Shadowrun

Shadowrun General => The Secret History => Topic started by: Lusis on <09-04-13/2201:36>

Title: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-04-13/2201:36>
So, what's 2075 like to the average 99%er? Has it been written?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Mirikon on <09-04-13/2318:49>
Check out Attitude and Corporate Guide (specifically the section on the life of a wageslave). That'll give you most of what you need.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: CanRay on <09-05-13/0128:16>
12-16 hour days.  Mandatory overtime.  Feeling bad if you neglect your Corp by spending time with your family.  Happy that you're not SINless.  Enjoying Simsense and staying high on Moodchips/Tripchips.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Black on <09-05-13/0131:20>
12-16 hour days.  Mandatory overtime.  Feeling bad if you neglect your Corp by spending time with your family.  Happy that you're not SINless.  Enjoying Simsense and staying high on Moodchips/Tripchips.

Ahhh... its the life! 8)
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: All4BigGuns on <09-05-13/0304:17>
Enjoying Simsense and staying high on Moodchips/Tripchips.

What? No pimping of Sim Dreams and Nightmares?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Wakshaani on <09-05-13/0306:24>
The average workday is 8 AM- 9 PM, with an unpaid lunch hour around 2 PM. You pull six of those a week, so you net 72 hours a week pay, plus let's say two weeks of unpaid vacation time. You make about 25,000Y a year, which is about 7Y an hour. Most people put in some unpaid overtime as well, to show loyalty to the corporation. Other people work two or three part-time jobs to make ends meet.

I don't think that there's anything official on a miniumum wage, other than the CAS, of all places, having a ludicrously low one.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: CanRay on <09-05-13/1252:48>
Enjoying Simsense and staying high on Moodchips/Tripchips (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/112345/Shadowrun%3A-Sim-Dreams-%26-Nightmares).
What? No pimping of Sim Dreams and Nightmares (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/112345/Shadowrun%3A-Sim-Dreams-%26-Nightmares)?
It was too late at night, and pimpin' (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/112345/Shadowrun%3A-Sim-Dreams-%26-Nightmares) ain't easy.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/1327:59>
I guess what I'd like to know is what does the the average corp serf see of major events? What do those not within the shadow of the big ten do day-to-day?

The sourcebooks mention that there are still entrepreneurs, which means a working class not connected to the corps. Who are they? 
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Manyfist on <09-05-13/1536:28>
The average workday is 8 AM- 9 PM, with an unpaid lunch hour around 2 PM. You pull six of those a week, so you net 72 hours a week pay, plus let's say two weeks of unpaid vacation time. You make about 25,000Y a year, which is about 7Y an hour. Most people put in some unpaid overtime as well, to show loyalty to the corporation. Other people work two or three part-time jobs to make ends meet.

I don't think that there's anything official on a miniumum wage, other than the CAS, of all places, having a ludicrously low one.

Are these the plug-in and go type wage slaves? Or actual skilled labor?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Wakshaani on <09-05-13/1614:44>
Semi-skilled. The datapushers, the office people, the overall Salarymen of the world. If you work in a cubicle, that's your life. Small business breaks it up a bit, but 8-9 is the modern 9-5, the "normal workload" in the minds of the general populace.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Angelone on <09-05-13/1639:26>
That's one of the reasons I run, the time, the free time. While the wageslaves are chained in their cubicles I'm reading classic books, I'm catching shows in theaters, and I'm going to museums. Are there lean times? Sure there are but I'd still rather have that than be stuck in some corp army or behind a desk somewhere.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/1658:37>
Semi-skilled. The datapushers, the office people, the overall Salarymen of the world. If you work in a cubicle, that's your life. Small business breaks it up a bit, but 8-9 is the modern 9-5, the "normal workload" in the minds of the general populace.

The thing, is that truthfully this is just silly. Human nature is always going to find the best pay for the least work. I could see overtime, but a constant schedule like that is going to burn out your workers and drive them off to better pastures.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: CanRay on <09-05-13/1718:59>
Semi-skilled. The datapushers, the office people, the overall Salarymen of the world. If you work in a cubicle, that's your life. Small business breaks it up a bit, but 8-9 is the modern 9-5, the "normal workload" in the minds of the general populace.
The thing, is that truthfully this is just silly. Human nature is always going to find the best pay for the least work. I could see overtime, but a constant schedule like that is going to burn out your workers and drive them off to better pastures.
Those are the better pastures.  There are a lot of worse jobs that might be hiring after you give them a resume in 6-12 months.

EDIT:  I'm homesick again, damnit.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Angelone on <09-05-13/1720:17>
We really need to get CanRay a snow globe or something.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: GiraffeShaman on <09-05-13/1725:41>
Quote
The thing, is that truthfully this is just silly. Human nature is always going to find the best pay for the least work. I could see overtime, but a constant schedule like that is going to burn out your workers and drive them off to better pastures.
There are no better pastures. If you are a Megacorp wageslave, you probaly consider yourself lucky. There's a wasteland out there full of predators and your place in the Corp keeps you away from it. If you walk, you're risking that the other corps will mark you as unruly and no one will hire you. Assuming you have no contract and can legally walk.

Also, the idea of work and time off kind of blends together in a wageslave's life. You might be pushing paper, but then suddenly be called out to a morale session, where you hear speeches and sing the Corporate song, etc. Your entertainments when you are relaxing have to be Corp approved, as does your spouse. And of course, all your friends are at the Corp, so you'd be leaving them, too.

The wage system its self is an illusion. You can't for example save up to buy a sportscar, and you don't need one anyway. Your wages and company benefits insure you get to live a better lifestyle than a Barrens rat, no more, no less. Part of this is done through uniformly low wages, partly through tricks like company stores and debts.

There's a perception that the Corp will take care of you if things go bad. This may not be true, but it's definitely believed. There is definitely a security advantage. And it's also a reliable lifestyle.

What options do you think an unskilled person has? The Corps work together to insure there are no other opportunities. Work in a Stuffer Shack. Turn into a Barrens Scavenger (With no actual skills, even including a familiarity with the Barrens) Turn to crime (With no actual criminal skills).
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/1748:39>
Quote
The thing, is that truthfully this is just silly. Human nature is always going to find the best pay for the least work. I could see overtime, but a constant schedule like that is going to burn out your workers and drive them off to better pastures.
There are no better pastures. If you are a Megacorp wageslave, you probaly consider yourself lucky. There's a wasteland out there full of predators and your place in the Corp keeps you away from it. If you walk, you're risking that the other corps will mark you as unruly and no one will hire you. Assuming you have no contract and can legally walk.

Also, the idea of work and time off kind of blends together in a wageslave's life. You might be pushing paper, but then suddenly be called out to a morale session, where you hear speeches and sing the Corporate song, etc. Your entertainments when you are relaxing have to be Corp approved, as does your spouse. And of course, all your friends are at the Corp, so you'd be leaving them, too.

The wage system its self is an illusion. You can't for example save up to buy a sportscar, and you don't need one anyway. Your wages and company benefits insure you get to live a better lifestyle than a Barrens rat, no more, no less. Part of this is done through uniformly low wages, partly through tricks like company stores and debts.

There's a perception that the Corp will take care of you if things go bad. This may not be true, but it's definitely believed. There is definitely a security advantage. And it's also a reliable lifestyle.

What options do you think an unskilled person has? The Corps work together to insure there are no other opportunities. Work in a Stuffer Shack. Turn into a Barrens Scavenger (With no actual skills, even including a familiarity with the Barrens) Turn to crime (With no actual criminal skills).

While sounding rather sinster enough for a dystopian plot, the fact is that you couldn't do this for long unless you have people drugged, or shoot them if they leave. Even then, the levels of productivity will be in the crapper for the average worker.

As far as runners go, our characters are sociopaths who would barely get along in modern society.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Crunch on <09-05-13/1752:09>
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/1801:18>
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Yet things got better; which is my point.

Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/1806:06>
ETA: Don't get me wrong, I love the SR universe, but there's a definite slant to the dystopian ideal in the backstory, when it seems they could definitely go more middle-of-the-road and have plenty wrong in SR society.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: GiraffeShaman on <09-05-13/1807:20>
Quote
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Not to mention being a worker in current day El Salvidor, for example. I somehow doubt it's a picnic. It's all about maintaining uniformly bad conditions or wages, so that there is no alternative.

Why do fastfood workers stay in there jobs currently? It obviously doesn't pay well, and the job doesn't look fun. And they even do have some alternatives. But part of the reason they don't move is that that type of job pays a uniformly bad wage. Going to another store would change nothing. To stay in that industry is to accept a uniformly low wage, short of becoming a manager.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/1811:39>
Why do fastfood workers stay in there jobs currently? It obviously doesn't pay well, and the job doesn't look fun. And they even do have some alternatives. But part of the reason they don't move is that that type of job pays a uniformly bad wage. Going to another store would change nothing. To stay in that industry is to accept a uniformly low wage, short of becoming a manager.

Lack of marketable skills. Low skills=low wages=lack of job prospects.

Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: GiraffeShaman on <09-05-13/1829:17>
Quote
Lack of marketable skills. Low skills=low wages=lack of job prospects.

Not really. The economy is massive and there are numerous opportunities and prospects. I picked fast food because the wages are uniformly low and it doesn't look fun, the two components most people care about with a job. There are equal or better paying jobs, that require little skill, yet aren't as irritating to do. In short, there are options.

Many of these options are gone in SR, just like a Third World country. Being a wageslave is actually a good deal, or so it appears to the slaves, but it also consumes your life. It's like being an  Outer Party Member in the novel 1984.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/1846:46>
Being a wageslave is actually a good deal, or so it appears to the slaves, but it also consumes your life. It's like being an  Outer Party Member in the novel 1984.

Eh, except you don't have to worry about a bullet for not falling in line (most of the time).

I'd like to see a sourcebook written from the view of wage-serfs about the corps and SR society. It would flesh-out the story much better IMO than the format that is in there now.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Crunch on <09-05-13/1852:37>
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Yet things got better; which is my point.

No, your point was that no one would put up with those conditions. Most of humanity has for most of history.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/1931:01>
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Yet things got better; which is my point.

No, your point was that no one would put up with those conditions. Most of humanity has for most of history.

LOL. I know what my point is; which is that people will seek better conditions, or make them. Those in the IR did not put up with them for long. They sought greener pastures.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Crunch on <09-05-13/1955:36>
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Yet things got better; which is my point.

No, your point was that no one would put up with those conditions. Most of humanity has for most of history.

LOL. I know what my point is; which is that people will seek better conditions, or make them. Those in the IR did not put up with them for long. They sought greener pastures.

I think maybe you should look at some of the history of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. It doesn't seem to have been quite as simple as you make it out to be.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/2008:44>
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Yet things got better; which is my point.

No, your point was that no one would put up with those conditions. Most of humanity has for most of history.


LOL. I know what my point is; which is that people will seek better conditions, or make them. Those in the IR did not put up with them for long. They sought greener pastures.

I think maybe you should look at some of the history of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. It doesn't seem to have been quite as simple as you make it out to be.
ok, and you read-up on the latter 19th up until present times.  ::)
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: CanRay on <09-05-13/2013:30>
We really need to get CanRay a snow globe or something.
What, so I can get even more homesick than ever?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Crunch on <09-05-13/2013:59>
I've read it. The argument that because things got better once they can never get worse again doesn't seem to hold much water.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/2019:31>
I've read it. The argument that because things got better once they can never get worse again doesn't seem to hold much water.
Umm that's not the argument at all. Just that when people are free to sell their labor as they see fit, they will always seek the most pay for the least amount of work. That's human nature.

ETA: People will always seek to improve their situation also. Might not work out the way they wanted...but....
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Crunch on <09-05-13/2025:48>
I've read it. The argument that because things got better once they can never get worse again doesn't seem to hold much water.
Umm that's not the argument at all. Just that when people are free to sell their labor as they see fit, they will always seek the most pay for the least amount of work. That's human nature.

ETA: People will always seek to improve their situation also. Might not work out the way they wanted...but....

Which doesn't seem to be the case in SR world. Remember that this is a world where your boss issues your passport and kidnapping is a common form of talent acquisition. I think you're overestimating the job mobility in the Sixth World.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/2030:23>
Remember that this is a world where your boss issues your passport and kidnapping is a common form of talent acquisition. I think you're overestimating the job mobility in the Sixth World.
Ah, but while some corps can pull that off, I'd put forth that not all could, nor the majority. It goes back to who actually has extraterritoriality. This in fact would undermine harsh practices since workers (especially ones with desired skills) have options.

The fact is that a world like SR would have far better conditions than say, the USSR did.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Crunch on <09-05-13/2036:17>
Remember that this is a world where your boss issues your passport and kidnapping is a common form of talent acquisition. I think you're overestimating the job mobility in the Sixth World.
Ah, but while some corps can pull that off, I'd put forth that not all could, nor the majority. It goes back to who actually has extraterritoriality. This in fact would undermine harsh practices since workers (especially ones with desired skills) have options.

The fact is that a world like SR would have far better conditions than say, the USSR did.

I disagree, but honestly that's a conversation that will get political quickly.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: firebug on <09-05-13/2045:17>
Keep in mind that a lot of what you're describing would be for people with corporate SINs.  There still exists the kind of people who are able to open their own personal stores, musicians still exist that aren't corporate (talent scouts are still even a thing) and I can't say I'm too certain about the 8AM to 9PM thing.  Entertainment is still a massive industry, and not everyone has sleep regulators installed.  People still have tangible free time on their hands.  Capitalism is still a thing, after all, it's part of how the corps still function.  It's just a thousand times more difficult to strike out on your own in the Sixth World because you not only have the megacorps ready to crush you financially, you may very well find people with guns pointed at you should you come close to doing anything truly profitable.

Those who work directly for the corps are treated utterly like drones, of course.  What one man says in "A Battle Fought" shows what I mean.  Working for a corp means you've signed your life away for one thing: perceived security.  It is meant to represent the utter worst of "low risk low reward".  The exact antithesis of what is means to be a runner.

But there's still people on the in-between.  Think about any of your characters' contacts.  A lot of them count themselves among the SINners of the world, working every day while you're out living the life of crime, but they are far from the (may I never have to use this term unironically again) sheeple the corps find ideal.  Street docs, all kinds of armorers, people who run bars and clubs, or even just the otherwise-average people who just work there (everyone knows the bartender knows people).
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Black on <09-05-13/2055:48>
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Yet things got better; which is my point.

No, your point was that no one would put up with those conditions. Most of humanity has for most of history.
LOL. I know what my point is; which is that people will seek better conditions, or make them. Those in the IR did not put up with them for long. They sought greener pastures.
Only if there are better conditions.  And the fact is, many people work in similar conditions today.  But lets avoid talking about the modern condition. 

Shadowrun is fiction set in a dystopian universe.  Therefore, it adheres to certain requirements, such as the corporate wageslaves will accept the status quo, though every now and then, one of them will maintain enough free will to feel disatisfied with life and seek alternatives.

We could debate endlessly whether humans would accept these conditions and if so, for how long.   But the average wageslave in shadowrun does accept these conditions.  What we could do, instead, is explore why the wage slave does accept and expand upon the idea to develop a working understanding of how the wage slave sees the world.

Note:  There are actually two types of wage slaves.  The wage slaves lucky enough to work for a Megacorp, and the faceless masses who work for smaller businesses or affliates.  Below, I will be focuses on Megacorp employees.

To provide some structure, lets use the Maslow's heirachy of needs

Physiological needs
Well, this ones easy.  Big corporates provide food and shelter via corporate housing.  Wages allow employees to purchase food.  If purchased form company stores, I'm sure there is a number of benefits in quality and quantity.

Safety needs
Corps provide physical security to their employees.  In the dystopian world of shadowrun with gangs roaming the streets, shadowrunners, technomancers, magic threats etc, Security is a major issue.  The fact that Corps harp upon how dangerious the world is to their employees helps emphasis this need.
Corps provide financial security.  Wages are not great, but they sure are reliable.  With no safety net out there in the dangerious world, and savings all tied up in corporate cred, which wage slave would risk their family and sacrifice the security of corporate employment?
Corps provide medical care.  Medical care is expensive and except for some unreliable street clinics (portrayed as organ theives in corp controled tv), who would risk losing their medical cover.  Sure, it has limits, but cheap cyberware and drugs will fix most things.  And if you get a promotion, you get better cover!

Love and Belonging
You are born in a corp facility, raised by a corp family and fed a steady diet of corp-approved education and entertainment.  The bond between wage slaves and the sense of us vs them (everyone else) would be increadible.  Sure, there is the normal friction between people, sometimes dangerious office politics, but for most wage slaves, corp is family.   With such tight bonds, who would leave?  Transfer to a different facility maybe... but actually leave the corporation?  Only the odd wild child... the ex-corp shadowrunner. 

Esteem
Now we start seeing holes in the wage slave's outlook.  Most are told they are valuable citizens in the corporate family... that their jobs are important and the corp needs them!  but the harsh reality is that they are nothing but a small, disposable cog in a massive machine.  And that must be crushing sometimes.  But then, thats when the mindless entertain, chips, drugs and other corp-supplied (or at least not restricted) indulgences help. 
But for the real go-getter?  Well, Corps are meritocracies.  You can get ahead, promoted, ect if you try.  Is it easy?  No.  Does it help if your friends with the Manager? Yes.  But every corp facility has the story of wage slave x who made it big back at head office and now runs an entire production line!

Anyway, those are my thoughts on why Wage Slaves stick with their corporate family.  The corp meets all their needs, and the world out there?  Is cold, dark and dangerious! 



Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Manyfist on <09-05-13/2210:09>
I wonder how small businesses survive. The giant AAA corporations are literally law within themselves, and they're not protected by Corporate Court.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: RHat on <09-05-13/2222:57>
Keep in mind that in the Sixth World, there are far more workers than there are jobs.  As such, outside of major talent, workers are pretty much disposable.  Seeking greener pastures requires that someone else have a motive to offer such, and no such motive exists.  Any attempt to create them would be quashed by the Corporate Court.  This status quo continues not out of some natural tendency, but because it is caused to continue by those who control the lion's share of the power.  Changing that situation would first require putting the CC on its heels at the very least.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Mirikon on <09-05-13/2233:06>
Lusis, listen to what people are saying. The NICE parts of the 'first world' in Shadowrun are like Detroit today. For any job short of management, you've got at least 20 applicants for every opening, if not more. People at the lowest levels slave away until they're burnt out, because not everyone is cut out to be a criminal, and that's the only way some people can put food on the table. People in the corporate environment are HAPPY to work those hours, partly because of brainwashing, but also because they are legitimately scared that they could be fired at any point, thrown out of the house the corp lets them live in, and have to go live in the *shudder* Barrens, where from all accounts rape and murder are the neighborhood pastimes. There are no unions to go to, and if you make waves, you're out, and the corp finds someone willing to toe the line to replace you. The only people who have a measure of ability to choose their fates are managers, and those with some noticeable talent (top of their field, Awakened, Emerged, etc.).
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/2239:28>
umm... That's way nicer than working conditions for most people for most of the people during the Industrial Revolution.

Yet things got better; which is my point.

No, your point was that no one would put up with those conditions. Most of humanity has for most of history.
LOL. I know what my point is; which is that people will seek better conditions, or make them. Those in the IR did not put up with them for long. They sought greener pastures.
Only if there are better conditions.  And the fact is, many people work in similar conditions today.  But lets avoid talking about the modern condition. 

Shadowrun is fiction set in a dystopian universe.  Therefore, it adheres to certain requirements, such as the corporate wageslaves will accept the status quo, though every now and then, one of them will maintain enough free will to feel disatisfied with life and seek alternatives.

We could debate endlessly whether humans would accept these conditions and if so, for how long.   But the average wageslave in shadowrun does accept these conditions.  What we could do, instead, is explore why the wage slave does accept and expand upon the idea to develop a working understanding of how the wage slave sees the world.

Note:  There are actually two types of wage slaves.  The wage slaves lucky enough to work for a Megacorp, and the faceless masses who work for smaller businesses or affliates.  Below, I will be focuses on Megacorp employees.

To provide some structure, lets use the Maslow's heirachy of needs

Physiological needs
Well, this ones easy.  Big corporates provide food and shelter via corporate housing.  Wages allow employees to purchase food.  If purchased form company stores, I'm sure there is a number of benefits in quality and quantity.

Safety needs
Corps provide physical security to their employees.  In the dystopian world of shadowrun with gangs roaming the streets, shadowrunners, technomancers, magic threats etc, Security is a major issue.  The fact that Corps harp upon how dangerious the world is to their employees helps emphasis this need.
Corps provide financial security.  Wages are not great, but they sure are reliable.  With no safety net out there in the dangerious world, and savings all tied up in corporate cred, which wage slave would risk their family and sacrifice the security of corporate employment?
Corps provide medical care.  Medical care is expensive and except for some unreliable street clinics (portrayed as organ theives in corp controled tv), who would risk losing their medical cover.  Sure, it has limits, but cheap cyberware and drugs will fix most things.  And if you get a promotion, you get better cover!

Love and Belonging
You are born in a corp facility, raised by a corp family and fed a steady diet of corp-approved education and entertainment.  The bond between wage slaves and the sense of us vs them (everyone else) would be increadible.  Sure, there is the normal friction between people, sometimes dangerious office politics, but for most wage slaves, corp is family.   With such tight bonds, who would leave?  Transfer to a different facility maybe... but actually leave the corporation?  Only the odd wild child... the ex-corp shadowrunner. 

Esteem
Now we start seeing holes in the wage slave's outlook.  Most are told they are valuable citizens in the corporate family... that their jobs are important and the corp needs them!  but the harsh reality is that they are nothing but a small, disposable cog in a massive machine.  And that must be crushing sometimes.  But then, thats when the mindless entertain, chips, drugs and other corp-supplied (or at least not restricted) indulgences help. 
But for the real go-getter?  Well, Corps are meritocracies.  You can get ahead, promoted, ect if you try.  Is it easy?  No.  Does it help if your friends with the Manager? Yes.  But every corp facility has the story of wage slave x who made it big back at head office and now runs an entire production line!

Anyway, those are my thoughts on why Wage Slaves stick with their corporate family.  The corp meets all their needs, and the world out there?  Is cold, dark and dangerious!

Thanks Black. That helps out a lot.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/2240:49>
Changing that situation would first require putting the CC on its heels at the very least.

Gotcha. Thanks.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Angelone on <09-05-13/2242:25>
There are other jobs though. There are smaller companies out there and even mom and pop joints, that surely treat their people better, even government jobs.  The megacorps aren't all there is.

Edit- The UK has Unions in Shadowrun.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Mirikon on <09-05-13/2311:22>
There are other jobs though. There are smaller companies out there and even mom and pop joints, that surely treat their people better, even government jobs.  The megacorps aren't all there is.

Edit- The UK has Unions in Shadowrun.
The AAAs control something like 70-80% of the world economy? Maybe more? Toss in the AAs that play by almost the same rules, and you're in the mid 90s, at least. Fact is, there simply aren't that many other jobs out there. Only certain 'types' can get into government work, except for the armed forces, and a mom and pop shop will have what, maybe 5 employees? If they get any bigger, they get bought out, and then there's another McHughes.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Black on <09-05-13/2322:20>
I always got the impression that there was a substaintal number of small to medium sized enterprises.  They may be affiliated with a larger corporation (distributers, service providers, spcialist providers etc), or in some cases, they may be smaller start ups which appear everytime there is a shakeup in the status quo.  First Edition Adventures had lots of smaller businesses hiring shadowruners.

That said, 1st ed adventures demonstrated that successful business get eaten (aka purchased) by the megas if they attract to much attention.

But there were lots of small stores, particularly in the edges of the barrens, and a transport company in Silver Angel, etc.

But people working for them lived at low lifestyle at best for the most case, with the managers on medium and only very successful business owners any higher.  And no housing, no security and you business could go kaput at any time...
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-05-13/2351:20>
Yeah, 80% seems ridiculously high, I'd guess more like 60% at the most.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: RHat on <09-05-13/2357:47>
Yeah, 80% seems ridiculously high, I'd guess more like 60% at the most.

No guessing.  Numbers were provided.  If it seems ridiculously high, it's because you're vastly underestimate the degree to which the Big Ten control the world for the simple purpose of making more money.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: CanRay on <09-06-13/0000:44>
Think of it this way.  The Corporate Court (The AAA-Corporations) own the UN and its respective nations in everything but word.  And the AA-Corporations are considered Corporate Court Citizens.

The scraps are all that is left for that 20%, which doesn't seem exceptional at all when you look at subsidiaries of megas being part of the megas.

Also, the Corporate Court makes Nuyen.  All of it.  With no backing aside from, "How would you like your nation?  Economically depressed into the Stone Age, or just hit with a whole lot of Orbitally-Dropped Crowbars?" to the folks that complain.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-06-13/0001:17>
Yeah, 80% seems ridiculously high, I'd guess more like 60% at the most.

No guessing.  Numbers were provided.  If it seems ridiculously high, it's because you're vastly underestimate the degree to which the Big Ten control the world for the simple purpose of making more money.

LOL. It's realistically not plausible IMO, but ok.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-06-13/0003:43>
Think of it this way.  The Corporate Court (The AAA-Corporations) own the UN and its respective nations in everything but word.  And the AA-Corporations are considered Corporate Court Citizens.

The scraps are all that is left for that 20%, which doesn't seem exceptional at all when you look at subsidiaries of megas being part of the megas.

Also, the Corporate Court makes Nuyen.  All of it.  With no backing aside from, "How would you like your nation?  Economically depressed into the Stone Age, or just hit with a whole lot of Orbitally-Dropped Crowbars?" to the folks that complain.

Now one thing though, there are more AAA's than just the Big Ten IIRC.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: RHat on <09-06-13/0004:53>
And why is that so implausible?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-06-13/0015:57>
And why is that so implausible?

Because we're talking about ALL the trade in the entire world...and if a governing body could possibly control even that much then communism would work.  ;)
Even the Soviets had mad amounts of black market corruption.

But hell, we are talking about a fantasy world.  ;D
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Wakshaani on <09-06-13/0225:14>
LOL. It's realistically not plausible IMO, but ok.

You'd be *stunned* to see how much wealth is actually concentrated in today's world. People have trouble wrapping their head around it.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Black on <09-06-13/0246:29>
hmn...

I don't think the existence of numerious small to medium enterprises neccessarily contradicts the accumulation of wealth by a small number of intensely powerful entities.  I believe both can exist, as they certainly already do in today's world.

So the Mega's and their peers may control the majority of the world's wealth, while still allowing the existing of numious small businesses operating semi-independently of the this power structure.  Supporting companies which are useful, but do not need to be owned by the affliated mega (supply companies, service companies) or which are moderately successful in their own area, but not so successful to attract the attention of the large and mightly.  Infact, many of the technical start ups are great sources for new ideas.

Now the wage slaves who live outside the Mega corp world?  There life would be much like the low income earners of today, just even more precarious.  Long hours at pay even lower then that of the corps, while paying for cheap housing and eating frozen soy dinners.  More freedom to jump ship to another company (after all, there isn't the same ties that the Megas place on their employees), but also far less certainity and security in life.  The goal of a non-corp affliated wage slave?  To one day become a corp employee and live in corp housing and have corp medical care.  That's the dream goal, oh yeah.  One day, one day...
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Wakshaani on <09-06-13/0923:09>
They exist but they're small potatoes. You have AAA-rated corps on the Corporate Council, then the extra-territorial AA-rated, then the "minor leagues" of A-rated corps, but there are plenty of businesses out there whcih aren't rated at A-status, like Fred's Pancakes House. He has a few franchises, operates out of several cities in the northeast, but a dozen eateries does not an A-rated corporation make.

Given a breakdown off the top of my head, I'd say wealth goes roughly like so:
AAA-rated - 60%
AA-rated - 20%
A-Rated - 12%
Unrated - 6%
Shadows - 2%

(Shadows economy being things like paying babysitters in cash, paying a friend who fixes your car, paying illegal immigrants off the books, and so on.)

That probably inflates the lower groups at the expense of teh upper, but for "pulled out of my hindquarters" numbers, they don't look terrible and explain the gobbling nature of the big guns: WIth 10 AA-rated, they each have about 6% of the world's business wealth, while each of the A-rated ones have around .024% each, making them essentially prey if they catch a big guy's eye.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: ImaginalDisc on <09-06-13/1014:27>
The income inequality today is much worse than the AAA's owning 60% of the wealth.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/inequality-page25_actualdistribwithlegend.png

 I wouldn't consider it unreasonable for a breakdown in Shadowrun to be:

AAA: 90% of wealth.
AA: 9% of wealth.
A: 0.9%.
Unrated: 0.06%.
Shadow: 0.04%.

By 2070 in Shadowrun, corps have almost entirely displaced nations. They drive econonomies and get you coming and going. Companies conspire against one another, but are united in extracting every fraction of a nuyen out of people through every microtransaction. Most corporate wage-slaves turn over all or most of their income back to the corporation because most of their economic activity is channeled through the company store or company script.

Even today, productivity has been trending way up since the 1970's, typical wage earner income is flat (or falling depending on your income bracket. With minimum wage falling behind inflation, minimum wage earners are worse off every year) and the income of the top 1% has increased by over 200%. They are getting more out of us than ever before, and are giving you less in return.

Take the real trends, project them and exagerate them slightly for dystopian effect and you get the top 1% (assuming 1% of the population are AAA and AA corporate SINners) owning 99% of the wealth.
Source for the above image: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-06-13/1042:08>
Yeeeeahh. Mother Jones isn't exactly who I'd trust for an unbiased article on the subject of "income inequality" when the very label carries ideological bias.

I could point to articles that state that 80% of the money spent is controlled by women, which is an old marketing adage, but it is hardly accurate. Even then, we could scream all day about INCOME EQUALITAY! which is what a lot of people do.

I'd sooner trust Forbes on this matter: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/10/22/the-147-companies-that-control-everything/ 
Read the article. It isn't as easy as Rich Uncle Pennybags having 80% of the wealth in his bank account. A lot of what MJ's two-dimensional graph comes down to is how you categorize the numbers; and being a CEO of a 401k management firm with $20 billion in accounts isn't the same as owning (or even controlling in the MJ sense) $20 billion.

"Lies, damn lies, and statistics".


Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-06-13/1045:28>
BTW, have the sourcebooks stated what the percentage of citizens (world or within a specific nation) that work for a AA and up, or even a AAA corp?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: ImaginalDisc on <09-06-13/1047:20>
It isn't as easy as Rich Uncle Pennybags having 80% of the wealth in his bank account. A lot of what MJ's two-dimensional graph comes down to is how you categorize the numbers; and being a CEO of a 401k management firm with $20 billion in accounts isn't the same as owning (or even controlling in the MJ sense) $20 billion.

You raise fair points, but Shadowrun is an exageration of (actual or percieved) dystpoian trends of isolation, inequality, and powerlessness. If an Areas accountant, who considers herself fortunate to have an AAA corporate exec SIN was born and raised in Ares home, educated in an Ares school, owes a debt to Ares for her Ares private university education, drives an Ares subsidiary's car, eats Ares (subsidiary) foods, and essentially rolls over her entire income back to the company, who controls the wealth she generates through her labor?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-06-13/1110:01>
By 2070 in Shadowrun, corps have almost entirely displaced nations. They drive econonomies and get you coming and going. Companies conspire against one another, but are united in extracting every fraction of a nuyen out of people through every microtransaction. Most corporate wage-slaves turn over all or most of their income back to the corporation because most of their economic activity is channeled through the company store or company script.

Gotcha. The issue is that there must be some outside income for these corps to even bother with producing goods. I don't see how a corp could survive with most of it's money flow being involved in one big circle-jerk. Granted I'm not an economist, but someone has to buy all those cool wizbang gadgets, and it isn't the government with all their productive taxpayers now paying taxes to their own corporations. Seems more possible if even the megacorps

Quote
Even today, productivity has been trending way up since the 1970's, typical wage earner income is flat (or falling depending on your income bracket. With minimum wage falling behind inflation, minimum wage earners are worse off every year) and the income of the top 1% has increased by over 200%. They are getting more out of us than ever before, and are giving you less in return.
The main reason for this is inflation, which is printed by the Federal Reserve. As far as personal wealth of individuals, it's hard to claim that people are poorer overall, with the amount of convenience at the fingertips of the average consumer. Although their cars were better up until 1973 IMO. 8)

Productivity is largely up due to technology; agriculture being a prime example of this, .

But that's a discussion for another forum.



 
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: ImaginalDisc on <09-06-13/1119:39>
By 2070 in Shadowrun, corps have almost entirely displaced nations. They drive econonomies and get you coming and going. Companies conspire against one another, but are united in extracting every fraction of a nuyen out of people through every microtransaction. Most corporate wage-slaves turn over all or most of their income back to the corporation because most of their economic activity is channeled through the company store or company script.

Gotcha. The issue is that there must be some outside income for these corps to even bother with producing goods. I don't see how a corp could survive with most of it's money flow being involved in one big circle-jerk. Granted I'm not an economist, but someone has to buy all those cool wizbang gadgets, and it isn't the government with all their productive taxpayers now paying taxes to their own corporations. Seems more possible if even the megacorps

Economics is not my area of expertise, so I may be off base here. However, as long as party A is providing goods and services party B wants, and party B has goods and services party A wants in exchange, an enconomy can function.

Quote
Even today, productivity has been trending way up since the 1970's, typical wage earner income is flat (or falling depending on your income bracket. With minimum wage falling behind inflation, minimum wage earners are worse off every year) and the income of the top 1% has increased by over 200%. They are getting more out of us than ever before, and are giving you less in return.
The main reason for this is inflation, which is printed by the Federal Reserve. As far as personal wealth of individuals, it's hard to claim that people are poorer overall, with the amount of convenience at the fingertips of the average consumer. Although their cars were better up until 1973 IMO. 8)

Productivity is largely up due to technology; agriculture being a prime example of this, .

But that's a discussion for another forum. [/quote]

You raise several points.

1. Is wealth the same as confort? No. I am a lower-middle class wage earner in early 21st century America.

2. That is not the same as standard of living. My standard of living is leaps and bound ahead of what King Henry VIII enjoyed. However, *he* controlled a far greater share of the wealth of his time than I ever will. Wealth disparity influences how big of a slice of the pie you get, technology influences what's in your pie, and inflation influences the price of that pie.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-06-13/1120:40>
You raise fair points, but Shadowrun is an exageration of (actual or percieved) dytpoian trends of isolation, inequality, and powerlessness. If an Areas accountant, who considers herself fortunate to have an AAA corporate exec SIN was born and raised in Ares home, educated in an Ares school, owes a debt to Ares for her Ares private university education, drives an Ares subsidiary's car, eats Ares (subsidiary) foods, and essentially rolls over her entire income back to the company, who controls the wealth she generates through her labor?

Oh, I know in SR she's totally living within a microcosm that is what we would consider a communist state, with the Corp being the central planning authority responsible for the means of production. The problem is that such states are not sustainable with any quality in their standard of living; but maybe that's the point.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: ImaginalDisc on <09-06-13/1130:09>
You raise fair points, but Shadowrun is an exaggeration of (actual or perceived) dystopian trends of isolation, inequality, and powerlessness. If an Areas accountant, who considers herself fortunate to have an AAA corporate exec SIN was born and raised in Ares home, educated in an Ares school, owes a debt to Ares for her Ares private university education, drives an Ares subsidiary's car, eats Ares (subsidiary) foods, and essentially rolls over her entire income back to the company, who controls the wealth she generates through her labor?

Oh, I know in SR she's totally living within a microcosm that is what we would consider a communist state, with the Corp being the central planning authority responsible for the means of production. The problem is that such states are not sustainable with any quality in their standard of living; but maybe that's the point.

It's not *quite* communist, but close. The corp is controlling innovation, the acquisition of raw materials, transportation, manufacturing, administration costs, everything. They are taking the profit at every level of economic activity.

However, unlike a communist state they aren't stagnant. They are exploiting their workers/customers/citizens/valued resources ruthlessly and have tilted the tables in favor of employers over employees, but they have to compete aggressively with the nine other megas and all the smaller corps nipping at their heels.

Let's say Ares is forcing (or enticing) their employees who are in the market for a new car to buy the latest Ford Americar. If they produce it as a cost of $20,000, and their employees (using their generous company script discounts) buy it at $25,000, then the company pockets $5000 out of their own employees. Win.

However, if a rival mega corp forces (or incentives) their own employees to buy their Mercury Comet (an equivalent vehicle) at $24,000 and they produce it at a cost of only 18,000, they are raking in $6000 and are at a big competitive advantage as compared to Ares.

The megas are playing a big game where to increase their chances for success, they make you lose, chummer.

They say that every poker game has a chump, and if you don't know who it is at your table, it's you.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-06-13/1203:40>
It's not *quite* communist, but close. The corp is controlling innovation, the acquisition of raw materials, transportation, manufacturing, administration costs, everything. They are taking the profit at every level of economic activity.

However, unlike a communist state they aren't stagnant. They are exploiting their workers/customers/citizens/valued resources ruthlessly and have tilted the tables in favor of employers over employees, but they have to compete aggressively with the nine other megas and all the smaller corps nipping at their heels.

Let's say Ares is forcing (or enticing) their employees who are in the market for a new car to buy the latest Ford Americar. If they produce it as a cost of $20,000, and their employees (using their generous company script discounts) buy it at $25,000, then the company pockets $5000 out of their own employees. Win.
Not really a win. Money shuffles from one department to another in your example. No new wealth is created or even infused. The numbers change on the Excel/PowerPoint/whatever they use in SR, but it's really just an illusion. Add to that the fact that closed systems stagnate; while they may see some short-term benefit, they couldn't keep it up.

In that light, the question still remains, that with all this misery, where does the money come from? Not themselves. The CC has to be cooking the books and printing Nuyen on a level that makes Ben Bernanke and the communist Chinese look like a bunch of noobs. Which not sustainable whatsoever.

Quote
However, if a rival mega corp forces (or incentives) their own employees to buy their Mercury Comet (an equivalent vehicle) at $24,000 and they produce it at a cost of only 18,000, they are raking in $6000 and are at a big competitive advantage as compared to Ares.
Which is my point. Mercury and the people that moved and sold it have introduced new revenue, that is a win.

Quote
The megas are playing a big game where to increase their chances for success, they make you lose, chummer.
Not really, because someone has a new car.  8)

Quote
They say that every poker game has a chump, and if you don't know who it is at your table, it's you.
What we are talking about isn't a poker game, just as sound economics aren't based on a dumb pie chart.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Wakshaani on <09-06-13/1227:47>
BTW, have the sourcebooks stated what the percentage of citizens (world or within a specific nation) that work for a AA and up, or even a AAA corp?

Not exactly, tho you can find "% corporate affiliated" in some sourcebooks. Since some corps (Like Aztechnology) hide their numbers, and since Shadowrun kind of has history with fuzzy demographics (Hello, NAN!), it's not the most reliable thing. It's what we have to work with, so you do what you can. Better to leave it for individual GMs, letting them set the level of 'wageslave slider' on their own game.

Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Sendaz on <09-06-13/1238:36>
Plus with all the shadowruns going on, there is a ludicrously high turn over rate for security guards who end up shot, maimed, mind raped, blown up, liquefied, and other nasty ends.

Some corps don't even bother fixing the armor they salv--err  recovered off the last sec team outside of a disinfectant rinse to try and get the majority of the blood stains out before sticking it on the new guys.

:P
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Angelone on <09-06-13/1244:56>
Yeah um, sorry about that I had a rough week and needed to work out some frustrations.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: ImaginalDisc on <09-06-13/1308:48>
Plus with all the shadowruns going on, there is a ludicrously high turn over rate for security guards who end up shot, maimed, mind raped, blown up, liquefied, and other nasty ends.

Some corps don't even bother fixing the armor they salv--err  recovered off the last sec team outside of a disinfectant rinse to try and get the majority of the blood stains out before sticking it on the new guys.

:P

How many Shadowrunners are there, really?

I always envisioned runners as perhaps 1 out of 100,000 to 1 out of 10,000. That way Seattle (population approx. 4,000,000) has between 40-400 active runners at any given time.

Even if 400 runners are commiting messy runs every month at a rate of one SINner death a month for 4800 deaths, that's a rate of 120 per 100,000. That's lighter than Ciudad Juarez!

Of course, that doesn't factor in all the *other* violence and crime Shadowrunners blend in with,
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: firebug on <09-06-13/1436:03>
How many runners there are is a number that will probably never be even close to given.  All I know is, despite being "less than 1% of the population", there's a lot of Awakened who are runners.  And a lot of SURGE victims who are runners.  And a lot of SURGE Awakened...
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: ImaginalDisc on <09-06-13/1514:02>
How many runners there are is a number that will probably never be even close to given.  All I know is, despite being "less than 1% of the population", there's a lot of Awakened who are runners.  And a lot of SURGE victims who are runners.  And a lot of SURGE Awakened...

What, misfits and outcasts becoming professional criminals? No way!
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: The Wyrm Ouroboros on <09-08-13/0225:53>
Children, children, let Papa Wyrm quote you a quote.  But first, drop your 'total dystopia' at the door; it doesn't actually fit into Shadowrun.  Cyberpunk, yes - but this isn't exactly Cyberpunk 2020, now, is it?

Quote from: Wobbly, Corporate Download, 2061, p. 16, rt. column, paragraph 2
The amount of assets the Big Ten claim is almost beyond scale, easily accounting for at least a quarter of the world's wealth (in all likelihood, this figure is much higher, especially if you estimate secret funds and hidden ownership).
If that number hit 40%, it would be obscenely high - and probably just about what Wobbly thinks is low.  (Wobbly is, by Captain Chaos' description, a 'retro-anarchist'.  In my estimation, his conservative estimates would be about my overestimates, so I'll call that 'about right' for our purposes.)  That is functionally 'for any iteration of the Big Ten'.  Yes, they've only gotten bigger, but you can only get so big before you cannot keep absolutely everything you acquire; a monopoly is a very rare beast indeed, and only ever seen locally.

People in the AAAs do not work 13-16 hour shifts (that's your "8 to 9" shift, "plus a couple/three hours overtime to show your loyalty) for 6 days a week, and this isn't because they'd rebel; it's because the human body can't handle that level of toil without crapping out sooner instead of later.  By sooner I mean 'two weeks', not 'two months and you get a new wageslave'.  The body shuts down.  People in crap jobs in what was Costa Rica and in the Philippines and Malaysia and the Ivory Coast work 10-12 hours a day five days a week; a lot of manager-sorts in fast food in the US do that, and are 'required' to do it (or are required to be scheduled for it, anyhow).  Even that takes a toll, but it's survivable.  13-16 hour days six days in a row, a day to 'recover' ... the body can't handle it.

(N.B. - yes, I know the stats out of the workhouses in the Industrial Age.  They didn't change because management felt sorry for the workers, they changed because workers were getting revenge, and giving them lighter schedules was less expensive than replacing their Very Expensive machines.)

The AAAs are where everyone wants to be.  The corporate drones work 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week.  The loyal ones put in an extra hour or two and  work a half-day on Day 6 to boot.  Drones don't want to get the boot (especially if they've been raised in the corp!!) because they don't know how to handle not being in that structure - but despite that panic, if they get the boot, yeah, they'll be on the street - but they're exactly the sort that A-corp is hunting for, and will get snapped up well ahead of Lug the Trog From West Albania St. in Puyallup.

And y'know what?  Drone Z, who's experienced that three weeks of pinching pennies and eating flavorless soy and major, major panic and how am I going to survive the rest of my life, is going to become one of the Loyal Ones because he never never ever wants to risk that again.

How much wealth do the other corporations control?  Get down to it, how much wealth do they control today?  We can say that 'the top 5% control 95% of the world's wealth', but that's done by way of corporations - and really, that isn't going to have changed much if at all.  Damien Knight doesn't have a billion nuyen stuffed under his mattress any more than Oprah Winfrey does; they have it invested.  They're worth billions on paper, but the paper that represents those billions is invested - in corporations, in control of corporations.  Or, from another angle, those corporations control those billions in wealth.

Similarly, wealth that doesn't move isn't wealth - it's money in a piggybank.  I pay you $1.00 for NERPS, and I pay $0.09 to move that NERPS down the street, where I sell that NERPS for $1.11.  I've just made $0.02 - but I've only done so by paying you $1.00, and the gas and transport people $0.09.  I've invested my wealth, recouped my investment, and made a profit.  That can't happen unless ... I buy NERPS from you in the first place, and make my wealth move.

Meanwhile, you got $1.00, and the little guys got $0.09, of which the gas company got $0.05, the transport people got $0.03, and the guy who did the actual transporting got $0.01.  His entire paycheck is only equal to half of my profit ... but, poor sod, that's how I make my living, and that's how he makes his.  Be damn sure he'll be back at your docks tomorrow to pick up the NERPS I'm purchasing from you then, because that IS his living, even if it takes him nine hours to get NERPS from Point A to Point B.

And yes, if he quits, we can find another driver - but that disrupts the flow for a bit, and by gum people want their NERPS and they want them now.  If I kill Transport Guy off by working him too hard, or if I have to train Street Guy to become Transport Guy, that's going to squeeze the flow of NERPS, and reduce MY opportunity to make profit by selling the public NERPS.  (BTW - NERPS on sale, now only $1.10.  Buy today!)  I want TG to work his ass off to make that $0.01 - but not so hard that he croaks, or gets sick, or gets fed up and blows up either my shop, his truck, or your NERPS production facility.

It's all about profit - or as the Chromed Accountant says, "It's all about dollars and sense."  Dead/sick/PO'd employees don't make a profit.  Yes, we can tell them how good they have it compared to the people 'out there', but while the Big Ten corporations control 40% of the world's wealth, they don't control 40% of the world's population.  At a general estimate, Renraku had 100,000 citizens in Seattle; we know that there were 90,000 of them inside the Arcology when it blew.  100,000 out of 3,000,000+ = 3.33%.  Lower, because that ballpark figure IS a minimum.  And Renraku was one of, if not the, most significant corporate presences in Seattle, all because of that great Arcology experiment.

Yes, they control lots of people; no, it's not going to be equivalent to their control over the world's wealth, because then what the frag's the point?  The idea is to gain MORE of the pie, not 'just enough for your slice of the people'...

ImaginalDisc, someone once came up with some interesting ballpark figures about that.  This was pre-4th, and might've been pre-3rd, but it boiled down to 60-120 shadowrunning teams: 60 mages and deckers; 120 adepts and riggers; and 300 muscle of various other flavors.  Obviously, it's implied that mages and deckers would tend to work for more than one group, or work for one and sometimes 'hire out' to others, but ...
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: ImaginalDisc on <09-08-13/0917:06>
Children, children, let Papa Wyrm quote you a quote.  But first, drop your 'total dystopia' at the door; it doesn't actually fit into Shadowrun.  Cyberpunk, yes - but this isn't exactly Cyberpunk 2020, now, is it?

Quote from: Wobbly, Corporate Download, 2061, p. 16, rt. column, paragraph 2
The amount of assets the Big Ten claim is almost beyond scale, easily accounting for at least a quarter of the world's wealth (in all likelihood, this figure is much higher, especially if you estimate secret funds and hidden ownership).
If that number hit 40%, it would be obscenely high - and probably just about what Wobbly thinks is low.  (Wobbly is, by Captain Chaos' description, a 'retro-anarchist'.  In my estimation, his conservative estimates would be about my overestimates, so I'll call that 'about right' for our purposes.)  That is functionally 'for any iteration of the Big Ten'.  Yes, they've only gotten bigger, but you can only get so big before you cannot keep absolutely everything you acquire; a monopoly is a very rare beast indeed, and only ever seen locally.

Yeay for citation! Is there more than just that to go on, though? It's the details that interest me and help me as a GM create setting.

Quote
People in the AAAs do not work 13-16 hour shifts (that's your "8 to 9" shift, "plus a couple/three hours overtime to show your loyalty) for 6 days a week, and this isn't because they'd rebel; it's because the human body can't handle that level of toil without crapping out sooner instead of later.  By sooner I mean 'two weeks', not 'two months and you get a new wageslave'.  The body shuts down.  People in crap jobs in what was Costa Rica and in the Philippines and Malaysia and the Ivory Coast work 10-12 hours a day five days a week; a lot of manager-sorts in fast food in the US do that, and are 'required' to do it (or are required to be scheduled for it, anyhow).  Even that takes a toll, but it's survivable.  13-16 hour days six days in a row, a day to 'recover' ... the body can't handle it.

(N.B. - yes, I know the stats out of the workhouses in the Industrial Age.  They didn't change because management felt sorry for the workers, they changed because workers were getting revenge, and giving them lighter schedules was less expensive than replacing their Very Expensive machines.)

The AAAs are where everyone wants to be.  The corporate drones work 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week.  The loyal ones put in an extra hour or two and  work a half-day on Day 6 to boot.  Drones don't want to get the boot (especially if they've been raised in the corp!!) because they don't know how to handle not being in that structure - but despite that panic, if they get the boot, yeah, they'll be on the street - but they're exactly the sort that A-corp is hunting for, and will get snapped up well ahead of Lug the Trog From West Albania St. in Puyallup.

Actually I was looking for evidence of brutal hours in the pre-industrial world and I found entirely the opposite.

"The labouring man will take his rest long in the morning; a good piece of the day is spent afore he come at his work; then he must have his breakfast, though he have not earned it at his accustomed hour, or else there is grudging and murmuring; when the clock smiteth, he will cast down his burden in the midway, and whatsoever he is in hand with, he will leave it as it is, though many times it is marred afore he come again; he may not lose his meat, what danger soever the work is in. At noon he must have his sleeping time, then his bever in the afternoon, which spendeth a great part of the day; and when his hour cometh at night, at the first stroke of the clock he casteth down his tools, leaveth his work, in what need or case soever the work standeth.
        -James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham, ca. 1570"
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html  (http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html)

12-16 hour days arose in the Industrial revolution, but dropped away for most workers. Not only did unions fight back, but it hurt productivity.


This is a sweet gapminder graph showing a negative correlation between hours worked and productivity.

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html

Quote
And y'know what?  Drone Z, who's experienced that three weeks of pinching pennies and eating flavorless soy and major, major panic and how am I going to survive the rest of my life, is going to become one of the Loyal Ones because he never never ever wants to risk that again.

How much wealth do the other corporations control?  Get down to it, how much wealth do they control today?  We can say that 'the top 5% control 95% of the world's wealth', but that's done by way of corporations - and really, that isn't going to have changed much if at all.  Damien Knight doesn't have a billion nuyen stuffed under his mattress any more than Oprah Winfrey does; they have it invested.  They're worth billions on paper, but the paper that represents those billions is invested - in corporations, in control of corporations.  Or, from another angle, those corporations control those billions in wealth.

Similarly, wealth that doesn't move isn't wealth - it's money in a piggybank.  I pay you $1.00 for NERPS, and I pay $0.09 to move that NERPS down the street, where I sell that NERPS for $1.11.  I've just made $0.02 - but I've only done so by paying you $1.00, and the gas and transport people $0.09.  I've invested my wealth, recouped my investment, and made a profit.  That can't happen unless ... I buy NERPS from you in the first place, and make my wealth move.

Meanwhile, you got $1.00, and the little guys got $0.09, of which the gas company got $0.05, the transport people got $0.03, and the guy who did the actual transporting got $0.01.  His entire paycheck is only equal to half of my profit ... but, poor sod, that's how I make my living, and that's how he makes his.  Be damn sure he'll be back at your docks tomorrow to pick up the NERPS I'm purchasing from you then, because that IS his living, even if it takes him nine hours to get NERPS from Point A to Point B.

And yes, if he quits, we can find another driver - but that disrupts the flow for a bit, and by gum people want their NERPS and they want them now.  If I kill Transport Guy off by working him too hard, or if I have to train Street Guy to become Transport Guy, that's going to squeeze the flow of NERPS, and reduce MY opportunity to make profit by selling the public NERPS.  (BTW - NERPS on sale, now only $1.10.  Buy today!)  I want TG to work his ass off to make that $0.01 - but not so hard that he croaks, or gets sick, or gets fed up and blows up either my shop, his truck, or your NERPS production facility.

It's all about profit - or as the Chromed Accountant says, "It's all about dollars and sense."  Dead/sick/PO'd employees don't make a profit.  Yes, we can tell them how good they have it compared to the people 'out there', but while the Big Ten corporations control 40% of the world's wealth, they don't control 40% of the world's population.  At a general estimate, Renraku had 100,000 citizens in Seattle; we know that there were 90,000 of them inside the Arcology when it blew.  100,000 out of 3,000,000+ = 3.33%.  Lower, because that ballpark figure IS a minimum.  And Renraku was one of, if not the, most significant corporate presences in Seattle, all because of that great Arcology experiment.

Yes, they control lots of people; no, it's not going to be equivalent to their control over the world's wealth, because then what the frag's the point?  The idea is to gain MORE of the pie, not 'just enough for your slice of the people'...

ImaginalDisc, someone once came up with some interesting ballpark figures about that.  This was pre-4th, and might've been pre-3rd, but it boiled down to 60-120 shadowrunning teams: 60 mages and deckers; 120 adepts and riggers; and 300 muscle of various other flavors.  Obviously, it's implied that mages and deckers would tend to work for more than one group, or work for one and sometimes 'hire out' to others, but ...

That comes to 1 in 8333 people being a Shadowrunner in a city like Seattle (Pop 4 million according to the wiki.) That's workable. That's not a very large Shadow economy. Now I'm doing back of the envelope calculations on much much wealth goes through their hands a year and it's impressive, but not enough to make corps try to squeeze out such useful deniable assets.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: grid_roamer on <09-08-13/1219:21>
You raise fair points, but Shadowrun is an exageration of (actual or percieved) dytpoian trends of isolation, inequality, and powerlessness. If an Areas accountant, who considers herself fortunate to have an AAA corporate exec SIN was born and raised in Ares home, educated in an Ares school, owes a debt to Ares for her Ares private university education, drives an Ares subsidiary's car, eats Ares (subsidiary) foods, and essentially rolls over her entire income back to the company, who controls the wealth she generates through her labor?

Oh, I know in SR she's totally living within a microcosm that is what we would consider a communist state, with the Corp being the central planning authority responsible for the means of production. The problem is that such states are not sustainable with any quality in their standard of living; but maybe that's the point.

I see the problem as the agenda of a central planning authority where there is no way to argue what an average person needs to live and how much. The law making process takes almost no heed of second party needs....

Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <09-08-13/2213:04>
Yep, living in 2075 really sucks.

The big boys on the block (the Megas) are constantly pushing the little boys down :( (everyone else)


But honestly lets look at everything (wyrm did a great job!)... First, while the Megas don't own everything, they own enough and have enough clout to get their way... and they know how to use it to their advantage! As others have stated, working for a Mega means that the average wageslave has hit the gravy train... as long as he produces! He gets corp health care, corp housing, Corp discounts on food, clothing, entertainment... the works. All that is expected of him is his soul :D So he works hard, puts in overtime without being asked, and plays at being the good little drone (if the corporate brainwashing didn't make him a good little drone to start with!)

And if he doesn't like it, he can leave! (as long as his contact allows him to!) and he can go work for someone else..... but who?

Once you drop down to the "A" rated corps or less, you lose A LOT of the things that the Megas provided. Like health care, food discounts, Housing, education and al the rest...... Suddenly *YOU* have to start paying for these things or go without. And in 2075 Going without is dangerous! (but can be done)

******

Now lets look at Society in general.. and we'll just stick to the UCAS (cause that is the center of the SR universe... )


A large percentage of the population simply can not read anymore... Technology has made Reading and Reading Comprehension a moot point. you don't need to be able to read to operate a commlink.. you just have to be able to "understand" the symbols (the power button on my laptop is a great example.. no where does it say "power" but I know that the circle with a line in the top means "power")

Equality and "human rights" have both taken huge steps forward and backward.... No longer to *I* care that your skin color is darker then mine... *I* care about the 10 foot guy with hands that could palm a basketball and the strength of 3 average men... not to mention the horns, tusks, and dermal deposits means he barely looks human!

There is work to be done... and then there is Jobs... and then there are careers.... Work is done by with wonderful thing called "technology". No longer do companies have to hire, train, and pay workers to stock shelves, move freight, or anyone of a hundred other tasks.... a drone can do all that 20 hours a day 7 days a week for weeks at a time before maintenance is needed (and then it is minimal) all for the cost of half a year's wages that would have been paid to a meat worker, for half the productivity! (so there goes a lot of moderate paying jobs right out of the gate!)

Unions exist still....as shadows of themselves. They only come into play on companies big enough to need mass labour and can not fold to avoid them, but become totally mute one a AA+ company..... Those companies can write their own rulebook.. and those rules say "NO UNIONS! NO LABOR ORGANIZATIONS, NO WORKER'S ALLIANCE!!!"... and cause they write the rules... the consequence of trying to organize or unionize could be anything from being fired to "enforced volunteering" for medical genome research ("expected survival rate? 2%. But you'll have nifty purple skin tone!!)

Sure, there are hundreds of small mom and Pop, and even companies with 100s of employees (the Megas can't absorb everything... not that they would want to!) but when you look at the effort involved in working there VS the effort of working for a Mega, the advantages of the Mega VS the "smaller guy".. the question becomes, "why wouldn't you work for a Mega??" Same hours of work, but the megas "provide" so much more!





And we havn't even touched on things like access to education, SINs and how they work, how the UCAS operates, and what people expect VS what is actually out there.... In short, to the average wageslave, a Megacorp is the golden apple to shoot for, and everything else is uncertainty and desperation.   


Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: GiraffeShaman on <09-09-13/1605:04>
There's also Megacorp patriotism. People grow up in a Mega and believe they are the Good Guys. Perhaps the ONLY Good Guys.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: FastJack on <09-09-13/1829:07>
Please remember to keep real-world statistics and politics out of the discussions regarding the Sixth World. Bringing in articles written in real-world publications to speculate on the Sixth World policies strides dangerously close to crossing the line.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <09-09-13/1840:04>
There's also Megacorp patriotism. People grow up in a Mega and believe they are the Good Guys. Perhaps the ONLY Good Guys.

What you talking about????


Everyone who is ANYONE knows that Ares IS the only good corp :D
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Mirikon on <09-09-13/2015:23>
There's also Megacorp patriotism. People grow up in a Mega and believe they are the Good Guys. Perhaps the ONLY Good Guys.

What you talking about????


Everyone who is ANYONE knows that Ares IS the only good corp :D
Buzz buzz.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Angelone on <09-09-13/2016:32>
Ares interest in Angel Towers frightens me.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Mirikon on <09-09-13/2019:02>
Ares interest in Angel Towers frightens me.
Would it frighten you more or less if Aztechnology was interested in Angel Towers?

*bloody buzz buzz*
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: All4BigGuns on <09-09-13/2027:50>
Ares interest in Angel Towers frightens me.
Would it frighten you more or less if Aztechnology was interested in Angel Towers?

*bloody buzz buzz*

Blood-Invoked Wasp Spirits :D
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: ImaginalDisc on <09-09-13/2340:38>
Please remember to keep real-world statistics and politics out of the discussions regarding the Sixth World. Bringing in articles written in real-world publications to speculate on the Sixth World policies strides dangerously close to crossing the line.

Sorry, Fastjack. I'm not trying to start a political discussion about which economic or political doctrine is better, I'm just trying to get a mental handle on what the Sixth world's economic situation is like for the average SINner.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Basic on <09-10-13/0341:52>
Wage slaves

(http://24.media.tumblr.com/2c3051945f140b3b426b8806524e5078/tumblr_msmw2iDFrg1swr0eao7_500.jpg)
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-10-13/1812:36>
Now don't anyone take this the wrong way...but from what I gather, there's similarities between the life of a corp employee and a modern garrison military, minus the obvious. 

Life starts at 6-630am, goes until at least 5-6pm, often later, depending on mission. You are also expected to support after-hours unit functions (we jokingly call this "mandatory fun").
Healthcare is provided (although not the greatest).
Housing is provided for single soldiers. Married soldiers have the option of living on-post (again not always the best, but decent with few exceptions).
There is at least an elementary school for those who live on-post. Depending on the size and location of the post, there might be middle or the rare high school.
There are clothing stores, commissaries, and access to a PX, though you are not required to shop at them; and often you can get better prices in civilian stores.
There are codes and regulations on personal conduct and dress (even while in civilians on-post).
You are expected to attend civilian education, and show a general dedication to personal growth; especially of you expect to reach the senior ranks (E-7 and up).

Again there are significant differences.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Black on <09-10-13/1841:18>
Now don't anyone take this the wrong way...but from what I gather, there's similarities between the life of a corp employee and a modern garrison military, minus the obvious. 

Life starts at 6-630am, goes until at least 5-6pm, often later, depending on mission. You are also expected to support after-hours unit functions (we jokingly call this "mandatory fun").
Healthcare is provided (although not the greatest).
Housing is provided for single soldiers. Married soldiers have the option of living on-post (again not always the best, but decent with few exceptions).
There is at least an elementary school for those who live on-post. Depending on the size and location of the post, there might be middle or the rare high school.
There are clothing stores, commissaries, and access to a PX, though you are not required to shop at them; and often you can get better prices in civilian stores.
There are codes and regulations on personal conduct and dress (even while in civilians on-post).
You are expected to attend civilian education, and show a general dedication to personal growth; especially of you expect to reach the senior ranks (E-7 and up).

Again there are significant differences.
.
Not a bad comparrison.  Only major difference is the definition of 'personal growth'.  Suspect its 'personal growth in a manner which increases to quality/quantity of your contribution to the corporate family'... so art classes, maybe not, advanced software design classes, yeah,that's supported.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: RHat on <09-10-13/1844:30>
so art classes, maybe not, advanced software design classes, yeah,that's supported.

Unless those art classes mean that you can better communicate with the art department, helping projects progress more smoothly.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Black on <09-10-13/1900:32>
so art classes, maybe not, advanced software design classes, yeah,that's supported.

Unless those art classes mean that you can better communicate with the art department, helping projects progress more smoothly.
Perhaps.  Could be a case of the Corp recommending a list of appropriate personal growth options based on your level and role within the company.  So if a sufficent business case can be written and approved by the right person for your art class, then its all good.    I wonder how agile movement within the corporation is once you are embedded in a particular role?  Many corporations today create a culture of support for movement within the company, because its far less expensive and recruits are often a better 'fit' if they are recruited from within.  But does a similar culture exist in 2075?  Does the corp go 'well, if may be a production drone repair assistant, but if he as aspiration for marketing, lets support him' or does the corp go 'a miniion from the production lines whats a corporate job in marketing far beyond his station, lets crush his dreams' ?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: RHat on <09-10-13/1902:11>
so art classes, maybe not, advanced software design classes, yeah,that's supported.

Unless those art classes mean that you can better communicate with the art department, helping projects progress more smoothly.
Perhaps.  Could be a case of the Corp recommending a list of appropriate personal growth options based on your level and role within the company.  So if a sufficent business case can be written and approved by the right person for your art class, then its all good.    I wonder how agile movement within the corporation is once you are embedded in a particular role?  Many corporations today create a culture of support for movement within the company, because its far less expensive and recruits are often a better 'fit' if they are recruited from within.  But does a similar culture exist in 2075?  Does the corp go 'well, if may be a production drone repair assistant, but if he as aspiration for marketing, lets support him' or does the corp go 'a miniion from the production lines whats a corporate job in marketing far beyond his station, lets crush his dreams' ?

Well, it depends a bit on the balance between specialization and generalization that is ideal for that part of the corp - that does vary somewhat.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: GiraffeShaman on <09-10-13/1902:49>
Also loyalty is far more imortant than competence or productivity, especially among the lower ranks. So things like classes that do nothing but raise morale and increase loyalty are probaly common. intermediate Ares History and Chain of Command Policies 201.

Notice how literacy is dying, Partly this is because it's no longer needed, but partly this is by design by the Corps.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <09-11-13/0017:01>
so art classes, maybe not, advanced software design classes, yeah,that's supported.

Unless those art classes mean that you can better communicate with the art department, helping projects progress more smoothly.
Perhaps.  Could be a case of the Corp recommending a list of appropriate personal growth options based on your level and role within the company.  So if a sufficent business case can be written and approved by the right person for your art class, then its all good.    I wonder how agile movement within the corporation is once you are embedded in a particular role?  Many corporations today create a culture of support for movement within the company, because its far less expensive and recruits are often a better 'fit' if they are recruited from within.  But does a similar culture exist in 2075?  Does the corp go 'well, if may be a production drone repair assistant, but if he as aspiration for marketing, lets support him' or does the corp go 'a miniion from the production lines whats a corporate job in marketing far beyond his station, lets crush his dreams' ?

Corporate Guild for 4e does a great job of breaking that all down by corporation.
For some, any position below CEO/CFO was mutable. One project you're the manager of 20 people, the next you're the coffee boy.... As voted by your peers!
Others make the feudal system look flexible!
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Wakshaani on <09-11-13/0901:47>
Yeah, teh Horizon system of voting people up or down is tres interesting. Since creativity and interpersonal skills/community support are so valuable, you find that the vast majority of the workforce is chipped. That way, you can recompartmentalize as needed, slotting teh right skillsets for whatever position you're filling without a big need for training/retraining. CRunchtime to ship your product for the holidays? Management can drop down to shipping, upload the right skills, and load trucks like ten year loading dock vets. Bigwigs taking a tour tomorrow? Everyone gets janitorial skills and sets to making the place sparkle. Want a team building excercise? Everyone slots up some Athletics programs and goes on a zipline safari. Shaka-brah!

Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Crunch on <09-11-13/0931:25>
Horizon's model is strongly based on the corporate model in Sterling's Islands in the Net. It's dated, but has some great ideas for potential Horizon GMs.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Mirikon on <09-15-13/1734:20>
Yeah, teh Horizon system of voting people up or down is tres interesting. Since creativity and interpersonal skills/community support are so valuable, you find that the vast majority of the workforce is chipped. That way, you can recompartmentalize as needed, slotting teh right skillsets for whatever position you're filling without a big need for training/retraining. CRunchtime to ship your product for the holidays? Management can drop down to shipping, upload the right skills, and load trucks like ten year loading dock vets. Bigwigs taking a tour tomorrow? Everyone gets janitorial skills and sets to making the place sparkle. Want a team building excercise? Everyone slots up some Athletics programs and goes on a zipline safari. Shaka-brah!
Actually, one of the books says that this is indeed the case in Horizon, where workers are encouraged to get skillwires, and have free access to Horizon's skillsoft database while they're on the clock.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: CanRay on <09-15-13/2209:56>
Actually, one of the books says that this is indeed the case in Horizon, where workers are encouraged to get skillwires, and have free access to Horizon's skillsoft database while they're on the clock.
For more information on how/why this is bad... (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/112345/Shadowrun%3A-Sim-Dreams-%26-Nightmares)  ;D
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Wakshaani on <09-16-13/1002:16>
Actually, one of the books says that this is indeed the case in Horizon, where workers are encouraged to get skillwires, and have free access to Horizon's skillsoft database while they're on the clock.

Well yes. I wrote that. :D
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Angelone on <09-16-13/2241:12>
How much of Horizon's workers are skillwired up? Could be a lot of future addicts out there. I'm curious if the effects of skillwires are known and those that have them are kept in lower position than their nonwired peers.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Wakshaani on <09-17-13/0959:30>
How much of Horizon's workers are skillwired up? Could be a lot of future addicts out there. I'm curious if the effects of skillwires are known and those that have them are kept in lower position than their nonwired peers.

Fully 90% of Horizon employees have skillwires, with that number broken down as follows:

80% have Skillwires (2)
18% have Skilwires (3, Alpha)
2% have Skillwires (4, Beta)
(SR 4 numbers, SR 5 would be 2, 4, and 5.)

Only high-ranking, named NPCs will be found will Skillwires (5 in SR 4, 6 in SR 5), which would be Beta grade.

The SIngularity system allows them to wirelessly access skillsofts as needed, with in-work use being free and out-of-work use being charged (but at a discount). With SR5 rules, go ahead and add a SKilljack of 4, 5 (Alpha), and 6 (Beta) to the above slots as well. (Horizon doesn't have a Delta-grade faciity. The CEO and board members who are interested have to go to other corps for that.)

Also keep in mind that the Horizon Matrix runs at CalHot levels, which is a stronger, buzzier level than the standard Matrix connection. Horizon employees come down with Matrix addiction more commonly than other corps, but they're pretty much okay with that. The increased Matrix strength was nice for the technomancers (oops) and continues to be a good place for Artificial Intelligences, making for better 'nests' than in other corporations.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Angelone on <09-17-13/1058:57>
Thanks, that's pretty scary stuff right there. It explains a lot of the cultish vibe I get off of them.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Wakshaani on <09-17-13/2312:22>
What's scary about being a replacable universal part that can be moved around and plugged into whatever module is needed at the time?

Some people are so paranoid...
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Black on <09-18-13/0137:56>
What's scary about being a replacable universal part that can be moved around and plugged into whatever module is needed at the time?

Some people are so paranoid...

I think it provides career mobility.  Tired of maintaince on the drones and want some artificial sunlight?  Give gardening a try!  Move from job to job, simply plug in new skill soft as required!  Never be made redundant again, simply be retooled and redeployed! Yeah!  ;D
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: ImaginalDisc on <09-18-13/0208:28>
IMO, it's extra depersonalizing, Black. A regular company treats you as a particular set of skills. Horizon treat you as hardware for skill software. "You" are totally irrelevant. Your personality isn't even a valuable investment for them.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Magnaric on <09-18-13/0911:27>
Sure makes it easier to standardize and keep things in the company though. And technically it's win-win, if you think about it from a Corporate point of view.

Horizon gets to move people from department to department as they see fit, as each worker is guaranteed to fit into said position because of the skillwires. Now, obviously the individual employees value their personalities and things that differentiate them from each other, but that's why there's external non-work related activities and Horizon corp matchmaking and such.

Basically every employee becomes like a character in The Sims. They have their own set of skills, that are in this case reprogrammable, but they have a random assortment of traits and flaws and quirks and such. So you line them up in your Human Resources dossier, sort them by interests and hobbies(as well as turn-ons and turn-offs for matchmaking), and then try to place them with people they'll get along and be happy, productive employees with.

So as long as they are okay doing whatever the corp needs them to, the corp can see to it that they are matched with people with similar interests, personalities, music preferences, etc, which in turn keeps them happy to do whatever Horizon needs them to do, etc etc, thus the wheel keeps turning.

Drek, I sound like a Horizon employee.  :P
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Crunch on <09-18-13/0925:02>
Any information on the effects the Nanotech collapse had on all those skillwired meatdrones?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Wakshaani on <09-18-13/0937:55>
Any information on the effects the Nanotech collapse had on all those skillwired meatdrones?

Pretty much nothing. Skillwires don't have nanomachines running around and doing stuff in them. When they're first installed, you have nanomachines that help make neural connections and whatnot, but they do their job in a day or two, die, and get flushed out the kidneys by the time you're in outpatient. If something goes wrong, some would be used to make repairs but, same situation.

The Nanopcoalypse screwed up deployment of new people, mind you. "Yeah, go work in, uh. Accounting I guess? No, wait. Marketing. We'll put you in marketing until the tables are open again. I think. Damnit, somebody get this man some 'wires!" They're having to use older, slower methods of installing cyber for now, getting in there manually. Luckily, they have people with Cybertechnology skillsofts for that. :D
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: GiraffeShaman on <09-21-13/1033:22>
Quote
Basically every employee becomes like a character in The Sims.
Hahah, I think that's why people found this creepy. Employees being treated like they are characters in the Sims.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Sendaz on <09-21-13/1458:27>
Especially when the corp made them wear the hats with the glowing green gem on top. :P
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <09-21-13/1650:27>
So this thread (http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=12843.0) got me thinking; what is the state of religion among corp employees?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Mirikon on <09-21-13/1740:19>
Depends on the corp. Shinto is a big thing among the Japanacorps (especially Shiawase, but Renraku is starting to pick up on it because Shinto brings with it Shinto magicians). Aztechnology obviously pushes their Path of the Sun religion. Wuxing's Feng Shui (or however it is spelled) is not really a religion, but same difference. The other megas don't embrace a religion like they do (unless you count Evo's EvoPeople and Horizon's... everything). Of all the megas, I'd have to say that MCT and S-K would be the least religious. Ares and NeoNET don't have any specific policies on it that I know of.

Of course, that's for the corp as a whole. As far as individuals go, as long as it doesn't interfere with the bottom line, the corps usually won't bother people, especially if it keeps them happy and productive (or at least productive). Religions and magic walk hand in hand, since many of the magical traditions have religious trappings, so you'll probably find a higher percentage of religious followers amongst the wagemages.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: CanRay on <09-22-13/0041:53>
Ares is a good, old fashioned, American Corporation, and is honestly allowing all followers and beliefs to work for us.

As long as they're Christian.  ;D

Honestly, they probably got a lot better after Canada joined.  ;)
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Mirikon on <09-22-13/0752:32>
Well, Ares is getting increasingly more about a feeling of 'belonging'. Kindof like brotherhood, yeah?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Sendaz on <09-22-13/1753:07>


Honestly, they probably got a lot better after Canada joined.  ;)
They just needed all that maple syrup to feed the new bugtech. :P

Even bugs don't like soyrup.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: CanRay on <09-22-13/2302:17>
Even bugs don't like soyrup.
No one does.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Red Canti on <09-30-13/0336:27>
Well, Ares is getting increasingly more about a feeling of 'belonging'. Kindof like brotherhood, yeah?
You'd think by now they'd form some kind of defense against the fucking Bugs by now.

Maybe being taken over by Bug Spirits is good for morale or some shit.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: SpyroD on <09-30-13/0553:26>
Well, Ares is getting increasingly more about a feeling of 'belonging'. Kindof like brotherhood, yeah?
You'd think by now they'd form some kind of defense against the fucking Bugs by now.

Maybe being taken over by Bug Spirits is good for morale or some shit.

Oh yeah,ask that to Roger Soaring Owl
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lorebane24 on <10-16-13/0827:29>
I can't honestly say how it looks in most games, but I do tend do deviate from canon whenever I GM something.  I'm fairly new to GMing shadowrun, but in my own games, I'm trying to balance three ideas at all times:

1) The working conditions would be pretty terrible by today's standards.
2) The corps want to control people as much as they can and still get away with it.
3) The corps still rely on consumers to functions.  Maybe some more than others, and they certainly have other revenue streams, but by and large, when they make stuff, they need people to be able to afford it, and they need people to want it.  When so many people in 2075 are corporate drones, your work force is also your customer base.  They have to give people JUST enough leisure time that they can spend money on meager luxuries.

So here's how I like to play it: 10 hour work days have become the norm, and usually 6 days a week.  Now and again someone can score a job that's 12 hours a day for five days, and it's not too uncommon to see someone going for 12 hour days 6 days a week.  Early on in your career, your overtime is usually unpaid but you have to do it if you want to move up, but after a couple of years on the job you might get an overtime stipend that's something like 50% of your hourly rate.  I make no speculations on annual earnings, because I'm still not even sure how much I ought to give my runners.  I generally tend to NOT treat the Nuyen as being equivalent to the dollar though, because I've got go-gangers with rand razors and reaction enhancers running around.  Ultimately, though, retirement NEVER happens anymore.  The corps promise you a lot of benefits, but if you read the fine print you're only getting minimum coverage - but still enough to survive.  Even the lowest level drone is usually given very basic benefits, because that way they can spend most of their low salaries on consumer goods.  Even more common if they're paid in corporate scrip.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <10-16-13/1534:52>
Corps have to walk a tightrope....

IF they pay too little, or overwork their labor... that labor might just leave. Or worse, riot.

IF the working conditions are too dangerous, they will have diminished morale, and productivity. Not to mention dead or handicapped workers.

So, they have to shoot for a middle ground.... or make sure they fill in enough propagranda to make the employees believe they are being treated well.

The Corp Guide is an excellent book to show you just how far a Corp is willing to go to keep their employees docile and working...

Drugs, prostitution, Organized social/family/sporting events, "free" room and board, medical care....

All of these things cost the Corps money to do, but they do them to keep their employees happy docile and working.


Also consider that most manual labor jobs can be done with drones (janitorial staff replaced with cleaning drones, loaders at the warehouses and docks, etc) means that is only the people in the lowest of positions that the Corps can get away with wringing out ("If you don't work harder, we'll replace you with a drone! THEY work 20 hour days for weeks before they need a maintaince checkup!")
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: gyrobot on <07-15-14/0210:04>
Sorry to necro this, but this is an interesting read

But can't they just throw a bunch of wages in a brainwashing tank that makes them love their corporate master, send them back out? Unlike Drones, the human drone comes with in built fuzzy logic!

That said, another thing that is not seen in the real world is the wage slave probably gives even less shit with the poor/sinless than the average wageslave we have right now who would donate to causes to make themselves feel good. The Wageslave in the 6th world would see the sinless as some sort of cancer that they need to occasionally remove themselves. And thankfully tasers are legal self defense weapons so now you got a trigger happy wageslave zapping homeless sinless for shits and giggles just to get his power trip. I mean, the Sinless are treated even worse here than bums in the real world, at least the law would somewhat side with the bum if the sinner assaults the sinless, here the Sinner has the right to sin on the sinless so long the drek has a pulse.

Also, the Sinless wage slave has it even worse, not only there isn't a drone to replace you but your working conditions in a factory is literally fatal and there isn't even a form of compensation, you should be grateful that you are working an honest job, Trog.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Bruce on <07-22-14/1831:44>
Since the thread has been resurrected already

Lifestyle costs are a good way to look at wageslaves.  Your beginning level saririman is probably slightly above Low; the amenities would be the same, but cleaner and shinier, and security would definitely be better.  Middle managers can aspire to Middle + lifestyle.  Both would have Corp Grid access, although the entry-level employee might get more restricted access.  High lifestyles only come to senior management.

Note that 'lifestyle' does not equal 'pay'.  Corps would provide lodging, grid access, along with 'company picnics' (food and entertainment).  Lack of disposable income, combined with all basic amenities being met, makes for a workface that lacks the resources (and usually desire) to ever leave.

Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: MijRai on <07-22-14/2012:54>
I've got a somewhat macabre question regarding the norms of Shadowrun;

What's the suicide/attempted suicide rate sitting at in the 2070s?  I mean, we know the world is worse, life sucks, over-work and other issues that ruin quality of life are around, etc.  On top of that, magic is real (with lots of bad things involved), there's been multiple decimations via pandemics, the two Crashes, etc.  Apocalyptic cults now have limited evidence supporting them, there's all the more room for Jim Jones-type events, etc.  Even your body isn't safe, with the possibility of SURGE, Goblinization, or HMHVV infection radically altering your body before your eye.  On the other hand, medical care should be improved by far in regards to mental health.  Has this resulted in an increase, a relatively same percentage, or even a decrease?  Does modern medicine save more attempts, or do modern method make it worse?  I know it's not a delightful topic by any means, but it's one of those things that can really impact any setting, but especially dystopias (and horror, if you spin it that way).
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <07-22-14/2147:06>
I've got a somewhat macabre question regarding the norms of Shadowrun;

What's the suicide/attempted suicide rate sitting at in the 2070s?  I mean, we know the world is worse, life sucks, over-work and other issues that ruin quality of life are around, etc.  On top of that, magic is real (with lots of bad things involved), there's been multiple decimations via pandemics, the two Crashes, etc.  Apocalyptic cults now have limited evidence supporting them, there's all the more room for Jim Jones-type events, etc.  Even your body isn't safe, with the possibility of SURGE, Goblinization, or HMHVV infection radically altering your body before your eye.  On the other hand, medical care should be improved by far in regards to mental health.  Has this resulted in an increase, a relatively same percentage, or even a decrease?  Does modern medicine save more attempts, or do modern method make it worse?  I know it's not a delightful topic by any means, but it's one of those things that can really impact any setting, but especially dystopias (and horror, if you spin it that way).

They don't go into that level of detail.... even crime (types and numbers) gets a big gloss over.... but I imagine it would be high.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: RHat on <07-22-14/2234:54>
There is one thing you can boil it down to - the strongest predictor for suicide is hopelessness; the question thus becomes to what extent does the average person in 2075 have hope that their personal situation might improve?  I imagine that for wage slaves, there's a certain extant to which that gets fostered, as part of how they keep people from wanting to abandon their corp.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: The Wyrm Ouroboros on <07-22-14/2324:37>
I'd say it's up - or it has been.  In part because of the Japanacorps' mode of 'we failed, we must expiate our failure and loss of honor via seppuku', in part because RHat is right in the idea (that hopelessness is the trigger for suicide) and ... not necessarily right in the execution.  Hopelessness has many causes.

Their overall personal situation improving?  That's less a cause than you might believe. Sure, that's a thing, but you can get used to anything, and there are thousands living in the Barrens areas, getting by every day one way or another, with one reason or another to live until tomorrow.  The most suicides there would come from the totally-devoted single wageslave that got turned out by the corporation (because it was no longer profitable to keep them), very early on in their post-corporate life - meaning within a week or so, just because of the shock.  Possibly even before they leave the corporate premesis - they get their pink slip on Friday, go to their corporate apartment to pack up, and just kill themselves instead.  That of course would lead to corporate 'mobility assistance' personnel packing their things FOR them and meeting them at the door out of the workplace, or just them having been escorted to the front gate, with all their stuff.  "Here you go, good luck."  Open a vein outside, not on corporate territory, where we're obliged to give a crap and a funeral.

Other concerns are more likely - not meeting a deadline, getting painted into a corner by rivals, that sort of thing.  The manager is confronted with a meeting in which he knows he's going to get canned, so ... he takes the easy way out, and kills himself.  Suicide-level despair tends to be more of an immediate-issue thing, not a long-term one.  It might be the cherry on top of a thoroughly-baked 'your life is crap' cake, but it's the immediate pressure thing that's still most likely to break the camel's back.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Senko on <07-23-14/0039:27>
Well I'll chip in my understanding (or at least how I intend to run it if I get time) is that the differing history (massive wars and bigotry, increased corporate control etc, major early domination by Japanocorps, old style values being resurected by beings who new them or people who idolize their idea of them) have shaped a very different business environment.

The first effect is that you've gone from a rich/poor dichotomy to more of a tiered or feudal structure. This gives us 4 categories of employee corporate, corporate restricted, national and sinless with different categories and benefits.

Tier 1 Corporate
General
These guys are trained, shaped and prepared from birth to serve their corporation as best as they can but in return because they are corporate they get huge benefits.
Pay and Hours
A corporate employee works a cushy normal job consisting of 36 hours per week with an OPTIONAL 20 hours overtime payed at either 1 for 1 days off or 200% pay. They are generally paid enough that they're able to live a medium lifestyle or a high one if they're particularly skillled/posses a unique skill set. The upper levels of management and those with untrainable uique skills (for example a mage with a rare area of expertise) get a package that allows them to live a luxury lifestyle.
Retention
So long as they aren't sacrificed to cover for a higher up they have a job for life either in their area of work or if it is removed they get retrained for another or either a small corner office to keep them out of the way or a nice retirement package if their too old to retrain.
Levels
S: The hereditary rulers of Triple A corps; Luxury lifestyle, may not even need to work or work random hours to maintain their hold on the business.
A: The upper management or unique skill sets paid a luxury salary with other perks.
B: Middle management or uniquely skilled indivduals (mages, adepts etc) high with other perks.
C: Common workers (office staff) and new people with untrainable skills (mages) medium with a standard package.
D: People only good for manual labour but part of a coporate id: 40 hour low lifestyle job.
Advancement
A-C all offer opportunities to train and improve your or your kids opportunities.

Tier 2 Limited Corporate
General
These guys are not as highly regarded as corporate workers and are generally at best regarded as a sort of new money position but they do still get benefits from their position.
Pay and Hours
A limited corporate employee works a normal job consisting of 40 hours per week rarely get paid overtime payed but are usually expected to put in 30 minutes to an hour extra unpaid work before and after their official shift taking care of paperwork and the like. They are generally paid enough that they're able to live a medium lifestyle and occasionally high one if they're particularly skillled/posses a unique skill set but the upper levels is generally denied to them. They also get slightly worse conditions in terms of time off/sick leave than a full corporate employee.
Retention
So long as they aren't sacrificed to cover for a higher up or are incompetant they will often have a job for life either in their area of work or if it is removed they get retrained for another. Of course if they're too old to retrain or unsuitable for any existing fields they'll get a redundancy package and have their corporate access revoked.
Levels
B: Middle management or uniquely skilled indivduals (mages, adepts etc) high with other perks.
C: Common workers (office staff) and new people with untrainable skills (mages) medium with a standard package.
Advancement
There are still opportunities to train and improve your or your kids opportunities but must now be done in your own time rather than work time however they are at least partially subsidized.

Tier 3 national
General
These are the huge percentage of the population who have a non-corporate SIN.
Pay and Hours
Works a "standard" 40 hour week but often can be expected to put in 10-20 additional hours outside work performing the jobs required of them. They are generally paid enough that they're able to live a low to medium lifestyle and very, very rarely a high one if they're particularly skillled/posses a unique skill set but these are generally snapped up into tier 2. They generally only get the bare minimum in terms of sick leave/annual leave and other perks.
Retention
Only have a job as long as management has a use for them and may have their value-training assessed for certain jobs so they're fired as soon as they hit the turnove point.
Levels
S: The upper management and heads of governemnets, can earn a luxury wage.
B: Middle management or career beureucrats in government roles as well as uniquely skilled indivduals (mages, adepts etc) high with other perks and reasonable job security as long as they're competant.
C: Common workers (office staff) and individuals with untrainable skills who are being assesed for tier 2 medium with a mininmal job security.
D: People only good for manual labour long hours for low pay low lifestyle.
E: Subsidence level these are people working in high risk/low skill jobs to earn either just enough to live or in some cases indentured servitude. Typically criminals or other undesireables who still have a legitimate SIN but no have no real prospects.
Advancement
None really.

Tier 4 sinless
General
Those who for one reason or another don't possess a SIN at all.
Pay and Hours
Don't normally have a steady job.
Retention
None as they're only used for expendable purposes by any legal company.
Levels
N/A
Advancement
None really.

So you have the corporate staff who even at the lowest level with no real skills still enjoy security, perks and are part of the "elite", then the limited corps who are skilled or lucky enough to posses something of interest to the corps and as such enjoy a better level of living conditions, at the bottom of the regular jobs are the national sins who would have to work hard and be highly skilled to get into even middle management jobs and have huge ques trying to get into a few low paying jobs, right at the bottom are the sinless who range from homeless starving up to multi-million dollar runners. I don't think there'd be the same nationalized health, unemployment, education systems. If you don't have the money to pay for your kids education then they don't get educated unless your corporate staff. Although I did consider a sort of substitute level school system where you get the bare minimum (read, write, add basic sums) and if your lucky don't get shot/stabbed/pregnant.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Bruce on <07-23-14/1631:17>
That's a little more detailed than I generally worry about, although I basically agree with your divisions.  Although National SINs might well include career bureaucrats, politicians, attorneys, and other professionals who would be at Middle to above Lifestyles.  (Less lush than equivalent Corp positions, of course.) 
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Senko on <07-23-14/2212:10>
I suppose that's true enough hadn't really though about the high level careers (politicians, CIA head etc) on the basis that they wouldn't be really avaiable to the average sinner. Still you could fit that in as a S category for national, I was using that for corporate in the sense of "Special" or not something you can really expect to attain. As for people in more common career roles even if they're a career beureucrat I wouldn't rank them above a B level so just add that to the national sin I'd say.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ursus Maior on <07-24-14/0445:12>
Senko, I think your list is really helpful for newcomers to the game. It also seems to work nicely with the current rules on SINs. Maybe some additions or modifications, though. I don't think there would be full corp SINners that do only unskilled manual labor. You can only acquire full corp SIN status by birth or at least being born into the corp, at least in SR5. And this means your parents must have been either full corp SINners, too, or worked their way up so far that they were promised to have their childrend granted full corp SINs. Maybe this status is also attached to certain conditions like scoring high on a pre-school IQ-test. Why else give away full corp SIN, if not to a future leader? Full corp SIN means full rights, propably (minor) shareholder status and definately a life in bliss. Not luxury, but top notch education and the chance to get everywhere in the corp. If you work hard enough, of course.

Maybe full corp SINs could also be earned at retirement age for very succesful workers. The golden wrist watch of the SR-universe. This would be like setting slaves free in ancient Greece and Rome, making them quasi-citizens and their children full citizens, although stigmatised as "homo novi", as newcomers.

Limited corp SIN however means, you valuable enough to the corp to get noticed. You are an asset that they would like to keep. Either you were born into the corp, but your parents were never succesful enough to achieve full corp SIN or you were recruited from the outside world. The national systems produce high quality brain, too, at least sometimes. So the corps will buy them from the open market like today: Like what you do? Earn more while working for a AA corp and earning a risk-free pension and a safe education environment for your children.

National SINners on the other hand have pretty much all the options they do today. They will have to work more, there will be more strings attached to everything, but you can work as a wage slave in a corp and hope "to be noticed" or subject yourself to the unsafe job market of the non-corp world. That ist small and micro-business and of course public offices that have not been privatized. The job markets will be less safe, with more hire-and-fire because of failing businesses, but the workload will be less than wage slavery. You will not own a pension in small and micro-business, but you will in public service. It will only amount to Low Lifestyle, but it'll be yours. Unless there is a crash or something.

Then there are the SINless. They are practically like foreign laborers used to be in the early apartheid in South Africa or later black workers were in general: You live in a really bad part of your sprawl and if you leave it, every ID check will alert the cops. Basically you are a fugitive all your life, an illegal. I cannot imagine that in SR, where up to 30 percent of the people are SINless, these all become criminals. There will be a lot of unlicensed business, shebeens, fleamarkets, backalley shops or whatnot (look into a township in South Africa), but even grey economy cannot thrive on criminals and fellow grey businesses allone. This would make the SINless economy have a 100 percent import deficit. So SINless need a way to earn money, but not work inside the SINless community. Much like illegals work illegally today as domestic servants, nannies or construction workers and whatnot. SINless might even get a "work pass" (again borrowing from apartheid South Africa) and work cheap manual labor for a corp. This would be even lower work than wage slavery. No paper pushing, no bolting together parts in a factory, but cleaning chemical waste in disposal sites or anything similar that gets you killed in no-time (think Elysium here). These migrant workers get shuttled from the Barrens to their working site by bus and receive payment daily after work (hopefully). Thus they avoid ID checks and provide a limites cash influx into the SINless community.

Chances of rising up into the world of SINners are almost non-existent however. Outside your grey economy you are a pariah, inside you are a milk cow: Your outside-earned cash lets you buy goods inside the grey and black economy, but you can never save up enough money to start your own business. Exceptions are rare and entirelly dependent on luck. The only SIN regularly earned by those unlucky, is a criminal SIN, making it even worse. Now you're branded for life. After doing time, you might own some favors to the real criminals, pulling you even further down into the criminal life. Even if you manage to stay clean, being a criminal SINner means, you have to pay taxes, but cannot find a job. You're forced to project your criminal SIN all the time, so the illegal transport busses corps use to shuttle you to the hazadous work sites, won't pick you up. Unless you find a job inside the grey economy, you will have to become a full blown criminal to provide.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: TheDai on <07-24-14/0725:14>
I guess the term "wageslave" is just how Shadowrunners and Rulebreakers see the "hard working, honest citizens". (My character calls them corp-monkeys)

If I see this correctly, every Facility of an AAA-Corp is basically its own state. Every penny of your wage gets sooner or later back in the hand of the corp. But in the end, you have a decent life, don't have to worry too much enjoy your trids and have a family. Full Corp-SINners have the best life in the world, although it doesn't mean it's easy. But most important: It would be incredibly boring to play one of these, going to work, going home, going to work again, repeat.

Seattle itself is overcrowded as hell. You will find anything but fairness. In the Barrens, you see freaks of all kinds. Every shop owner knows how to use his shotgun and fires is about once every few months. The Police abandoned these places years ago, and so Organized Crime is the only thing that keeps the Barrens under control. If you mess around with the wrong people, sooner or later you wind up dead in a dark corner. Out of fear, most of the people remain calm most of the time.

It's the same as the giant corps. The Mafia and Yakuza don't fight each other openly, they have their territories and almost free reign. If you pay them, it's unlikely you'll get harmed by them or other people.

But not everything is bad in 2075. Where people are, there are jobs. Children are still being born, most people in Seattle are not starving to death. The Streets could be cleaner, of course, taxes could be lower, and every now and then you hear gunfire a few streets away from you. Apartments are probably smaller then today (depending on where you live, I guess), food isn't as tasty as today, the youth is more violent as it once was and you do not expect fairness anywhere, especially if you are an ork.
But it's a living and some people still die of old age, instead of being shot down.

Even in a dystopian future such as Shadowrun, people don't just sit there and wait for it all to end. They work, they enjoy life, they do whatever they can do make a good life. And thanks to Trids, a very popular night-life and everything everywhere for the right price, it should not be much harder to have fun than today.

But of course: what we experience is something completely different. WE ARE the gunshots, other people here in the distance, WE ARE the people fighting the cold war for Corps or Organized Crime, WE ARE the ones hating corp-monkeys more than anything else. For us, the system is ill and needs to be cured by bullets, or we believe that we are the only ones truly understanding this world and shifting it to our advantage.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <07-24-14/1028:12>
Excellent points all.

The big thing to remember in SR is that a runner is the outcast of society in more ways than just economic.  He's the misfit, the anarchist, the opportunist, the the socipath, the psychopath.  So it's no wonder the books are written with an anti social outlook.

AAA corps are the fiefdoms of the future.  They are small socialist states where every need can be provided for by the state. Though just like socialisms, corruption allows benefits to be doled out according to status and rank. Still, people adjust. The "20 hour workday" cynicism of the SR fluff needs to be taken with a grain of salt because it originates in the world view of the people mentioned above.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Senko on <07-24-14/1919:27>
Just to clarify why I had manual labour for people with corporate SINS. It was because I figured even for the priviledged 5th generation corporate family you'll occasionaly have someone who just isn't that good whether its because they're not that bright, can't focus or whatever. They can't have their corporate SIN removed and be dumped on the street because their (presumably loving) parents and grandparents are valuable productive corporate SINNERS who may object. This seemed like the best option for someone you can't get rid of and you don't want them in a position where they'll make a mess so you give them a nice manual labour position that just requires them to run a broom over some corporate facilities or an office with no work and forget about them. Its not a position anyone will ever achieve if they don't start off as (a) a corporate SINNER by birth, (b) have other familiy who are all productive corporate SINNERS and (c) aren't suited to more valuable positions.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ursus Maior on <07-25-14/0321:29>
I got your idea behind that, but I think my opinion is diffrent here. Think about the ultra privileged of our modern society or the aristocracy of old: Even for a child that is mentally severely challenged, a full corp SIN family will not allow pure manual labor. It's beneath their status. Mega corps are rich enough to "pull through" these rare cases. And they will, because the benevolence of their highest assets depends on it. If your full corp SINners start thinking that the corp will not care for them and their families in the highest standards if need be, the corp has a problem.

Thus, even those kids that would drop out in "real" national SIN life will get supportet til the very end. If the early pre-natal tests show severe complications, the corp might suggest abortion anyway. But otherwise there are tons of programs even today to provide rich children a degree. Even if it means sending the child to corp military school or even taking care of her/him without consent of the parents. Someone argued for mega corps being socialist states. That pretty much nails it. Mega corps are "authoritarian strong states" and economic power houses under one roof. They will pay for everything in your life, if you are part of their "ruling party" (aka full SINner), but if you fail to live up to the standards, they will enter even your most private and intimate spheres of life. Corp security and intelligence will also monitor you all the time, so taking away your children because of "unproper parental behavior" will be easy.

Manual labor for full corp SINners, I guess, will only happen to the very few extremely mentally and physically challenged children that cannot be treated with pre-natal, nano, bio, cyber and genetic therapy and can serve the corp only in one way: Being a poster boy/girl for philantropic corp projects, cutting figurines from wood for holiday decoration.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Senko on <07-25-14/0615:14>
I think you may be thinking different person for manual labour than I am. What I'm talking about is someone who's not mentally suitable for the high pressure/high intellect jobs e.g doctor, theoretical sciences but is capable of carrying supplies, cleaning corridors and functioning in daily life quite fine. They aren't good enough for the prominent careers but they can be given simple manual labour jobs or the easier low pressure office jobs e.g security guards or receptionist and contribute to the corporation and earn a living perfectly well (although they don't have to compete against the huge pool of limited/nation sinners). If someone was actually categorized as special needs (or whatever the correct term is these days) and physically/mentally had extreme difficult with regular work (and wasn't mentally suited to more advanced fields) then they'd be taken care of in full comfort and priviledge. The other factor is some people actually prefer to be out doing physical work rather than stuck in an office and you always have the lazy or chronically incompetant. This is how corporations deal with them the major difference here being if they ever did pull themselvers together doors are open to them that aren't open to the majority of the workforce and there's always the "Uncle he was mean to me" factor that would ensure they'd get taken care of and have others do a bit extra to make a good impression on them because they are related to the movers and shakers. Social elite or not I can't see a corporation supporting someone and taking a loss when they could give them work to do and make a profit of them while being able to say they're taking care of their people by ensuring even Joe Slob who set burnt his name into his classroom carpet has a job where he can be a productive member of society.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Bruce on <07-25-14/1447:54>
Every bureaucracy, from the beginnings of such things, has had to deal with people who are essentially incompetent but too well connected to just push off a cliff.  The most common solution is to create a position which sounds wonderful, pays reasonably well, but has absolutely NO responsibility or authority of any consequence.  The relatives are satisfied, the subject thinks they're a vital part of the organization, and everything moves along. 

e.g. 'Corporate Counsel for Consumer Complaints'.  Sounds important, doesn't it?  Except that all the real work is handled by lower-level employees, and actual court cases are seen to by competent attorneys.  Our vital employee assigns case numbers which determine how important these cases are to the corporation; the reality is that all of that is handled by internal corporate judges, who set the case dockets.  Our employee can cheerfully compliment himself on how his work is necessary to make sure cases are correctly noted as to their importance to corporate functioning, and no one who wants to keep their job is going to tell him otherwise.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ursus Maior on <07-25-14/1714:35>
I'm with Bruce here, Senko. A corporation, especially mega corps is not always doing what is economically the most productive. They are states and societies, full of diffrent kinds of agencies. And the social elite will not have one of their "failures" clean up hallways. In fact, what you see happening even today in corporations (that are not state societies) is that children of execs get jobs and internships, without all the qualification John Doe would need.

If that kid also went to corp school, corp college and corp university, chances are that a) corps can avoid a lot of "total failures" and b) the few that exist will be taken care of. As Bruce said, create a position, where he/she can get a solid pay cheque and have zero chances of screwing up or producing financial losses. In fact, they might pay Johnny Rotten a second MA program and a PhD program as well. Maybe he will find something he can actually do well, maybe he will be the next best friend of a senator or be married to one etc.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <07-25-14/1803:08>
Every bureaucracy, from the beginnings of such things, has had to deal with people who are essentially incompetent but too well connected to just push off a cliff.  The most common solution is to create a position which sounds wonderful, pays reasonably well, but has absolutely NO responsibility or authority of any consequence.  The relatives are satisfied, the subject thinks they're a vital part of the organization, and everything moves along. 

e.g. 'Corporate Counsel for Consumer Complaints'.  Sounds important, doesn't it?  Except that all the real work is handled by lower-level employees, and actual court cases are seen to by competent attorneys.  Our vital employee assigns case numbers which determine how important these cases are to the corporation; the reality is that all of that is handled by internal corporate judges, who set the case dockets.  Our employee can cheerfully compliment himself on how his work is necessary to make sure cases are correctly noted as to their importance to corporate functioning, and no one who wants to keep their job is going to tell him otherwise.


Sounds like the mess I am dealing with....

9 billion dollar modernization of an aluminum smelter, yet the assholes in charge couldn't organize a rock fight in a gravel pit...
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Senko on <07-25-14/2215:38>
Ok I can see that for an incompetant being shuffled off to a made up office job but what about the people who actually enjoy doing manaul labour e.g. bricklaying, carpentry and the like? Not janitorial work but still hard physical work often outdoors?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <07-25-14/2242:20>
Ok I can see that for an incompetant being shuffled off to a made up office job but what about the people who actually enjoy doing manaul labour e.g. bricklaying, carpentry and the like? Not janitorial work but still hard physical work often outdoors?

who/what would you rather have as a Megacorp?

1: A person that you have to pay top dollar to due to their education in the trades?

2: The schmuck that is willing to sign a contract for 5 years of barely above min wage and is willing to have a skillwire and programs installed?

3: A drone that can work for hundreds of hours before needing a maintenance call?

Today a Carpenter makes about $35/hour if they are unionized (including fringes, $65 hour), an electrician makes around $45/hour unionized ($70 with fringes) and an ironworker about $60/hour unionized ($75 with fringes....)

What would a drone cost? $25,000? $45,000? 

sounds like a no brainer to me.....
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ursus Maior on <07-26-14/0717:35>
Ok I can see that for an incompetant being shuffled off to a made up office job but what about the people who actually enjoy doing manaul labour e.g. bricklaying, carpentry and the like? Not janitorial work but still hard physical work often outdoors?
I would say that being brought up in a corp as part of the elite (= full SIN), you would be taught that manual labor is below your worth and it is the job of the wage slaves to do so (or drones). And that it is a sign of the ever-progressing corp society to develop away from such inhuman work (play begins showing renaissance farmers sweating in the sun, starving to death or succumbing to malnutrition and diseases).

If you absolutely must work with your hands to achieve personal happiness, you will be given the opportunity to become an artist of some sort. So you don't "work", you create masterpieces. It's the same today actually. My cousin had to fight his parents to become a carpenter although he could have gone to college. And that was a simple white collar family.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <07-26-14/0942:39>
Ok I can see that for an incompetant being shuffled off to a made up office job but what about the people who actually enjoy doing manaul labour e.g. bricklaying, carpentry and the like? Not janitorial work but still hard physical work often outdoors?
I would say that being brought up in a corp as part of the elite (= full SIN), you would be taught that manual labor is below your worth and it is the job of the wage slaves to do so (or drones). And that it is a sign of the ever-progressing corp society to develop away from such inhuman work (play begins showing renaissance farmers sweating in the sun, starving to death or succumbing to malnutrition and diseases).

If you absolutely must work with your hands to achieve personal happiness, you will be given the opportunity to become an artist of some sort. So you don't "work", you create masterpieces. It's the same today actually. My cousin had to fight his parents to become a carpenter although he could have gone to college. And that was a simple white collar family.

And speaking as one of those "blue collar" workers (industral instrument mechanic) I encounter that type of bias all the time.

"But you're so smart! Your parents are doctors and lawyers! Why would you ever want to that for a living??"

To which I reply "yea... travel around the world on someone else's dime AND get paid 100k - 300k a year. Yea it sure was silly of me..."

The simple fact of the matter is that for over 2 decades now, we have told ourselves that "only those with a university degree are in high paying, respectful jobs" when the truth of the matter is that the trades (pipefitting, ironworking, boilermaking, carpentry,  electrical) are actually some of the highest paying jobs around right now... but that's mostly due to the high demand in the world industral sector where they need tradesmen! Lawyers, dentists, financial planners are a dime-a-dozen, pushed out of universities by the hundreds a year.... but people who can actually build their workplaces are in high demand.... when the economy is moving.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <07-26-14/1144:52>
Ok I can see that for an incompetant being shuffled off to a made up office job but what about the people who actually enjoy doing manaul labour e.g. bricklaying, carpentry and the like? Not janitorial work but still hard physical work often outdoors?
I would say that being brought up in a corp as part of the elite (= full SIN), you would be taught that manual labor is below your worth and it is the job of the wage slaves to do so (or drones). And that it is a sign of the ever-progressing corp society to develop away from such inhuman work (play begins showing renaissance farmers sweating in the sun, starving to death or succumbing to malnutrition and diseases).

If you absolutely must work with your hands to achieve personal happiness, you will be given the opportunity to become an artist of some sort. So you don't "work", you create masterpieces. It's the same today actually. My cousin had to fight his parents to become a carpenter although he could have gone to college. And that was a simple white collar family.

And speaking as one of those "blue collar" workers (industral instrument mechanic) I encounter that type of bias all the time.

"But you're so smart! Your parents are doctors and lawyers! Why would you ever want to that for a living??"

To which I reply "yea... travel around the world on someone else's dime AND get paid 100k - 300k a year. Yea it sure was silly of me..."

The simple fact of the matter is that for over 2 decades now, we have told ourselves that "only those with a university degree are in high paying, respectful jobs" when the truth of the matter is that the trades (pipefitting, ironworking, boilermaking, carpentry,  electrical) are actually some of the highest paying jobs around right now... but that's mostly due to the high demand in the world industral sector where they need tradesmen! Lawyers, dentists, financial planners are a dime-a-dozen, pushed out of universities by the hundreds a year.... but people who can actually build their workplaces are in high demand.... when the economy is moving.

As for real life: the biggest shortages in the US are in STEM: Science, Technical, Engineering, Mathematics. I encourage any young person to pursue passions in those areas above liberal arts studies.

But I digress.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ursus Maior on <07-27-14/1244:13>
To which I reply "yea... travel around the world on someone else's dime AND get paid 100k - 300k a year. Yea it sure was silly of me..."

The simple fact of the matter is that for over 2 decades now, we have told ourselves that "only those with a university degree are in high paying, respectful jobs" when the truth of the matter is that the trades (pipefitting, ironworking, boilermaking, carpentry,  electrical) are actually some of the highest paying jobs around right now... but that's mostly due to the high demand in the world industral sector where they need tradesmen! Lawyers, dentists, financial planners are a dime-a-dozen, pushed out of universities by the hundreds a year.... but people who can actually build their workplaces are in high demand.... when the economy is moving.

Same here in Germany. In fact, the only thing a university degree guarantees you, is a higher base wage when compared to someone who finished his job training without a university degree. Also, top corporate positions are now almost only accesible for people with degrees. But this is a fraction of all jobs achievable. And in average, you make more money when you learn a trade starting age 16 or 18 and work until 65. You can get a degree from a distant learning university later while still working (and earning). This will basically get you everywhere on the job market, except being a teacher, doctor, researcher, chemist or lawyer (in Germany).
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <07-27-14/1451:49>
"Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach"
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ursus Maior on <07-27-14/1624:55>
Don't even get me started on the school system here in Germany. But we digress.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Sendaz on <07-27-14/1742:32>
"Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach"
And those that can't teach become critics for big newspapers/journals. :P
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: MijRai on <07-27-14/1808:19>
"Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach"
And those that can't teach become critics for big newspapers/journals. :P

I thought it was, "And those who can't teach, teach gym."
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <07-27-14/1940:28>
"Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach"
And those that can't teach become critics for big newspapers/journals. :P

Tell me about it!

I always wait for a movie review before I go see it. If the critics loved it, I don't waste my time.

If the critics hated it, I'm off to the theater! !
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Lusis on <10-04-14/1103:10>
An article that addesses a flaw in the corporate economies of SR:   http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-10-03/employees-are-not-your-customers
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: MijRai on <10-04-14/1123:02>
An article that addesses a flaw in the corporate economies of SR:   http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-10-03/employees-are-not-your-customers

Eh, that's not really accurate in how the corporations do their schtick.  For one, it's more than just cars (which are, in a sense, a luxury purchase.  I mean, in their example, they're saving all their extra money to buy a car, and then buy another one after that.  It doesn't really make sense).  The food you eat to the clothes you wear to the media you watch; that's all from the Corporation (maybe some stuff provided by another corp or two, but not the majority of it).  In addition, look at company scrip (i.e. Corporate Scrip).  It's a common thing in the Shadowrun future (Aztlan/Aztechnology flat-out doesn't even let you exchange it for another currency, except in a few special cases). 

The article also states that the cost of the car doesn't include the raw materials, which makes no sense either.  That's a part of how you make a profit; you figure out what it costs to make it in time, resources, and man-power, take said value and tack on a 5% or higher profit. 
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: The Wyrm Ouroboros on <10-04-14/1855:26>
No, Megan McArdle is absolutely correct, as far as she goes; you can never pay your employees enough (per se) to make a profit purely on what they purchase.  She just isn't going far enough, and anyone who's trying to implement her ideas needs to realize is that it isn't your goal to get your employees to purchase your goods and services; it is to make your employees value their jobs to the extent they don't leave you for greener pastures, and to reacquire the monies which they would have been spending anyhow.  McArdle couldn't have chosen a worse example; cars are a luxury item.  Buying a car is a big purchase, and many people, even today, just can't afford it, or it makes better economic sense to ride public transport.  Food, clothing, these are not luxury items, which means that Joe Schmoe is going to buy it - somewhere - guaranteed.  Those are the things that are not the 'extra' amount.

Joe's food budget is, let's say, 10% of what he makes; $X/10.  You want to sell your food at a profit, sure.  You want to sell your food to anyone, whether that's Joe or Myrtle or Henri VIII.  If you're selling your food for 11% of what you pay Joe, Joe has to take that 10% somewhere else, and instead of you getting that 10% back  - because Joe is just another frelling customer for a staple 'must-buy' item, basic food - someone else gets that 10%, and you lose a customer - and Joe, your employee, is disgruntled, because for the amount you're paying him, he can't even shop at your 'bargain basement store'.  It'd be different if he were working for a high-end clothing store, or a car place, or whatever - but even then, it is wise to pay your employees sufficiently so that they find at least a minimal segment of your products are within their budget for that item.  It's part of advertising.

Yes, you make your profit by selling to people other than your employees; that's absolutely true.  That your employees shop where they work doesn't mean that you're losing your profit, it means that you're losing less of your labor expense.  You're always going to be paying Joe $X per hour.  Joe has to be making enough to buy food for himself and his family - if he doesn't make it with you, he has to go somewhere else and make it with them.  If you make it worth his while to buy his food from you - because he's going to be getting food from somewhere no matter what - then you will be getting back the monies you paid him.  And he'll be happy he can buy it from you, and he'll go home happy.  Or be able, after four years of saving, to purchase that Honda, or wristwatch, or whatever it is you're selling.  It's part of advertising; it's part of employee satisfaction.  Customers pay attention when an employee says, "Oh, yeah, I got one of these last week/month/year.  These things are great!!"  You want 'word of mouth' to start with your employees.

Are your employees going to be your entire consumer base?  Hell, no.  But that's what McArdle's proposition subtly points out.  She proposes that you lose money selling to your employee, when she's failing to account for the fact that for every one widget you sell to that employee, that employee (happy that she bought a widget, loves her widget, is enthusiastic about Wyrm-brand Widgets, They're The Best!!TM) is going to have sold more widgets.  Because she's happy about them, customers who are interested in a widget but just want information right now (because Micronaut-brand Widgets are a buck less, just down the street) MIGHT buy today because Your Employee is so gosh-darned happy with her Wyrm-brand Widget (They're The Best!!TM) has convinced them with her enthusiasm and personal experience and satisfaction that they should not purchase a Micronaut-brand Widget, but a Wyrm-brand Widget, and find out for themselves why They're The Best!!TM

In other words, while McArdle's mathematics and conclusions are clear on the surface, she fails at Business Employee Sense 101 - and fails miserably.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: baronspam on <10-05-14/0405:59>
Everyone has their own take on the Shadowrun world.  Personally, I find that some people are excessively grim and dark in their interpretation, because its a grim and dark world.  But they tend to paint everything with that brush, which I think it unrealistic.

Unskilled to semi-skilled workers do have it rough.  They earn 24-25k a year, just enough to pay for a low lifestyle.  They do probably put in quite a few hours for that, but if you push people to constantly put in 12 hour days and 6 day weeks it is simply counterproductive.  Productivity goes to hell, theft goes up, quality goes down, mistakes multiply, and workplace violence and problems like alcohol and drug abuse skyrocket.  Medical costs go up, and there is more missed days of work, or even worse, people clocking in and then simply not doing anything useful.  The corps wouldn't do this, not because they are nice, not because they care, but because it hurts the bottom line.  Trust me, there was a cost benefit analysis.  Common work weeks in my view are either five ten hours days or 6 eight hour days. 

But keep in mind there is a middle class as well.  Top salespeople, technicians with skills that can not be reproduced with wires or drones, engineers, doctors, lawyers, computer professionals, not to mention the endless hoard of "middle managers" who attend meetings and write emails and attend meetings and then write emails about the meetings and then have meetings about the emails would do better financially.  There are still suburbs, nice apartment buildings, etc, and they are full of corporate types.

I think the real horror of working for a major corporation is not the working conditions, but rather then constants scrutiny and presence of the corp.  You live in a corp owned building, work in a corp owned office.  You take the corporate shuttle bus, of if you got that promotion drive a car that a subsidiary of the corporation manufactures, and you paid for it in corporate script.  There is a rec center and soccer green and a pool in the corp housing development, which is nice, but the Sunday sports leagues are organized by corp moral officers, the trid sets only get the subscriptions that the corps approve (or make), the library only has downloads of approved and instructive literature.  If you get sick you go to a hospital run by a different subsidiary of the corp and see a doctor who only sees corp patients (see, the contract promised exclusive medical care!)  Your manager can read your medical file, knows how much beer you bought from the company store, and if you downloaded any porno over the corp matrix connection, not that they automatically disapprove of that, but they want to  make a note of what does it for you.  It might be useful sometime.  When you retire you go to a corp owned "leisure center", and when you die you secretly get mulched into Supergrow (tm) lawn care products.

That, I think, it what the typical runner really can't take.  Some take to the shadows because they had some kind of fall and can't get a corporate job, but others go to the shadows willingly because they just can't take big brother.

Also, not all jobs are held by the big ten.  Yes, they are huge multinationals and a big chunk of the world economy is connected to them, but there are single and double A corps out there, not to mention national and local corporations.  There are other options for talented and productive people.  Many extraction jobs are voluntary.  Think of it as a way to break a contract without getting a lawyer involved.


Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ravensong on <10-06-14/1357:25>
Wage slavery is for the sheep. As long as they are fed, housed, and kept safe from all that goes bump in the shadows, they will accept their lot in life. Meanwhile, they give their lives to the very corporations that make life unbearable for everyone else. For us wolves, we wouldn't last any longer as a wage slave as a wage slave would last out in the shadows. Different strokes for different folks.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Herr Brackhaus on <10-06-14/1437:13>
Wage slavery is for the sheep. As long as they are fed, housed, and kept safe from all that goes bump in the shadows, they will accept their lot in life. Meanwhile, they give their lives to the very corporations that make life unbearable for everyone else. For us wolves, we wouldn't last any longer as a wage slave as a wage slave would last out in the shadows. Different strokes for different folks.
[IC]
Speak for yourself, Mr. Ravensong. Some of us are well aware of what goes on in the shadows, perhaps even more so than the likes of you. There are wolves, and then there are dragons...
[/IC]

:D
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ravensong on <10-06-14/1441:54>
Fair enough, Herr Brackhaus. That's why my Dwarf Mercenary carries heavy weapons and never makes deals with dragons.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Herr Brackhaus on <10-06-14/1503:19>
Brings up an interesting question, actually. Would a Mr. Johnson technically be classified as a "wage slave", per se?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Imveros on <10-06-14/1510:47>
Brings up an interesting question, actually. Would a Mr. Johnson technically be classified as a "wage slave", per se?

not all Mr Johnsons work for corps. Plenty of them are regular folk or other shadow folk looking for plausible denyability!  As for the corp Johnsons they are more likely the higher ups or people trusted by higher ups so i wouldn't call them wage slaves/
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: The Wyrm Ouroboros on <10-06-14/2147:16>
'Mr. Johnson' might be a powerful mover and shaker in a corporation, or she might be your little-old-lady Groundhog shaman next door.  'Mr. Johnson is a blanket term for 'the guy/gal who hired us',  There are professional Johnsons, and for the most part they work only with one company ... but they have a lot more leeway than the standard wageslave.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <10-06-14/2155:50>
Professional Johnsons are, on average, more likely to double cross a team as well.... as they have Corp black ops experts they can employ. Where as a 'everyday' Johnson would have to hire on muscle for a double cross...
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ursus Maior on <10-07-14/0810:27>
Exactly. In fact, the usual reaction of groups I played in/with when counter intel-ing the Johnson and finding out that he is a true corp exec, was changing into complete distrust mode. If someone who works as a corp exec hires the average runner, he/she needs fall-guys.

On the other hand, a true wage slave might of course become a Mr Johnson for some reason. But as he would not have corp funds to back him up, the job might be anything from "stalk my girlfriend" to "wack the competition for my new position".
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: The Wyrm Ouroboros on <10-07-14/1005:45>
Now now, most wageslaves aren't that bloodthirsty.  'Make him look bad', though, yeah ...
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ursus Maior on <10-07-14/1130:23>
Sure, I was just marking extreme points.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: gyrobot on <10-08-14/0108:21>
Now now, most wageslaves aren't that bloodthirsty.  'Make him look bad', though, yeah ...

The fact that most UCAS wageslaves can own a gun and there are possible unsung cases of hood safaris in the sixth world where killing bums is a preferred pastime for more sociopathic wageslaves out there. It is a ratrace and the only reason why one wageslave haven't offed another was due to how tight security is.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Namikaze on <10-08-14/0258:34>
The fact that most UCAS wageslaves can own a gun and there are possible unsung cases of hood safaris in the sixth world where killing bums is a preferred pastime for more sociopathic wageslaves out there.

Where do you get this info?  I'm not saying you're wrong, I've just never heard of it.  Certainly not to the "most" point with regards to the gun ownership anyway.  The hood safaris jive with the setting, but I don't think this would be commonplace at all.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: The Wyrm Ouroboros on <10-08-14/0314:43>
Well, certainly the idea that the UCAS citizenry can own basic firearms (pistols, hunting arms) is clear, both in the legality information (licensing and such) and just in general 'this used to be part of the US' theme.  The whole 'hood safaris' stuff, well - that's what joining a policlub is about, since just going out cruising with a couple of buddies to kill a bum is equally likely to get them iced in turn.

Hmmm ... there's a run idea.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ravensong on <10-08-14/1538:51>
Wageslaves may have the legal right to own a gun, but that doesn't mean they know how to use a firearm, or even exercise their right to own one. They're more likely to imbibe fashionable designer drugs, go slumming in the tourist section of the barrens, or get out their drek watching Shadowrun netvids, than actually go running around shooting SIN-less at night. Just saying.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: gyrobot on <10-09-14/0153:32>
Still a policlub dedicated to purging the world of the Sinless calling themselves "The Guilty Ones" is a great inspiration for antagonists. These guys are "proud" wageslaves who approve of every action of their corporate masters and wants to beat the rest of metahumanity to SIN up. Someone who willingly fights for the Man, even if the Man treats them like shit.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Namikaze on <10-09-14/0320:16>
Still a policlub dedicated to purging the world of the Sinless calling themselves "The Guilty Ones" is a great inspiration for antagonists. These guys are "proud" wageslaves who approve of every action of their corporate masters and wants to beat the rest of metahumanity to SIN up. Someone who willingly fights for the Man, even if the Man treats them like shit.

I've never heard of this policlub - where did you find info on it?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: The Wyrm Ouroboros on <10-09-14/0658:21>
... Namikaze.  Dude.  He's inventing it.  Not everything is an automatic text reference, y'know?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Sendaz on <10-09-14/0734:12>
Indeed.  Player creations are a great source for ideas.  Half the reason to come here is to listen to other gamer's ideas and outlooks on things.

But if you would like to see how a more upscale group could do this, check out the short story 'Fair Game' in the Wolf & Raven SR novel.

Granted these are not your normal wageslaves, it's more an exclusive hunters club for the rich kids of high ups, but the base concept is there.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Namikaze on <10-09-14/1212:54>
... Namikaze.  Dude.  He's inventing it.  Not everything is an automatic text reference, y'know?

Ahh, see I didn't get that from the context of his post.  Makes more sense now.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: The Wyrm Ouroboros on <10-11-14/0612:00>
... looks like a nuke needing to happen to me.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Longshot23 on <10-11-14/1305:35>
Still a policlub dedicated to purging the world of the Sinless calling themselves "The Guilty Ones" is a great inspiration for antagonists. These guys are "proud" wageslaves who approve of every action of their corporate masters and wants to beat the rest of metahumanity to SIN up. Someone who willingly fights for the Man, even if the Man treats them like shit.

I've never heard of this policlub - where did you find info on it?

*cough* Human Nation *cough*

Although IMO such activities would be too blatant for Human Nation as a whole . . . but that doesn't mean Human Nation sympathisers wouldn't ever engage in SINless hunting. If HN can get people into position to launch a missile strike on a cave system in Madagascar, why not take shots at folks 'no one cares about' . . . .
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: gyrobot on <12-04-14/2255:27>
So if a Corp Sinner Policlub pops up, what would their targets be most likely be? I am planning a campaign where there has been reports of murder of Sinless on corporate property and it turns out a new Policlub is on the rise and I decided the perfect idea would be a Wageslave policlub "approved" by the Corps to keep the Sinless down even harder. The initial idea of the group is that after a Wageslave was pushed too far when a corpsec decides to show some respect to a sinless panhandling and the Wageslave begins forming a policlub where disgruntled workers form up and take it out on the Sinless society. What would be the best targets for them to hit?

Some ideas I had

-Handing out pamphlets warning wageslaves not to go to red light districts in the barrens. Telling them that the elven women is hot but is likely to pry your secrets and leave you with sexually transmitted diseases
-Attacking self sufficient societies.
-Anti Charity law lobbying.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <12-05-14/0124:27>
Same crap political clubs there are now.

The world is flat.
Save the mosquito.
Ban hydrocarbons.
Freeman society.

And that is a few of the more sane fringe ones around right now...
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Parker on <01-19-15/1410:04>
So when's the e-document supplement coming out?  Could call it "The Sarariman's Guide to the Sixth World" or perhaps simply "Better Arcology Living" :)
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Senko on <02-10-15/0322:21>
Rather reminds me of a group in zettai Karen children they were called the normals and where a bunch of ordinary people (housewives, doctors, dockworkers, etc) who were determined the eliminate the scourge of people with psychic powers. Quite willing to kill a 7 year old girl if she had powers to preserve "humanity.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Peter_M_Andrew_Jr on <02-18-15/1838:32>
Awesome thread, wish I had seen it earlier.

One point on the megas though. The difference between AAA status and AA is Corporate Court membership, that's it.

It was mentioned somewhere that there are AA corps larger than the smallest AAA (don't remember which book of the top of my head). They are all extraterritorial and produce their own currency (a requirement to become an AA), which as far as a wageslave is concerned, actual money. Most workers never see nuyen, at best they might use some of the local country's currency for "slumming" opportunities.

Peter
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Senko on <02-20-15/1957:37>
I know Sony is mentioned as being on par with the triple As but hasn't managed to get court membership yet although they're trying.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Sendaz on <02-20-15/2036:48>
When Novatech got their seat, I had images of Sony going 'Nandeska! O Nadeska, Novatech Beat Sony again?!?' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KQrf7jrz5U)
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: The Wyrm Ouroboros on <02-20-15/2053:38>
Well, Novatech could not, by design, lose their seat ...

... though I'm sure they were feeling that way when Wuxing and Horizon got in.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Rift_0f_Bladz on <02-23-15/1107:17>
Isn't Wal-Mart considered AA in SR, they damn near are in RL too! Seems like I was miss informed on how powerful an AA corp truly is.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: PiXeL01 on <02-23-15/1804:18>
Wal-Mart would be AA but I believe they are owned by Aztechnology.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Sendaz on <02-23-15/1813:59>
Isn't it called Kong-WalMart now after the Crash of '29 forced to merge with Kong Hai Inc?

Have to go digging through the books...
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ursus Maior on <02-24-15/0426:59>
They are. And last time I checked, they were a single A company almost making AA rating and the corporate court decision was imminent. Something was going on with Aztech as well. Either they were owned by them or the big A was the largest competitor in the UCAS. I'll recheck...
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Senko on <02-25-15/0724:32>
Snicker that tv commercial went to a shot of a pair of cheerleaders bending over and showing their panties when it ended. Anyway I can think of several real life companies that would easily be A or AA if it weren't for the pesky matter of extraterritoriality.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <02-25-15/1300:21>
They are. And last time I checked, they were a single A company almost making AA rating and the corporate court decision was imminent. Something was going on with Aztech as well. Either they were owned by them or the big A was the largest competitor in the UCAS. I'll recheck...

Well, Aztecnology controls about 80% of the foodstuff market either directly or indirectly (Corp Guide). That might be what you are thinking of..
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ursus Maior on <02-25-15/1717:25>
They are. And last time I checked, they were a single A company almost making AA rating and the corporate court decision was imminent. Something was going on with Aztech as well. Either they were owned by them or the big A was the largest competitor in the UCAS. I'll recheck...

Well, Aztecnology controls about 80% of the foodstuff market either directly or indirectly (Corp Guide). That might be what you are thinking of..

Ha! Found it!

It's in Dirty Tricks p. 86 (the chapter on CAS-economy):

"Aztechnology has the smallest footprint, of course, but it still exists. Of the local corporations, Lone Star is the only one rated AA, but Wal-Mart has both Wuxing and Evo backing their case next year to the corporate court."

The "case" mentioned here seems to be the AA-status for Wal-Mart. It goes on in the section about Arkansas (p. 104):

The center of the state’s where Little Rock sits, along with half the population. The primary employer here is Wal-Mart, an A-rated corporation that at one time was the biggest corp on the planet."

The passus goes on, telling how WM was once the bigges corporation before the 2029 crash and that it had the most powerful computer network in the USA, only second to NORAD. By then they had already lost much of their share, because the Waltons had not been up to corporate warfare. The crash however doomed the family fortune, when the Crash Virus lingered in their data vaults for some time, only to use WM's comsats to reach the rest of the world. The whole data-network of the Waltons basically got fried and most of the Waltons left the sinking ship like rats. Except for William "Willy" Walton, who managed to restore the corporation "to a fraction of its old status". They are still almost unknown in the UCAS, but are as common as Stuffer Shacks in the CAS "and have penetrated into the NAN as well". By the time Dirty Tricks was released they had teamed up with Wuxing to spread into the Chinese market, an operation run by "Kong Wal-Mart", which is going very well as it seems.

That's it folks. As it seems, WM is back on the rise and making Chinese and Confeds super happy thriving non-Aztech buying folks.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Sendaz on <02-25-15/1725:31>
Nice find.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <02-25-15/1726:46>
They are. And last time I checked, they were a single A company almost making AA rating and the corporate court decision was imminent. Something was going on with Aztech as well. Either they were owned by them or the big A was the largest competitor in the UCAS. I'll recheck...

Well, Aztecnology controls about 80% of the foodstuff market either directly or indirectly (Corp Guide). That might be what you are thinking of..

Ha! Found it!

It's in Dirty Tricks p. 86 (the chapter on CAS-economy):

"Aztechnology has the smallest footprint, of course, but it still exists. Of the local corporations, Lone Star is the only one rated AA, but Wal-Mart has both Wuxing and Evo backing their case next year to the corporate court."

The "case" mentioned here seems to be the AA-status for Wal-Mart. It goes on in the section about Arkansas (p. 104):

The center of the state’s where Little Rock sits, along with half the population. The primary employer here is Wal-Mart, an A-rated corporation that at one time was the biggest corp on the planet."

The passus goes on, telling how WM was once the bigges corporation before the 2029 crash and that it had the most powerful computer network in the USA, only second to NORAD. By then they had already lost much of their share, because the Waltons had not been up to corporate warfare. The crash however doomed the family fortune, when the Crash Virus lingered in their data vaults for some time, only to use WM's comsats to reach the rest of the world. The whole data-network of the Waltons basically got fried and most of the Waltons left the sinking ship like rats. Except for William "Willy" Walton, who managed to restore the corporation "to a fraction of its old status". They are still almost unknown in the UCAS, but are as common as Stuffer Shacks in the CAS "and have penetrated into the NAN as well". By the time Dirty Tricks was released they had teamed up with Wuxing to spread into the Chinese market, an operation run by "Kong Wal-Mart", which is going very well as it seems.

That's it folks. As it seems, WM is back on the rise and making Chinese and Confeds super happy thriving non-Aztech buying folks.


good find!
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Namikaze on <02-25-15/1727:04>
*snipped*

+10!
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Rift_0f_Bladz on <02-26-15/1428:43>
Thanks, from the heart of WM's he... I mean home area. Also, when in the SR timeline is that quote from. Trying to get an idea of MW's power level in current SR timeline.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ursus Maior on <02-26-15/1724:39>
Not sure if this was a question, but "Dirty Tricks" is 2073 if I remember correctly. So it's pretty recent. But Wuxing and Evo might have already lifted WM to AA-status.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Aryeonos on <04-14-15/0744:21>
Currently wally world is considered "luxury" ish market place in china. Which is at odds with the meth/crack five finger discount store it is here in the states. The way they`re run and organized here in the states I have no idea how they stay in business. Honestly I`m not surprised they wouldnt survive when other companies started playing rough, and smart.

On topic I`m wondering. If the population (at large, or allot of?) is at work 80% of the time and have so minute buying power, how in Hyena`s name can the world be so add plastered and commercialized? I mean, if everyone is scraping to get by, wouldnt the commercialized state be fairly dreary, instead of sugar blasted ad candy on every corner? How does anyone have time to even think about going out to go shopping in conditions like that?
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Herr Brackhaus on <04-14-15/0810:56>
Aryeonos
I don't think your depiction of working hours is entirely on the mark. Yes, the setting is an oppressive dystopia, and yes, the term wageslave exists for a reason, but a key part of the setting is the control over the population the megacorporations have.

So, while a wageslave might work a long week (and I'm not entirely sure every wageslave does work 80 hour weeks), the corp wants them happy enough so they don't just up and kill themselves. This concept is further reinforced by the fact that wageslaves are paid in corporate scrip, which can be used at corporate stores for their full value, to buy all the things the corporations sell, creating a sort of incestuous economy.

There are posts on the forums describing why this doesn't work on a theoretical level, but it is very much a setting staple so I just go with it. The megacorps obviously blast everyone with as much ad as possible, because everyone isn't just scraping by with the bare minimum or there wouldn't be a marketplace for all the things the corporations manufacture. As a point of example, a 40 hour/week Day Job nets you 5k a month, enough for a low lifestyle (2k/month) and various sundries not covered by lifestyle (like car payments, nice meals out with the significant other, etc). A middle lifestyle (5k/month) would need two jobs or two people working 40 hours to maintain, more if you're living in Manhattan.

In other words, I don't think "everyone is scraping to get by", and I don't think everyone spends "80% of the time at work". But that's just my view of the setting.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Aryeonos on <04-16-15/0857:50>
I'm just going off of what is said earlier in the thread, which I draw issue with. I tend to GM the setting the way you describe it. I'm of the Mirror's edge mindset, you're "Free" to do whatever you want, it's just that the only things you see are stuff we've already vetted and approved, and we're just keeping an eye on you at every waking moment to make sure you don't get lost. The world remains polished and everything that doesn't fit the mark is pushed to the sides. Reading through corporate guide seems to reaffirm this, I can't see where people work 12-16 hour days, but I'm sure there are plenty middle classish corporate civies that do. Just I don't think most of them, cause who's gonna buy your crap if everyone is in an office.

Edit: just after I post this I notice right on page 39 of Corporate Guide under parenting and role of the corp Dev/grrl mentions 12-14 hour workdays.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Kincaid on <04-16-15/0930:56>
The 12-hour workday is absolutely the reality for many professions today.  Attorneys average 66 hours/week.  If you're trying to make partner, working 66 hours a week will seem like a nice alternative.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/30/americans-now-view-40-hou_n_888231.html
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Aryeonos on <04-16-15/1845:58>
Depressing, but still, the percentage of people working over 40 is the minority. I"m guess that to live in an arcology you are the minority though, your life becomes work blah blah blah. I'm just thinking the population at large, to me wage slave is just starting to look like a minority office drone of the working population. Granted as deregulation increases and wage disparity does too, I can see plenty of low skill manual labour workers trying to get to 50 and 60 hours a week.

Time to start a Lawyer on the side of the people quest.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ursus Maior on <04-17-15/0531:26>
Depressing, but still, the percentage of people working over 40 is the minority. I"m guess that to live in an arcology you are the minority though, your life becomes work blah blah blah.
I would argue along the same line. Look at what opportunities new smartphone technology gives you and the corporation you would be working for in the SR-universe to "enhance daily productivity". Note, that this implies a huge amount of social engineering going on.

If a corporation issues comlink to every of its citizens and this comlink measures everything - biometric data, communicational data etc. - and grants access to all parts of live via AR, apps etc. then your spare time, becomes productive time as well. Whenever your comlink generates your biometric data, you become part of "Big Data", enabling your corporation to know about you, its population and humanity in general. Same goes for statistics generated out of millions of user data generated by the comlinks. And in a distributed network calculations concerning Big Data would be distributed to the comlinks of the corporation's citizens (think SETI@home etc.). You can even make games out of that, in which solving mathematical problems - e.g. data analyzes - is linked to solving motoric problems, like gameplay.

In this way, you can be productive even after your 12h shift in the office. You are useful to your corporation even when you sleep, because they can run tests on you through the sensors in your bed, induce drugs into the ventilation system and do many more of these nice little things. Not to speak for you signing up for extracurricular experiments, like wearing trodes in sleep or anything more sinister.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Aryeonos on <05-10-15/0126:49>
That sounds oddly pleasant, and oddly believable. I mean, think of the profits of selling everyone say longer REM cycles in the form of a cheap implant or nanites taken via gel cap. It helps you reach lucid dreaming faster and longer, you get better sleep, and as a bonus you have a binding agreement that all of your dreams are now the corps intellectual property if they decide to use them. Everybody wins!
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Ursus Maior on <05-10-15/1641:07>
Universal happiness. Brave new world.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Senko on <05-20-15/0906:31>
Another thing to consider in regards to this are extra work hours both . . .

1) Unworked time (unlikely in this world) and
2) Unpaid time (quite likely).

I see examples of both in my work. Unworked time is time you get paid for but as the name say's don't actually work specifically if you get called out to a problem you have a minimum of 4 hours you get paid for. It doesn't matter if the job takes 20 minutes you are paid for the full four hours and at the higher levels there may well be those who get that benefit. I also recall reading somewhere that sleeping at your desk was popular for a while in Japan (and pretending to sleep at your desk) because it showed the boss you'd been working so hard you'd never gone home. Since in this world Japanacorps have such a big influence and AR is prevelant its entirely possible a few hours are not actually being worked so much as "worked" espeically on night shifts or the like. Add in high stress jobs where you want the staff to have some downtime to avoid them snapping and steering two planes into one another and ones where they're on call e.g. fire departments 24/7 but spend a lot of time sitting around and it can skew the results a bit.

The more likely one is hours that are included in your work "week" and expected but not something that you actually get paid for. I've seen quite a few people on "flexitime" and contracts where they can work any hours they wish but only get a flat wage and are in the office hours after their official finish time taking care of all the work they're expected too. Honestly in the shadowrun world I can see a lot of people on the 40 hour, 4k earning schedule actually putting in 50/60 hour weeks either by working weekends or doing 10-14 hours shifts just to keep their jobs. Afterall if your putting in 40 hours a week and everyone else in the office is putting in 60 your going to be the first to go in the cuts so no one is going to want to work less than their colleagues.

Neither of which considers the computer expert who gets calls at 3am and needs to instruct the floor staff on how to fix a problem before going back to bed for a mighty 15 yen more an hour (adds up to a nice 600 yen or so a week).
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: gyrobot on <06-08-15/1348:05>
Aryeonos
I don't think your depiction of working hours is entirely on the mark. Yes, the setting is an oppressive dystopia, and yes, the term wageslave exists for a reason, but a key part of the setting is the control over the population the megacorporations have.

So, while a wageslave might work a long week (and I'm not entirely sure every wageslave does work 80 hour weeks), the corp wants them happy enough so they don't just up and kill themselves. This concept is further reinforced by the fact that wageslaves are paid in corporate scrip, which can be used at corporate stores for their full value, to buy all the things the corporations sell, creating a sort of incestuous economy.

There are posts on the forums describing why this doesn't work on a theoretical level, but it is very much a setting staple so I just go with it. The megacorps obviously blast everyone with as much ad as possible, because everyone isn't just scraping by with the bare minimum or there wouldn't be a marketplace for all the things the corporations manufacture. As a point of example, a 40 hour/week Day Job nets you 5k a month, enough for a low lifestyle (2k/month) and various sundries not covered by lifestyle (like car payments, nice meals out with the significant other, etc). A middle lifestyle (5k/month) would need two jobs or two people working 40 hours to maintain, more if you're living in Manhattan.

In other words, I don't think "everyone is scraping to get by", and I don't think everyone spends "80% of the time at work". But that's just my view of the setting.

On the corp scrip, the only scrip that pays higher is SK (120% more nuyen in the exchange) and Tangire Ryal at 110% exchange. But you gotta be insane to work as a wageslave for a dragon.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <06-08-15/1738:34>
Don't confuse SK and Lowfyr.

While Lowfyr owns and runs SK, that doesn't mean that "Sally the Janitor" works for and is directly under the unblinking eye of the Wyrm.

And, don't forget, a lot of people actually worship dragons!
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: DeathStrobe on <06-08-15/1752:48>
Don't confuse SK and Lowfyr.

While Lowfyr owns and runs SK, that doesn't mean that "Sally the Janitor" works for and is directly under the unblinking eye of the Wyrm.

And, don't forget, a lot of people actually worship dragons!

I believe that some 70% of the employees of SK have actually had a face to face meet with old Gold Snout. I'd say there is a good possibility that Sally the Janitor had had a talk with Lowfyr, just so he can make sure everyone knows who's horde they belong to.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: Reaver on <06-08-15/1934:05>
Don't confuse SK and Lowfyr.

While Lowfyr owns and runs SK, that doesn't mean that "Sally the Janitor" works for and is directly under the unblinking eye of the Wyrm.

And, don't forget, a lot of people actually worship dragons!

I believe that some 70% of the employees of SK have actually had a face to face meet with old Gold Snout. I'd say there is a good possibility that Sally the Janitor had had a talk with Lowfyr, just so he can make sure everyone knows who's horde they belong to.


I highly doubt that a company that spans the globe, and counts 10s of millions as "on the payroll". Even at a simple 60sec "hey, i'm your boss. Don't fuck up" conversation would take YEARS to complete if that was the SOLE thing he did with his time. All day, everyday, 24 hours a day. (525,600 minutes in a year)
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: The Wyrm Ouroboros on <06-08-15/2028:24>
I'd want textev on that one, DeathStrobe.
Title: Re: The Wage Slave's Guide to the Sixth World
Post by: DeathStrobe on <06-09-15/1116:14>
Guess I got it mixed up. Looking at Corporate Shadowfiles it says he just micro manages the execs in to burning out.