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Comment by kayodelycaon | Hacker News Reader

There isn’t a labor shortage. There’s a shortage of people willing to be abused and exploited.

I don’t think any amount of money would be enough for me to work with retail customers again. Much less unruly kids that you can’t do anything about.

If it’s between your story and the story the kid told their parents, you’ll lose that battle most of the time and likely end up getting yourself in more trouble than you already were.

As soon as the customer stops being always right, we can talk about pay.

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> If it’s between your story and the story the kid told their parents, you’ll lose that battle most of the time and likely end up getting yourself in more trouble than you already were.

You're not wrong, but I wanted to add to it.

This is the reason the district where I live has 7 cameras per bus, 4 of which are inside, IIRC.

Those cameras bring big peace of mind.

This is true. When I was growing up, most buses didn’t have cameras.

> I don’t think any amount of money would be enough for me to work with retail customers again.

That _really_ depends on how much money you currently have.

There are a lot of options I could and would take before working with the public. Many people have done just that.

> There isn’t a labor shortage. There’s a shortage of people willing to be abused and exploited.

and those "abused and exploited" people are providing the labor, leading to a labor shortage.

I don't understand people who think "shortage" need to be qualified by how sympathetic the reason for the shortage is. You can either be the type of person who thinks any failure to meet demand is a shortage, or that shortages don't exist because people can simply pay more. The in-between of "there's a failure to meet demand but they deserve it so it's not really a shortage" seems like trying to inject subjectivity to an objective word.

The people saying there is a shortage of workers aren’t using the dictionary definitions.

There is a shortage of people willing to accept their terms. There isn’t a shortage of people who want to work.

>There is a shortage of people willing to accept their terms. There isn’t a shortage of people who want to work.

Would you also agree that there's no housing shortage in the US, only a shortage of houses available at locations and prices that people are willing to accept?

No, because we have land to build on and derelict buildings we can clear.

Either way your comparison is moot, as houses are not people, and as such cannot be treated badly and so decide it doesn't want to be bought/sold.

> people who want to work

This is where there's disagreement. Is it people fed up with poor working conditions, life circumstances that prevent employment, or purposeful unwillingness to work?

I believe the first 2 categories are significant and worth fixing to identify if/how many fall into the 3rd category. Not many do in a well functioning society, IMO.

I don't think it's helpful to conflate a literal technical term w/ a philosophy on labor...

Could say, "there's not a hamburger shortage, there's a shortage of cows willing to be abused and exploited for their flesh".

Which is true, and probably worth evaluation, but at the same time, there is in the hamburger isle a hamburger shortage... no point talking past each other here.

Most buses are filmed continuously now, so for the most part you just need to be like "yeah, go get the video." But there are still a lot of reason you'd probably rather not be a bus driver.

I'd argue that the problem is inflation.

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