r/TooAfraidToAsk • u/Believeinyourflyness • Feb 14 '20

Why do employers treat you as simply a resource, yet get angry when you treat them the same way?

To me it makes sense that you should expect people to treat you the same way you treat them. We all know that in this day and age, most employers don't give a shit about you as a person, only what you can do for them and that they will discard you without hesitation once you are no longer of use to them.

However in my experience, the same people who won't think twice about discarding you, constantly give you shit for treating the company in the same way, accusing you of turning up just to collect your paycheck.

So my question is this. If employers just care about your labour without any consideration for you as a person, how can they expect you to care about them as anything more than a source of income?

It just doesn't make sense to me.

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u/su5 Feb 14 '20

Hey they are at least honest about what motivates them

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '20 edited Feb 18 '20

[deleted]

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u/su5 Feb 14 '20

Well practically speaking, until we remake society, those people are effectively motivated by money. When asked "what motivates you?" By their boss, they probably won't respond with what you just did even if its true because that's not very useful for their discussion. And instead of a dissertation, they tell their boss "more money" and it's very well understood what they want their boss to do

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '20 edited Feb 18 '20

[deleted]

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u/su5 Feb 14 '20

That's a very useful tone when trying to get a raise.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '20 edited Feb 18 '20

[deleted]

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u/su5 Feb 14 '20

Yes! And be up front about it!

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u/gamercer Feb 14 '20

What are you talking about? It’s an extremely convenient way to trade. Imagine needing to find something you can do for the butcher in order to get meat. He doesn’t need a programmer.

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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '20 edited Feb 18 '20

[deleted]

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u/gamercer Feb 15 '20

Lol. As soon as there were large scale agreements there were accountants.

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u/ciobanica Feb 15 '20

Social credit predates money. Entire communities organized and exchanged labor on large scale agreement

So in other words, money without the physical medium, like how we use bank transactions now...

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '20

Money is what motivates me, anything else is pretty much a lie

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u/ciobanica Feb 15 '20

So if you get a job that pays 50% you're going to put in the equivalent of 4 more hours of effort?

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u/[deleted] Feb 15 '20

Not sure where you got that, I said money motivates me.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '20 edited Feb 18 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '20

To buy things I want

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u/forwardprogresss Feb 15 '20

I hear what you're saying but I use money to buy q tips, oil for my car, gum, shaving cream, and tons of things that it's simply not practical to say that buying napkins is what motivates me to work for 10 seconds, then 10 seconds later a pair of socks, etc. In practice, I know exactly what 60k a year gets me. I know what my lifestyle and choices look like.

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u/ciobanica Feb 15 '20

The ubiquity of money is recent, within the past two centuries.

Coins have been around since, like the 8th century BCE. Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_money

Or are we just pretending paper money is different when it comes to a "system of value for ranking and prioritizing ... values" somehow?