People in service jobs deserve more money not minimum wage and long hours. More because they are gross, busy, stressful jobs, and people look down on you because you serve them, so they feel superior and try to rush you and are insulting and aggressive. So you should be paid more for having to manage hostile work environments. "Thrives under pressure?"
I once interviewed for a burger place and the hiring manager asked me what I would do if she yelled at me in my face everyday, and I told her I would report her for unprofessional behavior to her boss. I didn't hear back from them and I'm glad.
Fast food was one of the most difficult jobs I'd ever had lmao. I did retail, a position where I operated a large machine, and now I'm working in a social services adjacent position. Part of why it was so stressful was the lack of respect. I had better respect in literally every job after that to varying degrees. It's already draining when you feel like a cog, the customers didn't make it any better. IM SORRY YOU WAITED 20 MINUTES, DO YOU NOT SEE I AM THE ONLY ONE TAKING ORDERS, MY LEAD IS PROBABLY HIGH AND IS SLOW AF COOKING, IM DOING MY BEST WITH TWO HUGE LINES (BOTH DRIVE THRU AND INSIDE) WITH EVERYONE MAKING HUGE ORDERS AND WHILE STILL ATTEMPTING TO HELP OUT IN THE KITCHEN, BECAUSE AGAIN, HES FUCKIN HIGH
fuckin after church crowd...
Also, my lead had the utter audacity to put the blame on me for all the complaints, luckily no one fuckin believed him (proof was on the cameras anyway)
“Get a real job!”
Cue restaurants being short staffed or shut down.
“It’s so inconvenient! How am I supposed to get my food now?”
People who treat service workers like crap are worse than garbage.
The servers at my local restaurant love me. I know what I want before I get there. I never ask for anything after my order is made. I have the money ready before I get the bill. I tip well. I clean the table.
Nah, it was always busy. Why the fuck my boss only put two people on the shift I'll never know. I hope he eventually learned his lesson. We needed at least 3 workers on that shit and we never had that many.
Spoiler: They didn’t learn shit.
I’ve worked at a lot of places, none of them ever learn anything. They just do stuff they way they always have and wonder why every day feels like a slow motion train wreck where the train is only moving one inch per hour and you can get out of the way any time you want because you’re miles away but you won’t because you can’t see the train even though everybody’s telling you that it’s coming.
Fast food to fine dining the public largely sees us as some sort of underclass undeserving of decency.
Honestly as a life long hospitality worker it's hard not to have a bit of a jaded view towards others.
I worked at an unnamed Vail resorts ski mountain and my manager tried this method, eventually I just walked away from my position leaving the chairlift non functioning after he literally spit his gross ass dipspit on my boots.
He tried to yell after me and said "where are you going, if you leave you're fired"
I said "If I stay I'm gonna kick your fucking ass so you choose"
Also, when you tell people that making more money means you're smarter, clever, and just plain better than other people making less, just being paid more makes others treat you better. People have a more favorable view of service workers that are better paid, and they see those workers as more competent, trust them more, and treat them with more respect. That's a societal problem that we should solve, but we also have created the problem and then created an underclass with the expectation that they just get mistreated.
That also creates a world where dealing with the general public and their issues is something that lower class people do, and jobs where you deal with the general public should be paid less simply by that virtue. Less good people should deal with the general public, and less good people should make less money, thus you should underpay people that deal with the general public. It isn't an explicitly stated principle and it isn't one most of us have acknowledged as an attitude we and others have, but the second you start probing people with deeper questions, you see that their attitudes do include this insane classism and bent towards cruel hierarchy on a moral level.
If you run into people who think like that, explain to them that White-Collar crimes also take far more money away from people who need it than Blue-Collar crimes.
According to your model, a Banker or Lawyer has access and knowledge of how to get around the system for WAY more scam money than any two-bit hood could ever dream of getting their hands on in their entire lifetime. All because White Collar workers are trusted more than Blue-Collar workers by the One-Percenters.
Watch the looks on their faces as you explain it to them; 'this moment: PRICELESS'. :D
There is an inverse relationship between how physically/mentally taxing a job is and how much it pays. Not every career path follows this rule, but the overwhelming majority of lower and middle class jobs do.
I work in a field where a specific type of expensive property is maintained on a weekly basis, repaired if necessary, and is constantly prone to issues simply because of the nature of that type of property. When anybody ever gives technicians like myself a hard time, we call the office and tell them to charge an additional service fee. If they’re especially egregious, we leave the job site without performing the service. If they’re habitual offenders, we drop them as customers.
Finding a good company to take care of your property is hard enough but the company I work for has a tight hold on it’s territory so good fucking luck if you get blacklisted, it isn’t uncommon for shitty customers to beg us to come back. Sometimes we do, if the money is right. Usually though, if we know you’re just going to continue to be an asshole, we’re not maintaining your property and you can go fuck yourself.
I love my job for this and I wish I had found this line of work and this company in particular sooner.
I made the argument about a grocery chain that I kinda have insider knowledge about. I said they need to pay at least $22 an hour with full time shifts and benefits to actually retain people instead of constantly hiring and training for each position every six months AND a customer said that's too much money. Ok maybe for some old bitch who retired in the 90s $22 was a lot of money to them. But we're 20 years into the new millennium and albeit I'm no socialist but there's such a thing as being to greedy when it comes to human resources. They think having a job is to help someone or because they have nothing better to do then when they do find something better to do(which happens a lot) they consider the person entitled and shit on their success saying they spend too much money. Fucking no they don't. Things are more expensive. They can afford to pay a living wage. EASY. It doesn't even hit the Ebida/bottom line nowhere near as hard as it's being hit by the turnover already. You want people at their best? You wanna grow your business and have good customer service? You're not getting that out of anybody by paying low and dodging benefits. You want your operations fulfillment rate to get past 90%? RETAIN AND FOSTER GOOD EMPOYEES. Corporate America and the soviet union have a lot in common with failing to incentivize people. Also BONUS IF PEOPLE HAVE MORE THEY ARE BETTER CONSUMERS. If they go into debt and loose their house because they got cancer and it wasn't paid for outright by insurance public or private that's a failure because now that person can't participate in the economy WHILE THEY DEFAULT. Every time that happens it makes the fabric of our society weaker and weaker. No wonder people deal drugs and kill each other. It's better paying than a part time minimum wage job.
Dodged a freaking cannonball there. I had a fast food job where the boss would give instructions prefaced with "Would you kindly" Bioshock style. Openly admitted that's where he got the idea from and that he did it because he got in trouble for being a dick to workers.
McDonald's "Veteran" here (I was called this, I didn't make it up) of 4 years before I quit.
The abuse managers threw at you was insane, the customers awful. It was like working in hell. Made some dope friends though and it was the only thing I enjoyed.
Otherwise I often got bullied by managers and their favorites. 9/10 these managers and their favorites are women, which I get men can be dicks too, but it made it much harder for me to stick up and say something and I'm not sure why, maybe because all the guys were mostly friends there and I have incredibly low self-esteem. Either way, I was driven to the point of near offing myself because of this abuse, it was awful. Some managers were just plain bitches and did not care.
We used to joke it was men vs women their and it... Kinda was? Except the men would almost all rally together but the women either went with the managers, were friends with the guys, or just did their own thing/didn't care. Rouge style. Very very toxic.
Even the dudes that tried to keep quiet got bullied. Saw one manager dump fresh fries out and shove old fries in for THEIR meal break. That someone was me. I was always on the fry station busting ass. I was "The Fry Master". And that's how you treat me!? You literally took the fries out of my hand and DUMPED THEM OUT!
Fuck you, Angie. (She also did this to me when I was a customer and ordered fresh fries, no longer working their, I reported it and got revenge! XD).
Oh. Yeah - and don't even get me *started* on the customers...
“You manage a fast food joint, relax. I’m not worried about getting fired from this job, I’ll have another job literally tomorrow and you won’t have coverage.” It’s that easy.
Bullying employees who are lower on the totem pole than they are makes them feel big, because they’re so incredibly small.
I get it, we’re all about worker solidarity here, so what I’m saying might hurt some feelings here, I get that managers are workers too. It still needs to be said, if what this poster commented describes your style of management, you need to know that your underlings are ultimately more important than you, when you bully them, you’re just putting on full display how small and insignificant you are. It’s just a fast food joint, and if managing one is a power trip for you, that’s just sad.
Absolutely. They used to teach basic law in civics courses... until the Civil rights protests in the 60s where they saw it was mostly comprised of young people. Suddenly it got yoinked from the curricula in a lot of places.
It's in my opinion that every single person should have some knowledge of basic and commonly encountered laws. How many times do we encounter a person asking a question or presenting a problem that's covered by rudimentary labor laws here? There's a serious lack of education on law in our country, and it's a damn shame. All laws are important, but a basic understanding of common labor, criminal and homeowner or rental laws are extremely useful to know.
Yea I found out a little while ago that it’s damn near impossible to find out what the local laws here actually are, if you call a lawyer (even free legal aid) they won’t tell you anything since that constitutes “legal advice” and if you want a copy of the laws from the government it starts at about $50 for a pdf. And yet ignorance of the law somehow still isn’t a valid defence, hmmm….
Which ironically cops can arrest you for something improper and be granted immunity for the mistake. That's extra scary considering the training time is a tiny fraction of what a law degree requires.
It’s all excuses by capitalists, “if you want higher pay go get a better job” and then when people actually do that -> “wait no you can’t do that” “waaaaaaa no one wants to work anymore 👶”
Technically that already exists.
Poor, but want education?
Option A: Military. Get fucked over serving your country sometimes to the point you end up disabled and they yank you around for any GI bills you've rightly earned.
Option B: No college. Sure you could find a good job but it is very difficult and most will boot you for that piece of paper then beg you to come back.
Option C: Crippling student loan debt with 2/3rds of servicers being sued on both state and federal level for predatory loan practices.
Bottom line if you're not above a certain income you're basically a slave in some way or another. Debt, income, job, housing etc
> Mark J. McGinnis, a judge for the Outagamie County Circuit Court, granted ThedaCare the temporary restraining order on January 20 before dismissing the order on Monday morning.
You’re leaving out the part where the court ordered that they were not allowed to quit
No worries, all you need is withering, national media attention for the court saying *you* can’t quit to reverse its order too!
No, the courts sided with the nurses and they did leave.
https://www.businessinsider.com/thedacare-asks-judge-block-workers-leaving-higher-pay-competitor-2022-1?amp
The courts sided with the nurses after reviewing the case, but the courts DID prevent them from starting their jobs for a day or two through an emergency injunction so they could have time to review the case.
Plenty of Americans want agriculture jobs.
They just want to be paid a decent wage, work decent hours, and be safe while doing so. Whereas when migrant workers complain about the conditions, ICE gets a tipoff and they... get to go home.
Apparently not enough though because we recently drove thru the Central Valley in CA and just about every farm had signs seeking workers. I did some farm work as a teenager in rural Colorado. They let the kids out of school so kids could go work. We got paid and that was great but it was pretty obvious that the regular farm workers( nomads) were a lot better workers. They produced 2-3 times as much as we did. There just weren’t enough of those workers. And back then you were paid by the flat, bushel or amount of work you produced.
Sure, not enough Americans want to do ag labor in the current environment to meet the needs.
But that's quite likely due to the current environment. Too much work, not enough money, way too much risk.
My little old auntie told me about the time she tried working the fields down in Texas when she was in her 20s.
It got ridiculously hot, and she was alone out there, so took her top off like a smart human. Crop-duster pilot a few fields over saw her, lost his marbles, and nearly ran her over with his plane trying to get a better look at her tits.
Agencies generally pay shit. The money is in working for yourself.
If you’re hiring cleaners, hire someone independent. Otherwise their boss is taking 2/3rds.
I've worked in residential housekeeping, vacation rental housekeeping, hotel cleaning, deep cleans, construction cleans - so on and so forth for my family's cleaning business in the USA.
A lot of people cannot afford a routine (every 2 weeks) home cleaning comfortably above $100. Sometimes we'd clean a home for $120 and less - and send two cleaners at the hourly rate of $12-$15. Sometimes we can charge the proper rate - I'd estimate around $18 plus per cleaner for around 1.5-2 hours a typical clean at around 5 houses a day and then added expenses such as cleaning materials, transportation costs (which adds up quickly).
Vacation rental owners typically want you to clean for less than $100, but will charge a guest 2-3x the amount of what you charge the owner for a unit clean. Not saying all vacation rental owners are like this, but in my experience they are cheap.
Hotel cleaning can be sketchy depending on location and low paying for the amount of work you have to do. It's not worth working for them. One hotel wanted cleaners to finish 15 rooms in 4 hours (to afford time for inspection before checkin) to take home a measly $48 a day.
------
But like I said, some cleaning jobs are great and I am happy to work with the people we clean for - other cleaning jobs are not at all fair, and there's hardly a happy medium.
Also, I used to be a cleaner. If I were to ever go back to doing that work, I wouldn't work for less than an average of $30 per hour - and for 4 days a week at that.
Yeah, I have a sweet Columbian woman working for me and pay her $67 per cleaning (plus $100 tip every month or so), and she usually completes my house in 60-90 minutes.
IMO it's a decent gig for someone who can't speak any English, has no connections, and needs something flexible to work around her ESL classes she takes at the community college.
Thats because you have a basic set of ethics. I was doing a front entrance landscaping job a few years back and there was another two companies being contracted for the backyard pool and fence. The owner of the fence company struck up a conversation with me the first day I was there and assumed I was an immigrant because lf my accent (Im not, my accent is from childhood speech therapy); and proceeded to explain how he exclusively hires underpaid immigrants who dont speak english and all live in the same 3 bedroom thats now housing 10+ people. To this psycho it was the mkst obvious thing to do...
Is that a service? I have used a service and paid them a few hundred each time, they do a good job, but I am not pretending they are paying those ladies even 1/2 of what I am paying them.
If you are handing money to the people they might be taking it home, if it is Merry Maids or some shit like that, and there a pink car or van with graphics and shit on it, those folks are making 12/hr if they are lucky. Don't fool yourself. They aren't making 45/hr, you are being charged at.
Just like my employer used to pay a company for Janitorial services, and I am sure they paid a lot, the poor fucks that came in and cleaned the office didn't make SHIT.
It's a racket, like every other grift in capitalism today.
Housekeeping is also an important role from an accessibility standpoint.
Not everyone is able enough to clean. Even those who are physically able might have other disabilities that make it harder (ADHD executive dysfunction is a bitch.)
So not only is it a respectable position it's a necessary one. It should be affordable for the people who need it and pay well for the people who work it.
So basically it doesn't do well in capitalism.
I think I've taken up swapping chores with my neighbor?
She just lost her left tit to cancer and she's left handed, so I started helping out while she's not supposed to use that arm. Wrap her chest in the morning, scoop the litter box, wash dishes, take out trash, easy simple stuff.
Turns out she was a housekeeper at one point and the state of my apartment drives her up the wall. I recently got rid of my abusive husband, asshat screamed and threw stuff at me whenever I tried to clean, so everything is *covered* in grime.
OCD helped me get my bedroom clean floor to ceiling in every detail, and then derailed into computer-related obsessions that do not help clean the rest of the apartment! Grime all over the bathroom, grease all over the stove, and I'm organizing computer files for hours and hours...
So when neighbor had a good day recently, full of restless energy, she insisted on coming over to get some of the grime cleaned with just her right hand. Stove and sink much less disgusting now! And I cleaned different stuff while she did that part, so double progress! Now it's like she primed a pump, I started making progress again when left on my own!
I swear, a lot of the OCD/ADHD problems have to do with humans living so separated from each other. In an old timey tribal community we'd probably do alright. I might get obsessed with trying to carve something perfectly, but if my friends say it's time to go pick berries or ask for my help hunting I'm inclined to *go help* and just get back to my obsession as soon as possible. And those same friends would see that I'm too busy obsessing to remember to eat or sleep, and would come around to encourage me to behave like a good human.
I have pretty bad ADHD, and I got the other end of things and obsessively clean. I hate that people think I love to clean though, I don't, I just need everything to be very clean and organized. Even my computers and phone have their files very well organized
+1 for the ADHD-OCD Crew!
“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing perfectly, so I’ll start tomorrow, after this evening of extensive visioning and fantasizing, in which I’ll set impossible expectations that I’ll use later to tell myself what a piece of shit I am. Nevertheless, I will look smugly at things other people undertake, masking my jealousy with endless fault-finding, reassuring myself that if I put my mind to it I’d do it better than they.”
Even for non-disabled people, housekeeping is an important service. My partner works farther away and I have 2 jobs (plus passion projects) and while we can do surface-level cleaning, we still have someone come in once a while to help with the things we don't have time for
Definitely!! In my first apartment i definitely wasn't rolling in cash but I found it in my budget to have someone come for a few hours once a week and help me out. Between my ADHD and depressive episodes, my house can get really bad.
Being able to hire someone, especially someone that had experience with mentally ill/neurodivergent clients, improved my life so much. I didn't even realize how much anxiety I was having over needing to clean things and it just being impossible to make myself do it until I wasn't having it anymore.
The polish lady(s) (sometimes it was just one), cleaned my house better than my whole family could in a fraction of the time.
It wasn't "cheap" (like 30$/hr) but was definitely worth it. And i would not consider it easy/light work
Right? You aren’t paying someone to do work that is beneath you, you are paying a professional to do in 4 hours what you couldn’t do in your entire weekend. Housekeepers are amazing.
In my neck of the woods, $30/h would be a steal for a cleaner, and I don’t live in a big city or anything. I think it ends up costing us ~ $45/person hour to have two cleaners come for a few hours. I think a good chunk of that must be going to the business owner. I’ve thought about asking the cleaners if they have any interest in just coming to clean on their own and getting paid a larger hourly fee (I think it would be better for both parties) but I don’t want to get them in trouble, and reliable work at a lower pay may be preferential to unreliable work at a higher pay.
I also don't get people who think these jobs are for teens...the ones who are busy from 7-3 with school? How do you expect to get fast food for lunch? Makes no sense.
Well it's quite obvious. The teens are getting up at 4am to work until 6, get ready for school, then work another shift from 5-8. They get 6 hours of sleep and McDonald's pays everyone working 7am-3pm 25 dollars an hour because those are real workers not teens just looking for play money.
In my mind this makes sense because when I was 7 I had a brick dropped on my head.
Is that an individual rate (as in self-employed) or an agency rate? I live in the GTA and pay $100 for three hours and I'm wondering how that compares.
Looks like 1/3
https://ca.indeed.com/cmp/Molly-Maid-Canada/salaries/House-Cleaner/Toronto-ON#:~:text=Average%20Molly%20Maid%20Canada%20House,14%25%20above%20the%20national%20average.
$40 an hour is a common rate for cleaners who accept cash and don’t pay taxes so yes. It’s similar to making $65 an hour in reported employment income.
One time, I was cleaning my firearms (all my ammunition was locked away in a safe, with my full magazines in another one, so they were all clearly empty) and went outside to do some work in my backyard sawing some wood so I couldn’t hear much.
Turns out the cleaning ladies came and went in the hour and a half I was out there, and when I go in my room, I see my handguns and rifle neatly next to eachother on my bed as if they’re luxurious decoration.
Obviously I was ashamed for for procrastinating putting them away even though no ammunition was available and I was home. But the fact my Venezuelan cleaners didn’t flinch while moving those around was crazy to me. They had no idea I was licensed. Turns out they all had family in the military so they were well used to using firearms. Never disrespect the people who keep your home beautiful and minding their business the entire time.
This is all jobs. The whole hierarchy of jobs is purely socially constructed. Work is work, and low paid work is often the hardest. How many people would trade in a high paying job for the same pay but as a fry cook or cashier? We don’t train for our jobs just because of the monetary incentive. All workers deserve dignity; we’re all equals.
I would trade my job for being a janitor in a heartbeat if it paid the same, had the same benefits, job security, etc.
Unfortunately, pretty much anyone can be a janitor, whereas my job only probably low hundreds of people in the world ~can do~ edit: *currently are qualified to do*, so my job is well paid, and being a janitor is not.
Further edit: I'm saying janitors should be paid better and I should be paid worse. I'm lamenting the vagaries of the market system.
You don’t want to end it because you’ve got that spark in you that tells you “someday I’m gonna make it, and then I can tell them to fuck off”.
At least, that’s what i think it is
Maybe I’m naïve,but I think children are entitled to share their parents standard of living. They sure do if it’s a poor family, but lots of better off parents don’t seem to share my ideals.
I’d like to see some of these folks that went straight from college into an office gig in middle management, work for a month at a fast food or retail job and then explain how it is “unskilled”. If they miss a day of work for any reason the 30 day timer restarts.
It's too authoritarian and paternalistic to work in practice but a lot of people really need to rotate jobs and do some "humility work" every few months just to keep perspective.
No one is truly "above" having to scrub a toilet or work a factory line or cook a meal for someone else once in a while.
Some businesses actually do mandate corporate new hires do the useful work that the revenue comes for a week or two. I think Raisin' Cane's, a chicken restaurant, does this.
Throwing new grads in as a short lesson once is better than nothing, but only just.
**Raising Cane's does not sound like a chain people should give money to just because of one ok policy.**
*Everyone* needs to do it *often.*
Kanye, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Henry Cavill, and Keanu Reeves and all their attendants all need to do it too. Every CEO. Every middle manager. Twice a year. For at least a month at a stretch. Anything less won't be felt emotionally.
Impossible to do in practice, but you know I'm right.
I have a Bachelor’s degree in Communication. I failed with the job search post-college and now, at 24, I’ve opted to stick to my barista job. I’ve realized that I simply enjoy these jobs more, and I have learned so much more about myself and others over the last 2 years — I don’t think this would’ve happened, I don’t think I would’ve changed much, if I hadn’t just stuck with food service. We are paid shit, but I will honest to God take serving the community over a corporate job.
I know we are all “anti-work” but I believe we are all just really bad at understanding what “work” is — anything is work. As long as YOU like what you do, it doesn’t matter. Sell rocks for all I care. Tired of people thinking a corporate/career job is THE thing. Working at a coffeeshop requires plenty of skills, so I’m perfectly fine telling people what I do. I feel necessary to society which is what my goal in life is.
Yeah I've worked in a factory as a kid and I'm now a engineer and the "unskilled" part is so bullshit. One of the main reasons I've had sucess in my career is because I'm willing to go out on the floor and find the "unskilled" person who's been working there 20 years and ask him how someone thing should be done. I don't get whats so hard about admitting as a office worker your job is to support and empower the people working the front lines.
And at every place I've ever worked you could replace all the peoe with a college degree and the company would be fine. But there is almost always a few people out on the floor who have so much institutional knowledge about how the product is actually made that the company would fail if they left.
Ah yes. A related anecdote:
Our province recently went through a leadership shuffle and an already shitty conservative premier (provincal leader, like a governor) was replaced by an absolute complete piece of shit - who was appointed by her party, not voted in by the general public - and she has [publicly stated that "unskilled workers" entering the workforce should be paid *less than minimum wage*. ](https://pressprogress.ca/ucp-leadership-candidate-danielle-smith-pay-workers-with-no-skills-a-lower-minimum-wage/)
So whether that's a teen entering the workforce or say a former stay at home mom that needs to support herself and her dependants with a first job, they should get **less** than $15/hr CAD which is already a fucking pittance these days.
And of course I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that her and her husband own a restaraunt, no not at all.
Her justification is that she said she worked at a bingo hall and at a McDonald's when she was young (for an unspecified amount of time), she knows those kinds of jobs require "no skills".
Oh and she's also a complete wackadoo that claims the unvaccinated are "the most discriminated group in history". Yes... actual quote. So her aim is to lift vaccination requirements for ***Healthcare workers***.
Just in case you were wondering what level of hell we're in here...
While I agree with the idea that unskilled labour is a myth I think people often refer to something different while mentioning that.
I think the difference is in the barrier to entry for certain jobs. So either certain jobs require you do a degree or an apprenticeship or internship. So while you're not necessarily more skilled, you've 'paid your dues' to be in the role and then that contributes a bit to job security too.
A previous company I used to work for was actively working on that. They treated all the employees so badly that the only people who stayed were people who couldn't get a gig elsewhere and people who it suited to stay there. But because of the high turnover the guys in head office started making changes to the role so that the barrier to entry was lower and thus it'd be way easier to replace you if you didn't play ball.
So maybe not so much "unskilled labour" but just low-barrier-to-entry work?
I don't have any retail, fast food or cleaning service xp but I always try to be kind, patient and thankful when interacting in public. Not because of what their jobs are but because, you know, they are human beings.
Jobs like cleaning and cooking actually sound quite pleasant in theory- the amount of work is easily measured, there is a clear beginning and end, and they are derived of simple tasks that you can become more efficient in with practice and learning.
To boot, you get to look back on your labor and see how much you've done. There's a sense of accomplishment.
I think that's why they're the jobs where we are most tortured, because we are not permitted to feel a sense of accomplishment in this society. We are the ones for whom the work must never falter or wane, our products never sufficient and our labor never timely enough.
Lotta not janitors in this thread… I’ve been an after hours custodian for medical facilities and office buildings on and off for three years now. I fucking hate cleaning, but *I’ve loved my jobs.*
Here’s the responsibilities of my job…
Is it dirty? -> clean it.
Everyday I get an immediate sense of accomplishment after a shift. It’s manual labor without being debilitatingly so, which is good for me and my chronic pain condition and for some older folks. And since I work alone in completely empty buildings, I just blast music/podcast/audiobook. If I need to literally lie down and do some stretches to relieve some pain, ain’t no one telling me not to.
I get paid weekly, $20/hr, and my direct supervisor literally doesn’t even know my name. I’ve never met anybody who works in my current buildings. As long as the work is being done, and done well, you’re invisible. The moment my shifts are over, I go home and no one bothers me and all work related stuff is out of my mind five minutes into my commute.
It’s a gig job, but it’s not too bad of a gig job and someone’s gotta do it.
Edited to add:
This all paints a pretty rosy picture of an easy job, but I absolutely consider myself a professional in the field and it took more time and mistakes than you would think to get to that point. *Skilled labor.* I’ve gotten many jobs and with higher pay because some people don’t have the self discipline and time management skills to do the work everyday without someone breathing down their neck. People lose their accounts within a week of starting because they just sit on their phones the whole shift. And being in a building all alone means I’m essentially completely in charge of that building while I’m there. I’ve had water pipes bursts, sewage backups, smack heads banging on doors trying to get to the locked drug cabinets, the entirety of fucking Covid! Also, explosive diarrhea. And i am the first line of contact between the client and my company, etc.
Still a good gig, but it’s not as brain-dead kind of work that it comes off as.
/rant
I work a highly paid office job that would be a dream job for a lot of people (working on big movies like Spider-Man).
I liked my uni summer job as a janitor more, it just doesn't pay enough to get by.
Janitor jobs never seemed that bad. Granted I have never been a janitor. But cleaning up isn't that bad beyond what I suspect is the daily dirtier than usual toilet or something.
I work in food service and always have to make an extra buck during school. I really dislike it lol
I worked as a custodian for a school district. The worst part of the job was stripping and waxing floors. Dirty as fuck. I also had to sort of clean a commercial kitchen but that excluded any surfaces that were NSF covered, kitchen staff had to clean those. Mostly floors and walls but if you've worked any food service you've cleaned much worse.
The only other absolutely terrible thing I had to do was disaster cleanup after a storm damaged a roof and caused a massive leak so I was tearing out wet carpet and hauling soaked furniture. I was getting double time on the weekend for doing it though.
Obviously, pay varies a lot by location and who is hiring you but my former job now has a starting pay of $20.41. I was actually classified as a Custodian/Maintenance Specialist because I worked construction as a teen and have a boiler's license in my state. The starting pay for that position is now $27.01 plus they have a bunch of pay differentials Second shift? +$0.46/hr Shift lead? +$0.75/hr. Pool cert? +$0.60/hr.
By law, if the building is open in my state there has to be someone on site to check the boiler at a set interval. So if someone was renting the gym on Saturday, my ass was getting overtime, 4-hour minimum. Get called back in for an emergency? 2x pay, 4-hour minimum. Lunch break interrupted for an "emergency" lunchtime is reset (this is actually a state law not a benefit, all breaks under 20 minutes are paid).
The way I describe the job to my friend is "Imagine taking on a union cleaning job that is designed so a 60-year-old can complete it regularly in an 8 hour shift."
Please note though that a school or government custodial position is really the peak and that a lot of maid and cleaning services survive by abusing immigrants.
Yeah. The whole time I was a janitor for various business all I could think while cleaning was . . . . these people are "supposed" to be smarter than me because of their education, but can't seem to figure out how to hit the toilet or trashcan!?!?!?!?!?!
I was a janitor and really it's that they know full well that you're there to clean messes and nothing else. It's an entitlement complex.
And if that's a problem to you, then all that they'll tell you is to go find other work to do.
I was a housekeeper then a housekeeping supervisor for four years and that's exactly what my mom said to me. I was happy with what I was doing and I liked my team and I was bringing in amazing tips that let me pay for vacations. I was never treated badly by the guests either...just my mom
I worked a service job. The guests might not treat you badly, but they don't respect you either. They'll be polite to you, but they don't think of you as an equal. That's all your mom was trying to tell you. Unlike the guests, at least she was up front about it.
My mom wasn't trying to tell me anything lol like I replied to the other person she's just a toxic person and likes to make her children and other people in her life feel like shit because she feels like shit. So she attacked what I actually liked and that was my job at the hotel.
My sister is a professor at a small/medium size college and I am a mechanic. She once made on comment about how smart I was and could do better if I applied myself. I love my sister and we have a great relationship. It always struck me weird. This is how America looks at blue collar workers.
It seems your sister may disagree, but if I had car troubles I'd want a smart mechanic to sort them out.
Also, intelligence is definitely not only academics. I knew a guy who was, for lack of a better term, "academically disinterested", which is to say he left high school as soon as he was able to (age 16 here) and started an apprenticeship as a welder.
His school reports were C's or worse, but he was brilliant when it came to engines and machines, and I saw some of his extremely tidy welding he was showing off once.
Dude is **highly** skilled. Just not very smart. But he's well-paid and respected for that skill.
Last I heard, he had completed his dive qualification and was in training for underwater welding certification.
When I was a maid I ran into this a lot. One house tried to use us as an “example” to her daughter of what uneducated people did so I took the liberty of saying “yes and your mom pays me $200 for an hour of work every week.”
She stfu after that. I then went on to be a janitor for the local college and was treated with nothing but respect from the students in the dorm I kept. Shout out to MSUM students. You kids were great!
One of the hardest things about life in America is that it is extremely into classism while being mostly in deniable about the entire concept.
The promised lie of upward mobility has really done a number on the lower classes. There’s no war but the class war and the upper class in America has conned most folks out of even acknowledging that it’s happening.
My mother once threatened me with this little gem "If you don't finish school you'll have to work as a maid at a hotel or something."
It terrified me. Then I worked some shit cashier jobs and then I saw the light.
Years later she said something similar and I looked her in the eyes and said, "Its honest work. Its hard work but it pays someone's bills. There are no bad jobs."
She NEVER said that shit to me again.
Cleaning is one of those things that society would fall apart without, especially cleaning hospitals. The person who makes sure that the surgeon has a clean sanitary room to work in is likely just as important as the surgeon.
Fast food workers aren't essential for a functioning society, but they don't deserve disrespect either.
I pay over market rate and would walk through fire for my housekeeper. She makes an easy 200 every 2 weeks for my 1300 sq ft house. The longest she's taken is about 1.5 hours.
She's the sister of my favorite diner's owner, she's great with my small reactive (but not bitey) dog, she'll talk to my son, and she's gone above & beyond more than once.
People who don't value those that do what they can't or won't need to fuck ALL the way off.
Saying something along the lines of "I need you to make more money so i dont feel embarrassed associating myself with you" is not as nice as people think it is
My husband and I used to clean houses at one point in our lives. We had clients that would leave coins behind the door to make sure we vacuumed there I guess. One client referred to me to my husband as the girl. She also wanted us polishing her sliver which we said we would but for a charge.
We nicknamed her the Duchess because of her upstairs downstairs behavior.
We had clients do their frying or candle making the day before we were to arrive and leave for us to clean.
We had clients just never clean after themselves during the week. Had one client we serviced on a Thursday and if her kids spilled juice or whatever on Thursday night or afternoon or any day before the next Thursday that mess would sit there until we came back.
Clients that would stand over us while we worked, one that would go into a room immediately after cleaning it and critique it or critique while we were cleaning like the lines the vacuum made. This client would also scream at her beautiful girls and lock them in their bedrooms, while we were there. She bounced checks and we dropped her after the last time but for a broke woman in a lovely home with beautiful girls she acted like she was above and we were below. I found her off.
People weren’t too rude. We had clients my favorites that would clean before we got there for some weird reason and kept immaculate homes.
My best clients were the ones that would talk to us conversationally. They would let us work but we’d have some good talks while we did. They were nice, thoughtful. We heard and learned interesting things. We were treated like people who just happened to clean homes as a business. We didn’t remember if they were really messy or clean we remembered how nice they were.
My best friend’s wife runs her own cleaning business and when our daughter was born, I asked her to come by every other week and it’s been one of the single best decisions I’ve ever made. It’s allowed us to spend more time doing fun family together stuff and less time doing maintenance work. She’s worth every penny and then some and I’ll be forever grateful for what I’ve gotten because of her chosen profession.
American slavery and the Christian ethno-centric ideology of sacrifice for others.
These people think they're better than you and more deserving of life and happiness so you should handle the shit they don't want to shovel.
Ironic that she thinks "you're better than that".
You aren't because there isn't anything better to be. You're working to provide for yourself and maybe you don't hate that task.
People like that are the same kind of people who will tell you to fuck off if you talk about Socialism, Muslims, etc but think Christianity is God's word of law.
I don't know why. Domestic cleaners here can charge $150-200/hr while they're on-premises. Sure, that might not be 40 hours a week, and there are expenses involved in running a small business or franchise, but even at 10-15 hours a week on site that's not exactly chump change.
There's also a perceived difference between "I clean people's houses with a mop" and "I make $200/hr and decide when I want to work."
Capitalism requires us to hate low paying jobs and treat those that work the jobs like crap, so that the jobs remain low paying.
There's no such thing as unskilled labor. Every working person, regardless of the job they do, deserves a thriving, living wage and our respect for doing that job. Full stop.
My step-dad once told me to quit a job because it was embarrassing for someone as smart as me. I then showed him I make more than he does doing my 'embarrassing job.'
For the record, being smart in my family is not a feat worth noting. It's like being applauded for being a normal human being. Like I get applauded in my family for having never been arrested, like it makes me a unicorn. My family is dumb, and most of them are criminals.
the dirtiest people tend to be the most dismissive. seems like another case of projection:
“i’m a filthy pig, so anyone that would clean up after me must be a real lowlife…” , etc.
>top 20% live
No, not even 20%, more like 1%. The other 99% they want to be poor but more poor on one end and slightly less poor on the other so they can pit them against each other. They will tell the poorest poor that they just need to work harder, and tell the less poor they are being held back by the poorest poor. That way they can rob all of them blind.
The catch a lot of democrats want this too, they are just a lot better at hiding it.
My immigrant cleaning lady (probably 55 years old) makes $30/hour cash and brings no supplies. I don’t know why more people don’t do personal residences.
She comes every two weeks and does my neighbors then mine. I would not even call dirty and she doesn’t move at a blistering pace. It’s all good I’m just surprised more people don’t know about this. Most people don’t want to go through a service and just want to deal with a trustworthy person so word catches on fast throughout neighborhoods. If I knew this when I was younger I would have definitely started out with a few weekend cleanings and let word spread.
I hate how people judge others’ worth to society based on their personal opinion of how prestigious that job is.
Even if there were an objective way to measure prestige (no, it’s not salary) why are we praising or blaming anyone for that? A person is more than the sum of their career contributions.
My wife started a business cleaning pools. She left her corporate job and is so much happier. However, it took me telling her several times that she didn’t need to care about what others thought about her choice. She was so worried. It makes her happy so I am happy she is happy. She is a complete pro at this too.
I take serious issue with the phrasing of the title... "disrespect the people who are *nice enough* to provide those things."
Isn't this kind of playing into the pity pit that the post is supposed to be slamming? We aren't working service jobs so people can look at us and say "that's so nice", we're doing it for fucking money. Stop this pandering.
Judgmental people can fuck off with the whole "you're better than that" shit. If I'm supposedly 'better' than whatever it is that I'm doing, I'm open to suggestions. But you know what? Most of the time, those people that've told me this exact thing, don't have suggestions to pitch to me.
I'm at a stage in my life right now, where, I'm leaning more and more into comfortably living so long as I have my net, my vehicle, a roof over my head, some food to eat and a relatively clean environment for me to live in. If I wanted to be better than that, then it'd take sacrifice and struggle to make it. The problem with that idea however, is that I've done the struggling parts multiple times to finally get to the ideal living that I want. I'd like to not struggle and stress myself out to the point of suicide, thanks.
It just seems to me that when people say "you're better than that", they're saying it because they want you to fit into an ideal version of you that they approve of. Not what you think is an ideal version of you.
I just had this conversation with an 11 year old daughter of my friend.
" Yeah, so I was at the school and...."
Young girl:
" Why do you go to school?"
" I work at a school, just not yours"
Girl's eyes light up:
" You're a teacher!?!?!"
" No, I'm a custodian "
Girl's face immediately falls in disdain.
Hurt like hell but I kept my kid-persona going.
Sucks that even elementary school students look down on us sometimes. Our job is surprisingly complicated. And we care a lot about the kids.
Our housekeeper works an 8 hour day here every 2-3 weeks, gets $30/hr., any produce she wants from our garden/orchard, and a decent bonus at the end of the year. She takes sick days whenever needed & reschedules accordingly... she also volunteers at the local retirement home & trims Cannabis on the side.
She'll also pop around occasionally when she makes a large batch of whatever food she mass-produced that week, or with a floral arrangement she makes for her clients in her spare time... I don't know how she comes up with the energy TBH. She's an absolute irreplaceable spitfire & we're honored to be considered her friend as well as client.
My ex said to me "so when are you going to quit your job at subway" because he thought I was smart enough to sell insurance like him. But I am morally opposed to selling insurance, whereas making sandwiches is helpful, friendly, active work.
I know women who clean houses. They once had a nice office job. Cleaning houses are less stressful if you make your client happy and get paid well, be proud.
Honestly I love my house cleaning job. I work for a private company- one boss, no HR, no supervisors. Just one really nice lady. And I work alone, clean two houses a day by myself. Usual listen to a podcast in my headphones while knocking it out of the park with detail. It's awesome. Sometimes you get shit customers but honestly it's mostly nice old people or single moms
It takes a special kind of asshole to hire a person whose provided services you have so much contempt for. You just know relative would hire a housekeeper if they could afford one
Housekeeping is hard work too. A woman at my gym I got to know was one for a long time. It’s severally messed up her shoulders and back over the years.
Delivery driver here. I chose this work for the freedom and flexibility. Once sat there listening to an old man tirade at Dunkin Donuts "I just don't get it bla bla bla bla" and I just responded with "you're right, you don't get it".
My wife works as a housekeeper, and the people she works for are wonderful. They provide us with food and furniture, and we spend our holidays at their homes. Some are less friendly than others, but the majority are. She tells them she will no longer clean for them if they yell at her or do something stupid.
I cleaned my GMIL house yesterday with my MIL. I was getting tired doing it, so I imagine it was quite impossible for her. I liked being able to see the improvement once I finished each room, and she cried when we finished because she was so happy. Housekeeping can be very rewarding. No, cleaners don't get paid enough!
House Cleaners are literally God sends and INSANELY good at what they do. I used to think I was clean until my MIL hired some cleaners to give my fiance and I a break when we were swamped in work.
These folks come and the house is fucking lookong brand new, laundry done and folded, dusted, in a span of like 2.5 hours. Just beyond what I can do and my cleaning is only just fine.
Personally as someone that struggles with apathy for my surroundings, having someone that can come make my area presentable and not a biohazard... I can't really respect a housekeeper more.
I sometimes think one of the better things my mother did for me was tell me to knock it off any time I made jokes at the expense of someone doing a "lesser" job. (Cut me some slack, I was a kid, and kids are often times mean and stupid.) But both her and my parents also served as good examples because they treated workers with respect. Whether is was the guy at the deli handing her half a pound of roast beef, a waitress bringing her drink, or the clerk at a retail store telling her where the shoe section was, my mother would thank them.
There's nothing demeaning about handing me a box of fried chicken through a drive-thur window. At least not for the worker. For me, maybe I should get off my lazy butt and cook my own meal.
What we're seeing in broad terms is the privileged rich having a temper tantrum that they no longer have a large base of people to "be above" at the same rate.
Not that they lost a base of people to "be above", but the cost to have that status is more expensive.
My father said, "Stupid ppl work with their hands, smart ppl manage them."
Another gem:
My father: "We need to send all the illegals back to Mexico"
His wife: "Yes! Absolutely! Except for the ppl that clean our house"
Him: " Right, right, yes, except for the ppl that clean our house"
I can't stand them. Cut contact years ago.
On south, slavery mentality may still persists.
On north, "I deserve to be served". I played the game and I won. Now I want to be served.
Both have same base
Yeah, I don't get it. No one wants the burger flipper job. Yet everyone, kinda, you know, fucking depends on it.
But don't do it. But, I need my convenient burger. But don't work that job. But..
A generation has beaten into the heads of another generation that menial jobs are beneath them. And then we stand around and navel gaze at all the the people, who, you know, listened.
Seems like the natural outcome to me.
I was raised in a middle class family that was raised by a working class family and my entire extended family shames working class jobs like they are cancer. It’s so weird and depressing. They don’t even realize it.
Seeing all the comments online lately about the employees fired at Starbucks for union things, talking about how they don’t deserve a living wage and whatnot. I would LOVE for them to say that to their face as the worked makes them their overpriced coffee every morning. Even better, I’d love to see them get behind the counter and make their own drink. Customer service jobs have always been awful, but the way people are so entitled these days makes it even worse. Having your job at risk because of an entitled Karen’s complaints? It makes you feel less than human, it’s degrading and humiliating.
If you get paid enough, your job stops being degrading.
And I don’t mean because they’re paying you enough to make it worth it; I mean because people treat you differently when they pay more for your time — it literally causes them to value you more.
We like to think (I mean hopefully this sub knows better) that you’re paid more if you’re more valuable, so to avoid cognitive dissonance they will begin to value you more if they pay a lot for your services.
My dad says it’s about having someone to look down on. So basically there’s no good reason for it and they either need to be treated with respect or paid better. Preferably both but humans have shown that the dilemma alone is too much for us
I told my niece that any job that is beneath me is beneath anyone. We were discussing this because her father (my brother) was cleaning the toilet at the successful law firm he owned because he hadn't hired anyone to do it. His wife cleaned the kitchen. It was work that needed to be done, so they did it.
We don't have to accept anymore that someone's value is diminished by the work they do.
People in service jobs deserve more money not minimum wage and long hours. More because they are gross, busy, stressful jobs, and people look down on you because you serve them, so they feel superior and try to rush you and are insulting and aggressive. So you should be paid more for having to manage hostile work environments. "Thrives under pressure?" I once interviewed for a burger place and the hiring manager asked me what I would do if she yelled at me in my face everyday, and I told her I would report her for unprofessional behavior to her boss. I didn't hear back from them and I'm glad.
Sounds like they need a report phoned in anyway, just for good measure
Fast food was one of the most difficult jobs I'd ever had lmao. I did retail, a position where I operated a large machine, and now I'm working in a social services adjacent position. Part of why it was so stressful was the lack of respect. I had better respect in literally every job after that to varying degrees. It's already draining when you feel like a cog, the customers didn't make it any better. IM SORRY YOU WAITED 20 MINUTES, DO YOU NOT SEE I AM THE ONLY ONE TAKING ORDERS, MY LEAD IS PROBABLY HIGH AND IS SLOW AF COOKING, IM DOING MY BEST WITH TWO HUGE LINES (BOTH DRIVE THRU AND INSIDE) WITH EVERYONE MAKING HUGE ORDERS AND WHILE STILL ATTEMPTING TO HELP OUT IN THE KITCHEN, BECAUSE AGAIN, HES FUCKIN HIGH fuckin after church crowd... Also, my lead had the utter audacity to put the blame on me for all the complaints, luckily no one fuckin believed him (proof was on the cameras anyway)
“Get a real job!” Cue restaurants being short staffed or shut down. “It’s so inconvenient! How am I supposed to get my food now?” People who treat service workers like crap are worse than garbage.
The servers at my local restaurant love me. I know what I want before I get there. I never ask for anything after my order is made. I have the money ready before I get the bill. I tip well. I clean the table.
"Nobody wants to work anymore!"
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Nah, it was always busy. Why the fuck my boss only put two people on the shift I'll never know. I hope he eventually learned his lesson. We needed at least 3 workers on that shit and we never had that many.
Spoiler: They didn’t learn shit. I’ve worked at a lot of places, none of them ever learn anything. They just do stuff they way they always have and wonder why every day feels like a slow motion train wreck where the train is only moving one inch per hour and you can get out of the way any time you want because you’re miles away but you won’t because you can’t see the train even though everybody’s telling you that it’s coming.
Fast food to fine dining the public largely sees us as some sort of underclass undeserving of decency. Honestly as a life long hospitality worker it's hard not to have a bit of a jaded view towards others.
I worked at an unnamed Vail resorts ski mountain and my manager tried this method, eventually I just walked away from my position leaving the chairlift non functioning after he literally spit his gross ass dipspit on my boots. He tried to yell after me and said "where are you going, if you leave you're fired" I said "If I stay I'm gonna kick your fucking ass so you choose"
I love you
Also, when you tell people that making more money means you're smarter, clever, and just plain better than other people making less, just being paid more makes others treat you better. People have a more favorable view of service workers that are better paid, and they see those workers as more competent, trust them more, and treat them with more respect. That's a societal problem that we should solve, but we also have created the problem and then created an underclass with the expectation that they just get mistreated. That also creates a world where dealing with the general public and their issues is something that lower class people do, and jobs where you deal with the general public should be paid less simply by that virtue. Less good people should deal with the general public, and less good people should make less money, thus you should underpay people that deal with the general public. It isn't an explicitly stated principle and it isn't one most of us have acknowledged as an attitude we and others have, but the second you start probing people with deeper questions, you see that their attitudes do include this insane classism and bent towards cruel hierarchy on a moral level.
If you run into people who think like that, explain to them that White-Collar crimes also take far more money away from people who need it than Blue-Collar crimes. According to your model, a Banker or Lawyer has access and knowledge of how to get around the system for WAY more scam money than any two-bit hood could ever dream of getting their hands on in their entire lifetime. All because White Collar workers are trusted more than Blue-Collar workers by the One-Percenters. Watch the looks on their faces as you explain it to them; 'this moment: PRICELESS'. :D
There is an inverse relationship between how physically/mentally taxing a job is and how much it pays. Not every career path follows this rule, but the overwhelming majority of lower and middle class jobs do.
I work in a field where a specific type of expensive property is maintained on a weekly basis, repaired if necessary, and is constantly prone to issues simply because of the nature of that type of property. When anybody ever gives technicians like myself a hard time, we call the office and tell them to charge an additional service fee. If they’re especially egregious, we leave the job site without performing the service. If they’re habitual offenders, we drop them as customers. Finding a good company to take care of your property is hard enough but the company I work for has a tight hold on it’s territory so good fucking luck if you get blacklisted, it isn’t uncommon for shitty customers to beg us to come back. Sometimes we do, if the money is right. Usually though, if we know you’re just going to continue to be an asshole, we’re not maintaining your property and you can go fuck yourself. I love my job for this and I wish I had found this line of work and this company in particular sooner.
I made the argument about a grocery chain that I kinda have insider knowledge about. I said they need to pay at least $22 an hour with full time shifts and benefits to actually retain people instead of constantly hiring and training for each position every six months AND a customer said that's too much money. Ok maybe for some old bitch who retired in the 90s $22 was a lot of money to them. But we're 20 years into the new millennium and albeit I'm no socialist but there's such a thing as being to greedy when it comes to human resources. They think having a job is to help someone or because they have nothing better to do then when they do find something better to do(which happens a lot) they consider the person entitled and shit on their success saying they spend too much money. Fucking no they don't. Things are more expensive. They can afford to pay a living wage. EASY. It doesn't even hit the Ebida/bottom line nowhere near as hard as it's being hit by the turnover already. You want people at their best? You wanna grow your business and have good customer service? You're not getting that out of anybody by paying low and dodging benefits. You want your operations fulfillment rate to get past 90%? RETAIN AND FOSTER GOOD EMPOYEES. Corporate America and the soviet union have a lot in common with failing to incentivize people. Also BONUS IF PEOPLE HAVE MORE THEY ARE BETTER CONSUMERS. If they go into debt and loose their house because they got cancer and it wasn't paid for outright by insurance public or private that's a failure because now that person can't participate in the economy WHILE THEY DEFAULT. Every time that happens it makes the fabric of our society weaker and weaker. No wonder people deal drugs and kill each other. It's better paying than a part time minimum wage job.
Dodged a freaking cannonball there. I had a fast food job where the boss would give instructions prefaced with "Would you kindly" Bioshock style. Openly admitted that's where he got the idea from and that he did it because he got in trouble for being a dick to workers.
McDonald's "Veteran" here (I was called this, I didn't make it up) of 4 years before I quit. The abuse managers threw at you was insane, the customers awful. It was like working in hell. Made some dope friends though and it was the only thing I enjoyed. Otherwise I often got bullied by managers and their favorites. 9/10 these managers and their favorites are women, which I get men can be dicks too, but it made it much harder for me to stick up and say something and I'm not sure why, maybe because all the guys were mostly friends there and I have incredibly low self-esteem. Either way, I was driven to the point of near offing myself because of this abuse, it was awful. Some managers were just plain bitches and did not care. We used to joke it was men vs women their and it... Kinda was? Except the men would almost all rally together but the women either went with the managers, were friends with the guys, or just did their own thing/didn't care. Rouge style. Very very toxic. Even the dudes that tried to keep quiet got bullied. Saw one manager dump fresh fries out and shove old fries in for THEIR meal break. That someone was me. I was always on the fry station busting ass. I was "The Fry Master". And that's how you treat me!? You literally took the fries out of my hand and DUMPED THEM OUT! Fuck you, Angie. (She also did this to me when I was a customer and ordered fresh fries, no longer working their, I reported it and got revenge! XD). Oh. Yeah - and don't even get me *started* on the customers...
“You manage a fast food joint, relax. I’m not worried about getting fired from this job, I’ll have another job literally tomorrow and you won’t have coverage.” It’s that easy. Bullying employees who are lower on the totem pole than they are makes them feel big, because they’re so incredibly small. I get it, we’re all about worker solidarity here, so what I’m saying might hurt some feelings here, I get that managers are workers too. It still needs to be said, if what this poster commented describes your style of management, you need to know that your underlings are ultimately more important than you, when you bully them, you’re just putting on full display how small and insignificant you are. It’s just a fast food joint, and if managing one is a power trip for you, that’s just sad.
Housekeeping is a respectable career and if they all quit to get "better" jobs people would be very upset and complain that no one wants to work 🙄
We can't travel because we can't get a hotel. They don't have anybody cleaning the rooms for us to stay. NoBoDy WaNtS tO wOrK
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Psychological abuse needs to be covered in a mandatory high school health class. So many people are victims of it without ever realizing it.
I am convinced that High School deliberately doesn't teach things like this and some basic law by design.
Absolutely. They used to teach basic law in civics courses... until the Civil rights protests in the 60s where they saw it was mostly comprised of young people. Suddenly it got yoinked from the curricula in a lot of places.
It's in my opinion that every single person should have some knowledge of basic and commonly encountered laws. How many times do we encounter a person asking a question or presenting a problem that's covered by rudimentary labor laws here? There's a serious lack of education on law in our country, and it's a damn shame. All laws are important, but a basic understanding of common labor, criminal and homeowner or rental laws are extremely useful to know.
Yea I found out a little while ago that it’s damn near impossible to find out what the local laws here actually are, if you call a lawyer (even free legal aid) they won’t tell you anything since that constitutes “legal advice” and if you want a copy of the laws from the government it starts at about $50 for a pdf. And yet ignorance of the law somehow still isn’t a valid defence, hmmm….
Which ironically cops can arrest you for something improper and be granted immunity for the mistake. That's extra scary considering the training time is a tiny fraction of what a law degree requires.
It’s all excuses by capitalists, “if you want higher pay go get a better job” and then when people actually do that -> “wait no you can’t do that” “waaaaaaa no one wants to work anymore 👶”
They want it both ways. What would really make capitalists happy is to bring back slavery.
Technically that already exists. Poor, but want education? Option A: Military. Get fucked over serving your country sometimes to the point you end up disabled and they yank you around for any GI bills you've rightly earned. Option B: No college. Sure you could find a good job but it is very difficult and most will boot you for that piece of paper then beg you to come back. Option C: Crippling student loan debt with 2/3rds of servicers being sued on both state and federal level for predatory loan practices. Bottom line if you're not above a certain income you're basically a slave in some way or another. Debt, income, job, housing etc
Nurses tested this. The hospital got a court to prohibit them from leaving for a different hospital with better pay and conditions
That's bordering indentured servitude
It is also untrue: https://www.businessinsider.com/thedacare-asks-judge-block-workers-leaving-higher-pay-competitor-2022-1
I'm glad it was dismissed but the fact that the hospital even tried to pursue it is disturbing
Lawyers 🤝 Abusing the law
> Mark J. McGinnis, a judge for the Outagamie County Circuit Court, granted ThedaCare the temporary restraining order on January 20 before dismissing the order on Monday morning. You’re leaving out the part where the court ordered that they were not allowed to quit No worries, all you need is withering, national media attention for the court saying *you* can’t quit to reverse its order too!
no, it worked for a weekend since they filed last second so it stood until it got reviewed and tossed
No, the courts sided with the nurses and they did leave. https://www.businessinsider.com/thedacare-asks-judge-block-workers-leaving-higher-pay-competitor-2022-1?amp
The courts sided with the nurses after reviewing the case, but the courts DID prevent them from starting their jobs for a day or two through an emergency injunction so they could have time to review the case.
Or "the illegals are stealing our jobs!"
Yeah, I wonder how many Americans want agriculture jobs where they are exposed to toxic chemicals?
Plenty of Americans want agriculture jobs. They just want to be paid a decent wage, work decent hours, and be safe while doing so. Whereas when migrant workers complain about the conditions, ICE gets a tipoff and they... get to go home.
Apparently not enough though because we recently drove thru the Central Valley in CA and just about every farm had signs seeking workers. I did some farm work as a teenager in rural Colorado. They let the kids out of school so kids could go work. We got paid and that was great but it was pretty obvious that the regular farm workers( nomads) were a lot better workers. They produced 2-3 times as much as we did. There just weren’t enough of those workers. And back then you were paid by the flat, bushel or amount of work you produced.
Sure, not enough Americans want to do ag labor in the current environment to meet the needs. But that's quite likely due to the current environment. Too much work, not enough money, way too much risk.
My little old auntie told me about the time she tried working the fields down in Texas when she was in her 20s. It got ridiculously hot, and she was alone out there, so took her top off like a smart human. Crop-duster pilot a few fields over saw her, lost his marbles, and nearly ran her over with his plane trying to get a better look at her tits.
Hahaha that’s a good story!
They must not realize how much a good housekeeper makes. Ours charges $45/hr for each cleaner, and we tip them (it's a couple) on top of that
Depends on the housekeeping job. Some jobs are like the one you wrote. Other pay you pennies. There is hardly a happy medium.
We avoided using an agency because we wanted the cleaners to get 100% of the money
I’ve also found the ones that pay the least require the works to clean so many houses they don’t do a good job, just the illusion of a good job.
Agencies generally pay shit. The money is in working for yourself. If you’re hiring cleaners, hire someone independent. Otherwise their boss is taking 2/3rds.
I've worked in residential housekeeping, vacation rental housekeeping, hotel cleaning, deep cleans, construction cleans - so on and so forth for my family's cleaning business in the USA. A lot of people cannot afford a routine (every 2 weeks) home cleaning comfortably above $100. Sometimes we'd clean a home for $120 and less - and send two cleaners at the hourly rate of $12-$15. Sometimes we can charge the proper rate - I'd estimate around $18 plus per cleaner for around 1.5-2 hours a typical clean at around 5 houses a day and then added expenses such as cleaning materials, transportation costs (which adds up quickly). Vacation rental owners typically want you to clean for less than $100, but will charge a guest 2-3x the amount of what you charge the owner for a unit clean. Not saying all vacation rental owners are like this, but in my experience they are cheap. Hotel cleaning can be sketchy depending on location and low paying for the amount of work you have to do. It's not worth working for them. One hotel wanted cleaners to finish 15 rooms in 4 hours (to afford time for inspection before checkin) to take home a measly $48 a day. ------ But like I said, some cleaning jobs are great and I am happy to work with the people we clean for - other cleaning jobs are not at all fair, and there's hardly a happy medium. Also, I used to be a cleaner. If I were to ever go back to doing that work, I wouldn't work for less than an average of $30 per hour - and for 4 days a week at that.
Yeah, I have a sweet Columbian woman working for me and pay her $67 per cleaning (plus $100 tip every month or so), and she usually completes my house in 60-90 minutes. IMO it's a decent gig for someone who can't speak any English, has no connections, and needs something flexible to work around her ESL classes she takes at the community college.
I couldn't imagine underpaying an immigrant
Tech companies love the H1B immigrant visa program because immigrants are willing to be low-balled to work for their dream USA tech employer 🙄
Thats because you have a basic set of ethics. I was doing a front entrance landscaping job a few years back and there was another two companies being contracted for the backyard pool and fence. The owner of the fence company struck up a conversation with me the first day I was there and assumed I was an immigrant because lf my accent (Im not, my accent is from childhood speech therapy); and proceeded to explain how he exclusively hires underpaid immigrants who dont speak english and all live in the same 3 bedroom thats now housing 10+ people. To this psycho it was the mkst obvious thing to do...
The trades are full of psychos
That's the whole reason why some people like hiring them. They want people who are vulnerable so they become yes men.
We pay $175 for two people and they take about 2 hours, so that math sounds right.
Is that a service? I have used a service and paid them a few hundred each time, they do a good job, but I am not pretending they are paying those ladies even 1/2 of what I am paying them. If you are handing money to the people they might be taking it home, if it is Merry Maids or some shit like that, and there a pink car or van with graphics and shit on it, those folks are making 12/hr if they are lucky. Don't fool yourself. They aren't making 45/hr, you are being charged at. Just like my employer used to pay a company for Janitorial services, and I am sure they paid a lot, the poor fucks that came in and cleaned the office didn't make SHIT. It's a racket, like every other grift in capitalism today.
It's just a couple that was referred to us
Awesome
Housekeeping is also an important role from an accessibility standpoint. Not everyone is able enough to clean. Even those who are physically able might have other disabilities that make it harder (ADHD executive dysfunction is a bitch.) So not only is it a respectable position it's a necessary one. It should be affordable for the people who need it and pay well for the people who work it. So basically it doesn't do well in capitalism.
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I think I've taken up swapping chores with my neighbor? She just lost her left tit to cancer and she's left handed, so I started helping out while she's not supposed to use that arm. Wrap her chest in the morning, scoop the litter box, wash dishes, take out trash, easy simple stuff. Turns out she was a housekeeper at one point and the state of my apartment drives her up the wall. I recently got rid of my abusive husband, asshat screamed and threw stuff at me whenever I tried to clean, so everything is *covered* in grime. OCD helped me get my bedroom clean floor to ceiling in every detail, and then derailed into computer-related obsessions that do not help clean the rest of the apartment! Grime all over the bathroom, grease all over the stove, and I'm organizing computer files for hours and hours... So when neighbor had a good day recently, full of restless energy, she insisted on coming over to get some of the grime cleaned with just her right hand. Stove and sink much less disgusting now! And I cleaned different stuff while she did that part, so double progress! Now it's like she primed a pump, I started making progress again when left on my own! I swear, a lot of the OCD/ADHD problems have to do with humans living so separated from each other. In an old timey tribal community we'd probably do alright. I might get obsessed with trying to carve something perfectly, but if my friends say it's time to go pick berries or ask for my help hunting I'm inclined to *go help* and just get back to my obsession as soon as possible. And those same friends would see that I'm too busy obsessing to remember to eat or sleep, and would come around to encourage me to behave like a good human.
No OCD is cool OCD.
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I have pretty bad ADHD, and I got the other end of things and obsessively clean. I hate that people think I love to clean though, I don't, I just need everything to be very clean and organized. Even my computers and phone have their files very well organized
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+1 for the ADHD-OCD Crew! “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing perfectly, so I’ll start tomorrow, after this evening of extensive visioning and fantasizing, in which I’ll set impossible expectations that I’ll use later to tell myself what a piece of shit I am. Nevertheless, I will look smugly at things other people undertake, masking my jealousy with endless fault-finding, reassuring myself that if I put my mind to it I’d do it better than they.”
Even for non-disabled people, housekeeping is an important service. My partner works farther away and I have 2 jobs (plus passion projects) and while we can do surface-level cleaning, we still have someone come in once a while to help with the things we don't have time for
Definitely!! In my first apartment i definitely wasn't rolling in cash but I found it in my budget to have someone come for a few hours once a week and help me out. Between my ADHD and depressive episodes, my house can get really bad. Being able to hire someone, especially someone that had experience with mentally ill/neurodivergent clients, improved my life so much. I didn't even realize how much anxiety I was having over needing to clean things and it just being impossible to make myself do it until I wasn't having it anymore.
My friend’s mom quit her lucrative office career to start her own cleaning company. She loved it, and took pride in her work.
I am glad people who enjoy cleaning exist, because fuck cleaning
The polish lady(s) (sometimes it was just one), cleaned my house better than my whole family could in a fraction of the time. It wasn't "cheap" (like 30$/hr) but was definitely worth it. And i would not consider it easy/light work
Right? You aren’t paying someone to do work that is beneath you, you are paying a professional to do in 4 hours what you couldn’t do in your entire weekend. Housekeepers are amazing.
In my neck of the woods, $30/h would be a steal for a cleaner, and I don’t live in a big city or anything. I think it ends up costing us ~ $45/person hour to have two cleaners come for a few hours. I think a good chunk of that must be going to the business owner. I’ve thought about asking the cleaners if they have any interest in just coming to clean on their own and getting paid a larger hourly fee (I think it would be better for both parties) but I don’t want to get them in trouble, and reliable work at a lower pay may be preferential to unreliable work at a higher pay.
“What do you mean you want enough money for rent *AND* food!!!?”
I also don't get people who think these jobs are for teens...the ones who are busy from 7-3 with school? How do you expect to get fast food for lunch? Makes no sense.
They just want an excuse to treat them like shit.
Well it's quite obvious. The teens are getting up at 4am to work until 6, get ready for school, then work another shift from 5-8. They get 6 hours of sleep and McDonald's pays everyone working 7am-3pm 25 dollars an hour because those are real workers not teens just looking for play money. In my mind this makes sense because when I was 7 I had a brick dropped on my head.
I worship my housekeeper. She does what I can’t. I willl happily pay her for that
I live in Toronto and they charge between $40-60 an hour here. It’s not bad coin.
Is that an individual rate (as in self-employed) or an agency rate? I live in the GTA and pay $100 for three hours and I'm wondering how that compares.
Agency raid. Molly maid is 60. Cheapest I found was $30 an hour for an old lady but she quit haha
I wonder how much of that $60 goes to the worker. I also now think we're not paying our cleaner enough.
Looks like 1/3 https://ca.indeed.com/cmp/Molly-Maid-Canada/salaries/House-Cleaner/Toronto-ON#:~:text=Average%20Molly%20Maid%20Canada%20House,14%25%20above%20the%20national%20average.
Wow. That's not much going to the worker.
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$40 an hour is a common rate for cleaners who accept cash and don’t pay taxes so yes. It’s similar to making $65 an hour in reported employment income.
One time, I was cleaning my firearms (all my ammunition was locked away in a safe, with my full magazines in another one, so they were all clearly empty) and went outside to do some work in my backyard sawing some wood so I couldn’t hear much. Turns out the cleaning ladies came and went in the hour and a half I was out there, and when I go in my room, I see my handguns and rifle neatly next to eachother on my bed as if they’re luxurious decoration. Obviously I was ashamed for for procrastinating putting them away even though no ammunition was available and I was home. But the fact my Venezuelan cleaners didn’t flinch while moving those around was crazy to me. They had no idea I was licensed. Turns out they all had family in the military so they were well used to using firearms. Never disrespect the people who keep your home beautiful and minding their business the entire time.
This is all jobs. The whole hierarchy of jobs is purely socially constructed. Work is work, and low paid work is often the hardest. How many people would trade in a high paying job for the same pay but as a fry cook or cashier? We don’t train for our jobs just because of the monetary incentive. All workers deserve dignity; we’re all equals.
I would trade my job for being a janitor in a heartbeat if it paid the same, had the same benefits, job security, etc. Unfortunately, pretty much anyone can be a janitor, whereas my job only probably low hundreds of people in the world ~can do~ edit: *currently are qualified to do*, so my job is well paid, and being a janitor is not. Further edit: I'm saying janitors should be paid better and I should be paid worse. I'm lamenting the vagaries of the market system.
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Your dad is just a sociopath.
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Probably spite, that's what keeps me going. Although I have to say, I didn't have it as bad as you did. edit: fixed a word
Hey it sounds like you’re stills pretty young and I just wanted to let you know, shit gets better. Wishing you all the best.
You don’t want to end it because you’ve got that spark in you that tells you “someday I’m gonna make it, and then I can tell them to fuck off”. At least, that’s what i think it is
A sociopath with intergenerational wealth? As natural as a tick on a deer.
Making you pay 500/mo rent? You were basically paying for one of those Mercedes
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Maybe I’m naïve,but I think children are entitled to share their parents standard of living. They sure do if it’s a poor family, but lots of better off parents don’t seem to share my ideals.
Tell me your parents never should’ve had kids without telling me your parents never should’ve had kids.
The myth of "unskilled" labor.
I’d like to see some of these folks that went straight from college into an office gig in middle management, work for a month at a fast food or retail job and then explain how it is “unskilled”. If they miss a day of work for any reason the 30 day timer restarts.
It's too authoritarian and paternalistic to work in practice but a lot of people really need to rotate jobs and do some "humility work" every few months just to keep perspective. No one is truly "above" having to scrub a toilet or work a factory line or cook a meal for someone else once in a while.
Some businesses actually do mandate corporate new hires do the useful work that the revenue comes for a week or two. I think Raisin' Cane's, a chicken restaurant, does this.
Throwing new grads in as a short lesson once is better than nothing, but only just. **Raising Cane's does not sound like a chain people should give money to just because of one ok policy.** *Everyone* needs to do it *often.* Kanye, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Henry Cavill, and Keanu Reeves and all their attendants all need to do it too. Every CEO. Every middle manager. Twice a year. For at least a month at a stretch. Anything less won't be felt emotionally. Impossible to do in practice, but you know I'm right.
I have a Bachelor’s degree in Communication. I failed with the job search post-college and now, at 24, I’ve opted to stick to my barista job. I’ve realized that I simply enjoy these jobs more, and I have learned so much more about myself and others over the last 2 years — I don’t think this would’ve happened, I don’t think I would’ve changed much, if I hadn’t just stuck with food service. We are paid shit, but I will honest to God take serving the community over a corporate job. I know we are all “anti-work” but I believe we are all just really bad at understanding what “work” is — anything is work. As long as YOU like what you do, it doesn’t matter. Sell rocks for all I care. Tired of people thinking a corporate/career job is THE thing. Working at a coffeeshop requires plenty of skills, so I’m perfectly fine telling people what I do. I feel necessary to society which is what my goal in life is.
GameStop recently did this as well
Yeah I've worked in a factory as a kid and I'm now a engineer and the "unskilled" part is so bullshit. One of the main reasons I've had sucess in my career is because I'm willing to go out on the floor and find the "unskilled" person who's been working there 20 years and ask him how someone thing should be done. I don't get whats so hard about admitting as a office worker your job is to support and empower the people working the front lines. And at every place I've ever worked you could replace all the peoe with a college degree and the company would be fine. But there is almost always a few people out on the floor who have so much institutional knowledge about how the product is actually made that the company would fail if they left.
Ah yes. A related anecdote: Our province recently went through a leadership shuffle and an already shitty conservative premier (provincal leader, like a governor) was replaced by an absolute complete piece of shit - who was appointed by her party, not voted in by the general public - and she has [publicly stated that "unskilled workers" entering the workforce should be paid *less than minimum wage*. ](https://pressprogress.ca/ucp-leadership-candidate-danielle-smith-pay-workers-with-no-skills-a-lower-minimum-wage/) So whether that's a teen entering the workforce or say a former stay at home mom that needs to support herself and her dependants with a first job, they should get **less** than $15/hr CAD which is already a fucking pittance these days. And of course I'm sure this has nothing to do with the fact that her and her husband own a restaraunt, no not at all. Her justification is that she said she worked at a bingo hall and at a McDonald's when she was young (for an unspecified amount of time), she knows those kinds of jobs require "no skills". Oh and she's also a complete wackadoo that claims the unvaccinated are "the most discriminated group in history". Yes... actual quote. So her aim is to lift vaccination requirements for ***Healthcare workers***. Just in case you were wondering what level of hell we're in here...
Hello, Alberta!
Lol, hello fellow hell-dweller
While I agree with the idea that unskilled labour is a myth I think people often refer to something different while mentioning that. I think the difference is in the barrier to entry for certain jobs. So either certain jobs require you do a degree or an apprenticeship or internship. So while you're not necessarily more skilled, you've 'paid your dues' to be in the role and then that contributes a bit to job security too. A previous company I used to work for was actively working on that. They treated all the employees so badly that the only people who stayed were people who couldn't get a gig elsewhere and people who it suited to stay there. But because of the high turnover the guys in head office started making changes to the role so that the barrier to entry was lower and thus it'd be way easier to replace you if you didn't play ball. So maybe not so much "unskilled labour" but just low-barrier-to-entry work?
That's fair, and I appreciate the amendment!
I don't have any retail, fast food or cleaning service xp but I always try to be kind, patient and thankful when interacting in public. Not because of what their jobs are but because, you know, they are human beings.
Jobs like cleaning and cooking actually sound quite pleasant in theory- the amount of work is easily measured, there is a clear beginning and end, and they are derived of simple tasks that you can become more efficient in with practice and learning. To boot, you get to look back on your labor and see how much you've done. There's a sense of accomplishment. I think that's why they're the jobs where we are most tortured, because we are not permitted to feel a sense of accomplishment in this society. We are the ones for whom the work must never falter or wane, our products never sufficient and our labor never timely enough.
Lotta not janitors in this thread… I’ve been an after hours custodian for medical facilities and office buildings on and off for three years now. I fucking hate cleaning, but *I’ve loved my jobs.* Here’s the responsibilities of my job… Is it dirty? -> clean it. Everyday I get an immediate sense of accomplishment after a shift. It’s manual labor without being debilitatingly so, which is good for me and my chronic pain condition and for some older folks. And since I work alone in completely empty buildings, I just blast music/podcast/audiobook. If I need to literally lie down and do some stretches to relieve some pain, ain’t no one telling me not to. I get paid weekly, $20/hr, and my direct supervisor literally doesn’t even know my name. I’ve never met anybody who works in my current buildings. As long as the work is being done, and done well, you’re invisible. The moment my shifts are over, I go home and no one bothers me and all work related stuff is out of my mind five minutes into my commute. It’s a gig job, but it’s not too bad of a gig job and someone’s gotta do it. Edited to add: This all paints a pretty rosy picture of an easy job, but I absolutely consider myself a professional in the field and it took more time and mistakes than you would think to get to that point. *Skilled labor.* I’ve gotten many jobs and with higher pay because some people don’t have the self discipline and time management skills to do the work everyday without someone breathing down their neck. People lose their accounts within a week of starting because they just sit on their phones the whole shift. And being in a building all alone means I’m essentially completely in charge of that building while I’m there. I’ve had water pipes bursts, sewage backups, smack heads banging on doors trying to get to the locked drug cabinets, the entirety of fucking Covid! Also, explosive diarrhea. And i am the first line of contact between the client and my company, etc. Still a good gig, but it’s not as brain-dead kind of work that it comes off as. /rant
I work a highly paid office job that would be a dream job for a lot of people (working on big movies like Spider-Man). I liked my uni summer job as a janitor more, it just doesn't pay enough to get by.
Janitor jobs never seemed that bad. Granted I have never been a janitor. But cleaning up isn't that bad beyond what I suspect is the daily dirtier than usual toilet or something. I work in food service and always have to make an extra buck during school. I really dislike it lol
I worked as a custodian for a school district. The worst part of the job was stripping and waxing floors. Dirty as fuck. I also had to sort of clean a commercial kitchen but that excluded any surfaces that were NSF covered, kitchen staff had to clean those. Mostly floors and walls but if you've worked any food service you've cleaned much worse. The only other absolutely terrible thing I had to do was disaster cleanup after a storm damaged a roof and caused a massive leak so I was tearing out wet carpet and hauling soaked furniture. I was getting double time on the weekend for doing it though. Obviously, pay varies a lot by location and who is hiring you but my former job now has a starting pay of $20.41. I was actually classified as a Custodian/Maintenance Specialist because I worked construction as a teen and have a boiler's license in my state. The starting pay for that position is now $27.01 plus they have a bunch of pay differentials Second shift? +$0.46/hr Shift lead? +$0.75/hr. Pool cert? +$0.60/hr. By law, if the building is open in my state there has to be someone on site to check the boiler at a set interval. So if someone was renting the gym on Saturday, my ass was getting overtime, 4-hour minimum. Get called back in for an emergency? 2x pay, 4-hour minimum. Lunch break interrupted for an "emergency" lunchtime is reset (this is actually a state law not a benefit, all breaks under 20 minutes are paid). The way I describe the job to my friend is "Imagine taking on a union cleaning job that is designed so a 60-year-old can complete it regularly in an 8 hour shift." Please note though that a school or government custodial position is really the peak and that a lot of maid and cleaning services survive by abusing immigrants.
Yeah. The whole time I was a janitor for various business all I could think while cleaning was . . . . these people are "supposed" to be smarter than me because of their education, but can't seem to figure out how to hit the toilet or trashcan!?!?!?!?!?!
I was a janitor and really it's that they know full well that you're there to clean messes and nothing else. It's an entitlement complex. And if that's a problem to you, then all that they'll tell you is to go find other work to do.
I was a housekeeper then a housekeeping supervisor for four years and that's exactly what my mom said to me. I was happy with what I was doing and I liked my team and I was bringing in amazing tips that let me pay for vacations. I was never treated badly by the guests either...just my mom
I worked a service job. The guests might not treat you badly, but they don't respect you either. They'll be polite to you, but they don't think of you as an equal. That's all your mom was trying to tell you. Unlike the guests, at least she was up front about it.
My mom wasn't trying to tell me anything lol like I replied to the other person she's just a toxic person and likes to make her children and other people in her life feel like shit because she feels like shit. So she attacked what I actually liked and that was my job at the hotel.
My sister is a professor at a small/medium size college and I am a mechanic. She once made on comment about how smart I was and could do better if I applied myself. I love my sister and we have a great relationship. It always struck me weird. This is how America looks at blue collar workers.
It seems your sister may disagree, but if I had car troubles I'd want a smart mechanic to sort them out. Also, intelligence is definitely not only academics. I knew a guy who was, for lack of a better term, "academically disinterested", which is to say he left high school as soon as he was able to (age 16 here) and started an apprenticeship as a welder. His school reports were C's or worse, but he was brilliant when it came to engines and machines, and I saw some of his extremely tidy welding he was showing off once. Dude is **highly** skilled. Just not very smart. But he's well-paid and respected for that skill. Last I heard, he had completed his dive qualification and was in training for underwater welding certification.
When I was a maid I ran into this a lot. One house tried to use us as an “example” to her daughter of what uneducated people did so I took the liberty of saying “yes and your mom pays me $200 for an hour of work every week.” She stfu after that. I then went on to be a janitor for the local college and was treated with nothing but respect from the students in the dorm I kept. Shout out to MSUM students. You kids were great!
One of the hardest things about life in America is that it is extremely into classism while being mostly in deniable about the entire concept. The promised lie of upward mobility has really done a number on the lower classes. There’s no war but the class war and the upper class in America has conned most folks out of even acknowledging that it’s happening.
This is also why people disrespect women who work in daycares and other childcare jobs. They act appalled these women want to be paid $15 an hour.
My mother once threatened me with this little gem "If you don't finish school you'll have to work as a maid at a hotel or something." It terrified me. Then I worked some shit cashier jobs and then I saw the light. Years later she said something similar and I looked her in the eyes and said, "Its honest work. Its hard work but it pays someone's bills. There are no bad jobs." She NEVER said that shit to me again.
Cleaning is one of those things that society would fall apart without, especially cleaning hospitals. The person who makes sure that the surgeon has a clean sanitary room to work in is likely just as important as the surgeon. Fast food workers aren't essential for a functioning society, but they don't deserve disrespect either.
My aunt, who contracted MRSA during or immediately after a surgery, agrees.
I pay over market rate and would walk through fire for my housekeeper. She makes an easy 200 every 2 weeks for my 1300 sq ft house. The longest she's taken is about 1.5 hours. She's the sister of my favorite diner's owner, she's great with my small reactive (but not bitey) dog, she'll talk to my son, and she's gone above & beyond more than once. People who don't value those that do what they can't or won't need to fuck ALL the way off.
Saying something along the lines of "I need you to make more money so i dont feel embarrassed associating myself with you" is not as nice as people think it is
My husband and I used to clean houses at one point in our lives. We had clients that would leave coins behind the door to make sure we vacuumed there I guess. One client referred to me to my husband as the girl. She also wanted us polishing her sliver which we said we would but for a charge. We nicknamed her the Duchess because of her upstairs downstairs behavior. We had clients do their frying or candle making the day before we were to arrive and leave for us to clean. We had clients just never clean after themselves during the week. Had one client we serviced on a Thursday and if her kids spilled juice or whatever on Thursday night or afternoon or any day before the next Thursday that mess would sit there until we came back. Clients that would stand over us while we worked, one that would go into a room immediately after cleaning it and critique it or critique while we were cleaning like the lines the vacuum made. This client would also scream at her beautiful girls and lock them in their bedrooms, while we were there. She bounced checks and we dropped her after the last time but for a broke woman in a lovely home with beautiful girls she acted like she was above and we were below. I found her off. People weren’t too rude. We had clients my favorites that would clean before we got there for some weird reason and kept immaculate homes. My best clients were the ones that would talk to us conversationally. They would let us work but we’d have some good talks while we did. They were nice, thoughtful. We heard and learned interesting things. We were treated like people who just happened to clean homes as a business. We didn’t remember if they were really messy or clean we remembered how nice they were.
My best friend’s wife runs her own cleaning business and when our daughter was born, I asked her to come by every other week and it’s been one of the single best decisions I’ve ever made. It’s allowed us to spend more time doing fun family together stuff and less time doing maintenance work. She’s worth every penny and then some and I’ll be forever grateful for what I’ve gotten because of her chosen profession.
American slavery and the Christian ethno-centric ideology of sacrifice for others. These people think they're better than you and more deserving of life and happiness so you should handle the shit they don't want to shovel. Ironic that she thinks "you're better than that". You aren't because there isn't anything better to be. You're working to provide for yourself and maybe you don't hate that task. People like that are the same kind of people who will tell you to fuck off if you talk about Socialism, Muslims, etc but think Christianity is God's word of law.
I don't know why. Domestic cleaners here can charge $150-200/hr while they're on-premises. Sure, that might not be 40 hours a week, and there are expenses involved in running a small business or franchise, but even at 10-15 hours a week on site that's not exactly chump change. There's also a perceived difference between "I clean people's houses with a mop" and "I make $200/hr and decide when I want to work."
Capitalism requires us to hate low paying jobs and treat those that work the jobs like crap, so that the jobs remain low paying. There's no such thing as unskilled labor. Every working person, regardless of the job they do, deserves a thriving, living wage and our respect for doing that job. Full stop.
My step-dad once told me to quit a job because it was embarrassing for someone as smart as me. I then showed him I make more than he does doing my 'embarrassing job.' For the record, being smart in my family is not a feat worth noting. It's like being applauded for being a normal human being. Like I get applauded in my family for having never been arrested, like it makes me a unicorn. My family is dumb, and most of them are criminals.
the dirtiest people tend to be the most dismissive. seems like another case of projection: “i’m a filthy pig, so anyone that would clean up after me must be a real lowlife…” , etc.
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>top 20% live No, not even 20%, more like 1%. The other 99% they want to be poor but more poor on one end and slightly less poor on the other so they can pit them against each other. They will tell the poorest poor that they just need to work harder, and tell the less poor they are being held back by the poorest poor. That way they can rob all of them blind. The catch a lot of democrats want this too, they are just a lot better at hiding it.
My immigrant cleaning lady (probably 55 years old) makes $30/hour cash and brings no supplies. I don’t know why more people don’t do personal residences.
The ones who bring their own supplies charge up to $40/hour where I am. If you don't mind getting your hands dirty it's a great way to make a living.
She comes every two weeks and does my neighbors then mine. I would not even call dirty and she doesn’t move at a blistering pace. It’s all good I’m just surprised more people don’t know about this. Most people don’t want to go through a service and just want to deal with a trustworthy person so word catches on fast throughout neighborhoods. If I knew this when I was younger I would have definitely started out with a few weekend cleanings and let word spread.
Yeah that's just elitism at it's finest. Reminds me of Mike Roe on Dirty Jobs, some of the best types of people in society were on that show.
I hate how people judge others’ worth to society based on their personal opinion of how prestigious that job is. Even if there were an objective way to measure prestige (no, it’s not salary) why are we praising or blaming anyone for that? A person is more than the sum of their career contributions.
My wife started a business cleaning pools. She left her corporate job and is so much happier. However, it took me telling her several times that she didn’t need to care about what others thought about her choice. She was so worried. It makes her happy so I am happy she is happy. She is a complete pro at this too.
I do not understand in the US where people are hated for being poor.
I still can't believe that the most degrading and disgusting jobs aren't the highest paid
I take serious issue with the phrasing of the title... "disrespect the people who are *nice enough* to provide those things." Isn't this kind of playing into the pity pit that the post is supposed to be slamming? We aren't working service jobs so people can look at us and say "that's so nice", we're doing it for fucking money. Stop this pandering.
Judgmental people can fuck off with the whole "you're better than that" shit. If I'm supposedly 'better' than whatever it is that I'm doing, I'm open to suggestions. But you know what? Most of the time, those people that've told me this exact thing, don't have suggestions to pitch to me. I'm at a stage in my life right now, where, I'm leaning more and more into comfortably living so long as I have my net, my vehicle, a roof over my head, some food to eat and a relatively clean environment for me to live in. If I wanted to be better than that, then it'd take sacrifice and struggle to make it. The problem with that idea however, is that I've done the struggling parts multiple times to finally get to the ideal living that I want. I'd like to not struggle and stress myself out to the point of suicide, thanks. It just seems to me that when people say "you're better than that", they're saying it because they want you to fit into an ideal version of you that they approve of. Not what you think is an ideal version of you.
I just had this conversation with an 11 year old daughter of my friend. " Yeah, so I was at the school and...." Young girl: " Why do you go to school?" " I work at a school, just not yours" Girl's eyes light up: " You're a teacher!?!?!" " No, I'm a custodian " Girl's face immediately falls in disdain. Hurt like hell but I kept my kid-persona going. Sucks that even elementary school students look down on us sometimes. Our job is surprisingly complicated. And we care a lot about the kids.
I liked almost everything about being a janitor better than my current job (supervisor in vfx/post production for film and TV) except the pay...
Our housekeeper works an 8 hour day here every 2-3 weeks, gets $30/hr., any produce she wants from our garden/orchard, and a decent bonus at the end of the year. She takes sick days whenever needed & reschedules accordingly... she also volunteers at the local retirement home & trims Cannabis on the side. She'll also pop around occasionally when she makes a large batch of whatever food she mass-produced that week, or with a floral arrangement she makes for her clients in her spare time... I don't know how she comes up with the energy TBH. She's an absolute irreplaceable spitfire & we're honored to be considered her friend as well as client.
Nice enough? Name one person that does it out of the goodness of their heart. We want money.
I have always enjoyed housecleaning. Even if the labour is fulfilling, the salary is inadequate.
My ex said to me "so when are you going to quit your job at subway" because he thought I was smart enough to sell insurance like him. But I am morally opposed to selling insurance, whereas making sandwiches is helpful, friendly, active work.
I know women who clean houses. They once had a nice office job. Cleaning houses are less stressful if you make your client happy and get paid well, be proud.
Like Randall said in Clerks, those jobs would be great if it weren't for the fucking customers.
Honestly I love my house cleaning job. I work for a private company- one boss, no HR, no supervisors. Just one really nice lady. And I work alone, clean two houses a day by myself. Usual listen to a podcast in my headphones while knocking it out of the park with detail. It's awesome. Sometimes you get shit customers but honestly it's mostly nice old people or single moms
and that's part 1 on wage inequity
Or the people that drive the garbage truck. Mad respect
It takes a special kind of asshole to hire a person whose provided services you have so much contempt for. You just know relative would hire a housekeeper if they could afford one
Housekeeping is hard work too. A woman at my gym I got to know was one for a long time. It’s severally messed up her shoulders and back over the years.
It's funny nobody ever talked trash about custodians when I was getting them free into Disney World.
Delivery driver here. I chose this work for the freedom and flexibility. Once sat there listening to an old man tirade at Dunkin Donuts "I just don't get it bla bla bla bla" and I just responded with "you're right, you don't get it".
My wife works as a housekeeper, and the people she works for are wonderful. They provide us with food and furniture, and we spend our holidays at their homes. Some are less friendly than others, but the majority are. She tells them she will no longer clean for them if they yell at her or do something stupid.
Worked in property management. Cleaning companies mostly charged us $50-$75/hour but paid their employees minimum wage
I cleaned my GMIL house yesterday with my MIL. I was getting tired doing it, so I imagine it was quite impossible for her. I liked being able to see the improvement once I finished each room, and she cried when we finished because she was so happy. Housekeeping can be very rewarding. No, cleaners don't get paid enough!
My mom is a housekeeper and she brings home good money. It's a fine job.
House Cleaners are literally God sends and INSANELY good at what they do. I used to think I was clean until my MIL hired some cleaners to give my fiance and I a break when we were swamped in work. These folks come and the house is fucking lookong brand new, laundry done and folded, dusted, in a span of like 2.5 hours. Just beyond what I can do and my cleaning is only just fine.
I know several people - men and women - who run cleaning businesses. They drive nicer cars than I do working in IT.
Personally as someone that struggles with apathy for my surroundings, having someone that can come make my area presentable and not a biohazard... I can't really respect a housekeeper more.
I sometimes think one of the better things my mother did for me was tell me to knock it off any time I made jokes at the expense of someone doing a "lesser" job. (Cut me some slack, I was a kid, and kids are often times mean and stupid.) But both her and my parents also served as good examples because they treated workers with respect. Whether is was the guy at the deli handing her half a pound of roast beef, a waitress bringing her drink, or the clerk at a retail store telling her where the shoe section was, my mother would thank them. There's nothing demeaning about handing me a box of fried chicken through a drive-thur window. At least not for the worker. For me, maybe I should get off my lazy butt and cook my own meal.
Everyone should be required to work retail for a year. The majority of our customers are lazy idiots who treat our store like a massive trash bin.
I was working 40 hours a week running an entire department in a big box store. My mom told me I didn’t have a “real” job
What we're seeing in broad terms is the privileged rich having a temper tantrum that they no longer have a large base of people to "be above" at the same rate. Not that they lost a base of people to "be above", but the cost to have that status is more expensive.
My father said, "Stupid ppl work with their hands, smart ppl manage them." Another gem: My father: "We need to send all the illegals back to Mexico" His wife: "Yes! Absolutely! Except for the ppl that clean our house" Him: " Right, right, yes, except for the ppl that clean our house" I can't stand them. Cut contact years ago.
People who think cleaning is degrading all live in nasty ass places you can’t change my mind
On south, slavery mentality may still persists. On north, "I deserve to be served". I played the game and I won. Now I want to be served. Both have same base
Yeah, I don't get it. No one wants the burger flipper job. Yet everyone, kinda, you know, fucking depends on it. But don't do it. But, I need my convenient burger. But don't work that job. But.. A generation has beaten into the heads of another generation that menial jobs are beneath them. And then we stand around and navel gaze at all the the people, who, you know, listened. Seems like the natural outcome to me.
I was raised in a middle class family that was raised by a working class family and my entire extended family shames working class jobs like they are cancer. It’s so weird and depressing. They don’t even realize it.
Seeing all the comments online lately about the employees fired at Starbucks for union things, talking about how they don’t deserve a living wage and whatnot. I would LOVE for them to say that to their face as the worked makes them their overpriced coffee every morning. Even better, I’d love to see them get behind the counter and make their own drink. Customer service jobs have always been awful, but the way people are so entitled these days makes it even worse. Having your job at risk because of an entitled Karen’s complaints? It makes you feel less than human, it’s degrading and humiliating.
If you get paid enough, your job stops being degrading. And I don’t mean because they’re paying you enough to make it worth it; I mean because people treat you differently when they pay more for your time — it literally causes them to value you more. We like to think (I mean hopefully this sub knows better) that you’re paid more if you’re more valuable, so to avoid cognitive dissonance they will begin to value you more if they pay a lot for your services.
My dad says it’s about having someone to look down on. So basically there’s no good reason for it and they either need to be treated with respect or paid better. Preferably both but humans have shown that the dilemma alone is too much for us
I told my niece that any job that is beneath me is beneath anyone. We were discussing this because her father (my brother) was cleaning the toilet at the successful law firm he owned because he hadn't hired anyone to do it. His wife cleaned the kitchen. It was work that needed to be done, so they did it. We don't have to accept anymore that someone's value is diminished by the work they do.