<story><title>What I Learned About Life by Becoming a Landlord</title><url>http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/a25120/landlord/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ryanmarsh</author><text>Being a landlord, hiring people, working directly with the general public (retail, food service) are eye opening experiences.&lt;p&gt;I watched my father be the kind of land lord anyone would hope to have just to watch some people destroy his property and treat him with hostility.&lt;p&gt;Now I know why your landlord treats you like he expects the worst from you.&lt;p&gt;I hired people for work they cared about (non profit), treated them well, the earned prestige and leadership experience they couldn&amp;#x27;t have had in their previous jobs just to watch them turn on me and spread lies and toxicity and try to destroy the organization because I praised someone else&amp;#x27;s work too.&lt;p&gt;Now I know why companies treat people like they expect the worst from them.&lt;p&gt;I worked at a Taco Bell and Starbucks. People yelled at us and treated us like scum for the offense of working for minimum wage.&lt;p&gt;Apparently people who make more than minimum wage automatically have more intrinsic human value? I&amp;#x27;ll never know. But I know I&amp;#x27;ll excuse a lot with retail and food workers because my life is roughly 30x times better than theirs.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>manyxcxi</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know about people actually believing they have more intrinsic value because they make more than minimum wage, I just think the problems comes from a few areas:&lt;p&gt;- They were&amp;#x2F;are getting treated like shit and are transferring the energy on&lt;p&gt;- People are increasingly &amp;#x27;busy&amp;#x27; leading to higher levels of stress and anxiety that just have them snapping easier&lt;p&gt;- There&amp;#x27;s a lot more of us than there used to be, so even if the percentages stayed constant, there&amp;#x27;s a lot more f%cking twats running around out there&lt;p&gt;Especially with younger people I professionally interact with (I&amp;#x27;m 34), but also with age peers, I&amp;#x27;ve noticed that a shockingly large percentage have never had that job experience of working at a place that was crappy, for minimal pay, bad hours, tough work, etc. Generally they didn&amp;#x27;t work at all until maybe a couple of internships in college, or some other form of light entry into the workforce. I think it really does something to create a lack of empathy for those people not in a situation exactly like ours.&lt;p&gt;My personal belief is it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter what our two situations are, being an asshole is being an asshole. If you&amp;#x27;re going to be a jerk to someone who&amp;#x27;s working a random lunch counter, you&amp;#x27;re probably just generally a jerk the majority of the time. Wealth, status, fame, are no excuses for a lack of human decency.</text></comment>
<story><title>What I Learned About Life by Becoming a Landlord</title><url>http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/a25120/landlord/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ryanmarsh</author><text>Being a landlord, hiring people, working directly with the general public (retail, food service) are eye opening experiences.&lt;p&gt;I watched my father be the kind of land lord anyone would hope to have just to watch some people destroy his property and treat him with hostility.&lt;p&gt;Now I know why your landlord treats you like he expects the worst from you.&lt;p&gt;I hired people for work they cared about (non profit), treated them well, the earned prestige and leadership experience they couldn&amp;#x27;t have had in their previous jobs just to watch them turn on me and spread lies and toxicity and try to destroy the organization because I praised someone else&amp;#x27;s work too.&lt;p&gt;Now I know why companies treat people like they expect the worst from them.&lt;p&gt;I worked at a Taco Bell and Starbucks. People yelled at us and treated us like scum for the offense of working for minimum wage.&lt;p&gt;Apparently people who make more than minimum wage automatically have more intrinsic human value? I&amp;#x27;ll never know. But I know I&amp;#x27;ll excuse a lot with retail and food workers because my life is roughly 30x times better than theirs.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>e40</author><text>Yes, a good percentage of people suck.  They are nasty, selfish and, TBH, just assholes.  The best thing you can do in life is to surround yourself with good, honest, hardworking, thoughtful people that you can care about.  Excise toxic people from your life&amp;#x2F;business as soon as they are discovered.  That is all you can do.</text></comment>