Well, Sauron, I’d submit that you have a lot to learn about how life works. I’m not saying that altruism doesn’t exist (building levees, saving goats from forest fires, etc. etc.), but if you think altruism is the guiding principle behind the economy I’ve gotta wonder what you’ve been smoking–and where I can get some. People do not work because of some pie-in-the-sky ideology espoused by some uptight religious fanatics with a propensity to barbecue each other; they work because they need money for food, shelter and MTV. They will work harder to keep their job depending on how important it is to them: if the only thing keeping them from becoming homeless is that McD’s job, they will undoubtably work their ass off to keep a roof over their head (although with a crappy salary like McD’s offers, even that probably won’t be enough). If it isn’t that important and the mega-conglomerate they work for doesn’t give them a stake in corporate profits, why would they go out of their way to provide the perfect CS needed to put up customer assholishness? They have no stake in it; that’s how capitalism works dude. Hell Sauron, I’m starting to wonder if you’re a damn gawdless Commie bastard or something! 
Sauron said nothing about altruism being the guiding principle behing the economy; he (please correct my pronoun if I’m wrong) merely used altruism as an example of why working only as hard as you’re getting paid isn’t always the best idea.
Sauron was talking about the work ethic – personal integrity. Any job worth doing is worth doing well. Crabbing about poor pay while one continues to hold the crappy-paying job, and using the crappy pay as some sort of justification for doing a crappy job, doesn’t hold water with me. That’s just passive-aggressive bullshit. You knew what the pay was when you took the job. If you don’t like the conditions of your employment, and you can’t (or won’t) work with your employer to change them, then (a) suck it up or (b) go find other work. I myself have held many a crappy job in my life, and have used both (a) and (b) to deal with it.
Scarlet, do you honestly think McD’s gives a damn what their peons think? The only way to get the attention of a corporation that huge would be to unionize and go on strike. Then maybe they’d listen–but probably only long enough to fire everyone and hire a bunch of scabs to replace them. The CS employee’s at McD’s can’t change their working conditions beyond the small amount of wiggle room allowed to their immediate supervisors. Policy for these huge mega-corp’s is set by executives; they don’t care about the average shmoe in the front lines as long as the numbers of soy-paste burgers shoveled out to the hungry public keep increasing. So you see the average CS worker gets shafted from both ends: they are largely ignored (when not actively hindered by ill-conceived policies to ‘improve’ CS) by the higher ups who reap the lions share of the profits and get treated like dirt–well, sometimes anyway–by the customers. Asking them to give anything more than the bare minimum is a bit much, IMO. Now if you’re running a Mom-and-Pop operation the whole ‘work ethic’ thing would undoubtably critical to your success but McD’s is about as far from a Mom-and-Pop store as it is possible to be and still be in the same universe.
RE: altruism. Well, Sauron brought up an altruistic act (building levee’s–although that could be considered working for gain too if your store or community is in danger of being flooded) as an example we should all aspire to. I didn’t think it fit in this thread and said why. My apologies if I mis-read him but I blame it on all the hallucinogenic agents McD’s puts in their soy-burgers…
I’m not talking about the employer’s attitude toward employees or vice versa – I’m talking about our own responsibility toward ourselves. I have had jobs where bosses didn’t listen – but that never changed my attitude toward my own work. I’ve always seen the quality of my work as a reflection of myself – whether I was working as a janitor, a bookstore clerk, a waitress, or a technical professional – and I’ve never let that quality slide because of perceived injustice on the part of my employer. So what if the boss doesn’t know whether I’m a good or bad worker? I know.
Yes they can – it’s called a free labor market. Ever hear of employment at will? It’s a two-way proposition – the employer is free to let you go, and you are free to quit. I still don’t see any legitimate excuse for carelessness or crudeness on the job. If you hate your job that much, you are doing no one any favors by staying – most of all yourself.
**
Again, we’re talking about the work ethic, which comes from within. I can’t demand that you have a work ethic, but I can make sure I live up to my own. If you’re so morally opposed to the corporate structure of Mickey D’s, then I really don’t have any sympathy for you if you insist on working for them and then complaining about it. There is ALWAYS other work. It may not be exactly the type of work you want, but there are ALWAYS choices for those who are willing and creative enough to look for them. I say this having both a husband and a close friend who have recently been looking for (basically unskilled) jobs. They are out there.
Damn.
Well, IRL I’m more of a quiet and passive person than I am on the net, so that probably won’t be a problem. More importantly, there are times when you bite your tongue, and there are times when you don’t. When a customer is doing something illegal, disruptive, or dangerous, the CS rep present should speak up and take the actions necessary to make them stop.
A programming job.
Now this really gets to me. Anybody who works CS for a living is an “incompetent goon”?! Actually, I think that these people deserve a lot of respect. They put of with more bullshit than a Rosie O’Donell viewer. If you think that any middle-aged person who works CS is automatically trying to screw you for no reason, you’re just too paranoid to be helped, that’s all I can say. I wonder, do you have any rational reason for saying that managers instruct thier employees to enter orders correctly? Did you even put the slightest thought into this post at all? Could it be that the hostile and dimwitted attitudes of people like you are part of the reason that some workers don’t like their customers very much?
When a company offer $6.00/hour, what exactly do you expect?
On the issue of work ethic, let me just point out that the companies that we’re discussing here have given up on the idea of work ethic. Profit comes from lower prices, lower prices, lower prices. When they treat employees (and customers) with total and complete disrepect, they are asking for a lousy performance from their employees. The idea of work ethic doesn’t just spring out of the ground; the driving force behind the concept is that employees will put extra effort into their jobs because even if they don’t get an immediate, direct reward, their employer will notice their performance and reward them in the long-term. Well that concept is dead now, at least among the WalMarts and the McDonalds’s of the world. In their efforts to keep salaries and other expenses to a minimum, the corporate bosses have eliminated all possibility of meaningfull reward
for hard work.
How about the concept of being able to come home and face yourself in the mirror after work?
Some months ago I was at a local Walgreens. The customer ahead of me at the counter wasn’t quite screaming at the cashier, but was definitely being a world-class bitch. Why? Because they didn’t have Super Slim Ultra Mentholated Half Filter Extra Tar Coffin Nails in stock; the closest they had was Ultra Super Slim Menthol Supra Filterless. And that news was just not something this woman was going to accept, by gob! This went on for probably a minute or two before she snapped “Fine!” and stomped off. (Perhaps she was diabetic who had just lost her family to a combination of SIDS, drive-by shootings, a freak meteorite strike and a bizarre zamboni accident, seeking a very specific brand of cancersticks because they held sentimental value to her last surviving nephew dying of a disease so rare they hadn’t named it yet. Or perhaps she was just an asshole. I will never know, and am comfortable with the Mystery.)
I quietly step up to the register after said asshole leaves the store.
“Hello,” the lady behind the register says, just slumping under in weariness.
“Hi there. I bet that’s the reason they don’t let you keep a gun handy behind the counter?” I respond.
The smile that lit her face really did make my day.
The overall moral is, life is hard. People being assholes, no matter what difficulties they’re personally dealing with, only make it harder for everyone around. It’d be real nice if people in general tried not to do that.
Unrealistic, but real nice.
What I hear you saying over and over is that it’s okay to do a bad job at customer service, because the corporation is screwing you. That’s just wrong, no matter how you slice it. And your understanding of the Puritan work ethic is seriously flawed.
It is NEVER okay to do a bad job. And getting screwed over by management isn’t something that magically stops when you stop working CS. I’ve worked at my office until 10 p.m., gone home for a couple of hours to eat and see my wife, and returned at 12:30 a.m., working through the rest of the day. Why? Because my idiot boss didn’t tell me about a project that needed to be done.
Now, had I possessed the mindset of the OP (or perhaps you), I would have laughed at my boss when she dropped that particular hot potato in my lap and told her it wasn’t my problem. But because I was able to look at things from the company’s perspective, I realized just how important this project was. So, I busted my butt to get it done. Once it was done to everyone’s satisfaction, THEN I talked with my boss about the hassles that caused.
I didn’t do that because I thought “Hey, I bet I get a nice raise out of this!” In fact, I got no recognition whatsoever. My boss received the accolades. She knew, though, why she got them. And so did I. I did an almost impossible task in an almost impossible timeframe, and I did it well. I was proud of myself for that.
And that particular feeling is not one that you, nor the OP, nor anyone else with a similar mindset, will ever understand, much less experience. It’s a shame.
Cite, please! Since when does the concept of “ethics” involve seeking external reward?
Scarlett
RE: A cite on ethics.
There are several books on the biology of ethics (i.e. how they come about, how ethics survived and are shaped by evolutionary pressures, etc.) which have the info. you’re looking for in them. Here’s some samples to get you started:
-Good Natured : The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals
-Biology and Christian ethics
-Biology and the foundation of ethics
Fascinating stuff, even if you don’t agree with what these authors are saying. There’s also tons of stuff out there on Gaming Theory (perhaps the most famous is the ‘Prisoner Experiment’–not an expert, just a dabbler so you’ll probably need to talk to a social psychologist for the specifics) which illustrates the link between expected reward and ‘good’ behavior. Anyway, don’t mean to be all rational or anything (this is the Pit after all!) but I think you’ll enjoy those books and maybe then get an idea of where I’m coming from.
Sauron, we’re arguing from the opposite sides of an abyss and I don’t see either one of us (or the other’s involved) agreeing; I think I know why: you define your existence by work and I don’t. This isn’t meant to be a morally charged statement (i.e. your way is ‘bad’ etc.) but it seems to be the case. From my perspective, I see work as the means to gain food/shelter/MTV, not a way of defining myself; I do that through my personal relationships. From this perspective, I feel sorry for you for having had to bust your butt for no credit and, more importantly, for having to sacrifice time with your family to do so. I think that’s the key difference here.
Anyway, sorry to have a genuine debate break out here as I know it’s the Pit. I guess I should insult people or something so how about this: Sauron, you’re a chump.
In other words, each hour you spend earning money at a job from which you derive no personal fulfillment is an hour you could have spent doing something that you enjoy. If you played your cards right, you could spend those same hours earning a living AND getting back those 40 (or however many) hours a week for your own pleasure. Otherwise, those are hours of your life that you’re just throwing away.
I was quite good at my last “real job,” but I disliked it for several reasons. It took me away from my home and family, and it forced me to devote my energy, in part, to things that didn’t interest me. The only time I had to live “my real life” was on the weekends. (Sound familiar?) And that seemed a terrible waste. So rather than stay at a largely unpleasant job and bitch and moan about it, I found a way to get out.
Or take my mother. She’s been saving for retirement her whole life, and anticipating the Big Day when she wouldn’t “have to work” anymore. Now she’s retired, and she’s realizing that she can think of nothing else to do but sit around and look at my dad all day. And he’s not too exciting. Good thing she put off her “real life,” eh?
And I feel sorry for you that you have to have someone else come along and give you a pat on the head and a check in order for you to feel that your work is worth the effort. I’m self-employed now, and I take great pride in the fact that I get to contribute to education and literacy via the textbooks I edit. I’ve been editing for six years now and have gotten my name in the acknowledgments of exactly three books out of the 150 or so I’ve edited in that time – copyeditors literally get very little credit. I make a little less money, actually, than I did at the job I quit – but I make my own rules and I spend most of my time with friends and family. There’s still stress involved in running my own business (deadline crunches, cash flow), but I’ve traded in my bad stress for good stress.
Oh, and if a client gives me grief? I fire them. No one can fire me. If a client dumps me (and none have yet), I just go out and get a new one, or take more work from those that remain. Or find another service to offer, or a more efficient way to do the ones I already provide.
See? There are choices. You choose to wallow in anger and self-pity, that’s your choice. I choose to enjoy my ENTIRE life, not just the hours I spend “off the clock.”
Those of you who still think you have no choices might find Barbara Winter’s book Making a Living without a Job enlightening. If you can open your mind a crack. Some of you, probably not.
Scarlet, fine. Well, you can pay my college tuition when I can’t find a job that’s not in retail. :rolleyes:
Good lord-no one said it was okay to do a bad job-what I said was, that doesn’t give ANYONE the right to be abusive to CS reps. I don’t care what your reason is-it’s a cheap shot-picking on someone who can’t fight back. Anyone who does it is an asshole.
Explain why the truth is stupid, and you’ll prove yourself to be just starting on your way to joining me with the rest of sentience.
Grow up, asshole. Strike that. Just off yourself now, and save the folks at the Darwin Awards the time it’ll take to write an article about you. And we on the boards will be spared your excrement.
Didn’t say anything of the kind, Scarlett. I actually enjoy my job (even the ‘job’ part of it) because I enjoy the relationships I have with my co-workers! Even when I worked in the dining industry, I didn’t do a good job to help Mega-corp Inc.'s bottom line (b/c I personally didn’t give a damn about the CEO’s in charge of the company), I did a good job to keep my co-workers from having to cover for me. I don’t consider work a waste of time at all: I consider it a time to see and interact with people I happen to like and care a great deal for. In essence, I do a good job for the people I have a personal (as opposed to the faceless bigwigs in charge of the whole enterprise) relationship with, not for my self. That seems sort of selfish to me, actually.
**
No, again, that comes from myself and my personal relationships, not the corporate leadership. I give them as much effort as my paycheck requires: no more, no less. My sense of self-esteem comes from within, not from a paycheck or having a specific type of job.
**
More power to ya: in fact, that’s the whole point. You’ve gotten some control over your life and are working in a situation where the work ethic actually works for you rather than a faceless corporate executive. And you still don’t see why someone who doesn’t have that control wouldn’t cheerfully ‘give their all’ just so some putz at the home office can get another condo? Come on Scarlett, try seeing things from their perspective.
**
Nobody’s wallowing here! I’m simply saying that I’m living my life according to my personal relationships, not my job. Ironically, I’m living my ENTIRE life too–just differently than you are.
**
If this book gives you solace: great. I personally think folks would be better off reading ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’ by Nietzsche to gain the illumination necessary to take control of their lives, but I guess the ‘different strokes, different folks’ thing is valid here. If you take nothing else from this thread Scarlett, at least take this: don’t give CS employee’s any grief–they’ve got enough already in their lives. If you have to complain about something, at the very least do it to a manager: they get paid enough to put up with it.
I heard you the first 12 times. I worked my way through college, too, and guess what – most of the jobs you work in college are crap jobs. Some of mine were. I held 17 different jobs during the six years I spent in college. Sometimes I had two or three at once. When a job didn’t fit in with my schedule, or the employer was a jerk, or I was finding that the pay wasn’t enough, I went out and found a different job. And I didn’t live at home, and I didn’t have a car. But there was always plenty of work.
**
I have never condoned being abusive to CS people either. Yes, I have been one. I do give them the benefit of the doubt, but I will ask to speak to a manager if the original person either can’t or won’t help me. That’s part of the manager’s job. And if my sandwich gets screwed up twice, I will ask for the manager.
That sounds like quite a balancing act, making sure that your level of effort always exactly matches the dollars and cents on your paycheck. What would happen if you accidentally (because of course you would never do it on purpose) worked too hard?
**
No, what I don’t see is why they insist that they have no control. There ARE choices. Show me someone (well, ok, a grown-up) who is actually being FORCED to work at McDonald’s. There are lots of ways to find jobs besides looking in the classifieds every day. Something like 90% of jobs are never advertised publicly. And my argument is not that they should cheerfully kiss ass. It is that keeping a job that you hate, while continuing to bitch about it, does no one any good, including the bitcher.
**
I have and I am right now. Mr. S was downsized in February. He disliked his job, and it left him drained every day, but he was bringing home 2/3 of our income. But he did an excellent job despite the conditions because, as someone else said, he likes to be able to face himself in the mirror each day. He didn’t sit around bitching about how it sucked all the time. (And if he had felt as sorely abused as some of our fast-food worker friends seem to feel, he would have left. He just doesn’t take crap.) But in the meantime he spent a lot of time thinking about what other sort of work he might want to do. In the end, the decision was made for him about how long he would stay. He’ll never make that kind of money again, and he lost 4 weeks’ vacation to boot. The skill he was trained for is obsolete, and he’s 45, so he’ll likely be facing age discrimination in his job hunt. Our lifestyle is about to change, but we see it as an opportunity. He’s never felt more creative in his life, and he has three or four promising ideas for a combination of seasonal/part-time and self-employment. I suspect he will be much happier, as I am, doing work he enjoys for less money.
Or how about a few years ago, when the state wanted to put a “supermax” prison basically in our very rural backyard? The state (and many locals) touted it as “progress” that would bring “much-needed jobs” to the area. People wanted the state to bring them a job, instead of taking charge of their own lives and finding their own living. And as it turned out, the pay for what few unskilled jobs would have been available wasn’t that great. And as Mr. S said at a public meeting on the issue, the people of this county have gone without local jobs for years. We drive 40 or more miles to the nearest city with decent pay. Or we start our own businesses. Or we move to where jobs are. Choices.
Or my single-mom friend, who gets only sporadic child support. She finally found a full-time, good-paying (unskilled) job with benefits that she could fit around her children’s needs, and when her old truck finally died she could actually afford a fairly new one. Well, after about a year they started giving her unearned shit, and the job started physically wearing her down. I bet a lot of folks in her position – single mom, unskilled, two kids, hefty car payment – would think they had “no control.” Well, she tried to talk things out, but they continued to be unreasonable, so she quit. Didn’t have anything lined up. Within two weeks she had a job that she liked a lot better that paid almost as well as the first and had a better schedule. As she told me (and as I obviously agree), there’s always work.
Or as I already mentioned, the several crap college jobs that I left when the conditions didn’t agree with me? Yes, I needed a paycheck, but nothing was forcing me to stay at that particular job.
Or, on the other side, Mr. S’s dad, a bitter man who barely supported seven kids at minimum wage his whole life. He bitched daily about his job, but never made a move to even try to improve his lot. This attitude has carried over into a few of Mr. S’s sibs as well.
So you see, the martyr complex just doesn’t fly around here.
Well, OK, you are not. But I daresay that some folks here are.
**
Not solace: practical advice and examples of how to revise one’s personal attitude toward one’s life and work. I doubt whether everyone here would be able to follow Nietzsche, much less apply it to their own life.
Already doing that. I don’t know where you got any other idea.
I just thought I’d throw this in, for the record. While McDonalds isn’t going to offer the salary that a college education would bring, the pay’s decent for the line of work. Minimum wage right now (in Massachusetts anyways…) is $6.75. My store starts at $7 for the 14 and 15 year olds (they can’t do anything anyways), and will go up to about $9 if you have awesome availability and such. Course, that’s for the crew people…once you hit management, that’s when you get screwed…
But see, this is what I don’t understand. Your self-esteem comes from within, but it’s not affected if you do less than your best at something.
I’m not defined by my job, as you mentioned earlier. If I were to inherit several million dollars tomorrow, I would cheerfully quit my job and never look back while I lived a life of leisure and dedicated myself to learning every line of dialogue on “The Andy Griffith Show.”
But I cannot do things halfway. Whether it’s my “real” job, the freelance stuff I do on the side, the relationships I have with my family and friends, cleaning the house, helping others, serving at my church, etc. – if I don’t feel as though I’ve done the best I can do in each situation, it bothers me. I’m not a perfectionist, but I do want to be able to look back on things and say “I did my best.”
If somebody’s paying me to do a job, I’m gonna do my best at that job. That definitely does not include laughing at a customer whose order has been screwed up twice and is upset.