Monkeys Demand Fair Pay In A World They Never Made

a reply to: Pimpish

Hopefully you do, and then you can try and defend your only apparent behavior (within the confines of this thread), clearly demonstrated in your post when the workers you hire, in turn, perform the righteous act of karma upon you. I look forward to reading their posts here on ATS, decrying the outrageous amount of money you get in comparison to them when you finally start your business.

As far as the rest of the assumptions you're making, you have no idea what I know about desire, urge, patience, willingness and ability to do anything.

I was only stating the facts presented in your post. Your tirade against the CEO indicates a desire, urge, patience, willingness, and ability, to utilize an internet forum to take pot shots at a CEO.

You presented no other facts...you presented your opinion concerning the amount of labor a CEO exerts in his job and your opinion the amount compensation received by the CEO is excessive.

These are not a statement of facts. Nor are they related to the experiment presented in the OP video.

If the CEO is a capuchin monkey and you are a capuchin monkey, then the tasks you were performing in the business environment merited the reward of cucumber. The tasks performed by the CEO merited the reward of grape. This is because you are not performing the work necessary to get a grape. If you were both performing equal work resulting in equal benefit to the corporation then you both get grapes.

Isn't it interesting? Some people that are preparing for the end of this present economy, are preparing ahead of time to start brand new ones when the old ones die.

In a "generic" sense, we seem to harbor some dread of losing contact with "the economy" so much that we develop, well, I suppose they are called "economic contingency plans".

I suppose we would like to get right back in to it if the present one fails.

And that's not just the "market economy", that goes for some folks when it comes to "love economies". Who hasn't heard the analogy of having someone "on deck", while another is "batting".

Hm.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

I get where you are coming from. top level executives rarely earn even a portion of their income. But if you don't understand the work they are doing, it is very hard to criticize their compensation.

It's not that I don't understand what they're doing, I understand. Setting a strategy and vision, blah blah. Nonsense. They work less and get paid more. This CEO made over 2.6 million last year, meanwhile the tech's are making $13 an hour. Without the tech's there is no company. Without the CEO, well, there could still be a company. The board can set strategy and vision and hire people, etc. It never works out that way, but it's possible, whereas the reverse just isn't possible.

If you don't have people answering the phones you have no company. Granted, I'm aware I'm making their job out to be much more simple than it actually is, but the discrepancy in pay is just off the wall crazy. You even say yourself that they don't usually earn their money.

You ever think that maybe there wouldn't be 150% turnover in the industry if the employees were treated better? There's such high turnover because people are always looking for a better job. Why are they looking for a better job? Because their current job sucks in one way or another, or multiple ways. They're either being underpaid, overworked, or both.

I used to work at Qualcomm, and boy, that was an awesome company to work for. The turnover there is low, because they treat their employees right. They still manage to make a tidy profit too.

originally posted by: Bybyots
I know, this all starts to get really convoluted. I remember a friend that is older and better read than I cracking up really badly when I came to him after The Republic and said something like, "Oh, my God! Do you realize Plato meant for that whole deal to be enforced by rule of law!?".

You know, I don't think that I have ever managed to read it all the way through, I've tried a couple of times, or three...it's another one of those books that I bought with good intentions of 'one day'...and I tried, honestly I did. Machavelli's The Prince...I read that one in less than an afternoon with ease...and I wonder why I am the way I am

Have you ever read John Locke's Letter on Toleration?

jim.com...

In a way, and taking into account that I never read all of The Republic, I see Locke as the progression of thought, with Thomas Paine's Rights of Man following up close behind. I think/feel that there is a danger of reductionism taking us too far over...perhaps...and away from the original objective.

a reply to: totallackey

I take it you didn't bother to look at either link I posted then? Those are the facts I'm talking about, not my opinion in the rest of the post.

I completely agree that it's not equal work, my job was certainly harder, while I got paid less.

originally posted by: Pimpish
a reply to: totallackey

I take it you didn't bother to look at either link I posted then? Those are the facts I'm talking about, not my opinion in the rest of the post.

My issue was not with any facts within any sources you provided...it was only with your opinions concerning CEO pay and how it is earned...

I completely agree that it's not equal work, my job was certainly harder, while I got paid less.

If your job was truly harder, then the board of directors, which, according to your prior comments, are the only ones necessary to exist within the company framework, would be of the same opinion.

The fact of the matter though is this...you, by your own admission, were incapable of performing the work as prescribed by company rules...you, by your own admission, could not handle the stress and chose to discard or ignore the requirements of the job in an effort to cope...

Good luck...

a reply to: Pimpish

Pay increases won't really help retention. when I ran a t-mobile call center we tried that. Turnover improved by less than 1% annually. And our labor costs increased 15% to get that less than marginal improvement.

The reason for high turnover in the call center world is multiple:

- Call centers still tend to operate like sweat shops. Schedule compliance/utilization metrics, combied with average handle time metrics, create a situation where you have a carriagman constantly whipping the horses on. But even employee friendly companies have attrition rates well over 100%. Its known as "an industry standard".
- You have massive employee bases with stifled promotional opportunities. Most call centers have ratio based staffing. 25:1 agent to supervisor ratios are the standard for the most part. 20:1 is ideal. Step up one level to your floor managers/line managers/operations managers you have 6-8 team for each. So there are 140 front line employees with line manager over seeing them. It is a hard field to move ahead in.
- It is stressful. I give call center agents hell when I call in. I have experienced far worse than myself, though. It is an extraordinarily stressful job. To make matters worse, your QA scores don't indicate how satisfied the customers are. It is a measurement of your ability to hit business related elements to either drive revenue, or reduce legal exposure. To do a "good job" for most folks is to help customers. In a call center, doing "good job" is less bout helping customers and more about meeting business objectives. Many folks have hard time understanding this. Of those that do, most find it very unfulfilling.
- The teams are large enough that one on one contact with the supervisor tends to focus on what is wrong. Not praising what is right. Supervisors who "get it" can have a significant impact on attrition. They are where the rubber meets the road.

My honest assessment: in the call center industry, the team supervisors are the most critical link. They can have the greatest influence over attrition and performance out of the entire company. They outwork their superiors, and are severely underpaid.

a reply to: totallackey

The fact of the matter though is this...you, by your own admission, were incapable of performing the work as prescribed by company rules...you, by your own admission, could not handle the stress and chose to discard or ignore the requirements of the job in an effort to cope...

I'm not sure which orifice you're pulling this from, but they absolutely loved me there. I was an exellent employee. I wasn't fired. I willingly left the company after they gave the CEO a 2 million dollar bonus at the same time they were cutting my pay and benefits.

What admission that I couldn't handle the stress? Where are you getting this? I said the job was stressful, yes. Where did I say I couldn't handle it? I could and did, for years. I never failed a single call on any QA check, ever. I followed company policy consistently and excellently.

I didn't discard or ignore any requirements of the job, I did the job to the best of my ability on a daily basis and all three of the supervisors I went through at that place absolutely loved me, and I still use them as references.

I'm only saying the CEO's are generally overpaid. Certain times of year, in the helpdesk business, it's even worse. From about black Friday until after new year's it's insanely busy. A 60 hour work week was very typical during those times. If you're scheduled to work a holiday, you're expected to work. No day off for Christmas, meanwhile the CEO is taking a three week vacation on his 2.6 million dollar earnings that year.

There's a huge discrepancy there, and I give up trying to show you. If you can't see that then I believe you're either being willfully blind to it or just trolling. Or perhaps you're an executive trying to justify to yourself why you get paid so much more than the people who work below you, who do work just as hard as you do, whether the job requirements are different or not.

a reply to: Pimpish

My apologies.

I mistook this:

Then you get dinged for missing a word of a greeting they want you to say, etc. - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...&mem=Pimpish#sthash.9a7zCsPz.dpuf

as a self description what you went through...

Again, my sincere apology.

I still say you will get farther maintaining strict focus on your personal goals than shifting focus to what the other guy is doing or receiving...

One of the points of the OP video is this is hard to do...but the rewards of the mission, should you choose to accept it, are beyond imagination.

a reply to: totallackey

I still say you will get farther maintaining strict focus on your personal goals than shifting focus to what the other guy is doing or receiving...

I agree, and that's part of why I'm self-employed now - so I can meet my own goals. I'm not just sitting around complaining, I didn't like how I was being treated and I did something about it. It just felt like it was related to the previous discussion in the thread.

I also certainly don't advocate for an average frontline employee to get CEO pay, that's just silly. But there's also something wrong with the way the pay has gone, with CEO pay going up 725 times faster, and the gap keeps getting bigger.

a reply to: Pimpish

The lesson I have learned working hard to make other people wealthy? Make my sons either highly educated or completely independent.

If I would have had a little nudge in the right direction as a young man, perhaps I wouldn't have sold my life away and would have invested in myself instead.

You make a very good point.

originally posted by: Pimpish
a reply to: burdman30ott6

Very, very infrequently (except when we're talking about pay for women in Obama's White House) are we discussing equal pay for equal effort in 2014.

That's true, and usually the ones doing more work are getting paid less. The CEO's are getting million dollar bonuses while the workers, who are doing all the work that keep the company in business, are getting paid peanutes compared to the CEO.

The value of the cucumber and grape may be exactly the same, but perhaps it is just the monkey saying "I want what he has", simply because the other monkey had something different? The grape getting monkey was satisfied with the fruits of his labor, the cucumber monkey wasn't satisfied. What if the cucumber monkey got both, would he be happy? How would that have worked out?

originally posted by: Bybyots

What is the value of a cucumber vs. a grape?

Depends on grocery store..from .39 cents to $1.25.

A pound of grapes averages about $3.99. There are about 100 grapes in a pound, so the actual value of one grape per one piece of cucumber is maybe a few cents difference. (Somebody help me with the math)

We don't know how many cucumbers were killed in the making of this experiment, but it seems the value of each isn't different. The value is an illusion.

The monkeys weren't paid unequally, it is just that the cucumber monkey wanted what the other guy had. That's all.

originally posted by: WarminIndy

originally posted by: Bybyots

What is the value of a cucumber vs. a grape?

Depends on grocery store..from .39 cents to $1.25.

A pound of grapes averages about $3.99. There are about 100 grapes in a pound, so the actual value of one grape per one piece of cucumber is maybe a few cents difference. (Somebody help me with the math)

We don't know how many cucumbers were killed in the making of this experiment, but it seems the value of each isn't different. The value is an illusion.

The monkeys weren't paid unequally, it is just that the cucumber monkey wanted what the other guy had. That's all.

Yes they where paid unequally. Monkeys have no concept of dollar values, they value flavor. Grapes taste better than cucumbers.

Yes they where paid unequally. Monkeys have no concept of dollar values, they value flavor. Grapes taste better than cucumbers.

Says who?

First of all, both bowls were there, obvious to the monkeys. The cucumber monkey was satisfied, ate the cucumber and then saw the grapes go to the other monkey. The cucumber monkey didn't even see the work the other monkey did, even though it was the same, all he saw was that the other monkey got something that looked different.

Had white grapes been used, the same color as cucumbers, then the experiment might have turned out a different result.

a reply to: Bybyots

As always, excellent post..points...etc.

My response, simple, if not articulate... would be , "duh!"

Why we humans can't muster the mildest empathy and devise a fair economy is beyond me. True, we are born into a world of others' making (forgetting about possible reincarnation for a moment)... but we need to realize we can change things and manifest a delightful world for all.

True, there will always be a dissatisfied monkey, somewhere... but let's deal with the majority well being, first.

We are able to remake the world any way we want... we write the rules... we seem to forget that and embrace powerlessness.

a reply to: Bybyots

I think all humans have a sense of fairness. But we also have greed hard wired into us. When you start to climb that ladder, I think what happens is the greed short circuits compassion at some point. Studies have shown that empathy shrinks with wealth. People become more self absorbed, and less concerned about people they feel less and less in common with. These behaviors are hard wired into ALL of us and thats why I have always felt that utopian society will never exist, because humans are affected by wealth in pretty much the same way. Thats why we have seen the same sort of behaviors all through history.

originally posted by: theantediluvian

originally posted by: NthOther
So the natural state of affairs is income equality for all? "Economic fairness" was built into evolutionary biology?

Lol. These people will try anything to justify state-socialism.

I could be mistaken but I think the lesson here is even monkey's know when they're getting the shaft and they don't appreciate it.

*flings cucumber piece*

It's a matter of orientation induced interpretation...

One could just as easily and accurately say that "fairness" is a primitive concept thus exhibited by..."primates" by throwing a temper tantrum type fit...

That above interpretation is just as valid is it not?

Since when did we start striving to be more like monkeys?

Interesting video OP, fuzzy little fellows.

Generally they dont take rocks as payment in there natural habitat, the introduction of esoteric denotations is generally only possible by the use of a third force in any such transactions, even if it is metaphysical, and generally that force being what you can not hit back at, or fight, or understand, as such the metaphysical is a broad term, broad terms are hard to aim at...For instance society and money and other such esoteric concepts are much more harder to aim at, then say bob or jenny is.

Hence the bashful monkey knows no bounds, that is till it is given a unequal transaction on a rock, to which the value placed on it by a monkey is generally zero, nada. In its monkey brain it is quite effectively being ripped off, so it can afford to throw a little tantrum for such a grievous affront of injustice, though it should be called out-justice as the perpetrators of this are outside its monkey eco social order, and as the other monkey is merely the recipient of things and not a source. Hence that monkey has good aim and is a good judge of both characters, situations, and logic's.

A stupid monkey would throw the cucumber at the glass wall trying to get at the other monkey thinking it has somehow ripped it off, when we however know that would not be the case. Obviously what can be taken away from this little experiment is that monkeys and other animals unlike some would believe or lead us to believe are in there own way possessed of good deductive logic. Hence they just may be unfit for the next crossroad in societal evolution.

Luckily these monkeys must be well trained and be possessed of an exceedingly mellow disposition and composure. At least as far as monkeys go, if it were not so you would expect to see the excrement, and not a cucumber, to hit the floor or maybe even the fan for such a blatant inconsistency's. Among the animal kingdom one of the worse things you can be when it comes to business is inconsistent, among the lower lifeforms, the primates being one of such, there is an old ancient unspoken code...That code being. "it is preferable to be a consistent liar, then an inconsistent truth teller" Hence government and all forms of social orders was formed based on its pretexts, for it is better to build on something consistent then something inconsistent, also why most humans prefer to have the worse driver at the helm of this ship then the thought of no driver at all. Off course those particular monkey have not reached that step of evolution quite yet, they are as of yet unfamiliar with its precepts, as there still just fuzzy little monkeys.

originally posted by: WarminIndy

Yes they where paid unequally. Monkeys have no concept of dollar values, they value flavor. Grapes taste better than cucumbers.

Says who?

First of all, both bowls were there, obvious to the monkeys. The cucumber monkey was satisfied, ate the cucumber and then saw the grapes go to the other monkey. The cucumber monkey didn't even see the work the other monkey did, even though it was the same, all he saw was that the other monkey got something that looked different.

Had white grapes been used, the same color as cucumbers, then the experiment might have turned out a different result.

Are you suggesting monkeys would have no flavor preferences? Is it really that hard to see a monkey liking the sweetness of a grape over the relatively bland flavor of cucumber?

I know animals are supposed to be idiotic creatures no preference for anything in life, but grapes are so much better than cucumbers.

These monkeys are familiar with these foods, I'm sure their opinions of the food they eat goes beyond simple color.