Ben Stein: Unemployed people don't know how to do a day's work.

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T-6000

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Sorry about not getting the whole quite, I couldn't fit it all. Ben Stein believes that The Unemployed Are People With ‘Unpleasant Personalities…Who Do Not Know How To Do A Day’s Work’

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/20/ben-stein-ui/

I usually ignore some people (especially those who proclaim to be 'high profile') who go on TV or write up articles on how the faltering economy and the problem with Unemployment is the people's fault, but Ben Stein's comments really made me facepalm. My brother is one of the hardest working people I know, and he is one of the most patient and Nicest person I know. So when he is still trying to find work, it's because he is an unpleasant person who doesn't know how to do a day's work. At least, according to Ben Stein.
 
Yep, I'm totally a unpleasant person who doesn't know how to do a days work, despite everyone (off the internet at least) telling me that I'm a very pleasant person, and having worked every single day (taking two sick days) for the past two years after doing 60 hours of training at school for another two years straight (with only a handful of week long breaks, and not having a summer break).

God, I never realized what a lazy, worthless piece of shit I am. Thank you Ben Stein for exposing the true me. You are truly a great, and pleasant person who has been all but retired for the last 15 years, occasionally doing a poorly acted commercial where you rely on your monotone, unpleasant demeanor as a two-bit gag upon which you cash in on every now and again.

Go back to doing commercials about human versions of whack-a-mole or whatever it is you do, old man.
 
I would love to see this asshole live on $1,200 a month.

By the way, when you watch the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw (forward to 4:00 if you dont want to watch the entire thing)

How does this ****ing asshole still get attention?
 
I don't know, if unemployed people were more motivated I find it hard to believe the couldn't get work.

I'm not unemployed, but if I were, I know I could make enough to live doing some freelance low skilled work online, sometimes I do it between jobs but as its quite intensive, I rarely bother as hard as I should.

However, I couldn't in all honesty say I was trying my best to find work and yet remain penniless.
 
At the beginning of the recession- yes.

Now, no not in the least. At my company the dead weight was first to go. Then the next 10 rounds of layoffs have all been the 'best of the best' who were kept on after the first round. Managers have told us flat out that performance is not even a factor in the layoffs following the first rounds years back and now its just a crapshoot. Pull a name from a bag and hope its not your buddy!


Solaris said:
I don't know, if unemployed people were more motivated I find it hard to believe the couldn't get work.

I'm not unemployed, but if I were, I know I could make enough to live doing some freelance low skilled work online, sometimes I do it between jobs but as its quite intensive, I rarely bother as hard as I should.

However, I couldn't in all honesty say I was trying my best to find work and yet remain penniless.
Click to expand...

I had a friend move in the past 6 months. He had a vehicle (reliable transportation,) business clothes for interview and work clothes for his field, skills and experience, and a banging resume I made for him.

He got a lot of interviews, and went to about 3 a week. Nearly every one of them had at least 60+ people he was competing with for the position (thats after the company weeded the applicants down to that many.) And a lot were 'group' interviews so the company could save time.

He didn't get hired and I guarantee you it's not because of a lack of work ethic, skill, nor poor interviewing. It's BRUTAL out there. Moved out last month to his mom's because he said he was running out of emergency savings he'd been living on to support himself, pay for gas to interviews, and pay child support.
 
We should make a movie about this. It can be called "Ben Stein: Somehow Vastly Misunderstanding the Economy"
 
Ben Stein is a god damn retard.
 
Laivasse said:
Not worth spending 10 seconds worrying what this arsehole says, considering he fronted that ridiculous Creationist propaganda documentary.
Click to expand...

Beat me to it. I actually sat through the whole thing, and beyond the fact that I disagree with what he had to say, the way he addressed people who believed in evolution was downright absurd and insulting.
 
Ben Stein's economic knowledge ended in the early 90s...all he does anymore is talk show spots and commercials for eye drops...
 
imho, part of unemployment has to do with the persons without employ not willing to take jobs that may be socially lower or degrading (to them i suppose /shrug). If you were piss poor broke, with not enough money to even eat, I would not find it believable that you cannot, for the sake of your life, find a job to boy food to not starve to death.
 
My dad has been out of work since October because of this Health Care Bill and bad economy. turns out though his old company is doing worse off without him and tried dishing out his work to 5 or so current employees and many have quit or got fired as a result of poor performance. My dad was like the glue for that company and saved them millions every year and in return he gets to sit around the house playing guitar and searching for jobs on websites all day
 
Solaris said:
I don't know, if unemployed people were more motivated I find it hard to believe the couldn't get work.

I'm not unemployed, but if I were, I know I could make enough to live doing some freelance low skilled work online, sometimes I do it between jobs but as its quite intensive, I rarely bother as hard as I should.

However, I couldn't in all honesty say I was trying my best to find work and yet remain penniless.
Click to expand...

It sounds like you were trained in some sort of specialized field though. I do some freelance 3D artwork from time to time as well, and it helps, but is certainly not enough to survive off of without getting some major contracts, and the video game industry isn't exactly thriving right now (a lot of big companies are laying off more veteran workers, making it a lot more difficult for me to find a job). I admit, I'm not going to be looking for retail jobs or anything like that until I've exhausted myself on career specific jobs.

But I still have it better than most unemployed people. I am trained, with specific skills which opens me up to more jobs than the average shmuck, I'm able to continue living without fear or worrying about being completely overrun by bills and going bankrupt. But thats only because I'm living with my parents again (which is lame, but whatev). I'm able to collect the maximum amount of unemployment, which is only 244 dollars a week. That would not be enough for me to live off of, because it would take two and a half weeks to make enough to pay rent, and then the week and a half left would need to pay for my $200+ student loans, my $60+ electric bill, $50 internet bill, $50 car insurance bill, gas for my car, groceries, etc.

I frankly don't know how people do it, since not everyone would even get the maximum. Being broke isn't conducive to finding a new job. For instance, had I not moved home, I might not have been able to even run my computer do to my electric bill, and then I couldn't work on my portfolio and shit.

@ Warped: How the **** did the healthcare bill make your dad lose his job?
 
ktimekiller said:
imho, part of unemployment has to do with the persons without employ not willing to take jobs that may be socially lower or degrading (to them i suppose /shrug). If you were piss poor broke, with not enough money to even eat, I would not find it believable that you cannot, for the sake of your life, find a job to boy food to not starve to death.
Click to expand...
I doubt it. Otherwise companies would be complaining left and right about a lack of employable citizens. Instead we have CEOs basically slandering the unemployed.
 
ktimekiller said:
imho, part of unemployment has to do with the persons without employ not willing to take jobs that may be socially lower or degrading (to them i suppose /shrug). If you were piss poor broke, with not enough money to even eat, I would not find it believable that you cannot, for the sake of your life, find a job to boy food to not starve to death.
Click to expand...

Again, this was common in 2008 and 2009, but now even burger joints and gas stations are barely hiring, if at all...
 
What also sucks right now is if you are employed you're at the mercy of your employer now. The entire attitude has turned from looking at employees as rented bodies to straight up slaves -from the top leadership, not so much from middle management as they're also afraid for their jobs.

My department and others companywide now spend so much stupid time defending the things we do, why we need to do it, and constantly re-explaining WHAT we even do to higher managers that are trying to trim the fat. After about the 5th time making flowcharts of job processes you add up the time you wasted, multiply that by everyone in the company (doing similar stupid projects to justify their position) and it adds up to like a whole persons salary of time wasted. And then they'll end up laying off 1 person after that. So stupid.
 
Yeah, even when I still had my job, we were literally being told that we were expendable, and that they could replace any one of us if they wanted to. Made the work environment a very angry place. And they continued to pull shit like that even after our main programmer ****ing snapped from all the pressure and punched a hole through a door while working late.

People who run businesses like that are idiots. They're like Bobby Koticks, they have a line of thought that somehow leads them to believe that fear for one's job will make them perform better. Its absolutely not the case, and is incredibly unhealthy.

What was even more hilarious that I later got a glimpse at one of our boss's powerpoint presentations they were showing to the investor that said they couldn't hire any skilled people to replace us because nobody wanted to move to Louisiana. That was such a silly place.
 
Kind of reminds me of the whole "Temp for Life" thing going on in many states, like Texas.

Hard to find a job unless you're willing to take a job as a temporary. Maybe, rarely, you'll find a company that wants to hire you full time, which happened for my brother, but usually... you're just a body that more often than not will be dropped, only to wait and wait until your temp agency finds you another job.

Most businesses around here only hire that way, and so you essentially become a job nomad, moving from place to place, short stints and it you get the feeling that your employer doesn't care much about you because you're essentially rented meat that they pay a premium for, with the ability to not pay for your insurance.

Most of these temp agencies, when companies hire through them, the hiring company has to often times pay the temp agency double what they pay you. So if you're earning $10 an hour, the company you're a temp at pays the agency like $18-$20... all for the ability to not have to provide you with perks.

I hate this so much... I hate the temp for life attitude that's taken a grip in this country. It's bullshit. Pure bullshit.
 
Raziaar you need a dramatic shift in mindset, perhaps you should study on human body language (Because words only count for 7% of an actual conversation) to get an upper-hand over the other temps, make an impression on your boss that will last, and he'll probably want to keep you around.

nfi how Temps work though - ****ing America LOL

Alternatively, you could become one of those "I'm climbing the corporate ladder no matter how much of a **** I end up being" sort of dudes, in which case you should read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_48_Laws_of_Power

Got it irl lol
 
Danimal said:
Raziaar you need a dramatic shift in mindset, perhaps you should study on human body language (Because words only count for 7% of an actual conversation) to get an upper-hand over the other temps, make an impression on your boss that will last, and he'll probably want to keep you around.

nfi how Temps work though - ****ing America LOL

Alternatively, you could become one of those "I'm climbing the corporate ladder no matter how much of a **** I end up being" sort of dudes, in which case you should read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_48_Laws_of_Power

Got it irl lol
Click to expand...

Your boss is the temp agency, not who you work for. The company you're with typically doesn't give a shit about you.

There are of course exceptions, as I said my brother was in a temp position that has turned into full time, and has been working there for a couple years now. That was with the Girl Scouts. Girl Scouts seems to be one of those exception companies, because I mean come on, it's the Girl Scouts. Those people are incredibly friendly, typically, and well, my brother happened to make himself valuable for them over the period of time they kept retaining him as a temp.

Most companies though... ugh, they treat you like a slave. They're paying top dollar for you, why not. Very little hope for advancement in 95% of cases.
 
Why don't you just mug people for a living? Works fine for me.
 
Numbers' rule of Statements: When making a statement about a group of people, that statement is always true for part of, but not all of, the previously mentioned group.
 
Danimal said:
Why don't you just mug people for a living? Works fine for me.
Click to expand...

I don't live in the Australian outback, where I can easily chase down and dispatch any people who see me commit my acts.
 
And now you understand why I think RDR is lackluster.

tbh its pretty ****ing awesome.
 
Warped said:
My dad has been out of work since October because of this Health Care Bill and bad economy. turns out though his old company is doing worse off without him and tried dishing out his work to 5 or so current employees and many have quit or got fired as a result of poor performance. My dad was like the glue for that company and saved them millions every year and in return he gets to sit around the house playing guitar and searching for jobs on websites all day
Click to expand...

Your dad lost his job in October because of this health care bill that wasn't even close to passage back then? You know Warped, I've been having this feeling lately that you just make shit up constantly.
 
ktimekiller said:
imho, part of unemployment has to do with the persons without employ not willing to take jobs that may be socially lower or degrading (to them i suppose /shrug). If you were piss poor broke, with not enough money to even eat, I would not find it believable that you cannot, for the sake of your life, find a job to boy food to not starve to death.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily true. Even minimum wage jobs are hard to find anymore. My brother went to college for Computer Systems Network, but he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty either. After searching for years he couldn't get work in that field, so he tried to get his hands on *any* work. Unfortunately, the McDonald's he turned his application in didn't hire him even after he filled it out several times. He managed to get work in McDonald's because a friend worked there, and he had close connections. He put in a good word for my brother, and after an interview he got the job. And it turns out that he was one of the hardest workers in there, if not the hardest. He was very dedicated, by the book, and many people liked him there. Now that he isn't working there, he's now working with my dad painting. He doesn't make as much money, since it's more of a part time shift, but at least it's something. He's hoping to get into the national guard for some good pay and benefits, but he's currently having some sudden problems with allergies and he's trying to take care of that sudden inconvenience for the moment.

If Ben Stein thinks he knows so much about my brother, he can ^%$# off as far as I care.
 
Don't forget that they also have terrible personalities.
 
My brother is one of the hardest working people I know, and he is one of the most patient and Nicest person I know. So when he is still trying to find work, it's because he is an unpleasant person who doesn't know how to do a day's work. At least, according to Ben Stein.
Click to expand...

I was expecting this to come up because I'm in the same boat as your bro.

May as well ignore him. Wait until he's unemployed.
 
He's always been a hideaway conservative prick who bragged about his money and snubbed social issues. Nothing new.

Kinda nice that he's actually a more traditional conservative, though.
 
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