[jfengel]

Mostly it convinces me that they've never been a janitor in the US.

Minimum wage work in the US is brutal. The federal minimum wage is $7.25, amounting to $14,500 a year if you can manage to work a steady job. That leaves you very little money left over for traveling to those national parks.

Being a janitor is actually a step up from a lot of retail jobs, where your schedule is variable and it's hard to work the same 40 hours per week. It might even come with health care, another thing rare among minimum wage jobs. It's less likely to come with retirement savings, and at $14.5k per year you're not putting anything away. Certainly not if you also like to take vacations.

Being poor in the US sucks. Being janitor is not the worst job, but from context I think they meant it that way. I think few people would take janitor in the US over engineer in the UK, and practically nobody sane would take jobs in retail or food service if they had any other option. (Part of the reason they pay so badly is that those are the jobs occupied by people who have no other option.)

[throwaway0a5e]

I've been a janitor in the US.

I'll agree with his comment

Living in a double wide in BFE and commuting 40min of scenic roads to vacuum the regional hospital isn't that bad (I've done it). The instantanteos QoL was arguably better than my first tech job after I got my degree (but the tech job had better long term QoL because of savings and future earning potential).

That said, I'm surprised that more people working min-wage jobs while living in the high cost of living major metro area don't go postal. It's a far, far, far worse quality of life.

>Being a janitor is actually a step up from a lot of retail jobs,

It's really a matter of personal preference. All minimum wage jobs that aren't a good fit for any person suck. When you find something that's a good fit it's just a job. I hate customers so janitor was a way better fit for me.

[KorematsuFred]

I have not worked as a janitor but I have done menial work far worse than mopping a floor for assured hourly rate.

Being poor sucks everywhere but it sucks less in USA.

My claim is not that being janitor is some kind of gold standard or aspiration in USA. My point is that even such a very low skilled job is good enough to help you survive. You will probably suffer a lot but yet it is way way better than being completely jobless on streets.

Janitor is also not a job for life, it is mostly a stepping stone for something bigger and a lot A LOT of americans do this every single year. Something you will rarely see outside of USA.

[kcb]

Janitor is a pretty broad range of work but a professional full-time janitor is not a minimum wage job and could make $70k to $80k at an entry level.

Citing the federal minimum wage is kind of useless with the number of states and cities with their own laws.