're using phrases like "sometimes" and "mostly" and "some blend of" to advocate for a position that fundamentally promotes toxic positivity. I agree with certain aspects of what you say, such as that it's inappropriate to justify disgusting behavior (which I assume you mean assaulting/harming others) and attribute it purely to circumstance as a way of avoiding consequences. I however vehemently disagree with the notion that a healthy mind is a mind that ignores basic facts of reality, such as how much influence randomness and luck have on our quality of life. There are going to be circumstances in which people's lives objectively suck in a way that isn't their fault and they can still be optimistic about it in a way that acknowledges basic facts of one's living circumstances. There are going to be circumstances in which people's lives are objectively awesome in a way that they didn't do very much work to achieve and acknowledging that has nothing to do with whether or not they're an optimist.
  - burntwater 5y ago
    I know few people that believes that all of the "unfairness" in life is based entirely on history of prejudice/luck/system. I do know many people who believe that prejudice/luck/system has a very strong influence on one's lot in life. To deny that reality is just as toxic a mindset.
    - newfriend 5y ago
      > To deny that reality is just as toxic a mindset. It's not actually. One produces individuals who constantly complain about any perceived injustice. And another produces people who strive to improve themselves in the face of adversity.
      - burntwater 5y ago
        Does it? How?
      - Lammy 5y ago
        Which one of these are you?
      - bmicraft 5y ago
        One produces individuals who will fight to fix an unjust system. And another produces people who will sacrifice their health for a job that does not care about them and still end up poor while feeling guilty because it supposedly is their own fault. FTFY
        newfriend 5y ago
        Just because a system produces different outcomes doesn't mean it's unjust. For example, people complain about taking out $100k+ loans for some degree, and then they complain that they can't get a job. Meanwhile other degrees or even people coming out of bootcamps are able to get great jobs. Is that an unjust system? Do they bear any responsibility in this case? > And another produces people who will sacrifice their health for a job that does not care about them and still end up poor while feeling guilty because it supposedly is their own fault. Does striving to improve yourself only include mindlessly working a job detrimental to your health? Is there any scenario where an individual is responsible for their own lot in life?
  - robocat 5y ago
    Most people I know seem to believe in a mixture of personal responsibility and circumstantial luck. There is an abundance of evidence that those born into a poor family do not gain the same opportunities as those born into a wealthy family. Blaming the poor for their condition has a long tradition. Blaming shop-workers for their lack of “personal responsibility” seems to be the current thinking of many selfish people: “it is their choice to be poor”. Note that I find your writing to be disturbingly black and white thinking - absolutely a signal of a toxic mindset to me. “Nobody wants” and “everyone is” just show your own prejudices and are completely non-factual. https://www.socialworkdegreecenter.com/10-common-misconceptions-poor/ https://www.socialworkdegreecenter.com/10-common-misconcepti...
- ketzo 5y ago
  > make retail as a bridge a self fulfilling prophecy And what if that prophecy is not fulfilled? What if, because you work 50 hours a week but make poverty-level wages, you can't bridge your way out? What if, because you're considered "part-time" at three different jobs, you don't have any form of healthcare or savings (because hey, we decided for you that this isn't a "career job")? What if you spend four years of your life being treated as disposable trash, and for some reason that has an impact on your self-esteem and work ethic? You are looking at this from a purely individual standpoint. It is irresponsible to acknowledge that there are not systemic factors at play here. Markets are doing what markets do, and that is maximize profit, not optimize for human life. Edit: if people tell you (as they are telling everyone!) that they're miserable in retail jobs, that they can't pay their rent, that they can't support a family, and your response is, "don't worry -- that's the system working as intended! it's supposed to be a bad job! just bridge your way out!" that is a bad response.
  - quantumBerry 5y ago
    >And what if that prophecy is not fulfilled? If you've gained no skills vs a fresh person with no experience that you can use to gain a better paying job, then you're doing the best you don't benefit financially from your job being outlawed. >What if, because you work 50 hours a week but make poverty-level wages, you can't bridge your way out? If you work 50 hours a week in a capacity where you are offered the most available to you and you are incapable of starting a business that offers any more value, then you're doing the best you can. Many people strive to earn the most they can, and if that is dead end retail that's ok. In my youth in the wake of the 2009 recession I used to wake up drunk out of a ditch and show up at the day labor agency with a completely unverifiable employment background (read between the lines there) making $17/hr alongside felons and drug addicts moving drywall for the oil worker camps, but I guess there are a lot less enterprising people than me out there -- but I don't think their job should be outlawed. I know there are some people out there that can't even be bothered to wake up drunk out of a ditch and walk to the day labor agency and move some drywall. >What if you spend four years of your life being treated as disposable trash, and for some reason that has an impact on your self-esteem and work ethic? What if you choose to find meaning in life somewhere other than work, like your family or friends. What if you find one of the other 10,000 employers also offering shit wages and work for them instead. I used to work at a taco shop for $7/hr, and even though the job sucked the boss at least was pleasant and offered me a shot of tequila at the end of the night. What if you take pride in yourself for not your job or earnings but by engaging with the community, or playing with your children, or worshipping your chosen deity or playing basketball on the corner. What if you sign up to be apprentice roofer, a job always hiring even in the worst of economic times and offering full time plus benefits. > Markets are doing what markets do, and that is maximize profit, not optimize for human life. And yet there has been unprecedented life expectancy, total wealth of society, educational offering and attainment, and medical breakthroughs in the past 200 years thanks to markets that optimize for profit.
zz865 5y ago
Its a real joy when you find a stop assistant that actually knows what they're doing and can provide useful advice. In most places though a retail assistant just means someone who knows how to operate the checkout.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  I once interviewed for a shop assistant position in a chain that sells consumer electronics and computers as I thought my technical knowledge would be applicable. Turns out the company didn’t actually want me to help people, they just wanted me to sell as much as possible.
  - zz865 5y ago
    This is the typical response. OK what are you looking to spend? Ok for that price you can buy this one - gee thanks.
- twiddling 5y ago
  I seek out smaller, focused shops for this experience. Any kind of chain/big box store will be lacking vs. a niche retailer where the staff is invested in the business ( high end camera equipment, for instance ). Although sometimes that experience can also be pedantic and condescending to a novice.
zwkrt 5y ago
It is in the best interests of the owning class to perpetuate myths of upward mobility. If your employees are making minimum wage because they are “young artistic types who just need some extra cash”, or “it’s just a non-skilled/temp/entry level position”, then it is much easier for the owner, the management chain, the customer, and the media to justify how terribly leaf-nodes on the org chart are treated. This leads to the mast majority of jobs becoming temp, “gigs”, part-time, commission-based, no benefits, no reward for loyalty, no reward for seniority, and with the only hope for mobility is becoming a manager over the other poor souls you would crush in an instant for an extra $4/hr (less in practice!) If we had a strong set of myths about taking pride in ones work, mutual respect, venerability, and craftsmanship, I think we would not put up with it. I personally cannot even walk into a Macdonald’s because the environment behind the counter is so obviously demeaning; it disgusts me that we would eat in front of people who are constantly under survaeilance, slaves to beeping mechanical masters, and that they get $8.25/hr, less than the price of a single person’s order.
- subpixel 5y ago
  In fact, McDonalds uses the numbers of employees who are no longer employees as validation that they are offering some sort of bridge into the workforce. To hear them spin it, the McJob is a sort of stepping stone, by magnanimous design.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    While also working as hard as possible to automate every task in the system and remove as many of these "stepping stones" as possible. Semi-relatedly, I don't think a lot of people yet realize how many McDonalds went "dark" and nearly fully automated in the last two years. There are entire McDonald's now that are Delivery Only, the Delivery is outsourced to one of the providers like DoorDash and presumably the number of staff working inside the McDonalds is down to two or three people, tops.
- harlanji 5y ago
  Exactly. I found myself in retail jobs after 20 years in tech and a large % of colleagues had 2-3 jobs and were in their late 20s-mid 30s. Managers tended to be in their early or mid 20’s and one GM left for academia. Nobody asked how I found myself there in my mid-30’s and seemingly inexperienced in retail, thankfully I pass as pretty young. There isn’t a clear path out for most. I’m educated but have other issues blocking me from getting another professional job. In theory anyone can start their own business with all the new tech available, but in practice few seemed to have the time to take care of themselves properly much less start much of a business while learning the tools as well. It would be quite an investment and few had the budget for it, so to speak. The kitchens especially were packed with career service people well into adulthood. Service is a career. Not meaning to sound judgemental, quite the opposite is true. Do mean to say that there aren’t many paths out and there is probably a lot to the business that even an educated person requires experience to learn and adapt to. Management usn’t for everyone either, like with coding it may not be the right career track for most but people do it for the pay bump or as a stepping stone toward corporate and IMO the whole team suffers.
ravitation 5y ago
It's treated as temporary as part of a justification for lower wages. This idea has been explicitly stated by those who oppose a $15 federal minimum wage, arguing that people making current minimum wage, or close to minimum wage, are not actually poor, or won't be in the long-term, because their current wage is temporary (the Cato Institute makes this exact argument and gives the example of "working students").
- quantumBerry 5y ago
  No the argument is that if you outlaw all jobs under $15, then you've just outlawed employment for anyone who can offer less than $15/hr in value, and relegated that person to unemployment and cut their ability to climb the wage ladder.
  - ravitation 5y ago
    I am, almost word for word, citing the Cato Institute. > First of all, one consequence of federal minimum wage hikes can be job or hours loss for low‐ wage workers, as we’ve seen, which can create poverty. Second, a lot of people who earn the federal minimum wage or just above it are not poor, or will not be poor in the longer term (think of working students, or second‐ earners in relatively affluent households working part‐ time). https://www.cato.org/commentary/case-against-15-federal-minimum-wage-qa# https://www.cato.org/commentary/case-against-15-federal-mini... EDIT: Before you reply with what I know you will, the reason the first and second argument above are lumped together are because the are both essentially myths (for example, see the original article), and the Cato Institute cites no actual data that either are, generally speaking, true.
    - quantumBerry 5y ago
      >one consequence of federal minimum wage hikes can be job or hours loss for low‐ wage workers, as we’ve seen, which can create poverty. If the minimum wage has no effect on unemployment, then why stop at $15? Make minimum wage set at 20 pounds of gold per hour. Lets maximize our wealth.
sjtindell 5y ago
This article doesn’t seem to make any clear claims about “why”. The point seemed to be to say “they don’t have to be”. I would have expected to see something about tight margins in retail, and the low barrier to entry for the work.
missedthecue 5y ago
Probably because they are? A 2014 survey of more than 5,000 owners, operators, and current and former restaurant employees found that 97% of restaurant managers and 94% percent of shift crew employees had advanced to higher-paying jobs in the industry. What's more, 90% of operators under 35 and 87% of operators between 35 and 44 said their first job was entry-level. https://www.qsrmagazine.com/ladder-success https://www.qsrmagazine.com/ladder-success
- scarecrowbob 5y ago
  It seems pretty obvious that most of the folks owning/operating retail or restaurants come out of the industry. What's being argued isn't that point: rather, it's the question of how many workers move to better positions in that industry. Even if 100% of the people running restaurants/retail come from within the industry, that fact has nothing to say about how many within the industry make that move to owning operating.
- bmicraft 5y ago
  Isn't that the wrong direction to think in? If one employee in a team of 10 gets promoted to be their leader (because the former one retired or got promoted themselves) then the other 9/10 don't get promoted. And those people won't ever have reasonable chance to be promoted because the same problem exists one layer up where their team leader only has a 1/10 chance to get promoted over their own colleagues
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    Well yes, every industry has an organizational pyramid. There are just simply more fryer and cashier positions available than regional manager positions. But the fact that 9 out of every 10 operators started out at the fryer seems to indicate that there is clearly upward mobility.
    - scarecrowbob 5y ago
      But it doesn't, though. If 9/10 of every fry cooks ended up owning a restaurant, you'd be correct in your claim about upward mobility. But what you're claiming is that 9/10 owners started out as fry cooks. Those are wildly different claims. It could be the case that only 0.002 of frycooks end up owning a restaurant and there is only an infinitesimal amount of mobility, and your claim could still be totally true.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Because we're replacing them with machines. Labor is expensive in some countries. So expensive that as a business owner you want to avoid hiring as much as possible.
josephcsible 5y ago
I assume it has something to do with the fact that retail jobs don't require any qualifications, whereas the jobs that are "something better" do.
david38 5y ago
So you can justify low wages and no benefits
bartread 5y ago
I worked retail for about 3 years, first just weekends and bits of overtime during school holidays all through 6th form, and then for nearly a year basically full time afterwards, and then a couple of the holidays during uni. I've also worked as a waiter, a factory hand/labourer in a bottling plant, and a telephone fundraiser. None of these were great jobs but they were there when I needed the money and I'm grateful for the experience they gave me. Still, for me these were all temporary bridges to something better, because I was fortunate enough to have other options open to me after university. That isn't true for everyone: plenty of people go through their whole working lives in low paid, low skill jobs, and there are all kinds of reasons why that happens. So why do privileged people like me see retail as a temporary bridge to something better? Most fundamentally, the pay is shit[0]. I mean, really shit. My first job paid £2.16/hr in 1992. It's maybe a bit better now but minimum wage is still minimum wage. And they're not very interesting jobs. I mean you can get bored of any of them really quickly. And there isn't much you can do to make more money or make them more interesting, so there's also that. Let's talk about the pay issue in more detail though, because it's pretty easy (and totally justifiable) to moan about, but I think it's also worth thinking about why pay is so low. Think about it though: ignoring the economics of supply and demand (there are plenty of people who can do low-skill work), even if (bricks and mortar[1]) retail companies wanted to pay more, could they afford to do it? I can't speak knowledgeably about the state of (bricks and mortar) retail in other parts of the world but, here in the UK, large swathes of it are beyond hosed. In the best of times retail firms make 10% margins: compared with product firms that might make 40% or more. These are not the best of times. Retail operates on razor thin margins and nowadays you're doing well just to stay afloat. In the last couple of years alone we've seen sub-sectors like fashion and department stores get an absolute pasting. Here are some of the chains that have gone under, just off the top of my head: Debenhams, Beales, Arcadia Group (including Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and various other brands), Karen Millen, along with countless independent stores taken down as collateral damage of the pandemic. And why are the margins so thin, especially given the huge markups that are typical on clothing? Several factors: high rents, outrageous business rates... and then there's the small fact that the buying public don't want to spend, or don't have the money to spend, more on clothing. Hence the prevalence of low-cost fast fashion brands, including online brands such as Boohoo and ASOS (who are amongst the few brands doing particularly well at the moment). I.e., pay is low basically because we don't want to pay more for goods, and retail has long since turned into something of a volume game in terms of both customers and goods shipped. So for everyone who has the option of a different career, it's always going to be a temporary bridge to something better. I haven't really talked about online retail, which may be something of a different can of worms. Could, e.g., Amazon be a more fulfilling place to work than it is at the moment? Could it be better than bricks and mortar retail? I'm talking here specifically about roles at similar skill levels to normal retail, not highly paid software engineers, etc. Amazon makes huge margins by the standards of retail so, arguably, they could make it a better for warehouse workers. I haven't done the sums to figure out what real terms difference it would make to an average warehouse worker if they, say, reinvested 50% of what is currently profit into pay and conditions improvements, or whether that would be enough to make Amazon warehouse worker a desirable career option (I suspect possibly not), but it would certainly make a positive impact on those who have few other options available to them. [0] I know in the US you allegedly can make decent money from tips as a waiter but this is the UK and, most places, that's never really been true here, especially not if you're a gawky and slightly awkward post-teen. [1] This bricks and mortar versus online distinction is important. Most of what I'm talking about here is bricks and mortar retail, since this is the main topic of the article, but I do touch on online at the end.

36 points by hhs 5y ago

It's treated as a bridge for those who need some life skills before moving onto something else. A lot of jobs requiring responsibility don't want to hire a kid who has no experience other than smoking dope and video games, and retail will give them some proof they can deal with some progressive responsibility. Not a bridge for others. It's fine that it's a bridge for some and not one for others. If stores decide retail is a career job, then they will pay career ladder wages, otherwise market forces make retail as a bridge a self fulfilling prophecy. The issue is if the government dictates a certain minimum wage for retail workers, then they've just outlawed any jobs that provide less value than that wage. You don't gain jobs by outlawing jobs, and those desiring the bridge to something more will be hurt the worst.

rubicon33 5y ago
No surprise you are getting downvoted. Nobody wants to hear anything about personal responsibility these days. The second you highlight that someone’s life position might be due to in part to some of their own decisions, you get downvoted. Today, everyone is seen as infallible by nature and surely their current lot in life is entirely unfair and based on some history of prejudice/luck/system failure. It’s a completely toxic mindset, but one that has taken hold culturally and only time will illuminate how detrimental it is. Belief that ones circumstances are entirely outside of their control (even if mostly true) is a surefire way to kill the determination and motivation of even the most driven individual.
- Clubber 5y ago
  Real life is somewhere in between. Some people are lazy and expect $150k/yr jobs for doing nothing, but many people work their ass off to barely get by because low wages, or cutting hours deliberately to pad the bottom line, and many other nefarious reasons. It's the latter most people are concerned about. If you don't go through high school and into college in a specific degree, chances are, you're hosed. There are of course outliers, but most people with just a high school degree, or even a college degree in something that isn't in high demand are hosed for life. That wasn't always the case.
  - rubicon33 5y ago
    Absolutely. I agree completely that the current economy only serves a smaller and smaller subset of the population. Each decade that passes seems to squeeze the middle class tighter and tighter. It’s emblematic of a totally derailed system. That said, I don’t think we should be downvoting into oblivion everyone who calls for some notion of personal responsibility and growth. You need to believe that life isn’t stacked against you to have any chance of succeeding in this word. We shouldn’t be ostracizing someone because they propose that another’s position is due to their own lack of work ethic. The truth may be somewhere in the middle between character and circumstance.
    - Clubber 5y ago
      >That said, I don’t think we should be downvoting into oblivion everyone who calls for some notion of personal responsibility and growth. Agree. People downvoted mine to oblivion as well. All it does is devalue the voting system, stifle rational discussion, and push groupthink. It's the internet and HN isn't immune to that sort of thing, so it is what it is. It's not like I get to turn in karma for an eraser or anything, so to hell with the down voters.
  - merpnderp 5y ago
    Those latter people have avenues to growth they likely just don't know about or don't understand are near sure fire ways to advance. A local fast food chain pains its store managers 1.5x the median household income in my state. Anyone who can run a construction crew can earn real money. In my city you can't find anyone to put up fencing for any price. And your comment points out the real villain in our economy. Institutions that happily accept 20 year loans from students in exchange for a degree that will never earn them a dime. How evil to sell a degree program as a pathway to a successful career, knowing the opportunities to actually make use of that degree are statistically zero.
    - Clubber 5y ago
      >A local fast food chain pains its store managers 1.5x the median household income in my state. Anyone who can run a construction crew can earn real money. In my city you can't find anyone to put up fencing for any price. What you said is true, but for every manager, there are 20 people under him that don't make a good living and that's just the nature of the pyramid structure. All of those 20 people can't be managers or foreman, so 19 out of 20 are stuck every cycle, until the manager quits or moves or whatever. It's like the lottery, anyone can win the lottery and be rich, but it doesn't mean everyone will. It wasn't always like this, but business practices moved to squeeze every dollar out of every resource in the name of efficiency regardless of the human cost in most cases. That's certainly a cause.
- KittenInABox 5y ago
  > Belief that ones circumstances are entirely outside of their control (even if mostly true) is a surefire way to kill the determination and motivation of even the most driven individual. Wait, so people shouldn't believe something that is mostly true? Genuinely asking. I agree that we we shouldn't absolve people of all personal responsibility, but rhetorically the quoted statement appears to suggest people shouldn't believe things that are true.
  - rubicon33 5y ago
    There are countless examples in life where choosing optimism over pessimism will serve you well. Sometimes, being pessimistic is the “realistic” and “right” outlook, but entirely destructive to personal growth. So yes, there are times when you should choose ideals that support a healthy mind, like believing for example that life is not entirely random, that your circumstances ARE malleable, and that despite whatever histories suggest your disadvantage you can’t let it control your destiny. As a collective culture we have swung way too far toward this idea of explaining away everyone’s situation based on factors outside of their control. I’ve heard it used to justify some truly disgusting behavior. The truth is that someone’s lot in life is some blend of chance and self determination.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - KittenInABox 5y ago
      I think you're using phrases like "sometimes" and "mostly" and "some blend of" to advocate for a position that fundamentally promotes toxic positivity. I agree with certain aspects of what you say, such as that it's inappropriate to justify disgusting behavior (which I assume you mean assaulting/harming others) and attribute it purely to circumstance as a way of avoiding consequences. I however vehemently disagree with the notion that a healthy mind is a mind that ignores basic facts of reality, such as how much influence randomness and luck have on our quality of life. There are going to be circumstances in which people's lives objectively suck in a way that isn't their fault and they can still be optimistic about it in a way that acknowledges basic facts of one's living circumstances. There are going to be circumstances in which people's lives are objectively awesome in a way that they didn't do very much work to achieve and acknowledging that has nothing to do with whether or not they're an optimist.
- burntwater 5y ago
  I know few people that believes that all of the "unfairness" in life is based entirely on history of prejudice/luck/system. I do know many people who believe that prejudice/luck/system has a very strong influence on one's lot in life. To deny that reality is just as toxic a mindset.
  - newfriend 5y ago
    > To deny that reality is just as toxic a mindset. It's not actually. One produces individuals who constantly complain about any perceived injustice. And another produces people who strive to improve themselves in the face of adversity.
    - burntwater 5y ago
      Does it? How?
    - Lammy 5y ago
      Which one of these are you?
    - bmicraft 5y ago
      One produces individuals who will fight to fix an unjust system. And another produces people who will sacrifice their health for a job that does not care about them and still end up poor while feeling guilty because it supposedly is their own fault. FTFY
      - newfriend 5y ago
        Just because a system produces different outcomes doesn't mean it's unjust. For example, people complain about taking out $100k+ loans for some degree, and then they complain that they can't get a job. Meanwhile other degrees or even people coming out of bootcamps are able to get great jobs. Is that an unjust system? Do they bear any responsibility in this case? > And another produces people who will sacrifice their health for a job that does not care about them and still end up poor while feeling guilty because it supposedly is their own fault. Does striving to improve yourself only include mindlessly working a job detrimental to your health? Is there any scenario where an individual is responsible for their own lot in life?
- robocat 5y ago
  Most people I know seem to believe in a mixture of personal responsibility and circumstantial luck. There is an abundance of evidence that those born into a poor family do not gain the same opportunities as those born into a wealthy family. Blaming the poor for their condition has a long tradition. Blaming shop-workers for their lack of “personal responsibility” seems to be the current thinking of many selfish people: “it is their choice to be poor”. Note that I find your writing to be disturbingly black and white thinking - absolutely a signal of a toxic mindset to me. “Nobody wants” and “everyone is” just show your own prejudices and are completely non-factual. https://www.socialworkdegreecenter.com/10-common-misconceptions-poor/ https://www.socialworkdegreecenter.com/10-common-misconcepti...
ketzo 5y ago
> make retail as a bridge a self fulfilling prophecy And what if that prophecy is not fulfilled? What if, because you work 50 hours a week but make poverty-level wages, you can't bridge your way out? What if, because you're considered "part-time" at three different jobs, you don't have any form of healthcare or savings (because hey, we decided for you that this isn't a "career job")? What if you spend four years of your life being treated as disposable trash, and for some reason that has an impact on your self-esteem and work ethic? You are looking at this from a purely individual standpoint. It is irresponsible to acknowledge that there are not systemic factors at play here. Markets are doing what markets do, and that is maximize profit, not optimize for human life. Edit: if people tell you (as they are telling everyone!) that they're miserable in retail jobs, that they can't pay their rent, that they can't support a family, and your response is, "don't worry -- that's the system working as intended! it's supposed to be a bad job! just bridge your way out!" that is a bad response.
- quantumBerry 5y ago
  >And what if that prophecy is not fulfilled? If you've gained no skills vs a fresh person with no experience that you can use to gain a better paying job, then you're doing the best you don't benefit financially from your job being outlawed. >What if, because you work 50 hours a week but make poverty-level wages, you can't bridge your way out? If you work 50 hours a week in a capacity where you are offered the most available to you and you are incapable of starting a business that offers any more value, then you're doing the best you can. Many people strive to earn the most they can, and if that is dead end retail that's ok. In my youth in the wake of the 2009 recession I used to wake up drunk out of a ditch and show up at the day labor agency with a completely unverifiable employment background (read between the lines there) making $17/hr alongside felons and drug addicts moving drywall for the oil worker camps, but I guess there are a lot less enterprising people than me out there -- but I don't think their job should be outlawed. I know there are some people out there that can't even be bothered to wake up drunk out of a ditch and walk to the day labor agency and move some drywall. >What if you spend four years of your life being treated as disposable trash, and for some reason that has an impact on your self-esteem and work ethic? What if you choose to find meaning in life somewhere other than work, like your family or friends. What if you find one of the other 10,000 employers also offering shit wages and work for them instead. I used to work at a taco shop for $7/hr, and even though the job sucked the boss at least was pleasant and offered me a shot of tequila at the end of the night. What if you take pride in yourself for not your job or earnings but by engaging with the community, or playing with your children, or worshipping your chosen deity or playing basketball on the corner. What if you sign up to be apprentice roofer, a job always hiring even in the worst of economic times and offering full time plus benefits. > Markets are doing what markets do, and that is maximize profit, not optimize for human life. And yet there has been unprecedented life expectancy, total wealth of society, educational offering and attainment, and medical breakthroughs in the past 200 years thanks to markets that optimize for profit.

zz865 5y ago

Its a real joy when you find a stop assistant that actually knows what they're doing and can provide useful advice. In most places though a retail assistant just means someone who knows how to operate the checkout.

nicoburns 5y ago
I once interviewed for a shop assistant position in a chain that sells consumer electronics and computers as I thought my technical knowledge would be applicable. Turns out the company didn’t actually want me to help people, they just wanted me to sell as much as possible.
- zz865 5y ago
  This is the typical response. OK what are you looking to spend? Ok for that price you can buy this one - gee thanks.
twiddling 5y ago
I seek out smaller, focused shops for this experience. Any kind of chain/big box store will be lacking vs. a niche retailer where the staff is invested in the business ( high end camera equipment, for instance ). Although sometimes that experience can also be pedantic and condescending to a novice.

zwkrt 5y ago

It is in the best interests of the owning class to perpetuate myths of upward mobility. If your employees are making minimum wage because they are “young artistic types who just need some extra cash”, or “it’s just a non-skilled/temp/entry level position”, then it is much easier for the owner, the management chain, the customer, and the media to justify how terribly leaf-nodes on the org chart are treated. This leads to the mast majority of jobs becoming temp, “gigs”, part-time, commission-based, no benefits, no reward for loyalty, no reward for seniority, and with the only hope for mobility is becoming a manager over the other poor souls you would crush in an instant for an extra $4/hr (less in practice!) If we had a strong set of myths about taking pride in ones work, mutual respect, venerability, and craftsmanship, I think we would not put up with it. I personally cannot even walk into a Macdonald’s because the environment behind the counter is so obviously demeaning; it disgusts me that we would eat in front of people who are constantly under survaeilance, slaves to beeping mechanical masters, and that they get $8.25/hr, less than the price of a single person’s order.

subpixel 5y ago
In fact, McDonalds uses the numbers of employees who are no longer employees as validation that they are offering some sort of bridge into the workforce. To hear them spin it, the McJob is a sort of stepping stone, by magnanimous design.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  While also working as hard as possible to automate every task in the system and remove as many of these "stepping stones" as possible. Semi-relatedly, I don't think a lot of people yet realize how many McDonalds went "dark" and nearly fully automated in the last two years. There are entire McDonald's now that are Delivery Only, the Delivery is outsourced to one of the providers like DoorDash and presumably the number of staff working inside the McDonalds is down to two or three people, tops.
harlanji 5y ago
Exactly. I found myself in retail jobs after 20 years in tech and a large % of colleagues had 2-3 jobs and were in their late 20s-mid 30s. Managers tended to be in their early or mid 20’s and one GM left for academia. Nobody asked how I found myself there in my mid-30’s and seemingly inexperienced in retail, thankfully I pass as pretty young. There isn’t a clear path out for most. I’m educated but have other issues blocking me from getting another professional job. In theory anyone can start their own business with all the new tech available, but in practice few seemed to have the time to take care of themselves properly much less start much of a business while learning the tools as well. It would be quite an investment and few had the budget for it, so to speak. The kitchens especially were packed with career service people well into adulthood. Service is a career. Not meaning to sound judgemental, quite the opposite is true. Do mean to say that there aren’t many paths out and there is probably a lot to the business that even an educated person requires experience to learn and adapt to. Management usn’t for everyone either, like with coding it may not be the right career track for most but people do it for the pay bump or as a stepping stone toward corporate and IMO the whole team suffers.

ravitation 5y ago

It's treated as temporary as part of a justification for lower wages. This idea has been explicitly stated by those who oppose a $15 federal minimum wage, arguing that people making current minimum wage, or close to minimum wage, are not actually poor, or won't be in the long-term, because their current wage is temporary (the Cato Institute makes this exact argument and gives the example of "working students").

quantumBerry 5y ago
No the argument is that if you outlaw all jobs under $15, then you've just outlawed employment for anyone who can offer less than $15/hr in value, and relegated that person to unemployment and cut their ability to climb the wage ladder.
- ravitation 5y ago
  I am, almost word for word, citing the Cato Institute. > First of all, one consequence of federal minimum wage hikes can be job or hours loss for low‐ wage workers, as we’ve seen, which can create poverty. Second, a lot of people who earn the federal minimum wage or just above it are not poor, or will not be poor in the longer term (think of working students, or second‐ earners in relatively affluent households working part‐ time). https://www.cato.org/commentary/case-against-15-federal-minimum-wage-qa# https://www.cato.org/commentary/case-against-15-federal-mini... EDIT: Before you reply with what I know you will, the reason the first and second argument above are lumped together are because the are both essentially myths (for example, see the original article), and the Cato Institute cites no actual data that either are, generally speaking, true.
  - quantumBerry 5y ago
    >one consequence of federal minimum wage hikes can be job or hours loss for low‐ wage workers, as we’ve seen, which can create poverty. If the minimum wage has no effect on unemployment, then why stop at $15? Make minimum wage set at 20 pounds of gold per hour. Lets maximize our wealth.

sjtindell 5y ago

This article doesn’t seem to make any clear claims about “why”. The point seemed to be to say “they don’t have to be”. I would have expected to see something about tight margins in retail, and the low barrier to entry for the work.

missedthecue 5y ago

Probably because they are? A 2014 survey of more than 5,000 owners, operators, and current and former restaurant employees found that 97% of restaurant managers and 94% percent of shift crew employees had advanced to higher-paying jobs in the industry. What's more, 90% of operators under 35 and 87% of operators between 35 and 44 said their first job was entry-level. https://www.qsrmagazine.com/ladder-success https://www.qsrmagazine.com/ladder-success

scarecrowbob 5y ago
It seems pretty obvious that most of the folks owning/operating retail or restaurants come out of the industry. What's being argued isn't that point: rather, it's the question of how many workers move to better positions in that industry. Even if 100% of the people running restaurants/retail come from within the industry, that fact has nothing to say about how many within the industry make that move to owning operating.
bmicraft 5y ago
Isn't that the wrong direction to think in? If one employee in a team of 10 gets promoted to be their leader (because the former one retired or got promoted themselves) then the other 9/10 don't get promoted. And those people won't ever have reasonable chance to be promoted because the same problem exists one layer up where their team leader only has a 1/10 chance to get promoted over their own colleagues
- missedthecue 5y ago
  Well yes, every industry has an organizational pyramid. There are just simply more fryer and cashier positions available than regional manager positions. But the fact that 9 out of every 10 operators started out at the fryer seems to indicate that there is clearly upward mobility.
  - scarecrowbob 5y ago
    But it doesn't, though. If 9/10 of every fry cooks ended up owning a restaurant, you'd be correct in your claim about upward mobility. But what you're claiming is that 9/10 owners started out as fry cooks. Those are wildly different claims. It could be the case that only 0.002 of frycooks end up owning a restaurant and there is only an infinitesimal amount of mobility, and your claim could still be totally true.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

Because we're replacing them with machines. Labor is expensive in some countries. So expensive that as a business owner you want to avoid hiring as much as possible.

josephcsible 5y ago

I assume it has something to do with the fact that retail jobs don't require any qualifications, whereas the jobs that are "something better" do.

david38 5y ago

So you can justify low wages and no benefits

bartread 5y ago

I worked retail for about 3 years, first just weekends and bits of overtime during school holidays all through 6th form, and then for nearly a year basically full time afterwards, and then a couple of the holidays during uni. I've also worked as a waiter, a factory hand/labourer in a bottling plant, and a telephone fundraiser. None of these were great jobs but they were there when I needed the money and I'm grateful for the experience they gave me. Still, for me these were all temporary bridges to something better, because I was fortunate enough to have other options open to me after university. That isn't true for everyone: plenty of people go through their whole working lives in low paid, low skill jobs, and there are all kinds of reasons why that happens. So why do privileged people like me see retail as a temporary bridge to something better? Most fundamentally, the pay is shit[0]. I mean, really shit. My first job paid £2.16/hr in 1992. It's maybe a bit better now but minimum wage is still minimum wage. And they're not very interesting jobs. I mean you can get bored of any of them really quickly. And there isn't much you can do to make more money or make them more interesting, so there's also that. Let's talk about the pay issue in more detail though, because it's pretty easy (and totally justifiable) to moan about, but I think it's also worth thinking about why pay is so low. Think about it though: ignoring the economics of supply and demand (there are plenty of people who can do low-skill work), even if (bricks and mortar[1]) retail companies wanted to pay more, could they afford to do it? I can't speak knowledgeably about the state of (bricks and mortar) retail in other parts of the world but, here in the UK, large swathes of it are beyond hosed. In the best of times retail firms make 10% margins: compared with product firms that might make 40% or more. These are not the best of times. Retail operates on razor thin margins and nowadays you're doing well just to stay afloat. In the last couple of years alone we've seen sub-sectors like fashion and department stores get an absolute pasting. Here are some of the chains that have gone under, just off the top of my head: Debenhams, Beales, Arcadia Group (including Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and various other brands), Karen Millen, along with countless independent stores taken down as collateral damage of the pandemic. And why are the margins so thin, especially given the huge markups that are typical on clothing? Several factors: high rents, outrageous business rates... and then there's the small fact that the buying public don't want to spend, or don't have the money to spend, more on clothing. Hence the prevalence of low-cost fast fashion brands, including online brands such as Boohoo and ASOS (who are amongst the few brands doing particularly well at the moment). I.e., pay is low basically because we don't want to pay more for goods, and retail has long since turned into something of a volume game in terms of both customers and goods shipped. So for everyone who has the option of a different career, it's always going to be a temporary bridge to something better. I haven't really talked about online retail, which may be something of a different can of worms. Could, e.g., Amazon be a more fulfilling place to work than it is at the moment? Could it be better than bricks and mortar retail? I'm talking here specifically about roles at similar skill levels to normal retail, not highly paid software engineers, etc. Amazon makes huge margins by the standards of retail so, arguably, they could make it a better for warehouse workers. I haven't done the sums to figure out what real terms difference it would make to an average warehouse worker if they, say, reinvested 50% of what is currently profit into pay and conditions improvements, or whether that would be enough to make Amazon warehouse worker a desirable career option (I suspect possibly not), but it would certainly make a positive impact on those who have few other options available to them. [0] I know in the US you allegedly can make decent money from tips as a waiter but this is the UK and, most places, that's never really been true here, especially not if you're a gawky and slightly awkward post-teen. [1] This bricks and mortar versus online distinction is important. Most of what I'm talking about here is bricks and mortar retail, since this is the main topic of the article, but I do touch on online at the end.