What if everyone had to do service jobs for a couple of years?

[undeterred]

I really think its pitiful that we have people running for public office and running companies that have no clue what its like to have a minimum wage job or work 3 jobs or do physical labor. Working in a convenience store, waitressing, and working in fast food have given me perspective I'll never forget. And when I think how many people get into those jobs and never get out... I think that everyone should have a taste. They'd have more empathy for their waitress.

[bluerum]

1. Rich kids would get bought off by rich parents.

What do YOU think would happen?

In general I like the idea. But again, the rich would try to morph it into something like a job training program rather than something designed to help disadvantaged segments of society.

[SharonAnn]

10. Politicians do "public service" don't they? Or is it "government jobs".

[jp11]

2. That's a fair point but if we are going to force people into jobs we should also force them all

into military service.

Plenty of people will just use a situation like that to flaunt that they worked hard or had to serve in the military and they did alright. The 'if you are poor' it is your own fault cause 'I came from nothing and made it' kind of thinking.

Really working crappy jobs will only do so much and very little if the people doing them don't really care or just go right back to their 'great' lives. For some it will change them and for others, maybe most, it won't mean anything other than something they repress or marginalize as they gain distance from it.

[RebelOne]

3. For a short time, I worked as a waitress

at an ex-boyfriend's restaurant because his waitress quit and he was desperate. I did it for a month, and that is a job I would never want to work for the rest of my life. I have sympathy for servers and all the shit they have to put up with.

[handmade34]

4. go figure....

my favorite jobs (after farming!) were waiting tables...

[stevenleser]

22. I also waited tables for a little over a month. Never want to do it again.

I have a profound respect for servers and how hard they work for so little. I was a good tipper before the experience and was really glad I never shorted anyone after I saw what it was like.

You really get to see how many people have an entitled mindset and how many people mistreat those over whom they think they have some power.

[Tumbulu]

5. I think that everyone needs to spend a year or two without electricity

and running water, growing their own food and collecting their own water.

But if they cannot do that, then I vote for your idea.

[Fumesucker]

6. Probably have a lot more dead customers..

Not everyone will take the shit that some customers like to hand out..

[cynatnite]

7. I think they'd be better served by working in a homeless shelter, hospital, etc...

I think this kind of volunteer work should be encouraged and expected...not forced. It's nothing more than indentured servitude by making it a requirement. Besides, most people do have empathy anyway. It the assholes who get all the attention.

There are millions of service workers in the US as it is.

[EFerrari]

8. What you're suggesting is that everyone do "women's work".

lol

If we limited it to only two years, then we'd have to figure out how to pay all those women who do that work for much longer.

[CenaW]

9. Service jobs like . . .

Farmwork
Hotel/Motel room cleaning
Serving(food servie)
Garbage collecting/public building cleaning
all the jobs currently being done by illegal immigrant labor.

What if doing these jobs would pay for your college in addition to the min. wage?
Would cut down on the student debt issue
Would cut Down on the demand for immigrant labor.

[JDPriestly]

13. How do you think some of us got through college?

Maybe not entirely, but in good part -- through waitress jobs, stocking shelves in stores, babysitting, working at the local gas station. That's how we used to pay our college expenses at least beyond tuition. Nowadays, students get loans. It used to be almost unthinkable that you wouldn't work at least summers while in school.

[CenaW]

21. Impossible to pay for college with min. wage jobs now. . .

tuition has gone too high and the min. wage has stayed very low.
Now what if minimum wage had kept pace with
executive pay?
-smirk-

[JDPriestly]

26. Used to be you could live -- not well -- but live on a full-time job at minimum wage.

That is no longer the case unless you get health insurance and maybe food stamps, possibly even rent assistance (for the few who are eligible) from the government.

[JDPriestly]

11. So true. And they would never, ever been mean to a waitress or store clerk.

[undeterred]

16. Exactly. Its very hard work.

[Zalatix]

12. Beats being unemployed.

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. +1 n/t

[LooseWilly]

14. Define "had to do"... in countries with mandatory military service, you can't just get fired...

you face jail time for not following orders in a military chain of command.

Would those who slack hard enough in their service jobs be eligible for incarceration?

If so— I'm with you 100%!!

Make the rich a$$holes break a sweat over a greasy burger grill... and dumping those grease traps at night... or face jail time. Force the CEOs to treat their sons and daughters like they treat the brown & white & black kids desperate for money for college, or just to pay bills... working at the absurd retail/fast food/etc. corporate de-humanizing jobs.

They may come to appreciate how hard the lower classes work for their money... or they might just be such a$$holes that they will be tormented and traumatized by being stigmatized by their fellows (and in these jobs, when no one will lend you a hand when you need it... you can be mighty f&^%ed... especially when OSHA is afraid to do any regulating of the workplace). Let them carry their emotional scars like the rest of us... and potentially their physical ones too.

On the other hand, the threat of prison time will just lead all the corporate upper management a$$holes to lean on middle management to lean on the "associates" (or whatever bullshit title given to the grunt jobs) to do ever more onerous jobs... which would lead to increasing suckage for all those who have no prospect for "liberation" after a mere two years... because there's always an a$$hole somewhere in the corporate offices who'll think to "leverage" the situation...

Maybe it would be easier to just sentence the children of the rich to prison for two years when they turn 18?...

[NuttyFluffers]

15. if i had my way it'd be my method to re-instill civility among the populace.

a "service" draft where people have to fight in the trenches for 2+ years before they're allowed the privileges of adult citizenship. a few years of having to grin and bear it, instead of throttling the rat bastard customer across the counter/table/whatever, instills patience and love for your fellow suffering human working in the service industry. or at least it trains you to shut your trap and treat them better once you're released from the trenches. either way, it's a form of suffering i dearly approve of to be administered universally; it's such an abject lesson in maintaining empathy, or at the very least civility.

nothing like understanding the pain of others to promulgate patience and polite society.

[reflection]

17. I have advocated for this for years

It's one of those ideas that seems great until you try to figure out how to implement it, but if we could somehow solve that Rubik's cube, I think it would go very far in fostering empathy and understanding between us, and I can't think of something we need more than that right now. I waited tables for about 7 years and it really taught me lessons in humility, compassion and just general basic humanity. Stellar idea, sir/madam.

[cali]

19. What if the moon were made of green cheese?

[aikoaiko]

20. It wouldn't change a thing

It would only give them a higher horse to ride

[lastlib]

23. I would approve of a national draft for that...

Everyone over eighteen (if in high school, then after graduation) does two years of public service w/o pay. No deferments, no outs except for physical/mental disability. Military service qualifies. Then the first two years of college are free.

[ProSense]

24. What's needed is more

stimulus: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002649701

Just do it.

[ieoeja]

25. When Daddy makes rich kids work to "build character", they learn that work is a game.

That was my experience when I became the only adult, outside the owners and the cooks, at a restaurant in a wealthy community. Some of the kids were okay, but most of them did everything except work. They knew they did not need the job. So the whole thing was a joke to them.