I don't know how things are run in the grocery store you frequent, but I can certainly tell you the clerks and checkers at our store in South Bend work very hard each shift. The full-time workers spend almost every second of their 8-hour shift on their feet. For a great deal of their workday, their chief task is to scan the items in each customer's basket. They bag up the groceries and then move on to the next customer in line.
When they aren't busy at the cash register, they're out on the floor stocking product or taking down/putting up new sales stickers. Sometimes they assist customers by taking their sacks to their waiting vehicles or the bus. In one form or another, they are always busy and much of their work is physically taxing.
For all the good they do, many don't earn that much above minimum wage. All that work to insure people like you and I are able to purchase the necessary items to put food on our tables and yet most of them barely scrape by. How is this fair?
How much work does the average hedge fund manager or banking executive put in each day? I'm not suggesting that such people don't work hard, but do they expend a comparable amount of physical and mental energy as a grocery clerk, school teacher, trash hauler, construction worker or farmer?
I can't imagine they do. So, how can they justify six figure salaries, stock options, liberal insurance and retirement policies and the kind of fringe benefits that service workers can only imagine in their wildest dreams?
Why is it that the people who do the work to make things that we need or feed us the food our bodies require or nurture the development of our children are compensated at a rate far below others who spend their days manipulating items (e.g., derivatives) that actually don't even exist?
The people who truly make modern life possible are the least rewarded. It would seem that our priorities are upside down.
(For regular readers, you may notice that this post is very similar to Net Worth. I covered the same basic swath of territory -- just tried to add a little more meat to the bone or food for thought.)
When they aren't busy at the cash register, they're out on the floor stocking product or taking down/putting up new sales stickers. Sometimes they assist customers by taking their sacks to their waiting vehicles or the bus. In one form or another, they are always busy and much of their work is physically taxing.
For all the good they do, many don't earn that much above minimum wage. All that work to insure people like you and I are able to purchase the necessary items to put food on our tables and yet most of them barely scrape by. How is this fair?
How much work does the average hedge fund manager or banking executive put in each day? I'm not suggesting that such people don't work hard, but do they expend a comparable amount of physical and mental energy as a grocery clerk, school teacher, trash hauler, construction worker or farmer?
I can't imagine they do. So, how can they justify six figure salaries, stock options, liberal insurance and retirement policies and the kind of fringe benefits that service workers can only imagine in their wildest dreams?
Why is it that the people who do the work to make things that we need or feed us the food our bodies require or nurture the development of our children are compensated at a rate far below others who spend their days manipulating items (e.g., derivatives) that actually don't even exist?
The people who truly make modern life possible are the least rewarded. It would seem that our priorities are upside down.
(For regular readers, you may notice that this post is very similar to Net Worth. I covered the same basic swath of territory -- just tried to add a little more meat to the bone or food for thought.)
Hopefully despite all the work the grocery clerks do at your neighborhood store they are still friendly to their customers. Thank you for writing this. I have been a grocery clerk for 11 years and working in a grocery used to be one of the greatest jobs to have but over the years companies such as mine started to try and micromanage more and try to get more out of us with the same wages. They continue to push us to the point where we can no longer suffice to their demands and they threaten us with bringing in lower wage workers. We appreciate the kind words.
ReplyDeletePaul,
ReplyDeleteYes, they are a very friendly and cheerful bunch!
Since this is a small town grocery, the owners (2 families) work shifts just like their workers. They run the registers, stock and do almost everything anyone else does.