Talia Jane Writes Na Open letter to Her CEO

[General Zod]

Edit: nah.

[Elheru Aran]

I'm not talking about the choices that got her there, I'm talking about acting like she has a choice of going anywhere else. I mean it's pretty clear she already tried to escape one bad situation and wound up in a shittier? Just as shitty? situation.

OK, misread that.

Well. Frankly, yeah, staying in that situation *is* a choice. There's not much detail given, but assuming that she's single, has a decent relationship with at least SOME family, and her income is at the level stated (though she has apparently been fired so yeah)... there are options. She can ask to move in with family or friends (her father lives nearby, apparently). She could file unemployment and apply for food stamps and any other welfare programs available in California, Section 8 or some such for rent assistance. She can browse Craigslist and whatever other online directories there are for people seeking roommates or cheaper apartments. She could sell that car that apparently she's not getting much use out of anyway for junk and get a couple hundred dollars out of it if she needs cash to move.

There are always options, up to and including couch-surfing. Are they always good/easy/fun? Hell no. But you do what you have to when you have to survive.

Speaking from personal experience it's almost impossible to save up enough money to make those kind of changes when the rent is your single biggest expense and you don't have any sort of financial cushion left when you live in one of the world's most expensive cities.

she can not take an advance to her credit card to move to a cheaper place like Red Bluff or Placerville?

She notes that her card is being declined, so presumably her debt has surpassed her ability to take out an advance on it.

[Purple]

Sure. But all of this still doesn´t change anything about the assholish character of this company. I mean, there are Amercian companies who treat their employees decently even though they don´t have to.
It just comes down to a business decission. Do you want to pay small wages but in return get less motivated and less competent employees as well as a high turn over or do you invest in your employees, pay more money but get better and more loyal employees?
Both strategies can be successful from a business stand point but one of them is an asshole strategy and this company appears to be pursueing it.

You are missing one important thing and that is the ratio of available jobs and available workers. And I mean that in both the physical and effective sense. What you describe only rings true if there are more jobs than there are workers and if the workers that are available are capable of detecting and moving to better jobs. If there are more workers than jobs or workers can't reasonably expected to pick up and move 1000km just to change jobs than companies are not in realistic competition for workers but the other way around. So the burden of motivating the worker to be effective is moved away from good wages and other incentives and toward not starving.

[General Zod]

I'm not talking about the choices that got her there, I'm talking about acting like she has a choice of going anywhere else. I mean it's pretty clear she already tried to escape one bad situation and wound up in a shittier? Just as shitty? situation.

OK, misread that.

Well. Frankly, yeah, staying in that situation *is* a choice. There's not much detail given, but assuming that she's single, has a decent relationship with at least SOME family, and her income is at the level stated (though she has apparently been fired so yeah)... there are options. She can ask to move in with family or friends (her father lives nearby, apparently). She could file unemployment and apply for food stamps and any other welfare programs available in California, Section 8 or some such for rent assistance. She can browse Craigslist and whatever other online directories there are for people seeking roommates or cheaper apartments. She could sell that car that apparently she's not getting much use out of anyway for junk and get a couple hundred dollars out of it if she needs cash to move.

There are always options, up to and including couch-surfing. Are they always good/easy/fun? Hell no. But you do what you have to when you have to survive.

Honestly, at the end of the day I simply don't care about the choices that got her there. Employers are able to get away with paying slave wages because people like you are more than happy to make excuses for them.

[Elheru Aran]

Honestly, at the end of the day I simply don't care about the choices that got her there. Employers are able to get away with paying slave wages because people like you are more than happy to make excuses for them.

Hey now. Fuck do you see me making excuses for her employer? I'm talking about this woman and her situation. Yes, part of that is because she's being paid shit wages. I'm talking about what she can do with that, how she could change her situation in order to come out a little better. That includes getting a different job if possible (and it looks like she's going to have to anyway). If you think that means I'm defending her employer, you're welcome to go take a long walk over a short pier in the Flint River.

[salm]

Obviously it's not the best option for a long term solution. But short term, I think it would benefit this specific person by getting her a cheaper place to live so that she can either a.) find a different job which doesn't give her the shaft so badly or b.) allow her to save some money, get her vehicle repaired, and build a cushion against future financial hardship.

I´m not talking about what is a better option for her personally.
I´m saying that having companies that pay wages bellow what you need for making a living are a problem and that these companies behave unethically, aka assholish. Companies (imo) have an obligation to act decently and if they don´t do that on a large enough scale the government needs to step in and put a stop this.

they also have the social responsibility to not lie, cheat, and steal, and a social responsibility to abide by tyheir contracts.

Sure, and imo they have the social responsibility to treat their employees decently and pay them enough. Otherwiese these companies are not worth much. In the end a very important part of a companies utility for a society is (among some other things) to create wealth for the the people who make up this company, i.e. the employees. If a company can not provide enough money for its workforce the companies utility is strongly diminished.

How much value does a call center job create?

Depends. Good call centers are useful. There are bad call centers that deserve to burn in hell but there are good call centers. A couple of years ago the EU placed certain requirements on call centers for example, like making it illegal to leave you on hold for longer than a certain time. Or having the impertinence to charge you while being on hold (sometimes for hours). You´re not allowed to charge absurd minute prices anymore either.
Since then the quality of call centers has improved massively and I actually don´t have any problems with call centers anymore and they are actually usefull.

You are missing one important thing and that is the ratio of available jobs and available workers. And I mean that in both the physical and effective sense. What you describe only rings true if there are more jobs than there are workers and if the workers that are available are capable of detecting and moving to better jobs. If there are more workers than jobs or workers can't reasonably expected to pick up and move 1000km just to change jobs than companies are not in realistic competition for workers but the other way around. So the burden of motivating the worker to be effective is moved away from good wages and other incentives and toward not starving.

No i am precicely NOT missing that. I know the mechanism behind underpaid jobs. I´m saying that the companies who exploit such situations have limited value to society and are fucking assholes.

[General Zod]

Honestly, at the end of the day I simply don't care about the choices that got her there. Employers are able to get away with paying slave wages because people like you are more than happy to make excuses for them.

Hey now. Fuck do you see me making excuses for her employer? I'm talking about this woman and her situation. Yes, part of that is because she's being paid shit wages. I'm talking about what she can do with that, how she could change her situation in order to come out a little better. That includes getting a different job if possible (and it looks like she's going to have to anyway). If you think that means I'm defending her employer, you're welcome to go take a long walk over a short pier in the Flint River.

Because it sounds to me like you're missing the point of the article spectacularly. When people write posts like this they don't want people offering unsolicited suggestions that they're probably aware of already.

[Elheru Aran]

Because it sounds to me like you're missing the point of the article spectacularly. When people write posts like this they don't want people offering unsolicited suggestions that they're probably aware of already.

Point of the article: "My [former] job doesn't pay enough, therefore I'm fucked."

Point of real life: "My former job didn't pay enough for this situation that I got myself into because I didn't think it through, therefore I'm fucked."

Yes, being at a call center for a Yelp app or whatever the fuck it was paid shit wages, and she's in an area with a high cost of living which, remarkably enough, said shit wages can't cover. Shitty job paid shitty wages. No fucking shit. It doesn't take a genius to ask "So how much is that hourly?... let's see, that's how much every two weeks, which is how much every month..." and go from there.

The job/employer being shitty is only PART of the problem. If her rent was cheap, if her other expenses were reasonable, and she was still in this situation somehow, the employer would be far more at fault. But it's very obvious that, at least in part, she's at fault. Bitching about her employer in a public forum got her fired, which isn't going to help.

Oh, and unsolicted suggestions? Unless Purple's real name is Talia Jane, it's no more than discussion. If I wanted to make suggestions directly, I'd email her.

[Civil War Man]

For the record, I haven't read the open letter, so what I'm writing is just based on the argument going on in the thread.

The way I see it, "It's her fault for getting into that situation" only really applies if your argument is that it's OK for people to get stuck in poverty, possibly for the rest of their lives, as a result of their bad decisions.

It can also be a lot harder to get out of that kind of situation than it seems. Getting a higher paying job, for instance, can actually leave you worse off if the increase in the cost of commuting is greater than the increase in pay (and that's assuming the higher paying job even exists, which isn't always the case). And moving to a place with cheaper rent may not be possible if you do not have enough resources on hand to pay relocation costs. It can run into Terry Pratchett's Boots Theory of Socioeconomic Unfairness, where someone who is poor is stuck being poor because they do not have enough money to afford the investment needed to save money in the long run.

It's not necessarily impossible to overcome those obstacles (the higher paying job may have a shorter commute, or your friends or family might be able to pay the relocation costs if you are moving in with them), but that's often dependent on factors that the person does not control.

[biostem]

I would like to see a breakdown of this person's income and expenses. While these stories are tragic, I have learned to never simply take the person's word for it.

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, no, I don't think anybody will say that people deserve to be stuck in poverty because of bad decisions (well, anybody *reasonable*). I'm certainly not trying to say that or I wouldn't be thinking of the various options that could be available to people in similar situations.

The way I see it though, ignoring the way she got into that situation in the first place is ignoring that she shares some of the responsibility for getting into it herself. And her open letter seems to indicate that either she doesn't see it that way or she's simply not aware of that. Instead, she states it as "I'm screwed because my employer doesn't pay me enough". No mention of trying to find a different place to live, no mention of looking for a different job, no comment about trying to find assistance.

There is social responsibility-- and I agree that her employer seems to be in abrogation of that responsibility by not paying its employees a living wage-- but there is also a certain degree of personal responsibility involved here.

Now that that's said, yeah, she certainly doesn't deserve to be stuck in a perpetual cycle of poverty. There are very few people who deserve that. And she's hopefully young enough to make a fresh start. It's just going to take a lot of time and work, and/or alternatively, good fortune.

I would like to see a breakdown of this person's income and expenses. While these stories are tragic, I have learned to never simply take the person's word for it.

I got paid yesterday ($733.24, bi-weekly) but I have to save as much of that as possible to pay my rent ($1245) for my apartment that’s 30 miles away from work because it was the cheapest place I could find that had access to the train, which costs me $5.65 one way to get to work. That’s $11.30 a day, by the way. I make $8.15 an hour after taxes. I also have to pay my gas and electric bill. Last month it was $120.

Not exhaustive, and there are a few other mentions of numbers throughout the article (such as an Internet connection, price not noted), but this is the most concrete set of numbers she gives.

[Broomstick]

Is there no family help to be had? Relatives she could rent a room from for a few months?

This is not a good option. You should be able to live on the income your job provides you with without burdening other people.

There's a time and a place for it – after my first winter in Chicago I couldn't pull together the rent to live there over the summer so went back to the parents for about 4 months before moving back to Chicago, after which I was able to manage on my own long term.

If you have been independent for awhile and come upon hard times then going back home short term (months to maybe a year) to regroup can also make sense.

It should not be years and years of adulthood, though – unless you're choosing to stay home and contributing an equitable amount to the household, in other words, you could be independent but genuinely choose to live with family.

Sometimes, in order to have a job you have to put up with a long commute – my very first paying job was 70 miles each way to and from (around 110 km). I needed experience at doing something and it was a way to get it. For years and years I commuted 45 miles each way, an hour and a half each way, to earn sufficient money to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. You might need to take mass transit with maybe more than one bus or train on your commute, and maybe some significant walking on each end of the route. Does it suck? Yes, it certainly can but particularly when you're young and just starting out sometimes you have to do these things until you accumulate more resources and a better income.

I think the blogger made some poor choices. Wow, young people do that. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way a job isn't worth the price of getting yourself to and from – essentially, she's in a situation where she's losing money despite working full time. That means she has to make some changes.

Yes, being at a call center for a Yelp app or whatever the fuck it was paid shit wages, and she's in an area with a high cost of living which, remarkably enough, said shit wages can't cover. Shitty job paid shitty wages. No fucking shit. It doesn't take a genius to ask "So how much is that hourly?... let's see, that's how much every two weeks, which is how much every month..." and go from there.

The job/employer being shitty is only PART of the problem. If her rent was cheap, if her other expenses were reasonable, and she was still in this situation somehow, the employer would be far more at fault. But it's very obvious that, at least in part, she's at fault

^ This.

When the cost of living started rising above my usual raises, and my spouse was becoming less able to work, we moved to another state and I spent 3 hours a day commuting on trains. When I got laid off in 2007 we cut back on stuff to the bare bones, and at some points asked for help. I didn't just throw up my hands, declare Chicago an expensive place to live, and bitch publicly about my employer. I support 2 adults and keep 2 vehicles running on more or less the same wages as the blogger earns. How do I do that? Thanks to 30+ years of being an adult I make better choices. We shouldn't shit on the blogger because she's got three decades less experience.

But we shouldn't ignore the societal bullshit that contributes to these situations. It is MUCH harder for young people to get independent these days, and MUCH less forgiving. 30 years ago minimum wage was actually a livable wage in Chicago. Rents were more reasonable. Student debt was a lot less. I get angry at people my age who don't understand that the environment today's 20-somethings operate in is a lot different than what we faced.

[salm]

Is there no family help to be had? Relatives she could rent a room from for a few months?

This is not a good option. You should be able to live on the income your job provides you with without burdening other people.

There's a time and a place for it – after my first winter in Chicago I couldn't pull together the rent to live there over the summer so went back to the parents for about 4 months before moving back to Chicago, after which I was able to manage on my own long term.

Let me rephrase this: This is not a good option. Companies should pay you enough money to not force you back to your parents. Forcing people to accept resources from relatives means that the relaitives are subsidizing the company by paying a part of your wages. And that is absurd.
The blame is not (necessarily) on the underpaid employee the blame is on the asshole company.

[Elheru Aran]

This is not a good option. You should be able to live on the income your job provides you with without burdening other people.

There's a time and a place for it – after my first winter in Chicago I couldn't pull together the rent to live there over the summer so went back to the parents for about 4 months before moving back to Chicago, after which I was able to manage on my own long term.

Let me rephrase this: This is not a good option. Companies should pay you enough money to not force you back to your parents. Forcing people to accept resources from relatives means that the relaitives are subsidizing the company by paying a part of your wages. And that is absurd.
The blame is not (necessarily) on the underpaid employee the blame is on the asshole company.

That is fair enough. As long as you're not objecting in general to people moving back in with family for a short term out of necessity.

I do think there is a certain element of social responsibility that has been missing from the corporate world, in the US at least, for several decades now. Thoughts?

[biostem]

I do think there is a certain element of social responsibility that has been missing from the corporate world, in the US at least, for several decades now. Thoughts?

Here's my question - let's say the company decided that, yeah, they should pay their workers more - so they give everyone a % increase to bring them up to that level, but then in order to balance the books, they lay off a number of employees to compensate. Would you be in favor of that? You can't simply increase everyone's pay and have no repercussions.

[General Zod]

I do think there is a certain element of social responsibility that has been missing from the corporate world, in the US at least, for several decades now. Thoughts?

Here's my question - let's say the company decided that, yeah, they should pay their workers more - so they give everyone a % increase to bring them up to that level, but then in order to balance the books, they lay off a number of employees to compensate. Would you be in favor of that? You can't simply increase everyone's pay and have no repercussions.

I think that if you can't afford to pay your employees a living wage then you don't deserve to be in business and it might be time to reconsider your business model.

[Elheru Aran]

I do think there is a certain element of social responsibility that has been missing from the corporate world, in the US at least, for several decades now. Thoughts?

Here's my question - let's say the company decided that, yeah, they should pay their workers more - so they give everyone a % increase to bring them up to that level, but then in order to balance the books, they lay off a number of employees to compensate. Would you be in favor of that? You can't simply increase everyone's pay and have no repercussions.

Alternatively, they could reduce pay and benefits on the upper levels of their company to make up the difference, or simply accept less profits, which will benefit them by reducing the amount of taxes that they have to pay as generally taxes are levied upon profits. Laying off a number of workers isn't the only solution to that question, albeit it's the most likely solution in the modern world, regrettably.

They would need to consider the tradeoff though-- higher pay would mean happier employees (less stress at home due to not being able to pay bills etc.), give them incentive to stay at that employer and build experience with them and their specific methods of doing things, and build the reputation of the company as a more equitable employer in the public eye. In other words (to pull a couple of random companies out of a hat) "I'd rather work at Burger King because they pay you better than McDonald's does."

[biostem]

In an idealistic sense, I agree with your sentiment, Elheru Aran. However, a company exists to generate profit for its shareholders/owners. Yes, I recognize that many business are started to provide a service or product, but in the end, they're there to make money. I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with this approach, but how do you convince business owners/operators that taking a cut to *their* salaries and paying their people more is worthwhile, unless there is some external pressure to do so? Would you enact some sort of law, (the top executive cannot be paid more than X above the lowest paid one, for instance)?

[salm]

That is fair enough. As long as you're not objecting in general to people moving back in with family for a short term out of necessity.

I do think there is a certain element of social responsibility that has been missing from the corporate world, in the US at least, for several decades now. Thoughts?

There´s no objection at all. If you´re forced to or want to move back in with your parents or whomever feel free to do so, there´s nothing wrong with that.
There is everything wrong with companies exploiting their employees.

I´ve been whitnessing this with someone close for several years now and I´ve been crackling with glee for the last couple of weeks because most of the employees of the (governmental) departement in question have either quit, are in the process of quitting, on sick leave for several weeks due to burn out or preagnant (after illegally being told that they´d be fired for getting preagnant.)
They treated everybody like shit, underpayed them (even though that´s one thing that is supposed to be impossible in a governmental office), gave them temporary contracts (some only 3 months) which they´d renew after they expired in order to circumvent the difficulties of firing people.
Now they are begging the people they treated like shit to stay or come back because they can not find new people. The people qualified to do the job are realitvely rare and the community meets here and there and now after several years of abuse everybody knows what it is like there. They advertise jobs but get very few applications (2 or 3 when it used to be 30 to 40).
It´s a pitty actually because when the person in question started there it used to be a respected departement. But then came the new management and turned it into a hell hole.

Unfortunately this business concept is far too successful and businesses or departements with ethics like that going down the shitter happens far too rarely.

It´s similar in the gaming industry. They exploit young, naive talent who are willing to work for almost nothing, they overwork them, fuck them up and spit them out because they know there are enough naive, young talented people who are willing to sacrifice wages to be able to work in the gaming industry. It´s rather depressing. I was at a computer game job fair once and asked how much I´d be payed at a certain company. The answer was that for the first year I´d have to work as an intern and would be payed a whooping 400 bucks. That would have mean that my parents would have had to pay the other 400 bucks I would have needed to survive and the recruiter said that with a straight face. It didn´t even occur to him that my parents would be subsidizing his unprofitable business.
And this type of story you hear a lot.

So, yes, I think there is a lot wrong with social responsibility in a lot of companies and in plenty of govenmental offices as well (which bugs me even more).
On the other hand other businesses are getting better and better with more flexible time, home office possibilites, flat hierarchical structures and a general appreciation of the employee. This business model works very good as well.

[salm]

I do think there is a certain element of social responsibility that has been missing from the corporate world, in the US at least, for several decades now. Thoughts?

Here's my question - let's say the company decided that, yeah, they should pay their workers more - so they give everyone a % increase to bring them up to that level, but then in order to balance the books, they lay off a number of employees to compensate. Would you be in favor of that? You can't simply increase everyone's pay and have no repercussions.

Happy employees are efficient employees. You can build your bussiness around the philosophy of having more expensive, perhaps fewer but more competent employees with less turnover.

In an idealistic sense, I agree with your sentiment, Elheru Aran. However, a company exists to generate profit for its shareholders/owners. Yes, I recognize that many business are started to provide a service or product, but in the end, they're there to make money. I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with this approach, but how do you convince business owners/operators that taking a cut to *their* salaries and paying their people more is worthwhile, unless there is some external pressure to do so? Would you enact some sort of law, (the top executive cannot be paid more than X above the lowest paid one, for instance)?

The economy exists to provide societies with resources. If certain company structures are a burden to the economy or the economies purpose of providing for the people living in the relevant society we should find political mechanisms to get rid of such parasitical entities.
One mechanism is obviously raising the minimum wage.

[Simon_Jester]

A salient point Tali makes near the beginning of her article:

ALL her coworkers are having this problem. They're ALL in desperate financial straits, they're ALL eating the snacks at work because they're having trouble paying for food. Talia's already accepting that she lives thirty miles from her workplace and riding the train each way (costing her an hour's wages or more each day).

It's not just "Talia made a stupid decision." Either this entire call center consists entirely of idiots (in which case why are they running a business you have to be an idiot to work for?), or they're just plain not paying a livable wage for the area they live in.

So, yes, either they should pay more or relocate the facility somewhere they can afford to pay their wrokers more. Or, noting Talia's argument that keeping experienced call workers actually saves the company money, they could pay her a few hundred more a month just as part of the 'profits' they make from her being better trained.

[aerius]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

If I'm running a business which requires minimally skilled employees who are pretty much disposable, and I have a seemingly endless supply of people who are either willing or can be suckered into doing the job, why the hell would I pay them anything more than minimum wage? These aren't skilled workers who I need to retain, they're dime a dozen workers who I can replace at any time and who won't be missed at all by anyone. My business isn't going to be improved if I doubled their wages, there's no return on my expenditure, I'm running a business, not a charity.

[salm]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

If I'm running a business which requires minimally skilled employees who are pretty much disposable, and I have a seemingly endless supply of people who are either willing or can be suckered into doing the job, why the hell would I pay them anything more than minimum wage? These aren't skilled workers who I need to retain, they're dime a dozen workers who I can replace at any time and who won't be missed at all by anyone. My business isn't going to be improved if I doubled their wages, there's no return on my expenditure, I'm running a business, not a charity.

You´ve eliminated all reasons to pay them a decent wage besides the one that you might not be an asshole. If you´re an asshole you pay them less than they require to provide for themselves. That isn´t necessarily minimum wage as mimimum wage can be adequat if done right.
This can and does work all the time from a business perspective.

[General Zod]

I'm going to play devil's advocate here.

If I'm running a business which requires minimally skilled employees who are pretty much disposable, and I have a seemingly endless supply of people who are either willing or can be suckered into doing the job, why the hell would I pay them anything more than minimum wage? These aren't skilled workers who I need to retain, they're dime a dozen workers who I can replace at any time and who won't be missed at all by anyone. My business isn't going to be improved if I doubled their wages, there's no return on my expenditure, I'm running a business, not a charity.

Because your competitors will see that you're treating your employees like shit, snatch them all up and put you out of business when nobody will want to work for you.

[salm]

You could face a PR desaster.
Unfortunately chances are slim. Everybody knows that Amazon are whoresons but people still order crap from them like crazy.