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Comment by pessimizer | Hacker News Reader

These jobs are not dehumanizing because of management. They are simply dehumanizing. If they were paid more, they would just be worth the dehumanization; getting hazard pay doesn't make a job less hazardous.

> A change in attitude, forced by law or social change

Exactly what would you like to force people to do? What's this "attitude," and by what process does it dehumanize people who work in call centers? Do call center workers have material problems, or is this a question of abstract mindset or aesthetics?

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> These jobs are not dehumanizing because of management. They are simply dehumanizing.

Nonsense. Helping people with their problems isn't dehumanising. Following a script that your company has optimized to avoid helping the person is dehumanising.

> Exactly what would you like to force people to do? What's this "attitude," and by what process does it dehumanize people who work in call centers? Do call center workers have material problems, or is this a question of abstract mindset or aesthetics?

You could make them fiduciaries for the people calling in, or something slightly less extreme. Call center workers have problems that are superficially material, but addressing them on a directly material level would just be playing whack-a-mole; the unpleasantness of the position stems directly from the incentives that those who control them are under.

> These jobs are not dehumanizing because of management. They are simply dehumanizing.

There’s obviously lots of different types of call center jobs, but I wouldn’t say they are all categorically dehumanizing. I worked as a support agent for a while in my early twenties, and the core of the work was not dehumanizing. But being poorly payed, clocked to the second and not being given adequate equipment or training to do the work well was. I can imagine a version of that job that I would have stuck with for longer.

I find that rather strange, IMO a first level support manager has a very dehumanizing job and gets paid less than top tech support staff. The lifers I've known also didn't want developer jobs as project pressures can feel persistent while a support engineer couldn't care less about your problems when they go home.

They are dehumanizing because of the relationship to the work. It is of no value to the worker. It is meaningless. And that is dehumanizing.

Digging holes in a random field for 8 hours a day for minimum wage to make someone else richer is rather dehumanizing. When it's digging holes for a fence in your yard, or for a community barn-raising -- the exact same work -- somehow it's less dehumanizing.

It's productive. You did something physical while improving a situation.

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