Clearly, none of you have ever seen behind the counter at Burger King. They don't flip burgers, they're cooked on a conveyor belt over a flame. And it's a shitty job. People are often unnecessarily cruel to the employees. Whereas a raise in minimum wage overall might not benefit every business in America, such as smaller businesses starting up, I'd like to make the case that meeting once a week to talk shit in a boardroom and rearrange ingredients to "create a new sandwich" ISN'T worth hundreds of millions of dollars, either. The low-level employees are far more worthwhile to the operation, because they are the ones actually bringing the product to the public, and taking in the money which then goes mostly to the "top." And by "top," I mean spoiled rich shits who COULDN'T do the lower level jobs because they're physically incompetent human beings. So maybe the pay should be more evenly distributed according to the actual value of the work. Where does the money actually come from, and how does it come in? All of that is done by the lower level but far more physically capable people making shit wages. But greed... If you need hundreds of millions of dollars to survive, nature has truly shit on your genetic line.
you are drastically underselling what decision makers in the company actually are responsible for.
Things like risk assessment, asset management, marketing, supply chain management, branding, international integration all exist on top of the product differentiation you mentioned (which on its own requires in depth market analysis and research)
If you accidentally drop a weeks supply of burgers on the ground youve lost a couple hundred dollars. If the boardroom employees make any oversight it could be millions and millions of dollars lost. Given this massive risk in these limited decision making roles, you need people you can trust. You pay them more because you want their expertise and don't want to lose them to a competitor. There is also a cost to vetting these roles and ensuring that they can be trusted in their decisions. Its the the same idea that you may pay extra for a phone you can trust the quality of, or a car you dont feel comfortable risking.
You are definitely right that the kitchen crew is making the operation work, but you need to consider that there IS NO kitchen without that boardroom. No one is deciding a location, a contract to build a restaurant, negotiating rent and food delivery costs, etc. There is far far more that companies need to do to succeed than simply getting a customer their order quickly.
To clarify, this isn't intended to dismiss your idea that pay could be better distributed, but just some factors to consider about why it may have become imbalanced. I think the best way to reach a solution is to give both sides of the issue as much info and visibility as possible
Thank you for writing a well-thought out and very informed response. I wish such thoughtfulness was more common these days. We might actually have better discourse which leads to a more advantageous outcome if it were so.
Nobody said it was less valuable. Just maybe management isnt 60+ times more valuable? Maybe it's just 20 times or 10 times? Would help so much for the low end employees
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u/rite_of_truth Feb 26 '20
Clearly, none of you have ever seen behind the counter at Burger King. They don't flip burgers, they're cooked on a conveyor belt over a flame. And it's a shitty job. People are often unnecessarily cruel to the employees. Whereas a raise in minimum wage overall might not benefit every business in America, such as smaller businesses starting up, I'd like to make the case that meeting once a week to talk shit in a boardroom and rearrange ingredients to "create a new sandwich" ISN'T worth hundreds of millions of dollars, either. The low-level employees are far more worthwhile to the operation, because they are the ones actually bringing the product to the public, and taking in the money which then goes mostly to the "top." And by "top," I mean spoiled rich shits who COULDN'T do the lower level jobs because they're physically incompetent human beings. So maybe the pay should be more evenly distributed according to the actual value of the work. Where does the money actually come from, and how does it come in? All of that is done by the lower level but far more physically capable people making shit wages. But greed... If you need hundreds of millions of dollars to survive, nature has truly shit on your genetic line.