There is no part of this diatribe that is not amazing or 100% true.
my brother works at a sears and regularly pulls 12 to 14 hour days. he’s exhausted CONSTANTLY. just last week they told him to take an hour lunch break so that he wouldn’t go above 40 hours and 45 minutes, because it’s apparently only when he hits 41 hours that they owe him benefits
minimum wage customer service jobs are exploitative and infinitely harder than any office job could ever dream of being.
I work at a craft store in texas and Homecoming starts our hell season. We keep one floor person on the homecoming section the entire time because there are so many people who are completely lost in everything or who trash the section. So my coworker was in homecoming, cleaning up carts worth of ribbons just thrown on the floor, and a lady comes up to her shoves a basket full of crap into her hands and says “Here you don’t look busy.”
My co-worker was almost in tears by the end of the day. It takes a full hour with 2 or more people cleaning to get that section looking nice again (and that’s 2 aisles of the store. There’s still another almost 100 aisles to recover.)
I’ve done both and can assure you customer service jobs both pay less and are frankly MUCH harder on a median day than that office job was on a crunch day.
Not to mention no benefits for when (not if) you need inserts or even surgery on your feet for the ridiculous always standing standard US businesses have. I was told my feet were basically trashed and to get inserts before it led to surgery being Required.
If you can, work at Aldi. Their prices are better, workers wages start at $11/hr and since it’s German owned the cashiers get to SIT which does not impede their work at all.
Wait, American cashiers don’t sit?
Nope
We don’t get to sit at all. Ever.
If you’re on cashier duty, you stand in the same place all day. If you’re on the floor, you’re usually either standing in the same place all day cleaning up the same mess over and over again (see the above story about the ribbon) or you’re sent running back and forth from one side of the store to the other for eight hours straight.
One time I worked for a company that only had one chair in the break room/office and the manager was always sitting in it, so when you finally got your precious ten minute break you couldn’t even sit then.
This abuse also holds true to other minimum wage positions in other industries as well. I worked as a production assistant (a “PA”) on various film sets here in Los Angeles for a while. PA’s are the entry level position. You make minimum wage, you do all the grunt work that the higher-ups don’t feel like doing. If someone has to stand a mile out in the desert holding a signal flag for twelve hours, it’s a PA they make do it. If someone has to dig a trench in the mud in the rain, it’s a PA they make do it.
The thing about the film industry is that there’s a lot of standing around doing nothing while shots are actually being filmed, though. And do those poor PA’s who just spent hours standing in the rain or the hot sun get to sit down during that time? Nope. They have to stand there, stock-still, not shuffling or making a sound while the “more important” crew (who have jobs one-tenth as hard) get to chill. If a PA sits, they’re fired.
Tl:dr. The US’ ultra-capitalist society thrives on exploiting the low-wage workers in all industries and punishing them when they show any sign of respect for themselves or their health. And because this system benefits our current societal system and we low wage workers need the jobs and can’t risk rocking the boat, the companies continue to do it unchecked.
Welcome to Chaos 