15 dolla make u holla (in despair)

can't touch this

can't touch this

PhD
Joined
Nov 20, 2017
Messages
5,503
I have some predictions, y’all. Here’s what I’m predicting we have to look forward to when $15 an hour hits.

- Literally nobody who isn’t a TL or above will get 40, ever, even during the busiest part of Q4. No matter how busy it gets or how well the store is doing on sales, the rule will be WORK YOUR EXACT SCHEDULE AND GO HOME. At stores where leadership doesn’t already call you out on the walkie when they get a Work Past Schedule alert for you on their Zebra, it will start happening. DTLs will make it very clear during walks that leaders who allow overstaying will be given the boot.

- Tying into the above, they will probably fuck with the way flex hours work so that payroll expenditure can be slashed by at least half. Negative flex hours will be brought back very soon.

- A new rule will come down from corporate to all HR teams: ABSOLUTELY NO REPLACING CALLOUTS EVER! You’re in HR and you call someone in anyway...guess what happens! Also, R.I.P. the swap board.

- The Cart Attendant role will disappear and salesfloor TMs will be expected to get carts when called.

- DCs will scale back OT or more likely eliminate it altogether.

- They might even go after the PMT role and try to contract it out, or at least turn it into a salaried position.

- “WHY DIDN’T YOU GET 25 UBOATS PUSHED IN 45 MINUTES ON A BUSY SATURDAY EVENING?!? FIFTEEN DOLLARS AN HOUR!!!!!! REEEEEEEEEEE!!!”
 
thank-you-target-retailer-announces-it-will-raise-its-minimum-27968738.png
 
^Mr. Greg Curtner is most likely one of those people who think workers getting paid a decent wage is literally communism, and just wants to snark triumphantly when those who messed with muh free market by wanting to get paid decently get their just desserts. He is unironically hoping every single Millennial gets laid off and replaced with a robot so he can say “haha that’s what you get for being greedy you pinko commies”
 
The last bullet point in my list is going to be the operative rule at all stores eventually, that much I am 100% certain of. $15 an hour will be invoked heavily by leadership as the go-to response for everything. If you thought “unrealistic expectations” were bad, try “expections that defy the laws of physics.”

I’m already seeing a preview of this lately, because my ETL-log has been keeping a daily list of the trailer with carton quantities by custom block, and has expectations about how long it should take to push each aisle according to how many cartons are there. As expected, they completely forgot to factor in guest interactions despite harping on guest service at every other opportunity, huh wow didn’t see that coming. It will get to a point where you will basically need the ability to teleport yourself around the store in order to be successful with those expectations.

Luckily for me, I am known to the Cherokees as “He-Who-Can-Be-In-Many-Places-At-Once” as my powerful medicine can alter the flow of time, but everyone else is basically screwed.
 
can't touch this said:
^Mr. Greg Curtner is most likely one of those people who think workers getting paid a decent wage is literally communism, and just wants to snark triumphantly when those who messed with muh free market by wanting to get paid decently get their just desserts. He is unironically hoping every single Millennial gets laid off and replaced with a robot so he can say “haha that’s what you get for being greedy you pinko commies”
Click to expand...

Hey guess what? Automation, machines and robots are coming to replace you either way but the $15 narrative push is just going to expedite the process. Your understanding of economics is petulant and highly ignorant at best.

You don’t deserve $15 an hour to sell toilet paper and toothpaste. I’m sorry that your parents and schools and the media have failed you but that’s the truth.

If you ever for one second believed that companies were just going to raise their base pay to $15 an hour and just take it on the chin, your naivety is out of control. It seems like you just now figured out what the result of this wage increase was going to be. Gee, it only took you what? 2 years? lol.

I can sum up your entire problem in just one sentence: You don’t understand that life isn’t fair and that life doesn’t care the least about your feelings.
 
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@can't touch this get a stopwatch. Keep track of how long you spent on guest service. Keep a log of times and dates. That way you have proof if it's ever a real issue.
@Not My Name I've seen this with RFID scanning. Fewer people doing the job of daily softlines research. I'm still getting my hours though cause I adapted and was the best at it.

Be amazing. You'll get your hours. Be ineffective, you'll get cut.
 
The whole point of this thread was to illustrate just how $15 will NOT be a free lunch, despite the fact that Target voluntarily opted to raise their own internal minimum independent of any Federal minimum wage hike, and how that will affect daily workflow and staff levels. Also, 2020 is a year from now...seems as good a time as any to make a thread.

Not My Name said:
I can sum up your entire problem in just one sentence: You don’t understand that life isn’t fair and that life doesn’t care the least about your feelings.
Click to expand...

I’m 30, if I hadn’t figured this out by now I would be in serious trouble. Your internet psychometry skills are lacking, don’t quit your day job.
 
Not My Name said:
If you ever for one second believed that companies were just going to raise their base pay to $15 an hour and just take it on the chin, your naivety is out of control. It seems like you just now figured out what the result of this wage increase was going to be.
Click to expand...

The hours were going to be cut anyways. $15 is just how they act like they're being progressive at the same time.

Not My Name said:
I’m sorry that your parents and schools and the media have failed you but that’s the truth.
Click to expand...
Parents, school, and media fail because they aren't telling anybody the actual truth. The computers that are taking the jobs aren't coming as a result of $15/hr. They are coming because they cost a tiny fraction of that and they can replace a LOT of jobs that required skills that were worth a hell of a lot more than $15.

At my job alone, a single computer and software that costs ~$700 per year condensed 3 bookkeepers down to 1. That's two jobs, with a market average of $40,000/year and required at least an associate degree with primarily business math courses, gone because we have software that can do it for ~$.34/hr ($700 / 52 / 40).

And it's far from just bookkeeping. The business I work for serves the printing industry. In the early 1970s, a press operator was paid between $6-$10/hr. Adjusting for inflation, that comes out to ~$36-$60/hr in today's money. At the time, a standard press line had a crew of ~5 operators doing setup, startup, ink adjustment during press runs, maintenance, and a myriad of other tasks. Today, automation has reduced that down to 1-2 operators and the average wage is ~$20/hr. So not only has automation killed <60% of the jobs, what's left is being paid barely over half of the low end of the wages they earned 40 years ago.

And it's just going to get worse. Current AI is able to monitor processes and figure out how to automate tasks on their own. We're on the verge of seeing a LOT of jobs disappear over the next couple of decades. It's not going to happen because of $15/hr, it's going to happen because of $.34/hr.
 
We are still a long ways away from seeing most Target jobs disappear because of automation. The technology isn't even close to being where it needs to be to replace workers who perform a lot of different manual tasks. Robots can't stock the shelves. They aren't even close to figuring that out.

Automation is coming for the people who do simple repetitive tasks. A robot can be built to do one thing over and over again. It's also coming for the people who do lots of repetitive, but ultimately simple mental tasks. They're coming for the people who make $60K plus a year, not for the plebes making $15/hr (which by the way is nowhere near generous Mr. Scrooge). Thousands of articles have been written about how within the next few years delivery drivers will all lose their jobs because we'll have driverless cars. Slight problem with that. They might be able to teach the car to drive and get it legally approved for safety. But, getting the product from the car to a person's door, well, that's a bit more of a challenge.

Anyway, as with all predictions of future technology, where's my flying car and luxury apartment on the moon? We were supposed to have those by now...
 
seasonaldude said:
We are still a long ways away from seeing most Target jobs disappear because of automation.
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Not directly but those $60k/yr jobs are people that shop at Target. Take that away and watch even more payroll and positions disappear. Now factor in millions of people looking for jobs elsewhere and that's going to drag the price of labor down even worse than the first wave of automation did in the 70s and 80s.

The worst part is, most of this won't do be done by mass layoffs either. It will happen by attrition while idiots keep yelling SEE WHAT $15 DID!!


Thousands of articles have been written about how within the next few years delivery drivers will all lose their jobs because we'll have driverless cars. Slight problem with that. They might be able to teach the car to drive and get it legally approved for safety. But, getting the product from the car to a person's door, well, that's a bit more of a challenge.
Click to expand...
Personally, I don't see delivery drivers going away for driverless cars. The trucking industry might lose long haul work on interstates but most of that is independent anyways. A logistics company would have to decide between maintaining their own fleet or keeping humans around.
 
Backroom81 said:
Not directly but those $60k/yr jobs are people that shop at Target. Take that away and watch even more payroll and positions disappear. Now factor in millions of people looking for jobs elsewhere and that's going to drag the price of labor down even worse than the first wave of automation did in the 70s and 80s.

The worst part is, most of this won't do be done by mass layoffs either. It will happen by attrition while idiots keep yelling SEE WHAT $15 DID!!
Click to expand...

I actually think Target will be fine. Despite the idiots in leadership they've positioned themselves well if nothing else then by being one of the last surviving big players in general retail. People will still need to buy things. They'll have less money to do it with so they'll be looking for cheaper products. This is where Target's cheap store brands come in. Shit like Smartly and Up & Up are where the money will come from.

In reality, despite people spending less at a time this will result in more overall money for places like Target. It's one of the dirty little secrets of being poor in America. There's a hidden tax on the poor and broke. There have been studies on it. People with less money end up paying more overall for things that everyone has to buy repeatedly because they can't afford to buy in bulk and wait for sales. When you need toilet paper, you need toilet paper. If all you can afford is a four pack of cardboard Target brand, then you'll pay less now. But, end up paying more overtime than someone who buys a huge pack of Quilted Northern.

Will Target cut more jobs? Yeah, probably. But, that won't be because of automation. It will just be a continuation of the trend in the business world since the late '70s when overall corporate profits in the US plummeted to almost nothing and a new model started being used that views the primary purpose of corporations as nothing more than returning value on shareholders' investments. Now overall corporate profits have reached a historical high point and keep going up while wages remain relatively stagnant. That's not automation. It's greed and people for politicians who have no real interest in reigning in the greed.
 
seasonaldude said:
Thousands of articles have been written about how within the next few years delivery drivers will all lose their jobs because we'll have driverless cars. Slight problem with that. They might be able to teach the car to drive and get it legally approved for safety. But, getting the product from the car to a person's door, well, that's a bit more of a challenge.
Click to expand...

Continental looks to robot dogs to deliver your packages
 
So I decided a long ass time ago that I would rather stay at $12-13 an hour in exchange for 40 hours most weeks. Those hours at that pay are decent where I live (which is cheap as fuck, relatively speaking). A few years back I did okay on $10.80 x 40 at one of my old jobs. Unfortunately even asking for that is beyond the pale these days. Even these little local businesses that can’t afford automation and lack the ability to implement it have dumped the 40 hour week faster than you can say Obamacare. I may be too r*t*rded to understand economics but something fishy is going on here.

Personally I want more bread because my landlord and car insurance company want a whole bunch of it, not because I think passing HBA items over a scanner or pushing a row of carts is galaxy brain work. Doesn’t even need to be $15 an hour, just actual full-time.
 

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