Comments on: Flexibility as a zero-sum game

By: Thomas

Thomas — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 04:41:19 +0000

Matt, I admire your constancy, but I’m puzzled at the entire string.

Your contribution to the comments on this post are, unfortunately, exactly what I’ve come to expect from you: a brief and uninformative reference to some tangential discussion and then a series of personal attacks on me. Bully for you! Do you have anything else to offer?

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 03:32:12 +0000

just reaching for a stick in an argument.

Thomas, you never cease to astonish me.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 15:36:10 +0000

Matt, I don’t think it’s nice to insult members of one’s own family either, especially when one is just reaching for a stick in an argument. Which was my point.

You always—always—miss the point.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 13:36:30 +0000

gratuitously

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 13:35:31 +0000

what’s that supposed to mean?

That it’s not nice to gratuitous insult members of someone else’s family.

By: Roy Belmont

Roy Belmont — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 12:47:06 +0000

“Why? I’m a geek with a short-supplied skill set.”
That’s that supply-and-demand thing there right? An economic principle of long standing.
The stockers and clerks at the big box stores are not in demand, they’re in abundant supply. And as business strips away the gloss of humanity from its efficiency, barring unforeseen reductions in the labor pool, they’ll be in even more abundant supply.
“I got ten other people asking for this job, you want it or not?”
Eventually you get back to those lovely days of so much labor over-supply there’s no work to be had at all, for many.
But that will resolve itself eventually, won’t it?
That’s that Sociable Darwinism thing, right?
Eventually it all works out for the best, just like my mom always used to say.
Meanwhile, potatoes are the most highly pesticide-bearing vegetables we eat, in the name of efficiency, yes? And there’s an epidemic of obesity? But that’s a symptom of something else – alienation is the number one health issue almost across the board, and that’s because all this efficiency has nothing to do with humanity, right?
Look at it. It has nothing to do with humanity. Keep looking, it’s still there.

By: Moz

Moz — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 01:38:09 +0000

This is definitely on the rise in Australia, the “WorkChoices” stuff seems designed to make it easier.

Note: “average pay” will be significantly distorted by executive pay. It would not surprise me at all to find out that 90%+ of the employees are on exactly the minimum wage but the managerial class drag the average up by 20% or more.

But count me in the top 5% who are getting the other end of the stick – not only do I have flexitime (defined as I work when I want to, as long as I’m there from ~10am to ~3pm most weekdays) but we’re on a 37.5 hour week and get various other perks. Why? I’m a geek with a short-supplied skill set.

BTW, this does mean that if I want to go shopping at 11am instead of 11pm, I can. And most of my shopping is done between 4pm and 5pm, on my way home from work. Although I haven’t been inside a WalMart/KMart/McDeath/KFC/BK for at least a year, I have shopped at Bunnings and Woolworths. It’s those retails here that are pushing sh*t on their workers AFAIK.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 01:31:47 +0000

Matt, what’s that supposed to mean? You didn’t find this juxtaposition odd? “Mom’s partner worked there for a long time” and “The quality of workers? Are you kidding? Every walmart I’ve ever been in has been staffed by a combination of high school students, high school drop-outs, and migrant workers…” I know that, mean as I am, if someone close to me (or even just close to my mother) worked someplace, I’d not go around suggesting that everyone who worked there was a low quality worker. Even if it were true, but especially if, as seems likely here, it weren’t.

By: Henry (not the famous one)

Henry (not the famous one) — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 17:31:29 +0000

Year’s up.
Our Norman.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 16:07:58 +0000

In relation to the ‘adverse selection’ link it seems that this reply to Tabarrok’s post by R.J. Lehmann is worth looking at. I don’t know much about the issue, and I don’t know Lehmann, so I couldn’t say who’s right.

I won’t comment on whether you’re right that your mother’s partner is a low-quality worker.

You stay classy.

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 10:30:13 +0000

There is often a default assumption in the U.S. that labor is a fungible commodity and that commonly available jobs should be poorly paid and lack the sorts of benefits, like health care and pensions, which may elsewhere be taken as the birthrights of workers.

During a grocery workers’ strike in Southern California a few years ago it was strenously argued that working as a checker ought to be a lousy entry level job. Dignity of labor? Denied. Compassion? Absent. Responsibility? Moi?

The mere existence of a market for labor does not justify its results.

By: Henry (not the famous one)

Henry (not the famous one) — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 06:30:47 +0000

International Socialists used to run a cartoon strip in their paper back in the 1970’s featuring a shop steward—whose name may come to me in a year or so—who was constantly personifying the virtues of shopfloor militance, solidarity, skepticism and so forth. What brings this to mind is a strip in which he walked off the shop floor at 3 pm, only to run into his foreman who asked him where he was going. When he said “Home,” the foreman responded, “But the shift isn’t over for another two hours.” To which our hero said, “I know, I’m being flexible!”

Which goes to show—it is a fine old conflict.
(from a wretched professional who used to do his grocery shopping at 3 am and did enjoy having the store to myself and the night crew)

By: nick s

nick s — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 05:47:53 +0000

nick, what’s funny about it?

That you’re basically saying, ‘well, it’s all your yuppie fault’? Apologise for casualising hourly work all you want, but don’t say it’s for my bloody convenience.

Personally, I do think the salaried class in the US has a certain amount of responsibility for this; their collective tolerance of working off the clock makes it much easier to introduce this along with all the other technological innovations of hourly waged workers, who’ve already enjoyed zero-hour contracts and being told by their supervisors to clock off long before ending work.

By: SF

SF — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 04:50:19 +0000

I find it maddening that anti-wagers appeal to the notion that the free-market naturally selects the best wage, yet exiting CEOs make hundreds of millions (and often the company reports comparable losses, e.g. red hat) while min. wage earners make 5.15/hr. Anti-wagers seem to not understand that the best wage need not ignore our notions of being humane to each other.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 02:32:47 +0000

nick, what’s funny about it? I didn’t say it was a leisure activity, though obviously it is for some. (If you’ve been to suburban Anytown, USA lately, you’ll not dispute that.) Whether “professionals” are working long hours or not, there’s no requirement that shops remain open for them. It’s for their convenience. And it needn’t be that way—the German example is an obvious alternative (or was—I understand some liberalization has occurred in shop hours).

Certain concessions to the reality of the market (those poor oppressed professionals need to be able to shop at 10pm!) are made, and others not (Walmart doesn’t need to do this to compete!), but is there a reasoned basis for the difference?