So don't watch top-tier league matches. There are plenty of teams made up of "working class member[s] of society" with very affordable ticket prices everywhere.
And I still have to turn it off after a couple minutes because it's putting me to sleep.
Not every game has to have a high score to be exciting (I'm assuming that's why you find it boring). Look at USA-Belgium in the World Cup: 0-0 after 90 minutes and one of the most exciting games of the tournament even before extra time. American sports fans have been unintentionally brainwashed by the major sports here to want score-score-score, but as more people watch the one true sport, more people are "converting", especially when they find out no ads for 45 minutes at a time.
I think it was the "can't imagine" part of the picture he was asking about, actually. I find it odd too. You would expect that someone with such a poor imagination could very easily be replaced by a machine these days.
What's so hard to believe about someone getting used to a certain paycheck? My income has varied greatly over the years, and each time I was making significant money, I "couldn't imagine" going back to less than significant money. It's human nature.
I love on $39,000 a year, and you can't imagine making less than $150,000?
What's wrong with this picture?
Why do people assume that something is wrong with a situation like this? Some people make more money than you do. Be happy for them and aspire to do the same (maybe, you know... find out how they did it), or just ignore them.
Only $148k at the top of the scale? They probably get some benefits like health care, but they must be the dregs of Masters and Doctorates. I can't imagine taking such a pay cut, and I get 7 weeks paid vacation as well as a pension and health plan.
It sounds like they get a helluva lot more than 7 weeks paid vacation every year. That's the whole point of the article.
I've worked mostly at smaller companies and one very large one (50,000+ employees). I'll grant you that the oversight wasn't the greatest at the large company, but every department still had to produce something. I'm not saying all government workers are bad/lazy/whatever, just that there is less incentive to be productive, so "goofing off" is certainly more common in the public sector.
Oh random government-worker hater modded up. Must be a Monday on slashdot.
It's insightful because no private sector workers ever goofed off, or spent the "work from home" days, grazing from the fridge, playing halo. And no public sector worker ever ever rushed through a piece of late work and did a half assed job.
Ever.
As phorm pointed out, when a worker in the private sector goofs off, that can have detrimental effects on a company's bottom line, and the company can take appropriate action. If a public sector worker goofs off, time is lost, but there is no bottom line for a government agency to be affected. Sure, they all have budgets, but there are not many negative consequences for having bad employees. They'll usually get a few more bucks in next year's budget regardless of performance. And the travesty here is that we're paying them to do a bad job. Public sector employees should take their jobs even more seriously than private sector employees because every tax-payer is ultimately affected by their performance.
I have no personal experience working for any government agency, but I did have a friend who got a job with the federal government after having worked in the private sector for many years. After about a month, his direct superior told him to take it easier because he was too efficient. If he stayed at the current level, many other workers would look bad in comparison, and the manager didn't want to have to explain that to his bosses. The manager absolutely could not get away with something like that at a competent profitable private company.
The network is making up their pricing based on their guesses of what advertisers will pay.
Exactly. The price for a 30-second spot for a show on a major network with X ratings and Y demographics will be Z. It won't be Z-1 or Z+1. And it won't be influenced by how much the actors get paid. It won't even be influenced by how much the show costs to produce. If I made a show in my living room using my phone as a camera and just me as an actor that somehow got BBT ratings on CBS, they would charge the exact same amount as they do for BBT. It's just like any other product - cost of production has no relevance to its retail price.
Yes, and if you remember, the other lead actor was paid less well because he was rather less white
If you think PMT was less-well-paid because he wasn't white, then you don't understand anything about TV. If people tuned in to watch PMT more than Don Johnson, he would have been paid more than Don Johnson. The truth is, Don Johnson and hot girls in bikinis were about the only reasons to tune into that show. Just about any decent actor (white or not) could have played Tubbs, and we wouldn't have cared.
Do you think the production company dips into their own pocket, or that the price of advertising goes up to make the difference?
Consumers pay those bills. Every time you buy something, you are paying those outrages salaries.
It's not life risking, it's not overly hard, they are off a great deal of the year.
If it was actually funny they wouldn't need that laugh track to tell you when the joke is.
Compared to almost every other job on the planet, they are ridiculously over paid.
The price of advertising is already at its maximum. If the network could charge one dollar more for a 30-second spot, they would. The advertisers won't pay more just because the stars now get paid more.
I don't think you understand the concept of value. No one is arguing that what they do is "life risking", but that's not the point (and what "life risking" profession gets paid millions?). What they do is get millions of people to watch a TV show 24 times a year, and that is extremely valuable. If the network/production company (I'm not sure how the finances/responsibility is split between the two) would lose money by giving these actors that much money, then they wouldn't do the deal, so this obviously (well, maybe not to you) makes great sense for all parties involved.
And as to your "it's not overly hard" claim: Have you tried acting/making people laugh week after week for years? It is incredibly difficult, and a big reason why actors millions enjoy watching get paid so much.
That's untrue. They only reason that there was a tenth season is that they got the $1M per ep they asked for (a ridiculous sum at the time, of course, and one I don't think they expected to get). Schwimmer and Kudrow said they wanted season nine to be the last season, but that amount of money is hard for anyone to turn down.
How are they overpaid? The production company and the network make millions off of this show. The actors are (obviously) an integral part of the success of the show, and therefore the revenue, so why not pay them whatever they can negotiate?
No, EA cares a great deal about their customers - they couldn't stay in business without them. It's just that most of EA's customers don't give a rats ass about what EA does to them.
It's not a 1.0000 pie. It's more like TotalRevenueInDollars / NumberOfSongsStreamed. I don't know the exact numbers of course, but I'm pretty sure that Spotify is not earning $1.00 per song streamed.
It's a pretty small sample size, but virtually everyone I know that doesn't work in IT fits this description. Tablets and phones are perfect for checking e-mail and Facebook and playing a few games, and in my experience that's all the majority of people care about. It's certainly helped with my free time lately as no one call me any longer with, "Why won't my computer boot up?" questions.
"(1) No pilot may take off a U.S.-registered civil aircraft (except a free balloon that incorporates a basket or gondola, or an airship type certificated before November 2, 1987) unless the pilot in command of that aircraft ensures that each person on board is briefed on how to fasten and unfasten that person's safety belt and, if installed, shoulder harness."
This includes all PICs, including those that are private pilots.
Tweaked my nose? What are you talking about? Dexter is a show that had some good moments and even seasons, but overall it was a a bad show - the horrible far outweighed the great.
I "have no basis to judge anything related to it"?!? I watch TV, and have a reasonable critical mind, so that gives me all the "basis" I need. However, I read the first Dexter novel, which was decent, but the show obviously didn't follow the novel exactly. No show should follow it's source material to the letter. Look at The Walking Dead, which does follow major plot points of the graphic novel, but takes liberties where they think it's necessary. It remains to be seen if The Walking Dead falls into the same trap that Dexter did, but for now, it's at least as good as the first three season of Dexter.
I have the kind of sophistication that makes me realize that it had three good seasons (1, 2, and 4), and a few very good episodes early in season 7, but otherwise was pretty much crap. I assume that you're talking about a different kind of sophistication.
Slashdot Mirror
So don't watch top-tier league matches. There are plenty of teams made up of "working class member[s] of society" with very affordable ticket prices everywhere.
And I still have to turn it off after a couple minutes because it's putting me to sleep.
Not every game has to have a high score to be exciting (I'm assuming that's why you find it boring). Look at USA-Belgium in the World Cup: 0-0 after 90 minutes and one of the most exciting games of the tournament even before extra time. American sports fans have been unintentionally brainwashed by the major sports here to want score-score-score, but as more people watch the one true sport, more people are "converting", especially when they find out no ads for 45 minutes at a time.
I think it was the "can't imagine" part of the picture he was asking about, actually. I find it odd too. You would expect that someone with such a poor imagination could very easily be replaced by a machine these days.
What's so hard to believe about someone getting used to a certain paycheck? My income has varied greatly over the years, and each time I was making significant money, I "couldn't imagine" going back to less than significant money. It's human nature.
I love on $39,000 a year, and you can't imagine making less than $150,000?
What's wrong with this picture?
Why do people assume that something is wrong with a situation like this? Some people make more money than you do. Be happy for them and aspire to do the same (maybe, you know... find out how they did it), or just ignore them.
Only $148k at the top of the scale? They probably get some benefits like health care, but they must be the dregs of Masters and Doctorates. I can't imagine taking such a pay cut, and I get 7 weeks paid vacation as well as a pension and health plan.
It sounds like they get a helluva lot more than 7 weeks paid vacation every year. That's the whole point of the article.
I've worked mostly at smaller companies and one very large one (50,000+ employees). I'll grant you that the oversight wasn't the greatest at the large company, but every department still had to produce something. I'm not saying all government workers are bad/lazy/whatever, just that there is less incentive to be productive, so "goofing off" is certainly more common in the public sector.
Oh random government-worker hater modded up. Must be a Monday on slashdot.
It's insightful because no private sector workers ever goofed off, or spent the "work from home" days, grazing from the fridge, playing halo. And no public sector worker ever ever rushed through a piece of late work and did a half assed job.
Ever.
As phorm pointed out, when a worker in the private sector goofs off, that can have detrimental effects on a company's bottom line, and the company can take appropriate action. If a public sector worker goofs off, time is lost, but there is no bottom line for a government agency to be affected. Sure, they all have budgets, but there are not many negative consequences for having bad employees. They'll usually get a few more bucks in next year's budget regardless of performance. And the travesty here is that we're paying them to do a bad job. Public sector employees should take their jobs even more seriously than private sector employees because every tax-payer is ultimately affected by their performance.
I have no personal experience working for any government agency, but I did have a friend who got a job with the federal government after having worked in the private sector for many years. After about a month, his direct superior told him to take it easier because he was too efficient. If he stayed at the current level, many other workers would look bad in comparison, and the manager didn't want to have to explain that to his bosses. The manager absolutely could not get away with something like that at a competent profitable private company.
I can totally imagine Sheldon and Leonard having this exact conversation.
The network is making up their pricing based on their guesses of what advertisers will pay.
Exactly. The price for a 30-second spot for a show on a major network with X ratings and Y demographics will be Z. It won't be Z-1 or Z+1. And it won't be influenced by how much the actors get paid. It won't even be influenced by how much the show costs to produce. If I made a show in my living room using my phone as a camera and just me as an actor that somehow got BBT ratings on CBS, they would charge the exact same amount as they do for BBT. It's just like any other product - cost of production has no relevance to its retail price.
Yes, and if you remember, the other lead actor was paid less well because he was rather less white
If you think PMT was less-well-paid because he wasn't white, then you don't understand anything about TV. If people tuned in to watch PMT more than Don Johnson, he would have been paid more than Don Johnson. The truth is, Don Johnson and hot girls in bikinis were about the only reasons to tune into that show. Just about any decent actor (white or not) could have played Tubbs, and we wouldn't have cared.
Do you think the production company dips into their own pocket, or that the price of advertising goes up to make the difference? Consumers pay those bills. Every time you buy something, you are paying those outrages salaries.
It's not life risking, it's not overly hard, they are off a great deal of the year.
If it was actually funny they wouldn't need that laugh track to tell you when the joke is.
Compared to almost every other job on the planet, they are ridiculously over paid.
The price of advertising is already at its maximum. If the network could charge one dollar more for a 30-second spot, they would. The advertisers won't pay more just because the stars now get paid more.
I don't think you understand the concept of value. No one is arguing that what they do is "life risking", but that's not the point (and what "life risking" profession gets paid millions?). What they do is get millions of people to watch a TV show 24 times a year, and that is extremely valuable. If the network/production company (I'm not sure how the finances/responsibility is split between the two) would lose money by giving these actors that much money, then they wouldn't do the deal, so this obviously (well, maybe not to you) makes great sense for all parties involved.
And as to your "it's not overly hard" claim: Have you tried acting/making people laugh week after week for years? It is incredibly difficult, and a big reason why actors millions enjoy watching get paid so much.
...they wanted more so they cancelled the show.
That's untrue. They only reason that there was a tenth season is that they got the $1M per ep they asked for (a ridiculous sum at the time, of course, and one I don't think they expected to get). Schwimmer and Kudrow said they wanted season nine to be the last season, but that amount of money is hard for anyone to turn down.
How are they overpaid? The production company and the network make millions off of this show. The actors are (obviously) an integral part of the success of the show, and therefore the revenue, so why not pay them whatever they can negotiate?
Most successful people work much more than 45 hours per week. It's just a matter of priorities.
No, EA cares a great deal about their customers - they couldn't stay in business without them. It's just that most of EA's customers don't give a rats ass about what EA does to them.
Wheres my $3 billion refund?!?
Start a company that employs tens of thousands of tax-paying employees and we'll talk.
...most services are there for a reason.
Yes, to buy votes.
Adding a guy with a gun into the mix seems inconsistent and probably more of a risk than a benefit.
You obviously haven't seen Non-Stop, then.
It's not a 1.0000 pie. It's more like TotalRevenueInDollars / NumberOfSongsStreamed. I don't know the exact numbers of course, but I'm pretty sure that Spotify is not earning $1.00 per song streamed.
If a person agrees to work for a company for a certain wage and continues to work for that company, how is that person "underpaid"?
It's a pretty small sample size, but virtually everyone I know that doesn't work in IT fits this description. Tablets and phones are perfect for checking e-mail and Facebook and playing a few games, and in my experience that's all the majority of people care about. It's certainly helped with my free time lately as no one call me any longer with, "Why won't my computer boot up?" questions.
"(1) No pilot may take off a U.S.-registered civil aircraft (except a free balloon that incorporates a basket or gondola, or an airship type certificated before November 2, 1987) unless the pilot in command of that aircraft ensures that each person on board is briefed on how to fasten and unfasten that person's safety belt and, if installed, shoulder harness."
This includes all PICs, including those that are private pilots.
I think it was on the Weekend Update segment.
Tweaked my nose? What are you talking about? Dexter is a show that had some good moments and even seasons, but overall it was a a bad show - the horrible far outweighed the great.
I "have no basis to judge anything related to it"?!? I watch TV, and have a reasonable critical mind, so that gives me all the "basis" I need. However, I read the first Dexter novel, which was decent, but the show obviously didn't follow the novel exactly. No show should follow it's source material to the letter. Look at The Walking Dead, which does follow major plot points of the graphic novel, but takes liberties where they think it's necessary. It remains to be seen if The Walking Dead falls into the same trap that Dexter did, but for now, it's at least as good as the first three season of Dexter.
I have the kind of sophistication that makes me realize that it had three good seasons (1, 2, and 4), and a few very good episodes early in season 7, but otherwise was pretty much crap. I assume that you're talking about a different kind of sophistication.