The manager has a point though. If you get to decide how many cookies to make and you know that if you decide to make too many cookies then you get the extra ones for free, well, then you'd be more principled than most people if you never gave in to the temptation (conscious or subconscious) to make too many.

I'm in a weird position myself, because I know someone at a food bank who brings me expired food that the food bank would otherwise throw away. The local grocery store donates that food when it's close to expiring and often the food bank can't give it all away in time. The thing is that while the people the food bank serves are not likely to be lost customers for the store, I am. I would be buying food there if I wasn't getting this free food, which is presumably why the store doesn't give expiring food away to just anyone. Technically, I'm not breaking a rule because the store doesn't explicitly require the food bank to throw away the food I'm being given, but my point is that I don't think I could be trusted to decide how many cookies to make if I got to keep the extras.

[–] stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

then you'd be more principled than most people if you never gave in to the temptation (conscious or subconscious) to make too many.

I would love to see if there are studies about that. Because, frankly, I doubt it.

Capitalists believe that labor will steal from the company whenever possible, because they think labor is morally inferior to capital - after all, if they were good, hardworking, well-educated people, they wouldn't be working minimum wage food service jobs, right?

American "Christians" believe that poor people are poor because they are more sinful than rich people, so fundie outfits like Jesus Chicken here believe that poor people will steal whenever given the opportunity.

But that's not actually how human beings work.

The average human being does believe that wasting food is wrong. The average human being does believe that stealing is wrong. The average human being does follow explicit and implicit social norms (like being a good steward of their employer's resources) without threats of punishment.

And frankly, when employees aren't good stewards of their employer's resources, it's because the employer has been a bad steward of their employees first. Good companies earn the loyalty of their employees. Bad companies get the same treatment they give.

The only way I would be tempted to make more cookies than necessary as a Chick-fil-A worker is if I or my coworkers were paid so little that we were literally going hungry - because if Chick-fil-A pays so badly that it's workers don't have enough to eat, fuck em.

I mean, it sounds like you're thinking "if I was an employee I would be tempted to make extra cookies for myself". Which is sure, reasonable, cookies are yummy. But would you actually do it? Or would there be other considerations, like moral (stealing is wrong) or practical (this franchise isn't making very much profit, and if it closes I lose my job) that would outweigh the desire for a short-term cookie benefit?

And if you were working at some place that wasn't a shitty employee destroying fast food chain, someplace that you wanted to see do well - like a bakery where you knew and liked the owner, and where the owner treated you and the other employees fairly - how much stronger would those other considerations be?

The idea that I would be tempted to steal or waste resources just because I had the opportunity, so I might as well? No. That's capitalist logic - if you see an opportunity for profit, you take it, whether you need it or not, whether it's morally right or not. But actual human beings have values beyond profit maximization.

[–] Tower@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 days ago

The last line hits the nail on the head: the capitalists expect that the workers would try to fuck them over because it's exactly what they'd do to the workers if given the chance.

[–] nullpotential@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The catastrophic outcome in this imagined nightmare scenario of yours is that the underpaid laborers are able to eat some cookies.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Surely you would agree that letting employees dictate how much free shit they can take home is bad policy?