That Wayfair scenario is very familiar to me. I had a really similar experience with them delivering a table and chairs. They stayed for a shockingly long time to assemble them. I figured it was just really hard to assemble. That was somewhat true.

However, when I looked at them, I was shocked at how shoddy the work was. Cross braces were installed backwards. Seat bottoms had huge gaps from the underlying support. Some screws were literally just missing, with parts that would just flop. A lot of this stemmed from not paying attention to the instructions, which specified really specific sequences for putting in the screws, leveling, then tightening. Those steps were obviously engineered to minimize misalignment, but this crew thought they knew better... sigh

I didn't ask for a new crew, as I didn't trust them to send a better crew. Instead I just spent a good evening redoing quite a bit of the work.

In Germany you have quite high minimum wages. Unions and works committees are quite common. Labor protected laws are quite strict. Sure, not every job is fun, but living with low income is not as bad as in the US. So, are people better at their jobs? Nope. Do people work better just because you pay them better? Nope. Should people get paid better, especially those with shirty jobs? Yes - of course. But there’s no reason to believe this would improve quality of work.

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but the article mentioned very low skills jobs as courier, assembler, clerk.

There is a reason why those people are doing job like these instead that better jobs. Some people are just not interested in doing their work correctly, some other are not skilled enough.

Some jobs are bad. Some people are bad at their jobs. Sometimes it's both at the same time.

This furniture assembly job sounds like shit. But also, somebody who puts in "several hours" of labor should be able to assemble some off-brand Ikea slop by simply following the instructions and using a little bit of common sense. If the pay is terrible so you don't even want to try, I get it, but you should bail quick not after "several hours", so it sounds like an earnest (albeit incompetent) attempt was made.

This job sucks, not because there isn't training, but because the pay is too low to attract competent labor.

This is a nit, but grocery bagging (one of the article's examples) is a no-win situation. I worked it as a summer job a while back--It’s the most bikeshed job in existence because (nearly) everyone understands it, but they all have their own theory of bagging.

To this day I remember a client whose entire purchase was a loaf of bread, a package of fresh raw chicken, and a bottle of liquid drain cleaner. Paper bags, of course. I don't remember how I arranged them but I remember being yelled at.

I’d be interested in a breakdown of Angi’s costs. They paid $85 for assembly and estimate the assembler was paid $25? Where could the money possibly be going, server hosting is incredibly cheap.

Amazing I left almost this exact question as a comment a couple weeks ago!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43427615

> Working for UPS is a good job — and that’s part of why UPS workers are good at their jobs.

Are UPS workers really better at their jobs?

FedEx and UPS seem nearly identical in my area, only DHL is competent.

Jobs are just boring. The only challenge involved in most of them is the challenge of finding the willpower to show up on time.