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Iamaparakeet
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22 Mar 2015, 5:33 am

Instead, we're equals. I see a major problem in people, and animals, being used as mere resources. Animals being valued for their bodies rather than as friends to care for and humans being used as robots and treated by various degrees according to how much green paper they can collect per year. That's not right. When some work almost without rest and barely get paid enough to survive, they are getting paid less than they earn. Likewise, when people stand around and do nothing and yet get paid, they are getting paid more than they're earning.

I've worked with managers who actually work and I've worked for managers who break their own rules constantly and almost never work and yet get paid. Rank and type of job certainly don't determine the behavior of those therein (I've seen plenty of "workers" whom also do not work, and had to pick up their slack while they stand around and do absolutely nothing), but for the ones who do nothing of any rank they should really be paid the same.

Pay rates, how vastly different they are, are annoying also. When a worker is running around like a madman trying their best to keep up with multiple plastic part pooping machines and you have a supervisor standing, eating and drinking on the production floor, casually chatting with the plant manager about how much lettuce they're raking in and they're getting paid $60/hr apiece while the person working without rest for numerous weeks in a row is getting paid $10/hr, I think that isn't right.


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LoveNotHate
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22 Mar 2015, 5:48 am

-Once my immediate supervisor told me I was doing "A+" work, however, he told me he would like to see me at a "B-". He said I would enjoy the job more, and I could use the "freed up time" to collect overtime.

-A friend told me that out of college he got a job in a factory, and he worked very, very hard to prove to others he was a valuable worker. One night, a few of the workers pulled him aside and told him to slow down, because he was making the others look bad.

In these instances, the workers found ways to lessen the work they do. Does that not happen where you work ?



Last edited by LoveNotHate on 22 Mar 2015, 5:57 am, edited 2 times in total.

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22 Mar 2015, 5:54 am

Everything lamaparakeet says here rings true: many of us have witnessed similar situations to those you describe, and yet still it goes on. Human beings, indeed all living things, are increasingly treated as resources to which a certain value or productivity is assigned, and when they cease to perform their function in a cost-effective way they are scrapped. One of the most alarming examples of this is the treatment of the world's increasing number of old people. Several countries have introduced laws permitting euthanasia, and despite so-called safeguards there are already signs that the elderly, along with others who have outlived their usefulness, will be either given lethal injections or pressurised into committing assisted suicide in order to save the system money and effort. This will clearly have a significant impact upon people on the spectrum.
Nazi Germany had such a policy, and they are universally vilified - and yet here we are, heading towards a similar system.



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22 Mar 2015, 6:09 am

People aren’t resources? Tell that to a lion.


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naturalplastic
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22 Mar 2015, 8:10 am

Spiderpig wrote:
People aren’t resources? Tell that to a lion.


A lion?


Try telling it to the "Human Resources Department" of your employer!



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22 Mar 2015, 8:17 am

If you own the company, everyone who works for you is a resource.

If you don't want to be a resource, then either own the company or quit your job.



Iamaparakeet
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23 Mar 2015, 1:49 am

LoveNotHate wrote:
-Once my immediate supervisor told me I was doing "A+" work, however, he told me he would like to see me at a "B-". He said I would enjoy the job more, and I could use the "freed up time" to collect overtime.

-A friend told me that out of college he got a job in a factory, and he worked very, very hard to prove to others he was a valuable worker. One night, a few of the workers pulled him aside and told him to slow down, because he was making the others look bad.

In these instances, the workers found ways to lessen the work they do. Does that not happen where you work ?


Often the lazy workers would say stuff like that, but I can't abide laziness.


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LoveNotHate
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23 Mar 2015, 7:09 am

Iamaparakeet wrote:
Often the lazy workers would say stuff like that, but I can't abide laziness.


Oh. I misinterpreted what you wrote. I thought you wanted to be able to screw off like the supervisors.

Maybe the managers are "on call" and do work only when needed. For example, I had a relative that was a "tool maker" at a factory. His job was to make tools for machines if they broke. Most of the time he sat and read the newspaper because the machines were working.

Nothing wrong with employers paying people a lot of money for doing nothing, right ?



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23 Mar 2015, 7:20 am

Iamaparakeet wrote:
Instead, we're equals. I see a major problem in people, and animals, being used as mere resources. Animals being valued for their bodies rather than as friends to care for and humans being used as robots and treated by various degrees according to how much green paper they can collect per year. That's not right. When some work almost without rest and barely get paid enough to survive, they are getting paid less than they earn. Likewise, when people stand around and do nothing and yet get paid, they are getting paid more than they're earning.

I've worked with managers who actually work and I've worked for managers who break their own rules constantly and almost never work and yet get paid. Rank and type of job certainly don't determine the behavior of those therein (I've seen plenty of "workers" whom also do not work, and had to pick up their slack while they stand around and do absolutely nothing), but for the ones who do nothing of any rank they should really be paid the same.

Pay rates, how vastly different they are, are annoying also. When a worker is running around like a madman trying their best to keep up with multiple plastic part pooping machines and you have a supervisor standing, eating and drinking on the production floor, casually chatting with the plant manager about how much lettuce they're raking in and they're getting paid $60/hr apiece while the person working without rest for numerous weeks in a row is getting paid $10/hr, I think that isn't right.


Although your post is titled 'people aren't resources', the actual body of the post accepts that people are indeed resources but says that these resources aren't valued correctly. Your complaint is that sometimes the manager resources are not contributing as much as the worker resources yet are getting paid more. Yes. Sometimes this is true.

If you didn't accept that people at work are resources, then it wouldn't matter that some contribute more while getting paid less because the contributions would be irrelevent to worth,



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23 Mar 2015, 7:35 am

LoveNotHate wrote:
Maybe the managers are "on call" and do work only when needed. For example, I had a relative that was a "tool maker" at a factory. His job was to make tools for machines if they broke. Most of the time he sat and read the newspaper because the machines were working.

Nothing wrong with employers paying people a lot of money for doing nothing, right ?


It's the employer's money. They can spend it how they want. But I seriously doubt they want to spend a lot of money for little return. They want value for the money spent. So if you see somebody who is apparently getting a lot of money for doing nothing then:
A)the employer is unaware of the situation
or
B)you are making incorrect assumptions about the pay/work ratio based on the incomplete information of just watching somebody

(A) or (B) will be true in different situations. Sometimes people screw off and never get caught. Sometimes people add more value than you can understand just by watching them.

Maybe the tool maker is supposed to be doing other things in between tool making jobs instead of reading the paper and his employer hasn't yet realized that he is isn't. Maybe the tool maker has an expensive skill that others have screwed up and the employer is willing to accept some paper reading in exchange for higher quality tool making than they could get from somebody else. Maybe the tool maker gets paid as intermittently as he works and when you thibnk he's getting paid to read the paper he's only getting an 'on call' lower rate to keep him there and he only gets the bigger money per broken tool. Various scenarios are possible. You just can't tell by looking.



LoveNotHate
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23 Mar 2015, 9:18 am

Janissy wrote:
It's the employer's money. They can spend it how they want. But I seriously doubt they want to spend a lot of money for little return.


Having an expert "on call" that can fix something when it breaks has value. The entire factory may shutdown if these experts are not available to fix stuff.

And they should be available, and not off doing something else. They should be sitting right there, ready to go to work if needed.

Janissy wrote:

Maybe the tool maker is supposed to be doing other things in between tool making jobs instead of reading the paper and his employer hasn't yet realized that he is isn't.


At many employers, it doesn't work like that. You are not given "busy work" just because you are not working.

Where I work, for example, we hire people who have a PHD in electrical engineering, and people with a B.S. in electrical engineering , and both are expected to perform at the same level.

If the person with a PHD degree can do the work in 1/2 the time, then he does not have to do "busy work" because is better skilled. He just gets that time off.



techstepgenr8tion
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23 Mar 2015, 2:41 pm

IMHO its both at the same time.

On one hand if we have an economy of any sort with trade we're in a situation where that system is there to serve the people, but in order for it to be there in any meaningful or functional sense the people need to serve it.

The troubles and woes seem to come in when there's a significant mismatch between the economy and what people have. I was over my relatives place yesterday talking about what it takes for a single person these days to live - responsibly - if they're moderately active, own a vehicle, and have at least an apartment if not a small mortgage somewhere, I was saying at least $20 per hr to break even, $22 to $25 an hour for breathing room - they suggested $25 per hour minimum (this is all assuming a 40 hr work week).

The problem we have in our economies in the west, as far as I can tell, is that you can't have a home or apartment in a safe neighborhood and have money for food, and cover your health insurance, and cover everything else on the kinds of income available to most people. If I find myself able to make $25 per hour or more I'm in a position where I've gone to college, if it means anything my IQ is in the gifted range - ie. even with Asperger's I'm in the above-normal functioning group and I've had to fall back on living with my parents so many times in my adult life as a stop gap that I can't imagine where I'd be if they weren't here or if I had a terrible relationship with them. I try to also think, given all of that, what the true center-of-bellcurve person can do to live without government assistance and it really concerns me.

My conclusion is that we're in a system that's hybrid between capitalistic and socialistic concepts but we seem to go about it in such a way that we're constantly sabotaging the capitalistic end of it and the socialistic end isn't figured out realistically enough to replace it. It puts us in a no-mans-land where capitalism as a wellfare system (which it really is when you consider it) gets stubbed in its functioning too much to provide as such, we build huge bureaucracies hoping to stimulate spending but unfortunately government is much more in the category of 'overhead' than producing anything, and rather than just getting the legislations right and only tinkering when we need to we have this habit of fixing it till its broke or even breaking it to fix it and blaming it on the other party either which way to score media points.

A third point - human resource is cultivated and if the cultivation, ie. school systems and positive cultural pressure toward civic responsibility, aren't there you'll have a situation where companies won't have much to choose from.

My biggest concern - when a system can't pay for itself it's simply not going to last. My hope is that none of this blows up Wiemar style when that time comes, which I'm starting to worry could be within ten or twenty years.


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30 Mar 2015, 8:22 am

naturalplastic wrote:
A lion?


Try telling it to the "Human Resources Department" of your employer!


Well, to a lion, people are food.


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30 Mar 2015, 5:15 pm

Keet, you are describing the natural state of capitalism. I saw a recent report showing that 1% of the worlds population had accrued the combined wealth of the other 99%. But how are we going to change it? I have long since given up any chance of genuine democracy in the form of Marxism as wishful fantasy. From crying out loud we cant get people to accept well founded scientific principles, how the heck are we going to get people to agree to look out for each other and give "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"

The GFC was a golden opportunity for financier's to appropriate wealth at the expense of a rapidly growing majority, and they took it with with open arms.
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The tables above come from a 2014 OXFAM REPORT in the Guardian

Here is the latest report one year on 2015 Oxfam

The only thing that will stop this is a turn away from capitalism, but this it would appear, will never happen, and I am saddened to say that I do not think humanity has the wisdom and empathy to carry out the ideals of Marx. What is more likely to happen as the tensions between nation states and global business increase, and the US continues to fail and India and China continue to grow. The formation of alliances and treaties will increase until we reach the powder keg situation that set off WW1.


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30 Mar 2015, 5:41 pm

As soon as everyone agrees, quality over quantity, you will see an end to people being treated as expendables and it's easy to see why. There simply won't be enough of us to squander our lives. Each one of us will have intrinsic value in the eyes of others because there won't be any replacements.

People tend to waste whatever exists in great quantities. Their minds are tricked into thinking, if there are many, they are infinite, so it doesn't matter what I do with what I have, I can always find more.

Anything that's rare is revered by humans because they fear they will simply disappear.

The logic is obvious. If you want humans to value humans, you must limit how many humans are in existence.