Is the OP not obvious sarcasm? In what world is packing boxes skilled labour when flipping burgers isn’t?
I don’t think it’s too unusual for people to think of their own jobs as super important and complicated and everything else is just simple shit in comparison. Watching someone do something they are trained at (because they do it day-in-day-out) often looks simple … until the moment you try it yourself and realize the amount of concentration you suddenly need and the many questions that pop up for details you didn’t even notice before.
It’s a form of short-sightedness and/or lack of experience. But not uncommon.
It might be a side effect that we are all well of aware of the smallest of details and hidden complexity of what we do as a job/serious-hobby, whilst having a very high level and ultra shallow idea of everything else, hence tending to think about other people’s job that “I could easilly learn do that”.
I’ve learned a number of expert areas over the years in my career and it’s always that which happens for me: I start with the idea that “it should be easy” and about 2 years later I’m keenly aware on just how little I still know about it. Even after being aware of this effect, I still start by significiantly underestimating the true complexity of any new area I’m learning.
It’s the same “underestimating of the complexity of what we don’t know in depth” that’s behind the Dunning-Krugger Effect IMHO.
It’s either joke or astroturf attempt to divide.
Op is high. Both are entry level jobs. Nothing skilled about it.
There’s no such thing as unskilled labour.
I think it’s a straightforward categorization. If it’s a skill you could pick up as a toddler or young child (packing a box and matching shapes, flipping things, moving things around, bagging things) and doesn’t require further education or training (as in, literally anyone you meet on the street could do it), or something extremely simple to automate away with a script, I think it’s reasonable to call it unskilled.
The term was pushes by the owners to justify low pay. A toddler can’t be a fry cook or work in a packing center. Is someone who’s done it for a year likely to be better at it then someone who started yesterday? Then fuck off with this working class division bullshit.
I didn’t mention fry cooks or anything of that nature. I think I was pretty clear with my criteria of what I consider unskilled.
For example, I wouldn’t call grocery bagging or cart collecting “skilled labor” in any way. And there are people working at stores who exclusively do those jobs.
Packing center… depends on what the role entails, I suppose. If you’re just packing boxes and taping them shut to prep for shipping, I don’t think I’d consider that a skill. Especially considering the state of most packages I receive from Amazon.
Hey, I think your categorisation is just plain wrong in the first place - skilled labour is any job you need a recognised qualification, like a high school/college degree, or a third party certification, to be considered for. Unskilled labour are the jobs you don’t need that for. In that line, packing boxes and cooking burgers are both unskilled. So are sales jobs, except there are sales jobs that are also skilled labour - you need an MBA and/or a license to trade stocks for other people (I think(?))
Especially considering the state of most packages I receive from Amazon.
In other words it’s a job that could be done better… Maybe the people doing it could be more skilled.
You’re barfing up the absolute bullshit that’s used to justify not paying people enough to survive, and to keep people who work for a living at each others’ throats. Stop trying to find the thin dividing line that makes you superior to someone who works hard all day putting things in boxes.
Stop trying to find the thin dividing line that makes you superior to someone who works hard all day putting things in boxes.
I’ve spent over 15 years in IT building my skill set, moving into virtualization and automation, and still continue learning new things and becoming certified for new skills every few years.
I won’t apologize for thinking my skill set is more valuable than that of putting things in boxes.
It’s not an idea of superiority, as you put it, and more just a focus on personal growth and effort to continue educating myself and learning new things independently of any school, university, or job training.
I’ve done physical labor, worked groundskeeping, retail, food services, etc. in the past. Many roles of that nature have a low skill ceiling and are eventually dead ends unless you can somehow transfer to a role in management or other leadership position that would be transferable for more pay and training opportunities.
“Skilled labor” lmao.
Beat me to it, that’s like saying my washing dishes and talking to old people for a living is skilled labor
I mean, isn’t it? There’s a reason we have TV shows where we record the CEO fucking up doing the “least skilled” jobs in their organization. It’s easy to film because there’s always another dumbass CEO who doesn’t know what they’re in for.
I work a job where I get to interact with everyone else’s jobs, and I haven’t run into a single one that I could confidently call “unskilled”.
People have been taught to punch down, when they should be punching up.
Packing a box is skilled labor?
Technically neither are since they don’t require a recognised qualification to be eligible to apply.
I mean… Just as logically though, they both are… Any shit takes practice to get good at really.
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McDonald’s definitely don’t care if their employees are effective or not. And they don’t reward effectiveness so what’s the point in trying.
If McDonalds didn’t care about effectiveness they wouldn’t be a household name, let alone an international corporation. People talk down about fast food, but it isn’t their business strategies that are bad.
I think the problem is that people don’t get paid enough to care anymore. Not even the managers. There’s too much wealth hoarding at the top in the US.
That’s not what the term means though. These are actual, real terms, that denote the amount of qualification needed to do a job.
Oh just wait. We’re getting closer and closer to “graduate degree minimum requirement for all janitorial positions…”
No, that’s why temping agencies easily fill warehouse positions
Lol
All labour is skilled labor. Unskilled labour was created by capitalists as a flimsy justification for paying people unlivable wages. ANY labour deserves a livable wage. Needing a second job is an injustice.
Now that being said, packing boxes for Amazon is 100% unskilled labour. A machine spits out the box template sheet with creases where the cardboard sheet should be folded to turn it into a box within seconds. Another machine prints the receipt that goes inside, and Another machine spits out an appropriate amount of packing to make sure the product stays in place inside the box. Another machine spits out a calculated amount of tape. Another machine spits out the info sticker that needs to be stuck on the outside. Does this need a lot of skill or training? I don’t think so, no.
my thoughts too
Does packing boxes really count as skilled labor? I would have assumed it would be unskilled labor just like the burger flipper.
That’s the big lie the right wants you to believe; there’s no such thing as unskilled labor. You have to learn every job you start. Flipping burgers, packing boxes, cleaning, washing dishes, etc all have a learning curve. There is no job you can walk in off the street and start doing without previous knowledge.
As a former warehouse worker and shipping clerk, it is 100% unskilled labor. We would sometimes hire temp workers for really busy periods, and it would take about 30 minutes to train them.
Listen bud. Labor is labor. All of it takes some skill. You still had to “train” or teach a skill to the one performing the labor.
Yeah, and as someone who works in QA for a carrier repacking some of those boxes I can tell. Shippers really don’t seem to care that their packages don’t even make it to the shipping phase, let alone through our damn building.
The most “unskilled” people I have met have been white collar yuppies. This whole “skilled” and “unskilled” terminology is a scam
It’s not though, even if it’s misused sometimes( like in the OP)
I like where he draws the line on what skilled labor is.
Yeah, why the heck would packing boxes be more skilled than cooking? I view them pretty comparable in my mind. Though cooking is one where if you do it wrong, people can get sick or die.
And with all due respect to Amazon employees, I’ve seen firsthand the packaging Amazon does. They love to use hilariously oversized boxes for a single item and also love to ship multiple items I bought in separate boxes despite them being shipped and arriving at the same time. They’re not exactly master packagers.
I think he meant unskilled labor but doesn’t know it. Mindless labor. Still labor. And nobody deserves 150k/m off the backs of unskilled labor, that’s just slave wages with inflation.
i think with the box sizes they don’t pick it but the system does.
He draws it right “below” himself as is custom with that kind of mindset
skilled labor is capitalist propaganda to keep wages low
The reason this person is only making $16 dollars an hour is because they …. Checks notes
Think packing boxes is ‘skilled labor’
I don’t care what they think is skilled or unskilled. Everyone who does honest work deserves a living wage.
Every job can be done well or badly.
You think 2/3 of the country get paid shit because they’re bad at their jobs?
No I mean every job requires skill and therefore they’re skilled labor.
How much would you pay a teenager to cut your lawn for the summer? $50k?
People who mow lawns for a living don’t tend to only handle one clients lawn… This is a bit silly.
There is no such thing as unskilled labour
I suggest you take some time to educate yourself on the terms of the discussion
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/skilled-labor
Skill: the ability to do something well.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/unskilled-labor.asp
Someone working in a low wage position or position that does not require higher education does not mean that their labour is unskilled. If you are upset that someone in an “unskilled labour” position getting a living wage would mean that they make more than you do in a “skilled” position, it doesn’t mean that theyre being paid too much for their labour… It means your labour is also being undervalued.
Stop falling into the trap of shaming your fellow man for wanting to be able to live.
I don’t care what anyone else makes, but don’t confuse the definition for the term that you made up in your head about what you want it to mean with what the term actually means.
I don’t know why you people are so obsessed with changing the language. What’s the difference between unskilled labor and low wage labor? It’s describing the same thing.
Changing the terms doesn’t change the reality.
For reference, I didn’t make up any definitions, terms or anything else. The definition of skill I provided is from Oxford dictionary. The concept of “low-wage labour” that investopedia proposes has roots in Marx’s writings circa 1877. Call it what you want to call it, define it how you want to define it. Stop using it as an excuse to pay people unlivable wages.
Who is “you people” by the way, I’m always curious what group I’m being put into when the group isn’t named.
And for what it’s worth, changing terms doesn’t change the reality, but understanding of reality can necessitate changing the terms. Re: Carlin, yes it seems soft that the brutalistic name of “shell shock” was eventually softened to “post traumatic stress disorder” because we finally understood the condition better. Carlin’s suggesting that the change to PTSD was anything other than a rebranding of accuracy is a misunderstanding of the condition at best and disingenuous at worst. I love Carlin but he wasn’t some all knowing God-King.
We aren’t defining ‘skill’ we are defining ‘skilled labor’ and ‘unskilled labor’. Different terms.
I’m not going to use communist ‘Marxist’ language, why would I do that?
‘You people’ are the communists.
Your explaination of the change in language totally misses the point. The language, whatever that may be, does not change the condition. No matter what. We are still talking about the exact same condition, what we call it means very little.
Same with labor. Skilled labor is a very specific term, as is unskilled labor. Your issue seems to be that you’re offended by the use of ‘unskilled’, in this context it has a specific meaning that is not what you’re attributing to it IE ‘requiring no skill’.
Also, “skilled labour”?
Amazon treat warehouse staff like shit specifically because you ain’t. You will be replaced in a second.
Minimum wage is what most people will be on unless they’ve got something to offer other than desperation to survive.
All these people deserve to make more money.
AND, at the same time
Packing boxes is not skilled labor. It’s not like that shit requires two years of trade school.
Everyone working a job full time deserves a living wage. That payment needs to be equivalent to whatever the cost of living is in their area.
It’s no secret that wages have been stagnating and the top level employees, investors, and CEOs have been benefiting.
We really need wealth equally, or at least something more equal than we have now.
Eat the rich, you say?
Yes!
This whole living wage thing is starting to sound communist. Maybe instead we’d better skip the fuss and just give everyone the food, shelter, clothing, and base amenities needed to survive as a fundamental human right, and not worry about payment. That’ll show those fucking lefties all obsessed with minimum wage increases!
Look, despite all the data to the contrary, civilization is best suited to a few very rich people and the unequal distribution of wealth.
Even better if the workers fight each other.
/s
Why eliminate poverty when you can just eliminate the impoverished?
Then who will you look down on? When you life is nothing but frenemies you’re in competition, when you have some reminder of the things you did to the world over money that means less than video game points, when you realize the people who cheer you actually are just cheering for the company you bought and the people you squeeze dry and discard. When you accidentally see a post from a hater and realize not only do they have a point, they also know you better than your fans.
In the quiet moments, when feelings of emptiness and anger at the world you played an active role ruining, you get to look down on them.
You must be living a great life, because just watch how they put on a smile and dance not because you’ll pay well (you won’t), but out of fear that your mild annoyance could wreck their life. That the kids you forced them to have could be taken because they’re already on the brink of homelessness, and they need this job. The fear that just for funsies, you might make a few calls and have their life methodically torn apart.
And that’s why they won’t try to kill us. We keep their little dominance games less adversarial. We’re not the game pieces, we’re the board - and if the board shrinks there’s a chance of actually losing the game.
We make them feel powerful and superior, because here’s the thing - no one who has a billion dollars and keeps actively working to make more is doing it because they’re happy - at that level they’re not even doing it because they like the game - millionaires might enjoy it, but it’s like playing poker with a 5¢ buy in - they’d be building something for free if it was about building things or making deals - they’ve already maxed out how lavish a life can be
No, they’re doing it for respect from their peers. Because they think it’ll make them respected by the people they respect, but it won’t. But they were raised to believe money was worth, because what’s the alternative - to recognize you deserve none of it?
No, the truth is, this world sucks for everyone. Some people find joy anyways, but most of us just have varying degrees of mental illness
Why does everybody need to keep checking their notes?
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Checks notes… We don’t know.
I can’t read anything after I see “checks notes” or “chefs kiss” anymore.
First repost I’ve seen on Lemmy
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one small step for man, one giant leap for
mankindlemmies … or what they like to call themselvesI like lemmings. It’s a bit follow-the-crowd for my taste, but I like this crowd.
Don’t you mean “we”, since you are here too 😄
Fr tho, Jeffry has $150b in net worth at 59 yo. 150b/59years/12months/4weeks/5workdays/8hours = $1,324,152.54/hour
Keep in mind, that’s assuming he worked every workday since he was born. Absolutely ridiculous.
