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The power imbalance between an employee and an employer means that no, it's absolutely not a 2-way street. An employee (especially in the US) depends upon the

The power imbalance between an employee and an employer means that no, it's absolutely not a 2-way street. An employee (especially in the US) depends upon the employer for the money required for food, shelter, transportation, entertainment, etc. The employee depends on the employer to get health care. An average employee is 3-6 months of unemployment away from being homeless. An employer does not, with very few exceptions, give a single fuck about any individual employee. They view those employees as expenses grudgingly accepted as necessary at the best of times, and expenses to be eliminated at the worst. They are not equals. Contracts between them were not made with the consideration of equal parties.

bko 4y ago
I disagree. I have a lot of options as an employee, as do most people. Health care is tough but cobra is helpful and ideally you'd find another job before you give notice. Even lengthy interview processes are relatively cheap for me. Many companies have to pay recruiters 5 figure amounts to get someone. I can just reply to the dozen recruiters that hit me up on LinkedIn every month. People have options. Even low wage employees. The people in these jobs jump around a lot and are notoriously unreliable or likely to not give notice when they leave. That's why you see the manager behind the counter so often. If you don't believe me ask anyone working a service job how long they've been there and how many jobs they've had over the last 5 years. People jump around a lot. And training is a huge cost. Most employees aren't productive immediately, meaning that the company spends a lot of time and money training them with the expectation that they'll get some of that money invested back and you won't jump ship for a better job once you've been trained. Finally most firms (esp Meta) give generous severance. Imagine you'd have to work for free for 3 months if you wanted to do something else.
- falcolas 4y ago
  > I can just reply to the dozen recruiters that hit me up on LinkedIn every month. Congratulations, you're an outlier. I sincerely hope you enjoy your position while it lasts!
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- the_only_law 4y ago
  Yeah I used to have a constant stream of recruiters hitting me up. Never spent more than 3 months on a job search, even when I was trying to get my first “real” job as a 18-19 year old kid. Then, around mid-December last year, it just stopped. I get an occasional recruiter every now and then but at this point I think I’m fucked.
- piva00 4y ago
  > People have options. Even low wage employees. How disconnected from reality can one be? Do you hang out with low wage employees? The ones that need to keep a salary to feed their families, to shelter them, and to keep a bare minimum of life quality? If you had friends with families in any low wage job you'd know that reality isn't that simple, it's such an absurd reduction of what it is to be employed in fields that aren't sexy, or where promotions don't exist as we expect in tech. > The people in these jobs jump around a lot and are notoriously unreliable or likely to not give notice when they leave. Yeah, they jump a lot because low wage jobs are usually the most toxic ones, with low wage abusive managers, because low wage is not conducive to hiring the best and brightest. If you ever had a bad manager, imagine that 10x worse: no psychologically safe, no trust environments are not conducive to long tenure. People are people, we feel when something isn't right for us, deciding to leave is not because there is a much better option somewhere else but there's a chance of a less bad option than the toxic environment they find themselves in. Coupled that a well performing low wage employee might have to work with disengaged ones, the toxicity of the environment can only increase... Get out of your bubble, it might help you to have solidarity with other human beings.
  - bko 4y ago
    I've worked low pay jobs. Restaurant, lifeguard and data entry. Nothing too hard but I have some sense. It doesn't sound like you have much experience and you're going off antidotes you hear on Reddit. Correct me if I'm wrong But with businesses that rely on low wage jobs the edge of running the business is being an effective manager. Open a McDonald's franchise. They'll set you up such that it's basically turnkey. So what makes one McDonald's manager successful and another not? Managing low wage employees. That means not creating a toxic environment and treating them fairly so they don't leave so quickly. Managers spend hours training new employees. There's no benefit to being toxic or unreasonable because like you admitted, they'll leave. If someone leaves mid shift it means you're stuck working the register and their entire shift for the next few weeks till you find a train a replacement. It's also more paperwork to fill out to hire someone and get them setup in the system. You're delusional if you think managers don't care People who think you can treat low wage workers poorly obv never been around low wage workers Your argument is inconsistent. People don't leave because they need the job. But they leave jobs a lot because toxic managers. And managers are fine with being toxic because it costs them nothing to hire people and there's no distribution when people walk off. I have solidarity with other people. The difference is I don't look down on them and remove their autonomy.

bko 4y ago

I disagree. I have a lot of options as an employee, as do most people. Health care is tough but cobra is helpful and ideally you'd find another job before you give notice. Even lengthy interview processes are relatively cheap for me. Many companies have to pay recruiters 5 figure amounts to get someone. I can just reply to the dozen recruiters that hit me up on LinkedIn every month. People have options. Even low wage employees. The people in these jobs jump around a lot and are notoriously unreliable or likely to not give notice when they leave. That's why you see the manager behind the counter so often. If you don't believe me ask anyone working a service job how long they've been there and how many jobs they've had over the last 5 years. People jump around a lot. And training is a huge cost. Most employees aren't productive immediately, meaning that the company spends a lot of time and money training them with the expectation that they'll get some of that money invested back and you won't jump ship for a better job once you've been trained. Finally most firms (esp Meta) give generous severance. Imagine you'd have to work for free for 3 months if you wanted to do something else.

falcolas 4y ago
> I can just reply to the dozen recruiters that hit me up on LinkedIn every month. Congratulations, you're an outlier. I sincerely hope you enjoy your position while it lasts!
- deleted 4y ago
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the_only_law 4y ago
Yeah I used to have a constant stream of recruiters hitting me up. Never spent more than 3 months on a job search, even when I was trying to get my first “real” job as a 18-19 year old kid. Then, around mid-December last year, it just stopped. I get an occasional recruiter every now and then but at this point I think I’m fucked.
piva00 4y ago
> People have options. Even low wage employees. How disconnected from reality can one be? Do you hang out with low wage employees? The ones that need to keep a salary to feed their families, to shelter them, and to keep a bare minimum of life quality? If you had friends with families in any low wage job you'd know that reality isn't that simple, it's such an absurd reduction of what it is to be employed in fields that aren't sexy, or where promotions don't exist as we expect in tech. > The people in these jobs jump around a lot and are notoriously unreliable or likely to not give notice when they leave. Yeah, they jump a lot because low wage jobs are usually the most toxic ones, with low wage abusive managers, because low wage is not conducive to hiring the best and brightest. If you ever had a bad manager, imagine that 10x worse: no psychologically safe, no trust environments are not conducive to long tenure. People are people, we feel when something isn't right for us, deciding to leave is not because there is a much better option somewhere else but there's a chance of a less bad option than the toxic environment they find themselves in. Coupled that a well performing low wage employee might have to work with disengaged ones, the toxicity of the environment can only increase... Get out of your bubble, it might help you to have solidarity with other human beings.
- bko 4y ago
  I've worked low pay jobs. Restaurant, lifeguard and data entry. Nothing too hard but I have some sense. It doesn't sound like you have much experience and you're going off antidotes you hear on Reddit. Correct me if I'm wrong But with businesses that rely on low wage jobs the edge of running the business is being an effective manager. Open a McDonald's franchise. They'll set you up such that it's basically turnkey. So what makes one McDonald's manager successful and another not? Managing low wage employees. That means not creating a toxic environment and treating them fairly so they don't leave so quickly. Managers spend hours training new employees. There's no benefit to being toxic or unreasonable because like you admitted, they'll leave. If someone leaves mid shift it means you're stuck working the register and their entire shift for the next few weeks till you find a train a replacement. It's also more paperwork to fill out to hire someone and get them setup in the system. You're delusional if you think managers don't care People who think you can treat low wage workers poorly obv never been around low wage workers Your argument is inconsistent. People don't leave because they need the job. But they leave jobs a lot because toxic managers. And managers are fine with being toxic because it costs them nothing to hire people and there's no distribution when people walk off. I have solidarity with other people. The difference is I don't look down on them and remove their autonomy.