Time and jobs have changed. This started with Henry Ford and went on through McDonald's and now every job an business has been modified. Before Ford cars were produced a piece at a time, often one at a time, by a team. Over time each member of the team would learn skills and master jobs and would get pay raises. You start on day one putting on the wheels but the job trains you. In a few years you could assemble the entire automobile by yourself.

Ford changed that. Now the guy who puts on the wheels just does wheels. He could have an entire career just putting on wheels. He is a wheel specialist. there is no additional training nor career path for a wheel guy. Once you master the job that is all that job will ever be.

The first McDonald's were pretty much like all the other mom-and-pop burger stands. Everyone learned all the jobs. As you learned jobs you became more valuable and could demand more money. After a few years you were pretty much capable of setting up your own burger stand.

That changed to an assembly line. Narrow jobs. But also the machinery changed. The machinery takes all the skills out of each job. The grill tells you when to add patties and when too turn them and when they are done.

A long time ago many retail cashiers had to be nine-key trained. They would know or look up each price and insert each manually. A god grocery cashier had a salable skill and could beat the laser scanners of today. The trained cashier also made a dollar an hour over what other employees made. The cash register didn't tell you how to make change that was another part of the job you had to learn. A skill you could develop on the job and a skill you would leave with.

Now, with laser scanners, you can pull any slob off the street, stuff them into a smock and they can function, for the most part, as an effective cashier. They don't get paid anything extra, because they haven't had to learn anything, and when they leave they haven't picked up any salable skills.

The jobs don't teach. The employees don't learn. The boss sees employees as interchangeable parts and the employees see the job as something they do for eight hours. A situation where they do as little as possible while realizing they are getting paid as little as possible. Neither side has any loyalty, or much respect, for the other.