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More degrading: Working 35 hours a week in fast food or 1 hour a week as a call girl?

post #1 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:23pm
Thread Starter 
I say 35 because good luck getting full time hours, that would entail health benefits.

I would say that working in fast food is more demeaning and more exploitative.
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post #2 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:34pm
Fast food fucking sucks.

I'd be a whore.
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post #3 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:35pm
Do you mean call girl, or hooker? Because I think there's an important difference.
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post #4 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:36pm
Quote:
RathBandu:
Fast food fucking sucks.
Stop fucking fast food then. You'll burn your cock.
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post #5 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:38pm
Thread Starter 
I mean a call girl. Streetwalkers don't earn in one hour what a fast food employee does in a week.
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post #6 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:39pm
Wrong forum of course.

The health "benefits" of low-class whoring probably tip the scales to the fast food worker.
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post #7 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:39pm
Quote:
Dan Whitehead:
Quote:
RathBandu:
Fast food fucking sucks.
Stop fucking fast food then. You'll burn your cock.
Another reason why this guy is a 5-star pro on these boards.
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post #8 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:41pm
Since we're talking call girls that wiork for a professional service and such, I'd say the call girls get the better deal.
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post #9 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:43pm
Thread Starter 
I would say the the capitalist exploitation of workers discussion belongs right in this forum.
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post #10 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:44pm
You may have picked the wrong thread to call me a "pro", Micah.
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post #11 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:44pm
Although I was never a call girl, I did work 35 hours a week in fast food for four years. I was actually a GOOD employee so I got all the hours I wanted. I wouldn't say it "fucking sucks" but it is definitely not the most rewarding experience in the world. I think you get exposed to how people really are in a fast food job. It's not the most pleasant thing to see.

But there are always some interesting moments to lighten the mood. Like when a girl goes through the drive-thru topless or some drunk guy passes out on the shitter with his pants down.
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post #12 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:46pm
If we're talking purely financial and ancilliary benefits, plus general self esteem issues, then I'd say a mid-to-high class call girl definitely has a better deal.

But if we're talking which job I'd rather my hypothetical daughter had...
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post #13 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:48pm
Thread Starter 
Dan, good addition to the thread. Would you rather your daughter turn one trick a week or slave in fast food?

Turning one trick for my daughter for sure.
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post #14 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:49pm
Depends what age...In her teens, I'd rather the fast food. Once she becomes a wee bit older, if those were her only two choices, I'd say call girl.
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post #15 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:56pm
I'm kinda surprised at the amount of disdain for fast food employment. Have any of you guys flipped the burgers? I thought the place I worked for had horrible management but I still thought it was better than most people make it out to be.
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post #16 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:58pm
Thread Starter 
I have done it. It is the lowest and worst work that can be done, utterly dehumanizing, poorly paid and bad for society as well as the individual.
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post #17 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:58pm
When I was teen I worked fast food. It seemed like the thing to do. The big negative is how brainless it is, I mean the most learned thing you do is subtract from 100 to make change (though that usually follows paterns, so again, not that difficult).

Most of my memories of that time revolve around the disgusting. The worst was when we found a garbage can in the parking lot. It had a lining on top, and when we cracked that lining, the smell was that of human feces. It was probably (though I couldn't be sure as it was too hard to get close) an entire garbage can filled with excrement. We lifted it into our dumpster, but had to call for a garbage removal becuase customers were complaining about the smell.

$500 bucks for a handjob sounds a lot less degrading.
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post #18 of 82
1/27/03 at 2:59pm
Quote:
gravedigger41:
I'm kinda surprised at the amount of disdain for fast food employment. Have any of you guys flipped the burgers? I thought the place I worked for had horrible management but I still thought it was better than most people make it out to be.
Worked at Hardee's for a little over a year to save up to buy my first car. I was a cook during their "3 for $1" burger promotion. Not fun.

But the point - to which I kind of agree - is that both lines of work are depressing, soul-sucking affairs when you work at them long enough, but at least you're making more money and are more in control of your destiny being a call girl.
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post #19 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:04pm
Quote:
Alvy Singer:
I have done it. It is the lowest and worst work that can be done, utterly dehumanizing, poorly paid and bad for society as well as the individual.
Different experiences, I guess. While I did think the first few months (okay, the first year) was dehumanizing, I was paid rather well and I think I came out a better person at the end.

Would I go back? Hell no, but the only thing I would have changed was taking the management position earlier.
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post #20 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:06pm
Quote:
mikah912:

at least you're making more money and are more in control of your destiny being a call girl.
I would agree with that.
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post #21 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:09pm
While working in fast food certainly sounds like no fun, how is it bad for society? Seems like most people who work there are teenagers who have no training to do much else, or immigrants who have no training to do much else. I'd say it's worse for the immigrants because they're trying to live off the crap money, as opposed to teens which are saving up for cars or playstations or whatever.

What is the average slary per hour in fast food? I think here it might be six or seven dollars to start, at least from the few places I've heard such details from. Bookstores offer the same pay.
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post #22 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:14pm
Quote:
Alvy Singer:
I have done it. It is the lowest and worst work that can be done, utterly dehumanizing, poorly paid and bad for society as well as the individual.
While I haven't worked in fast food or at a slaughterhouse, from my understanding modern slaughterhouses seem to be a fair bit worse.
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post #23 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:17pm
Quote:
piranhapictures:
While working in fast food certainly sounds like no fun, how is it bad for society? Seems like most people who work there are teenagers who have no training to do much else, or immigrants who have no training to do much else.
Serving food, per se, is fine. But it's the slavish corporate culture these fast food joints enforce and perpetuate that I think makes them evil.
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post #24 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:21pm
Quote:
piranhapictures:
While working in fast food certainly sounds like no fun, how is it bad for society? Seems like most people who work there are teenagers who have no training to do much else, or immigrants who have no training to do much else. I'd say it's worse for the immigrants because they're trying to live off the crap money, as opposed to teens which are saving up for cars or playstations or whatever.

What is the average slary per hour in fast food? I think here it might be six or seven dollars to start, at least from the few places I've heard such details from. Bookstores offer the same pay.
I don't think the actual empolyment is what is bad for society, it's their treatment. Working fast food may not take a whole lot of skill, but it isn't nessisarily easy work. Jobs that rely on physical labor over mental acuity are often looked down upon. The people who actually make money off of the work that the employees do sit in leather chairs & ponder the next brilliant (read: asinine) ad campaign that will bring in more people for the restaraunt employees to serve so they (the executive) can get a $10,000 raise & the cook can get employee of the month & an extra .25 cents an hour.

Working in a hot kitchen with teens all day, or working in a corporate office all day. Neither job seems significantly tougher than the other to me, and yet one gets paid significantly less money.
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post #25 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:27pm
I've never worked at one, so I don't know...how do they enforce slavish corporate culture? Do you mean low pay? Lots of places offer that. They want you to be devoted to the job? I guess every place wants that.

Not that I'm looking out to defend fast food, because we all know it's a shit job. But for someone who has no training and no skills, if they get in and do a good job, they can work their way up. At least supposedly. I don't know how restrictive they are for promoting people. But for most jobs, you have to start at the absolutely crappy bottom and work up to something decent, unless you have highly marketable skills.

How much do you think a burger flipper should be paid an hour? Ten bucks? Fifteen? I wouldn't have a problem with that myself, but for that price I think you might actually take jobs away from teenagers or people who can't speak English well or have no skills, because for that pay, more qualified people would apply.
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post #26 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:31pm
Thread Starter 
Fast food employees are ill treated, not allowed to unionize, paid poorly, denied health care often, looked down upon by society, and looked at as expendable, meaning most of them never get any training that they can use elsewhere.

Fast food itself is non-nutritional, fattening, often environmentally detrimental, not to mention the general evils of their advertising, employee relations, etc etc etc.
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post #27 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:32pm
I agree. This is just one shit job, out of what could be a hundred different jobs. As I aluded to before, the main problem I see is that jobs based on physical labor are seen as lower-class & therefore should be paid that way. I know that's the way capitalism works, but that doesn't mean it's right.
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post #28 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:32pm
Thread Starter 
Do yourself a favor and read a book called Fast Food Nation.
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post #29 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:35pm
Quote:
piranhapictures:
I've never worked at one, so I don't know...how do they enforce slavish corporate culture? Do you mean low pay? Lots of places offer that. They want you to be devoted to the job? I guess every place wants that.
It's more the almost militaristic way they crush people's identities, belittle them and rank them with insane "star systems". Fast food workers don't have a career, they're human battery chickens.
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post #30 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:44pm
Quote:
Alvy Singer:
Do yourself a favor and read a book called Fast Food Nation.
I've seen this on the shelf but never picked it up. I'm guessing you would recommend?
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post #31 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:49pm
Thread Starter 
Strongly.
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post #32 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:50pm
Well, I've never been a call-girl, but I have been a stripper.

I have also worked as a night-manager at a Whataburger.

I'd rather shake my tits for money.
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post #33 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:53pm
Quote:
kittyinjammies:
Well, I've never been a call-girl, but I have been a stripper.

I have also worked as a night-manager at a Whataburger.

I'd rather shake my tits for money.
Or maybe, just maybe, you could combine the two and call it "Tittyburger". Burgers, fries, shake and a lap dance: $29.95.
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post #34 of 82
1/27/03 at 3:56pm
I will check out that book. Although the problems listed here are much more widespread than fast food. I'm helping a friend organize a union because the place he works for really is cartoony in how awful they are. But really, it's just the owner. Just a terrible human being.

Guttenberg: you're right that jobs based on physical labor usually pay less. Although I think you have your reasoning backward. They don't pay less because the jobs are seen as lower class jobs. The lower class go to these jobs because they don't have the skills or training to do other jobs.

The guy who's job is to move rocks from A to B will be paid less than than the electician, because to move the rocks all you need to be is able to move them. You need skills to be an electrician.

I worked a little construction back in the day, and my exciting job was to dig holes. And stand around a lot. But mostly to dig holes. I made about a fourth of the other guys who knew what they were doing, and the other diggers were similarly unskilled. That's what you do when you don't have a lot to offer.
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post #35 of 82
1/27/03 at 4:09pm
If it came down to ME actually having to work 35 hours in a fast food joint or smoke a sausage, I'd say I'm ready to start counting backward from 35.
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post #36 of 82
1/27/03 at 4:16pm
Thread Starter 
Homophobia is a strong instinct.
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post #37 of 82
1/27/03 at 4:18pm
Quote:
Dan Whitehead:
If we're talking purely financial and ancilliary benefits, plus general self esteem issues, then I'd say a mid-to-high class call girl definitely has a better deal.

But if we're talking which job I'd rather my hypothetical daughter had...
There's the rub. It's all situation-based.

I know tons of people who had an okay time working in fast food places during their teen years - it was just a job to them. A rite of passage, almost. And there are certainly people who have no esteem issues or what-have-you working in the sex industry. But it comes down to specifics.

Even more to the point: if I chose to be a call-girl (or "call-boy"), does that mean hand-jobs or regular buggering? I think I could deal with some of the non-penetrative, non-painful stuff. But fish out fries from a vat of grease or get rogered on a daily or weekly basis by strange men?

I'd go with the fries. Less invasive, less physically painful.

On the other hand, if we're talking hypothetically being turned into a woman and this just involves standard vaginal stuff and dealing with a safe, regular, non-abusive clientele, there'd be more room for debate.

I don't care HOW bad working in the fast food industry is, life-threatening venereal diseases aren't job hazards.
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post #38 of 82
1/27/03 at 4:21pm
Quote:
Alvy Singer:
Homophobia is a strong instinct.
I don't think that comment was particularly homophobic.

Just because you don't want to do something doesn't mean you hate or fear people that do.

Personally, I don't like the idea of being tied up and whipped, but I pass no judgment on people who do.
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post #39 of 82
1/27/03 at 4:30pm
If you're really hot, being a call girl could be a great job. A friend of mine used to do that, and if you wanted to spend the night with her it was about ten grand. And the suckers would pay too.

When we went out she bought dinner, and I let her because I'm big into women's rights to feed me.
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post #40 of 82
1/27/03 at 4:37pm
I flipped burgers when I was sixteen. That was almost 15 years ago, and not at McDonald's, so there was probably less corporate indoctrination than there is now. Most of that shit bounced off me anyway, although I do have an aversion to nametags. It wasn't a difficult job for the Smart Ones, just a little busy at times. As labour goes, it wasn't terrifically labourious, and the management knew better than to pull the wool over the eyes of the Smart Ones because we had copies of the Alberta Labour Code in our lockers, and they didn't want to lose people who could and would do any job in the place. And I got laid a lot. Socially, fast food is fine work if you can get it.

It's not fulfilling work for an adult, but I didn't think it was particularly degrading. McDonald's would've been, I think.

Fast Food Nation's a good book.
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post #41 of 82
1/27/03 at 5:05pm
Quote:
Alvy Singer:
Do yourself a favor and read a book called Fast Food Nation.
Mad Cowboy is better.
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post #42 of 82
1/27/03 at 5:08pm
Well, actually as a book Fast Food Nation is a lot better, but in terms of information and message, Mad Cowboy is far above.
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post #43 of 82
1/27/03 at 5:26pm
Quote:
piranhapictures:
Guttenberg: you're right that jobs based on physical labor usually pay less. Although I think you have your reasoning backward. They don't pay less because the jobs are seen as lower class jobs. The lower class go to these jobs because they don't have the skills or training to do other jobs.

The guy who's job is to move rocks from A to B will be paid less than than the electician, because to move the rocks all you need to be is able to move them. You need skills to be an electrician.

I worked a little construction back in the day, and my exciting job was to dig holes. And stand around a lot. But mostly to dig holes. I made about a fourth of the other guys who knew what they were doing, and the other diggers were similarly unskilled. That's what you do when you don't have a lot to offer.
I agree with you to a point, but it is pretty much a chicken or the egg question.

Even as skilled as an electrician is, there is such a ceiling on his career. An electrician isn't usually going to become a vice-president of GE, marketing people are. People who decide how to market the work that the electricians do often make more money. They are no more skilled, just differently skilled.

I'm not disagreeing that blue-collar work is often a nice option for the less-than intelligent. I'm just saying blue-collar workers often get the shaft in pay because their work involves labor.
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post #44 of 82
1/27/03 at 5:28pm
Since the topc is which is more degrading I'd say tit for tat (heh). Better pay and bene's (though as a call girl I am guessing you would be a contractor and would have to pay for your own) does not make a job less degrading. And working fast-food (or any similar menial task) definitely CAN be degrading. As to which I'd rather myself or my non-hypothetical daughter do, I'd say flipping burgers. I have a decent self esteem and for me it would just be a J-O-B until I got a real one. I did work at a McD's for a day or two and said "Hell, no." once I found out they wouldn't give me hours.

Quote:
Dan Whitehead:
You may have picked the wrong thread to call me a "pro", Micah.
For what you charge and how well you treated me I'd call you a pro big Danny.
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post #45 of 82
1/27/03 at 6:04pm
Quote:
Alvy Singer:
Homophobia is a strong instinct.
I wouldn't consider myself homophobic. Penis-phobic maybe. I couldn't care less who anyone fucks. However, I do give some thought to my own sexual encounters. I may be able to use the wonderful world of imagination for turning a skank into a siren, but turning pole into poon is out of my imagination's league.

There's something to be said for preserving the sanctity of your own sexual orientation. Whether it be guy on guy, girl on girl, girl on guy, horse on cat... Horse on cat!?
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post #46 of 82
1/27/03 at 6:05pm
Quote:
Alvy Singer:
I have done it. It is the lowest and worst work that can be done, utterly dehumanizing, poorly paid and bad for society as well as the individual.
but, even though you were treated badly, did you do your job well?
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post #47 of 82
1/27/03 at 6:05pm
Quote:
Nick Luskmonster:
I may be able to use the wonderful world of imagination for turning a skank into a siren, but turning pole into poon is out of my imagination's league.
Well said, Nick. Fucking hilarious.
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post #48 of 82
1/27/03 at 6:09pm
Quote:
Nick Luskmonster:
Quote:
Alvy Singer:
Homophobia is a strong instinct.
I may be able to use the wonderful world of imagination for turning a skank into a siren, but turning pole into poon is out of my imagination's league.
fuckin' hilarious. post of the month!
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post #49 of 82
1/27/03 at 6:29pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Nelson:
Quote:
Alvy Singer:
I have done it. It is the lowest and worst work that can be done, utterly dehumanizing, poorly paid and bad for society as well as the individual.
but, even though you were treated badly, did you do your job well?
Hell no. I stole whatever I could, as well. As did everyone who worked there, including the day manager who robbed it one night.

Oddly, employees don't act that way when treated well.
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post #50 of 82
1/27/03 at 6:55pm
Valid point, Devin. Obviously the management there was as broken and corrupt as the underlings, but did anyone try to make the workplace better?

Once I started climbing the management ladder, I treated the crew as peers (because I was only a year or two older than most of them) and they responded to me better than pretty much every other manager. Of course, in the process I threw out almost every redundant or idiotic mandate that came down from the suits, so that may have been part of it...
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