Quote Originally Posted by Nierman View Post
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Did anyone catch the fast-food strike interviews on Chris Hayes' new All In program the other night? story and vid here

I feel their chosen strikers were a poor representation of why the industry "deserves" a pay increase. The young gentleman striker is very well-spoken but claims to have been in the fast food industry for SEVEN FREAKING YEARS, and is only making $0.10 more per hour than when he started?!? Twenty years ago during college I got a job busting suds in the kitchen of my friendly neighborhood Applebee's for a similar ($7) hourly rate, and within a year I went on to cook, bus tables, wait tables, train new area managers then finally tend bar so I could stand and drink all night and make the big bucks. I still went back and washed dishes when they needed a shift filled, but rarely did I make less than $10/hr since the managers knew I'd have that station so spotless throughout the night that I'd be out of there within an hour of close - instead of 3am like some other workers that got behind on the stacks of riblet bones, ramekins and brutus glassware. While I take every opportunity to brag about my dishwashing prowess like some 4 TDs in a single game Al Bundy, I'm trying to say is that I can't help but think these kids need to be educated a little more that they have the power to be proactive -- start envisioning a 5 year plan beyond their current entry level careers.

And the kid had to be a plant. Too smart to make $7 hour.
That's the thing about a recession. The jobs just aren't there. That's what this whole thing is about and that's where the disconnect between the youth and the boomers is. You say "be proactive" and young people say "the opportunities aren't there." Some people get lucky. There are some jobs out there, but you can't bus tables at Domino's.

Higher up the food chain being proactive gets you a few years of working for free in a position where your parents got paid: Do Unpaid Internships Exploit College Students? - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com

And on top of all that, just getting by has gotten more expensive: the West has shifted from competing in "Kitchen Debates" with the USSR to trying to suck the life out of labor more efficiently than the PRC. Kitchen Debate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia