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kyburgAnd opportunity. Those two things go together to create Big Things like oil and vinegar makes good salad dressing. (To be certain, the opportunity is the vinegar...it comes along in very small amounts. Choice comes in many flavors, including rancid - and there's always more of it than opportunity.)
That said, here's a piece from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theferrett on how to treat people in the service industry. And why.
silverkun and I have have a running competition. Make someone's day. Doesn't take much - most of the time, a bright, cheery greeting and a smile does wonders. So many people behind the registers never get one of those. And really, it's free.
It has to start somewhere.
Had the conversation of the evening last night at Mom's house, over what you pay for someone to work for you. Mom, being the old school Republican, was a bit surprised when I told her that I intended for anyone working for me receive a reasonable wage for their time and effort - per hour. Yes, yes - you can buy a day laborer's time for a flat rate, per day; but I've never felt right doing it.
It smacks too much of desperation to me. Sorry folks - that's someone taking some money over no money, and that's no bargaining place.
I was also married to a fair man, and fair is all I intend to be. (Mind you, mess with me and you'll get the horns. Trust me.)
So if someone offered me a flat rate, I'd ask about if they had the right to work here (I do, when someone hires me, and I have to prove it), and if they provide insurance coverage for themselves and anyone who works for them, as well as liability coverage. My employer does. It's required by law.
It's not bad law.
But if you want the work done on the cheap, skip it. *wink wink* Pay the dumbass his daily rate, work him to death and consider him less human for it.
No, I won't do that.
Minimum wage here is $6.75 an hour. Alex got $7.00 an hour because I don't want to do the math. He worked seven hours for me over the weekend, and it was worth every cent. You ought to see the piles of weeds and crap being carted away. It multipled what Jim and I were able to do by 5, easy.
His mother thought I was going to give him $7 for the weekend. As if.
That's not fair..
Your time is all you have to sell, if you get down to it. If you devalue someone's time to the point of servitude, what have you done to your opinion of them? Think about it.
Ha, ha. Got away with it. Dumb "insert racial slur here" bastard. More for me!
Alex also got all the mud he could play in, fast food lunches and videogames with his uncle - and his mother could work the weekend without worrying. More than money and yardwork was exchanged, and as I said, it was good experience we'll probably repeat.
What your time is worth is not determined by how little someone can buy it for. And this is something Mom couldn't get around - not immediately.
I just had to say it. "Mom, it has to start somewhere."
Other people can take advantage - and it is taking advantage of someone less fortunate - but I don't have to. I don't have to stand on a soapbox and rail on the street corners. I just won't particpate in taking advantage of someone like that.
You deserve to be paid fairly. And minimum wage is a very political, but useable model to begin determining what that is. A living wage is fair, if you're trading a day of your life for it, isn't it?
(I complain to providers nearly daily about offshore call centers. Believe me. That's what I can do about that, today.)
It has to start somewhere. Recognition that your job has value - to me, the person you are serving in line at the cash register. Respect for the fact that you have spent a day of your life here doing these tasks, a day you will never get back to do the things for your family or yourself. Acknowledging that you are a human being just like me, with the same value and potentials as the next guy.
And smile. Make eye contact. And try to make them smile back.
It has to start somewhere. It doesn't have to be big.
Just...that little push to make it right. That's all it takes. And remember to value. You may not always get it back, but it has to start somewhere.
And there are things I just don't have to perpetuate. Not my job.
That said, here's a piece from
theferrett on how to treat people in the service industry. And why.silverkun and I have have a running competition. Make someone's day. Doesn't take much - most of the time, a bright, cheery greeting and a smile does wonders. So many people behind the registers never get one of those. And really, it's free.It has to start somewhere.
Had the conversation of the evening last night at Mom's house, over what you pay for someone to work for you. Mom, being the old school Republican, was a bit surprised when I told her that I intended for anyone working for me receive a reasonable wage for their time and effort - per hour. Yes, yes - you can buy a day laborer's time for a flat rate, per day; but I've never felt right doing it.
It smacks too much of desperation to me. Sorry folks - that's someone taking some money over no money, and that's no bargaining place.
I was also married to a fair man, and fair is all I intend to be. (Mind you, mess with me and you'll get the horns. Trust me.)
So if someone offered me a flat rate, I'd ask about if they had the right to work here (I do, when someone hires me, and I have to prove it), and if they provide insurance coverage for themselves and anyone who works for them, as well as liability coverage. My employer does. It's required by law.
It's not bad law.
But if you want the work done on the cheap, skip it. *wink wink* Pay the dumbass his daily rate, work him to death and consider him less human for it.
No, I won't do that.
Minimum wage here is $6.75 an hour. Alex got $7.00 an hour because I don't want to do the math. He worked seven hours for me over the weekend, and it was worth every cent. You ought to see the piles of weeds and crap being carted away. It multipled what Jim and I were able to do by 5, easy.
His mother thought I was going to give him $7 for the weekend. As if.
That's not fair..
Your time is all you have to sell, if you get down to it. If you devalue someone's time to the point of servitude, what have you done to your opinion of them? Think about it.
Ha, ha. Got away with it. Dumb "insert racial slur here" bastard. More for me!
Alex also got all the mud he could play in, fast food lunches and videogames with his uncle - and his mother could work the weekend without worrying. More than money and yardwork was exchanged, and as I said, it was good experience we'll probably repeat.
What your time is worth is not determined by how little someone can buy it for. And this is something Mom couldn't get around - not immediately.
I just had to say it. "Mom, it has to start somewhere."
Other people can take advantage - and it is taking advantage of someone less fortunate - but I don't have to. I don't have to stand on a soapbox and rail on the street corners. I just won't particpate in taking advantage of someone like that.
You deserve to be paid fairly. And minimum wage is a very political, but useable model to begin determining what that is. A living wage is fair, if you're trading a day of your life for it, isn't it?
(I complain to providers nearly daily about offshore call centers. Believe me. That's what I can do about that, today.)
It has to start somewhere. Recognition that your job has value - to me, the person you are serving in line at the cash register. Respect for the fact that you have spent a day of your life here doing these tasks, a day you will never get back to do the things for your family or yourself. Acknowledging that you are a human being just like me, with the same value and potentials as the next guy.
And smile. Make eye contact. And try to make them smile back.
It has to start somewhere. It doesn't have to be big.
Just...that little push to make it right. That's all it takes. And remember to value. You may not always get it back, but it has to start somewhere.
And there are things I just don't have to perpetuate. Not my job.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-09-26 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-27 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-27 02:08 am (UTC)You're a mensch for paying by the hour, and offering dignity along with a living wage.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-27 02:34 am (UTC)Most people paid their field workers forty-five cents a day...which was starvation wages even with Depression prices...and expected them to bring their own food from home. What you can carry is not a decent meal for someone who has been working out in the field all day. And most of them lived in tumble-down shacks. And since this was thirty years before the civil rights movement, and most farm hands in the South were black...it's not like they could find a better deal. A lot of people, white or black, didn't make it back then. A lot of children starved or died because their parents couldn't afford a doctor. A very small margin stood between life and death for many, many people.
My grandfather paid seventy-five cents a day, my grandmother fed the people who worked for them a home-cooked meal at her own table, and my grandfather helped them build a sturdy, solid home.
Some forty years later, that family's children still kept in contact with my grandmother. They sent her pictures when their children graduated from college.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-27 05:30 pm (UTC)But I'd also bet he died a very rich man in friends and family!
Pity that's not worth much to these "pro-life" people.
I Work for Tech Support and Technical Training
Date: 2005-09-27 09:18 pm (UTC)-R
Re: I Work for Tech Support and Technical Training
Date: 2005-09-27 09:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 12:42 am (UTC)Okay, I can dream, can't I?
Beautifully written, though.