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The bleeding hearts and the professionally entitled will always claim they are worth more.
The rest of us normal folks, (you know those who have worked for what we have) well, we know that to be worth more you have to work for it. If you insist on working in retail then have some ambition, work towards promotion. Its no good standing around complaining about managers making the big bucks when you don't have the gumption to work for that yourself.
I worked retail for a time, started off as part time closer earning $10:30 an hour (this was in Alaska so starting wages are slightly above those in the lower 48). Within 6 months I had started management training I then earned $14.70/hr. With hard work within the next year I took a position of assistant section manager and was earning just short of $18.00/hr which at 45 hours a week works out at $42,000 a year which was a decent enough living wage.
Bottom line is, take responsibility for your own life, if you want more have some ambition ... work for it !!!!!
I actually thought my posting was rather clear, but I shall explain further.
The OP was making a rather hasty judgment, in my mind, based upon two incidences with service workers: one at Walmart, one at Hardees.The service the OP received was, he believed, not satisfactory (I shall ignore the possibility that he had, in fact, ordered chicken when he intended to order sausage).
“Why do they deserve a raise” indicates that the OP was maintaining that the workers he encountered that fateful morning do not ‘deserve’a raise in minimum wage (he did not specify $15 or any other figure) due to the poor service he said he received.
Of course, the OP was making a mistake that many fall into, especially here on CD: proclaiming that his two personal encounters represented the behavior of an entire class of several million people (here, minimum wage earners) and that decisions should be made on that person's unhappy transient experience.
Yet, if you look at the OP’s earlier postings (from 2012),he indicated that he was, at the least, sympathetic to the fact that the current minimum wage, or even wages higher than the minimum, were not sufficient for a single adult, much less a family. Since the OP is a young man (I assume so, since his postings indicate that he graduated from college in 2010) it may well be that in 2012 he had more recent experience working for the minimum wage, and hence more sympathetic.
Hence my question: if the OP’s encounters that fatefulmorning had been ‘positive’ would he then be creating a thread stating that ‘those people’ deserve a raise?
There are arguments to be made on raising the minimum wage, or keeping them the same (or even discarding the minimum). Such arguments should avoid being made on a personal, unsatisfactory, encounter with a single employee.
Some minimum wage employers are better than others. I've usually received better service at Chick-Fil-A than at Wally World. If someone is doing an excellent job at a rather menial task, you'd give them a raise. In any event, making biscuits at Hardee's or cutting meat in the deli is not a complicated job and you, as an employer, would not pay a lot for someone to do it because many people can do it - it's an easy to fill position.
I was in Kroger last weekend and the kid at the cash register (who looked 18-20) was complaining about his car's air conditioning being out and not being able to repair it because he doesn't make enough money working at Kroger. I wouldn't say that in casual conversation to a coworker, much less a customer. That lack of filter will cost the kid dearly unless he grows out of it as he ages.
The posts you reference are from my hometown, a downtrodden area in Appalachia, and many of the surrounding areas are substantially worse than my town. The thing is that no one who aspires to be anything stays in a dead area, and most who wanted to be something had already left. That's a structural problem with the region's economy, not any particular field being undeserving of a pay increase.
I went to Wal-Mart and Hardees this morning. I tried to get some deli meat at Wally World, and the clerk was very surly. Only one line was open, backed up with customers, and the cashier there was also very unfriendly. The Hardees was unclean and I ordered a chicken biscuit, and ended up with sausage. If these people can't do better than this, why do they deserve a raise?
Conservatives are a funny lot. They don't want the lower-end workers to make more but love to rail about how the poor are slipping farther behind in the age of Obama.
I was in Kroger last weekend and the kid at the cash register (who looked 18-20) was complaining about his car's air conditioning being out and not being able to repair it because he doesn't make enough money working at Kroger. I wouldn't say that in casual conversation to a coworker, much less a customer. That lack of filter will cost the kid dearly unless he grows out of it as he ages.
The number of younger associates who would complain about being 'stuck' in their job always surprised me. Complaining about wanting to go to college, wanting a different career but staying in their easy low paying jobs instead of looking for avenues to persue their chosen paths seemed to be an easy out.
I let rip on a couple of the younger guys, told them that the only person that can make a change was themselves. Both left their jobs and went on to train for their chosen professions, one as a nurse another in computers. Both thanked me for being mean and basically telling them to man up.
I also have to add, I just posted about my experience working in retail and gaining a management position, I did this at 46 years old so any excuse about being too old to me are invalid.
This is not the cashier fault, blame the manager or corporate which gives them specific instruction, trying to save money by not hiring more employees.
You're blaming the wrong people, the innocent one, can you blame their big boss for trying to work with less people, to get his own bonus increase by the end of the year ?
Yes and no. Long lines need more workers, yes. As far as cleaning goes, if you're not helping a customer, then you are supposed to be cleaning. At least that's the philosophy that used to be employed by retail and restaurant outlets. My experience (decades ago) in these industries was such that if a manager (or God forbid the owner/corporate folks) was around and you didn't have a cleaning cloth and some spray in your hand, you were in danger of being dismissed if you weren't helping a customer.
That's the way it should be. The dumbing down of America has probably wiped that "policy" from the books long ago, though.
Cutting back on staff wiped that "policy" from the book. I worked head office at a department store where employees would hide from customers. Their job was to stock shelves, and helping customers would get them in trouble for being behind schedule.
So, the question then becomes, do we give people jobs even if they are not high achievers educationally? Every retail business has to walk this fine line. While Wal-Mart may not have the personal touch of a mom-n-pop employer, there's still some nobility in the fact that the uneducated are offered an opportunity and the dignity of earning a wage.
Even taking work ethic and motivation out of the equation completely, half of Americans are going to be below average. "Average" IQ is between 93 and 100 (mean set at 100), which means that there are a whole lot of people out there who aren't that bright through no fault of their own. Some people with <100 IQs do get educated or trained and are able to make good livings, but even people who are of well above average intelligence with master's degrees and such are struggling today to find well paying jobs. Obviously IQ is not a be all, end all and strong work ethic, motivation, and educational support could push many people into better paying jobs - but those jobs don't exist in the quantity of the demand. And I don't think telling people who already struggle intellectually to start their own business is a sound prospect.
It used to be that slower relatives got decent paying jobs in manufacturing here in New England. They might never be management and their work might always be physical, but they could work their way up and have a career. Today, those jobs don't exist and there are fewer jobs available to people who are "slow" but not special needs. Now, those old shoe mills in my hometown are the homes of high end lofts, high tech companies, consulting firms, and colleges. The types of people who would have spent their careers in manufacturing are the people I see today in many big box stores - the "lifers" aren't generally people who were too lazy to improve themselves. For some, graduating to being able to man a cash register IS an improvement that took work.
I don't know what the answer is for those people, but it is a real issue. As our economy becomes more and more knowledge based, there are going to be people who lose out.
First of all, so what it's unlivable? Who says wage needs to be liveable?
Secondly, how is that unlivable?
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