The Rockets' Red Glare
Jul. 4th, 2003 04:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueThere is something unfortunate in having wealthy parents. For the first twenty-odd years of your life, they raise you to expensive tastes -- wanting to enjoy the fruits of their own luck and labor, they can hardly indulge themselves and not their children without being uncommonly cruel. Suddenly, adulthood arrives, and the parents worry that they've done a disservice -- that the safety net of money will prevent their offspring from making a way in the world; without the motivation of hunger, they will sink into obscurity, squander their carefully cultivated potential! And so, at twenty one or thereabouts, you are left with an empty bank account, no job experience, no savings of your own, and an ingrained habit of desiring only the exceptionally fine.
Sometimes, I wonder what my parents were thinking, but then I realize they had no better way to deal with the situation, short of providing an aeternal allowance. At the same time, I am frustrated by the assumption that money is the only motivator. Certainly, it is a motivator -- there's the classic example of garbage men, who certainly wouldn't do the job on a volunteer basis. (However, I've lived in a town with no garbage men, and it runs more smoothly than any I've seen. When you port your own trash, you make less waste.) Obviously, we as a society need certain jobs done, jobs which are not intellectually transcendant but which make life run smoothly.
I say "obviously," but I think it's a bit of an excuse. I've mentioned garbagemen already, and the New England town where households sort and transport their own trash to the dump. How about waitresses, another classic low end of the service sector? Here in Japan, I've never seen one. The cook takes the order and brings the food; the cook welcomes the guest to the cook's restaraunt. You rind or find them, comes time to pay out, and as for the time-consuming business of refilling drinks, you do it yourself -- faster, easier, more efficient. School janitors? Same type of thing. At least once a week, the teacher and students set a period aside to clean the building and care for the lawn -- and you can bet there's less mess and vandalism to care for. Think further -- think of the automated check-outs popping up at grocery stores, or the automated check-in at airports.
When you think about it, a number of the "necessary" jobs seem a lot less necessary -- and not because of some great leap in technology. Why do we keep them? They're not smarter; they're not easier. They're certainly not cheaper. They don't train the worker to any higher purpose, or breed new skills. They trap people in dead-end, low-pay, unrewarding jobs. Nevertheless, if a national figure suggested dissolving these driftwood jobs, there would be a public uproar. "How will I make my living?" people would scream. "Without waiting tables, how do I make rent?"
At first, this seems a valid (if stupid) answer for why we keep these jobs. Think on the evils of corporate downsizing, the disregard for life that says one person should do eighty hours of work instead of two doing fourty. Problem is, that's not a good analogy. Corporate culture was founded only sixty years ago, and it's never quite worked. It's a business model where the big decisions are made far away from the problems by people whose only leadership qualification is money. It's a poster child for diseconomies of scale; it's fallen into its own trap of stock options, 401-Ks, and HMOs, and can't for the life of it struggle out. Moreover, it's founded on the same fallacy as the above defense for keeping the jobs I've described -- the idea that money is the same as profit.
Certainly, a high employment rate is a good thing, economically; I'll spare you a treatise on the money multiplier. But there are different kinds of unemployment, and not all of them are bad. Let me give you an example: I have hired Chad to move beans, one by one, from a pile at the front of my house to a pile at the back of my house. After that, he is to return the pile, bean by bean, to the front of my house. He is to repeat this process indefinitely. One day, I wake up and realize this bean-moving does not augment my quality of life. Even assuming I want the beans moved somewhere, why wouldn't I do it in one fell swoop?
I fire Chad. He complains a lot. Then he realizes he now has the time to pursue voice acting, which he likes better anyway. Even if he's making less money now, he has other intangible rewards, like a sense of purpose and a pleasant working environment. Moreover, he no longer has to pay for a chiropractor, or the round after round of drinks to forget work.
What I'm talking about here is opportunity cost. Let's revisit our friend the waitress. She's making a good living by refilling your drink. What is she not doing?
- She's not making pottery, so you're eating off ugly plates instead of attractive ones.
- She's not tutoring disadvantaged children, so you're too afraid of gangs to walk home.
- She's not opening her own restaraunt, so you have less choice of a meal.
- She's not reading up on the latest treasury bill, so your government is no longer accountable to the people.
In short, you are paying your waitress to diminish your quality of life! Instead of getting your own water and tithing that fifteen percent to a charitable organization or artist or struggling-but-worthwhile business, (or taking off work a few dollars early to spend time with your family,) you prefer having someone around to resent and complain about!
This problem is not as simple as I seem to make it, but the essence is unchanged: we assume that giving money away would make people lazy and unwilling to work, and the fabric of society would be torn apart. But money is a pathetic motivator -- it pushes people into unfulfilling jobs, asks them to waste their talents, and persuades us to hold onto inefficient business practices. The continued ability to eat will always outweigh questions of worth or morality . . . and we'll all spend our nights wondering why life seems so pointless. . .
Sometimes, I wonder what my parents were thinking, but then I realize they had no better way to deal with the situation, short of providing an aeternal allowance. At the same time, I am frustrated by the assumption that money is the only motivator. Certainly, it is a motivator -- there's the classic example of garbage men, who certainly wouldn't do the job on a volunteer basis. (However, I've lived in a town with no garbage men, and it runs more smoothly than any I've seen. When you port your own trash, you make less waste.) Obviously, we as a society need certain jobs done, jobs which are not intellectually transcendant but which make life run smoothly.
I say "obviously," but I think it's a bit of an excuse. I've mentioned garbagemen already, and the New England town where households sort and transport their own trash to the dump. How about waitresses, another classic low end of the service sector? Here in Japan, I've never seen one. The cook takes the order and brings the food; the cook welcomes the guest to the cook's restaraunt. You rind or find them, comes time to pay out, and as for the time-consuming business of refilling drinks, you do it yourself -- faster, easier, more efficient. School janitors? Same type of thing. At least once a week, the teacher and students set a period aside to clean the building and care for the lawn -- and you can bet there's less mess and vandalism to care for. Think further -- think of the automated check-outs popping up at grocery stores, or the automated check-in at airports.
When you think about it, a number of the "necessary" jobs seem a lot less necessary -- and not because of some great leap in technology. Why do we keep them? They're not smarter; they're not easier. They're certainly not cheaper. They don't train the worker to any higher purpose, or breed new skills. They trap people in dead-end, low-pay, unrewarding jobs. Nevertheless, if a national figure suggested dissolving these driftwood jobs, there would be a public uproar. "How will I make my living?" people would scream. "Without waiting tables, how do I make rent?"
At first, this seems a valid (if stupid) answer for why we keep these jobs. Think on the evils of corporate downsizing, the disregard for life that says one person should do eighty hours of work instead of two doing fourty. Problem is, that's not a good analogy. Corporate culture was founded only sixty years ago, and it's never quite worked. It's a business model where the big decisions are made far away from the problems by people whose only leadership qualification is money. It's a poster child for diseconomies of scale; it's fallen into its own trap of stock options, 401-Ks, and HMOs, and can't for the life of it struggle out. Moreover, it's founded on the same fallacy as the above defense for keeping the jobs I've described -- the idea that money is the same as profit.
Certainly, a high employment rate is a good thing, economically; I'll spare you a treatise on the money multiplier. But there are different kinds of unemployment, and not all of them are bad. Let me give you an example: I have hired Chad to move beans, one by one, from a pile at the front of my house to a pile at the back of my house. After that, he is to return the pile, bean by bean, to the front of my house. He is to repeat this process indefinitely. One day, I wake up and realize this bean-moving does not augment my quality of life. Even assuming I want the beans moved somewhere, why wouldn't I do it in one fell swoop?
I fire Chad. He complains a lot. Then he realizes he now has the time to pursue voice acting, which he likes better anyway. Even if he's making less money now, he has other intangible rewards, like a sense of purpose and a pleasant working environment. Moreover, he no longer has to pay for a chiropractor, or the round after round of drinks to forget work.
What I'm talking about here is opportunity cost. Let's revisit our friend the waitress. She's making a good living by refilling your drink. What is she not doing?
- She's not making pottery, so you're eating off ugly plates instead of attractive ones.
- She's not tutoring disadvantaged children, so you're too afraid of gangs to walk home.
- She's not opening her own restaraunt, so you have less choice of a meal.
- She's not reading up on the latest treasury bill, so your government is no longer accountable to the people.
In short, you are paying your waitress to diminish your quality of life! Instead of getting your own water and tithing that fifteen percent to a charitable organization or artist or struggling-but-worthwhile business, (or taking off work a few dollars early to spend time with your family,) you prefer having someone around to resent and complain about!
This problem is not as simple as I seem to make it, but the essence is unchanged: we assume that giving money away would make people lazy and unwilling to work, and the fabric of society would be torn apart. But money is a pathetic motivator -- it pushes people into unfulfilling jobs, asks them to waste their talents, and persuades us to hold onto inefficient business practices. The continued ability to eat will always outweigh questions of worth or morality . . . and we'll all spend our nights wondering why life seems so pointless. . .
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-27 03:50 am (UTC)Guess What. There are people out there who actualy prefer being a waitress that being an artist or some other "enriching" carrer. Scary but true. I have meet them. Through a strange string of events, I have come to befriend some very blue coller people. Some I really like and enjoy but they could not dissagree more with your position. As strange as it would seem, There are a lot of people who do feel fulfilled doing what we would consider mindless physical labour jobs. I soon found out that it is VERY insulting to them to insinuate that being a waitress is less of an ambition in life than to be, say, a teacher. No kidding. This is not a matter of them being too undereducated to know better.Do not be smug now thinking you know better about what all people need in life to be happy because you are a college grad. It takes all kinds in this world and I never would have believed it, would have fought against it, HARD!, but this world is full of, and needs, individuals who enjoy and prefer being a waitress. And they benefit us with care and kindness. And! They Do Read up on th latest treasury bill like anybody else. Shame on you for thinking otherwise!
I am responible for my own happiness and safety.
My waitress does not diminish my quality of life.
Your parents did you a diservice not by sheltering you financially but sheltering you socially.
Not angry with you, but that post was not thought out and blue collar workers are not less worthwile people because they choose to serve your food. Be more open minded and honor people who choose to do something you would not have choosen as a carrer.
By the way, I am am artist with a very successful buisness I funded myself. Grew up with no extra money, and I worked my way all through college. I DO NOT consider my self to be a better member of society because of this.
If you spend your nights wondering why your life is so pointless than I feel very sorry for you. Maybe your angst has made you a better writer?....
Part One
Date: 2003-08-27 03:34 pm (UTC)I think you've misunderstood something. To begin with, I've been a waitress, and I left not because I disliked waitressing but because the recession hit very badly where I live and people stopped tipping. Entirely. And while I liked waiting tables for various reasons, it was not something I was willing to do for free.
Secondly, I didn't want to go to college. At all. I was bribed to do so, and continue to feel I would have gotten more out of going to the library all the time. At the same time, I did get exposed to some pretty cool stuff . . . which I could also have found just by talking to people. I consider my college degree to be almost entirely useless. I thought about turning it into a drink tray, or doing some nice origami with it, but then I would have to dust it and remove spiderwebs. Instead, it's buried in a file folder . . . somewhere.
Thirdly (I know I said a couple, but I just thought of a thirdly) service industry jobs are not blue collar jobs. Blue collar specifically refers to people in construction or manufacturing, much as white collar specifically refers to office workers (unless they're secretaries, in which case they're pink collar). The office worker might be the mail boy, and he might get paid notably less than the guy in construction (partly due to different skill use and partly due to something called "danger pay.")
[continued in Part Two]
Part Two
Date: 2003-08-27 03:35 pm (UTC)I really respect what you're saying; most of my friends work in retail. Actually, ALL of my friends work in retail except for the ones who are nannies. Does that make them worse people? No, not at all. Would they rather be doing something else? Yes, without exception. Certainly, they are proud of their skills. I was (and am) proud that I could take care of eight tables at once and make sure that everyone's drinks were filled. My friend Chad, who was a gas station attendant for a while (and now works at an airport news stand), loved that he had a nocturnal job and no supervisor. I'd periodically work shifts with him, just for the hell of it (which, incidentally, he got written up for. We're not sure why.)
The thing is, everybody I know who works in the service industry does it for the money. All of them get tired of the monotony. All of them consider it a lot of work for a low yield. The majority of them really wish they were in college instead - obviously not a position I agree with, but nevertheless something they speak of continually. Sure, they'll dress it up. I'm as good as anyone at talking about good interpersonal skills, giving people a little joy and humor in their day, developing a friendly atmosphere, working on a team, keeping your cool under pressure. These are, of course, things that look good on a resume. A resume which gets you . . . another dead end job.
Yes, my friends are proud to have jobs. Yes, my friends are skilled at what they do. None of them have health coverage. None of them can tell you from week to week what hours they'll be working. None of them want to be doing these jobs in five years. If I ask what they've done at work this week, few of them can tell me specifics. I've certainly never heard any of them get excited about it . . . unless it's because they got paid more.
Which takes us back to my original point, the original point of the entry, which is . . . the welfare state. I was speaking as an economist. I know waitresses; I've been a waitress. So has my mother, who grew up very poor and worked her way through college. Obviously, I don't think poorly of waitresses. What I do dislike is the system that calls for them, which I believe I already outlined. I'm trained to program in a computer language called "Ada". I'm pretty good at it. Is it a worthwhile occupation? No, because it's a dead language; nobody uses it any more, and it wouldn't be compatible with their other code. Is that a criticism of me as a programmer? Not at all.
[continued in part three]
Part Three
Date: 2003-08-27 03:37 pm (UTC)There's one section of your comment that I'd like to address specifically (which I'm breaking up as I insert my thoughts):
this world is full of, and needs, individuals who enjoy and prefer being a waitress.
I'm going to have to disagree with you. The world does not need waitresses, as demonstrated by the fact that when I travel to other countries, waitresses don't exist. I enjoy making snow angels, but nobody is ever going to pay me for that. (Also, I live in Texas, where it never snows.) Typically, the people who "enjoy and prefer" waiting tables actually "enjoy and prefer" the trappings. They enjoy the camaraderie of the staff. They enjoy the free food. They enjoy the tips. They enjoy being able to walk around. They like the hours. They do not enjoy the actual process of carrying food to tables.
And they benefit us with care and kindness. And! They Do Read up on th latest treasury bill like anybody else.
Yes they do. (Those that are interested, anyway.Treasury bills can be pretty dry reading.) A question I would ask is whether they're still defined as waitresses while they are reading. It's not something they do while in the process of waiting tables - it's something they do at home, away from the waitressing. It's something they are prevented from doing *while* waitressing.
If you reread my entry, you might be surprised to notice that I suggest that they do these things ALL THE TIME and that while they are waiting tables, we are actually taking them away from what they'd rather be doing. Which might be art, or might just be sitting around the house. Why not just give them the money? Why make them jump through the hoop of getting me more Dr Pepper when I could just as easily walk over to the soda machine on my own, AND know that I would get the soda-to-ice balance I prefer?
Shame on you for thinking otherwise!
As demonstrated above, I never did. No offense, but I think you're putting your own bias about "college educated rich kids" onto ME, as opposed to me making any suggestion about what is or isn't done by people who work in the service industry, people who often genuinely ARE paid to occupy space. (Which can be valuable; one immediately thinks of cops walking the beat.)
[continued in part four]
Part Four
Date: 2003-08-27 03:38 pm (UTC)I am responible for my own happiness and safety.
As an avowed Existentialist, I can't disagree with you. You are responsible for doing your best to make yourself happy and safe (until such a point where it infringes upon my happiness and safety, in which case you are being selfish instead of responsible). However, there's an obvious limit. If I randomly fire into a crowd and hit you in the arm, your happiness and safety is compromised. Are you responsible for that? Should you have known better than to be in the crowd that day? No, not any more than a rape victim "asked for it" by wearing a short skirt.
As demonstrated by the fact that I stopped waiting tables once I stopped making money, much of the "enjoyment" factor comes from the income, and the prestige of having the income. (This is also true of white collar jobs, and we'll notice I don't work in an office either, although I'm certainly qualified.) I can't tell you how many actors I've seen stop acting, and how many photographers I've seen stop putting together shows, because of the lure of a steady paycheck. I, for one, would rather see them get that paycheck in the form of an endowment, grant, or fellowship.
The waitress is taking care of her own happiness and safety, to the best of her ability, by taking a job that provides her with a sufficient income to eat and pay rent. It is subsistence level living; she's in trouble if she gets pregnant of twists her ankle, and forget about ever retiring. The fact that she's responsible for herself does not take away my responsibility to her, any more than I'm allowed to fire into that crowd I mentioned earlier.
So sure, I've known some people who liked waiting tables. They've mostly been young, without a family to support or a need for savings, or they've been old, with a pension, and have done it part time just to get out of the house. Who cares? Hell, I'll go notably further and pretend that everyone who waits tables loves it. I'll say it's a highly skilled job; I'll say it's most people's life ambition. Do I still think the system is bad?
Yes. I do. My problem has never been with the people who choose to work in the service industry. My problem is with the system that takes it too far, a system which I participate in and therefore AM partly responsible for. A system which we think of as neccessary because it's all we know, but a system which is notably absent in many parts of the world. All I was trying to say in the entry was . . . question your biases.
p.s. I'm glad you liked the fic. :) And thank you for commenting. Sorry I had to break up my reply into so many short mails - it's an lj length-constraint thing.
Re: Part Four
Date: 2003-08-27 05:36 pm (UTC)I did lump together people in the service industry with manufacturers and technitions and labours and other blue collar workers. Why? I do not know.
It never occured to me that there are no waitresses in lots of places outside of the U.S.A. Very interesting.
What about "The System" would you change if you could? How can one impliment this change?
I for one have a real beef about the lack of affordable health care for all. How did countrys like Canada get around the greed of the drug and medical insurance companys to have a health care program?
Hey! Just got interrupted by the phone company wanting to sell me some service! Personaly I would rather scrub public toilets than be a phone soliciter. They are evil. I know they need to earn a living too, but I would be hard pressed to belive they had no other job choice in this big world.
Well, If you do not mind I will continue reading your livejournal. I may not see perfectly eye to eye with you but you are very well spoken. Looking forword to more fanfiction too! Do you post your fics in your journal?
Twiggymolly
Re: Part Four
Date: 2003-08-28 04:15 pm (UTC)In answer to your question about how to change the system . . . it's almost impossible, frankly. The US is way too big; the government is designed to handle a much smaller population. In the specific case of socialized medicine, I think it might happen eventually. In a sense, that's what HMOs try to do, albeit badly. There are several reasons we don't have it already. One is that socialized medicine is not necessarily *good* medicine; a lot of people in the socialized systems travel to the US to get medical care because otherwise they might have to wait three or four years for treatment.
Another is that "socialism" is a very bad word in the States. Where you or I might see it as a boon to freedom, much of the rest of the country still associates it with "The Red Menace." Aside from that, America is one of the great tax havens - although it might seem that we're giving a lot of money to the government (particularly in the form of Social Security), Socialized countries sometimes have taxes as high as fifty percent, sometimes higher. (These countries often have flourishing black markets, for obvious reasons.)
As a final reason . . . follow the money. Medical companies have a lot of it, and they make tons of campaign contributions. They also finance a lot of PACs (Political Action Committees), who tend to be the people who write the reports our Congresspeople read. They don't like the idea of socialized medicine because it would mean they would make less money. (Or less profit, to be more accurate.) According to at least some reports I've read, these are the same people who stopped the Equal Rights Amendment from passing because they didn't want to offer the same insurance rates to women and men.
In any case, I'm glad you're enjoying my journal. I'll be delighted if you continue reading. In a way, your recent comments have been the high point of my week. It isn't important whether we always agree; your criticisms show that you're thinking about what I said, and spur me to do the same. I'll probably reply even if you post a comment to something I wrote a year ago. I'm afraid I don't post any fan fiction, but there is some original work in there. Pretty much all my fanfic can be found at fanfiction.net (name = romie) or in the Double Cross RPG.
Thank you,
Romie