My thing is I don’t want to be on top. I want to live in a society where I can be on the bottom and have a good life.
I, too, wish I could be society’s bottom…
well I said can be at the bottom. Its polite to take turns.
I’m a software developer. My old roomie is a truck driver. I’m devastated he makes almost as much as I do.
He has to drive a truck 5 days a week the entire year, no matter the weather. He deals with accidents, annoying customers, breakdowns, tight spaces, heavy goods. Workdays often drag out, and sometimes he didn’t manage to get home and had to sleep in the truck or at a motel. People are dependant on his work, if his truck doesn’t arrive, a store might not get food, and the attached community will suffer. He takes half an hour to commute to work.
I work from home. I have a few set meetings daily, but I schedule my time on my own. Three times a week I take some extra time to go for a run through the forest with my dog. I’m safe, my bed is always nearby. My commute is the thirty seconds it takes to crawl into clothes and to my office. If I miss my work we at worst have to delay a product launch by a little.
I’m happy with my pay, no doubt, and I wouldn’t want a pay cut. My friend deserves much more though. It’s bananas to me that he doesn’t catch up with me despite all the overtime and such. It’s incredibly unfair.
Might want to edit your first line, where you say you’re devastated that a trucker gets paid almost as much as a software dev. You resolve this as you go on, but I’m surprised you’re not getting more kneejerk douchevotes from people who scan the first line and just infer the rest in the most negative way possible.
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The health benefits and insurance can be sig ificant portion of pay. The min wage burger flippers likely dont get that, even with laws increasing min wage.
Yeah in decent countries the min wage and being able to afford a broken leg (or similar accident) aren’t as closely related. Mean maybe only got so many sick / vacation days but the actual cost of treatment isn’t what you’re worried about. At worse you’d be out the money you’d make during non working days, not much of an actual cost (okay in Canada I had to pay for the crutches when I twisted my knee one close to Xmas time slipping on ice, unfortunately didn’t realize it just needed a good knock in to get right till that happened)
There are worse situations but that’s probably the worst case scenario (well outlying cases exist) that most people come into for the most part is all. Of course some worst cases exist but expecting someone to pay 5 plus digits (okay I know that’s even low) of expenses for medical is insane.
In some countries there is workers compensation to cover accidents that happen on the job like breaking a leg. Then the cost of treatment is covered by the healthcare system a person has already paid into their whole life through taxes.
No work is less valuable than others.
all work is equal
i mean i really believe that in general, but some people really do provide unique services. it’s hard to reconcile the two concepts especially because people are allowed their contradictions so whatever
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all work is equal
It isn’t.
What work isn’t equal to others?
The unnecessary one.
If you want them to flip burgers for you, pay them what you’d want to make flipping burgers for them.
And I’ll even say, I don’t want to flip burgers. The thing I want to do most is my job, and other people can do other jobs. I feel like there’s always this fear, oh, who will do the skilled/educated jobs! Like, smart folks will not suddenly be like “Eh, I don’t want to be a doctor anymore because people can survive on flipping burgers.”
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And I wouldn’t bother being power line engineer if I could just flip burgers for the same wage
The downvotes lol. You have to play along with the anarchist fantasy of “actually people would do 24 hour storm response shifts in one of the deadliest professions purely for love of the game, they definitely don’t tolerate the danger and [uncontrollable weather related] working conditions because of the compensation”
I have the radical belief that if you sacrifice more for society you should receive more from society in return. idk maybe the people spending 24 hour shifts doing dangerous storm response calls hundreds of miles away from their families should get to go back to a nicer house than somebody who just stocks shelves 40 hours a week.
*oh gross theyre an anti-leftist lib. I take back the expression of sympathy.
The downvotes lol.
Leftists/commies have no argument here so they can only resort to angry downvotes and maybe false reports.
I actually think that might be a good thing. I’d still chose to be an engineer in that scenario. Something that’s bothered me for a while are people in professions because they pay well not because they are good at them or enjoy them. I don’t blame the person, they are just trying to support themselves and their family in this one life they have to live. I’m bothered by the system that forces them to make that decision.
What if you don’t have enough engineers to do crucial work? What people want to do in general doesn’t have to be aligned with what is needed. Financial incentives are there to reward people for picking career path that is needed. If every wage is the same you have no incentives and you’ll get misalignment.
So… Putting in effort to advance yourself should not be rewarded? I don’t get it.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
It does. It also lifts all the turds.
You know how to make them boats get lifted even quicker? Join the tide. Invest in yourself. Make yourself better.
