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We say wages are high in the west, yet we are literally paying people to stand around in line for us.

https://www.investigatetv.com/2026/01/16/professional-line-s...

The skill gap between line stander and SMD soldering is fairly large

You could do SMD while standing in line!

You know you've done it right when the entire untidy queue pops into an even straight line

I picture some rig you wear with a small ledge on ypur stomach, and a battery pack on your back, to power the soldering iron. I've wrapped a thin wire around my soldering tip to work on tiny pads, so I envision this plus magnifying eyewear too.

Sadly in the US the bomb squad would soon show and shoot your ass, but maybe you'd get a settlement out of it.

That's part of what I was thinking about, we have people with little/ low skills that we pay to do things that make no sense.

https://fortune.com/2025/05/18/gen-x-entrepreneur-line-sitti...

We can pay someone $20~60 an hour to stand in line for concert tickets and shoe drops but we can't get enough blue-collar workers to bring down housing prices.

NYC McDonald's pays $17~20 an hour...

Somewhere along the way, what we value for labor and what we work we are willing to do got very messed up.

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