Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Employees Living in a Garage Hope Zuckerberg Will Learn What's Happening in His Own City (cnbc.com)
At the beginning of the year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg set a goal to visit every state in the U.S. so he could learn more about the millions of people who use the social network every day. But two of his employees tell The Guardian that they wonder when the billionaire is going to get to know his own community. From a report: The employees, a married couple named Nicole and Victor, are both contract workers in the cafeteria at Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif. headquarters. And they wish they, and the problems closer to home, could also get a share of Zuckerberg's attention. "He should learn what's happening in this city," Nicole tells The Guardian. The couple says they can barely make ends meet. Together with their three children, Nicole and Victor share a two-car garage adjacent to Victor's parents' home. They borrow money from friends and family to stay afloat and occasionally resort to payday loans. Although they earn too much to qualify for state benefits, they don't earn enough to afford Facebook's health care plan.
Well there is your first problem....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Google spends millions to provide WiFi to "refugee" camps in the EU as if there aren't poor people in the US that could use help. It's virtue signalling with political overtones and nothing else.
This is simple. FB needs to relocate the staff in their unit to some rural site in in North Dakota where those FB employees could no doubt afford palatial houses.
What you don't want to live there, you want to live in a CA area with insanely high real estate prices? That's not Zukerberg's problem, it's yours.
Facebook treats them like shit. They can't even use the gym, showers, healthcare, or recreational facilities at Facebook. He pays them squat. To Zuckerberg, these hard working folks are untermenschen. The irony is that Zuckerberg is the real untermenschen.
Relocate and prosper.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Well, there's the problem right there. They're being paid by the contracting company, not FB, so their real beef is with their actual employer. FB doesn't employ them, FB employs the contracting company. FB is using the cheapest bid for food service they could get.
So how are actual FB employees faring at the company?
-> I dislike sigs...
They're contractors who work for a cafeteria services staffing company.
Highly misleading title.
The headline and what can be gained is mostly a lie.
The two people are not employees of facebook they are employees of Flagship Facility Services and happen to be working for their company at facebook hq.
He also doesn't understand A.I.!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
YOU made the choice to work for Facebook. Did facebook hold a gun to your head, and say you MUST work for them? Is it Facebook, or for that matter, any other employers fault, that where Facebook is located, is a SUPER expensive place to live? Nope! This is just another bleeding heart story. There are many places you can live & work, but YOU wanted to work for Facebook for the obvious reason that there might be some "gravy" associated with it on the other end.
What has society come to when these poor people aren't allowed to quit and find better employment. We should be ashamed of ourselves for forcing slavery on to our own citizens.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Zuckerberg is still partying on the collective dimes of investors who don't understand how facebook works - or why it still doesn't make money.
I believe you are completely uninformed sir. Facebook has been making consistent profit since IPO: https://www.theguardian.com/te...
Do you Gentoo!?
I have little doubt the issue here isn't that the cafeteria staff is being underpaid. The issue is they're living in an area where the cost of living is astronomical why trying to raise three kids. You have a finite number of choices here:
1. Get a new job that makes more money but this is unlikely given the available skillset and that FB is probably already paying top "cafeteria working" dollar.
2. Don't have kids you can't afford but this horse has already left the barn. Should've planned better.
3. Learn a new, more valuable skill, but given the high concentration of very competent techies in the area that would be unlikely for a food service worker.
4. MOVE TO BETTER LOCATION. The problem isn't how much money you make. It's how much you have to spend to just subsist in that area of the country.
Option #4 is the best option but the family wants someone to magically create Option #5 where they make far more money than their labor is worth so they can afford to live in a community where everyone's skills are far more valuable, thus distorting the labor market and creating an artificial -- and unsustainable -- labor model. But hey! Who cares about reality or labor markets? Far better to flout supply-and-demand economics to prop up something otherwise unworkable, right? After all, it worked so well for the Soviets, why not try it here too?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
our resources are stretched so thin we can't even afford adequate maths for everybody.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Getting paid to vacation FTW!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Take that up with your contracting company not Facebook. And really? I'm not trying to devalue jobs, titles or what people do for a living here, but go improve and invest in you, make a better life for those three children; look around, move, relocate, whatever it is you have to do. Even if you were a Facebook employee, why is that Zuckerberg's responsibility? It's not. Why should he tour your garage? Did someone force you to work as a cafeteria contractor at FB? Who decided living in a remodeled garage space was where you were going to raise your family? I bet all those point back to you and your wife. No one held a gun to your head on any of this. Guaranteed.
I have a family, I have kids, I have a house (mortgage), I did contracting work for a decade for the governement and I got a-holed on salary, ate cost of living and made negative money to keep up with the rising health care in the early 2010's to now. I didn't once start to blame the company, position or the US government I did work on their behalf for for that, kept engaged, continually added skills, did the job the best I could and eventually landed a new job, better benefits, way better pay, more flexibility not for me, but for my family, the livelihood of us, our household, my future, my kids well-being and future college outlook, and it goes on.
That's just my summed up story to prove a point: many other people do this as well. And who do I have to thank for all that? My responsibility to me. This whole blaming other-people-for-outcome shit needs to stop, and the social cry-out voice that makes it a headline, as well.
The more progressive policies play out in the Silicon Valley, the more squeezed out the middle class becomes.
And which policies are those?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
The root of the problem is a lack of affordable places to live that aren't several hours' commute from places where people work. I live in the NY metro area, and even 60 miles away house prices are high in good school districts. Northern California is way worse -- you're starting at a million for ownership of any kind of home, which means you need a job that pays an outsized salary just to have a massive mortgage payment.
This problem is repeated in cities all over the US to lesser degrees. Atlanta has very affordable housing if you're willing to put up with hours of driving, and Georgia has almost no property taxes...but in my opinion sitting on the road for another 10 or 15 hours a week isn't worth it.
One fix I could see is to make retirement stability easier to maintain. So many people in our area have little saved for retirement and are banking on selling their high-priced house and moving to North Carolina or similar. It's their only retirement asset, and in the current environment it's in everyone's best interest to keep these mini housing bubbles inflated until they can cash out.
Kids are expensive. Ultra expensive if you give them a chance to go to college. They are a major drain on finances. Like it or. Ot their own decisions have put them in the situation.
Statements like this make me queasy. You're telling me that we now have a society where we have decided that it's ok that raising the next generation is too expensive for ordinary people to do. There has to be something wrong with a society that considers raising the next generation to be something ordinary people can't participate in.
My wife and I make 300k combined in Atlanta. We are talking about 1 kid. Figuring out how we will budget for daycare, college, food, clothes, etc. plus any life emergencies and our retirement. Three kids would not only break us but be unfair to them.
YOW! $300K and it's not enough to raise children?
Really, you are telling me that there is something very, very wrong with our society.
TWO kids is the magic number of kids to have to not increase OR decrease world population.
2.1, actually: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
If you're bothered by the idea of fractions, consider that as 90% of the women having 2 children and 10% having 3 children.
High costs, high taxes, and high regulation that are driving people and businesses out of the state. The minimum wage hike is only going to accelerate the trend by driving more business to other states and causing those that can't move to either invest in automation to replace their existing workers, or just hire more illegal aliens.
And the huge public sector union pension debt is going to cause more municipalities, and eventually the state itself, to go bankrupt.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Maybe you meant to say: "Talk to the hand, 'cause the Zuck don't give a fuck"
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
The problem that most people have is that they want to live the American Dream of having it all. Unfortunately, having it all in Silicon Valley gets very expensive in a hurry. It's possible to live in Silicon Valley if you're willing to live a modest lifestyle. But you will have to put up with all the people who think you're "poor" for not blowing every paycheck out the wazoo.
We are seeing how capitalism can become a sick disaster. Hard working people who can barely stay alive surrounded by other others who are excessively wealthy is not an acceptable situation. john McCain is a republican. That is the same party that is messing with health care. He just had a dramatic surgery followed by being informed that he will have to battle a very deadly cancer. McCain has no problems getting top quality care. Now imagine if he was a poor uninsured working guy. Even with current, typical medical care most common folk would be dead. In other words there are times when top notch medical care by the best doctors is the only hope. The problem is getting that top notch care to every single person.
Employees, or contractors, of a company with a contract for a different company are not employees of the purchasing company. These people are not Facebook employees. They are Facebook contractors. They may not even be employees of their direct company, if they have a 1099 agreement with them. In California, the term "employee" comes with an especially large amount of legal red tape.
This is seriously like the most basic distinction ever, when running a business. If you do not understand this, and you're providing contract services, no one will take you seriously at all.
Well, I see the problem, but is it a facebook problem? They are not even working for facebook.
bickerdyke
There is more to this story here. Health insurance can't cost more that 10% of your income: Thanks Obama. So how can they not afford FB's own health plan?
They are staying in a garage adjacent to their parents house. I assume therefore this is in fact their parents garage. Mom and Dad can't give them a little break on the rent long enough for them to get some savings?
I mean seriously if my kid had nowhere else to go with his family, and was apparently this broke. I think I'd say "Shit son, I'll back the cars out and you can stay in the garage, rent free as long as you need; if you'll clean any bird crap off the paint when you come home from work each day."
I suspect there is more going here. Somebody has an insane pile of student loan or credit card debt would be my first two guesses. Spend every dime on some get rich stock scam that fell apart would be my third.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
$20K divided by $17 per hour divided by 30 days equals 39 hours, 12 minutes and 56 seconds. Someone isn't telling the truth here.
#DeleteFacebook
unless they are 1099 subcontractors the ACA health care rules say there work place must give them an plan.
I'm imagining actual whining snowflakes in the winter. That would be annoying!
#DeleteFacebook
time for an union and cafeteria work has a better hope of getting one vs IT work.
Schools have unions with health care plans for people in that roll.
What about Google+? Is that still a thing? What about GeoCities? Or PornTube?
#DeleteFacebook
They should simply buy a home. Bonus: they can move whenever and wherever they want.
#DeleteFacebook
It's easy to blame vices for everything wrong in society. If only people weren't having so much irresponsible sex. If only people weren't so greedy.
But since the beginning of time, humans felt compelled to take actions based on their emotions -- so if these things do make society a worse place, it should be a pretty steady drag on how "awesome" it would be otherwise. None of this is new enough to explain any perceived recent problems.
I reject the claim that the OP made, too, that our need for an ever-expanding economy requires a constant increase in our population (and our failure to do that is causing our economic woes today). The need for economic growth is increasingly decoupled from the number of available laborers! Automation and robotics are displacing workers already in jobs like cashiers, bank tellers and even security guards. Self-driving vehicles will displace MANY more. But growth in these industries won't slow or stop because of that!
IMO, greed is a human emotion that isn't inherently good or bad. It depends on how you direct it. Is it bad to get angry? Depends on if the anger compels you to do something constructive or not, really. Same with greed.
remove health benefits from all jobs / keep works comp or have some kind of system that makes high risk work places kick in more.
it's hard to have an legal 1099 worker for cafeteria workers unless they can set there own hours and change there own rates for food they are selling.
Really... why is a stagnant (or even shrinking!) population such a bad thing?
Because social programs like Social Security depend on it.
They are likely employees of the company contracting with Facebook, not Facebook employees.
your math are skewed...
If you choose to work in a cafeteria and have a family, cool. I don't tend to think that qualifies you to comment on whether Mark Zuckerberg "knows what's going on in his city".
Oh right, 24 hours per day.
20000 dollars divided by 17 dollars per hour equals 1176.47058823529412 hours
1176.47058823529412 hours divided by 8 hours per work day equals 147.05882352941177 days
Still doesn't work. Parent AC said " They make 20K/mo." but I don't know where he pulled those numbers from.
Assuming less than 8 hours of work per day, that's probably 20K/year though.
#DeleteFacebook
I find it strange that they had 3 children while being so economically insufficient.
Does nobody actually plan anything seriously any more?
-Styopa
Facebook HQ is in East Menlo Park. Both Menlo Park and Palo Alto are the some of the most expensive parts of the Bay Area to live in due to their presence next to Stanford University. For most other people the only other option is to commute via the Dumbarton bridge over the bay and into Fremont or Union City.
That's really the only choice.
.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
"The poor man whom believes a rich man's promises is a fool." - unknown Throughout history, the rich see the poor as a resource to be exploited. I have a bridge to sell anyone that thinks otherwise. Even the Gates Foundation makes carefully calculated donations - to causes overseas, not here in America. Last time I checked, parts of Baltimore, Flint, and Detroit look like third world countries. Mark Zuckerberg knows he can exploit those cafeteria workers at the facebook headquarters. In fact, he probably believes they should be thanking him and kowtowing to him for a job. I hate the wealthy.
Zuck had rich parents and went to Harvard. I don't think he will give 2 shits about what happens to the plebs that work for him.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
You made the conscious decision to live in one of the most expensive areas of the country and to have 3 children. You figure it out (hint: move to a cheaper area and, in your next life, don't have kids you can't afford to raise).
unless they are 1099 subcontractors the ACA health care rules say there work place must give them an plan.
Offering them a plan is much much different than Giving them a plan.