Unpopular opinions go here

[MGibster]

…wait, that’s not how it works? I’VE WASTED MY LIFE!!!!

I mean, you are hanging around a message board dedicated to make-believe. And lest you think I'm hypcrite, I'll have you know I'm a figment of your imagination.

 

[MGibster]

The best part of the Oreo is the cookie part.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

“The centre cannot hold.”

It’s football season again. Centers at all levels of competition will be holding on many plays in every game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In the United States, unskilled labor is used to describe workers in positions that require very little training or experience for satisfactory performance.

It’s still a bit of a misnomer. Every job you can think of has its correlative skills.

Making sausages isn’t difficult, but there IS a trick to doing it quickly and consistently. I’ve watched CIA-trained chefs who can’t do the job as well as the guy who does it daily.

Hell- even bagging groceries is something someone can be astoundingly bad at doing.

 

[Jd Smith1]

The defining aspect about unskilled labor is the training time, which translates into ease of replacement. As MGibster noted, you can learn to run McDs grill in a couple eight hour shifts. You can learn to back groceries (I did) in twenty minutes. The educational standards for either job are pretty minimal: the ability to read a shift schedule and follow instructions.

On the other hand, it takes 18 months of full-time training to obtain a factory certification to do brand name transmission work, and another 8-12 months of practical experience to really be considered competent. It will require reading and math skills of high school level, and in many cases, being bondable.

 

[Jd Smith1]

What employers have been finding out recently, is that workers in those unskilled positions are less willing to put up with a lot of the baloney associated with those jobs. For restaurant staff, they're often dealing with uncertain hours and pay in addition to unsavory working conditions with surly patrons. During COVID, a lot of people got it in their head that they don't have to put up with it. The paycheck just isn't worth the aggravation.

So what are they going to do? Retail isn't for the faint of heart, either.

If all you're bringing to the job market is two hands and an open schedule, you're not going to find easy or well-paying jobs.

Around here, automation at fast food is accelerating. Actually ordering from a Human is definitely on the way out.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Hell- even bagging groceries is something someone can be astoundingly bad at doing.

I either go to a self-bagging place halfway frequently, or help the checkout person bag when they're lacking a dedicated bagger, and its obvious to me I fumble around a heck of a lot more than they do.

 

[Cadence]

Hell- even bagging groceries is something someone can be astoundingly bad at doing.

Having been appalled by it once or twice, I always sort my groceries as I take them out of my cart to avoid some obvious errors if the bagger isn't that practiced.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So what are they going to do? Retail isn't for the faint of heart, either.

I did some retail as a teen, mostly in little boutiques. Last one closed on me and never paid me my final wages due.

If all you're bringing to the job market is two hands and an open schedule, you're not going to find easy or well-paying jobs.

There’s non-good reasons for that. Average employee wages have increased at a much slower rate than executive compensation and inflation. And it’s worse in the USA than in other developed nations.

One anecdote I was reading recently was supplied by a person who opined the apartment he lived in during law school and paid rent on with a minimum wage job had become so expensive he couldn’t afford it as an attorney.

Simply put, relative to 40+ years ago, the job market’s economic factors are hostile to anyone below the upper middle-class, and it’s trending worse

Around here, automation at fast food is accelerating. Actually ordering from a Human is definitely on the way out.

I’ve discussed this elsewhere, but automation is coming for almost everyone’s job in some way.

In 2012, there was a prototype manufacturing modular robot that could be programmed to go 200 different jobs, with a 5 year operating cost lower than an average Indonesian factory worker’s wages.

About the same time, medical diagnostic programs were 60% as accurate as a human MD.

Self-driving automobiles will impact the trucking/delivery business.

And we’ve been watching in real time how much improvement things like ChatGPT have shown in their writing. They’re now just good enough to be dangerous:

Mycologists warn of ‘life or death’ consequences as foraging guides written with A.I. chatbots crop up on Amazon | Fortune

With A.I. behind more books, the possibility of getting disastrous guidance is increasing.

fortune.com

But eventually, someone’s AI program will be able to draft pretty good legal documents in minutes for a fraction of the cost of using an attorney. Now, that’s not ALL we do, but it’s a significant enough chunk that it will definitely impact attorneys’ incomes- depending on their legal specialty.

There’s a LOT of sci-fi written about post-scarcity societies. Not much is written about transitioning from our current economic situation into those kinds of settings. What happens as increasing numbers of people can’t find work that pays enough to sustain themselves, and thus, the economy?

The answers will determine whether we’ll become more utopian or dystopian.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I either go to a self-bagging place halfway frequently, or help the checkout person bag when they're lacking a dedicated bagger, and its obvious to me I fumble around a heck of a lot more than they do.

Depends on the bagger.

I had one guy a couple years ago who- unbeknownst to me- put almost 3 flats of canned goods in a single (reusable) shopping bag. It was a surprise when I was loading up the car.

And I’ve had to tell the odd bagger to put delicate stuff like eggs on TOP of bags they’re loading.

At least I no longer need to worry about cold vs room temperature stuff anymore- all of my bags are insulated.