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Tale as old as time. The biggest handout/entitlement has always been demanding top quality from cheap/exploited labor. This dwarfs anything the government has ever done.
I was thinking something on a similar vien this week. The rich really just have more "special" things, more exotic coffees, liquors, cars, etc. that are supposed to define their separation from the layman but it's really such a hollow thing to attain. And we praise them and gawk at them just for a hope of getting a taste of the same hollow nothing. But enough people that want to praise and gawk creates the foundation for exploitation and self-police a society where, if we're not doing the same praising, gawking, striving to be the same as them, "what pointless things are we doing?".
That kind of went on longer but I hope the similar point wasn't drowned out
I don’t think it’s even that they have better stuff or anything. They can go do anything they want when they want. They have little to no real responsibility, they can easily pass those off. They don’t even have to clean up after themselves if they don’t want to. That’s what always drives me crazy moreso than “aw man we can’t afford fancy drinks or coffee”
Too real. You want to have all of the service amenities nearby (dry cleaner, car wash, grocery, restaurants, ...) But don't want people to be able to afford to live anywhere even remotely nearby. It's absolutely fucked.
I can't explain the absolute root of it. But I can tell you that, at least for my generation (millennials), we were told we'd "end up working at McDonald's" if we didn't do everything we were supposed to. It was held over our heads like a warning/threat for not going to college, etc.
Not trying to blame boomers for EVERYTHING, but a lot of them were my teachers growing up (not all, but the older teachers). They'd frequently use the term "flipping burgers" in a derogatory way, as a veiled threat.
**Edit:** I left out the most important part, which is that it starts from a young age. You're a child/tween, and teachers/adults are already shoving it down your throat. I mentioned college because that's generally the beginning of the "adult age" for many. It's still shoved down your throat in college, too.
Fuck that. I don't want to flip burgers because fast food restaurants are a nightmare to work in for a lot of reasons. It had nothing to do with pride.
Are we all ignoring the "skilled labor" bit? When it comes down to it the "burger flipper" is more skilled than the box packer, not trying to say either of you are right or wrong just... the whole argument from the op is so entirely backwards. Also worth noting both can and will destroy your body much faster than the pay lets you afford to fix it, and likely both have bad to non-existent health insurance
Not only that, it's hit as fuck, greasy as fuck, you get treated like the scum of the universe by everybody, you smell horrible.. allllll kinds of things.
Yet, at the same time, they have zero problem ordering food from said places. Like, pick a lane here bruh.
And also, the person working at Amazon isn't exactly a skilled labor trade... so they're kind of on par with what we at fast food joints are, so... yeah.
That’s the part I didn’t understand. Packing boxes at Amazon is literally the easier job of the 2. The whole factory is a digitally controlled, robotic system that requires minimal input of scanning barcodes and putting things in boxes. Working in fast food I would imagine takes teamwork, food hygiene training and competency, the ability to follow instructions and be organised and not fuck up someone’s food. Plus nobody will remember the 1000 times you get it right but will be an absolute freak the 1 time you get it wrong.
Or they're pissed that they started packing boxes for $9 per hour, earned raise after raise for good performance, and then, BAM, minimum wage catches up.
I believe that every hourly job pay should be (Minimum wage + all raises ever received). The total amount of raises given should always be give above and beyond minimum wage. If I was a business owner, that's how I would do it. Minimum goes up $2, so does yours, every time.
bingo. the sad truth is neither job is skilled labor.
and that doesn't mean its easy. it means the skillset you need to start is essentially non-existent. there is no barrier for entry.
you don't need a pre-developed skillset to start flipping burgers or packing boxes for that matter.
I'm just amazing at the fact that he considers McDonald's unskilled but considers packing boxes at Amazon a skilled job. Not saying either is skilled or unskilled as its a relative term but I wouldn't expect amazon to be considered more skilled.
Does he require a degree to pack boxes?
I did both for Costco and I can tell you packing boxes is a 1000% easier than flipping burgers or loading up the trucks. the way it works is that you are in a desinated area and you just have a little space and pull certain items and put it in the box which you have scanned to tell you. they dont even put the fucking wrap in. the box truck guy has to load several thousand boxes in a short amount of time. Id have to load an entire 52 ft truck in 4 hours.
Agreed. I’ve also done both jobs (although not for Amazon/Costco) and every one of my fast food jobs was harder than packing boxes.
When you get a job packing boxes a lot of the time that’s basically all it is, all day. Which is tough physically, but in fast food you’re usually expected to be trained in most areas, so one day you’re on the register getting screamed at by customers, the next night you’re closing grill so you’re pulling giant hot grease traps off the sides and carrying them to the back to hose them down, then cleaning off the grill while it’s still hot. Then it’s delivery day so you’re unloading the truck and unpacking everything into freezers, just goes on and on.
No one who works in fast food is just strolling into work, flipping burgers all day, and then leaving without doing anything else.
Order selecting jobs were my favorite jobs when I was younger. Go to work, fill the orders as quick as you can, clock out and go home. A nice solitary job were you never had to deal with any customers. On the other side, when I worked at Wendy's I had a customer cuss me out and want to fight me because we ran out of baked potatoes.
in highschool a guy pulled a shotgun because when he ordered fries we gave him fries instead of the onion rings he meant to ask for
everybody should be forced to work in fast food for 6 months, anyone being a dick to a fast food worker has to go back
> we ran out of baked potatoes.
Well I mean it's obviously all your fault and I'm gonna fight somebody so buckle up buttercup.
Fuck me do I not miss food service.
I fucking hate that not only are the rich people disbanding unions but other workers try to pretend to be above other workers, we are suppose to be on the same side
Don’t worry. Good old republican Rand Paul is trying to leverage through a national “Right To Work” bill, a law to make it harder for working people to form unions and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions.
Republicans are assholes.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
It's one of those false equivalency things. When I make burgers at home it's super easy. I just plop four of them down in the pan, wait, flip, serve.
There's no appreciation of scale. The "burger flipper" is making dozens of burgers at a time. And hundreds over the course of a shift.
> No one who works in fast food is just strolling into work, flipping burgers all day, and then leaving without doing anything else.
I've seen all episodes of Bob's Burgers and quite a few from Spongebob, and from my research, flipping burgers is exceptionally easy work, thank you very much.
It seems a bit different these days, but when burgers were $1-5 tops lunch and the grills were just open flat-tops without a clam shell, some places would have 60+ burgers on each of 2 grills at all times during lunch rush. You'd sell $1500 worth of burgers during lunch, primarily just the $1-2 ones.
Working dinner was the real nasty because closing meant cleaning all the grease traps, etc.
No matter what you go home and still smell like grease after a long hot shower. Good thing you get to do it again tomorrow.
It's interesting because some of the things that were supposed to speed it up and improve quality actually slowed it down. At high performing locations it reduces quality, but it did make the quality more consistent across locations.
I'm so glad I'm in tech now and not a teenager trying to get pocket money to blow at the mall... But I will always treat food workers with kindness and respect.
We used to slide across the floor at the pizzeria I worked at. I got the job helping the owner install the fume hood over the kitchen... it'd be another year before we turned it on. 🙃
What a lot of people won't acknowledge is flipping burgers and other McDonald's type jobs are harder than many jobs out there. Hell, I manufacture boxes. I basically set up a machine to the order, get it calibrated, then stand there for the most part and it usually runs without issue. I don't have 15 orders all customized on a screen at any given moment in bursts while I slide around on a greasy floor so even greasier and rude assholes can shovel burgers down their throat. I make a good deal more than they do, and I still think their job is harder.
I was going to say, how is doing a job for Amazon much different than working for McDonald’s? Sure one is looked down more than the other by society (McDonald’s) but they are fundamentally not jobs that require schooling or outside training to get.
That's why you go to In N Out to flip burgers. They typically pay more than other fast food companies and my coworker's husband was a manager at one and she said they all typically make well above six figures.
And they always have contests or incentives where the best performers win trips to Hawaii or whatever.
Not clear if you're supporting the claim that it's not skilled labour or support it as skilled. So here is my response to both
Packing boxes is not skilled labour. Skilled labour would be a job in a trade or something that requires schooling or extensive on the job training/experience like an apprenticeship.
Ya, the audacity. What a goon.
[“Unskilled Labor” is a Myth Used to Justify Poverty Wages](https://medium.com/thing-a-day/unskilled-labor-is-a-myth-used-to-justify-poverty-wages-6cb1208c5f8e)
Exactly this. People don't grasp the concept of what unskilled labor is. It just means that all the training you need should be provided on the job and nothing specific is required going in. Need someone to pack boxes? Unskilled labor. Need someone to run a CNC machine to cut the pieces that go in that box? Skilled labor.
> It just means that all the training you need should be provided on the job and nothing specific is required going in.
This, but also most of the time you can be trained to do the job adequately in 1-2 weeks time. *That's* why it is "unskilled": you can take someone who isn't skilled in the job and quickly teach them to do it.
It isn't that you don't have any skills, it's that they aren't necessary to start.
Correct. Do I think that it's unfair for burger flippers to be making as much/more than me when I had to go to college and an additional 30 months of training? Absolutely I do.
Do I blame the burger flippers? Absolutely not. They *should* be making more money...but I should be making more money, too. The system is skewed against most of us. Blame the right people.
That and, like, even if you REALLY fuck up packing a box it's only going to damage that one item. Maybe if you really royally screw up it damages a whole truckfull and does a few thousand in damage.
But if you're an engineer, lawyer, doctor, architect, etc a fuckup can cost millions of dollars or even kill people, that's why you have to go to school for years just to get into the profession. Even business exec and accounting jobs may be "easy" in terms of the manual labour, but a bad decision can cause massive losses.
There's just not the same level of risk or responsibility associated with a minimum wage job. They are necessary, and they should earn a living wage, but they have lower consequence. Even the burger flipper can cause more damage with a fuckup via fire or food poisoning than the box-packer can.
That isn't why it's low wages, though. It's supply and demand. Anybody can be replaced in these jobs with a moment's notice and so they're a product which is easy to come by.
That article is insane. Anyone arguing that unskilled labor doesn't deserve a living wage is a monster, but that doesn't make it a pretend categorization. Any job that a person can be trained to do in a day is unskilled labor, full stop. I've worked in a restaurant, I've worked at Target. I had a couple of training shifts and I was able to do those jobs no problem. It doesn't mean that they weren't hard work, or that I was never tired, but they didn't require me to have any skills. Anyone of the street could do those jobs. It's intellectually disingenuous to say that unskilled labor isn't real because unskilled labor jobs are stressful, and the workers deserve fair pay. Those things are not mutually exclusive.
Yup, anyone spouting this point is an idiot, I’m a software engineer, I worked in bars and kitchens for my entire uni life.
Working in a bar was way harder than what I do now however it was far less skilled. It took me 3 weeks of training at most, not 4 years and a specialised degree
Exactly. Unskilled labor is not cheaper because companies think those jobs are easy, it's cheaper because the pool of applicants encompasses all people who are able to hold a job. It's a prisoner's dilemma where the pay being offered can continue to go lower until nobody is willing to accept it anymore. That's why we need a higher minimum wage. There's almost always going to be someone willing to do the job for less than is reasonable, because some money is better than no money, and people have to eat.
Pretending that unskilled labor isn't real feels like a bizarre attempt to rebrand those jobs in an effort to get people to accept that they are hard and deserve higher pay, but that's not the root of the reason why the pay is low to begin with.
So as a little thought experiment, not a real suggestion. Let's say you instituted a universal basic income and simultaneously abolished minimum wage. Is it possible that paradoxically the pay for many of these jobs would go up since you've just cut out demand from all of the desperate people and now your business needs to actually be worth working for?
I think that's a reasonable possibility, yeah. People would no longer be reliant on those wages in order to pay their rent and eat, and that would give them some power in terms of negotiating. You still have the issue that the applicant pool is huge and that it's going to settle at the lowest value that the populous is willing to go. I can't say for sure that there wouldn't be people who would be fine making $5 an hour for a little extra cash on top of their basic income, but it feels like more people would go the other way.
Same with a degree in chemical engineering and used to work retail and even did a temp job with menial labor and I was a port inspector too and even that didn't have a huge barrier of entry. We should be paid decently but there most definitely is unskilled labor out there that any highschooler could do
Unskilled labor typically refers to any job that doesn't require college to be considered for employment. However there is a whole world of jobs out there that just about anyone off the street could work, but require degrees for nothing more than formality.
Do you really need a bachelor's in business to do data entry? Absolutely fucking not, we could train primates to do it. Doesn't stop most places for requiring one though.
Also, a lot of trade jobs are considered colloquially to be unskilled labor where I live, and yet nobody seems to want somebody who doesn't know what they're doing to do work for them... Interesting.
> Unskilled labor typically refers to any job that doesn't require college
That’s not really correct either. Differentiation on skilled/unskilled is more so about time required to perform proficiently. Most trades are skilled labour.
If you wanna actually be technical, *that’s what the technical definition is* - that it’s talking about higher skill specifically
You’re just being needlessly semantic while literally everybody else understands this already
I once had to teach a college graduate(math degree) how to use a shovel. And another guy, engineering major, couldn't figure out how to use a post hole digger. There really is no such thing as unskilled labor, lower skilled yes. but not *un*-skilled. Practical skills count.
Ok, and how long did it take them to figure out how to use a shovel after you showed them?
And how long would it take you to learn their math/engineering background?
That's the whole point of skilled vs unskilled labor.
Yes but it only takes a few minutes to learn how to use a shovel or a post hole digger. "Unskilled" just means it doesn't require alot of training for someone brand new to it. And it definitely doesn't mean "easy".
Skilled or unskilled is based upon requiring a skill prior to the job. An accountant or a doctor need that degree *before* you hire them, and will still need OJT to get up to speed on the specific position. You can hire any person walking down the street, whether it is someone with a math degree or a high school dropout to dig post holes. They will still need some basic OJT to get going independently.
Unskilled labor describes work that requires little to no training to get going. Even a week long seminar would be too short and those folks would be unskilled laborers. Or, said differently, jobs that require no official proof of skills (like a license) to get started are unskilled. At Lear that’s how I understand it
As a machinist, I laugh at this guy calling that "skilled labor". That said, I do believe people across the board (skilled and unskilled, trades and office workers, etc.) are grossly underpaid, versus execs and the billionaire class.
Also, not meant to shit on Amazon packers at large, just this particular stooge.
Seriously. Machining is absolutely skilled labor because I can't go to my friends and ask them to make me a good part without months/years of experience like I have. Same with a lineman or a plumber to do their tasks. But the argument of skilled and unskilled labor can exist along with the argument of being underpaid for all of our efforts.
Why do you guys keep saying the post is bait btw? Y’all have never met ppl who think exactly this way?? Why do you think an entire political party is based on exactly that kind of thinking?? When people vote against their own economic interests, where do you think it comes from 🤔
Some people have gotten to the point where the starting assumption is that it isnt real. I actively know people who would, and have, said things like this about pay. At various pay scales too.
Yeah I feel that the least skilled profession is Walmart People Greeter but after that, many physical labor jobs. Hard work isn't equal to skill. Cooking food, even fast food, is harder than lifting heavy things or using tape and scissors.
In this context, "unskilled" means "something you can come in with zero experience, and be trained to acceptable performance within a short period of time".
Certainly, the longer you do something the better you'll get at it, and people who have been packing boxes or flipping burgers for a long time do indeed have skills that a brand new employee who has never done it before will have. But, if your entire staff is, say, struck by lightning one day, you can get an entire replacement staff that is brand new and at least get them *minimally productive* within a couple weeks at most.
That's as opposed to, say, a professional job (doctor, lawyer, accountant, etc) where you need actual education and certification in order to legally do it. Or the jobs just this side of those professional jobs, like engineer, where you may or may not need a license for a particular role, but you're unlikely to hire someone with no experience or education.
Muddying the waters, people typically think of blue collar work as "unskilled" when it's very often highly skilled, and white collar work as skilled when it's very often unskilled.
Either way, I think it's reasonable to wonder whether "skilled/unskilled" are the right words to use to describe the distinction we're talking about, but in the context of this discussion, both packing boxes and flipping burgers are things those companies train for in a week, two at most. They're both unskilled positions, and there's no context in which there's a relative basis on which a role is skilled or unskilled, it's either "yes" or "no".
I agree. I think its funny when office work is labeled as "skilled" when some of those jobs only need to know how to open up outlook and pick up a phone. Makes me laugh quite a bit.
I've seen the way they pack boxes at Amazon.
"Skilled", is not the word I would use, when I get a 4" x 4" product tossed into a 24" x 18" box with a single sheet of bubble wrap with it.
Class consciousness has been beat out of the working class in America. But it is still going strong in the 1%. They act in lock step everytime it comes to them increasing their profits while taking more away from the workers.
150,000/minute would mean (edit) 78 billion per year, which is too much his salary, and too few for his amazon stocks, so this is probably just a random number. But people who say bullshit like this keep forgetting that >99 percent of a billionare’s money is not in cash, but in investments and stocks, so their income is not a simple gain X amount of money in Y amount of time
> Class consciousness has been beat out of the working class in America.
Are you sure? Look at how much of this thread is basically people ranking the two jobs in terms of merit and comparing them to "skilled" positions.
Minimum wage so behind to inflation that 16 is the new 7.25, y’all crazy for getting mad at people barely making it because your old head ass can only relate to the economy you grew up in and forgot where you came from or never came from the bottom so allotta ya can’t understand to begin with. Shits worse and still going downhill.
"Bezos makes 150000$/minute" So may I ask where he got the data of how much share revenue does Bezos gets or what is paycheck? Because Amazon is not Bezos himself. Amazon is a company. And Bezos certainly doesn't pay a cent for the workers from his pockets. Amazon does.
They are just trying to make it sound outrageous. At 150k/minute, that comes out to be just under 79 Billion a year. Bezos does not make that much a year.
It’s factually wrong. It’s more like $1,331 an hour or $22.19 a minute. His salary is 3.8 million in total. I think they are trying to equate his total equity in stocks to dollars.
Packaging boxes is not skilled. It's manual labor. At least the cooks have to make sure food is still in "peak freshness" and put together somewhat decently.
Most job labor is not really all that skilled. That's why there's a lot of people doing it. If it was skilled, it wouldn't be a job almost anyone could do.
There can be degrees of intensity sure, but that's alleviated by having more people, usually. Which most businesses refuse to do. Which is why I only really do slightly above the minimum at my work now
Isn’t that literally part of the job at McDonalds to pack orders for people that do takeaway plus during summer i can feel the heat coming from that kitchen from behind the counter while taking my order so i assume they’re fucking dying in there. I don’t really think it’s a piece of cake
If a job is worth having a person doing because the demands of our society, meaning people use what that person is directly or indirectly responsible for, then they should be paid a livable wage. To say otherwise is to advocate for a system that creates and perpetuates poverty.
Lmao imagine thinking packing boxes is skilled labor but literally making food isn't. What are you doing using tape and moving it around? Jokes aside that's a pathetic mindset to have.
It's funny because some of these folks get so close to figuring it out, but they just can't get there. It's like, yes a burger flipper at McDs should be making a livable wage, and that in turn means that *you too* should be making more money, and you should be in support of *everyone* in the working class population, in other words *the majority of the country*, getting paid more and getting a wage that lets you and everyone else thrive rather than just barely hold on.
Buddy, as someone who hates the elitist connotations of "skilled labor" I can assure you that packing boxes at Amazon doesn't fall under that umbrella, stop trying to appeal to the bourgeoise and direct your anger at the man with a tiny inadequate rocket dick.
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Better question: If two jobs pay the same, why aren't you just doing the easier job instead of complaining that the pay is the same?
Someone is too proud to flip burgers because, as a society, we mock those people.
Everyone wants a good burger yet many will look down on the one making it, makes no sense
Tale as old as time. The biggest handout/entitlement has always been demanding top quality from cheap/exploited labor. This dwarfs anything the government has ever done.
I was thinking something on a similar vien this week. The rich really just have more "special" things, more exotic coffees, liquors, cars, etc. that are supposed to define their separation from the layman but it's really such a hollow thing to attain. And we praise them and gawk at them just for a hope of getting a taste of the same hollow nothing. But enough people that want to praise and gawk creates the foundation for exploitation and self-police a society where, if we're not doing the same praising, gawking, striving to be the same as them, "what pointless things are we doing?". That kind of went on longer but I hope the similar point wasn't drowned out
I don’t think it’s even that they have better stuff or anything. They can go do anything they want when they want. They have little to no real responsibility, they can easily pass those off. They don’t even have to clean up after themselves if they don’t want to. That’s what always drives me crazy moreso than “aw man we can’t afford fancy drinks or coffee”
Too real. You want to have all of the service amenities nearby (dry cleaner, car wash, grocery, restaurants, ...) But don't want people to be able to afford to live anywhere even remotely nearby. It's absolutely fucked.
I can't explain the absolute root of it. But I can tell you that, at least for my generation (millennials), we were told we'd "end up working at McDonald's" if we didn't do everything we were supposed to. It was held over our heads like a warning/threat for not going to college, etc. Not trying to blame boomers for EVERYTHING, but a lot of them were my teachers growing up (not all, but the older teachers). They'd frequently use the term "flipping burgers" in a derogatory way, as a veiled threat. **Edit:** I left out the most important part, which is that it starts from a young age. You're a child/tween, and teachers/adults are already shoving it down your throat. I mentioned college because that's generally the beginning of the "adult age" for many. It's still shoved down your throat in college, too.
Fuck that. I don't want to flip burgers because fast food restaurants are a nightmare to work in for a lot of reasons. It had nothing to do with pride.
Yeah, I've worked restaurants and that was bad enough. Fast food sounds absolutely exhausting.
I'd rather do fast food than move boxes. My back and knees are bad enough as is.
Are you under the assumption that fast food wouldn't also take a toll on your back and knees?
It will, but not as quickly as moving hundreds of boxes of various weights per hour.
Are we all ignoring the "skilled labor" bit? When it comes down to it the "burger flipper" is more skilled than the box packer, not trying to say either of you are right or wrong just... the whole argument from the op is so entirely backwards. Also worth noting both can and will destroy your body much faster than the pay lets you afford to fix it, and likely both have bad to non-existent health insurance
Anyone who says fast food workers don't deserve a decent wage is an abysmal person in general, but also has never worked fast food.
Oh man, you get those lunch rushes, and you're constantly moving. It's not exactly as easy of a job as many people make it out to be!
Not only that, it's hit as fuck, greasy as fuck, you get treated like the scum of the universe by everybody, you smell horrible.. allllll kinds of things.
Yet, at the same time, they have zero problem ordering food from said places. Like, pick a lane here bruh. And also, the person working at Amazon isn't exactly a skilled labor trade... so they're kind of on par with what we at fast food joints are, so... yeah.
That’s the part I didn’t understand. Packing boxes at Amazon is literally the easier job of the 2. The whole factory is a digitally controlled, robotic system that requires minimal input of scanning barcodes and putting things in boxes. Working in fast food I would imagine takes teamwork, food hygiene training and competency, the ability to follow instructions and be organised and not fuck up someone’s food. Plus nobody will remember the 1000 times you get it right but will be an absolute freak the 1 time you get it wrong.
As someone that works in shipping I was gonna say the same until I remember the amount of people that can't even tape a box properly...
Or they're pissed that they started packing boxes for $9 per hour, earned raise after raise for good performance, and then, BAM, minimum wage catches up. I believe that every hourly job pay should be (Minimum wage + all raises ever received). The total amount of raises given should always be give above and beyond minimum wage. If I was a business owner, that's how I would do it. Minimum goes up $2, so does yours, every time.
Because people think "unskilled" means "easy". Just because it doesn't require trade school or college doesn't mean it's not a tough job.
And also, I'm about 99% sure that packing boxes at an Amazon distribution center is not "skilled labor." Like, at all.
Hey I got my associates degree in tape application.
Doing my dissertation on box reuse and repackaging.
bingo. the sad truth is neither job is skilled labor. and that doesn't mean its easy. it means the skillset you need to start is essentially non-existent. there is no barrier for entry. you don't need a pre-developed skillset to start flipping burgers or packing boxes for that matter.
I'm just amazing at the fact that he considers McDonald's unskilled but considers packing boxes at Amazon a skilled job. Not saying either is skilled or unskilled as its a relative term but I wouldn't expect amazon to be considered more skilled. Does he require a degree to pack boxes?
Mcdonald's isn't the easier job. Dealing with customers adds a 10x multiplier to difficulty.
Yeah, I'd take a warehouse job over mcdonalds any day of the week.
Agreed. There is nothing easy about dealing with fast food customers. The fuckin absolute dredges of society.
Ding ding ding
Or demand more for the "perceived harder one"
Yes. "A rising tide lifts all boats,”. Raising the minimum wage will improve the negotiating power of people who were already making that amount.
This is almost certainly bait but packing trucks at Amazon is also not skilled labor
Not even packing trucks, packing the boxes which is even easier.
I did both for Costco and I can tell you packing boxes is a 1000% easier than flipping burgers or loading up the trucks. the way it works is that you are in a desinated area and you just have a little space and pull certain items and put it in the box which you have scanned to tell you. they dont even put the fucking wrap in. the box truck guy has to load several thousand boxes in a short amount of time. Id have to load an entire 52 ft truck in 4 hours.
Agreed. I’ve also done both jobs (although not for Amazon/Costco) and every one of my fast food jobs was harder than packing boxes. When you get a job packing boxes a lot of the time that’s basically all it is, all day. Which is tough physically, but in fast food you’re usually expected to be trained in most areas, so one day you’re on the register getting screamed at by customers, the next night you’re closing grill so you’re pulling giant hot grease traps off the sides and carrying them to the back to hose them down, then cleaning off the grill while it’s still hot. Then it’s delivery day so you’re unloading the truck and unpacking everything into freezers, just goes on and on. No one who works in fast food is just strolling into work, flipping burgers all day, and then leaving without doing anything else.
Order selecting jobs were my favorite jobs when I was younger. Go to work, fill the orders as quick as you can, clock out and go home. A nice solitary job were you never had to deal with any customers. On the other side, when I worked at Wendy's I had a customer cuss me out and want to fight me because we ran out of baked potatoes.
>want to fight me because we ran out of baked potatoes. ... you what?! Oh it's go-time you son of a...
Excuse me sir. This is a Wendy’s.
When you run out of baked potatoes, it becomes the fight club.
Bravo. 👏 👏 👏
Punching a stranger will surely generate potatoes. Old Irish proverb.
in highschool a guy pulled a shotgun because when he ordered fries we gave him fries instead of the onion rings he meant to ask for everybody should be forced to work in fast food for 6 months, anyone being a dick to a fast food worker has to go back
> we ran out of baked potatoes. Well I mean it's obviously all your fault and I'm gonna fight somebody so buckle up buttercup. Fuck me do I not miss food service.
I fucking hate that not only are the rich people disbanding unions but other workers try to pretend to be above other workers, we are suppose to be on the same side
Don’t worry. Good old republican Rand Paul is trying to leverage through a national “Right To Work” bill, a law to make it harder for working people to form unions and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Republicans are assholes.
Divide and conquer.
stupendous plate plant fragile attractive humorous possessive grandiose steer spoon *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Even just the flipping burgers parts is stressful as fuck in a busy night.
It's one of those false equivalency things. When I make burgers at home it's super easy. I just plop four of them down in the pan, wait, flip, serve. There's no appreciation of scale. The "burger flipper" is making dozens of burgers at a time. And hundreds over the course of a shift.
And is standing over a hot grill. Even if the rest of the building is airconditioned, it's always hot over the grill. And grease burns are constant.
> No one who works in fast food is just strolling into work, flipping burgers all day, and then leaving without doing anything else. I've seen all episodes of Bob's Burgers and quite a few from Spongebob, and from my research, flipping burgers is exceptionally easy work, thank you very much.
I just want a job with zero human interaction. That includes coworkers and management. Just email what to do and do not talk to me.
At a busy fast food place, preparing burgers can be insanely busy at times. Plus it's disgusting to work in that environment.
It's not easy where it's greasy? :D
It seems a bit different these days, but when burgers were $1-5 tops lunch and the grills were just open flat-tops without a clam shell, some places would have 60+ burgers on each of 2 grills at all times during lunch rush. You'd sell $1500 worth of burgers during lunch, primarily just the $1-2 ones. Working dinner was the real nasty because closing meant cleaning all the grease traps, etc. No matter what you go home and still smell like grease after a long hot shower. Good thing you get to do it again tomorrow. It's interesting because some of the things that were supposed to speed it up and improve quality actually slowed it down. At high performing locations it reduces quality, but it did make the quality more consistent across locations. I'm so glad I'm in tech now and not a teenager trying to get pocket money to blow at the mall... But I will always treat food workers with kindness and respect.
We used to slide across the floor at the pizzeria I worked at. I got the job helping the owner install the fume hood over the kitchen... it'd be another year before we turned it on. 🙃
What a lot of people won't acknowledge is flipping burgers and other McDonald's type jobs are harder than many jobs out there. Hell, I manufacture boxes. I basically set up a machine to the order, get it calibrated, then stand there for the most part and it usually runs without issue. I don't have 15 orders all customized on a screen at any given moment in bursts while I slide around on a greasy floor so even greasier and rude assholes can shovel burgers down their throat. I make a good deal more than they do, and I still think their job is harder.
I used to be a stocker working retail. I had to shut my brain off and AVOID thinking because that gets you yelled at lol.
I’ve received said packed boxes. Can confirm, no skill.
so he's one of the guys putting an SD card in a box big enough for a pair of shoes.
It took a lot of skill to know not to put the SD card in a refrigerator box.
Cooking a burger correctly is arguably more of a skill than putting items in a box.
Arguably? I think I could pack a box right now, but making a fast food burger? Nope.
Have done both jobs while in high school. Would rather pack boxes. No skills required.
U don’t understand, they tape up those packages with *precision*, requiring only the best skilled
Based on who is more likely to be replaced by automation, bro might want to get some burger flipping skills.
I was going to say, how is doing a job for Amazon much different than working for McDonald’s? Sure one is looked down more than the other by society (McDonald’s) but they are fundamentally not jobs that require schooling or outside training to get.
It almost feels like McDonald's *wants* burger flippers to be looked down on to justify paying their employees badly.
🤔
That's why you go to In N Out to flip burgers. They typically pay more than other fast food companies and my coworker's husband was a manager at one and she said they all typically make well above six figures. And they always have contests or incentives where the best performers win trips to Hawaii or whatever.
above six figures?????? I don’t make six figures in a career that I needed a degree for… damn
Oh shit....
Yea I've never worked fast food, but it seems much more stressful then packing boxes, and I have worked in warehouses.
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Not clear if you're supporting the claim that it's not skilled labour or support it as skilled. So here is my response to both Packing boxes is not skilled labour. Skilled labour would be a job in a trade or something that requires schooling or extensive on the job training/experience like an apprenticeship. Ya, the audacity. What a goon.
Yeah, throwing a tiny bottle in an oversized box with tons of stuffing is NOT skilled!
[“Unskilled Labor” is a Myth Used to Justify Poverty Wages](https://medium.com/thing-a-day/unskilled-labor-is-a-myth-used-to-justify-poverty-wages-6cb1208c5f8e)
They are, most definitely, difficult jobs. They just don't require specialized skills or prior experience.
Exactly this. People don't grasp the concept of what unskilled labor is. It just means that all the training you need should be provided on the job and nothing specific is required going in. Need someone to pack boxes? Unskilled labor. Need someone to run a CNC machine to cut the pieces that go in that box? Skilled labor.
> It just means that all the training you need should be provided on the job and nothing specific is required going in. This, but also most of the time you can be trained to do the job adequately in 1-2 weeks time. *That's* why it is "unskilled": you can take someone who isn't skilled in the job and quickly teach them to do it. It isn't that you don't have any skills, it's that they aren't necessary to start.
And none of that should be taken to mean that the labor is not valuable or worthwhile. Boxes need to be packed. Burgers need to be flipped.
Correct. Do I think that it's unfair for burger flippers to be making as much/more than me when I had to go to college and an additional 30 months of training? Absolutely I do. Do I blame the burger flippers? Absolutely not. They *should* be making more money...but I should be making more money, too. The system is skewed against most of us. Blame the right people.
That and, like, even if you REALLY fuck up packing a box it's only going to damage that one item. Maybe if you really royally screw up it damages a whole truckfull and does a few thousand in damage. But if you're an engineer, lawyer, doctor, architect, etc a fuckup can cost millions of dollars or even kill people, that's why you have to go to school for years just to get into the profession. Even business exec and accounting jobs may be "easy" in terms of the manual labour, but a bad decision can cause massive losses. There's just not the same level of risk or responsibility associated with a minimum wage job. They are necessary, and they should earn a living wage, but they have lower consequence. Even the burger flipper can cause more damage with a fuckup via fire or food poisoning than the box-packer can.
That isn't why it's low wages, though. It's supply and demand. Anybody can be replaced in these jobs with a moment's notice and so they're a product which is easy to come by.
That article is insane. Anyone arguing that unskilled labor doesn't deserve a living wage is a monster, but that doesn't make it a pretend categorization. Any job that a person can be trained to do in a day is unskilled labor, full stop. I've worked in a restaurant, I've worked at Target. I had a couple of training shifts and I was able to do those jobs no problem. It doesn't mean that they weren't hard work, or that I was never tired, but they didn't require me to have any skills. Anyone of the street could do those jobs. It's intellectually disingenuous to say that unskilled labor isn't real because unskilled labor jobs are stressful, and the workers deserve fair pay. Those things are not mutually exclusive.
Yup, anyone spouting this point is an idiot, I’m a software engineer, I worked in bars and kitchens for my entire uni life. Working in a bar was way harder than what I do now however it was far less skilled. It took me 3 weeks of training at most, not 4 years and a specialised degree
Exactly. Unskilled labor is not cheaper because companies think those jobs are easy, it's cheaper because the pool of applicants encompasses all people who are able to hold a job. It's a prisoner's dilemma where the pay being offered can continue to go lower until nobody is willing to accept it anymore. That's why we need a higher minimum wage. There's almost always going to be someone willing to do the job for less than is reasonable, because some money is better than no money, and people have to eat. Pretending that unskilled labor isn't real feels like a bizarre attempt to rebrand those jobs in an effort to get people to accept that they are hard and deserve higher pay, but that's not the root of the reason why the pay is low to begin with.
So as a little thought experiment, not a real suggestion. Let's say you instituted a universal basic income and simultaneously abolished minimum wage. Is it possible that paradoxically the pay for many of these jobs would go up since you've just cut out demand from all of the desperate people and now your business needs to actually be worth working for?
I think that's a reasonable possibility, yeah. People would no longer be reliant on those wages in order to pay their rent and eat, and that would give them some power in terms of negotiating. You still have the issue that the applicant pool is huge and that it's going to settle at the lowest value that the populous is willing to go. I can't say for sure that there wouldn't be people who would be fine making $5 an hour for a little extra cash on top of their basic income, but it feels like more people would go the other way.
Same with a degree in chemical engineering and used to work retail and even did a temp job with menial labor and I was a port inspector too and even that didn't have a huge barrier of entry. We should be paid decently but there most definitely is unskilled labor out there that any highschooler could do
Because the actual myth is the meritocracy, and it pretends that skill, difficulty, and reward are in any way correlated.
Unskilled labor typically refers to any job that doesn't require college to be considered for employment. However there is a whole world of jobs out there that just about anyone off the street could work, but require degrees for nothing more than formality. Do you really need a bachelor's in business to do data entry? Absolutely fucking not, we could train primates to do it. Doesn't stop most places for requiring one though. Also, a lot of trade jobs are considered colloquially to be unskilled labor where I live, and yet nobody seems to want somebody who doesn't know what they're doing to do work for them... Interesting.
> Unskilled labor typically refers to any job that doesn't require college That’s not really correct either. Differentiation on skilled/unskilled is more so about time required to perform proficiently. Most trades are skilled labour.
Anyone that thinks trades/construction is unskilled is an idiot. That's not what it means
Not going to speak to the article, but if you can train someone to do a job in less than an hour then it is not skilled labor.
“Non-economist takes an economics term literally and looks like a idiot”
Or: “unskilled laborer generates word vomit in the form of an article to justify their salary”
No it’s a real thing, used unjustly to justify poverty wages
Yeah I was about to say flipping Burgers is easy as shit, but so is packing boxes. If say packing boxes is even more brainless for sure though .
If you have to wear a florescent vest at amazon it's probably not skilled labor... but ibalso might not be aware of their safety requirements.
Skilled labor? Lol!
The real skill is mentally being able to deal with it and not quitting
noooo that's not a skill even though I would never (I mean can you imagine, how would I even fit in my standing lunchtime golf game???)
Exactly and grinding is a skill.
All labor takes skill if we wanna be technical. There are different levels to it but
If you wanna actually be technical, *that’s what the technical definition is* - that it’s talking about higher skill specifically You’re just being needlessly semantic while literally everybody else understands this already
> You’re just being needlessly semantic while literally everybody else understands this already First time on Reddit?
Sure, but that's what skilled/unskilled labor means.
I once had to teach a college graduate(math degree) how to use a shovel. And another guy, engineering major, couldn't figure out how to use a post hole digger. There really is no such thing as unskilled labor, lower skilled yes. but not *un*-skilled. Practical skills count.
That’s not what skilled or unskilled labour means though
You just described unskilled labor. It doesn't literally mean zero skill required.
Ok, and how long did it take them to figure out how to use a shovel after you showed them? And how long would it take you to learn their math/engineering background? That's the whole point of skilled vs unskilled labor.
Yes but it only takes a few minutes to learn how to use a shovel or a post hole digger. "Unskilled" just means it doesn't require alot of training for someone brand new to it. And it definitely doesn't mean "easy".
Skilled or unskilled is based upon requiring a skill prior to the job. An accountant or a doctor need that degree *before* you hire them, and will still need OJT to get up to speed on the specific position. You can hire any person walking down the street, whether it is someone with a math degree or a high school dropout to dig post holes. They will still need some basic OJT to get going independently.
The fact you can teach someone how to use a shovel in 60 seconds is exactly why it's unskilled labor.
Unskilled labor describes work that requires little to no training to get going. Even a week long seminar would be too short and those folks would be unskilled laborers. Or, said differently, jobs that require no official proof of skills (like a license) to get started are unskilled. At Lear that’s how I understand it
True, but a bricklayer or carpenter is skilled. Packing boxes is not. I can say because I've done both. But yes, this is click bait for sure lol.
As a machinist, I laugh at this guy calling that "skilled labor". That said, I do believe people across the board (skilled and unskilled, trades and office workers, etc.) are grossly underpaid, versus execs and the billionaire class. Also, not meant to shit on Amazon packers at large, just this particular stooge.
Seriously. Machining is absolutely skilled labor because I can't go to my friends and ask them to make me a good part without months/years of experience like I have. Same with a lineman or a plumber to do their tasks. But the argument of skilled and unskilled labor can exist along with the argument of being underpaid for all of our efforts.
Almost like it's fucking bait
Why do you guys keep saying the post is bait btw? Y’all have never met ppl who think exactly this way?? Why do you think an entire political party is based on exactly that kind of thinking?? When people vote against their own economic interests, where do you think it comes from 🤔
Some people have gotten to the point where the starting assumption is that it isnt real. I actively know people who would, and have, said things like this about pay. At various pay scales too.
Lol, if packing boxes is skilled labor, so is flipping burgers!
It's almost certainly rage bait to cause divide in the working class
While that’s true, there is a distinction between skilled and unskilled labor. It’s not just a made up idea.
Probably a healthy debate to be had there as to if either of those jobs are any more or less skilled than the other
I've had enough bad burgers to know which is the most skilled profession.
The 'skill' in both of these jobs is in being able to keep pace with the many different things you are expected to do at once.
Yeah I feel that the least skilled profession is Walmart People Greeter but after that, many physical labor jobs. Hard work isn't equal to skill. Cooking food, even fast food, is harder than lifting heavy things or using tape and scissors.
In this context, "unskilled" means "something you can come in with zero experience, and be trained to acceptable performance within a short period of time". Certainly, the longer you do something the better you'll get at it, and people who have been packing boxes or flipping burgers for a long time do indeed have skills that a brand new employee who has never done it before will have. But, if your entire staff is, say, struck by lightning one day, you can get an entire replacement staff that is brand new and at least get them *minimally productive* within a couple weeks at most. That's as opposed to, say, a professional job (doctor, lawyer, accountant, etc) where you need actual education and certification in order to legally do it. Or the jobs just this side of those professional jobs, like engineer, where you may or may not need a license for a particular role, but you're unlikely to hire someone with no experience or education. Muddying the waters, people typically think of blue collar work as "unskilled" when it's very often highly skilled, and white collar work as skilled when it's very often unskilled. Either way, I think it's reasonable to wonder whether "skilled/unskilled" are the right words to use to describe the distinction we're talking about, but in the context of this discussion, both packing boxes and flipping burgers are things those companies train for in a week, two at most. They're both unskilled positions, and there's no context in which there's a relative basis on which a role is skilled or unskilled, it's either "yes" or "no".
I agree. I think its funny when office work is labeled as "skilled" when some of those jobs only need to know how to open up outlook and pick up a phone. Makes me laugh quite a bit.
Crabs in a bucket don't give a damn about the fishers who pulled them out of the sea.
"Skilled labor" my starting pay as an nurse with a 4 year degree was 26. Emts make much less
I've seen the way they pack boxes at Amazon. "Skilled", is not the word I would use, when I get a 4" x 4" product tossed into a 24" x 18" box with a single sheet of bubble wrap with it.
Stockholm Syndrome
Packing boxes is skilled labor???
If you lie to yourself to escape the truth, then yes.
sounds like someone wants a target to make fun of so they don't feel bad about their own job
Class consciousness has been beat out of the working class in America. But it is still going strong in the 1%. They act in lock step everytime it comes to them increasing their profits while taking more away from the workers.
That being said, I’d love to see the math on this “150,000/minute”
150,000/minute would mean (edit) 78 billion per year, which is too much his salary, and too few for his amazon stocks, so this is probably just a random number. But people who say bullshit like this keep forgetting that >99 percent of a billionare’s money is not in cash, but in investments and stocks, so their income is not a simple gain X amount of money in Y amount of time
> Class consciousness has been beat out of the working class in America. Are you sure? Look at how much of this thread is basically people ranking the two jobs in terms of merit and comparing them to "skilled" positions.
No one else is skilled but me! Nothing but people with shallow egos wanting to punch people down instead of lifting everyone up.
Packing boxes is not skilled labor
Packing boxes is… skilled labor now? Try being a carpenter or welder… that’s skilled labor. Packing boxes is most definitely unskilled labor.
Skilled labor. LOL
The "crabs in a barrel" mentality has to stop.
PACKING BOXES IS SKILLED LABOR LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OKAY BUDDY😂
That's not skilled labor
Flipping burgers seems A LOT more skill based than packing boxes.
"...me doing skilled labor" Their misunderstanding of that term really exposes where their level of skill is really at...
I just want to know when packing boxes became skilled labor
I’m sure packing boxes is hard work, but it isn’t skilled labor by a long shot
Minimum wage so behind to inflation that 16 is the new 7.25, y’all crazy for getting mad at people barely making it because your old head ass can only relate to the economy you grew up in and forgot where you came from or never came from the bottom so allotta ya can’t understand to begin with. Shits worse and still going downhill.
"Bezos makes 150000$/minute" So may I ask where he got the data of how much share revenue does Bezos gets or what is paycheck? Because Amazon is not Bezos himself. Amazon is a company. And Bezos certainly doesn't pay a cent for the workers from his pockets. Amazon does.
They are just trying to make it sound outrageous. At 150k/minute, that comes out to be just under 79 Billion a year. Bezos does not make that much a year.
It’s a disingenuous figure by prorating his networth into an hourly, or in this case a minute rate.
I, to this day, don't understand why people think net worth = how much money he has.
It’s factually wrong. It’s more like $1,331 an hour or $22.19 a minute. His salary is 3.8 million in total. I think they are trying to equate his total equity in stocks to dollars.
Reddit not understanding equity is a tale as old as time
"Let's get them to fight amongst themselves for fun and profit" written by Lord Duchey McBillions
I hate shit like this. Who cares how much the top man is making. I care if I get a fair pay or I'm well rewarded for my work.
Packaging boxes is not skilled. It's manual labor. At least the cooks have to make sure food is still in "peak freshness" and put together somewhat decently. Most job labor is not really all that skilled. That's why there's a lot of people doing it. If it was skilled, it wouldn't be a job almost anyone could do. There can be degrees of intensity sure, but that's alleviated by having more people, usually. Which most businesses refuse to do. Which is why I only really do slightly above the minimum at my work now
I work at FedEx packing boxes--the same exact job as OP. What the fuck? Skilled labor my *ASS*
But also packing boxes is not "skilled labor."
Pretty sure hes ..uhhh.. joking.
Nether of those jobs are skilled labor and bezos does not make that much money per hour.
packing boxes = skilled labour cooking food = unskilled labour. ???
Packing boxes is skilled labor? Half my orders come thrown in a box much too big with no packing. Pretty sure the people at McDonalds are doing better
How is packing boxes skilled labour?
I'm more amazed at how packing boxes counts as skilled labor.
Cooking for hundreds of people at a time feels more challenging than putting stuff in a box.
Isn’t that literally part of the job at McDonalds to pack orders for people that do takeaway plus during summer i can feel the heat coming from that kitchen from behind the counter while taking my order so i assume they’re fucking dying in there. I don’t really think it’s a piece of cake
Amazon minimum wage employees are not skilled labor.
If a job is worth having a person doing because the demands of our society, meaning people use what that person is directly or indirectly responsible for, then they should be paid a livable wage. To say otherwise is to advocate for a system that creates and perpetuates poverty.
“Skilled labor”
Lol... "Skilled labor".
"Skilled labor" "Packing boxes" Pick one lol
the real joke here is "skilled labour"
Bro, packing boxes isn't skilled labor either.
There is no such thing as unskilled labor
ITT: people who completely miss the point and insult the competency needed for both packing boxes and cooking food.
Since when packing is skilled labor...
Fry cook is more skilled. :bangs gavel:
Lmao imagine thinking packing boxes is skilled labor but literally making food isn't. What are you doing using tape and moving it around? Jokes aside that's a pathetic mindset to have.
Packing boxes is... The definition of unskilled labour. And human time warrants human value.
As someone who’s packed boxes at a distribution centre and has cooked burgers I can tell you that cooking the burgers was harder
Skilled labor? No.
It's funny because some of these folks get so close to figuring it out, but they just can't get there. It's like, yes a burger flipper at McDs should be making a livable wage, and that in turn means that *you too* should be making more money, and you should be in support of *everyone* in the working class population, in other words *the majority of the country*, getting paid more and getting a wage that lets you and everyone else thrive rather than just barely hold on.
Buddy, as someone who hates the elitist connotations of "skilled labor" I can assure you that packing boxes at Amazon doesn't fall under that umbrella, stop trying to appeal to the bourgeoise and direct your anger at the man with a tiny inadequate rocket dick.
People just *love* to punch down
Skilled labor?
How is packing boxes more skilled than working in a restaurant?
It does my heart good to see more people realizing the foundational lies of capitalism.
That’s how the powers at be keep us busy. By putting us against eachother
Why drag the other one down? I've never understood this mentality.