These are the people we should pay $15/hr??

[sepe]

This thread is a fine example of why the fed gov should not be involved in OUR schools.
I'm sure common core will fix it.

Or parents should be much more involved in their children's lives. If they can't take the time to do that, wrap it up.

 

[Hohn]

The Common Core is the enabler of the Common Corps.

 

[88GT]

I'm an Math aficionado, aced several multi-variate calculus and linear algebra courses in college, read books on abstract algebra for fun*, yet I frequently have a mental block where I screw up the change I hand to a cashier-- thinking I'll get an even dollar amount back but really just confusing everyone and getting my pennies back. I don't think there is a strong correlation between accuracy in numerical calculation and intelligence. I'm fairly confident that even if some combination of calculators and apathy has made more recent high school graduates statistically weaker with mathematical calculations, we'll probably still fare ok as a society. Kenneth John Freeman wrote the following around 1909, in reference to misbehaving children of ancient times:

The counts of the indictment are luxury, bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect to elders, and a love for chatter in place of exercise. …
Children began to be the tyrants, not the slaves, of their households. They no longer rose from their seats when an elder entered the room; they contradicted their parents, chattered before company, gobbled up the dainties at table, and committed various offences against Hellenic tastes, such as crossing their legs. They tyrannised over the paidagogoi and schoolmasters.

I support paying them $15.00 per hour despite their mistakes, expecting their behavior will improve over time or they will be displaced in the workforce.

* Abstract algebra made me aware of the Peano axioms, which can be used to formally derive addition and subtraction. Didn't make me any better at adding or subtracting. More entertainingly, it alerted me to the conundrum "Does the set of all sets which contain themselves as proper subsets contain itself?" and I think I accept the axiom of choice. I think a more interesting question is whether math was invented or discovered.

It's not a behavior. It's a skill set, or a lack thereof. And that isn't remedied by an increase in their compensation rate.

 

[nascarfantoo]

.

I support paying them $15.00 per hour despite their mistakes, expecting their behavior will improve over time or they will be displaced in the workforce.

Since when should we pay someone with the hope of someone doing their job? Maybe there is a trial period, but if someone can't do the job after an appropriate training period, then they should not be paid for something they can't deliver. They should be displaced, but who is going to displace them .... others that can't do the job either?

 

[chezuki]

Zombie thread lives!!!!

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

IF the restaurants maintained their staffing levels and paid these wages, who would most be affected? The lower income people looking for cheap, easy food. Regressive tax. The people that can afford it typically go to places that pay their people that much anyway, because they do their jobs well enough to deserve it. But the restaurants are not going to maintain staffing levels. They'll automate or whatever it takes to keep their labor costs low enough to maintain their prices. Who suffers then? Not having a $15/hr job is worse than having a $7.25/hr job.

 

[Steve B]

You'd be amazed at how many adults can't read a tape measure.

I actually had a new trainee that couldn't read a tape measure. I handed him a ruler and said, "This is a ruler. It's a foot long. There's 12 inches in a foot. They're numbered 1-12. Show me where 1" is." He couldn't do it. Sad but true.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

You'd be amazed at how many adults can't read a tape measure.

I'm still in the habit of thinking to myself as I measure "OK, that's 35 and a half and a sixteenth", instead of 35 and nine sixteenths. Just the way my brain works. But I still can measure and cut you as many boards as you need, all within a 32nd of an inch.

I also remember my days running the cash register at Hook Drugs (remember them?). I always dreaded it when someone gave me mixed coins instead of bills, because I just don't have the ability to do that kind of math in my head. Luckily, the registers at Hooks were the kind that allowed you to enter the amount they gave you and would tell you the amount of change required. Cool, until some old fart would give me a ten on a $8.37 purchase, then wait till I entered that, then he'd whip out a quarter and a dime and say "Here, take this too".......just for the pure pleasure of watching me struggle with that.

I still can't do math in my head the way many people can, but I'm sorry that I spent so many years feeling like I was retarded for my inabilities (yeah, math isn't the only one). And I'm sorry that it took me so many years to figure out that I have abilities that few people share. I can memorize very complex structures (or imaginary structures dealing with computer systems) and manipulate them in my head so I can test what works and what doesn't work. I do a job that nobody else where I work can do, and they pay me very well for doing it.

And I will never forget the smart-assed smirks on the faces of those old farts at Hooks who got the biggest kick by pointing out that, yes, I can't always give you proper change without the register telling me how much. (glad to make your day buddy, you're welcome).

The problem with young people today isn't that they're dumb, it's that the adults in their lives haven't raised them well and haven't taught them well. Most of them will be glad to learn skills if there is someone willing to teach them instead of just dismissing them as hopeless rejects.

 

[findingZzero]

Pay me $15/hr and I'll come out of retirement and I'm a Rhodes scholar, MacArthur genius and Nobel prize winner. And I can add in my head. I know other PhD's who'd do the same......for 7.50/hr, we'll pass.*

* raise your hand if u c what I'm doing here.

 

[jamil]

I'm still in the habit of thinking to myself as I measure "OK, that's 35 and a half and a sixteenth", instead of 35 and nine sixteenths. Just the way my brain works. But I still can measure and cut you as many boards as you need, all within a 32nd of an inch.

I also remember my days running the cash register at Hook Drugs (remember them?). I always dreaded it when someone gave me mixed coins instead of bills, because I just don't have the ability to do that kind of math in my head. Luckily, the registers at Hooks were the kind that allowed you to enter the amount they gave you and would tell you the amount of change required. Cool, until some old fart would give me a ten on a $8.37 purchase, then wait till I entered that, then he'd whip out a quarter and a dime and say "Here, take this too".......just for the pure pleasure of watching me struggle with that.

I still can't do math in my head the way many people can, but I'm sorry that I spent so many years feeling like I was retarded for my inabilities (yeah, math isn't the only one). And I'm sorry that it took me so many years to figure out that I have abilities that few people share. I can memorize very complex structures (or imaginary structures dealing with computer systems) and manipulate them in my head so I can test what works and what doesn't work. I do a job that nobody else where I work can do, and they pay me very well for doing it.

And I will never forget the smart-assed smirks on the faces of those old farts at Hooks who got the biggest kick by pointing out that, yes, I can't always give you proper change without the register telling me how much. (glad to make your day buddy, you're welcome).

The problem with young people today isn't that they're dumb, it's that the adults in their lives haven't raised them well and haven't taught them well. Most of them will be glad to learn skills if there is someone willing to teach them instead of just dismissing them as hopeless rejects.

If you can't count change, you probably shouldn't work with cash. But when we're young and starting out, we're still figuring out what we can't do well. I think most of us can relate to that.

I've had ADD all my life which made me uniquely bad at some tasks. I can't multitask. I can't focus on uninteresting things. I'm forgetful, often inattentive, unorganized. I can't easily pick a single item out of a collection because I can't see the individual items, just the group. I hate grocery shopping for that reason. I hate lists for that reason. ADD makes me pretty bad at a lot of jobs.

But, it makes me pretty good at some jobs. I can hyper-focus on things that interest me. When I'm hyper-focused, I am organized, I can multitask, remember the smallest details, organize complex things in my mind, and I get into a zone where that's all there is.

Point is, there should be no artificial limits on my pay other than the market value of my work. A minimum wage means that people who really suck at the job are paid as well as people who excel. I've done jobs I wasn't very good at, and I wasn't paid very well either. And I've done some jobs very well and have been paid well. That's is how it should be.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Point is, there should be no artificial limits on my pay other than the market value of my work. A minimum wage means that people who really suck at the job are paid as well as people who excel. I've done jobs I wasn't very good at, and I wasn't paid very well either. And I've done some jobs very well and have been paid well. That's is how it should be.

I agree, but the OP seems to believe that the reason his Taco Bell cashier shouldn't get paid more is because she was dumb and discourteous, not because the qualifications of her job didn't justify it.

 

[MCgrease08]

I agree, but the OP seems to believe that the reason his Taco Bell cashier shouldn't get paid more is because she was dumb and discourteous, not because the qualifications of her job didn't justify it.

Not at all. If you read through the thread, you'll see my major point was that the cashier wasn't suited for the job she was doing. Maybe she would be a better fit in the kitchen making the food. Much of that falls on management who failed to put her in a position to succeed.

When working in fast food you have to be flexible and able to work all the different roles. Why pay someone $15 an hour if their skill set limits them to working only one position? Shouldn't the business owner have the option to set the pay rate based on the skill set?

 

[CHCRandy]

Not at all. If you read through the thread, you'll see my major point was that the cashier wasn't suited for the job she was doing. Maybe she would be a better fit in the kitchen making the food. Much of that falls on management who failed to put her in a position to succeed.

When working in fast food you have to be flexible and able to work all the different roles. Why pay someone $15 an hour if their skill set limits them to working only one position? Shouldn't the business owner have the option to set the pay rate based on the skill set?

Or she could go to work for GM for $15 an hour and replace $30+ an hour guys......since you don't have to do anything but put a couple of parts together all day and don't need to know how to read or write, or she could go to work for the post office.....where being productive don't matter. Maybe I should have used some purple.......you guys ever listen to Greg Garrison?

 

[femurphy77]

Zombie thread lives!!!!

"One from the vaults!"

 

[BE Mike]

When I had a retail job and the computers went down, we had to make change and hand write receipts. All the other employees would vanish and leave me hanging. It was probably due to a combination of their incompetence and laziness. That being said, we all can have bad days. When that happens to a person who wasn't trained to do the job properly and hasn't the benefit of a good public education, the results are a total melt-down.

 

[Hogwylde]

I was going the checkout line at Kroger's one time and had some asparagus. The girl was looking up the price in her little flip chart thingy and said she couldn't find it. I looked at her price chart thingy and told her asparagus was under A, not E. She had no idea how to spell it.

 

[chef larry]

A long time ago, my dad said there was a cashier at a Jewels grocery store that kept running out of nickel's because that's the only way she knew how to make change for the customers.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Whenever my wife and I are going through the check-out at the grocery, I always think that if one did have total faith in others, he wouldn't think twice about putting the eggs and bread on the conveyor first and the canned goods last.

 

[jamil]

I agree, but the OP seems to believe that the reason his Taco Bell cashier shouldn't get paid more is because she was dumb and discourteous, not because the qualifications of her job didn't justify it.

She was dumb and discourteous. She should be paid less than a smart courteous worker doing the same job. But if it's a minimum wage type job, they can't pay her anything less.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

She was dumb and discourteous. She should be paid less than a smart courteous worker doing the same job. But if it's a minimum wage type job, they can't pay her anything less.

OK, now I get it, and I do agree. (I guess I read his post and had a mini-flashback. I may not have realized how badly those old farts at Hooks scarred me all those years ago.)