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Comment by jstewartmobile | Hacker News Reader

For some reason, this article has my bullshit meter on red-alert. Starting with cable "guy" when it's actually a lesbian, and it only gets worse from there.

Then about a quarter-way in, I get to this paragraph that just broke the needle:

Blue-collar customers were always my favorite. They don’t treat you like a servant. They don’t tell you, “We like the help to use the side door.” They don’t assume you’re an idiot just because you wear a name tag to work and your hands are calloused. The books on their shelves aren’t bound in leather. But the spines are cracked. Most of them, when you turn on the TV, it’s not set to Fox. They’re the only customers who tip.

It's just ideology! ideology! ideology! in the context of a service job where that rarely ever comes up.

With any luck, HuffPo will meet its own Peter Thiel sooner rather than later.

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I'm not so sure, there is more than a grain of truth in it. Years ago after dropping-out of uni I ended up doing building work in the UK. Finding somewhere to have a pee was all consuming a lot of the time. I think it would have been terrible for a woman! If you were working on the exterior of a house you would almost never be offered the use of a toilet. In fact often you would be locked out.

Lots of middle-class customers seemed to relish having some 'help' for a day. Seemingly normal people turned into the 'Lord of the Manor' and talked to you like dirt. I found early on as a young and naive team member that clients would come and chat to me hoping to find some information to use against the boss. I could work at someone's house for 6 months and watch them avoid me in town a couple of months later.

I once finished work at a house and saw the owner was sat at a table on his lawn with guests. I walked over to say I was leaving, and the old guy dropped his drink and ran over to me all agitated. He didn't want to talk to me with guests there!

After hours I have had 'friends' I would chat too for a few weeks in the student pubs about literature or something. I'm no Will Hunting, but... I remember one week discussing mediaeval literature with a girl (who was interested that I knew some stories from the Mabinogian, an ancient Welsh text), who then found out I was a builder and said some unkind things and never spoke to me again.

One kind gent always had a cup of tea for us at his house, and kind words about our work, but actively avoided me in the street.

It really confused some of them years later to see me in my regulation pinstripe suit, they didn't know what to say! The fact that I had been a builder was a drag on my career for a while, even with a few years of office experience people still got strange about that on my CV. One former employer told me he nearly blocked my appointment for it without meeting me, and was pleased to admit he was wrong. I don't put it on my CV any more.

So yes people can be real a-holes about manual workers. Believe it.

Tipping is not really a big thing in the UK at all, so I can't help there.

I think we all accept that most people who have to deal directly with the public put up with a lot of garbage. That is the kernel of truth.

10 mentions of Fox News, having "Obama to hate," and the commentary on the bookshelves and exaggerated tippings of Joe Six-Pack seem a little embellished if you ask me.

edit: Maybe not even "embellished" as much as editorial bias--blowing some odd occurrence out-of-proportion while glossing over the mode.

1) Since this is HN I will be pedantic and say that Fox was only mentioned 6 times in the body of the article (plus once in the meta, once in a highlighted quote, and once in the headline). Mostly related to one anecdote. Maybe you think it is a stereotype of a Fox viewer, but I should tell you it is a stereotype that has trans-Atlantic reach.

2) I have seen posh houses where the books (cringing as I write this) were arranged by colour. I once built a library for a couple who had less books than me! I would say this is a pretty pithy comment by the author, but I have most certainly seen people buy books to fill shelves that they clearly will never read. I wouldn't suppose that all blue collar workers are prolific readers however.

3) As I said before tipping is not a big thing in the UK, but I found it easier and faster to get paid for a job from a regular Joe.

I used to know an upscale (is that the word?) interior designer, and she would literally buy vintage books by the yard to fill the designer library shelves of the very rich people she worked for.

The conversational thing in the UK is because everyone is incredibly sensitive to class, and also because British people don’t talk to people they don’t know well. It’s not usually a personal snub, although it can feel like one.

> I have seen posh houses where the books (cringing as I write this) were arranged by colour.

https://www.booksbythefoot.com/shop/pc/Books-by-Color-c3.htm

It sure sounds like you have an axe to grind solely because the author explained their circumstances and experiences.

I don't doubt what she went through in the least, in particular because I've known and experienced the exact same hatred. And some people are going to face even more garbage than others solely based on their skin color or sexual orientation.

The author and publisher clearly have many axes to grind.

It's a highly politicized piece from HuffPo, designed for effect.

No doubt there's some credibility in the piece because it's based on a degree of real life experience, but it's also the most biased kind of writing possible as well, which gives it considerably less validity.

Sadly, if it were written in a more dispassionate tone, it mightn't have been published at all, and we'd have never seen it, which is maybe an important side lesson.

> Sadly, if it were written in a more dispassionate tone

That is kind of ironic isn't it? I don't spend a lot of time listening to Fox, but what I have heard has not been entirely dispassionate! In fact I have heard quite a few things that could be described as "highly politicized" and "designed for effect".

People pushed into working in jobs that are physically dangerous and pain inducing and discriminatory dare to get passionate about their situation...yikes, you think they would know their place.

I said nothing about Fox News.

I have no problems with people telling us about discrimination they may face, or their difficulties on the job

... but the author projected positive and negative attributes almost arbitrarily onto groups of people, based on some of 'her experience' - which is kind of a crude, self-selective bigotry.

You're clearly not willing to address the article itself, instead you're intent on dismissing it for political reasons.

And of course it's going to be biased because individual experiences are biased. That doesn't make their experience any less interesting or valuable to understand because as it turns out, seeing things from all kinds of different perspectives is important for critical thinking and getting a larger picture.

Would you be so indignant about the article being dismissed if the negative stereotypes it anecdotally verified were focused on man hating social justice cat ladies or equality spouting yuppies who hypocritically abuse undocumented immigrants as cheap nannies and yard workers?

I don't doubt the author's personal experience.

But the piece is inherently political; she uses each personal anecdote to generalize about a group of people, or at least point at that.

For every one of her anecdotes, I feel there was definitely 'another side of the story to tell'.

But I also don't blame her - as I mentioned, you don't get published without drawing a little bit of blood, which is sadly how it works in a lot of the press these days.

Has zero to do with politics. Years ago, I did home networks.

Worked for myself, so granted, the social dynamics were a little different. Even so, 99 times out of 100, went inside, took their orders, took care of business, went home. No sex dungeons, no mafioso, a little cat pee (but not much), and absolutely no time or inclination to examine their bookshelves or the condition of book spines.

If she had made the grand-tour of right-wing talking-points instead, you probably wouldn't have quibbled with me. Whereas, I'd have still raised the same objection.

> I could work at someone's house for 6 months and watch them avoid me in town a couple of months later.

Maybe those people were just introverted, or felt unsure about what you thought of them.

Maybe I knew those people well enough to adjust for that?

I did not know that tipping the cable person was a thing. I also did not know this about hair stylists / barbers until my wife chastised me for not tipping. Lots of folks expect tips where I had no clue that was customary (probably because I grew up poor and never received services from anyone - cut our own hair, took care of all repairs, etc). I thought you just tipped wait-staff. As much as I dislike tipping, I do see better service from those who are looking for a tip. If you could tip phone support, I wonder what that would do for customer happiness when interacting with these folk...

Tipping repair people is absolutely not customary. See https://www.realsimple.com/work-life/money/money-etiquette/t... for an example of a tipping guide.

In general, you tip restaurant waiters, delivery, taxis, hotel concierges/housekeeping/bellhops, valet parking and coat check, bartenders, and spa/hair services. Things like cable installation or plumbers are not customarily tipped.

I've tipped cable installers (and I'm not a bluecollar worker) - I assume that anybody in service industry in principle can be tipped for providing excellent service. Painters, movers, furnace people, superintendant, anybody who can provide crappy, basic, or excellent service -- I want to support, reward and encourage excellent service.

I cannot tip the phone customer service reps, but if I get a really helpful one, I'll ask to speak to their supervisor and put a good word - for what little it may do. In my mind, it's partly about showing gratitude, partially about encouraging behaviour we want to see (understanding that in terms of natural selection, I can tilt the outcome very little compared to the priorities and prerogatives of the company and management, who are typically at odds with me as a customer)

Probably not much. As someone who has worked phone support, usually people get super jaded not because of the wages, but because some significant percentage of support calls are people being nasty right off the bat. It takes one bad call to kill your mood.

Not really surprising, it's the entitled, angry, nasty people who are most likely to call. The rest of us have realized that calling rarely produces results anyway and only bother to do it when there are no alternatives.

In hindsight, I think tipping is what broke the needle. Never in my life have I heard of tipping the cable guy. If anything, I'd guess that the company strictly forbids accepting tips out of some wage-and-hour legal-bureaucratism.

...and you're apparently being downvoted because there are more people on here who agree with the author's ideology than who disagree with it. Sad - speaking as someone who subscribes to neither the Right nor Left political leanings, I found your analysis spot-on.

No, this is what the comment is being downvoted for: "With any luck, HuffPo will meet its own Peter Thiel sooner rather than later."

It's basically saying "I hope everyone there loses their livelihood". Extremely nasty and vindictive.

I found both the article and comments enlightening.

The article did not feel ideological/partisan/political in the least. Yet after reading comments and giving it a second look, I can absolutely, definitely see why it could be perceived that way.

Upon trying to examine my different reactions during reading and afterwards, I think it boils down to:

As a white straight white collar man - democrats, republicans, liberal, conservative, libertarian, etc - these are matters of ideology, perspective - choice.

If I were gay/lesbian as the author though, it's not ideology - it's people who actively wish you harm, and people who do not actively wish you harm. It's a matter of simple survival. Reading the article through the eyes of the lesbian forced to enter strange peoples' homes, I empathized. I was once in a scientology church, went through exam, it was all fun and games until I realized were were two floors below ground and a man with shifty eyes, intense stare, and who couldn't take no for an answer, was between us and the room's door - and dozens more like him between us and safety of the outside. Somewhat similarly, it feels like the author in each new home/environment has to quickly figure out who she's dealing with and act accordingly as a matter of survival. These folks I can be normal with. These folks think I'm an aberration and wish me harm. These are just creeps who want to rub on me. I feel like that very rarely in my life - occasionally as an atheist at a public gathering in really enthusiastic prayer, or back when I was a refugee immigrant in a room full of entitled locals - but most of the time I'm just safe wherever I am. The author is not.

I have no idea why you are being downvoted. Your comment is spot-on. Anyone care to explain?

I'm queer as a three dollar bill and the sorts of people who you say "wish me harm" have never been anything except kind to me personally. Their political decisions at a macro level can be debated, but I think the LGBT community has a lot of growing up to do when it comes to pretending like everyone in America wants to kill us.

Just imagine an extreme homophobe visiting the homes of gay couples and seeing the worst in them. Wouldn't you suspect that the bad things they saw were ideological distortions in part (if not whole)? What you are reading in this article is something like that situation, only with the orientations reversed.

Considering we have a VP who very much hates gay people, various laws in place designed to hurt gay people incl. the fact that gay marriage is somehow still a debate in America?

I'd say you would have to be deliberately ignoring the politics of the time which are generally not friendly at all to members of the LGBT community. You're creating a situation which somehow equates the author sharing her experiences with homophobia to that of someone who is homophobic. It's a goddamn terrible analogy. Try again.

I am extremely dubious of most of the stories as well, but I think that they did work as a cable tech probably. The comments on having to piss hit very close to home even though I was a different blue collar worker for many years. I also am really close friends with a couple of cable techs and the cat piss soaked floor was an exact story they told me once. So there is a ring of truth here, but some of the encounters seem too ridiculous.

I'm inclined to agree. This sounds like a mostly fabricated Republican hit piece. I clicked because I genuinely wanted to hear the tales to be told, but it seemed to focus more on Fox News than whatever point was being made.

The article is about having a shit job and what that experience is like. Having to deal with people who's politics have specifically targeted who you are for the past few decades is a part of that, so was being sexually harassed, treated like a servant, and forced to drive in unsafe conditions. Really, there was quite a lot in there that had little to do with politics.

> ...people who's politics have specifically targeted who you are for the past few decades

Are you assuming that blue-collar Republicans in red states have not been politically targeted based on "who they are"? Because the opposite is very much the case. There's a reason why people liked Bernie Sanders so much in the latest presidential elections - he was the kind of older-generation leftist who did not pull this sort of elitist BS. Who knows, he might have had a chance.

Are you actually a queer person? I am. I've been all over the United States and find the idea that everyone wants to kill me to be ridiculous. The worst I've gotten are some "mean muggings" as in, people looking at me funny. Which is lame and doesn't feel good, but it's not the same as them wanting to kill me.

Screaming about how everyone wants to kill you is over the top and seems like emotional blackmail.

  so was being sexually harassed, treated like a servant,

I wouldn't assume that lesbians are sexually harassed more often than straight women are.

Yep. Could have been enlightening.

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