6 ms·

My first job was when I was 14, working the express lane for a grocery store after school. The job was easy and I wanted money, what's wrong with that?

by pg_bot 4y ago

lmaoge 4y ago
[dead]
maxbond 4y ago
Nothing, young people should be able to earn and build experience for their own enrichment, but it's not a solution for a labor shortage.
MomoXenosaga 4y ago
This is not about summer jobs stocking Walmart shelves. They want to put them into construction and meat packing plants.
reb 4y ago
Making children and adults compete in the labor market so business owners can protect their profit margins doesn’t seem off to you? I wouldn’t want to subsidize some company’s low wages by lending them my kid at a discount rate, but that’s just me.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Competing in the labor market so that 1% can become super rich is what most of us do to survive. You could argue that's not moral and I agree, but that doesn't change because of an arbitrary age limit. Either we accept the idea that it's moral that someone needs to effectively be a slave to the system to enjoy basic rights such as a roof, food and medical care, or we don't. Age shouldn't play a role in this.
  - reb 4y ago
    The idea that our two choices are “abandon capitalism” or “allow children to be devoured by it” is… unhinged.
    - krapp 4y ago
      If only it were possible to regulate capitalism and have a government that provides for the social welfare. Ah well, who am I kidding? (shovels another load of babies into Mammon's burning maw.)
  - hirako2000 4y ago
    Age does play a role in this. Adults have at least the possibility to have developed better critical thinking, life experience to make an appreciation of what's being offered to avoid predation. With you on the struggle against modern slavery that is rampant against adults, let's not make it a child/teen only concern, but until then we certainly need to distinguish adults from the to become grown up men and women. There is a reason we have different moral, legislation and rules w.r.t the treatment of children. That applies to employment, intimate relationships, sales of stimulants, ability to hold a credit cards etc. All down to the fact all the way to being a teen, humans are still in the process of brain and experiences maturation to take on society and independence on their own, without special protection.
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    You feel that you are entitled to "basic rights such as a roof, food and medical care" but when asked to do any work in exchange for the things that other people provide for you, you call that being a slave?
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  Many jobs that kids take (grocery bagger) are low productivity jobs that adults really shouldn’t be doing (and indeed, child labor laws have led to bag your own groceries being more the norm in many states). Fast food is a good example. It went from a mostly teen job to a mostly adult one, are we really better off because of it?
  - gambiting 4y ago
    >>are we really better off because of it? Is this....a trick question? Of course we are. Undeniably so.
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      Are you just speaking from a position of not needing this chance when you were a teen?
      - gambiting 4y ago
        I also didn't need to work in a sweatshop as a kid yet I can pretty confidently say those are a bad idea.
        seanmcdirmid 4y ago
        A privileged comment, and very condescending. Teens working to make their own money to get out of whatever situation they are in is a good thing, not a bad one. Better to work at McDoanld's when you are 16 then when you are 26. But from what you guys are saying, you prefer the latter, and I find it extremely distasteful.
        gambiting 4y ago
        >>Teens working to make their own money to get out of whatever situation they are in is a good thing, not a bad one. You are looking at it from the wrong perspective - it's not about teens being able to make a little money working at McDonalds. It's about letting companies use cheap labour because they know teens aren't in the position to demand good pay and/or benefits. It drags the entire society down, just so you can say teens have the opportunity to work - and for what? Under 18s should stay in full time education, not work in fast food. >>But from what you guys are saying, you prefer the latter, and I find it extremely distasteful. I find it extremely distatestul that you seem to prefer a society where teens are part of the labour force to a society where they aren't, so I guess we won't come to an agreement.
- pg_bot 4y ago
  I didn't grow up poor, but I wasn't given an allowance and there was no expectation of my parents buying frivolous things for us. If I wanted magic cards or to go to a concert I had to pay for it myself. Having a job at a young age taught me the importance of saving and the value of a dollar. It also gave me more ambition, I didn't want to be stuck at the grocery store forever. I moved over to the hardware store at 15 and used the skills there to learn how to build things. Those skills directly transferred into helping friends building robots for the FIRST competition my senior year of high school. We then became world champions, so I guess it worked out for me.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    Yeah that's all great, very nice that you had this attitude and for you this was a way to learn the value of money and realize your hobbies. Very good. But I'm sure you can see how for some families this will be the "new normal" - both parents can't afford their rent/medical/energy bills working two full time jobs, so the moment you turn 14 you have to work to help support the family. This isn't some dystopian pessimistic fantasy - this is just how life works in majority of the world already, look anywhere outside of developed world and getting kids to work is normal. It isn't about them being able to afford magic cards - it's about being able to survive. Like others have posted already - if wages for grown ups weren't bad enough, now they will compete with actual kids who can earn less. Is that the market you want for the society around you?
    - pg_bot 4y ago
      I've seen back breaking poverty, kids as young as 5 breaking rocks into 50 pound bags of gravel making less than $1 a day. My heart weeps for them and I do help them financially by sending them to school. I don't believe in magical thinking. People will do what they need to in order to survive. I understand why people have such a visceral reaction to kids working, but action is generally better than waiting around for someone to save you.
      - gambiting 4y ago
        Yes, I 100% agree with you, and that action is literally anything else than letting kids join the labour pool. If the market is so skewed that you can't make ends meet with 2 full time jobs, it's time for protest, for civil disobedience, for revolution. Letting kids work is a very temporary patch on the shitty situation - in few years even that won't be enough, then what? We bring company town back? You have a house and food provided as long as you work for corporation X, except you can never leave until you're dead? Because that's where this kind of thinking leads to - we allow our working conditions worsen not because of some objective market conditions - but because the mega corporations demand it. It's not even about the elites or 1% - it's about pure unadulterated capitalism.
- giantg2 4y ago
  I don't think profit margins are at risk in the grocer example since they'll just raise prices given their margins are typically 5% or less.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    And/or they'll make more checkout self-service (or even eventually switch to some sort of cashierless system like Amazon has been experimenting with), eliminate baggers (again), generally lower service levels, etc.
- stcroixx 4y ago
  Hardly a competition. If the best you can muster as an adult is what an unskilled kid can do, the game was over for you a long time ago and you lost.
mistrial9 4y ago
many modern people do not realize that in many parts of the world, for a lot of civilized history, ordinary daily labor was done by indentured people also-known-as slavery or serfdom. It is a founding myth of the USA that regular people can work labor jobs and have a home and pay for raising children. This happy make-believe has lasted for a while in a few places. It regularly comes apart at the seams, as we are seeing now. Secondly, many commentators here do not understand that addictive, forced and "no win" products, conditions and living places are the reality for many poor people. Money comes and goes. Watch some non-fiction YouTube about daily life in barrios, coastal South East Asian places, or immigrants in large cities. edit maybe an additional distinction for context. The British-led industrial revolution started a new series of labor-employer relations.. where, instead of individual workers making one farm or one shoe repair, a set of people could work shifts in an industrial setting, then the goods produced makes a large surplus. The rewards of that surplus allegedly are split, where workers are paid enough to buy them and improve their living. The article here is not about a middle-class high school kid making extra money, it is about fueling industrial work sites with labor from under-18 people, perhaps full-time and perhaps under dangerous conditions, and perhaps with little-to-no transferable skill. This kind of labor is also gamed by middlemen via contracts, deceptive reporting, intimidation and the like. It seems obvious that more than half the commentators here have no experience with forced or abusive work sites.
- pixl97 4y ago
  "Civilized" history had a lot of kings that went about murdering whoever they didn't like on a whim. That's why modern history has attempted to dispose of that type of ruling class (with some success) while benefiting from production output improving technology and a legal system based on a rule of law.
2000UltraDeluxe 4y ago
There's nothing wrong with that. This isn't about that, though. This is about artificially creating a supply of workers by lowering standards, rather than increasing the price for the existing supply of workers. With a looming demographic bomb looming at the horizon we need to value existing workers more and increase individual productivity rather than removing child protection or workplace safety regulations. Spare time jobs aside, children are the workers of tomorrow -- not means to short-term value for shareholders.
danpalmer 4y ago
You had a legal, regulated job. No problem there. Now imagine if they didn't have to pay you as much as you were paid, if they didn't have to keep you safe, if you were responsible for injuries on the job, or if you were working in a meat-packing plant where injuries like lost fingers are relatively common. I don't think anyone is arguing that teenagers should not be allowed to work, but rather that they, like all workers, should be offered protections and reasonable wages if they do choose to work.
- pixl97 4y ago
  Yea, most people are also neglecting that these some states have 'agricultural safety exemptions allow you to be injured on the job with no workers compensation. https://www.iwpharmacy.com/blog/are-agriculture-workers-exempt-from-workers-compensation-insurance https://www.iwpharmacy.com/blog/are-agriculture-workers-exem...
barbazoo 4y ago
As others have said, there exist many jobs teenagers can already work and grocery store jobs are among them. This is about working in a meat packing plant. Imagine how different the environments are, one is already safe and made for families to navigate around in and the other one is ... A meat meat packing plant.
- stcroixx 4y ago
  Sanitizing the plant after hours. Exactly the same work I did as a teen at the grocery store in the meat dept. Spraying star-san on stuff for the most part.
ssnistfajen 4y ago
There's nothing wrong with that, because that was already legal without these new child labour law changes. Please read the article and pay attention to what industries are trying to hire children by pushing for these changes.
kevingadd 4y ago
You should be able to recognize that a meat packing job and a grocery job are different in significant ways. These child labor law rollbacks are dangerous. I say this as someone who also worked at 14.

My first job was when I was 14, working the express lane for a grocery store after school. The job was easy and I wanted money, what's wrong with that?

by pg_bot 4y ago

My first job was when I was 14, working the express lane for a grocery store after school. The job was easy and I wanted money, what's wrong with that?

lmaoge 4y ago

[dead]

maxbond 4y ago

Nothing, young people should be able to earn and build experience for their own enrichment, but it's not a solution for a labor shortage.

MomoXenosaga 4y ago

This is not about summer jobs stocking Walmart shelves. They want to put them into construction and meat packing plants.

reb 4y ago

Making children and adults compete in the labor market so business owners can protect their profit margins doesn’t seem off to you? I wouldn’t want to subsidize some company’s low wages by lending them my kid at a discount rate, but that’s just me.

Nextgrid 4y ago
Competing in the labor market so that 1% can become super rich is what most of us do to survive. You could argue that's not moral and I agree, but that doesn't change because of an arbitrary age limit. Either we accept the idea that it's moral that someone needs to effectively be a slave to the system to enjoy basic rights such as a roof, food and medical care, or we don't. Age shouldn't play a role in this.
- reb 4y ago
  The idea that our two choices are “abandon capitalism” or “allow children to be devoured by it” is… unhinged.
  - krapp 4y ago
    If only it were possible to regulate capitalism and have a government that provides for the social welfare. Ah well, who am I kidding? (shovels another load of babies into Mammon's burning maw.)
- hirako2000 4y ago
  Age does play a role in this. Adults have at least the possibility to have developed better critical thinking, life experience to make an appreciation of what's being offered to avoid predation. With you on the struggle against modern slavery that is rampant against adults, let's not make it a child/teen only concern, but until then we certainly need to distinguish adults from the to become grown up men and women. There is a reason we have different moral, legislation and rules w.r.t the treatment of children. That applies to employment, intimate relationships, sales of stimulants, ability to hold a credit cards etc. All down to the fact all the way to being a teen, humans are still in the process of brain and experiences maturation to take on society and independence on their own, without special protection.
- fallingknife 4y ago
  You feel that you are entitled to "basic rights such as a roof, food and medical care" but when asked to do any work in exchange for the things that other people provide for you, you call that being a slave?
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Many jobs that kids take (grocery bagger) are low productivity jobs that adults really shouldn’t be doing (and indeed, child labor laws have led to bag your own groceries being more the norm in many states). Fast food is a good example. It went from a mostly teen job to a mostly adult one, are we really better off because of it?
- gambiting 4y ago
  >>are we really better off because of it? Is this....a trick question? Of course we are. Undeniably so.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    Are you just speaking from a position of not needing this chance when you were a teen?
    - gambiting 4y ago
      I also didn't need to work in a sweatshop as a kid yet I can pretty confidently say those are a bad idea.
      - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
        A privileged comment, and very condescending. Teens working to make their own money to get out of whatever situation they are in is a good thing, not a bad one. Better to work at McDoanld's when you are 16 then when you are 26. But from what you guys are saying, you prefer the latter, and I find it extremely distasteful.
        gambiting 4y ago
        >>Teens working to make their own money to get out of whatever situation they are in is a good thing, not a bad one. You are looking at it from the wrong perspective - it's not about teens being able to make a little money working at McDonalds. It's about letting companies use cheap labour because they know teens aren't in the position to demand good pay and/or benefits. It drags the entire society down, just so you can say teens have the opportunity to work - and for what? Under 18s should stay in full time education, not work in fast food. >>But from what you guys are saying, you prefer the latter, and I find it extremely distasteful. I find it extremely distatestul that you seem to prefer a society where teens are part of the labour force to a society where they aren't, so I guess we won't come to an agreement.
pg_bot 4y ago
I didn't grow up poor, but I wasn't given an allowance and there was no expectation of my parents buying frivolous things for us. If I wanted magic cards or to go to a concert I had to pay for it myself. Having a job at a young age taught me the importance of saving and the value of a dollar. It also gave me more ambition, I didn't want to be stuck at the grocery store forever. I moved over to the hardware store at 15 and used the skills there to learn how to build things. Those skills directly transferred into helping friends building robots for the FIRST competition my senior year of high school. We then became world champions, so I guess it worked out for me.
- gambiting 4y ago
  Yeah that's all great, very nice that you had this attitude and for you this was a way to learn the value of money and realize your hobbies. Very good. But I'm sure you can see how for some families this will be the "new normal" - both parents can't afford their rent/medical/energy bills working two full time jobs, so the moment you turn 14 you have to work to help support the family. This isn't some dystopian pessimistic fantasy - this is just how life works in majority of the world already, look anywhere outside of developed world and getting kids to work is normal. It isn't about them being able to afford magic cards - it's about being able to survive. Like others have posted already - if wages for grown ups weren't bad enough, now they will compete with actual kids who can earn less. Is that the market you want for the society around you?
  - pg_bot 4y ago
    I've seen back breaking poverty, kids as young as 5 breaking rocks into 50 pound bags of gravel making less than $1 a day. My heart weeps for them and I do help them financially by sending them to school. I don't believe in magical thinking. People will do what they need to in order to survive. I understand why people have such a visceral reaction to kids working, but action is generally better than waiting around for someone to save you.
    - gambiting 4y ago
      Yes, I 100% agree with you, and that action is literally anything else than letting kids join the labour pool. If the market is so skewed that you can't make ends meet with 2 full time jobs, it's time for protest, for civil disobedience, for revolution. Letting kids work is a very temporary patch on the shitty situation - in few years even that won't be enough, then what? We bring company town back? You have a house and food provided as long as you work for corporation X, except you can never leave until you're dead? Because that's where this kind of thinking leads to - we allow our working conditions worsen not because of some objective market conditions - but because the mega corporations demand it. It's not even about the elites or 1% - it's about pure unadulterated capitalism.
giantg2 4y ago
I don't think profit margins are at risk in the grocer example since they'll just raise prices given their margins are typically 5% or less.
- ghaff 4y ago
  And/or they'll make more checkout self-service (or even eventually switch to some sort of cashierless system like Amazon has been experimenting with), eliminate baggers (again), generally lower service levels, etc.
stcroixx 4y ago
Hardly a competition. If the best you can muster as an adult is what an unskilled kid can do, the game was over for you a long time ago and you lost.

mistrial9 4y ago

many modern people do not realize that in many parts of the world, for a lot of civilized history, ordinary daily labor was done by indentured people also-known-as slavery or serfdom. It is a founding myth of the USA that regular people can work labor jobs and have a home and pay for raising children. This happy make-believe has lasted for a while in a few places. It regularly comes apart at the seams, as we are seeing now. Secondly, many commentators here do not understand that addictive, forced and "no win" products, conditions and living places are the reality for many poor people. Money comes and goes. Watch some non-fiction YouTube about daily life in barrios, coastal South East Asian places, or immigrants in large cities. edit maybe an additional distinction for context. The British-led industrial revolution started a new series of labor-employer relations.. where, instead of individual workers making one farm or one shoe repair, a set of people could work shifts in an industrial setting, then the goods produced makes a large surplus. The rewards of that surplus allegedly are split, where workers are paid enough to buy them and improve their living. The article here is not about a middle-class high school kid making extra money, it is about fueling industrial work sites with labor from under-18 people, perhaps full-time and perhaps under dangerous conditions, and perhaps with little-to-no transferable skill. This kind of labor is also gamed by middlemen via contracts, deceptive reporting, intimidation and the like. It seems obvious that more than half the commentators here have no experience with forced or abusive work sites.

pixl97 4y ago
"Civilized" history had a lot of kings that went about murdering whoever they didn't like on a whim. That's why modern history has attempted to dispose of that type of ruling class (with some success) while benefiting from production output improving technology and a legal system based on a rule of law.

2000UltraDeluxe 4y ago

There's nothing wrong with that. This isn't about that, though. This is about artificially creating a supply of workers by lowering standards, rather than increasing the price for the existing supply of workers. With a looming demographic bomb looming at the horizon we need to value existing workers more and increase individual productivity rather than removing child protection or workplace safety regulations. Spare time jobs aside, children are the workers of tomorrow -- not means to short-term value for shareholders.

danpalmer 4y ago

You had a legal, regulated job. No problem there. Now imagine if they didn't have to pay you as much as you were paid, if they didn't have to keep you safe, if you were responsible for injuries on the job, or if you were working in a meat-packing plant where injuries like lost fingers are relatively common. I don't think anyone is arguing that teenagers should not be allowed to work, but rather that they, like all workers, should be offered protections and reasonable wages if they do choose to work.

pixl97 4y ago
Yea, most people are also neglecting that these some states have 'agricultural safety exemptions allow you to be injured on the job with no workers compensation. https://www.iwpharmacy.com/blog/are-agriculture-workers-exempt-from-workers-compensation-insurance https://www.iwpharmacy.com/blog/are-agriculture-workers-exem...

barbazoo 4y ago

As others have said, there exist many jobs teenagers can already work and grocery store jobs are among them. This is about working in a meat packing plant. Imagine how different the environments are, one is already safe and made for families to navigate around in and the other one is ... A meat meat packing plant.

stcroixx 4y ago
Sanitizing the plant after hours. Exactly the same work I did as a teen at the grocery store in the meat dept. Spraying star-san on stuff for the most part.

ssnistfajen 4y ago

There's nothing wrong with that, because that was already legal without these new child labour law changes. Please read the article and pay attention to what industries are trying to hire children by pushing for these changes.

kevingadd 4y ago

You should be able to recognize that a meat packing job and a grocery job are different in significant ways. These child labor law rollbacks are dangerous. I say this as someone who also worked at 14.