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Not aimed at you, but the other commenters on your comment.

There is no such thing as unskilled labor. Put a fucking normie from the street into any of these 'unskilled' jobs and find out just how many skills are needed just to do something like customer service.

Looking down on those people is what will lead to another internal conflict. They'll be the ones you depend on when society goes to shit.


It is not a moral argument. It's a colloquialism that differentiates between different types of work. In part, those jobs are "unskilled" when they take less training to perform. It's not meant to demean the work or the worker.

A plumber or electrician is equally "skilled" work as a software developer, largely due to the extensive apprenticeship requirements.


If it can be taught to a teenager in a couple of days -- which is how many fast food employees get started -- it's not a "skill" in the context of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill_(labor)


>If it can be taught to a teenager in a couple of days

Most can't. Hence the frustration you are likely to feel dealing with a teenager in his or her first week on the job.


Thank you. I wanted to put this in but couldn't figure out where it would fit.

In particular, the emotional and interpersonal regulation needed to do well at these jobs sometimes borders on superhuman. People stress over office politics, like it's not child's play compared to getting through an 8-hour shift dealing with the sick and irritable public that come into Wendy's or Walgreens with zero leverage over these people who hold your employment in their hands (not even being able to pass things off to a manager, since they're likely bouncing between different stores).

And every workplace has systems and policies that have to be learned. Smart and experienced people can analogize and cut some of the learning curve, but it's still measured in days and weeks, not hours.


Most jobs ever done by convicts as penal labor would be fundamentally unskilled, no? These are jobs with no expectation of unique talent or skill; with no lengthy on-the-job training; with no ability to fail at the job so badly that they would ever "fire" you. Jobs like "here's a pickaxe, start hitting rocks" or "sit here and pull down the stamper each time a license plate is in front of you" literally can't be done poorly — only done either efficiently or lazily.


If I was to do penal labor, I'd search all days for way do to it poorly.


The difference between unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled labour is usually based on how long it takes to learn how to do the job. It's not meant to be demeaning.


"Unskilled" just means that those type of jobs don't require any prior experience or qualifications. No need to interpret every word literally..


The local Starbucks has regular staff turnover. I've observed that it takes a new guy about 2 days to get up to speed on how to make the treats and run the cash register. Over time they'll get better and more efficient at it, but not that much.


The only thing we must do in this world is die. Everything else is up for debate.


A lot of restaurants place a limit on the size of the container you're allowed to use, and there's a cultural expectation that you won't loiter just to fill more soda. Assuming you bought food and are continuing to buy food, the unlimited soda is more of a hook to keep you there and has clearly outlined terms. Your bladder will also give way before your stomach does.


Wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of Google employees hang out here and try to deliberately influence comments. Same for the other companies.


I'm sure a bunch of Google employees hang out here. That's literally the draw of HN. But conspiracy? I'm not convinced.[0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38521408


> Nothing in life is unlimited and taking such a promise at face value appears to me as being willfully naive.

What are your thoughts on false advertising? What part of "unlimited" in the advertisement should be allowed, if the resource itself is not unlimited?


As a consumer of paid products (as well as simply human), Im against being lied to by those who sell them.

However, advertising is not contract, and I wouldn’t want to hear the legalese of a contract whenever someone tries to sell me something (actually perhaps I would, maybe it would reduce the amount of ads One has to endure, but that’s beside the point as it isn’t a norm outside, perhaps, the medical industry).

I don’t consider this to be such a case. Was he capped at how much he would be able to store (other than by allowed bandwidth/traffic)? Was he promised this would last forever? Was he not given a warning a year in advance that this is ending?

No resource in this universe is unlimited, so your choice is either to be a pedant about what that means and then raise an uproar when your deliberate misunderstanding of colloquial language breaks, or attempt to understand specifically what is implied by the promise.


You're right, and it's paradoxical. Companies with poor customer service should be taking hits in the stock market and in the public eye, but Comcast is still around...

The guy in TFA should be a warning to others: you cannot trust other machines to handle your data responsibly. They'll turn on you and demand a ransom when it's convenient. Self-host, and own your infrastructure.


What kinda connection do you have where you're able to transfer 200 TB of data in 7 days?

Did you even do the math before that tripe escaped your fingers?


I make it a point to downvote people who think they are tone moderators. You could have submitted it yourself if you found it first.

I don't see how it's less of a concern that he has 200+ TB of video. Perhaps don't advertise a limited resource as unlimited; then you won't get people like this guy.

He deserves the ability to get the data off his account. Google acting like their hands are tied are simply being malicious.


Good point. Government talks big about regulation and how much they care, but when examined, look! They bend right over for business.


The opposite. The trade unions pushed this through.


I don't work in the field so I can't say for certain, but AWS and friends really strike me as the type of tech you need to deploy at scale in order for their complexity to be worth the initial up-front learning cost.

Try to think of a project that either needs infra like that to get started, or another one you can deploy in a homelab or a few VPSes or something.

Maybe VMs are a good idea, to give yourself a good place to test things without committing bare metal to anything.

What software system architecture interests you? The scale you're interested in may matter, too. For me, system architecture means which distro (and which set of packages), configs, and other settings that create a cohesive server/client or groupware system. I think a lot of those challenges lay mostly in understanding how computers are being used within a given organization, and designing things in ways that make adapting easier and workflows smoother.

What that looks like, I would imagine is different for every organization.


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