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  1. #76
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdironRider View Post
    Maybe because over 3/4 of those deaths are over full retirement age. About 165k people under 65 but older than 18 have died. Tack on a couple hundred under 18 if you do desire.

    Meanwhile 4 million have left the workforce entirely while still being perfectly alive. That’s a shitload of people to replace and it’s been a good opportunity for those still working to move on to better things. More people basically dropped out of the workforce last month alone than have died from COVID in almost 20 months total.

    Anyone with a kid under 5 is particularly hard pressed to work right now. My daycare just sent a notice at 5pm on Sunday that they will be closed indefinitely starting tomorrow because 1 elementary school child, who does not attend the after school program they also provide, nor is related to anyone who does, contracted covid. After 18 months of this how many parents can just no show on a Monday because of that? The might open back up if contact tracing shows no other exposure in a couple days at best. That’s a problem no amount of govt intervention can fix.

    Let alone finding daycare is like winning the lottery to begin with.
    Looks to me that the labor force participation rate is still down about 2% from pre-COVID.

    I’ve been extremely lucky on the daycare front as our kids have been in a daycare for the entire pandemic and we have never had a class closed. It will happen though, protocol is 10 day closure of the class. Lots and lots of days with kids watching way to much TV while I WFH because they have a sniffle/hanging on cough so they can’t be in the facility.

  2. #77
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    Quote Originally Posted by AdironRider View Post
    Maybe because over 3/4 of those deaths are over full retirement age. About 165k people under 65 but older than 18 have died. Tack on a couple hundred under 18 if you do desire.

    Meanwhile 4 million have left the workforce entirely while still being perfectly alive. That’s a shitload of people to replace and it’s been a good opportunity for those still working to move on to better things. More people basically dropped out of the workforce last month alone than have died from COVID in almost 20 months total.

    Anyone with a kid under 5 is particularly hard pressed to work right now. My daycare just sent a notice at 5pm on Sunday that they will be closed indefinitely starting tomorrow because 1 elementary school child, who does not attend the after school program they also provide, nor is related to anyone who does, contracted covid. After 18 months of this how many parents can just no show on a Monday because of that? The might open back up if contact tracing shows no other exposure in a couple days at best. That’s a problem no amount of govt intervention can fix.

    Let alone finding daycare is like winning the lottery to begin with.
    daycare, a shitty poorly paying sector before it was hit hard by covid, isn’t coming back? Boo fucking hoo bootstrap it breeders.

    Everyone of these things is something that was doing poorly before, covid was the last straw. Pay more, or deal.

  3. #78
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    Lost a relatively well-paid large-corp job with EXCELLENT benefits to a buy-out/RIF 12/31/2019. In which i did well enough to have somewhat modest fuck-you money. So I work now for about 1/2 what I did in a small shop and It is really amazing to me, what I get away with. Now that i honestly don't give a fuck. Super cool boss though. He gives even less shits.
    Last edited by Marshall Tucker; 10-18-2021 at 08:28 AM.
    "Can't you see..."

  4. #79
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    Remember 6 months ago how everyone leaving shitty jobs and not going back, or just not working one, was the fault of extended unemployment?

  5. #80
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    Quote Originally Posted by dunfree View Post
    daycare, a shitty poorly paying sector before it was hit hard by covid, isn’t coming back? Boo fucking hoo bootstrap it breeders.

    Everyone of these things is something that was doing poorly before, covid was the last straw. Pay more, or deal.
    The problem is the child care is a fundamentally broken market. That's not according to me, that's according to our US treasury department Paying staff more requires raising tuition which parents can't afford already. Less than 5% of child care facilities are more than 4% profitable. No one is getting rich and everything is shitty. It's needs to be moved into a model much more akin to K-12 education which isn't just about education -- it's about child care so parents can work. Look at every other developed country and you'll see the US at the very bottom of the list in social spending on child care. The American Family Plan starts moving in this way and would be a massive shift for younger families.

    But what the fuck do I know. I don't have kids. I've just worked for 8 years in analytics at a state agency that regulates child care.

  6. #81
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    Quote Originally Posted by doebedoe View Post
    The problem is the child care is a fundamentally broken market. That's not according to me, that's according to our US treasury department Paying staff more requires raising tuition which parents can't afford already. Less than 5% of child care facilities are more than 4% profitable. No one is getting rich and everything is shitty. It's needs to be moved into a model much more akin to K-12 education which isn't just about education -- it's about child care so parents can work. Look at every other developed country and you'll see the US at the very bottom of the list in social spending on child care. The American Family Plan starts moving in this way and would be a massive shift for younger families.

    But what the fuck do I know. I don't have kids. I've just worked for 8 years in analytics at a state agency that regulates child care.
    I could put my kids through college on what I am going to pay for them to go to daycare for the years prior to kindergarten.

    It’s absolutely crazy. It makes the SAHD thing very attractive if it wasn’t for benefits.

  7. #82
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    Quote Originally Posted by doebedoe View Post
    The problem is the child care is a fundamentally broken market. That's not according to me, that's according to our US treasury department Paying staff more requires raising tuition which parents can't afford already. Less than 5% of child care facilities are more than 4% profitable. No one is getting rich and everything is shitty. It's needs to be moved into a model much more akin to K-12 education which isn't just about education -- it's about child care so parents can work. Look at every other developed country and you'll see the US at the very bottom of the list in social spending on child care. The American Family Plan starts moving in this way and would be a massive shift for younger families.

    But what the fuck do I know. I don't have kids. I've just worked for 8 years in analytics at a state agency that regulates child care.
    spot on. It's not a market where the consumer just needs to pay more. Because around here (or at least around here 6 years ago when my kid was in daycare), it was $1500/mo for one kid. Raise the price on that much, or have 2 kids, and paying that in order to work becomes a ridiculous proposition. But the daycare facility wasn't getting rich.

    The whole market needs to change.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
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    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  8. #83
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    Probably similar to private medical practice, the level of insurance they have to carry to be licensed is probably staggering. Man, I remember signing up for the Pre Kindergarten spot lotteries like I was trying to score Pink Floyd tickets. Go super lucky and both of our kids got in to Pre-K.. Literally like $10,000 per year childcare expenses avoided there for those two years.

    Anyway, ya paying that much and still not being guaranteed the kid won't get sent home or whole place closing for 2 weeks here and there for contact tracing.. Yikes!! How can anyone with kids be "dependable" or whatever you call it placing work over family needs???
    Go that way really REALLY fast. If something gets in your way, TURN!

  9. #84
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    Quote Originally Posted by ill-advised strategy View Post
    Incredible…my wife had that same story last week.

    Domino’s (locally) is a total shitshow right now, I feel so bad for the remaining employees.

    On the other hand, a few years ago I considered delivery driving and the help wanted ad contained such a shitty attitude from ownership/mgmt that I didn’t even bother, so that may be part if the problem. Ad was like “Pizza delivery: a stoner slob in a ratty car right? NOT HERE! We don’t accept rusty dented cars, we don’t accept slobs, so if you’re not ready to meet our high standards, MOVE ALONG” …I probably could have been fine with the hyundai and whatever, but really that ad just told me whoever wrote it is a dick…and now here they are unable to fill jobs. Surprise!
    Not that it would probably do anything more than make you feel good, but you should make sure the owner knows that. Put that story on Yelp or something. Seriously, people need to understand that a lot of us remember a lot of stuff and feel not so bad for you in your time of need. Be better when this shit turns around, and maybe things will be better for you in the future. This applies to so much more than just businesses.

  10. #85
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    spot on. It's not a market where the consumer just needs to pay more. Because around here (or at least around here 6 years ago when my kid was in daycare), it was $1500/mo for one kid. Raise the price on that much, or have 2 kids, and paying that in order to work becomes a ridiculous proposition. But the daycare facility wasn't getting rich.

    The whole market needs to change.
    $1500/month worked out to how much per hour for child care? Not very much.

    The shock value wears off as soon as you think about it for more than half a second.

  11. #86
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    We pay our nanny about 30k a year. If it was me I'd take the tree trimming job over hers any day

  12. #87
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    Restaurant workers, the smart ones anyway, aren't going back to work in that industry because they are sick of being treated like shit on the bottom of a non-slip shoe by management. I could tell a hundred stories from my years of working around restaurants of how management had zero respect or care for the employees that kept their ship afloat. Now they are whining about it and that pisses me off.

    https://www.foodandwine.com/fwpro/re...-5CBhEWRXXWFe4

    Moral of the story, if you do go out, don't bitch about trivial shit, and be thankful when you do receive good service, and tip far more than you used to. If you can't handle that, learn to cook at home more!

  13. #88
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    Quote Originally Posted by glademaster View Post
    $1500/month worked out to how much per hour for child care? Not very much.

    The shock value wears off as soon as you think about it for more than half a second.
    I understand that. And the daycare I used was worth every penny of it too.

    But that doesn't change the overall equation, you have to earn quite a bit extra to make that affordable, regardless of how it pencils out on an hourly basis.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  14. #89
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    Quote Originally Posted by warthog View Post
    Not that it would probably do anything more than make you feel good, but you should make sure the owner knows that. Put that story on Yelp or something. Seriously, people need to understand that a lot of us remember a lot of stuff and feel not so bad for you in your time of need. Be better when this shit turns around, and maybe things will be better for you in the future. This applies to so much more than just businesses.
    Most of them just say "people don't know how to work anymore" or "we have standards, you don't meet them". You see it up in this thread earlier. Why go and try to convert people that are total dicks to you and others while whining about how they can't find good help? You tell them to look in the mirror and they see nothing wrong because being a total dick has worked for decades. They aren't interested in changing, they're mostly interested in being able to continue to abuse low wage workers for their own benefit. Doesn't matter if you're talking local pizza shop, Amazon or Uber, they're all the same model.

  15. #90
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    Quote Originally Posted by SumJongGuy View Post
    Probably similar to private medical practice, the level of insurance they have to carry to be licensed is probably staggering. Man, I remember signing up for the Pre Kindergarten spot lotteries like I was trying to score Pink Floyd tickets. Go super lucky and both of our kids got in to Pre-K.. Literally like $10,000 per year childcare expenses avoided there for those two years.

    Anyway, ya paying that much and still not being guaranteed the kid won't get sent home or whole place closing for 2 weeks here and there for contact tracing.. Yikes!! How can anyone with kids be "dependable" or whatever you call it placing work over family needs???
    Insurance is a factor for sure, but the primary cost drivers are labor and rent.

    Universal pre-K is picking up steam at the local, state and federal levels. Lots of local preschool programs exist, CO passed "universal" pre-k for 4 year olds (universal...because it's only 10hrs paid per week which is meaningless unless programs can find other ways to supplement for the kids.) The problem is that doing it for 3-4 year olds are the cheaper ones to care for (and the only place where any provider is making a profit) so if the policy/implementation isn't careful it can produce a preserve incentive structure which will further jack up the cost of infant and toddler care. And it is infant and toddler care supply that nationally is way below what parents wish.

    At the end of the day, affordable and reliable high quality child care needs massive subsidization if we want it. And employers want it because it produces a larger pool of eligible labor which means they can keep wages down. Without it, people will choose to exit the labor force, constraining labor supply and pushing wages up.

  16. #91
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    spot on. It's not a market where the consumer just needs to pay more. Because around here (or at least around here 6 years ago when my kid was in daycare), it was $1500/mo for one kid. Raise the price on that much, or have 2 kids, and paying that in order to work becomes a ridiculous proposition. But the daycare facility wasn't getting rich.

    The whole market needs to change.
    Mrs. DJSapp used to work in a proper pre-K school as a teacher and was on her way to assistant principal. The teachers don't get paid much above min wage which is rough enough for the accreditation and licenses they need to personally carry, and the admins aren't exactly bringing home the bacon either. When we had our first kid, we enrolled her in the school and even with the employee discount, she was only netting about $200/month more after taxes. We talked it over and even with a promotion on the horizon we said fuck this noise, we'll figure it out and Mrs. DJSapp stayed at home ever since 2011 because we wanted a second kid and knew it just wasn't going to pencil out, on top of her feeling super stressed out that she wasn't with her kid during the day.

    There are several issues with pre-k education. First is mandatory kid to teacher ratios. For the youngest age groups it is something crazy high, like 4:1. As they get older the ratio gets better, but the shear amount of teachers needed to fill these schools is huge. Way more than elementary schools. State and Fed compliance is a big deal as well and pretty much consumes a couple of staff. The reasons the schools charge by the minute for overtime is due to the fact they're in violation of the labor laws (think DOT trucker hours) and the teachers just are not supposed to be in care of kids that long. Usually they backfill the overtime class with some of the admin staff to stay within ratio, but they have shit to do as well. Facility maintenance is a big deal as little kids are big disease vectors and cleaning is a real cost. Insurance is significant, but not as big of a cost as one would think.

    Pre-K schools need federal subsidies or else they're only going to be for the super wealthy. Full stop.
    Wait, how can we trust this guy^^^ He's clearly not DJSapp

  17. #92
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    I do feel bad for the servers. I work with some restaurants and bars. Due to supply shortages and staff shortages, many have had to trim menus back and that has led to many patrons pissed off they can't get their favorite meal and they are tipping lower because of it. Don't be a cheap ass if you want your favorite restaurant to stick around. If you'd prefer to cook for yourself, I guess it doesn't really matter.

  18. #93
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    Extended families for the win. That said, I'm not particularly grieved over the fact that our son and DIL expecting their first are on the other side of the country.

  19. #94
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    Quote Originally Posted by schuss View Post
    Most of them just say "people don't know how to work anymore" or "we have standards, you don't meet them". You see it up in this thread earlier. Why go and try to convert people that are total dicks to you and others while whining about how they can't find good help? You tell them to look in the mirror and they see nothing wrong because being a total dick has worked for decades. They aren't interested in changing, they're mostly interested in being able to continue to abuse low wage workers for their own benefit. Doesn't matter if you're talking local pizza shop, Amazon or Uber, they're all the same model.
    yup. And 90% of the time they’ll get positive press for their hiring “problems” even if it’s completely self inflicted.

  20. #95
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    Was just thinking about this. Another ‘factor’ to all of this is that when most of the employees are ready to quit at the first challenging interaction, management has to lower all standards in order to retain them. So you end up with marginal quality employees that DGAF. Even at slightly higher wages.
    Just an observation here, not an apology for management or whatever.
    Forum Cross Pollinator, gratuitously strident

  21. #96
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    Quote Originally Posted by schuss View Post
    Most of them just say "people don't know how to work anymore" or "we have standards, you don't meet them". You see it up in this thread earlier. Why go and try to convert people that are total dicks to you and others while whining about how they can't find good help? You tell them to look in the mirror and they see nothing wrong because being a total dick has worked for decades. They aren't interested in changing, they're mostly interested in being able to continue to abuse low wage workers for their own benefit. Doesn't matter if you're talking local pizza shop, Amazon or Uber, they're all the same model.
    I'm sure many of us can speak to that exact situation. I worked in a DC for a company that sold a good amount of product and I was not compensated accordingly. Part of that is where I live but they were unwilling to raise my pay to anything near a commensurate amount. In addition to this my boss had been with the company a long time and at one time did my job. He was so tied to how he did things any change was a non-starter and since I wasn't him I couldn't possibly be good at my job (I'm not the smartest or the hardest worker but I knew how to do my job well and make a small companies DC more efficient/better).

    Two examples: when he did my job we sold mostly incandescent light bulbs but by the time I started LED's were standard. The area around the pick/pack station was where the incandescents were kept. I asked him about moving the LED equivalent to that area since they sold more and was told that the incandescents were to stay where they were and "that's how we've always done it."

    The owner was a nice enough guy and had been a VP at a national chain company. He could have been great but my boss had his ear and as such I never got a chance to implement changes that would have helped the company and me. I was tasked with doing inventory (yearly, monthly, daily, whatever) and when I brought him changes they would pile up and we would get orders for product that we didn't have (I did research and found the various fuck-ups). Salesmen would blame me and he'd promise to do the adjustments and then wouldn't.

    I stuck around as long as I could and one day just said "fuck it, I'll figure the rest out later but this isn't sustainable." In my exit interview I didn't say a word as I'd already brought everything up in other meetings, etc. I'm sure they wrote me off as a lazy (insert my generation here).

  22. #97
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    Quote Originally Posted by schuss View Post
    Most of them just say "people don't know how to work anymore" or "we have standards, you don't meet them". You see it up in this thread earlier. Why go and try to convert people that are total dicks to you and others while whining about how they can't find good help? You tell them to look in the mirror and they see nothing wrong because being a total dick has worked for decades. They aren't interested in changing, they're mostly interested in being able to continue to abuse low wage workers for their own benefit. Doesn't matter if you're talking local pizza shop, Amazon or Uber, they're all the same model.

  23. #98
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    Insurance really isn't bad for childcare facilities. They have to add molestation coverage but in the grand scheme, they are not much more than other brick and motor businesses that also have to carry specialized coverages like mechanics, bars/restaurants, landscapers, architects, etc.

    What's bad is parent wages often don't support paying higher rates for childcare so parents go to single income households. The margins on operating a childcare facility are low and that's with paying low wages. We'll need government intervention of some sort or employers are going to continue to have a shit labor pool.

    I don't have kids and can still realize that I'd rather pay a little more for other peoples kids in exchange for them not robbing me in their early years and someday getting smart enough to treat my medical conditions.

    Not sure if the following plays a role but it seems young families used to have both parents working even if the second income was small to save to reach to the American dream of home ownership. With housing at the level it is, I posit that some families may be giving up on that dream and are just choosing to enjoy what they have with their families while renting. Maybe they're realizing that time can be worth more than assets especially when those assets are unattainable for many.

  24. #99
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    Quote Originally Posted by rideit View Post
    Was just thinking about this. Another ‘factor’ to all of this is that when most of the employees are ready to quit at the first challenging interaction, management has to lower all standards in order to retain them. So you end up with marginal quality employees that DGAF. Even at slightly higher wages.
    Just an observation here, not an apology for management or whatever.
    Eh, I'm in corpo world, but there's been very few interactions with the younger set that makes me inclined to say they'll "quit at the first challenging interaction." I think plenty will quit if they hit challenges and management doesn't have their back to any extent, because that's a loser of a situation long-term. You can fix your work expertise over time, but you can't really fix management that doesn't give a flying fuck about you. I'm sure I'm not the easiest to work for, but even when I'm calling my employees out, they feel that I'm doing it to make them better, not to just abuse them. That's an important distinction many don't get, as they just yell and moan about their shitty employees, when their job as a manager is to take an employee and to make them awesome. Sometimes it doesn't work, but I'd put money on the bitchers and moaners not doing anything constructive over employees just all being rotten.
    How many places do you know that are ruined by one shitty person that no one wants to work with but management won't fire? Many workplace problems are relatively easy to solve if you listen and spend time on the cultural infrastructure and have the stones/ovaries to tell problematic people to knock it off or be booted, but many just don't do it because it's hard.

  25. #100
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    I see your point, for sure. But I was more referring to front-line retail and food service/hospitality. (Being treated like shit by the customers rather than management)
    Forum Cross Pollinator, gratuitously strident

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