Re:What harm do minimum wages do?
by asdff on Wednesday August 19, 2020 @06:38PM
(#24217639)
Some jobs are too dynamic for automation. Every shift means a unique set of tasks with unique sets of variables, even if they are routine tasks, and it gets very expensive to design and support an automated solution that will continually adapt to changing conditions and replace human creativity and plasticity.
I think back to my minimum wage job working as a grounds keeper at a golf course. To the uninformed, it seems like a perfect space to deploy a roomba with knives and never hire a groundskeeper again. I can tell you that this high tech course would sooner burst into flames than maintain playable conditions for a golf season. For a groundskeeper, the generalized routine is the same, cut the same greens and teeboxes every morning with a shotgun start and the fairways and rough every other day or so, but how you cut those sections changes by the day, even by the minute over the course of a dynamic weather event. What angle you cut, how high or low the cutting surface should be, whether or not the grass is slightly slippery that day and would require more focus with the mower to maintain a straight line, how the grass was cut yesterday and the day before are all variables that an experienced greensmower accounts for subconsciously and instantly. Then you might have a drought which changes how the grass should be cut, or a rain storm which might require a lot of emergency drainage work to keep irrigation equipment functional or to preserve the playing surface before you could even begin regular cutting, which would be with extreme care given the rain soaked earth (you might even opt to roll rather than cut).
A comprehensive automated solution for many jobs is exceedingly complex and highly custom, which could really add up in pricier engineer-man-hours and service contracts, versus having your own maintenance shop hidden on the course and hiring a low skilled crew to operate that equipment. It's so much easier to tell a human to cut grass than to spend 100x the man hours maintaining an automated solution that continually captures all the variability of that dynamic job.
I think back to my minimum wage job working as a grounds keeper at a golf course. To the uninformed, it seems like a perfect space to deploy a roomba with knives and never hire a groundskeeper again. I can tell you that this high tech course would sooner burst into flames than maintain playable conditions for a golf season. For a groundskeeper, the generalized routine is the same, cut the same greens and teeboxes every morning with a shotgun start and the fairways and rough every other day or so, but how you cut those sections changes by the day, even by the minute over the course of a dynamic weather event. What angle you cut, how high or low the cutting surface should be, whether or not the grass is slightly slippery that day and would require more focus with the mower to maintain a straight line, how the grass was cut yesterday and the day before are all variables that an experienced greensmower accounts for subconsciously and instantly. Then you might have a drought which changes how the grass should be cut, or a rain storm which might require a lot of emergency drainage work to keep irrigation equipment functional or to preserve the playing surface before you could even begin regular cutting, which would be with extreme care given the rain soaked earth (you might even opt to roll rather than cut).
A comprehensive automated solution for many jobs is exceedingly complex and highly custom, which could really add up in pricier engineer-man-hours and service contracts, versus having your own maintenance shop hidden on the course and hiring a low skilled crew to operate that equipment. It's so much easier to tell a human to cut grass than to spend 100x the man hours maintaining an automated solution that continually captures all the variability of that dynamic job.