NYCmetsfan
Banned
http://www.theatlantic.com/business...retail-worker-nasty-brutish-and-cheap/284332/
Select bits, more at the Link
But remember only teenagers work these jobs, unions are bad, these people just need bootstraps, they're unskilled, paying them a decent pay will cause everything to increase in price. So we have to maintain the current order and god forbid we help them get medical care or put food on their table that might mean we have to pay a bit more in taxes!
Select bits, more at the Link
My plunge into poverty happened in an instant. I never saw it coming.
Then again, there was no reason to feel particularly vulnerable. Two years ago, I was a political reporter at Politico, and I spent my days covering the back-and-forth of presidential politics. I had access to the White House because of my reporting beat, and I was a regular commentator on MSNBC. My career had been on an upward trajectory for 30 years, and at age 50 I still anticipated a long career.
On June 21, 2012, I was invited to discuss race, Republican candidate Mitt Romney, and the 2012 presidential election on MSNBC. I said this:
Romney is very, very comfortable, it seems, with people who are like him. Thats one of the reasons why he seems so stiff and awkward in town hall settings But when he comes on Fox and Friends, theyre like him. Theyre white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company.
The political Internet exploded. Because Im an African American, enraged conservative bloggers branded me an anti-white racist. Others on the right, like Andrew Breitbarts Big Media, mined my personal Twitter account and unearthed a crude Romney joke Id carelessly retweeted a month before. The Romney campaign cried foul. In less than two weeks I was out of a job.
Five months earlier my ex-wife and I had a fight. I pleaded guilty to charges of second-degree assault, and signed a court order to stay away from her and her residence. Upon completion of six months of probation, the incident would be wiped from my record. But in the wake of the Politico scandal, Fishbowl DC obtained the court documents and published a piece, Ex-Politico WH Correspondent Joe Williams Pleaded Guilty to Assaulting Ex-Wife. Finding a new job went from hard to impossible: Some news outlets that had initially wanted my resume told me theyd changed their plans. Others simply dropped me without saying anything.
Of course, I had no idea what a modern retail job demanded. I didnt realize the stamina that would be necessary, the extra, unpaid duties that would be tacked on, or the required disregard for ones own self-esteem. I had landed in an alien environment obsessed with theft, where sitting down is all but forbidden, and loyalty is a one-sided proposition. For a paycheck that barely covered my expenses, Id relinquish my privacy, making myself subject to constant searches.
"If you go outside or leave the store on your break, me or another manager have to look in your backpack and see the bottom, Stretch explained. And winter's comingif you're wearing a hoodie or a big jacket, we'll just have to pat you down. It's pretty simple."
When he outlined that particular requirement, my civil-rights brainthe one that was outraged at New York Mayor Michael Bloombergs stop-and-frisk policy and wounded from being stopped by police because of my skin colorwas furious.
Walk out immediately, it demanded. No job is worth it. Your forefathers died for these rights, and youre selling them for $10 an hour.
But Abraham Lincoln, in the form of the lone $5 bill in my wallet, had the last word: You, sir, are unemployed and homeless. You cannot pay for food, goods, or services with your privacy.
Obtaining work in retail had changed a lot since the 1980s. What used to require a paper application and a schmooze with the manager has turned into an antiseptic online process where human interactionand the potential for an employment-discrimination complaintis kept to a minimum.
That put me at a distinct disadvantage.
In person, thanks to good genes, people often assume Im younger than I am. On paper, however, Im just another overeducated, middle-aged, middle-class refugee whose last retail experience dates to the Reagan administration.
Not to mention retail employers these days have their pick of applicants: the Great Recession added countless numbers of desperate workers like me to the annual labor-market influx of college students and high schoolers. According to an Economic Policy Institute report, In 1968, 48 percent of low-wage workers had a high school degree, compared to 79 percent in 2012. Likewise, the percentage of people in these jobs who have spent some time in college has skyrocketed, jumping from under 17 percent to more than 45 percent in the same time. All of us are in a race to the bottom of the wage pool.
Although older job candidates bring experience and skills to the table, their job applications typically blink like red warning lights to retail managers: overqualified, overpaid, and probably harder to manage than some high school or college kid. In a word: trouble.
Think about it, Joeythats why there are online applications, my sister, a veteran human-resources professional, told me. If you apply online, and you never hear back, they dont have to tell you why they rejected you and face a discrimination lawsuit.
The first thing I noticed on my first day on the job is that in retail no one sits.
Ever.
It didnt matter if it was at the beginning of my shift, if the store was empty, or if my knees, back, and feet ached from hours of standing. Park your behind while on the clock, went the unspoken rule, and you might find it on a park bench scanning the want-ads for a new job.
Another quick observation: Working in retail takes more skill than just selling stuff. Besides the mindless tasks one expectsfolding, stacking, sorting, fetching things for customersI frequently had to tackle a series of housekeeping chores that Stretch never mentioned in our welcome-aboard chat. Performed during the late shift, those chores usually meant Id have to stay well past the scheduled 9 p.m. quitting time.
Even though I was living rent-free in a guest bedroom, my every-other-Thursday paycheck couldnt help me climb out of my hole, particularly after the state took half my pre-tax, $300 weekly salary for child support payments. Grateful just to have a job, I didn't think twice when I noticed Stretch sometimes cut me from the daily crew and kept my hours under 30 per weekuntil Mike, a longtime friend and a former union shop steward, explained.
"You're part-time," he told me. "If you work 40 hours or more, they'll have to give you benefits."
Because I live across town, meanwhile, I had an hour-long commute that cost as much as $10 a day round-trip on public transportation.
"Dude," my best friend Jamie said. "After taxes, you're making just enough to get to and from work each day."
The next day, however, when I clocked in a few minutes after the start of my 3 p.m. shift, Stretch sidled up to me near the outerwear rack, arms folded.
"Do you wear a watch?" he asked.
I thought it was a joke. Of course, I answered, waiting for the punch line.
"Well, Fratboy told me you came back late from your break last night. We can't have that."
Irritated by my tardiness, Stretch lectured me on time management, including an Orwellian principle found in retail: If you arrive on time for work, youre already 10 minutes late. Showing up early is necessary, he said, so you can "get ready to hit the floor."
In that instant, I thought of my college football days, in full gear, psyching myself up for a game by blasting rap music into my headphones. Somehow, the metaphor didnt translate to selling Nikes and yoga pants to suburbanites.
I later realized Stretch was invoking the principle of "wage theft"retailers expect employees to be in position ahead of time, making their life easier, even if the employees arent getting paid for coming in early. Theres even a website devoted to fighting the practice.
One afternoon, Ike didnt show up for his shift. At the same time, the managers held a series of closed-door meetings away from the staff. Word spread like a virus: Ike had been fired for an unknown offense. The store managers refused to discuss it.
Rumor became fact about a month later when Ike came to retrieve some of his things. He told me that, before he got keys to the store, the personnel office at the companys headquarters did the requisite background check andbad newsfound an old larceny charge from when he was a teenager.
They checked and said I didnt report it on my application. That means I lied to them, he explained, chuckling sadly at the irony. So basically, I got fired because I got a promotion.
So, your new job, he said, his irritation coming through the phone as he realized he needed to fill my shift for the week ahead. Theyre hiring you away from here. I guess [you] dont care about hard work or loyalty.
Hard work, yes; I certainly did my share working for a store that didnt seem to value it all that much. I learned, however that loyalty is a malleable conceptand incredibly difficult to find these days, even at $10 an hour.
But remember only teenagers work these jobs, unions are bad, these people just need bootstraps, they're unskilled, paying them a decent pay will cause everything to increase in price. So we have to maintain the current order and god forbid we help them get medical care or put food on their table that might mean we have to pay a bit more in taxes!
