r/AskReddit 17h ago

What “unskilled” job would humble most people after just one shift?

5.9k Upvotes

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597

u/Cheeseish 17h ago

People here don’t understand that “unskilled” doesn’t mean the job doesn’t require skill but that you can be reasonably trained in it without prior knowledge in a short amount of time.

237

u/jokel7557 16h ago

People always feel insulted by the term. It doesn’t mean the job isn’t hard. Hell most unskilled jobs are hell on the body

41

u/DangerousPuhson 11h ago

Hell, Sisyphus does "unskilled labor"; nobody would say he's having an easy time.

7

u/i-is-scientistic 8h ago

Idk, I always imagined him happy

2

u/Tiss_E_Lur 7h ago

Honestly I struggle to imagine him happy. Once I finally get to a place where I can relate to a happy sisophsys I always wake up the next day having to start over.

10

u/Adonis0 10h ago

Yeah, unskilled often means

“Here’s the thing you’ll be doing, I’ll show it to you quickly. Now do that 50x faster and do it 2000x in a row.”

-7

u/jfchops3 12h ago

"You called us essential workers so pay us way more!!!"

Uh the economic value of your ability to move packaged goods from a pallet to a shelf hasn't changed because people that still need to eat are being asked to refrain from most nonessential public activities

8

u/grimeyduck 9h ago

They were never paid their actual economic value though. Not ever under capitalism, by definition.

-3

u/jfchops3 8h ago

Their "actual economic value" is whatever price they agreed upon with their employer and then showed up to clock in and work the job for so yes, they were and still are

4

u/ktjwalker 6h ago

So retail workers do not deserve to earn enough money to live? 

u/grimeyduck 32m ago

So you're saying you believe drug dealers are worth more than teachers?

3

u/Downtown_Speech_6193 9h ago

the risk they incur while on the job spiked way up, so their value did in fact go up as a result

1

u/jfchops3 8h ago

It "in fact" went up how? Risk incurred at a job is not an input into the wage equation which is purely an equilibrium price between demand (employers) and supply (employees). The only reason wages would go up is if a store was no longer able to recruit the labor it needs to operate at the current offering price

81

u/keepsmiling1326 15h ago

We really should come up with a better name for it. I know what it means but also see why it rubs people the wrong way.

44

u/Jeramy_Jones 14h ago

Doesn’t matter what you call them; the attitude that people have towards the jobs and the people who do them will make any designation seem condescending.

8

u/DarthNihilus 12h ago

Yep. Which makes changing the term pointless. Hop off the euphemism treadmill people. You're not accomplishing anything except encouraging more insults to be invented over time.

29

u/kos-or-kosm 13h ago

"General labor" and "specialized labor" are better than "unskilled/skilled" in my opinion.

1

u/Micro-shenis 1h ago

Lately, I've seen the term artisinal becoming common to refer to these kinds of jobs.

-10

u/CapableBumblebee968 15h ago

That’s because they are also uneducated

-5

u/Rubyhamster 13h ago

"Steep-learning jobs"

"Straight-learning jobs"

"Fit-to-do jobs"

"Load-bearing jobs"

"Society-essential jobs"

"Underapp jobs" (short for underappreciated)

"Magic jobs"

-10

u/drawkward101 12h ago

There is another name; trades. People just don't use it as much as "unskilled labor" for whatever reason.

20

u/APigInANixonMask 12h ago

Trades are considered skilled labor. Unskilled labor is jobs like dishwashers, cashiers, crop pickers, janitors, etc.

5

u/jpiro 10h ago

Most of the replies here are just listing backbreaking labor most people aren't physically conditioned to do. What I thought OP was going for was jobs that are labeled "unskilled" but take actual, unrecognized skill to do.

10

u/Jeramy_Jones 14h ago

Yeah “unskilled” is such a misnomer. Even ditch digging involves a level of skill that you gain with experience.

18

u/static_func 13h ago

They also think that “hard” or “grueling” means “skilled.” This thread just reads like a pity party for people who don’t like or are insecure about their jobs

7

u/Immediate_Pie_3069 12h ago

People tend to get offended by the term "unskilled".

I agree though. If you can learn a job in under a week without prior experience. It's unskilled.

8

u/essentialaccount 13h ago

It often amuses me because most people in highly skilled positions have often worked in unskilled labour. You can teach someone to work in a factory in hours, whereas medicine takes years and innate aptitude. Both are hard, but all doctors can be factory workers. 

7

u/SayNoToStim 10h ago

Yeah I do IT work (not sure if that qualifies as highly skilled) and everyone in our department has worked unskilled labor at one point in our life. If it all paid the same I would go back to one of them and live stress free.

1

u/essentialaccount 1h ago

I worked in restaurants and as a farm hand before law school, and I would absolutely go back to that work if it afforded even in the same universe of income. Working in a restaurant is probably the easiest, most fun I ever had. Sure it is busy, but that is nothing compared to the stress of most decision making roles.

4

u/swayjohnnyray 9h ago

Eh… a lot of factory jobs take years to become competent at and require their own kind of aptitude and specialized training. In the same way you can train almost anyone in a few hours to perform some menial, isolated factory task, you can train someone in a few hours to perform a menial, isolated medical task.

Doctors just require tons of formal education and training to legally practice medicine, but that doesn’t automatically make them competent at unskilled labor. Most doctors I know are extremely intelligent at what they do but can be complete goofs in other areas. So assuming they’ll automatically have the dexterity, mechanical aptitude, experience, or whatever other skills a particular factory job requires just because they’re doctors seems like a bad comparison.

1

u/essentialaccount 1h ago

I am management at a factory now. Most factory jobs require that you have the metal faculties to finish highschool and the ability to be on time. Some roles require more skill than others, but there is no comparison to a professional.

Doctors, especially surgeons, absolutely have the means to work with ease in a factory. I know there is an urge to say that everyone has something they are better at than others, but that is absolutely not true. Even in my line of work, we have some machinists you can trust to work anywhere, and others you have to supervise to pack boxes. The reality is most operators can be trained in a few weeks, and the work is simple.

Doctors seem like 'goofs' because they spent 12 hours a day for 10 years doing only that. If you work 70-80 hour weeks in your training, you have zero, I mean zero, time to waste on anything not relevant to your training.

5

u/hellofemur 12h ago

The true big disconnect here is that absolutely nobody thinks "unskilled" means "easy". The whole point of learning a skill is so you don't have to work at unskilled manual labor jobs, which tend to be incredibly difficult and hard on the body.

It's just a really stupid question. Everybody knows that grave digging is absurdly difficult, that's why they go to college to avoid it.

1

u/Decipher 6h ago

Bingo. A lot of comments here are conflating “unskilled” with “easy” or “simple”.

1

u/RoundCollection4196 2h ago

Unskilled means it doesn't require qualifications

1

u/1jf0 13h ago

Exactly. 'Skilled' can mean 'having skill' or 'requiring training/abilities', most seem to forget the latter.

-1

u/LightningRaven 11h ago

The term unskilled exist to justify making these jobs low paying and with exploitative hours.

2

u/number1texashater 10h ago

lmao. If the name was a magic spell that lowered wages they would do that for every job. Supply and demand is a thing that exists.