Yeah it's weird when people typically assume you would resent people getting something you don't have, or getting it with less effort than it took you - because they would resent this and they assume your mind must work the same way theirs does.
this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
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- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
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Oddly, though, they’re all massive bootlickers and will try to find any reason why billionaires are totally fair and good hardworkers. TheyMre just pathetic.
If you want them to flip burgers for you, pay them what you'd want to make flipping burgers for them.
I’m a software developer. My old roomie is a truck driver. I’m devastated he makes almost as much as I do.
He has to drive a truck 5 days a week the entire year, no matter the weather. He deals with accidents, annoying customers, breakdowns, tight spaces, heavy goods. Workdays often drag out, and sometimes he didn’t manage to get home and had to sleep in the truck or at a motel. People are dependant on his work, if his truck doesn’t arrive, a store might not get food, and the attached community will suffer. He takes half an hour to commute to work.
I work from home. I have a few set meetings daily, but I schedule my time on my own. Three times a week I take some extra time to go for a run through the forest with my dog. I’m safe, my bed is always nearby. My commute is the thirty seconds it takes to crawl into clothes and to my office. If I miss my work we at worst have to delay a product launch by a little.
I’m happy with my pay, no doubt, and I wouldn’t want a pay cut. My friend deserves much more though. It’s bananas to me that he doesn’t catch up with me despite all the overtime and such. It’s incredibly unfair.
Might want to edit your first line, where you say you're devastated that a trucker gets paid almost as much as a software dev. You resolve this as you go on, but I'm surprised you're not getting more kneejerk douchevotes from people who scan the first line and just infer the rest in the most negative way possible.
It was intentional. A sign of a skilled writer, even. Irony works.
(Even if it does undercut the trucker roommate a bit. The double irony of privilege.)
Not sure how you know what was intentional without being the writer, but ok.
I'm an EE with utility clients. If a lineman/wireman started making the same as me, I would feel the same way.
All the money is sucked out by equity holders.
This economy makes me think of Hamilton's "Dragon", where everyone sank most of their paycheck back into the company to get a high enough "stake", to even get a chance at a meaningful job, at said company.
I'm not even sure when this good little Republican became radicalized. I've done pretty well for myself and yet I would happily watch it all burn down to the fucking ground if it meant everyone actually got a meaningful standard of living and healthcare.
My thing is I don't want to be on top. I want to live in a society where I can be on the bottom and have a good life.
Same dude same. I wanna be a maillady who pets kitties and does fart walks daily to deliver mail. And afford the basics.
Why is it too much to ask?!
I, too, wish I could be society's bottom...
well I said can be at the bottom. Its polite to take turns.
All us unemployed IT folks should infiltrate all the local jobs that are considered minimum wage and unionize them all.
And the union would have more justification for negotiating a new even higher wage then they currently have.
It's kind of sad that people are so motivated by jealousy. Like why would I care if other people have it better?
kids are indoctrinated from school to seek out "high skill" jobs and look down on anyone making less
I think jealousy gets a bad rap. It tells you what you want, and what you personally or society could work toward.
Jealousy and envy are not the same thing, although the nuance is subtle. What you're talking about is closer to envy. You can be envious of something or someone without the hostility that turns it into jealousy.
I disagree. I believe that you choose for it to be envy or jealousy by your definition.
What my friend was conveying is that envy is the want for something--usually that another has--and jealousy is the fear of losing something that one already has.
The interchangeable usage, e.g. by teenagers, based on a vague understanding is just that (for adults it crystalizes into something normative though they're probably unaware of it, ego defense mechanisms lol).
And what I'm saying is, that's a choice.
We all lift together.
My thought, if you don't think someone preparing your food deserves to make a living wage to prepare your food, you shouldn't get that food....
I don't care how simple a job is time is not free, we should all make a living wage
Solidarity!
rAmen, comrade! ✊🏼
Or from a more selfish perspective: an increase in burger flipping wages greatly increases your bargaining power in your own salary negotiations.
"For that wage I could just as well be flipping burgers, and that comes with much lower risk of personal injury."
Never forget that solidarity benefits you personally, no matter how much the owning class and media try to pit us against each other. Also death to Israel.
Civility is what is gained. I work for you, I drive up your net value and I promise not to firebomb your property. In return you give me enough money to survive. They're not holding up their end of the bargain...
I have a big stack of old Styrofoam camping coolers, been saving them for a rainy day.
I'd you are not management you should be in a union no matter your job (yes that includes cops).
yes that includes cops
Except cop "unions" aren't labor unions.
Labor unions exist to advocate for fair pay and treatment for workers.
Cop "unions" exist to make sure that cops consistently get away with crimes up to and including murder.
The former is the foundation required for a more just society, whereas the latter is a cancer killing any possibility of it.
if they started making what I make, I'd see if they were hiring!!!
Honestly dude. If food service paid well and had good working conditions I'd love to be a cook over an office worker.
Rising tide, boats etc. More flippant than I mean, I really do wish we could figure out a more equal society, and I do well enough. If I did worse but more people could not worry, I'd be okay with that too. As long as it was a society wide thing not just working classs gets kneecapped while the rich get richer.
I make waaaaaay too much money for the value I provide to society, especially compared to e.g. a teacher.
It’s something I am struggling with so much right now. A huge part of me (like almost every fiber of my being) wants to walk away and dedicate my entire life to something more meaningful, but I have 4 other people counting on me right now. In truth, I could probably still provide for them, but I wrestle with forcing them to drastically reduce their standard of living just because I am ready to.
It’s not like I’m rich or even comfortably wealthy. But in this society, in this economy, I am certainly uncomfortably wealthy.