[thechat] A balance of opinion. - Iran

[deacon b.]

> But times change.  Maybe that ain't true anymore.  I'm thinking that
> to make a 'determination' once way or the other for this point, (the
> 'blue collar is better' thing), you'd have to be able to demonstrate
> that the accelerating turbulence of down-sizing, right-sizing,
> outsource-sizing, and fall-down-go-boom-sizing of companies in today's
> economy is at a high enough pace that we actually have a case of the
> blue collar tortoise financially outperforming the white collar
> rabbit:

My point wasn't really blue-collar versus white-collar 
- although my brother who is a millwright at GM 
makes more money, year after year after year, than 
any of his three brothers with technical or 
engineering degrees. 

My point is you don't get paid for *doing* things, as 
much as you get paid for *putting up* with the job, 
as perceived.  

When I was in high school, I worked at the dime 
store, my friend Johnny worked at the bowling alley, 
and my best enemy Dave worked at the 
supermarket.

Dave was perceived to have the worst job, and the 
best pay - $2.25 an hour. He had to carry out 
groceries in the snow and rain and blistering sun. 
Except that as a matter of practice, he spent most of 
his time *sacking* groceries and flirting with the 
checkout girls and customers.

I was thought to be inside most of the time, but I had 
to tote merchandise up two flights of stairs for 
storage, and tote it back down, and I had to clean 
the sidewalk and unload trucks in all sorts of 
weather. I made $1.25 an hour. 

Johnny seemed to have the best job, in the bowling 
alley, except that he wasn't out front with the 
bowlers, having fun, he was in the back where the 
noise was atrocious, and he was filthy black with 
grease when he got done work, because he had to 
unjam the pinsetting equipment and keep it running. 
He got 85c an hour. 

Perception is the key factor. 

Would you rather be a travel agent or a tax 
preparer?  If you actually look at what the job 
consists of, they each interview clients and fill out 
forms using highly complex rules that don't stay 
constant. 

But travel looks like fun, and taxes look like a pain, 
so an established one-man tax prep service will 
make more money before May 1 than a similarly 
established travel agency will make all year. The 
travel agent stays home while the customer travels, 
and the tax preparer fills out the return while the 
customer pays the tax. But taxes are bad, travel is 
good, so tax preparers make out like bandits, 
relatively speaking. 

Or think about airline stewardesses. Yeah, I know all 
the spiel about their safety function, but in practice, 
they are just waitresses in the sky.  Stews work very 
hard, put up with some pretty difficult customers and 
tips are terrible. If the stew were to work that hard in 
a truck stop, she'd have regular customers who tend 
to keep the difficult customers in line, she'd get fairly 
decent tips, and she'd save a lot of money on 
motels and phone bills since she never leaves 
home.  But the *perception* is that stewardess is a 
glam job, and truck stop waitresses are drudges, so 
truck stop waitresses come out *far* ahead 
financially.

The key is to find something that other people 
*really* want someone else to do for them. If you 
think you're going to make money watching kids, 
hey, I got news for you, people spend money to 
have their own families so that they can watch them. 

If you think you can crochet tea cozies and make 
decent money, forget it. About the only crafts gig 
that is the very profitable is pottery - because the 
product is useful as well as decorative, and most 
people figure a potting wheel and a kiln are too 
expensive (and take up too much space!) to make it 
worth the effort; a lifetime supply of coffeecups, 
vases, and flowerpots is cheap by comparison.

And who makes money in retail? Pretty much 
nobody. That's because profits in retail are pretty 
much made in *buying* right, because you can't 
consistantly expect customers to pay more for the 
same merchandise. How can you possibly buy 
better than WalMart does?  But you *can* make 
money if you deal in something nobody else will 
touch. Porn shops can be profitable. And scrap 
metal yards can make you downright rich. Why? 
Because it's *embarassing* to be thought of as 
Larry Flynt or Fred Sanford. But you get paid for 
what you put up with, not for what you do.

Which is why this whole "equal pay for equal work" 
thing is nonsense. If you have a job that nobody 
wants to do, you end up paying more in order to 
make the job more attractive. If you have a hundred 
people a day applying for a job as receptionist at 
minimum wage, and the receptionist says "Pay me 
more, or I'll have to quit", you say, "Best wishes; 
been nice knowing you."  Because you don't pay 
what the job is worth. You pay what you *have* to 
pay. 

And if what you have to pay is more than the job is 
worth, then you don't pay *anything*.

We *have* equal pay for equal jobs - because 
people vote with their feet. And if your kid develops 
cancer and you can't switch jobs because you'd lose 
your insurance over "pre-existing conditions", then 
you have the makings of a tragedy. But for the most 
part, it's a fairly efficient market out there.  

My wife is a therapist, handling multiple-disability 
kids. She's not just good, she's a miracle worker. 
She is taking kids that everyone else has given up 
on, and turning their lives around, and in many of 
the cases, they will end up being able to support 
themselves as a result. She probably is worth a 
quarter-million a year to the state in reduced costs 
down the road. But she'd make two to three times 
as much money managing a fast-food restaurant 
(which is actually not very different than teaching 
multiple-disability kids how to be functional.)

So why doesn't she go run a Taco Bell? Because 
she comes home with the biggest smile on her face, 
the days that a client makes a breakthrough. 
Sometimes the compensation for a job is something 
you can use to pay the mortgage. Sometimes, the 
rewards are psychic.

deke







 






 



 















--

RIP Adam Osborne, 1939-2003
And 23 pounds of thanks!