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  • 43 Comments
Joined 17 days ago
Cake day: March 21st, 2025
  • Doctor_Satan@lemm.eetoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•What's a better name for unskilled labor?
    1·
    2 hours ago

    The servers in the local resurant here have a small tablet and can just look this up on the fly. No need to memorize anything. Not quite sure about the allergens, but that could easily be solved with software.

    I can see how this could be a required skillset for a waiter in a super high-class restaurant where it would add to the prestige and professionalism, but in a average restuarant I’m totally fine with the waiter having a look at the tablet before answering a question about the menu.

    At this point you could just have a tablet at the table and let the customer look it up themselves. In the mean time, for restaurants that don’t provide tablets to their waiters (which is most of them), this is a skill they need.

    I guess being annoying is a skill. But I absolutly fucking hate when people do that. The job is to take the order, not suggest one.

    Again, outside of super-fancy restaurants, I’d think that’s actually quite inappropriate.

    This is specifically a waiters job. I love that you think you’ve never been sold anything at a restaurant. Those waiters did a good job.

    The entire fake-friendly act with a fake-smile is a very annoying American thing. Your job is to take the order and bring the food. After that I really don’t want to hear anything else but “Enjoy your meal” and “Was everything alright?”. Talkative waiters are the worst.

    Hate it all you want. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s part of the job for American waiters. They don’t have the luxury of not having to be friendly.

  • Doctor_Satan@lemm.eetoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•What's a better name for unskilled labor?
    3·
    2 hours ago

    Mechanics don’t qualify as unskilled either, since they require education and certification. They fall under “skilled trades”. My brother is a mechanic (a master tech), and he’s done probably 10+ years of schooling, and has more certifications than I can recall. He’s one of like 3 people across 4 counties that is qualified to do everything he does.

    But yeah, I don’t like the term “unskilled labor” in any context, even if it’s technically accurate in some cases. It feels dismissive, and many of the jobs it’s used to describe are the backbone of a functioning society. Honestly, I think we need to just do away with the value judgment terms like “skilled” versus “unskilled”, which only perpetuate the division of the working class.

    What if we categorized all labor on a tier system with no implied superiority of one tier over another, just clarity on pathways to move from one tier to the next? Here’s a rough idea:

    Tier 1: Specialized Service & Essential Labor

    • Jobs that require training, adaptability, and situational skills but not formal education.
    • Examples: Waitstaff, retail workers, janitorial staff, delivery drivers, housekeepers.

    Tier 2: Technical & Trade-Based Roles

    • Jobs requiring certifications, apprenticeships, or vocational training (but not necessarily a degree).
    • Examples: Electricians, plumbers, EMTs, pharmacy techs, truck drivers (CDL).

    Tier 3: Associate Professional & Supervisory Roles

    • Jobs that may require some college, specialized training, or years of experience in Tier 1 and/or Tier 2 roles.
    • Examples: Restaurant managers, IT support, paralegals, bookkeepers.

    Tier 4: Degree-Dependent Professions

    • Jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher, often with licensure.
    • Examples: Nurses, teachers, engineers, accountants.

    Tier 5: Highly Specialized & Advanced Credential Roles

    • Jobs requiring advanced degrees, residencies, or elite training.
    • Examples: Surgeons, research scientists, professors, aerospace engineers.
  • Doctor_Satan@lemm.eetoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•What's a better name for unskilled labor?
    2·
    3 hours ago

    There’s a lot more to it than “carrying a lot of plate at once”.

    First, you have to memorize the menu backwards and forwards. Not just the items, but also the ingredients and the cooking techniques. A customer is allergic to everything in the nightshade family. Do you know what you can’t offer them? Better learn it. Someone has never eaten smoked chicken and is concerned with the pink color of the meat. You better know how to explain the smoking process and how it affects meat color. What is the temperature difference between medium and medium-rare? Are your oysters local? What’s in rice pilaf? Why is it called “she-crab soup” (it’s not why you think)? You have to know all of this and about a million other things, and be able to recall it on the spot without hesitation and with full confidence, every time someone asks.

    Second, you have to be a salesman. You need to be able to know how to convince people to buy something that they may not have considered buying when they walked through the door, and you have to know that they will not only thank you for it in the end, but financially reward you for it.

    Third, you have to be cool under pressure. You might think you are, but until you’ve worked a dinner rush, you have no fucking idea. It is non-stop, go go go, and you need to time everything just right. You’ll also be talked down to by customers, yelled at by cooks, burned by hot plates, sexually harassed by both customers and coworkers, while fielding complaints and mistakes, and you have to do all of this while looking like you’re having the time of your life. A sour expression or a snarky comment will get you pulled from the floor, and if you’re waiting tables in the US, there goes about 20% of this weeks income.

    Fourth, you need to be able to get along with everyone, or at least be such a convincing liar that Ted Bundy would be impressed with your sociopathic people skills. I am not kidding. You have to be able to ingratiate yourself like family with the drunk college bro table just as well as the black church group table. If you aren’t a social chameleon, you need not apply.

    I could go on and on, but I hope you get the idea. Waiting tables is not easy, it’s not “unskilled”, and it takes a very specific personality type to do it well. The job has a high turnover rate because most people can’t do it.

  • Doctor_Satan@lemm.eetoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•Are you permanently banned off reddit? or do you just like lemmy more?
    2·
    2 days ago

    Both. It’s actually funny. Someone posted that image of alternatives to things like Reddit and Whatsapp and Google, etc, and it had Lemmy on it. I was at the point where I was getting sick of Reddit and had one account banned already. I joined Lemmy, and a few days later my other account got banned for up voting a comment that was just the gif of Luigi (the Nintendo character) smoking a cigarette. I had already decided I liked Lemmy more at that point, so whatever. The one thing that sucks is that I had my own little sub with a couple thousand members where I posted my writing, and people seemed to like it. I enjoyed sharing my stories with all those weirdos, and now I can’t.

  • Doctor_Satan@lemm.eetoNews@lemmy.world•Comedian Russell Brand charged with rape
    5·
    2 days ago

    Dennis Miller was a great writer himself, and wrote all of the Weekend Update stuff that he did, and a bunch of sketches. It’s ok to say he was once great at what he did, because he was. But I would recommend going back and watching Dennis Miller Live on HBO. I went back and re-watched it during the pandemic, and it’s pure Libertarian garbage wrapped up in snarky wit and big words. So he’s always been kind of a right-leaning douche, but 9/11 broke his brain and he dropped all the Libertarian pretense.

  • Doctor_Satan@lemm.eetoNews@lemmy.world•Comedian Russell Brand charged with rape
    4·
    2 days ago

    unless there is video and audio proof. how the fuck could someone be charged for this 20+ years later over “he said she said”?

    Same way a cold murder case gets investigated when all the DNA has degraded. They rely on circumstantial evidence. Now, that word has been corrupted by procedural crime drama TV shows, but make no mistake, a LOT of criminal cases are successfully prosecuted based on circumstantial evidence, because it is still legitimate evidence even though it’s not direct evidence. They’ll go through his electronic devices and look at text messages and photos and retrieve voice mails, they’ll conduct interviews with others who were told about the allegations at the time and see how those stories line up, and so on.

    I’m not as familiar with this particular case as others are, but from the other comments I’ve read, it looks like the victim(s) had already filed police reports 20+ years ago, but those didn’t go anywhere for whatever reason (lack of evidence, incompetent police work, etc). So that helps the case quite a bit.

    Could i just pick a random person and say they raped me in 2002 and then they will go to prison?

    Technically, yes. There have been cases where this has happened, although it is extremely rare. The police would investigate your allegations and almost certainly find them lacking, at which point you would be charged with filing false police reports, and most likely sued by the person you accused.

    Here’s a fun statistic: A man is more likely to be raped than to be falsely accused of rape. Just in case you were wondering how often the latter happens.