If you shop at John Lewis you could, since all staff are partners rather than employees. That aside, if you have an issue with the price or quality of a product, email the retailer AND manufacturer to register your concern. Far more effective. That said, EVERY employee of EVERY company chooses to represent their values hence should be able to at least point you to customer services. In the UK we're rubbish at complaining and complaint handling, which maybe explains our poor standards of retail and our emptying high streets. :edit: Your question was, how do you put a price on someone's time? It's easy, but you need perspective. From an employer's perspective: How do they add value to my business? So, minimum wage for level zero tasks with no potential of value add, right through to an attractive salary for someone with potential to grow or grow their role and value. From an employee's perspective - what value can I add??? Best of all, from a small business owner's perspective, what are my competitors charging, and where does my offering fit in? Am I better or cheaper? Set price of staff's time accordingly. If your question is more fundamental, I.e. should businesses exist to provide employees with a good standard of living, you're into political viewpoints which split economic opinion. Socialist or capitalist - up to you!
You are a @!"£^$&^%^&! I hate grammar Nazis who feel the need to point out others errors. Why would you do so, especially in such a sarcastic manner?
Can't say I've ever experienced it either, at least not at the grocery checkout stand. It's one of the simplest and most honest parts of the service industry: you grab the very item you want and pay the listed price. They're even willing to let you put things back if you change your mind at the last minute. Does he need to be so sarcastic? No. Some use of proper puntuation would be helpful, however. The original post is fairly hard to read without it. And since I can't help myself: attempting to subvert the swear filter is frowned upon.
Glad I live in the UK, supermarkets are very civil (except the reduced section where it seems it's allowed to push and shove) and people are relatively polite to the checkout staff. I'm guessing US supermarkets aren't all run by large national companies?
I've never experienced/witnessed any sort of abuse at the checkout line of a supermarket. And that's between country IGA's and national chains.
Utterly over-the-top response, and subverting the swear filter. Luckily I'm feeling xmassy or you'd be having a little holiday from the forums. Get a grip.
Thanks I stand by my statement. The poster felt the need to create a sarcastic post in which he pointed out someone's errors. I choose to call a plank a plank and will continue to do so. If that earns me a ban.....meh...no biggie.
If the OP has a valid point to make then fine, however a few capital letters here and there make a post a lot easier to read. Some people, possibly a lot of people, would have simply given up on reading his posts due to the difficulty caused by his poor punctuation. I very rarely feel the need to point out grammatical errors online, but it is not often that posts here are quite so poorly punctuated - he is not even trying to put in capital letters otherwise there would be more than one per post. True my post was quite sarcastic, which may be the lowest form of wit, but I'd rather be sarcastic than feel the need to spew profanities over the internet. Back on topic: Actually putting a price on someone's time is exceptionally difficult but to complain to a checkout operator about something over which they have no control, in this case the prices of the products, is about as productive as complaining to a cow about the cost of its milk. Even managers in many stores, even medium sized stores, have very little control over the price of their goods. Edit: And thanks to the anonymous repper
I recall you telling me to be the wiser man once (when I had an argument with thehippoz). I recall taking that on board. Now I ask you the same. Your opinion is valid, but there are wiser ways of expressing them.
...so how is food pricing in the USA? Germany is about the cheapest in europe (with a high quality standart as well), I nearly blew a fuse the first few times I went shopping in Australia an NZ though.
Your employer doesn't care how much your time is worth to you, they only care about how much your time is worth to them. If you are an engineer with knowledge that only a small percentage of people possess, and your knowledge can help make a product that will sell well, then your time is worth quite a lot indeed. If you are a cashier, you belong to the base of the pyramid in terms of skill set, you can be forced to work for low wage because if you're not willing to, someone else will. I sympathise because I'm not even employed yet and my dad has been scraping by his whole life driving a taxi, but this is how people are treated in a capitalist society. As for people treating cashiers poorly; that's just the way people are isn't it. All you can do is treat people the way you think they should be treated and try to spread the love.
I found this pretty interesting regarding food prices in the US: http://www.bls.gov/ro3/apmw.htm Just FYI.
^ Wow, those prices would be cheap in £ let alone $! Chicken in particular I find extortionate in the UK...
The funny thing is, in the world of packaged food, that's exactly what's happening. Boxes of serial and containers of soda are shrinking but the prices are remaining the same. It's a creative way to conceal the fact that the costs of items are going up but keeping the prices around the same.
When it comes to pricing someones time it's pretty easy actually. An untrained worker needs to get paid enough so that he/she can live. To determine what's needed we simply take the average costs for food, electricity, rent, etc and add a little overhead for expenses like clothing, and things you need to buy over the year. In germany there's something called "Hartz 4" which determines the the absolute basics a person needs. The amount for a single person as of 2013 is calculated to be €382 + rent (all incl. up to €500 depending on region, etc). So, if we look at the above amount of money and add a little overhead to enable people to consume, we speak about some €1100 netto per month. At this point it's simple math to determine the price of someones time, given that we assume a single job at 40 hours a week should cover the monthly costs for a living. €1100 / 160 hours = €6,875 per hour netto. In germany that would be €1400 brutto / month as the absolute minimum wage acceptable in 2013.
As the poster of this thread, I apologize, but next time, please, do so in a slightly less sarcastic manner. It makes you seem like a grammar Nazi, and the only thing I feel for them is contempt. Not towards you, but towards people who constantly bL"%#$ about the "misuse" of words, forgetting the fact that as english evolves constantly, words also gain new meanings or are re-purposed entirely. IE: gay, literally etc. I posted this thread on an old(ish) nook color so i had some issues with capitalization. I will fix that right now No offense but: To the smart alecks who had to answer the rhetorical question: I wasn't ASKing a question. The point was that time is priceless, for a number of reasons. Like as in a: Just WHO do you think you are to pay so little that he cant feed those mouths at home? Kind of thing.
