Your ignore button is a funny color.  Why do you suppose that is?

I wasn't the target of assault.  I was defending patients who were the targets of assault, and sometimes when you protect someone else, you get a dinner glass broken over your jaw.  Better my face than the patient's.  Some patients directly encouraged my manager to give me a raise because they felt I was the only counselor who actually saw the potential in them to be able to do better for themselves instead of assuming that they needed more Medicaid-funded meds, food stamps, and other poverty assistance.  I was typically labeled the "nice one."

The thread isn't about my job, or me.  I don't want congratulations.  But I will correct you.

Honestly, the responses in this thread are appalling.  You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.

If spreading the idea that it might actually be more beneficial if people do what's necessary to adapt to a bad situation rather than demanding someone to adapt the environment to fit them is a bad thing, then I really don't know what to say anymore.

The point of the OP is simple -- adapt or face consequences.  This is a realism.  Some choose to adapt by protesting.  Others choose to adapt by directly acting to better their circumstances.  You can decide which would be more beneficial to the fast food employees.  I've found the latter approach to work a whole lot better during my work with literally thousands of low-income, minority clients.

You need glasses.

Then you'd be this guy:

1. No, I believe some fast food workers are losers, but that's off-topic.  I'm still not sure how you even equated "entitled" with "loser" or why you would assume I would.

2. No, you pulled all this class and living wage talk out of thin air.  Are you one of those sensitive PC types that thinks every opinion has a prejudiced undertone?

3. No, I believe I am entitled because I worked to change my circumstances instead of demanding that someone change them for me.  I wouldn't call it some huge accomplishment that I deserve a pat on the back for.  It's basically common sense, and I was giving myself a pat on the back in the OP because that type of attitude appears less common nowadays.  

Yes, believe it or not, I'm allowed to have a self-esteem and use a positive experience to help demonstrate a point.

4. Huh?  Seriously, where do get all this crap from?

5. Dude, stop.  Are you made of straw?  Btw, I have no idea what to make of that sentence since I don't see how a successful business model is a bad model, at least in terms of, well, business.

The 'lapse in logic' in FirstNascent's post is that he 'assumed' (which Occam's Razor doesn't like) that I said anything that implied I was advocating one way or another for a certain kind of business.  He missed that, and now so have you.

The only thing that would be relevant to share about my education (given that you are attacking my reasoning ability) is that I was offered a paid position as an undergrad to be a philosophy TA for my performances in my Philosophy of Logic and Philosophy of Ethics classes; my professor said I was the only student she's had in the past 10+ years that received 100% on all assignments and tests throughout the entire semester for both classes.

If you'd like to devolve to ad hominems, by all means.  UC Santa Barbara is indeed cheap compared with Northwestern and the University of Chicago, but I thought I'd opt for the scenery over the prestige.  Maybe I'm materialistic after all.

You know Occam's razor is about removing as many assumptions as possible given a specific data set, and not adding them, right?  

Apples vs. oranges.  The contexts are entirely different (I.e demanding what is owed according to defined rules vs. demanding nothing that is owed in the absence of defined rules).

Agreed.  I'm all for people being able to express their beliefs and stand up for them.

*Facepalm* I hope you know the difference between a non-sequitor as a direct counter argument vs. veering off-topic and clearly indicating that its not meant to support any argument at all.

Regarding the OP being 'offensive' to you, that's fine, that's why I asked for everyone's thoughts.  I just have the suspicion that you're being offended by something that you imagined existed in the OP.

To me it's not just about the amount they're asking for, it's about the lack of understanding about what it would actually mean for a fast food restaurant to virtually double the salaries of all if their employees.   

But my personal opinion is that $15 is way too high in comparison with other jobs that pay $15/he and require a higher skill set.

All you're doing is talking about something that you 'think' is implied but is really so far off-topic that it warrants reporting to a moderator (I wouldn't do that, but I'm simply trying to tell you that whatever implications you think are present are a product of your imagination.)

>$500 is not trivial.  When you win a skill-based contest fair and square then you lose out on the winnings that are owed to you according to the rules, making a "stink" is justified.  I don't regret defending my position whatsoever.

A far as the rest of your post goes, I'm not really sure how to respond.  If you're suggesting that either I shouldn't be proud of doing what I had to do to better my circumstances, or that this pride somehow makes me entitled and that undermines my original point (I.e I'm a hypocrite), or that I was being boastful and veering off topic, or that I'm berating a specific "class" of people at all, then I can only form one conclusion: you don't even know what the OP was even about so as to make a contextually relevant response.

Read it again.  I am indeed saying it would be ridiculous for me to suggest that is what you implied, just as its ridiculous that you're saying I'm implying anything about 'advocating' sloppy businesses.  

I will say that there simply ARE businesses that are sloppier than others, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the OP.

I'd hardly call it being arbitrary when I defined the context as entitlement being equivalent to demanding something that is undeserved (and impracticality so).  I think you're calling it 'arbitrary' because you don't share the same opinion(i.e. that the demands are undeserved) and thus find it hard to resonate with.

It's a non-sequitur because you're saying I'm implying something that absolutely doesn't follow from what I said.  My statements apply to those employed by both 'sloppy' and efficient businesses.   What you said would be like me suggesting that you're now implying that every business should only be allowed to profit a certain amount and the rest should necessarily be distributed to employees.  But that, of course, would be silly...

The comment about being backed up in traffic had to do with other protests, not this one specifically.  That's why I said it was a "side note."

I'm saying that it's the demanding nature of the protest and the context that makes me believe the attitude is one of collective entitlement that is undeserved.  When that entitlement carries so far as to disturb others going about their daily lives, it becomes just that -- a disturbance.

You're entitled to your opinion, though I'm not sure why you seem so offended by mine.

Last year.

Not only are there jobs out there, there are DREAM jobs out there.  You know why most people don't get hired for those jobs?  They submit their credentials to monster.com or some agency website and get tossed into a stack with everyone else.  Accordingly, they don't stick out in any way and they fight for the same spot with dozens of other people.

I always get responses (and usually a job offer to boot) when i send a custom cover letter directly to a hiring manager's email address.  I skip ahead of all the uncreative ones and my assertiveness demonstrates to the employer that I'm a go-getter.  Demanding a better wage or position is an inferior approach to demonstrating why it is deserved.  

Agreed.


I'm struggling to find the relevance here.  Maybe it will, maybe it won't.  In-n-Out is tasty though


My issue is more with the idea that my intuition tells me that this is an inefficient use of the strikers' time.  I don't have a problem with people striking, but consider the following: the last time this happened, McDonald's workers in the area got a 10 cent raise.  This means that if a worker was to go on strike for a single day, it would take >500 hours or about 3 months of working for that 10 cent raise to earn them back their lost wages.  I wonder what percentage of those workers receiving that 10 cent raise remained employed for at least three months after the fact.

On a side note, ever drive through bumper-to-bumper traffic and realize the only reason the traffic jam is there is because some group is protesting about something you don't care about?  When it starts affecting (objectively) the flow of my day, that's when I feel inclined to give my input.


I wasn't even thinking it.


To me, this isn't an issue about placing blame. Rather, I see it as a failure-to-adapt problem.  Let me be clear first off by stating that I would never even propose a dichotomy of "workers' fault vs. employers' fault."  Instead, to me, the situation appears as follows:

There are some fast food workers who are dissatisfied with either pay, working conditions, or both.  Three things are absolutely certain:  1) They applied for their current job on their own free will, 2) there were preexisting factors or conditions that led them to decide to apply for their current job, and 3) they currently have other options to choose from, and striking is at least one of those options.

I simply believe that out of the options available to them, striking is not an optimal one.  Of course this is all my opinion.



Holy non-sequitor.

In Chicago, IL fast food workers are striking, protesting and demanding $15/hr where the state minimum wage is $8.25/hr.

The average profit margin for a company is about 5-10% and these idiots want their salaries nearly doubled, arguing that they're not receiving a livable wage.

Um, no.  I'm getting a bit sick of this attitude of entitlement floating around the USA, and keep in mind I work in the field of social services.

When I graduated and began work as a counselor in the adult psychiatric unit of a Chicago hospital, I made $15/hr with a post-graduate degree and was sent to the emergency room twice for being assaulted on the job within a period of 6 months.

So, what did I do?  Did I bitch and complain and protest about my salary or my work conditions?  No.  Instead,  I updated and revised my résumé and began sending it directly to the email addresses of the hiring managers at a variety of agencies.  Within 2 months I secured a new job where I am under-qualified and overpaid, and I love my new job.  I'm proud of it, and proud of myself for doing what I needed to do to adapt and thrive.

Thoughts?