Work is a market
With remote work on the rise, I've seen people debating the fairness of companies adjusting pay based on one's location and cost of living. As if there ever was an intrinsic justification to compensation. Spoiler: there isn't.
Introduction
A few years ago, the building I lived in in the Paris area was undergoing some renovation. Every day, men shoveled gravel, broke asphalt, cut concrete panels and laid them down.
Amongst them, there was an old man. There was a grandfatherly air to him. An old man with the heavy build of those who eat too much. The belly of one that drinks too much beer. Discheveled grey hair, a short unkempt beard, and the big reddish nose typical of those who drank too much alcohol for too many years.
While much younger ones manoeuvered a small excavator to break down the parking lot's coating, he filled wheelbarrows of dirt with a shovel. While much younger ones unrolled layers of waterproofing coatings, he carried his heavy wheelbarrow across the whole parking lot.
Seeing him filled me with a strange sort of sadness. There he was, at the end of his work life, and still he had to put his aging body through this rough, physically damaging, ordeal.
And all for what? Minimum wage? One and a half times minimum wage? Was that what we paid those who rebuild our buildings' parking lots, our streets? Those who actually build and maintain all the infrastructure we all need in our daily lives, at the cost of ruined joints, arthritis, their whole physical health? Why were they paid so little compared to I, who merely contributed to vaguely useful dating apps or grocery delivery platforms?
Why was I, back when I worked at McDonald's, when I actually made food for hundreds of people every day, burning my hands and forearms several times a week, paid so little compared to now?
