The epitome of capitalism

captsteve said:

I love being home on the holidays but it is never possible to be home for all of them in my line of work.

I was home for Thanksgiving this year and that means I will be offshore for Christmas and new years without a choice other than losing my job. However I am compensated with double pay  on Christmas and New Years Day.

You always have a choice in the matter, it might not be the choice you want but it is a choice nontheless!

I personally voted with my wallet, my holiday shopping was done on Amazon last week.

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Sometimes I have to go out the night before Thanksgiving and I don't get home until lunch on Thanksgiving feeling like a Zombie due to being up all night...  Do I like it... Nooooooooo  but I am not going to quit my job as a result either....

Love my Amazon Prime

Folks; we have seen legislated retail hours and we voted to eliminate them in favor of competition.  Now we have what we voted for and some of us are griping. I started out in a low end job, but it was a job! And the opportunity for advancement on merit was there.

I ended up in a professional position with a scheduled 40 hr. week. Guess what! I still worked nights and weekends to fulfill the responsibilities of that position. The fact is that these low end jobs provide a start for many people and the opportujity to learn how to work. Opening on holidays, weekends, and evenings increases the number of these opportunities and that's good for all of us.

JM2C,

Ernie

I think it's a sign of a very prosperous economy that leads workers to feel they don't need to work all the hours they can. Imagine if people were truly starving, or truly mired in poverty what they would do to get to work an extra day or get extra pay for working a Thursday. We are truly blessed to have the luxury of complaining about working an entire 5 day work week.

Ken

While working in a factory in Rochester... I clearly remember working on a holiday, way back in the 70's!  Wow.. was I happy, got paid double time!  Then of course, I remember working many holidays over the years while in the service.... Not much money, but just part of the service!  I frankly don't see anything wrong with holiday working, as long as there is workers willing/needing to work!  JS.

I worked at least half of the Thanksgivings and Christmas the first 30 years in the fruit juice business and all of them the last 10 years in the lodging business. It was known going in and just part of the job. We always tried to make it up for employees after the fact with paid time off and freebees. Wal-Mart is giving large discounts to their employees if they work holidays.

When I worked for various companies while in college, all either required working on holidays or I had to be on call, i.e., with in 30 minutes of the facility.  Later I went to work for an aerospace manufacturer and was on call all the time for the first 11 years and later once the Shuttle was flying, at all times during launch checkout and flight..  It went with the job, we knew it and had the choice of accepting it or leaving.

Interesting work and I actually enjoyed a lot of it.

Hearing lots of real life stories here... Great stuff.  Being provided the OPPORTUNITY to work has always appealed to me, not the recent trend toward entitlement, that's for sure.  Unleash, enable and embolden!  Actually, I've not been able to understand the recent tide of anger toward Walmart, from what I've seen over the years, that company has provided awesome opportunity to K's !!!   

jje1960 said:

Hearing lots of real life stories here... Great stuff.  Being provided the OPPORTUNITY to work has always appealed to me, not the recent trend toward entitlement, that's for sure.  Unleash, enable and embolden!  Actually, I've not been able to understand the recent tide of anger toward Walmart, from what I've seen over the years, that company has provided awesome opportunity to K's !!! 

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People don't want to work, they just want a check ..

Good to hear/read your comments, Jim. The problem is we have a 50/50 country and fighting that has a 50% chance..looks like it for some time.

Entitlements ? what does that mean? It does not register in my mind either.

Now watch the PC police appear.

gc1966 said:

People don't want to work, they just want a check ..

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Care to quote a credible source?

Just Lou said:

Care to quote a credible source?

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No, but you can post me a credible source proving me wrong if you would like to.

In my fathers time, just after WW2, many GI's including him, upon returning, took the State Civil Service Exams, and were hired as Police Officers, and Firefighters.  Police Officers worked 60 hrs. a week, 6/10 hr. shifts, for less than $100 wk. 
Firefighters worked a work week consisting of 2/10 hr. shifts, and 2/14 hr. shifts, for equally pathetic money.
The state had the blue laws, which prevented retailers, and other companies from being open nights, weekends, and holidays.  Stores closed at noon on Saturday, and opened again on Monday morning, allowing employees time with their families, and to worship at the church of their choice, if they so desired.
Most factories were sweatshops.  Unions rid that industry of sweatshops, with laws that were enacted.  Laws were also enacted, providing a minimum wage, work hours, overtime, defined the work week, and time off, among other things.  Factories then became a good place for a person, without a lot of education to work, make a living wage, get health insurance and pension benefits, and in our area, most of the large factories also provided company housing for their employees.
When the Government employees saw what unions did for the factory employees, they unionized, got better work hours, pay, benefits, and job security from the unions and Civil Service.  The Boston Police strike of 1919, was the first time an entire Police Department went on strike, and although they had legitimate grievances, it led to laws nationwide prohibiting Government employees from striking.  The Air Traffic Controllers found that our, when Pres. Reagan replaced them, after the PATCO strike of 1981.
I am the last of the group who retired with the benefits, that my fathers generation worked so hard for.  I paid in 5% of my pay every pay period toward my pension.  Today the new employees pay in 12+% of their pay toward their pension.  Their insurance benefits are substandard, and they pay more in, have higher co-pays, and deductibles than I did.
The blue laws were chipped away over the years, and now stores are open all the time.
Factories were closed, and jobs shipped to third world, developing countries.

Today the jobs that remain are low paying, minimum wage, retail and service industry jobs, for people who don't have a college education.  Most of the good jobs are gone.

The old factory cities, are now havens for illegal aliens, drug dealers, prostitution, and have been reduced to ghettos, full of crime, people collecting Government sponsored  Public Assistance, EBT, SNAP, Section 8, taxpayer paid health insurance (Medicare, Medicaid, and ObamaCare), free college education, vocational training, cable TV, internet, and cell phones.
The Federal Government debt is over $17 TRILLION in debt, and growing!

Does anyone else thing we are going backwards, rather than moving ahead?

Care to quote a credible source?

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gc1966 said:

No, but you can post me a credible source proving me wrong if you would like to.

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I don't have to prove anything, you entered your dog in the mix, not me....

I remember those days when I would have to hope for the extra holiday hours. I was glad to work the extra overtime or shift. At minimum wage I'd beg for the chance to work over. If I didn't then it might have ment that the light bill might be short or less food. Eventually though I was able to move up to a post that allowed more pay and better options. I look back on the extra shifts and still take an available chunk of O/T when available. Sure, a lot of people want to be home, others need those hours. We are a diverse nation indeed. We have people that hate what they do and those that love what they do, people that need for people to do for them and those that need to be the ones doing it. Those that complain about working the holidays and those that if they don't work will not have a holiday. One thing is for sure. It is offered. Take it or not. At the very least it is offered.

Ref. Rebelsun

About sums it up........

I wonder how many people would of kept working if they were told to keep working with out pay at Wallmart, KMart, Target with the promise of a paycheck after the above mentioned  paid there bills?

The big difference I see with loss of unions and organized labor is people are going backwards fast. My dad made more per hour back in the 60's then people do now. The country was the better for it.  They had good wages, people had the opportunity to move up there was a good solid middle class.  It's disappearing fast.

The biggest difference I see now is sure you can go to college, lots of young people will never get that debt paid for.  But used to be you could get a job and move up without a college education. Not everyone is college material, but about all that's left for them is places like Walmart.  Dead end jobs, not really much of anywhere to go. My husband and the old guys he works with are dinosaurs. They are all being replaced by engineers and many of them won't be productive for at least 10 years. He was only a high school graduate and has been a supervisor for many years, and has been a civil manager for a long time.  As he said now guys like him wouldn't even be given the opportunity.  The company is hanging on to these guys because they know and make them money.  Believe me its not out of the goodness of their hearts.  He has helped many a young man try to understand what needs to be done.  And its only because he was from the trenches and worked his way up.  Our son is the same though he does have a degree.  Even he at his young age said its unbelievable the lack of knowledge young people have now and he's only 44.  Something has broken down somewhere and its not good.

I know in Texas and other southern states big business loves all the illegals but again a problem.  They can only work up so far without documentation.  Some legals are doing ok, but you see them as workerbees pushing out white and black citizens until supervision then they can't put them in it.  Requires real drivers licenses and papers so still using old men down there. Killing all the construction industry down there for greed.

Where many people see opportunities, I see big problems.  We can have people retrain and retrain, and many have but after a certain age try to get a job in that new job and they are then saddled with debt and no job.

It's not the same game and for those of us out of the job market even 5 years the changes have been dramatic.  I'm thankful I'm old enough to be out of it.

And my husband and I do not have pensions.  We both have 401k's, savings, SS, and a bit of rental income left.  One of the reasons he chose to work longer.  If we had stayed in Texas we had enough rentals for income, but for various reasons came back here and now that income is less though we will make it ok.  I pity those that never were able to make enough to save.  I donate to the local food bank and clothing bank every chance I get.  And when I go by and see now lines of poor people, I am thankful that health, lack of work, or whatever did not put us there.  Our county has almost the highest unemployment in the state and those folks are to poor to leave.  What then?  They didn't all decide they wanted to live that way.

I think people on these forums are all higher income and its very easy to say folks are just lazy, I just don't think its as simple as all that.  But will I say many are, sure there will always be lazy people too, but its not all of them.

Did you know the wealth of the Walmart family is equal to the wealth of the lower 40% of the population of this country and that is the fastest growing segment.  Something is wrong with this picture no matter how you look at it.

bucks2 said:

I think it's a sign of a very prosperous economy that leads workers to feel they don't need to work all the hours they can. Imagine if people were truly starving, or truly mired in poverty what they would do to get to work an extra day or get extra pay for working a Thursday. We are truly blessed to have the luxury of complaining about working an entire 5 day work week.

Ken

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I agree.  Unless you are working 12 hours per day 7 days per week, you are under worked.  I believe the 84 hour work week was standard for slaves, except maybe some had Sundays off.

It seems there are more and more people in this country who will not be happy until we return to the slave economy.

Paul

I do not know of a source of that and I suspect strongly it does not apply to all.

But many people just want to be handed money, That I know for a fact. Some of them work harder at NOT WORKING than those who work for a living.

I think Henry Ford had the right idea.  ( no pun meant)  10/15/1926

"'The country is ready for the five-day week,' says Mr. Ford. 'It is bound to come through all industry. Without it the country will not be able to absorb its production & stay prosperous. The industry of this country could not long exist if factories generally went back to the ten-hour day, because people would not have the leisure, the desire, or the means to consume the goods produced...Just as the eight-hour day opened our way to prosperity in America, so the five-day week will open our way to still greater prosperity. Of course there is a humanitarian side to the shorter day & the shorter week, but dwelling on that side is likely to lead one astray, for leisure may be put before work instead of after it-where it belongs. Twenty years ago, introducing the eight-hour day generally would have made for poverty & not for wealth. Five years ago, introducing the five day week would have had the same result. The hours of labor are regulated by the organization of work and by nothing else. It is the rise of the great corporation with its ability to use power, to use accurately designed machinery, & generally to lessen the wastes in time, material & human energy that made it possible to bring in the eight hour day. Further progress along the same lines has made it possible to bring in the five day week...It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either 'lost time' or a class privilege. This is not to say that leisure may not be dangerous. Everything good may also be dangerous-if mishandled. When we put our $5 minimum wage for an eight-hour day into effect in 1913, we had to watch many of our men to see what use they made of their spare time & money. We found a few men taking on extra jobs--some worked the dayshift with us & the night shift in another factory. Some of the men squandered their extra pay. Others banked the surplus money & went on living just as they had lived before. But in a few years all adjusted themselves & our supervision was less needed. There is, of course, a profound difference between leisure & idleness. Nor must we confound leisure with shiftlessness. Our people are perfectly capable of using to good advantage the time that they have off, after work. That has already been demonstrated to us by our experiments during the last several years. We find that the men come back after a two-day holiday so fresh & keen that they are able to put their minds as well as their hands to work. We are not of those who claim to be able to tell people how to use their spare time. We think that, given the chance, people will become more expert in the effective use of their leisure time. & they are being given the chance. The influence of leisure on consumption makes the short day & the short week necessary. The people who consume the bulk of goods are the people who make them...With the decrease of the length of the working day in the United States an increase of production has come because better methods of disposing of men's time have been accompanied by better methods of disposing of their energy. Thus one good has brought another...Of positive industrial value is leisure because it increases consumption. Where people work longest & with least leisure they buy the fewest goods. Businesses the exchange of goods. Goods are bought only as they meet needs. Needs are filled only as they are felt. They make themselves felt largely in leisure hours. The man who worked fifteen & sixteen hours a day desired only a corner to lie in &, now & then, a bit of food. He had no time to cultivate new needs, hence he had only the most primitive. When, in American industry, women were released from the necessity of factory work & became buyers for their families, business began to expand. The American housewife, as household purchasing agent, has both leisure & money, & the former has been just as important as the latter in the development of American business. The five day week simply carries this further. The people who work only five days a week will consume more goods than the people who work six days a week. People who have more leisure must have more clothes. The eat a greater variety of food. They require more transportation facilities. This increased consumption will require greater production an we now have. Instead of business being allowed up because people are 'off work', it will be speeded up because people consume more in their leisure than in their working time. This will lead to more work. & this to more work. & this to more wages. Thus the result of more leisure is the exact opposite of what most people might suppose. Management must keep pace with this new demand--& it will. It is the introduction of power and machinery by manufacturers that has med the shorter day & the shorter week possible. That is a fact which working men must not forget. The eight-hour day was not the ultimate, & neither is the five day week. It is enough, however, to manage what we are equipped to manage and to let the future take care of itself. It will anyway. That is its habit. But probably the next move will come in the direction of shortening the day rather than the week."

Everyone seems to be lamenting the changes that have occured in the last half century and wishing for what we had then.  What has changed?  Primarily we have political correctness! 
Our government at every level, city, county, state and federal is bloated with departments catering to those who do virtually nothing, but get paid at very high rates.
Regulations on private businesses have proliferated to the point of being job killers and many business are closing their doors in lieu of tolerating the abuse.
One post references the wealth of the Walton family as if it were a sin, which it is not.  We need many more of those businesses for us to return to the 1950's.  What happened to US Steel and many other large similar businesses? 
We need to return to the era of the individual being responsible for our own well being and private businesses thriving.  Should we continue our current path, the US of A will  have catastrophic consequences to deal with, we must stop our dependency upon the government!