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A comment on Amazon Doesn't 'Employ' Drivers, but Hired Firms to Prevent Them from Unionizing. Parent comment

Re:Amazon Doesn't 'Employ' Drivers, but Hired Firms to Preve... by coldtea on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @11:09AM (#37050155)
>At what income level does one need to start treating the customer, that is enabling one to have a job, like a real human being?

At a sufficient enough and above. Below that the Clerks (as in the Kevin Smith movie) treatment is good enough.

In any case, "treating like a real human being" and putting on a show of smiles and friendliness US-style, is not even close to being the same thing.

In "real" human interaction, we understand the other as a person with their own feelings and mood, and we don't demand from anybody to exhibit a certain cheerful mood for us.

But of course this isn't about real human connection. It's more about "When I pay I demand those serving me to entertain me with smiles and pleasantries". The customer could not care less about the person serving them, or their condition, otherwise. "Real person" my ass.

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Re:Amazon Doesn't 'Employ' Drivers, but Hired Firms to Preve... by bugglebeetle on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @11:39AM (#37050655)
Exactly. There’s something fundamentally sadistic about American culture, I expect inherited from its legacy of slavery, where customers demand that workers perform a frightened but also “joyful” subservience to them as evidence that they’re getting their money’s worth.
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Re:Amazon Doesn't 'Employ' Drivers, but Hired Firms to Preve... by DiggyJohnson on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @12:25PM (#37051518)
This is an unbelievable take that I suspect if fueled by an over extrapolation of online culture and the news. Get a grip.
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Re:Amazon Doesn't 'Employ' Drivers, but Hired Firms to Preve... by bugglebeetle on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @01:20PM (#37052471)
It’s fueled by my working in restaurants for ~7 years in my 20s. If you’d experienced people throwing food at you because they didn’t like how it was made, sexually harassing and hurling racist insults at your coworkers, among other, myriad abuses, you’d probably feel the same. And that’s just describing the customers, not even addressing how management behaved.

Not all of us have had the luxury to spend our lives musing about trivial things like RuneScape, in between posting on white-collar tech forums.

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Re:Amazon Doesn't 'Employ' Drivers, but Hired Firms to Preve... by DiggyJohnson on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @01:59PM (#37053019)
I've worked plenty of food service in my life. You're making the mistake of overrepresenting the worst behavior. All of those things are out of line in American society.

I don't think you should read so much into my hobby either.

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Re:Amazon Doesn't 'Employ' Drivers, but Hired Firms to Preve... by bugglebeetle on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @02:26PM (#37053421)
I don’t think you should be telling others to “get a grip,” because their experience differs from your own, but here we are. Perhaps don’t make such obnoxious assumptions if you don’t want to be treated that way in kind.

I’m also skeptical of the extent of your actual experience if you think this behavior is “out of line” in American society. It was quite routine in mine. The first time I saw someone throw food at the head of a cashier I was shocked, but quite quickly became inured.

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Re:Amazon Doesn't 'Employ' Drivers, but Hired Firms to Preve... by BaseballPhysics on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @05:40PM (#37055819)
> I don’t think you should be telling others to “get a grip,” because their experience differs from your own, but here we are.

You tried to attached the American cultural norm of manners and courtesy to their history of black slavery.

"Get a grip" is a pretty mild response to something so absurd, hyperbolic, and flat out insulting.

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Re:Amazon Doesn't 'Employ' Drivers, but Hired Firms to Preve... by bugglebeetle on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @06:00PM (#37056018)
No, I tied our history of slavery to the widespread abuse of service workers, and working class people more generally. This is not in anyway hyperbolic. Go read W.E. Dubois on wage labor. Or look at the distribution of service vs. professional-class jobs among minorities prior to and after the Civil Rights Movement. I likewise witnessed plenty of anti-black racism directed at my coworkers in these settings, both from customers and management. But that has no prior context in American history and was invented solely in the wickedness of individual hearts. Sure, okay.
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