I have a friend who works as a security guard at a big department store retail chain. Security guard work is one of the few available avenues of employment for high-school-only educated people in America. The elite political class has apparently decided that making, building, and growing things are best left to foreigners and that Americans should spend their time guarding the crap other people make. My friend is a single mother and a 99er. There was no chance of her getting back her job at a local university where she worked as a security guard. That job had somewhat better pay, but essentially had the same function: guarding the future computer jockeys like me who will click-purchase the things that other people make. But then there was a crash and she was laid off. Then her unemployment benefits ran out. So, she took a job in retail earning one dollar above New York's minimum wage of $7.25/hr. Oh, and did I mention it is seasonal? Once the American people are done buying crap other people make and giving it away to their friends and family, she will be out of work. Again.
From our conversations I have learned that retail security guard is an absolutely crappy job. First, you have to be available while the store is open, from 10 AM to 10 PM. All day, on your feet, looking for shoplifters. The job is six days a week, with only one day off. For new people like my friend, that is usually a Monday. Weekends with the children are out. The store structures the hours so that the six days add up to no more than 40 hours. So most days, my friend's work hours are 4 PM to 10 PM and 3 PM to 10 PM Saturday. She was lucky, I suppose, since most of the guards are part-time and get no more than 20 hours per week. Turnover is high. One evening per week, she gets to eat dinner with her children. One day per week, she gets to put her children to bed. Only one day per week, can she help with homework. Otherwise, they are latchkey kids. There is some danger involved. Shoplifters are not like they used to be, so I've heard. Instead of the single Winona Ryder trying to slip the occasional purse or blouse, shoplifting today is sophisticated. They come in packs of sometimes 15 to 20 young boys who blitz the store and give anyone blocking the way out the bum's rush. She told me stories of security guards being cold-cocked, knifed, and sometimes shot trying to block their escape with the loot. No retirement plan. No health plan. No sick days. No paid leave of any sort. On top of all this, there is the general public to deal with.
All these things, the low pay, the awful hours, the lack of job security, the physical injury risk, the lack of benefits, have caused my friend to question her belief in the work ethic. You know the work ethic. The idea or value that hard work and diligence builds character. That being a reliable, dependable worker will bring rewards and respect. You know how the old saying goes...work hard, play by the rules, and you will get what you deserve. Why should she risk her life and spend almost no time with her children for a measly $270 a week net, which is $80 less than she was getting on unemployment? Of course, we can't forget the $27 per week it costs her to get back and forth to work. She has told me, "bbb...you don't look like you work hard at all, and look at you." Which is, in fact, quite true. What I do could only in the lightest sense of the word be called work, but it pays well. Work leaves you tired, sweaty, and more often than not, dirty. I'm not a lazy bum, mind you. I used to do real work as a roofer. In the Summertime. In South Georgia. Some days as I was as black and moist as the tar I was putting down. But I caught on to the scam early on: real hard work doesn't get you anywhere these days. The work ethic doesn't work.
It seems to me that despite Republicans saying the contrary, the real problem isn't the work ethic on the part of workers. It is the pay ethic on the part of employers. There isn't much written on the pay ethics side of things, is there? It isn't drilled into us the way "work hard, play by the rules" is. "Treat people well, reward hard work generously" isn't programmed into us during youth. Other advanced nations mitigate this problem with laws, but we know that is too much ask of our political class. In this country we have politicians who don't even believe the minimum wage is ethical. The minimum is too much! Maybe this is the reason those crews of organized shoplifters exist in the first place. Maybe they've caught on to the scam and figured out that those who make the rules to play by are as unethical as themselves.
I hope she can find a way to run the gauntlet of adult education so that she too can earn a lot of money by producing very little. That is the reigning ethic. That is the only ethic that will bring reward, joining the professional class or the criminal class, which these days often overlap.