Why Are Minimum Wage Jobs Advertised As A Career?

a reply to: boymonkey74

You're right. We're all slaves, owned and used and since we live under the illusion we are free, we are most productive. Imo even the richest citizen is a slave too. When TPTB look at people, they see slaves and "in the know" Very very few are "in the know" the majority are slaves, viewed as extremely useful, and distracted by the glittering beacon of materialism, so they won't rise up.

Even the poor in America have smartphones, roofs over their heads, at least some food. We can't ever imagine sacrificing the comfort we have for true freedom. So we're kept in a trap.

I can't help thinking about two people I know-

One is a woman who is forty, but really simple minded. She is really not very bright. She's had the same job for twenty years, a minimum wage job, and she does it super well. It is all she knows. She is happy there. She has a husband and child and is a great person. She would not be capable of doing more.

My sister is handicapped, mentally retarded. She has been working for Von's, as a bag girl for many years. Minimum wage, of course. She can drive, she has a son, she is 45, but has trouble speaking coherently, and has the intellectual level of a ten year old. But she knows her job and likes it.

Why should we not respect that such people have an active part to play in our society and deserve to be able to live?
She gets by because she found an alcoholic/drug addict willing to keep her in his apartment, otherwise she wouldn't be able to afford a roof over her head. She goes through periods of depression and wanting to get out of that situation, but there isn't much choice. She is too proud to just live off disability (which would be the same amount anyway). She wants to be active, feel useful, and see people each day.

I don't know. I don't have a strong opinion on this topic- I just find it thought provoking.

a reply to: SearchLightsInc

I mean, take a look at Mcdonalds recruitment. Do you see the word career?

Yes. It says:

Join us and we can promise you a wealth of training, career opportunities, rewards, benefits and plenty more besides.

So, as you gain training, as your skill set improves, you move up the ladder from non-skilled to more skilled and your pay increases. You can turn a minimum wage job into a better paying job or even a career. But that's haarrrdddd. I want to have more money right now because, gosh darn it, I do.

originally posted by: TycoonBarnaby

originally posted by: Toadmund

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: Edumakated

What world are you living in the 1950's or 2015?

Theres no upward mobility anymore give me a break.

There is plenty of upward mobility for those that are willing to work hard. There is no upward mobility for the weak, lazy, and stupid. If you can't run with the big dogs, get off the porch.

Some of us don't live to work, we work to live.

We should be able to live, why must we run with 'those' dogs.

ANY job should be a job that people can live off of, YOU are selling your labour, for your benefit.
Unfortunately it's not usually beneficial for you, but mostly for them.
Parasites of society, the banks, corporations etc. They suck our life blood and they want us to play THEIR game?!

(Insert bad word) THEM!

What do you mean by "live"? What do you require to live? Do you need the internet, a TV, a car, etc?
Poverty level in the US is still so far beyond just living, surely you are actually saying you require more than just living for doing something a machine could do instead of you.

So; are you saying that 'that', is the best we can do?
That since we aren't 3rd world YET, we should shut up and be happy?
Like machines.

I guess we can say we are talking North America here.

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: Toadmund

originally posted by: TycoonBarnaby

originally posted by: Toadmund

originally posted by: Edumakated

originally posted by: onequestion
a reply to: Edumakated

What world are you living in the 1950's or 2015?

Theres no upward mobility anymore give me a break.

There is plenty of upward mobility for those that are willing to work hard. There is no upward mobility for the weak, lazy, and stupid. If you can't run with the big dogs, get off the porch.

Some of us don't live to work, we work to live.

We should be able to live, why must we run with 'those' dogs.

ANY job should be a job that people can live off of, YOU are selling your labour, for your benefit.
Unfortunately it's not usually beneficial for you, but mostly for them.
Parasites of society, the banks, corporations etc. They suck our life blood and they want us to play THEIR game?!

(Insert bad word) THEM!

What do you mean by "live"? What do you require to live? Do you need the internet, a TV, a car, etc?
Poverty level in the US is still so far beyond just living, surely you are actually saying you require more than just living for doing something a machine could do instead of you.

Get real man!
Do you deny the fact that those at the top are taking most of the pie and leaving us the crumbs?

Yeah, I know 2/3 rds of the world can barely afford to eat and I live pretty good compared to them.
I just don't want to become them.
That's is where we are heading though.

The pie is growing. The pie is not fixed. Just because buggy whip manufacturers went out of business doesn't mean the economy is faltering. They had to retrain to find a different skillset.

Those at the top have a lot of wealth because they created even more wealth! How much value and wealth do you think Microsoft created for Bill Gates to find himself worth $75 billion? Probably trillions. You have to look beyond just one man's pocket book.

Gates didn't create any wealth, he extracted it from just about anyone who bought a computer, then he hoarded it. (then beecame somewhat philanthropic).
Wealth comes from debt, yeah I know, doesn't make sense, but it's true.

originally posted by: EveStreet
a reply to: brandiwine14
"I never understand the need of anyone to look down on others because of their job, whether a career choice or something to make ends meet, why do these things bother so many of you this much?"

Exactly! You hit the nail right on the head. People just love to bask in the feeling of superiority. It's much easier than having empathy and understanding for others situations. It's also easier than trying to fix injustices in the system. As long as their needs are being met they could give a hoot about anyone's misfortune. It's like fat shaming with the pretext that they are so concerned about that person's health and well being. They could give a hoot - it's just an sneakier way of putting someone down to feel superior.

It's not that I want to tell someone they are wrong or bash them. I wouldn't go into a minimum wage job thinking it was a career. Period. I know the narrative won't work on me. I'll be thinking on how to use that #ty job to better my condition. I will not conform to some conglomerates rendition of what a career is. If you want to fall in line and take a minimum job as a career, maybe someone really does need to call you stupid. I'll let the person's family do that. If they can keep it together long enough on minimum wage. Keep settling for less and that's what you have to look forward to. Sounds like slavery. I won't do well in chains.

My ex was from the eastern bloc, escaped from Czech when it was still behind the wall. He once said that I was a born consumer, and I think he was actually right. When we looked at an issue like not having enough money, he considered how he could do without it, or make do, or work around it. I considered how I could make more money in order to buy what I wanted. I've often worked 2-3 jobs in my life. I've worked insane amounts of free hours to train myself on things that I wouldn't be skilled at otherwise (couldn't afford to stay in college in southern coastal CA economy back in the mid 80s).

My kid is 18 now and mourning the little money she makes at the movie theatre (after she left McDonald's, saying the environment and a couple horrible people who were low level supervisors was making her both homicidal and suicidal). She still technically lives at home but is seldom here as she stays with her boyfriend who also lives at home. But she wants a car, and often buys her own food, and is gradually starting to realize that the reason most poor people never save money might be because they have to use all the money they make to actually live on, and they're still not really 'living' but barely existing. She says well -- well -- well how does it ever get better??

I only know what worked for me. I worked my ass off, I stayed single on purpose, I stayed childless on purpose, I pursued personal edu for everything I was interested in that stood a chance of making me more money, I suffered miserable cretins as bosses at times and got not nearly enough sleep for decades and eventually and gradually my available resources improved.

(Well, then I married someone for whom poverty was inbred, ended up 'raising' them both until I became a single mom, and sinking back into mostly-poor again for nearly 20 years as a result, but that was clearly just a bad choice on my part. Some decisions stay with you longer than others, sigh. So she has grown up with a single mom who made good enough money to raise her decently but was always 'on the edge.')

But she isn't the personality I am. I came from a horrible home life I was willing to do anything to escape and was filled with a sort of driving grim ambition she's never had, having grown up radically differently.

She sees my path as "the hamster wheel to nowhere" -- overwork, undersleep, scrimp, all so you can improve your level of overworking undersleeping scrimping? And maybe in a long time, you'll someday be making middle management money? For her, she just doesn't see the payoff. To her it seems like sacrificing most of her life all so she can be as chronically stressed out and still-scrimping as her mom has been all her life.

I keep trying to figure out how to 'inspire' her to something but I'm not sure what to inspire her with. Some people simply do not have the kind of personality that could be or would choose to be a fast food manager or a computer geek, for example. That is only a subset of the population. So my doing ok in my life due to the combination of those in my life is not really applicable to her, or to probably 60%+ of the population. I'm not sure what to make of that. Has our gradual outsourcing of corporate work to overseas resulted in not much between "computers" (from secretaries to programmers) and "flipping burgers" and a few warehouse workers and dentist assistants?

Is there really much of a "spectrum" between minimum wage jobs now, and "making a decent living in the average city?" Because it seems like the latter is getting so much more difficult, due to the economy, that it's become a lot more polarized. People with master's degrees take jobs that used to be you needed almost zero training for -- and still do -- but they're desperate. Leaving people without a lifetime of college debt just one step closer to never even getting an interview because their resume fell into the first filter of degree in the 500-7000 entries competition for those 2 positions.

I think when the economy was different, two people working close to minimum wage could make a living together. With a car, and raise a couple kids. I'm not sure that's the case anymore; I don't think it is.

RC

a reply to: SearchLightsInc Better question why do people save up to get a ticket out of their homeland to cross the Earth when they also know they will be offered a minimum wage job?

I was speaking to a man from Romania and he said even if your homeless in London, sleeping in a park and finding your food by going through bins its still a better life then living in Romania !