5 ms·

That's really interesting. I've a similar anecdote from a different industry: pizza delivery. I'm old enough that my first job was right at the cusp of compute

That's really interesting. I've a similar anecdote from a different industry: pizza delivery. I'm old enough that my first job was right at the cusp of computerized order entry (as opposed to handwritten tickets) at the small pizza shop I worked at in high school. Prior to the computer order entry system drivers would routinely "lose" one or two tickets a shift and just pocket the cash for the order. One of them told me that the computerized ticketing basically halved their actual take home pay.

massysett 5y ago
I take your point but I wouldn’t call theft “take home pay”…
- lamontcg 5y ago
  Except if everyone does it and nobody really gets busted for it, then it is. You just don't like business being run that way. The end result of 30 years of deunionization and relentless downwards pressure on wage growth and you wind up with employees cheating the system wherever they can. Something is certainly going to break in this society/culture in the next 5-10 years, because we're not on a sustainable path. A wage-price spiral and a lot of inflation would probably be the least-painful thing to happen.
  - halJordan 5y ago
    I understand that the dictionary follows usage, and i get that you have a rhetorical goal, but with that logic Enron was simply overpaying its employees.
    - Gunax 5y ago
      I think there's an aspect of whether it's expected or not here. If the culture of the delivery drivers was that this was a perk of the job that everyone sort of knew about, then I think it's reasonable to call it a type of compensation. Sort of like how unreported cash tips are a type of perkany rely on, even though no contract could ever stipulate that.
  - derefr 5y ago
    The question, to me, is whether the people with "lost" orders actually got a pizza in the end. If they didn't, then it is theft—if not by the individual, then by the company whose structure incentivizes the individual's behavior. (Similar to how Wall-street investment-auditing firms were ultimately responsible for incentivizing their auditors to mischaracterize the risk of certain asset classes in 2008.)
    - lamontcg 5y ago
      I thought it was obvious that the delivery person takes the cash at the door in exchange for the pizza and pockets it. If the pizza isn't delivered, there's no cash to pocket. Oh and I'm not arguing it isn't theft. I'm arguing that the system we've built basically demands that people steal from their employers in order to survive. If you don't like our sort of downwards spiral into a trustless third-world society where everyone is trying to scam everyone else then you might want to look at what policies you support that crush wages for people who aren't at least software devs.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
Electronic payments and accounting remove the ability for a lot of low level corruption. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gsz7Gu6agA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gsz7Gu6agA
racl101 5y ago
Good. Fuck people who make normalize theft and dishonesty.
throwawayboise 5y ago
Manager must have been in on the scam then. I worked at a pizza shop with paper tickets. Every single one was accounted for at the end of the day. If any tickets were missing, that was out of the manager's pocket, so he made sure he had them all.

massysett 5y ago

I take your point but I wouldn’t call theft “take home pay”…

lamontcg 5y ago
Except if everyone does it and nobody really gets busted for it, then it is. You just don't like business being run that way. The end result of 30 years of deunionization and relentless downwards pressure on wage growth and you wind up with employees cheating the system wherever they can. Something is certainly going to break in this society/culture in the next 5-10 years, because we're not on a sustainable path. A wage-price spiral and a lot of inflation would probably be the least-painful thing to happen.
- halJordan 5y ago
  I understand that the dictionary follows usage, and i get that you have a rhetorical goal, but with that logic Enron was simply overpaying its employees.
  - Gunax 5y ago
    I think there's an aspect of whether it's expected or not here. If the culture of the delivery drivers was that this was a perk of the job that everyone sort of knew about, then I think it's reasonable to call it a type of compensation. Sort of like how unreported cash tips are a type of perkany rely on, even though no contract could ever stipulate that.
- derefr 5y ago
  The question, to me, is whether the people with "lost" orders actually got a pizza in the end. If they didn't, then it is theft—if not by the individual, then by the company whose structure incentivizes the individual's behavior. (Similar to how Wall-street investment-auditing firms were ultimately responsible for incentivizing their auditors to mischaracterize the risk of certain asset classes in 2008.)
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    I thought it was obvious that the delivery person takes the cash at the door in exchange for the pizza and pockets it. If the pizza isn't delivered, there's no cash to pocket. Oh and I'm not arguing it isn't theft. I'm arguing that the system we've built basically demands that people steal from their employers in order to survive. If you don't like our sort of downwards spiral into a trustless third-world society where everyone is trying to scam everyone else then you might want to look at what policies you support that crush wages for people who aren't at least software devs.

lotsofpulp 5y ago

Electronic payments and accounting remove the ability for a lot of low level corruption. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gsz7Gu6agA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gsz7Gu6agA

racl101 5y ago

Good. Fuck people who make normalize theft and dishonesty.

throwawayboise 5y ago

Manager must have been in on the scam then. I worked at a pizza shop with paper tickets. Every single one was accounted for at the end of the day. If any tickets were missing, that was out of the manager's pocket, so he made sure he had them all.