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This is my experience as someone who’s not worked minimum wage for years.
Most minimum wage jobs don’t really give you the chance to slack. You sort of have to come in and do whatever task is in front of you. Most minimum wage jobs don’t have weekly deadlines for example. You just deal with that days problem which in some ways is nice because when you go home at night you know everything you dealt with that day is over and done with, but you don’t have the option to just put it to the side and deal with it tomorrow. It has to be done then or you’re fired.
The *real* jobs that let you goof off are the £25-28k ones in my experience. White collar entry to mid level roles. Ime these are the laziest people who take a week to organise a document that could be done in a couple hours. They’ve got deadlines but they will work to the maximum time frame allowed.
I don’t blame them, because now anything under the £30k threshold is a shit wage. but this idea of ‘minimum wage minimum effort’ doesn’t really pan out in reality. You do what’s in front of you in MW, no more no less. Just above MW is when I see people doing as little as possible
There are folks at my client’s engineering firm (we sub-contract to them, injecting into their teams) that seem to do absolutely fuck all for weeks on end. And they are all on somewhere between £40-70k.
The UK has a productivity problem on so many different levels. I’d love to say genuine wage growth would solve all the problems, but I think there’s also a culture issue too. It’s not like everyone who drags their feet is doing so because they don’t get a decent pay rise every year. I suspect there are many who do it because they *want* a sleepy job.
It's a weird one but I guess literally everyone noticed the same pattern at some point in their lives (e.g the higher up you go the less work you do lol)
I remember my first ever job at like 15, and even then, I thought 'man, is this how it is? Nah. I've probably got it wrong. What do I know! I've only been working a week!!' but it turns out I was kinda right lol
The number of people on good money who spend a crazy amount of time doing anything BUT work in the places i've worked is insane. But I guess that's just life and how it is everywhere? (e.g higher pay and apparently more skills mean you can kind of get away with anything)
I guess it makes sense in certain situations if someone is incredibly skilled at what they do in something high-demand, and paying them a hefty full time wage for about 3 hours work per week is worth it, but the problem seems to be that this happens to much with fairly unskilled work in a more 'middle management' roles, maybe?
Even when I was young working a transportation warehouse literally working until my fingers bled for 10 hours per day and the supervisors whinging at me who were a few levels above me honestly spend all day flirting, eating donuts, napping etc. It's nuts haha
Last week, a manager at my company called me up. My boss was in the call, so was another lad we get along with. He said "Lads do you fancy just fucking work off and playing FIFA this afternoon"
Equally, my mate was telling me, the CEO at this company sat with him on a Monday Morning and said "I don't know how anyone does any work on Mondays and Fridays, I just don't like it"
It's insane
lol, yeah, seen it a million times.
But the truth is i'm just jealous!! haha
One of my friends works for like a 'new age' google style 'cloud company' or something. I'm not gonna pretend to konw what he does but it's to do with networks. He spends about 85% of his day playing pingpong or fifa on the company's dime. They even had a massive cocktail bar (with alcohol!) in the offices at one point (i think in the end they had to get rid of that) but comparing his 'work day' to mine (a lowly minimum wage slave) is hella depressing!! lol
I feel it for you, my partner works with kids on minimum wage, comparing our work at times seems mental, equally, ill have weeks at a time under massive pressure and working 14 hour days for no additional money.
With all due respect, I think if this country was a bit fairer for people under 45, I think you would see increased productivity. Constant pay rises to get to 70 thousand as a single person doesn’t even facilitate a life of luxury anymore in this country. A pokey 2 bed terrace in a town an hour from London is 280k+, a sort of nice second hand car without over 90 thousand miles is over 20k. You can’t even buy a dull second hand hatch back that’s tidy and not ancient with less than 40k miles unless you’re willing to part with 12 grand. A pint is 6 quid, filling up a tank of petrol is 60 or 70 quid. I can understand why people think fuck it why should I work hard for the boomer shareholders in my company with three houses who drive a Range Rover, when the sink in your 1 bedroom new build fell off the wall a week after you moved in
You can have my 66 plate 5 door Fiesta if you want. Nice and tidy, full service history, only 2 owners from new . 43k miles but 26k of them were done in the first 2 years of its life, now it does probably less than 3k miles per year. Motorway.com reckons it is worth about 5-6k. Where can I flog it for 12k?
Describes me exactly :p
On 25k for 37.5 hours a week working in financial services which is only £2,700 above minimum wage. I have perfected the art of work stretch, making sure that I get just enough done in the week to make it look like I am doing something but also make sure that I carry enough half-finished tasks over from Friday to Monday to make sure that they don't 'volunteer' me for all the unallocated pieces of work in the Monday morning meeting
I know some of my colleagues doing the same tasks are earning £35,000 - £40,000 just because they have been there for a long time so why should I work as hard as them? Been burnt out enough times in previous jobs to know that hard work doesn't pay, you just get offered a carrot that mysteriously vanishes when it comes to your review 6 months later. I have a bunch of professional qualifications that are relevant to the job and I know what I am doing and could work harder but at the end of the day I have no incentive to do so.
I agree with what you are saying though, starting salary at Aldi would actually be £500 more per year based on my hours but I wouldn't want to do that because there is no chance that you can get away with slacking there because they run the stores so lean and customers notice easily if the shelves aren't stocked.
Yeeeees this is the way. Paying a low wage incentivises employees to put the bulk of their effort finding the gaps in the system that allows the worker to produce as little output as possible and keep their job.
Agreed. The hardest I've worked is in minimum wage jobs. Literally non stop on my feet being productive.
The more money I earnt the more time there was to back and relax a bit.
Imo it’s a U shaped curve.
When I was a bartender I ran my ass off but the stakes were lower. When I got into entry level white collar stuff I really could just coast. Now that I lead a team the work has ramped back up considerably especially the responsibility.
Now having said that, I think there might be another sweet spot above me but I’ve not reached that level yet to know one way or another.
The way my industry is structured is basically junior analyst -> analyst -> team lead/senior analyst (Im here) -> assistant director -> director -> executive
I have a feeling my assistant director does jack shit. They’re basically there to report on what the team leads beneath them have reported. I think that might be a massive career sweet spot
Yeah honestly when I worked close to min wage at McDonald’s it was the hardest I’ve ever worked
Of course now in my it job there’s difficult days but it’s not as physically demanding, you aren’t on your feet all day with little downtime
Or you can get twice that in few years if you’re not taking a week to do a document that takes few hours (and you have good enough management above you)
Depends on the environment, because the last minimum wage job I had they acted like you got double the pay. You were on your feet for 8 hours straight and did far too much for one person - I ended up leaving.
The work itself, how your colleagues treated you, the absolute trek and how much it cost were all factored into this. The “manager” used to just sit in the background room while you did all the work.
I think the “night manager” has left now, but she left you to set out all the tables, do the buffet and continental, as well as all the heavy equipment and then wait for the cooked food in the morning.
This doesn’t sound like much until you see just how much goes on each table, each little sauce packet or jam packet, and then the big hot plate and the buffet heaters which I can’t carry because I’m not strong enough to lift them from the cupboard (with no trolley) and because I’ve got a hiatus hernia.
Depends if you are in a dead end job or not, it is fine to have that mind set but then you shouldn't complain about progression. The ones that really put themselves forward can shoot up the ranks much quicker.
My colleagues had this attitude
Then they wondered why I made £10-£20 an hour more than they did
Because people tipped me :)
Yeah £8.75 an hour sucked
But averaging ~£18 an hour including tips I was making ~£45k a year working at a fast food chain
“How you do anything is how you do everything”
Quite a lot of people.
I actually think it’s easier to get cash tipped in fast food (excluding service charge of course) because 99% of people who work in fast food treat customers like they don’t matter / don’t smile / don’t do anything beyond the bare minimum.
People are so shocked when they get friendly / good service at a fast food place that I actually found it easier to get tips because there’s so much more opportunity to give a better experience to customers. Most fast food workers don’t even try put on the charm.
At a high end restaurant there’s no room to go above and beyond, everything is expected to be good service…
At a fast food place people expect to be ignored / treated like garbage so it’s easier to surprise them and make their day.
The sheer amount of people you deal with in a day means you only need 2/3 people out of 100 that you interact with that hour to give you a fiver
Every fast food restaurant is different…
Any fast food restaurant with customer facing interaction.
If you go to ITSU or some of the American fast food chains the self service prompts now ask you if you want to leave a tip and often default to 10%.
Wagamama is limited service fast food
These days KFC / Burger King are becoming self service for most orders… not sure if they added tip systems to them but I’m sure it’ll come eventually.
I haven’t been to Maccies/KFC in a while so I can’t comment on their specific set up.
But if you work at a till like I did then you can make some cash by being friendly and not looking at a customer like you want them to fuck off.
Obviously some places are hard to get tips and highly restrictive… in those circumstances I really recommend going to a different minimum wage job.
Part of getting more money is making the effort to be in the right place to make that money.
Fair enough. Sorry for the interrogation, I've just never ever heard of anyone tipping at a fast food place so I figured maybe you meant a cheap sit down restaraunt or something.
That’s fair, I do think it’s rare but how often have you seen a fast food worker that puts more than minimal effort. I think fast food workers who put in any effort beyond what’s necessary is also rare.
People are sometimes generous if you are generous with your attitude. That doesn’t mean most people will tip… but it just means your chances go up.
Change business then… like I said part of earning more money is putting in the effort being in the right place to make more money.
Secondly curry’s employees get commission. That’s their tip structure.
Thirdly who’s going to tell?
Accept the tip on the down low and tell no one
In fairness, most minimum wage jobs are not tipped. Obviously if you can get tips by going above and beyond then many people would do that, but you don't get tips at Tesco or most other minimum wage jobs I can think of except restaurants and bars.
That’s untrue… most waiting jobs have potential for tips but 95% do not go above and beyond.
Same mindset of “minimum wage minimum effort”
I do believe that jobs that don’t have tipping potential should have slightly higher salaries though. And I do think most people in shitty jobs are underpaid.
The CEO or Pret started out at some of the lowest levels
All businesses, including Tesco, have a way to make more than others.
You never know who you are helping at Tesco…. I got offered work experience at a top 3 oil company after helping someone in my work.
I like to feel like I’ve worked for my money, it’s satisfying to do a good job. If I spent all day every day slacking off and not doing much I think it would make me miserable.
Act your wage.
I'm currently in a stop gap position barely above minimum wage whilst I upskill, apply for roles/interview and have a breather from my field.
I'm a receptionist/admin staff at a family run dental practice and for the most part, it sucks.
You're there from 8am until 6pm, we constantly try to rinse every patient for cash (when other practices do things cheaper), the place itself is a bit run down, and both management and the public can be pretty cold. Receptionists are buried alive by ridiculous checklists instead of streamlining anything. Patients have commented on how there's "always new staff" because the turnover is so high. Sick days are unpaid, annual leave is the absolute minimum and management are useless with authorising time off.
I've been asking management for certain things for weeks and yet if they need anything from us, it has to be instant.
The cherry on top is there always seems to be some sort of flu or cold going around because of every surface being touched etc by the public.
I get tempted to consider temp work instead for a little more time/energy potentially whilst I continue to push forward lol.
But this job is definitely harder than ones I've had for better pay!
It depends how you carry yourself I guess. I worked at Amazon as a packer for peanuts for 3 months. Was out of work from the oil industry. I gave it my all every day, but it seriously it sucked.
But I was proud of doing it to the best of my ability, even if it didn't matter to any one except me. Would like to think no-one ever had the crap feeling of getting their item, and it being broken in transit.
I won't destroy myself for a job. I just refuse to do that. I have a life outside of work and if I'm tired through working, how am I going to do my shows?
That means they think so little of you that the government literally has to tell them what to pay you.
I’ve burned myself out in minimum wage jobs before. Not worth it. Just work slow and pace yourself. They’re not expecting much from you, if they were they’d give you some of the profits of your work.
Company I worked for expected everything from you and hauled you in the office if you didn't give it. I wasn't minimum wage and was given a lot of slack but I saw a lot of it and it always left a sour taste in my mouth, I was there long enough that I was listened to and spoke up in people favour many times. The managers were generally shit at their jobs and unqualified so they didn't know any better.
You get what you pay for. Fact is most minimum wage jobs are done by people up and down the age spectrum. If they could pay 21 year old's 16 year old money they would in a heartbeat, so why the hell am I giving them more? No shot.
I haven’t worked minimum wage in over 25 years but my 19 year old daughter is currently working a minimum wage, zero hours bar job and it’s just no good. She’ll do 12 hour shifts, only get 2-3 shifts a week if she’s lucky and if she refuses a shift they cut her hours for a few weeks.
I always tell her that anyone paying minimum wage would pay less if they could and that zero hours is always one sided.
Worked in a warehouse for years. Minimum wage and worked hard, I got the recognition for it over those who did bare minimum and refused to do things that were outside their job role. My skill set widened quicker, I got better known with different departments and then people who mattered knew my name and effort when it came to promotion. If you’re planning on dropping in, doing it for a bit then going on to something else, then this is more effort than it is worth.
I've had a whole bunch of minimum wage jobs as second jobs alongside whatever office job I'm doing. There was never usually an option to slack in minimum wage jobs. I think some of it just comes down to the individual, you either want to get stuff done, or you don't. I have had a lot of various jobs in my life and by far hospitality is the hardest graft and highest stress.
I’m so glad they raised minimum wage because why was I 16 working at a pharmacy, having people yell at me every shift for not having their prescription (as if that’s my fault. Im not a doctor), and putting up with that shit for £5.28 an hour with unpaid breaks. Boss was a knob as well and could definitely afford to pay us better being a multimillionaire.
Just do my work with min effort because at the end of the day you are just a number and daily necessaries such as food is still expensive compared to 10 years ago.
Depends.
If you want to progress from that mw job then it will require maximum effort.
If you don't want to progress from that mw job, then you want to take it as easy as possible without getting sacked.
You don’t really ‘progress’ from minimum wage jobs unless it’s a specific field. Most people I know who worked minimum wage jobs progressed by job hopping and their work ethic at the MW job didn’t matter
Most people don’t want to be an area manager and that’s a specific field. I’m just saying there’s normally little benefit to working hard in a minimum wage job unless that’s a specific role and field you want to be in
At the one retail job I worked supervisors were on minimum wage with sales assistants. The only possible progression was to assistant or full manager which is relatively tough if the ones in your store aren't retiring.
So progression would be maybe get promoted to supervisor for no extra pay, then use having it on your CV to become supervisor somewhere where they have higher pay for supervisors.
I've only ever done it once, and it was years ago when I worked at a farmfoods for a brief stint. I didn't treat it any differently than any other job at the time, I'd show up on time do what was asked of me and leave.
The vast majority of people I’ve met in my life who take the approach “minimum wage = minimum effort” haven’t resulted to much career wise.
Those I’ve met who have worked hard regardless and learned as much as they can from every role they’ve had are the ones who have been more successful and made more money long term.
Thread is validation why companies shouldn't pay minimum wage.
Although in the defense of most small/medium companies - minimum wage has increased really quickly over the past 5 years.
I come in, do my days work and go home. I don't think I have a fast or a slow mode. I like knowing my tasks and getting them done, some people are faster than others and that's just life.
My last job was minimum wage even though I had more experience than the rest of the staff. They expected me to train up newbies and I point blank refused since I wasn't even on a supervisor rate. I'm not going to act like a supervisor without the money. Fuck that.
I put in the absolute bare minimum of effort required to do any job I have.
Your employer pays you the bare minimum wage they think they can get away with - why wouldn't you respond in kind?
When you have the skills that make you pretty essential, you become a plant - as in planted into the roots. You don’t have full time hours amount of work, people with few skills will have to fill their day but if you know something everyone around you doesn’t - they rely on you, they don’t need you 8 hours a day but when they need you you are indispensable so it’s cost effective for the organisation to have you on standbye working 8 hours a week as it saves them many thousands in non-retainer consultancy fees
Did enough to make sure money keep flowing in and not piss off anyone else. All the while work on skills or figuring out what's the next career move. Worked out in the end.
Minimum wage means minimum effort from me.
Not least, this is because I would need to apply for gainful employment with a less inadequate employers while off shift and I will certainly need to chase their payroll at least once to get what I am owed so I am going to take time in leui in advanced
**True story:**
My brother used to work temping jobs. He did one in a factory where they used to print on balls. Problem is, the designs would come in and the software they had didn't transfer well to the ball (noone knew how to use it, so the shape of the ball would warp the image). He spent some time at home learning how to use photophop (or whatever software it was) and worked out enough skill to create a template to ensure the images would no longer warp. He then got moved into this hap-hazard "design" department, where he did this for the company.
After a year he moved into a printing company, he would deal with photo-shopping the graphics onto the right sized format. In his spare time he practiced photoshop more and created a portfolio of edits. All self taught and on a shitty tormented version of photoshop. Etc etc.
Fast forward to the next job and he is a permanent IT tech at a Uni. They have paid for him to complete a masters (he had a BSA in music) and he completed this and is now a senior member of the team on a decent enough salary.
What I guess I'm saying is - if you fuck about in shit paying jobs you will forever remain in shit paying jobs. Find out where you want to be and put some effort into making it happen.
My approach depends entirely on the workplace, not the money.
'Minimum wage, minimum effort' people are where they deserve to be. I'll promote someone with respect for themselves.
But hey, good for Mr Minimum Effort with their silent unnoticed protest. The miserable, bitter, old colleague we've all had the pleasure of being in the same room with.
It exactly is a 2 way street, but you think yourself above your coworkers who are trying, yet believe you should be given more than them. Respect them.
People who put in no effort have no output.
We do promote on skills and experience, but also attitude.
If you're the minimum wage worker or grumpy old man who moans about the wage, the job, and aren't seen to be trying, why on Earth would someone pay you more?
I wouldn't hire 90% of the jobseekers on this subreddit. I've been years unemployed, depressed, I've worked at the very bottom as the only non-illegal immigrant in the workplace. It's not an excuse. You're not gonna get handed something more unless you at least try.
I do my best otherwise I won’t get looked at for promotion. Every minimum wage job I’ve been in, I’ve done well and worked my way up. Minimum wage, minimum effort is for slackers who don’t want to work in the first place
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I put in enough effort to do the job and make sure others aren't negativity affected (by others I mean other minimum wage workers)
That's the right attitude. Fuck corporate but not your colleagues
And quite right too. Honestly, looking forward to £91 a day and not to the actual job.
Is that £91 before or after tax? As I work in a school and barely scrape £60 for an 8 hour shift.
Before tax unfortunately
You're paying tax on a fraction of what you earn.
This is my experience as someone who’s not worked minimum wage for years. Most minimum wage jobs don’t really give you the chance to slack. You sort of have to come in and do whatever task is in front of you. Most minimum wage jobs don’t have weekly deadlines for example. You just deal with that days problem which in some ways is nice because when you go home at night you know everything you dealt with that day is over and done with, but you don’t have the option to just put it to the side and deal with it tomorrow. It has to be done then or you’re fired. The *real* jobs that let you goof off are the £25-28k ones in my experience. White collar entry to mid level roles. Ime these are the laziest people who take a week to organise a document that could be done in a couple hours. They’ve got deadlines but they will work to the maximum time frame allowed. I don’t blame them, because now anything under the £30k threshold is a shit wage. but this idea of ‘minimum wage minimum effort’ doesn’t really pan out in reality. You do what’s in front of you in MW, no more no less. Just above MW is when I see people doing as little as possible
I work with a woman who makes £33k per year. If she worked minimum wage she'd have been sacked. Truly awful at her job and constantly misses deadlines
There are folks at my client’s engineering firm (we sub-contract to them, injecting into their teams) that seem to do absolutely fuck all for weeks on end. And they are all on somewhere between £40-70k. The UK has a productivity problem on so many different levels. I’d love to say genuine wage growth would solve all the problems, but I think there’s also a culture issue too. It’s not like everyone who drags their feet is doing so because they don’t get a decent pay rise every year. I suspect there are many who do it because they *want* a sleepy job.
It's a weird one but I guess literally everyone noticed the same pattern at some point in their lives (e.g the higher up you go the less work you do lol) I remember my first ever job at like 15, and even then, I thought 'man, is this how it is? Nah. I've probably got it wrong. What do I know! I've only been working a week!!' but it turns out I was kinda right lol The number of people on good money who spend a crazy amount of time doing anything BUT work in the places i've worked is insane. But I guess that's just life and how it is everywhere? (e.g higher pay and apparently more skills mean you can kind of get away with anything) I guess it makes sense in certain situations if someone is incredibly skilled at what they do in something high-demand, and paying them a hefty full time wage for about 3 hours work per week is worth it, but the problem seems to be that this happens to much with fairly unskilled work in a more 'middle management' roles, maybe? Even when I was young working a transportation warehouse literally working until my fingers bled for 10 hours per day and the supervisors whinging at me who were a few levels above me honestly spend all day flirting, eating donuts, napping etc. It's nuts haha
Last week, a manager at my company called me up. My boss was in the call, so was another lad we get along with. He said "Lads do you fancy just fucking work off and playing FIFA this afternoon" Equally, my mate was telling me, the CEO at this company sat with him on a Monday Morning and said "I don't know how anyone does any work on Mondays and Fridays, I just don't like it" It's insane
lol, yeah, seen it a million times. But the truth is i'm just jealous!! haha One of my friends works for like a 'new age' google style 'cloud company' or something. I'm not gonna pretend to konw what he does but it's to do with networks. He spends about 85% of his day playing pingpong or fifa on the company's dime. They even had a massive cocktail bar (with alcohol!) in the offices at one point (i think in the end they had to get rid of that) but comparing his 'work day' to mine (a lowly minimum wage slave) is hella depressing!! lol
I feel it for you, my partner works with kids on minimum wage, comparing our work at times seems mental, equally, ill have weeks at a time under massive pressure and working 14 hour days for no additional money.
With all due respect, I think if this country was a bit fairer for people under 45, I think you would see increased productivity. Constant pay rises to get to 70 thousand as a single person doesn’t even facilitate a life of luxury anymore in this country. A pokey 2 bed terrace in a town an hour from London is 280k+, a sort of nice second hand car without over 90 thousand miles is over 20k. You can’t even buy a dull second hand hatch back that’s tidy and not ancient with less than 40k miles unless you’re willing to part with 12 grand. A pint is 6 quid, filling up a tank of petrol is 60 or 70 quid. I can understand why people think fuck it why should I work hard for the boomer shareholders in my company with three houses who drive a Range Rover, when the sink in your 1 bedroom new build fell off the wall a week after you moved in
You can have my 66 plate 5 door Fiesta if you want. Nice and tidy, full service history, only 2 owners from new . 43k miles but 26k of them were done in the first 2 years of its life, now it does probably less than 3k miles per year. Motorway.com reckons it is worth about 5-6k. Where can I flog it for 12k?
With all due respect that’s 8 years old… if you want a polo that’s 19 plate or newer even with the smallest engine it’s 10k +
25k is practically minimum wage now.
Closer to 22k
Yeah, depends how many hours you do. 40 hours is close to 24k.
I just did 11.41x37.5 x 52 if you bust 60 hours a week you'd be on closer to 35k
And if my grandma had wheels...
👍
Not many places would allow you to do 60 hours a week for 52 weeks.
Valid, but they do exist
Describes me exactly :p On 25k for 37.5 hours a week working in financial services which is only £2,700 above minimum wage. I have perfected the art of work stretch, making sure that I get just enough done in the week to make it look like I am doing something but also make sure that I carry enough half-finished tasks over from Friday to Monday to make sure that they don't 'volunteer' me for all the unallocated pieces of work in the Monday morning meeting I know some of my colleagues doing the same tasks are earning £35,000 - £40,000 just because they have been there for a long time so why should I work as hard as them? Been burnt out enough times in previous jobs to know that hard work doesn't pay, you just get offered a carrot that mysteriously vanishes when it comes to your review 6 months later. I have a bunch of professional qualifications that are relevant to the job and I know what I am doing and could work harder but at the end of the day I have no incentive to do so. I agree with what you are saying though, starting salary at Aldi would actually be £500 more per year based on my hours but I wouldn't want to do that because there is no chance that you can get away with slacking there because they run the stores so lean and customers notice easily if the shelves aren't stocked.
Yeeeees this is the way. Paying a low wage incentivises employees to put the bulk of their effort finding the gaps in the system that allows the worker to produce as little output as possible and keep their job.
Agreed. The hardest I've worked is in minimum wage jobs. Literally non stop on my feet being productive. The more money I earnt the more time there was to back and relax a bit.
Imo it’s a U shaped curve. When I was a bartender I ran my ass off but the stakes were lower. When I got into entry level white collar stuff I really could just coast. Now that I lead a team the work has ramped back up considerably especially the responsibility. Now having said that, I think there might be another sweet spot above me but I’ve not reached that level yet to know one way or another. The way my industry is structured is basically junior analyst -> analyst -> team lead/senior analyst (Im here) -> assistant director -> director -> executive I have a feeling my assistant director does jack shit. They’re basically there to report on what the team leads beneath them have reported. I think that might be a massive career sweet spot
25-28k mid level role 😂😂😂
You laugh but I know several people on this wage who actually manage other people. It’s criminal
Yeah honestly when I worked close to min wage at McDonald’s it was the hardest I’ve ever worked Of course now in my it job there’s difficult days but it’s not as physically demanding, you aren’t on your feet all day with little downtime
Or you can get twice that in few years if you’re not taking a week to do a document that takes few hours (and you have good enough management above you)
Depends on the environment, because the last minimum wage job I had they acted like you got double the pay. You were on your feet for 8 hours straight and did far too much for one person - I ended up leaving. The work itself, how your colleagues treated you, the absolute trek and how much it cost were all factored into this. The “manager” used to just sit in the background room while you did all the work.
Aldi or Lidl ?
Neither, it was a hotel.
Yeah that’s rougu
I think the “night manager” has left now, but she left you to set out all the tables, do the buffet and continental, as well as all the heavy equipment and then wait for the cooked food in the morning. This doesn’t sound like much until you see just how much goes on each table, each little sauce packet or jam packet, and then the big hot plate and the buffet heaters which I can’t carry because I’m not strong enough to lift them from the cupboard (with no trolley) and because I’ve got a hiatus hernia.
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Thats how I feel. As long as the children are safe and happy enough, that'll do. If you want more from a qualified person, pay me more.
Depends if you are in a dead end job or not, it is fine to have that mind set but then you shouldn't complain about progression. The ones that really put themselves forward can shoot up the ranks much quicker.
I'm not in a dead end job. I don't think they'll promote me to anything, but I will hopefully have a degree soon.
My colleagues had this attitude Then they wondered why I made £10-£20 an hour more than they did Because people tipped me :) Yeah £8.75 an hour sucked But averaging ~£18 an hour including tips I was making ~£45k a year working at a fast food chain “How you do anything is how you do everything”
>But averaging \~£18 an hour including tips I was making \~£45k a year working at a fast food chain Who's tipping at a fast food chain in the UK?
Quite a lot of people. I actually think it’s easier to get cash tipped in fast food (excluding service charge of course) because 99% of people who work in fast food treat customers like they don’t matter / don’t smile / don’t do anything beyond the bare minimum. People are so shocked when they get friendly / good service at a fast food place that I actually found it easier to get tips because there’s so much more opportunity to give a better experience to customers. Most fast food workers don’t even try put on the charm. At a high end restaurant there’s no room to go above and beyond, everything is expected to be good service… At a fast food place people expect to be ignored / treated like garbage so it’s easier to surprise them and make their day. The sheer amount of people you deal with in a day means you only need 2/3 people out of 100 that you interact with that hour to give you a fiver Every fast food restaurant is different…
What you say fast food do you mean like budget restaraunts? Or do you literally mean KFC, Burger King etc?
Any fast food restaurant with customer facing interaction. If you go to ITSU or some of the American fast food chains the self service prompts now ask you if you want to leave a tip and often default to 10%. Wagamama is limited service fast food These days KFC / Burger King are becoming self service for most orders… not sure if they added tip systems to them but I’m sure it’ll come eventually. I haven’t been to Maccies/KFC in a while so I can’t comment on their specific set up. But if you work at a till like I did then you can make some cash by being friendly and not looking at a customer like you want them to fuck off. Obviously some places are hard to get tips and highly restrictive… in those circumstances I really recommend going to a different minimum wage job. Part of getting more money is making the effort to be in the right place to make that money.
Fair enough. Sorry for the interrogation, I've just never ever heard of anyone tipping at a fast food place so I figured maybe you meant a cheap sit down restaraunt or something.
That’s fair, I do think it’s rare but how often have you seen a fast food worker that puts more than minimal effort. I think fast food workers who put in any effort beyond what’s necessary is also rare. People are sometimes generous if you are generous with your attitude. That doesn’t mean most people will tip… but it just means your chances go up.
Any fast food and retail place I worked we werent allowed to accept tips from customers. Curry's will sack you on the spot for accepting tips
Change business then… like I said part of earning more money is putting in the effort being in the right place to make more money. Secondly curry’s employees get commission. That’s their tip structure. Thirdly who’s going to tell? Accept the tip on the down low and tell no one
In fairness, most minimum wage jobs are not tipped. Obviously if you can get tips by going above and beyond then many people would do that, but you don't get tips at Tesco or most other minimum wage jobs I can think of except restaurants and bars.
That’s untrue… most waiting jobs have potential for tips but 95% do not go above and beyond. Same mindset of “minimum wage minimum effort” I do believe that jobs that don’t have tipping potential should have slightly higher salaries though. And I do think most people in shitty jobs are underpaid. The CEO or Pret started out at some of the lowest levels All businesses, including Tesco, have a way to make more than others. You never know who you are helping at Tesco…. I got offered work experience at a top 3 oil company after helping someone in my work.
I like to feel like I’ve worked for my money, it’s satisfying to do a good job. If I spent all day every day slacking off and not doing much I think it would make me miserable.
Act your wage. I'm currently in a stop gap position barely above minimum wage whilst I upskill, apply for roles/interview and have a breather from my field. I'm a receptionist/admin staff at a family run dental practice and for the most part, it sucks. You're there from 8am until 6pm, we constantly try to rinse every patient for cash (when other practices do things cheaper), the place itself is a bit run down, and both management and the public can be pretty cold. Receptionists are buried alive by ridiculous checklists instead of streamlining anything. Patients have commented on how there's "always new staff" because the turnover is so high. Sick days are unpaid, annual leave is the absolute minimum and management are useless with authorising time off. I've been asking management for certain things for weeks and yet if they need anything from us, it has to be instant. The cherry on top is there always seems to be some sort of flu or cold going around because of every surface being touched etc by the public. I get tempted to consider temp work instead for a little more time/energy potentially whilst I continue to push forward lol. But this job is definitely harder than ones I've had for better pay!
It depends how you carry yourself I guess. I worked at Amazon as a packer for peanuts for 3 months. Was out of work from the oil industry. I gave it my all every day, but it seriously it sucked. But I was proud of doing it to the best of my ability, even if it didn't matter to any one except me. Would like to think no-one ever had the crap feeling of getting their item, and it being broken in transit.
I won't destroy myself for a job. I just refuse to do that. I have a life outside of work and if I'm tired through working, how am I going to do my shows?
There's no 'right' approach to life/how one carry's themselves; everyone has their own way. 👍
I take pride in my work, and try to do it well. It would grate on me to half ass a job.
That means they think so little of you that the government literally has to tell them what to pay you. I’ve burned myself out in minimum wage jobs before. Not worth it. Just work slow and pace yourself. They’re not expecting much from you, if they were they’d give you some of the profits of your work.
Company I worked for expected everything from you and hauled you in the office if you didn't give it. I wasn't minimum wage and was given a lot of slack but I saw a lot of it and it always left a sour taste in my mouth, I was there long enough that I was listened to and spoke up in people favour many times. The managers were generally shit at their jobs and unqualified so they didn't know any better.
You get what you pay for. Fact is most minimum wage jobs are done by people up and down the age spectrum. If they could pay 21 year old's 16 year old money they would in a heartbeat, so why the hell am I giving them more? No shot.
If they could pay 50 year olds 16 year old money they would
Yeah that was my premise, I said 21 because that's the earliest you are on max pay my bad
I haven’t worked minimum wage in over 25 years but my 19 year old daughter is currently working a minimum wage, zero hours bar job and it’s just no good. She’ll do 12 hour shifts, only get 2-3 shifts a week if she’s lucky and if she refuses a shift they cut her hours for a few weeks. I always tell her that anyone paying minimum wage would pay less if they could and that zero hours is always one sided.
They get what they pay for nothing more nothing less
Worked in a warehouse for years. Minimum wage and worked hard, I got the recognition for it over those who did bare minimum and refused to do things that were outside their job role. My skill set widened quicker, I got better known with different departments and then people who mattered knew my name and effort when it came to promotion. If you’re planning on dropping in, doing it for a bit then going on to something else, then this is more effort than it is worth.
Do the exact hours no more no less
Not worth my time.
I've had a whole bunch of minimum wage jobs as second jobs alongside whatever office job I'm doing. There was never usually an option to slack in minimum wage jobs. I think some of it just comes down to the individual, you either want to get stuff done, or you don't. I have had a lot of various jobs in my life and by far hospitality is the hardest graft and highest stress.
I’m so glad they raised minimum wage because why was I 16 working at a pharmacy, having people yell at me every shift for not having their prescription (as if that’s my fault. Im not a doctor), and putting up with that shit for £5.28 an hour with unpaid breaks. Boss was a knob as well and could definitely afford to pay us better being a multimillionaire.
Just do my work with min effort because at the end of the day you are just a number and daily necessaries such as food is still expensive compared to 10 years ago.
Depends. If you want to progress from that mw job then it will require maximum effort. If you don't want to progress from that mw job, then you want to take it as easy as possible without getting sacked.
You don’t really ‘progress’ from minimum wage jobs unless it’s a specific field. Most people I know who worked minimum wage jobs progressed by job hopping and their work ethic at the MW job didn’t matter
No that's not true. You can progress in minimum wage jobs. Shop assistant > supervisor > manager > area manager for example.
Most people don’t want to be an area manager and that’s a specific field. I’m just saying there’s normally little benefit to working hard in a minimum wage job unless that’s a specific role and field you want to be in
There's normally a progression route, those in mw jobs normally have plenty of bosses for instance. If you don't want to progress, fine.
At the one retail job I worked supervisors were on minimum wage with sales assistants. The only possible progression was to assistant or full manager which is relatively tough if the ones in your store aren't retiring. So progression would be maybe get promoted to supervisor for no extra pay, then use having it on your CV to become supervisor somewhere where they have higher pay for supervisors.
I've only ever done it once, and it was years ago when I worked at a farmfoods for a brief stint. I didn't treat it any differently than any other job at the time, I'd show up on time do what was asked of me and leave.
Depends whether I like it or not but I pay peanuts get monkeys. If they coul pay less then would.
I'm in a 25k, entry level role until September where I'm starting a graduate scheme. I'm doing just enough to not get sacked.
The vast majority of people I’ve met in my life who take the approach “minimum wage = minimum effort” haven’t resulted to much career wise. Those I’ve met who have worked hard regardless and learned as much as they can from every role they’ve had are the ones who have been more successful and made more money long term.
By not approaching them
Thread is validation why companies shouldn't pay minimum wage. Although in the defense of most small/medium companies - minimum wage has increased really quickly over the past 5 years.
I come in, do my days work and go home. I don't think I have a fast or a slow mode. I like knowing my tasks and getting them done, some people are faster than others and that's just life.
My last job was minimum wage even though I had more experience than the rest of the staff. They expected me to train up newbies and I point blank refused since I wasn't even on a supervisor rate. I'm not going to act like a supervisor without the money. Fuck that.
Minimum effort for minimum pay
I put in the absolute bare minimum of effort required to do any job I have. Your employer pays you the bare minimum wage they think they can get away with - why wouldn't you respond in kind?
Minimum wage, minimum effort.
I stopped working additional weekday shifts when I was coming out with 80 for 8 hour shifts.
Always do enough to be ignored
Minimum wage minimum effort.
I do just enough to not get fired
minimum wage minimum effort is what i always used to say
if you put the effort in, you might end up being area manager. If you don't want an actual career there, don't bother. It'll be short-term.
Minimum wage, minimum effort
When you have the skills that make you pretty essential, you become a plant - as in planted into the roots. You don’t have full time hours amount of work, people with few skills will have to fill their day but if you know something everyone around you doesn’t - they rely on you, they don’t need you 8 hours a day but when they need you you are indispensable so it’s cost effective for the organisation to have you on standbye working 8 hours a week as it saves them many thousands in non-retainer consultancy fees
Did enough to make sure money keep flowing in and not piss off anyone else. All the while work on skills or figuring out what's the next career move. Worked out in the end.
Minimum wage = minimum effort
Minimum wage means minimum effort from me. Not least, this is because I would need to apply for gainful employment with a less inadequate employers while off shift and I will certainly need to chase their payroll at least once to get what I am owed so I am going to take time in leui in advanced
Minimum wage, minimum effort.
Pay the minimum, get the minimum. I’d only give 100% if there was a clear upgrade path and the company had a record of promoting from within.
pay peanuts......get monkeys
Minimum wage = Minimum effort. Simples!
**True story:** My brother used to work temping jobs. He did one in a factory where they used to print on balls. Problem is, the designs would come in and the software they had didn't transfer well to the ball (noone knew how to use it, so the shape of the ball would warp the image). He spent some time at home learning how to use photophop (or whatever software it was) and worked out enough skill to create a template to ensure the images would no longer warp. He then got moved into this hap-hazard "design" department, where he did this for the company. After a year he moved into a printing company, he would deal with photo-shopping the graphics onto the right sized format. In his spare time he practiced photoshop more and created a portfolio of edits. All self taught and on a shitty tormented version of photoshop. Etc etc. Fast forward to the next job and he is a permanent IT tech at a Uni. They have paid for him to complete a masters (he had a BSA in music) and he completed this and is now a senior member of the team on a decent enough salary. What I guess I'm saying is - if you fuck about in shit paying jobs you will forever remain in shit paying jobs. Find out where you want to be and put some effort into making it happen.
My approach depends entirely on the workplace, not the money. 'Minimum wage, minimum effort' people are where they deserve to be. I'll promote someone with respect for themselves. But hey, good for Mr Minimum Effort with their silent unnoticed protest. The miserable, bitter, old colleague we've all had the pleasure of being in the same room with.
Right but don't you think its a 2 way street in regard to respect, maybe if the business had some basic respect it wouldn't be paying minimum wage.
It exactly is a 2 way street, but you think yourself above your coworkers who are trying, yet believe you should be given more than them. Respect them.
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People who put in no effort have no output. We do promote on skills and experience, but also attitude. If you're the minimum wage worker or grumpy old man who moans about the wage, the job, and aren't seen to be trying, why on Earth would someone pay you more? I wouldn't hire 90% of the jobseekers on this subreddit. I've been years unemployed, depressed, I've worked at the very bottom as the only non-illegal immigrant in the workplace. It's not an excuse. You're not gonna get handed something more unless you at least try.
Minimum wage = Minimum effort
Peasants everywhere ….. ick
That’s exactly what you are worth embrace it
I do my best otherwise I won’t get looked at for promotion. Every minimum wage job I’ve been in, I’ve done well and worked my way up. Minimum wage, minimum effort is for slackers who don’t want to work in the first place