7 ms·

I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave

60 points by jamesbritt 14y ago

tisme 14y ago
What a depressing read. At some point robotic warehouses will be the norm. Until then there will be lots of places like this. Commerce often means that the lowest bidder gets to deliver the goods. What they don't tell you is how much the lowest bidder is squeezing their employees just so they can be the lowest bidder. Don't end up like Brian, get yourself some marketable skills other than running around a warehouse to pick orders. Or you might very well find yourself fired just when you need your job the most - for instance when your wife has just delivered a baby (which with any normal company run by people with some heart would result in paid leave). And when those robotic warehouses roll around these jobs will simply cease to exist.
- Tloewald 14y ago
  Don't assume robots will always replace people. We have, after all, seen robot factories replaced by poorly paid humans in China. If low skilled jobs keep being handed over to robots, eventually we get a lot of people with no valuable skills. These people will be poor and largely unemployed. If you take away welfare, collective bargaining, minimum wage, and a safety net then these people will work for literally crumbs (ocnsider people who live on garbage dumps in India). For many many roles these people will be cheaper than robots. This is, incidentally, the lot of the poor before the welfare state was created, and it's what the Tea Party wants to recreate.
  - paulhauggis 14y ago
    It kind of sounds like copyrights for people.
  - faucet 14y ago
    Shouldn't the education also be a part of the equation here? Or did you drop it out of your reasoning for a reason. And another thought, if there will be no balance on employment and wages - who is supposed to be buying the production of those robots?
  - pc86 14y ago
    Just because it's a MoJo article doesn't mean this is the place to wax philosophic about your personal political beliefs.
- ebiester 14y ago
  How many radiologists, or programmers, or plumbers can the system absorb? What jobs can someone with 85 IQ do in 2021? We're safe for our lifetimes. However, we have a whole class of people that we're not going to be able to find work for, at least at livable wages, especially as agriculture is more and more automated.
  - VMG 14y ago
    That is if people who can't educate their offspring keep reproducing rapidly. If those people weren't incentivised to procreate or even disincentivised to have children, this problem could be much much smaller. Edit: see the story about the guy being fired from his job because he wanted to attend the birth of his son which has been mentioned in another comment. This of course is a sad situation, but am I wrong to ask if it is smart to even have children in his position? Edit2: I'm not suggesting eugenics or restricting the freedom to reproduce in any way but an education campaign.
    - bebebebe 14y ago
      You're a fucking loon.
    - mynameishere 14y ago
      Assuming that the robot predictions are correct, there really won't be any other choice. Welfare will be generous, but will come with Norplant, or won't come at all.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      How do you decide who gets to procreate and who doesn't? I mean, it's difficult to judge someone's skills at parenting until after they've actually parented. Do you let people have one child upto X years old and then go through some objective evaluation with that child to decide if they are allowed to produce more?
  - Variance 14y ago
    Note that we don't have a 75% unemployment rate following the industrial revolution. You are hardly the first person to make this argument--it's been made for centuries. The market mechanism is an amazingly effective thing at providing jobs to those who demand jobs, both in economic theory and in observed reality over the last two hundred years.
- lmm 14y ago
  >Don't end up like Brian, get yourself some marketable skills other than running around a warehouse to pick orders. Or you might very well find yourself fired just when you need your job the most - for instance when your wife has just delivered a baby (which with any normal company run by people with some heart would result in paid leave). Or move to a better country, one where that's legally guaranteed. Seriously, it's stories like this that keep me out of the US.
VMG 14y ago
No, you have not been a slave. Slaves did not have the option to stay at home and get fired. They were not getting paid. You just had a shitty job at a warehouse.
- nodata 14y ago
  If you can stay at home and get in more debt, or work and have less debt (but still lose money month-on-month) does that make you a slave? Does it make you enslaved to your debt? What if the wage earns you only enough to live on? Some slaves were provided with sustenance and not much else. What's the difference?
  - Variance 14y ago
    The fact that you have to work in order to be able to live doesn't mean that you're a slave. You might as well say that "life is slavery". This is all quite insulting to the plights of people who were slaves throughout history, and those who still are slaves today. Please don't equate the first-world gripes of people who are unprecedentedly well-off to actual slavery.
  - VMG 14y ago
    This is why I criticize using the term "wage slave". People actually think the lives of people who literally didn't have any human rights and were bought and sold as property are comparable to people who work under poor conditions. The author mentions that she earned $60 a day after taxes.
    - nodata 14y ago
      > This is why I criticize using the term "wage slave". But "slave" != "wage slave", as explained in the Wikipedia article linked above.
      - VMG 14y ago
        > But "slave" != "wage slave" Exactly my point.
nodata 14y ago
This is the article where one of the author's warehouse colleagues is fired because he attends the birth of his son without giving seven days notice. Can't find the quote though - was it removed, or am I searching for the wrong thing? Edit: thanks vhf. Here is the horrible quote I was looking for: "Brian already went through this training, but then during his first week his lady had a baby, so he missed a day and he had to be fired." Frightening.
- vhf 14y ago
  Yes it is. Search "Brian" on first page.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Yes, I've worked in a few pretty bad places in the past (though not this bad). Problem is that the main incentives for an employer to provide decent working conditions are so that A) They don't leave for a competitor and B) Make people happy and more productive. A doesn't really apply, because if these people had options they wouldn't working there. Also it costs so little to train up a new hire and there is a constant pool of unskilled , unemployed people to pick from. B doesn't really apply either, because these type of jobs suck almost by definition, there is also unlikely to be much difference between a more and less productive employee due to the repetitive nature of the job. These people are also very unlikely to sue you for wrongful termination or whatever, so it means that it is worth it to get the small productivity increase you might get from being unreasonable.
faucet 14y ago
Interesting article, but hard to find the 'so what' part. Anybody care to tell?
sasoon 14y ago
Foxconn sounds better than this...
- Natsu 14y ago
  The Chinese have it bad, but American factory workers don't have it all that much better. You're still dealing with a lot of easily-replaceable people who have little or no leverage to push back at unreasonable demands. That's a recipe for unhappiness no matter where you live.
smartician 14y ago
Repost from half a year ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3641184 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3641184
- jamesbritt 14y ago
  Did not realize that, and the dupe-detector didn't catch it.
  - prophetjohn 14y ago
    After a while, you can repost. "Teach Yourself Programming in 10 Years" has been posted about a dozen times.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
jamesjguthrie 14y ago
This is a great read. I've been a call centre worker in the past (sitting through 400 automated number dials a day, half of which are straight to voicemail and I was targetted to sell to 2 a day. Horrible job) and this just reminds me that I'm lucky that I have skills and options.
jheriko 14y ago
this sounds pretty bad - however i find it hard to have sympathy given past experiences. the real problem here is that people feel they are entitled to things and don't have to earn them. if you lack the ability to get out of these kinds of situations (which is difficult a lot of the time) then you just have to suck it up and survive - and be grateful you are being paid money for a job instead of having to survive at even lower levels. on the other hand, bravo for doing your bit to raise awareness of the poor quality of life that many people must endure to survive. a nice reminder that we are in the top 1% of the top 1%... just my opinions as a former starving african child who once had to steal and find food to survive... actual survival where if you don't do it you die - and where things like law and society mean nothing because they are mere fabrications and reality is king.

60 points by jamesbritt 14y ago

tisme 14y ago

What a depressing read. At some point robotic warehouses will be the norm. Until then there will be lots of places like this. Commerce often means that the lowest bidder gets to deliver the goods. What they don't tell you is how much the lowest bidder is squeezing their employees just so they can be the lowest bidder. Don't end up like Brian, get yourself some marketable skills other than running around a warehouse to pick orders. Or you might very well find yourself fired just when you need your job the most - for instance when your wife has just delivered a baby (which with any normal company run by people with some heart would result in paid leave). And when those robotic warehouses roll around these jobs will simply cease to exist.

Tloewald 14y ago
Don't assume robots will always replace people. We have, after all, seen robot factories replaced by poorly paid humans in China. If low skilled jobs keep being handed over to robots, eventually we get a lot of people with no valuable skills. These people will be poor and largely unemployed. If you take away welfare, collective bargaining, minimum wage, and a safety net then these people will work for literally crumbs (ocnsider people who live on garbage dumps in India). For many many roles these people will be cheaper than robots. This is, incidentally, the lot of the poor before the welfare state was created, and it's what the Tea Party wants to recreate.
- paulhauggis 14y ago
  It kind of sounds like copyrights for people.
- faucet 14y ago
  Shouldn't the education also be a part of the equation here? Or did you drop it out of your reasoning for a reason. And another thought, if there will be no balance on employment and wages - who is supposed to be buying the production of those robots?
- pc86 14y ago
  Just because it's a MoJo article doesn't mean this is the place to wax philosophic about your personal political beliefs.
ebiester 14y ago
How many radiologists, or programmers, or plumbers can the system absorb? What jobs can someone with 85 IQ do in 2021? We're safe for our lifetimes. However, we have a whole class of people that we're not going to be able to find work for, at least at livable wages, especially as agriculture is more and more automated.
- VMG 14y ago
  That is if people who can't educate their offspring keep reproducing rapidly. If those people weren't incentivised to procreate or even disincentivised to have children, this problem could be much much smaller. Edit: see the story about the guy being fired from his job because he wanted to attend the birth of his son which has been mentioned in another comment. This of course is a sad situation, but am I wrong to ask if it is smart to even have children in his position? Edit2: I'm not suggesting eugenics or restricting the freedom to reproduce in any way but an education campaign.
  - bebebebe 14y ago
    You're a fucking loon.
  - mynameishere 14y ago
    Assuming that the robot predictions are correct, there really won't be any other choice. Welfare will be generous, but will come with Norplant, or won't come at all.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    How do you decide who gets to procreate and who doesn't? I mean, it's difficult to judge someone's skills at parenting until after they've actually parented. Do you let people have one child upto X years old and then go through some objective evaluation with that child to decide if they are allowed to produce more?
- Variance 14y ago
  Note that we don't have a 75% unemployment rate following the industrial revolution. You are hardly the first person to make this argument--it's been made for centuries. The market mechanism is an amazingly effective thing at providing jobs to those who demand jobs, both in economic theory and in observed reality over the last two hundred years.
lmm 14y ago
>Don't end up like Brian, get yourself some marketable skills other than running around a warehouse to pick orders. Or you might very well find yourself fired just when you need your job the most - for instance when your wife has just delivered a baby (which with any normal company run by people with some heart would result in paid leave). Or move to a better country, one where that's legally guaranteed. Seriously, it's stories like this that keep me out of the US.

VMG 14y ago

No, you have not been a slave. Slaves did not have the option to stay at home and get fired. They were not getting paid. You just had a shitty job at a warehouse.

nodata 14y ago
If you can stay at home and get in more debt, or work and have less debt (but still lose money month-on-month) does that make you a slave? Does it make you enslaved to your debt? What if the wage earns you only enough to live on? Some slaves were provided with sustenance and not much else. What's the difference?
- Variance 14y ago
  The fact that you have to work in order to be able to live doesn't mean that you're a slave. You might as well say that "life is slavery". This is all quite insulting to the plights of people who were slaves throughout history, and those who still are slaves today. Please don't equate the first-world gripes of people who are unprecedentedly well-off to actual slavery.
- VMG 14y ago
  This is why I criticize using the term "wage slave". People actually think the lives of people who literally didn't have any human rights and were bought and sold as property are comparable to people who work under poor conditions. The author mentions that she earned $60 a day after taxes.
  - nodata 14y ago
    > This is why I criticize using the term "wage slave". But "slave" != "wage slave", as explained in the Wikipedia article linked above.
    - VMG 14y ago
      > But "slave" != "wage slave" Exactly my point.

nodata 14y ago

This is the article where one of the author's warehouse colleagues is fired because he attends the birth of his son without giving seven days notice. Can't find the quote though - was it removed, or am I searching for the wrong thing? Edit: thanks vhf. Here is the horrible quote I was looking for: "Brian already went through this training, but then during his first week his lady had a baby, so he missed a day and he had to be fired." Frightening.

vhf 14y ago
Yes it is. Search "Brian" on first page.
jiggy2011 14y ago
Yes, I've worked in a few pretty bad places in the past (though not this bad). Problem is that the main incentives for an employer to provide decent working conditions are so that A) They don't leave for a competitor and B) Make people happy and more productive. A doesn't really apply, because if these people had options they wouldn't working there. Also it costs so little to train up a new hire and there is a constant pool of unskilled , unemployed people to pick from. B doesn't really apply either, because these type of jobs suck almost by definition, there is also unlikely to be much difference between a more and less productive employee due to the repetitive nature of the job. These people are also very unlikely to sue you for wrongful termination or whatever, so it means that it is worth it to get the small productivity increase you might get from being unreasonable.

faucet 14y ago

Interesting article, but hard to find the 'so what' part. Anybody care to tell?

sasoon 14y ago

Foxconn sounds better than this...

Natsu 14y ago
The Chinese have it bad, but American factory workers don't have it all that much better. You're still dealing with a lot of easily-replaceable people who have little or no leverage to push back at unreasonable demands. That's a recipe for unhappiness no matter where you live.

smartician 14y ago

Repost from half a year ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3641184 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3641184

jamesbritt 14y ago
Did not realize that, and the dupe-detector didn't catch it.
- prophetjohn 14y ago
  After a while, you can repost. "Teach Yourself Programming in 10 Years" has been posted about a dozen times.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

jamesjguthrie 14y ago

This is a great read. I've been a call centre worker in the past (sitting through 400 automated number dials a day, half of which are straight to voicemail and I was targetted to sell to 2 a day. Horrible job) and this just reminds me that I'm lucky that I have skills and options.

jheriko 14y ago

this sounds pretty bad - however i find it hard to have sympathy given past experiences. the real problem here is that people feel they are entitled to things and don't have to earn them. if you lack the ability to get out of these kinds of situations (which is difficult a lot of the time) then you just have to suck it up and survive - and be grateful you are being paid money for a job instead of having to survive at even lower levels. on the other hand, bravo for doing your bit to raise awareness of the poor quality of life that many people must endure to survive. a nice reminder that we are in the top 1% of the top 1%... just my opinions as a former starving african child who once had to steal and find food to survive... actual survival where if you don't do it you die - and where things like law and society mean nothing because they are mere fabrications and reality is king.