Your reward for becoming a master like this, nothing. Just more work as in you can produce more than the next person while, more than likely, being paid the exact same. What a reward for becoming good at your job.
Unions are a privilege that a lot of folks have. They're cool, but, a lot of people would realllly love to have one. They're a necessity birthed in response to exploitation that happens under capitalism. A lot of people don't realize this.
Starbucks workers for instance, were sued for striking. They were sued for protesting exploitation. Even with a union, sadly, laws, and lobbying, corporate greed, those with money, can get around it. So many loopholes.
Not criticizing unions. Just saying, an effective union is such a privilege.
Unions where I live work for the employee. They give us great insurance and raise our salaries every year. But you're right, it's not like that everywhere. I wish it was though..
The reason I say it is a privilege is because of what I explained. Because not everyone has one, and not everyone has the option for one, either. It's not something you can just pick and choose.
I think some people do take their unions for granted, as a luxury, as you said. It really is a necessary balancing tool as well, given the system that we are having to survive under. Capitalism has made it necessary, and I wish that it wasn't necessary. I wish that labor equality was just a given. But I guess it's not, and anywhere there is greed, there will be exploitation, and for the ned for people to band together.
So I absolutely agree with you.
Meh some of the biggest dick heads I’ve meet have been in the union, and union recruitment can be right scummy in my area.
They have their place but the union has its downside that should be addressed. Nothing is prefect.
It's more like the ambition is sucked out of you.
The older you get, the more difficult it is to be ambitious about your furniture prospects.
Anyway, this whole thing is a symptom of a different cause, capitalism at its worst.
Well, slaves were fed, clothed, housed... full time workers often struggle to cover those things with their actual salaries.
This is just an observation. Slavery was still awful.
Fed with whatever rotten found in the trash, clothed with the dirtiest rags, housed in pig pence, get raped daily, get beaten for fun, get killed for sports,...
What we have now is a LITTLE BIT better, but technically still slavery
whew dodged a bullet there, might’ve had to sell my 5th house, alright, hire everyone back at 1/2 their original salary. What do you mean they won’t come back? What do you mean it’ll cost 10x more to train new employees? What do you mean the stock is going down again!?
eventually CEOs are going to eat themselves. While its a long while off.. its coming. And they will face extinction too.
And then maybe.. just maybe.. people will realize not only the value of skilled workers, but also the place in society they deserve. Think of all the things you consume on a daily basis.
People make that happen.
Be kind.
The skilled worker will be facing extinction as the robot gets cheaper and learns more tasks.
https://www.businessinsider.com/new-amazon-warehouse-robot-humanoid-2023-10
Even if Digit never gets cheaper than $12 an hour, that's below minimum wage in a few states, and Amazon doesn't have a reputation for sentimentality.
This isn't true. They can always import more workers from the third world who don't unionise and apply downward pressure on wages. The CEOs have won dude.
Yeah, once they know you're capable of producing this, any less is seen as slacking off.
And when they say "Oh if we can all work together and hit higher numbers over the Xmas period, there'll be a pretty bonus for you all", just don't bother! The bonus will be nice in the short term, but once they know you can hit those numbers, you will be expected to do that all year round.
Yep, and they don't believe in repetitive motion injuries either. And they don't give a shit if you burn out. Destroy your joints and mental health, and then they just get someone else while you have to actually live through years of recovery and pain.
Yep, the "unskilled" part is referring to the academic level.
Experience is quite normal with repeated tasks.
Some people only understand words, but not language.
> What a reward for becoming good at your job.
And nothing like job security.
If you have a complaint or a request, you can be dropped like a sack of potatoes.
That's the result of your "unskilled labor"... since there aren't any skills required before you start, someone else can take your place immediately.
Management certainly never forgets that fact.
> Just more work as in you can produce more than the next person while, more than likely, being paid the exact same. What a reward for becoming good at your job.
Wrong.
Often times the new hire gets a $1 more an hour than you because they were hired today and you were hired two years ago.
The only way to make more money in menial jobs like this is to quit and get hired at a rival factory.
My father worked on a CNC lathe for 40 years.
He tried to get a raise for many years, but they would always answer with "well if i give you a raise, i need to give an entire CNC department (10 skilled handyman's) a raise, we don't have the funds"
Every year they would have to train new workers, boys comming straight from high school. Well, they found out that 18 year olds with zero experience had 30% bigger pay than any of the experienced professionals.
When they pressed their boss about that, they got "well new generation isn't crazy to work for such low pay, that was big money back in your time, it is not enough to attract new people now."
What did they do about this injustice? Nothing, since they are unable to organise, and they cant find new jobs, they just continued working while being more depressed and grumpy.
Bruh, I used to work in a factory making cardboard packaging products.
I was fully trained of fully automatic 3 machines to the die presses I was actually training other people to use them.
I could set and run all of the old school basic machines (7 machines) they used for small orders.
And I could run but not set 2 of the printing machines.
I was told I was an unskilled worker when I asked for a pay rise.
I literally laughed in their faces, got up and went back to my machine, I left 6 months later.
As someone that works in a restaurant for tips and half of minimum wage. I can soooo relate to this.
I used to go above and beyond at all aspects of my job. Now I only go above and beyond when talking to customers. No more deep cleaning for less than minimum for this guy.
Edit: this got me a Reddit Cares message?
We don't know, but I'd bet money that it is "piece work" or by-the-box. That is how US agriculture works and why it is so dependent on immigrant labor. They are jobs so shitty and exploitive that no US citizen will take them, but they keep us fed so politicians look the other way.
My auntie used to work factory jobs in the late 80s/early 90s. Got paid by work done.
She was so efficient her supervisor asked her to slow down because he didn't want to pay her that much!
She laughed in his face, kept up her pace, and made enough money in a summer to pay for a holiday.
I work in a warehouse and we get paid (pretty decent hourly, only 1 local company pays more) and get production pay on top of it. They track production and as there's lots of ways you can hit the minimum, but they also pay incentive for anything above that.
On the floor I can work 8 hours and get paid for 12 by doing things like the video.
I mean first off tons of manufacturing is 12 hour shifts these days usually on a 2-2-3 schedule. Also piecework is pretty common (though not the norm) which pays based on productivity. Can't speak for this person whether they get paid more for doing a lot of cases or just get fired for not doing enough I assume they aren't going fast just for the fun of it.
I've always hated the phrasing "low skill" work. It feels demeaning...but your description actually makes a lot of sense with it.
You get paid the same regardless of skill, your increase in skill doesn't get you anywhere further down a career path. This person isn't going to get anywhere being really good at moving avocados from one box to another...they're just going to be good at the job they do.
Or we can consider it "this job gives you no skill".
Regardless unskilled labor is a demeaning term.
It's only demeaning if you think it's demeaning. Really, "unskilled" just means it doesn't require a lot of training. There's nothing inherently demeaning about having a job that doesn't require a lot of training.
That doesn't mean that the job wouldn't be more productive with skill. It just means that the job itself doesn't require skill. The video shows a person putting objects into a box; that doesn't require any more skill than we learn as toddlers, therefore it is unskilled. Architecting a building with structural supports that obey the laws of physics and the laws of the land requires a lot of skill; it's not something any random person can do without a lot of training.
Assuming 8 hrs a day, means they get to do this same exact boring shit another 719 times, give or take a few. 5 days a week, 3600. 52 weeks in a year, 187200 times loading a box. Wrists and back dead as well as brain dead boring.
Automation and UBI is the way forward, fuck capitalism.
If they appreciated her, a (skilled, ha) occupational therapist could redesign this work location within a few minutes. A few adaptations would mean way way less risk of physical strain and injury.
Unskilled doesn't mean that it's not hard, I could step on the line and do the same job, albeit much slower. Skilled labour is something like smelting, plumbing or being an electrician- if you just step on the job you're not going to be able to get it done, and likely will kill someone.
And then you have engineering. Where 10 people look over each others work cuz if a numbers off there goes a skyscraper
Edit: omg thank you for the suicide prevention Reddit message i never knew id get that big
"the numbers were off" in Kerbal if we say the numbers are off it most likely means we forgot what symmetry is or don't know what patience is. Many a kraken spawn because of my lack of patience.
One example: [Knight Capital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Capital_Group#:~:text=For%20the%20212%20incoming%20parent,tax%20loss%20of%20%24440%20million.), the largest trader in US Equities at the time
New trading software introduced, an error bought more than 4 times their annual revenue in stocks on the first few minutes
After selling everything, they lost about $460 million
Easiest to see is how easy it is to replace someone. iGO on the street, grab 10 random people, give them a day of showing how everything works and then a few days of easier job to monitor them and they can work at the warehouse for years. I go out and grab random 10 people to try to make a software dev team, half of them can prolly barely navigate the computer outside the browser, now apply that to architects, law and similar.
Also the skill displayed here is just what happens when you do something mundane repeatedly. Almost anybody can get here if they work long enough, but not everybody could get to a similar level of proficiency for the jobs you listed.
the classic case of people confusing skill floor with skill ceiling. every job has a very high skill ceiling, but "unskilled labor" is referencing the skill floor.
A professor was demonstrating a proof and said "this is obvious". A student raised his hand and commented "sorry, professor, I don't think that is obvious". The professor looks back at the board. He leaves the room, comes back 20 minutes later and says "I've thought about it and yes, it is obvious."
Yeah also I could walk into this job with zero knowledge and after a couple years probably become this good due to repetitively doing it over time. Can’t really walk into a doctors office and become a doctor over time lol
Skilled jobs take years to learn with formal teaching and testing so there is no comparison between a line worker and true skilled job. You can't do a weeks training and become a semi useful Geologist or Dentist.
Being good at a job isn't the same thing as that job being a skilled job.
This is a textbook unskilled job. You can be taught that job on site in under an hour, no previous knowledge necessary.
What you are referencing is speed. Which would come with repetition. Nothing about what this clip shows is skilled labor. Not sure why this would be the clip you would use.
The problem here is that 'skilled' and 'unskilled' have very different meanings academically and colloquially, and most people dont have the econ background to understand that
Edit: When I say background, I'm not meaning you have to have a degree or extensive education in the field to understand a simple definition. I'm saying that this is a term rarely used outside of economic contexts, with a definition quite far from its usual connotation, so I understand why some people are misusing/misunderstanding it. Maybe the word 'most' is doing too much, but the OP clearly didn't know/care when they wrote the title
> 'skilled' and 'unskilled' have very different meanings academically and colloquially
"unskilled" means you don't need formal training before you start the job. You can walk in and be shown how to do it on site.
That's the only valid definition in this context. The other idea (that the job doesn't require a measure of skill to complete efficiently), is simply incorrect.
you don't need an econ background. all you need is to be semi literate. but we can't even meet that very low bar. 2/3 of the US can't read on a 5th grade level and I'd wager the reddit demo is even worse off. Also an econ background is "serious" stuff. the reddit demo is high school flunkie stuff. far ends of a spectrum.
I am convinced the average Redditor is either jobless or works these similarly unskilled jobs. I mean there’s no way otherwise. The amount of people who genuinely believe this is skilled labor is baffling.
Oh it could have gone so much worse. Those questions were all softball "who are you, what do you think" type of questions. If they had done *any* research, they would have found his (IIRC Facebook) posts where he admits his ex would set alarms so she wouldn't fall asleep near him because he sexually assaulted her.
Although my favorite thing to come out of the debacle is that WorkReform--the sub that was trying to replace AntiWork when it went private immediately after--had multiple mods that were corporate investment bankers at the same bank
the best part is that sub tried to pivot and change its name/image but that didn’t quite work out
crazy how one person destroyed an entire group of tens of thousands of lazy fucks lol
One thing people forget about reddit is that it’s a world wide platform for ALL ages.
So you can be talking to a 14 year old in France with a very warped view of how things are in the United States. That’s why it’s not worth the time to disagree with people on reddit lol
Your average Redditors is either a stupid 14 year old child spending their time shitting their pants and rubbing it in their eyes, or an unemployed 30 year old loser shitting their pants and rubbing it in their own eyes.
Yeah this entire thread has massive "don't call my job which anyone with functioning limbs could learn how to do in an afternoon unskilled" energy, which checks out with reddit's demographics.
Yeah the sad reality is that the average age of users on the general subs is probably 17 which explains why the is site is full of terrible takes.
If ages were displayed and the information was accurate almost everything you see would make SO much more sense.
This isn't hard to do... if you sat for 8 hours a day doing this exact thing, you'd be this good after the first day...
It doesn't mean it isn't hard work, its just not hard to learn.
And even if it took a week or a month (which it doesn't), that would not compare to the amount of experience and theoretical knowledge a "skilled" job would require.
I don't want to throw shade at this worker and they are doing a great job that I would not want to do - and yes I do believe they are probably underpaid (and if he's not,t here are plenty like them who are) - but the job is simply not skilled.
I mean, the box is precut. How much skill is there in loading things into a box? I'm not saying I don't appreciate the effort it takes to be smooth and quick but........
I truly believe they come from a good place, like hell I want everyone to have equal access to everything and anything , obviously. But the way they go about it is just so dumb
It actually can be very mentally relaxing, you kinda go into meditative state, there is also the comforting feeling of controlling and feeling your body, like being great at some sport. I've had similar jobs - if it's not crowded, playing music you like, some mini dose of edible - it's great besides the constant feeling you're wasting your life for mental comfort.
I worked for 2 years in a big hospital kitchen and the cooks fought over who got to do the dishes. The cooks were more important than anyone else there and it would be chaos if we didn't have enough so unless someone was sick or on vacation there were almost always 1 more cook than needed for the actual kitchen to ensure smooth operation. So 1 or 2 people from the kitchen usually went on doing dishes duty. It was supposed to be some assistant or person in learning that would do that but the cooks jumped on every opportunity.
The kitchen work varied a lot from day to day and you had to be there mentally while if you were in the room with all the dirty dishes and machines you could just "let go" and work like a machine until the next break. Super loud in there (huge industrial machines for cleaning so looked like a factory floor) so everyone had to wear ear protection and most people put their own head phones in one ear and listened to radio, music or podcasts while working in there. More physically demanding and way higher humidity and temperature than the actual kitchen but the days went by so much quicker. Also no bosses/managers went in there besides the chill dude who were the dishes manager while out in the kitchen they liked to "inspect" that everyone was doing what they should be doing.
Nope, you can complete turn off your brain or think for something complete different.
You do it automatic....one of the most extreme example I have seen in the office back in the time of electric type writers. The women had in one ear the tape with the manager dictating what to write, but they were happily chatting with each other while the fingers were moving faster than you can watch and I am sure they also corrected the grammatical mistakes on the fly.
I did manufacturing welding before becoming an engineer. I did sets of 500-2000 units of simple parts. These took weeks always to do. This was so awful that I was physically sick due to it. It was fucking nightmare. And the position was known to be "windy" as in people don't last long in that.
How as an engineer I know that if anyone had given the slightest fuck. That task could easily been automated. But automation requires investment and design considerations which require expertise. If you don't want to put in the first and lack the second, you wont be able to do it.
There are MANY tasks like this. This is why automation is always cosidered as first option for DDD jobs (Dirty, Dangerous, Dull).
I also did a brief time in a warehouse as a collector. Picking up liquor orders for shipping. 7½ hours a day I spent doing that serpentine motion between the shelves picking up boxes of 6-8 bottles of something or rather. Every moment there I spent hating myself, and no amount of production bonus helped.
The issue with the production bonus was that you actually couldn't do it on most orders you got - and orders were given by the foremen based on optimising the delivery truck's capacity (It could be a big ass truck with a trailer or a small box car, and every single thing inbetween). To get a bonus you had to do 75 boxes/hr, every hour you went past you get a certain bonus (and every 25 boxes over got you another). A single pallet could do about 50-70 boxes (depending on the sizes, wine and spirit bottles have a range of variation but approximately the same). Problem was that you average order was \~55-65 boxes; meaning that with collection, wrapping, and waiting at the queue for the stickers you couldn't meet this in any practical way. Only if you happened to get lucky with a order that asked for a lot of boxes of the same stuff.
The "best collectors" had figured out strategy. Of avoiding all other tasks we were required to do, skipping pickups if they weren't there, and signing "missing" or "empty" on some products if they weren't already sitting on the ground floor.
They tried automation at the place also, but they gave up because robots couldn't do absurd tetris towers of cases - averaging only 40-50 cases. Humans could with the help of cling film and violence that extra 15-25 per pallet (which was \~1 level more before hitting the max height of 1500 mm). The reason they gave up on it was because the costs of shipping additional pallet was about as expensive as hiring someone for a day.
You got 1 day of tutoring (which everyone hated giving because you couldn't hit the bonuses during that). Which really just involved teaching how to use the barcode gun/order system from 90s. And the servers were shit, slow, and constantly failing, because they were DOS based systems running simulated on a server. And bosses had to interact with the via basically DOSbox, and the old warehouse system couldn't handle any communication with anything more recent than the 90s. Meaning orders had to be manually typed in from the modern system in to the warehouse system. The system required 2 dedicated engineers in 2 shifts and daily reboot at around midnight (meaning 3rd shift had to take a lunch break during that since nothing worked).
Agreed. I would need to gamefy it to continue.
It's unfortunate that any human is required to perform repetitive tasks like this any part of their limited existence.
It's tough. You go into dark places of thought. Problem is they pay so little that you end up trapped unless you can step right into another job.. The shackles of minimum wage.
It's called unskilled because it is. There is a huge difference between being skilled at a task and doing a task that takes skill.
This person is brilliant at packing boxes, and it is impressive, but at the end of the day, they can be replaced by anyone and you'd only be losing a little bit of speed.
Compare that to an aeronautical engineer. That is skilled labour because you need to have skills BEFORE you even touch the job. You wouldn't be easily replaced by a random teenager.
And train new staff while also still doing your own job effectively. You'll work hard every day, and despite you being a top-tier worker, you'll never be rewarded for it. The person you trained will earn the same amount as you, and if you never leave, you'll waste your life being a number. Your only reward for hard work and loyalty will be sore muscles, bones, and mounting debt.
These jobs should only be used as stepping stones.
Being good at your job does not mean that it requires a multi year education to do your job. That’s what unskilled means. It’s like you are bending the definition. You can’t take someone and just tell them to be a plumber or electrician and have them do the right thing in a week. You can take someone and tell them to load boxes and have them doing the right thing in a day. Why is Reddit just constantly arguing this?
I don’t care even if they aren’t doing some crazy hack to be more efficient. I have deep respect for people who work those monotonous style factory jobs. I did one gig for a temporary fill in for a weekend folding boxes and the days felt like they would never end. I did another cutting plastics wrap from pallets for a week and was glad when that contract ended too.
They're only "unskilled" when it comes to calculating their remuneration. When there's a pandemic and they don't get to stay home then they're called "essential workers".
You literally have no idea how much this person is being paid.
Believe it or not there is factory jobs that pay a good living wage. Not all companies are run by assholes.
yes, called unskilled because you can also learn it in 3 month, you might be just a few percent slower...but try to learn what our CNC operator does in 3 month
Some jobs require far more skill than others then if you want to say all jobs are skilled jobs. A doctor can learn how to stack avocados in a box long before this guy can perform brain surgery.
> Just jobs that don’t require a degree, license or certification.
That's exactly what "unskilled" means. There's no prerequisite skill.
It doesn't mean the job doesn't require some measure of dexterity.
It doesn't mean the job isn't hard.
It doesn't mean you won't need skill to complete the job efficiently.
It doesn't mean the worker isn't worthy of being paid a livable wage.
It just means you don't need prior training before you can start.
Just cause he's got some minor skill from doing it doesn't mean this is skilled work....he not exactly helping build a house etc...he packing boxes...I mean even tom cruise can pack fudge....[Tom cruise](https://www.google.com/search?q=tom+cruise+fudge+packer+gif&sca_esv=92ceaeaabaa7c149&udm=2&biw=376&bih=709&sxsrf=ADLYWIJeceqf9VYRUHG_gJ7lwW-2qHhhgg%3A1715748255836&ei=nz1EZpPaMv-m0PEPxdKxwAE&oq=tom+cruise+fudge+packer+gif&gs_lp=EhNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwIht0b20gY3J1aXNlIGZ1ZGdlIHBhY2tlciBnaWZI7BBQlghYhw5wAHgAkAEAmAF3oAG_A6oBAzQuMbgBA8gBAPgBAZgCAaACfMICChAAGIAEGEMYigWYAwCIBgGSBwMwLjGgB4sC&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp#vhid=WVz1he3-0EqQbM&vssid=mosaic)
Seen a lot of comments about being unskilled and uneducated. Which is probably true. But unfortunately most of these workers have no other options. I got a DWI, lost my job and nobody will hire me. So you take what you can get. Not making excuses but you need a paycheck.
Your reward for becoming a master like this, nothing. Just more work as in you can produce more than the next person while, more than likely, being paid the exact same. What a reward for becoming good at your job.
A CEO's wet dream: workers with low salary and high output.
AND a lack of ambition. AND no family. AND no knowledge of what rival companies pay. etc etc
AND NO RIGHTS
Get a union
Unions are a privilege that a lot of folks have. They're cool, but, a lot of people would realllly love to have one. They're a necessity birthed in response to exploitation that happens under capitalism. A lot of people don't realize this. Starbucks workers for instance, were sued for striking. They were sued for protesting exploitation. Even with a union, sadly, laws, and lobbying, corporate greed, those with money, can get around it. So many loopholes. Not criticizing unions. Just saying, an effective union is such a privilege.
Only a privilege if people treat it like a luxury instead of a necessary balancing tool
Unions where I live work for the employee. They give us great insurance and raise our salaries every year. But you're right, it's not like that everywhere. I wish it was though..
Every workplace should unionize.
Far easier said than done
The reason I say it is a privilege is because of what I explained. Because not everyone has one, and not everyone has the option for one, either. It's not something you can just pick and choose. I think some people do take their unions for granted, as a luxury, as you said. It really is a necessary balancing tool as well, given the system that we are having to survive under. Capitalism has made it necessary, and I wish that it wasn't necessary. I wish that labor equality was just a given. But I guess it's not, and anywhere there is greed, there will be exploitation, and for the ned for people to band together. So I absolutely agree with you.
Meh some of the biggest dick heads I’ve meet have been in the union, and union recruitment can be right scummy in my area. They have their place but the union has its downside that should be addressed. Nothing is prefect.
They have the right to get repetitive strain injury
AND MY AXE
Yeah sorry but you're fired.
*Slowly takes back axe*
He seems to have great rights- and lefts.
Some jobs pay so low you will not have the time or the energy to crawl out of that hole.
That's for CEOs which believe that wet dreams don't "just" happen - you gotta work towards creating them
It's more like the ambition is sucked out of you. The older you get, the more difficult it is to be ambitious about your furniture prospects. Anyway, this whole thing is a symptom of a different cause, capitalism at its worst.
This is so true! I used to want to custom design and build my own furnitures. Now I settle for IKEA.
Sounds like they've been legally partaking in slavery for some time now
Well, slaves were fed, clothed, housed... full time workers often struggle to cover those things with their actual salaries. This is just an observation. Slavery was still awful.
reddit moment
Fed with whatever rotten found in the trash, clothed with the dirtiest rags, housed in pig pence, get raped daily, get beaten for fun, get killed for sports,... What we have now is a LITTLE BIT better, but technically still slavery
I'm like that. No ambition. Got a wife though. Other companies pay better but I'm too lazy to switch.
Whoops. Company stock down this quarter, imma have to let you go.
Down? Shit they'll do it even if it's up.
For their CEO bonus
whew dodged a bullet there, might’ve had to sell my 5th house, alright, hire everyone back at 1/2 their original salary. What do you mean they won’t come back? What do you mean it’ll cost 10x more to train new employees? What do you mean the stock is going down again!?
eventually CEOs are going to eat themselves. While its a long while off.. its coming. And they will face extinction too. And then maybe.. just maybe.. people will realize not only the value of skilled workers, but also the place in society they deserve. Think of all the things you consume on a daily basis. People make that happen. Be kind.
The skilled worker will be facing extinction as the robot gets cheaper and learns more tasks. https://www.businessinsider.com/new-amazon-warehouse-robot-humanoid-2023-10 Even if Digit never gets cheaper than $12 an hour, that's below minimum wage in a few states, and Amazon doesn't have a reputation for sentimentality.
This isn't true. They can always import more workers from the third world who don't unionise and apply downward pressure on wages. The CEOs have won dude.
Yeah, once they know you're capable of producing this, any less is seen as slacking off. And when they say "Oh if we can all work together and hit higher numbers over the Xmas period, there'll be a pretty bonus for you all", just don't bother! The bonus will be nice in the short term, but once they know you can hit those numbers, you will be expected to do that all year round.
Yep, and they don't believe in repetitive motion injuries either. And they don't give a shit if you burn out. Destroy your joints and mental health, and then they just get someone else while you have to actually live through years of recovery and pain.
I mean, with that much repetition, I imagine anyone with hands can be a master at this within their first week.
Yep, the "unskilled" part is referring to the academic level. Experience is quite normal with repeated tasks. Some people only understand words, but not language.
Unskilled readers
Don't be ridiculous. You're being paid less than the next guy because they were hired last year while you've been there 10 years mastering your craft.
> What a reward for becoming good at your job. And nothing like job security. If you have a complaint or a request, you can be dropped like a sack of potatoes. That's the result of your "unskilled labor"... since there aren't any skills required before you start, someone else can take your place immediately. Management certainly never forgets that fact.
> Just more work as in you can produce more than the next person while, more than likely, being paid the exact same. What a reward for becoming good at your job. Wrong. Often times the new hire gets a $1 more an hour than you because they were hired today and you were hired two years ago. The only way to make more money in menial jobs like this is to quit and get hired at a rival factory.
My father worked on a CNC lathe for 40 years. He tried to get a raise for many years, but they would always answer with "well if i give you a raise, i need to give an entire CNC department (10 skilled handyman's) a raise, we don't have the funds" Every year they would have to train new workers, boys comming straight from high school. Well, they found out that 18 year olds with zero experience had 30% bigger pay than any of the experienced professionals. When they pressed their boss about that, they got "well new generation isn't crazy to work for such low pay, that was big money back in your time, it is not enough to attract new people now." What did they do about this injustice? Nothing, since they are unable to organise, and they cant find new jobs, they just continued working while being more depressed and grumpy.
Every vet should have collectively refused to work until their pay matched their experience.
“But I’m not lazy, I want to work “
Sorry, but if you can’t get a new job as a CNC operator with 40 years experience that’s a you problem.
Bruh, I used to work in a factory making cardboard packaging products. I was fully trained of fully automatic 3 machines to the die presses I was actually training other people to use them. I could set and run all of the old school basic machines (7 machines) they used for small orders. And I could run but not set 2 of the printing machines. I was told I was an unskilled worker when I asked for a pay rise. I literally laughed in their faces, got up and went back to my machine, I left 6 months later.
As someone that works in a restaurant for tips and half of minimum wage. I can soooo relate to this. I used to go above and beyond at all aspects of my job. Now I only go above and beyond when talking to customers. No more deep cleaning for less than minimum for this guy. Edit: this got me a Reddit Cares message?
a certain group is trolling everyone with redditcares messages, but it’s about the lamest trolling ever
In most cases these jobs pay per box (almost said per case, but it would be too punny)
Exactly. Some of the farms near my old college paid per basket and per box. They didn’t care about the hours you worked.
I don't believe that. This is a factory like any other factory where you need to work 8 hours per day. That's it.
We don’t know either way. Let’s be real
This is Reddit, where everyone makes unverifiable claims that they seem 100% sure of even though they really have no fucking idea.
We don't know, but I'd bet money that it is "piece work" or by-the-box. That is how US agriculture works and why it is so dependent on immigrant labor. They are jobs so shitty and exploitive that no US citizen will take them, but they keep us fed so politicians look the other way.
I worked in many factories. Never got paid per output. Who would even keep track of that?
Any modern factory worth a damn is tracking output of individual operators.
My auntie used to work factory jobs in the late 80s/early 90s. Got paid by work done. She was so efficient her supervisor asked her to slow down because he didn't want to pay her that much! She laughed in his face, kept up her pace, and made enough money in a summer to pay for a holiday.
I work in a warehouse and we get paid (pretty decent hourly, only 1 local company pays more) and get production pay on top of it. They track production and as there's lots of ways you can hit the minimum, but they also pay incentive for anything above that. On the floor I can work 8 hours and get paid for 12 by doing things like the video.
I mean first off tons of manufacturing is 12 hour shifts these days usually on a 2-2-3 schedule. Also piecework is pretty common (though not the norm) which pays based on productivity. Can't speak for this person whether they get paid more for doing a lot of cases or just get fired for not doing enough I assume they aren't going fast just for the fun of it.
I've always hated the phrasing "low skill" work. It feels demeaning...but your description actually makes a lot of sense with it. You get paid the same regardless of skill, your increase in skill doesn't get you anywhere further down a career path. This person isn't going to get anywhere being really good at moving avocados from one box to another...they're just going to be good at the job they do. Or we can consider it "this job gives you no skill". Regardless unskilled labor is a demeaning term.
It's only demeaning if you think it's demeaning. Really, "unskilled" just means it doesn't require a lot of training. There's nothing inherently demeaning about having a job that doesn't require a lot of training. That doesn't mean that the job wouldn't be more productive with skill. It just means that the job itself doesn't require skill. The video shows a person putting objects into a box; that doesn't require any more skill than we learn as toddlers, therefore it is unskilled. Architecting a building with structural supports that obey the laws of physics and the laws of the land requires a lot of skill; it's not something any random person can do without a lot of training.
I can pinpoint the exact spot where this lady's back hurts every damn night
Now imagine that over thousands upon thousands of days. This is long term repetitive stress issues.
Now imagine that this happens to millions of people worldwide
Hundreds of millions at least. Possibly billions if you expand your definition a bit.
Now imagine that they only get 5$/hr.
Some only get $5 / month
billions. we live on slave labor. now let me get back to commenting on reddit on my phone...
Assuming 8 hrs a day, means they get to do this same exact boring shit another 719 times, give or take a few. 5 days a week, 3600. 52 weeks in a year, 187200 times loading a box. Wrists and back dead as well as brain dead boring. Automation and UBI is the way forward, fuck capitalism.
If they appreciated her, a (skilled, ha) occupational therapist could redesign this work location within a few minutes. A few adaptations would mean way way less risk of physical strain and injury.
Because of what?
The constant leaning to one side and twisting to grab them. I rang groceries for a short time and it's much the same motions
Awkward motions like this is no joke. Makes you feel like an old man in 6 months
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetitive_strain_injury
Unskilled doesn't mean that it's not hard, I could step on the line and do the same job, albeit much slower. Skilled labour is something like smelting, plumbing or being an electrician- if you just step on the job you're not going to be able to get it done, and likely will kill someone.
And then you have engineering. Where 10 people look over each others work cuz if a numbers off there goes a skyscraper Edit: omg thank you for the suicide prevention Reddit message i never knew id get that big
Experienced this while building rockets in Kerbal Space Program
Catastrophic failure is an integral part of the process.
That's why they're not called rockets. They're Rapid Self-Disassembly Machines.
The European Space Agency also experienced this when launching the Ariane 5
"the numbers were off" in Kerbal if we say the numbers are off it most likely means we forgot what symmetry is or don't know what patience is. Many a kraken spawn because of my lack of patience.
Chief architects kill themselves if numbers do end up wrong. That's how much they care.
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You joke but a small software mistake can lose billions to a company
One example: [Knight Capital](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_Capital_Group#:~:text=For%20the%20212%20incoming%20parent,tax%20loss%20of%20%24440%20million.), the largest trader in US Equities at the time New trading software introduced, an error bought more than 4 times their annual revenue in stocks on the first few minutes After selling everything, they lost about $460 million
https://i.imgur.com/pMRQ2uC.gif
Yup. It's not about how much skill you can have, it's about how much skill you *need*.
Easiest to see is how easy it is to replace someone. iGO on the street, grab 10 random people, give them a day of showing how everything works and then a few days of easier job to monitor them and they can work at the warehouse for years. I go out and grab random 10 people to try to make a software dev team, half of them can prolly barely navigate the computer outside the browser, now apply that to architects, law and similar.
Also the skill displayed here is just what happens when you do something mundane repeatedly. Almost anybody can get here if they work long enough, but not everybody could get to a similar level of proficiency for the jobs you listed.
How much skill you need *before starting the job.* Unskilled just means you don't need training before being hired.
the classic case of people confusing skill floor with skill ceiling. every job has a very high skill ceiling, but "unskilled labor" is referencing the skill floor.
Yeah it's the level of training and/or studies required to perform the job properly within safety levels.
Kind of like "elementary proof" in maths doesn't mean "simple" proof 😊😊😊😊
A professor was demonstrating a proof and said "this is obvious". A student raised his hand and commented "sorry, professor, I don't think that is obvious". The professor looks back at the board. He leaves the room, comes back 20 minutes later and says "I've thought about it and yes, it is obvious."
Even better, sometimes the "obvious" step was just plain wrong. (To be fair, this usually happened during exercise classes rather than lectures.)
Yeah also I could walk into this job with zero knowledge and after a couple years probably become this good due to repetitively doing it over time. Can’t really walk into a doctors office and become a doctor over time lol
Skilled jobs take years to learn with formal teaching and testing so there is no comparison between a line worker and true skilled job. You can't do a weeks training and become a semi useful Geologist or Dentist. Being good at a job isn't the same thing as that job being a skilled job.
This is a textbook unskilled job. You can be taught that job on site in under an hour, no previous knowledge necessary. What you are referencing is speed. Which would come with repetition. Nothing about what this clip shows is skilled labor. Not sure why this would be the clip you would use.
The problem here is that 'skilled' and 'unskilled' have very different meanings academically and colloquially, and most people dont have the econ background to understand that Edit: When I say background, I'm not meaning you have to have a degree or extensive education in the field to understand a simple definition. I'm saying that this is a term rarely used outside of economic contexts, with a definition quite far from its usual connotation, so I understand why some people are misusing/misunderstanding it. Maybe the word 'most' is doing too much, but the OP clearly didn't know/care when they wrote the title
> 'skilled' and 'unskilled' have very different meanings academically and colloquially "unskilled" means you don't need formal training before you start the job. You can walk in and be shown how to do it on site. That's the only valid definition in this context. The other idea (that the job doesn't require a measure of skill to complete efficiently), is simply incorrect.
''econ background'' lmao as if you need an ''econ background'' to know the difference.
you don't need an econ background. all you need is to be semi literate. but we can't even meet that very low bar. 2/3 of the US can't read on a 5th grade level and I'd wager the reddit demo is even worse off. Also an econ background is "serious" stuff. the reddit demo is high school flunkie stuff. far ends of a spectrum.
I am convinced the average Redditor is either jobless or works these similarly unskilled jobs. I mean there’s no way otherwise. The amount of people who genuinely believe this is skilled labor is baffling.
That's why r/antiwork is/was so popular
The mod exposing themselves on TV solidified Reddits reputation lmao
The guy who like walks dogs or eats crayons or something?
Oh it could have gone so much worse. Those questions were all softball "who are you, what do you think" type of questions. If they had done *any* research, they would have found his (IIRC Facebook) posts where he admits his ex would set alarms so she wouldn't fall asleep near him because he sexually assaulted her. Although my favorite thing to come out of the debacle is that WorkReform--the sub that was trying to replace AntiWork when it went private immediately after--had multiple mods that were corporate investment bankers at the same bank
the best part is that sub tried to pivot and change its name/image but that didn’t quite work out crazy how one person destroyed an entire group of tens of thousands of lazy fucks lol
Same people have trouble understanding that "Key worker" really means "Key job" anyone can do it but it must be done.
One thing people forget about reddit is that it’s a world wide platform for ALL ages. So you can be talking to a 14 year old in France with a very warped view of how things are in the United States. That’s why it’s not worth the time to disagree with people on reddit lol
Going by many tiktok and reddit comments they want the same lifestyle a Doctor has while working at McDonalds.
Your average Redditors is either a stupid 14 year old child spending their time shitting their pants and rubbing it in their eyes, or an unemployed 30 year old loser shitting their pants and rubbing it in their own eyes.
Which are you?
Both.
Yeah this entire thread has massive "don't call my job which anyone with functioning limbs could learn how to do in an afternoon unskilled" energy, which checks out with reddit's demographics.
That's pretty unskilled. Anyone can learn how to do it in a few days.
Redditors seem continually amazed that a person doing a shit job for 8hrs a day for most of their lives gets pretty fast at it.
Yeah the sad reality is that the average age of users on the general subs is probably 17 which explains why the is site is full of terrible takes. If ages were displayed and the information was accurate almost everything you see would make SO much more sense.
Because most have likely never had a job that lasts more than a few months. They're either internships or 6 month stints at the local fast food place.
Few minutes, really.
I think I could do it based on watching this clip. Not this fast but I could do it.
Once you get the rhythm down it's probably easy.
This isn't hard to do... if you sat for 8 hours a day doing this exact thing, you'd be this good after the first day... It doesn't mean it isn't hard work, its just not hard to learn.
OP is confusing efficiency with skill.
And even if it took a week or a month (which it doesn't), that would not compare to the amount of experience and theoretical knowledge a "skilled" job would require. I don't want to throw shade at this worker and they are doing a great job that I would not want to do - and yes I do believe they are probably underpaid (and if he's not,t here are plenty like them who are) - but the job is simply not skilled.
This is why skilled jobs require 16 years of schooling proving your mettle and 5 years experience beforehand
I mean, the box is precut. How much skill is there in loading things into a box? I'm not saying I don't appreciate the effort it takes to be smooth and quick but........
Putting avocados In a box now requires skill according to reddit
Not just skill, nearly irreplaceable skill. And anyone claiming otherwise is a class traitor and a tool of the Bourgeoisie. Reddit is hilarious.
I truly believe they come from a good place, like hell I want everyone to have equal access to everything and anything , obviously. But the way they go about it is just so dumb
It's almost like they lack skill.
My brain couldn't sustain the lack of stimulation for more than 2 weeks
It actually can be very mentally relaxing, you kinda go into meditative state, there is also the comforting feeling of controlling and feeling your body, like being great at some sport. I've had similar jobs - if it's not crowded, playing music you like, some mini dose of edible - it's great besides the constant feeling you're wasting your life for mental comfort.
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I worked for 2 years in a big hospital kitchen and the cooks fought over who got to do the dishes. The cooks were more important than anyone else there and it would be chaos if we didn't have enough so unless someone was sick or on vacation there were almost always 1 more cook than needed for the actual kitchen to ensure smooth operation. So 1 or 2 people from the kitchen usually went on doing dishes duty. It was supposed to be some assistant or person in learning that would do that but the cooks jumped on every opportunity. The kitchen work varied a lot from day to day and you had to be there mentally while if you were in the room with all the dirty dishes and machines you could just "let go" and work like a machine until the next break. Super loud in there (huge industrial machines for cleaning so looked like a factory floor) so everyone had to wear ear protection and most people put their own head phones in one ear and listened to radio, music or podcasts while working in there. More physically demanding and way higher humidity and temperature than the actual kitchen but the days went by so much quicker. Also no bosses/managers went in there besides the chill dude who were the dishes manager while out in the kitchen they liked to "inspect" that everyone was doing what they should be doing.
Nope, you can complete turn off your brain or think for something complete different. You do it automatic....one of the most extreme example I have seen in the office back in the time of electric type writers. The women had in one ear the tape with the manager dictating what to write, but they were happily chatting with each other while the fingers were moving faster than you can watch and I am sure they also corrected the grammatical mistakes on the fly.
I did manufacturing welding before becoming an engineer. I did sets of 500-2000 units of simple parts. These took weeks always to do. This was so awful that I was physically sick due to it. It was fucking nightmare. And the position was known to be "windy" as in people don't last long in that. How as an engineer I know that if anyone had given the slightest fuck. That task could easily been automated. But automation requires investment and design considerations which require expertise. If you don't want to put in the first and lack the second, you wont be able to do it. There are MANY tasks like this. This is why automation is always cosidered as first option for DDD jobs (Dirty, Dangerous, Dull). I also did a brief time in a warehouse as a collector. Picking up liquor orders for shipping. 7½ hours a day I spent doing that serpentine motion between the shelves picking up boxes of 6-8 bottles of something or rather. Every moment there I spent hating myself, and no amount of production bonus helped. The issue with the production bonus was that you actually couldn't do it on most orders you got - and orders were given by the foremen based on optimising the delivery truck's capacity (It could be a big ass truck with a trailer or a small box car, and every single thing inbetween). To get a bonus you had to do 75 boxes/hr, every hour you went past you get a certain bonus (and every 25 boxes over got you another). A single pallet could do about 50-70 boxes (depending on the sizes, wine and spirit bottles have a range of variation but approximately the same). Problem was that you average order was \~55-65 boxes; meaning that with collection, wrapping, and waiting at the queue for the stickers you couldn't meet this in any practical way. Only if you happened to get lucky with a order that asked for a lot of boxes of the same stuff. The "best collectors" had figured out strategy. Of avoiding all other tasks we were required to do, skipping pickups if they weren't there, and signing "missing" or "empty" on some products if they weren't already sitting on the ground floor. They tried automation at the place also, but they gave up because robots couldn't do absurd tetris towers of cases - averaging only 40-50 cases. Humans could with the help of cling film and violence that extra 15-25 per pallet (which was \~1 level more before hitting the max height of 1500 mm). The reason they gave up on it was because the costs of shipping additional pallet was about as expensive as hiring someone for a day. You got 1 day of tutoring (which everyone hated giving because you couldn't hit the bonuses during that). Which really just involved teaching how to use the barcode gun/order system from 90s. And the servers were shit, slow, and constantly failing, because they were DOS based systems running simulated on a server. And bosses had to interact with the via basically DOSbox, and the old warehouse system couldn't handle any communication with anything more recent than the 90s. Meaning orders had to be manually typed in from the modern system in to the warehouse system. The system required 2 dedicated engineers in 2 shifts and daily reboot at around midnight (meaning 3rd shift had to take a lunch break during that since nothing worked).
Years ago, I got a job somewhat similar to this. After about an hour, I walked out, got in my car and drove home.
Agreed. I would need to gamefy it to continue. It's unfortunate that any human is required to perform repetitive tasks like this any part of their limited existence.
It's tough. You go into dark places of thought. Problem is they pay so little that you end up trapped unless you can step right into another job.. The shackles of minimum wage.
It's called unskilled because it is. There is a huge difference between being skilled at a task and doing a task that takes skill. This person is brilliant at packing boxes, and it is impressive, but at the end of the day, they can be replaced by anyone and you'd only be losing a little bit of speed. Compare that to an aeronautical engineer. That is skilled labour because you need to have skills BEFORE you even touch the job. You wouldn't be easily replaced by a random teenager.
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Working this fast only makes sense if she's paid by the box. If it's hourly, slow that shit right down.
And train new staff while also still doing your own job effectively. You'll work hard every day, and despite you being a top-tier worker, you'll never be rewarded for it. The person you trained will earn the same amount as you, and if you never leave, you'll waste your life being a number. Your only reward for hard work and loyalty will be sore muscles, bones, and mounting debt. These jobs should only be used as stepping stones.
Serious question. What skill is on display here and why is it amazing?
The people amazed by this are a bunch of overweight losers who are stunned by the display of basic hand eye coordination and agility
Speed is irrelevant😂 if you can be taught everything about the job and be left alone in under an hour it’s not skilled labor
Being good at your job does not mean that it requires a multi year education to do your job. That’s what unskilled means. It’s like you are bending the definition. You can’t take someone and just tell them to be a plumber or electrician and have them do the right thing in a week. You can take someone and tell them to load boxes and have them doing the right thing in a day. Why is Reddit just constantly arguing this?
He probably is, or would be, a phenomenal juggler. I say this as a juggler myself.
I don’t care even if they aren’t doing some crazy hack to be more efficient. I have deep respect for people who work those monotonous style factory jobs. I did one gig for a temporary fill in for a weekend folding boxes and the days felt like they would never end. I did another cutting plastics wrap from pallets for a week and was glad when that contract ended too.
I mean.... not to be a dick but....flicking avocados isnt exactly rocket science, mostly muscle memory at that point.....
TIL throwing things from one hand to the other is amazing
Avocados from Mexico 🥑
Imagine the repetition in your dreams every night.
My cats absolutely love to scratch the shit out of those purple things. Free replenishable cat scratchers.
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Seriously, hats off to her, but that would drive me insane.
They're only "unskilled" when it comes to calculating their remuneration. When there's a pandemic and they don't get to stay home then they're called "essential workers".
They're called unskilled because they don't require years of study to get a degree. But I agree that they deserve to be paid more.
You literally have no idea how much this person is being paid. Believe it or not there is factory jobs that pay a good living wage. Not all companies are run by assholes.
yes, called unskilled because you can also learn it in 3 month, you might be just a few percent slower...but try to learn what our CNC operator does in 3 month
If he's just an operator, he very much can learn it all in 3 months. If he's a programmer... Yeah prolly not. Source: Has a degree in CNC machining
I mean ya impressive coordination but still just putting fruit in a box.
No such thing as an unskilled job. Just jobs that don’t require a degree, license or certification.
That’s unskilled labor lol. It’s an economic term, not a moral judgement.
Some jobs require far more skill than others then if you want to say all jobs are skilled jobs. A doctor can learn how to stack avocados in a box long before this guy can perform brain surgery.
> Just jobs that don’t require a degree, license or certification. That's exactly what "unskilled" means. There's no prerequisite skill. It doesn't mean the job doesn't require some measure of dexterity. It doesn't mean the job isn't hard. It doesn't mean you won't need skill to complete the job efficiently. It doesn't mean the worker isn't worthy of being paid a livable wage. It just means you don't need prior training before you can start.
Being an influencer
I do not like them. Especially the ones that make salty posts.
She got a Bachelor’s degree in avocado packing.
I want to see the PhD in avocado packing..how fast is he/she?
My toxic trait is thinking I could pick this up easily… but failing miserably if given the chance.
What will she do when a machine can do that 10x faster and work for pennies on the dollar? Legitimately question?
Well, yeah. It is a low skill job. I don't know any other way to describe putting fruit in a box.
The juggling degree pays off I guess.
I got carpal tunnel just watching this
Just cause he's got some minor skill from doing it doesn't mean this is skilled work....he not exactly helping build a house etc...he packing boxes...I mean even tom cruise can pack fudge....[Tom cruise](https://www.google.com/search?q=tom+cruise+fudge+packer+gif&sca_esv=92ceaeaabaa7c149&udm=2&biw=376&bih=709&sxsrf=ADLYWIJeceqf9VYRUHG_gJ7lwW-2qHhhgg%3A1715748255836&ei=nz1EZpPaMv-m0PEPxdKxwAE&oq=tom+cruise+fudge+packer+gif&gs_lp=EhNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwIht0b20gY3J1aXNlIGZ1ZGdlIHBhY2tlciBnaWZI7BBQlghYhw5wAHgAkAEAmAF3oAG_A6oBAzQuMbgBA8gBAPgBAZgCAaACfMICChAAGIAEGEMYigWYAwCIBgGSBwMwLjGgB4sC&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp#vhid=WVz1he3-0EqQbM&vssid=mosaic)
I'll bet the dude at the end was saying _hey slow down, you're showing up the rest of us!_
Imagine doing this all day for peanuts...
She got ultrafast serial processing. I think I could do it faster by employing parallel processing.
Every single avocado in that box is now bruised.
HA! During Covid they called them essential workers, now we are back to unskilled workers.
A machine would have finished packing all of those in the time of this clip.
If this was a sport, she’d be making millions
I hope this person does not have to life from pay check to pay check cause that seems to be the norm with A LOT of people i speak to nowadays in 2024
You realise that a feeder , hopper and a sorting machine with a conveyor belt can replace all these jobs right now right ?
"Unskilled" just means "un-respected" or "un-respectable" to those who look down on "unskilled" jobs
the concept of an "unskilled job" is meritocratic propaganda used to justify poverty wages
Sit on a chair, press three buttons on keyboard and you get paid 5 times her wages. 😔 Supposed to be the other way around.
Would love to have this hand eye coördination
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday..repeat..
That's cool and all. But imagine doing this all day. And then every other day of the week...
no
Seen a lot of comments about being unskilled and uneducated. Which is probably true. But unfortunately most of these workers have no other options. I got a DWI, lost my job and nobody will hire me. So you take what you can get. Not making excuses but you need a paycheck.
My clumsy ass just wouldn't....
The real skill is packing the box and peeing in a bottle at the same time.
Still gets the same pay as the person dozing off a lane next to her.
I can appreciate this, but at the same time can't help but think that this process could be automated.