this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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Antiwork
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A community for those who want to end work, are curious about ending work, want to get the most out of a work-free life, want more information on anti-work ideas and want personal help with their own jobs/work-related struggles.
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This server is no longer working, and we had to move.
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Date Created: June 21, 2023
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The Anti-Work Library 📚
Essential Reads
Start here! These are probably the most talked-about essays on the topic.
- The Abolition of Work by Bob Black (1985) | listen
- On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (2013) | listen
- In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (1932) | listen
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I think it's a straightforward categorization. If it's a skill you could pick up as a toddler or young child (packing a box and matching shapes, flipping things, moving things around, bagging things) and doesn't require further education or training (as in, literally anyone you meet on the street could do it), or something extremely simple to automate away with a script, I think it's reasonable to call it unskilled.
The term was pushes by the owners to justify low pay. A toddler can't be a fry cook or work in a packing center. Is someone who's done it for a year likely to be better at it then someone who started yesterday? Then fuck off with this working class division bullshit.
I didn't mention fry cooks or anything of that nature. I think I was pretty clear with my criteria of what I consider unskilled.
For example, I wouldn't call grocery bagging or cart collecting "skilled labor" in any way. And there are people working at stores who exclusively do those jobs.
Packing center... depends on what the role entails, I suppose. If you're just packing boxes and taping them shut to prep for shipping, I don't think I'd consider that a skill. Especially considering the state of most packages I receive from Amazon.
Hey, I think your categorisation is just plain wrong in the first place - skilled labour is any job you need a recognised qualification, like a high school/college degree, or a third party certification, to be considered for. Unskilled labour are the jobs you don't need that for. In that line, packing boxes and cooking burgers are both unskilled. So are sales jobs, except there are sales jobs that are also skilled labour - you need an MBA and/or a license to trade stocks for other people (I think(?))
In other words it's a job that could be done better... Maybe the people doing it could be more skilled.
You're barfing up the absolute bullshit that's used to justify not paying people enough to survive, and to keep people who work for a living at each others' throats. Stop trying to find the thin dividing line that makes you superior to someone who works hard all day putting things in boxes.
I’ve spent over 15 years in IT building my skill set, moving into virtualization and automation, and still continue learning new things and becoming certified for new skills every few years.
I won’t apologize for thinking my skill set is more valuable than that of putting things in boxes.
It’s not an idea of superiority, as you put it, and more just a focus on personal growth and effort to continue educating myself and learning new things independently of any school, university, or job training.
I’ve done physical labor, worked groundskeeping, retail, food services, etc. in the past. Many roles of that nature have a low skill ceiling and are eventually dead ends unless you can somehow transfer to a role in management or other leadership position that would be transferable for more pay and training opportunities.
Nobody's trying to argue that all jobs have equal skill. I'm a doctor, I'm pretty aware of that... as much or more than your profession as described, I'd say.
The argument is not that all jobs require equal skillb it's that there is no such thing as unskilled labour. The description of any labour as "unskilled" is a distinction expressly devised to explain why we don't pay those jobs enough to survive. There are plenty of other terms you could use if you didn't want to sound like you were denigrating the importance of manual labour. And for all your claims of not doing it to feel superior, you certainly use all the trappings of superiority. "Low skill ceiling" and "dead ends" eg.
That's fair and I don't think I actually disagree with you in spirit, but there is a delineation between high skilled work (roles that involve knowledge and skill growth and regular continual learning/advancement/improvement) and lower skilled work (roles that involve doing the same thing day in and day out in a repeated fashion with no change or opportunity for advancement or growth). I'm not sure exactly how that would be described otherwise, it almost seems a semantic issue we're arguing over more than a concept.
If not skilled and unskilled, or perhaps "highly skilled" and "low skilled," how would you describe or define the difference?
Not superiority. I've lived it personally. I did those kind of jobs in high schoole and to work my way through college (ironically, I dropped out and never finished, moved into IT and got on certification paths instead). Many jobs ranging from deli and freezer packing, food service, restaurant bussing, groundskeeping, retail.
I'd describe them exactly as I did, low skill ceiling and dead end. When I was in those roles, that's exactly how it felt, and I personally hated it. No chance for career advancement doing repetitive tasks where I had fully optimized my job to the point I could do it in my sleep and there was no additional way of improving process or invoking change either due to policies, stubborn management, or simply because it was already optimal and there was no better way to do it without automation making the job redundant.
When I say "low skill ceiling" and "dead end" it's not an insult to people doing that sort of work. It's simply a statement that if you do the job x amount of time, optimize, eventually you're capped, and that time duration tends to be short. Someone in the role a few months is a "veteran" often due to turnover, but that doesn't stop things from keeping on. The tasks are the same every day, the position has minimal or no growth opportunities, and the only opportunity for personal advancement is to quit and do something else. There's only so many ways to mow a green, bag groceries, pack a package, or scan items and ring someone up at a checkout. Logic and/or creativity aren't encouraged or required, the job is basically a checklist to follow.
Also, I do agree that those jobs should all pay a living wage regardless. Given the state of the economy and inflation, minimum wage should be more like $20 or more these days. Regardless of the supposed skill level of any job, anyone working full time should certainly be able to afford food, shelter, and general life necessities and amenities.