Dirty Jobs 2077 - still with Mike Rowe, what don't drones do? Options

[noonesshowmonkey]

I was thinking of a bar located in some kind of blue collar neighborhood, in the shadow of a polluted sky and full of downtrodden but salty and hardnosed working men.

Maybe a steel mill (I come from the rust belt)?

Then I asked myself, 'what jobs, especially dangerous working ones, aren't done by drones [and why]?'

I am having a hard time with this. Nearly every one of the big time Mike Rowe Dirty Jobs or Blue Collar jobs can be totally automated with drones. Maybe fixing the drones? Unless there are drones that fix the drones... Oi, my head hurts already.

Ideas?

[Mesh]

Whatever jobs you want! There are a lot (a LOT) of have-nots who will do anything to get by even if it's for chicken feed and risks their health. And there are a lot of corps, big biz and neighborhood biz, who calculate it's worth their while to (ab)use them for it.

Mesh

[TommyTwoToes]

With the environment as messed up as it is, and the instability arcoss the world, I think natural resources are probably harder to come by. A recycling plant makes a good industrial site for a lot of Shadowrun. I sort of picture the continuing trend towards disposable cheap products over expensive durable ones as being perpetuated by the corps so there should be a huge amount of detrius availabile to be recycled and used again.

Or a Soy processing plant. Everything is made from soy after all. Soycrete, soysteel, soyglass, laminated soy-like soy-products.

[Cube]

First of all... Mike Rowe going on a Shadowrun would be incredibly amusing.

Next, I'd expect a lot of jobs are still done by humans.

Think of it like this.

If [Cost of Drone + Cost Of Upkeep] > [What a Desperate Spawl Denizen will work for + Cost of an Appropriate Skillsoft +Difficulty of finding a replacement worker], then the job will be given to a Sprawl Denizen.

A Recycling Plant would be an obvious one. Or a Soy Processing Plant. (For some reason, when I read that, I heard "Yo Dawg, I heard you liked soy, so I put some soy in your soy so you can soy while you soy." in my head... I need to see a doctor about that...)

[Summerstorm]

Yeah, the whole drone-workers confuse me. Since the 4th edition the low level drones are so dirt cheap... it would be ok to use up a drone per job per year... and still pay less than a worker. Honestly i was thinking about a 50% unemployment rate or more. But somehow that wouldn't really work out i think.

Let's see... say we need a drone for heavy work: an armored, strength enhanced Manservant like drone with a mid-level autosoft is what? 6000 or something. And say you need double the amount of supervisors than for normal worker (every 5 instead of 10 workers). Also a technician fulltime or checkups every month and a programmer for your facility (every 100 workers or so) and parts for maintainance 10% of the value of the drone per year.

You still save thousands of nuyen per year AND worker. Maybe around 12.000 or so? I am thinking normal pay is about 1.500 per month, a bit less than low lifestyle and nearly no taxes or benefits (It is dystopian after all)

I still think that drones shold be a bit more expensive, comlinks and programs too... but shouldn't scale that high afterwards (for enhancements) Ah well

[Paul]

Depending on how you wanted the feel of your game to be, the limits are virtually endless. Automated vending machines could easily dispense cold brew at the local pub; automated cab services-Ala Total Recall; need a quick shower and a place to doss down-but don't want the hassle of a clerk? "Coffin" hotels are there to fill your need? Want to get all the thrills of illicit sexual encounters with out the risk of physical disease or the discomfort of actually, you know, talking to someone? Hello BTL! All of this comes down to personal preference I think.

[kzt]

Drones are so crazy cheap there isn't any economic reason to use a person to do low-end work that doesn't require human contact. I think it's all part of the genre sabotage project that is SR4. Like having dirt cheap cloned organs.

[Mongoose]

Megacorps are smart enough to realize that unemployed people don't buy much of anything. Low level employees live in corporate housing, eat corporate chow, and probably get their spending money in corp script. Drones don't buy nerps, watch trid, or subscribe to virtual gaming.
The corporate court is playing a shell game with the world economy, restricting drone labor in order to keep demand high (by pumping out wages that they recover in sales) and populations sheep like (long hours of work for wages spent on escapist entertainment). If drones starting doing all the jobs, people would demand universal welfare... which would be easy to supply, what with cheap drones to do all the work. And true universal welfare means government control of the economy, which the corp courts abhore.
Genre sabotage? No, I'd say cheap drones + human labor is quite appropriately dystopian.

[Cube]

Megacorps might just be smart enough to realize that unemployed people don't buy much of anything. Low level employees live in corporate housing, eat corporate chow, and probably get their spending money in corp script. Drones don't buy nerps, watch trid, or subscribe to virtual gaming.

Ah, true.

Basic economics. If Drones do all the work, then the Corps' potential consumer base decreases sharply.

I'd expect Drone Work isn't as common as we'd expect.

[tagz]

What Mongoose said. Also, in the Sixth World your low level corp worker might be considered more disposable then a drone. When a drone kicks the bucket you might be able to salvage some parts but otherwise you just pay out for a new one. With a human you don't pay a year's salary up front for grunt work, it's over time. So any pay, benefits (what benefits?!), etc don't need to be payed. In addition, your corp can make some money off of charging for the funeral, heavily taxing inheritance, and passing debts on to living kin.

I'd say humans would be used as grunt labor in any situation that would put excessive stress on drones, or in situations where judgment is required beyond the scope of a dog-brain. Like sorting garbage. Harmful chemicals and such could put undue wear on drones and their pilot programs might not be able to distinguish types of trash not easily recognized by a program. Better to use a person.

[Heath Robinson]

Ah, true.

Basic economics. If Drones do all the work, then the Corps' potential consumer base decreases sharply.

I'd expect Drone Work isn't as common as we'd expect.

B2B is bigger than B2C, and Drones still consume supplies. Drones buy maintenance services, replacement parts, lubricants, energy/fuel, upgrades/mods, paint, software, housing, workshops, and information. Not being sapient does not free them from engaging in the economic system.

The fact that SR4 glosses over the costs does not mean that the costs don't exist. It just means that SR4 is a P&P game instead of a business simulator.

[Deadmannumberone]

B2B is bigger than B2C, and Drones still consume supplies. Drones buy maintenance services, replacement parts, lubricants, energy/fuel, upgrades/mods, paint, software, housing, workshops, and information. Not being sapient does not free them from engaging in the economic system.

The fact that SR4 glosses over the costs does not mean that the costs don't exist. It just means that SR4 is a P&P game instead of a business simulator.

Not being sapient removes them from the service industry, which is nearly 80% profit, while supply industry is rarely more than 20% profit.

[Whipstitch]

Megacorps are smart enough to realize that unemployed people don't buy much of anything. Low level employees live in corporate housing, eat corporate chow, and probably get their spending money in corp script. Drones don't buy nerps, watch trid, or subscribe to virtual gaming.

The term's scrip, actually, but otherwise ya took the words outta my mouth. Anyone who thinks humans would be pushed out by drones completely is underestimating the power of exploitation. Drones if anything give the corporations leverage-- they really could put tons of people out of work if they wanted to, and barring welfare systems, people need jobs and so stacking the deck so your employees actually end up owing you money is very possible.

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt!
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt!
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store.

How Very Shadowrun Indeed... Kudos...

Keep the Faith

[hobgoblin]

the big question is probably this, are the workers sinners or sinless?

if its the former, they probably still can drum up some kind of union or insurance. But if they are the latter, they may be hired or fired on a day by day basis. When the buss pulls up at the designated spot for the morning, you better be ready and willing (no calling in sick or anything of the sort), or to the rear of the line for you. And its the only place within transport ticket range that hires sinless. Oh, and payment is in scrip, not nuyen.

[Jaid]

yeah, considering 'squatter' lifestyle is 500 per month... (about 6,000 a year) i rather suspect that that is the *maximum* a corp would pay for unskilled labor. if you want to be making even low lifestyle,, let alone 1500 a month, you'd better have some marketable skills that can't just be easily replaced by a drone.

so what kinds of jobs *do* have the potential to earn money? well, anything creative is a good start. of course, if you're not already a corp citizen, you either have to be *REALLY* good, or the people who grew up in the corp, being indoctrinated to be loyal to the corp, will already be doing the 'moderately skilled' tasks. and while this would include art and music (which i suspect would be a *very* competitive field), it would also include designing new products, research/engineering, marketing, etc

people skills would be another area i suspect humans would be a popular choice for workers. after all, nobody likes calling the support line and getting a machine (if you are calling because our product is an inferior POS and you just want to chew someone out, please press 1. if you are calling to attempt to sue us for our product inflicting serious bodily harm, please press 2...) and now you don't have to go all the way across the ocean to find a third world country, for all intents and purposes there's one just a few blocks down the road.

security would be another major area... while this is somewhat included in terms of people skills and creativity, i figure it deserves it's own category. this would be broken down into different areas, of course; drone handler, animal/paranimal trainers, matrix security, security design, security guards (by far one of the biggest employment areas).

these even apply to areas you might not think. if you had a drone watching the till in a stuffer shack, nobody would think twice about putting a few bullets into it. if you put a human watching the till, most people won't shoot it, and even armed robbers will typically use threats of violence rather than progressing straight to violence. in essence, a cashier in 2070 is *actually* a security measure, designed to prevent vandalism and outright destruction of property. same thing with security guards... they'll use drones, for sure, to act as the 'cavalry' so to speak, and they'll have cameras and alarms, but they'll also have real live security guards to back up the electronic systems. not because the guards are more competent than drones (unless they skillwires, i wouldn't be surprised if many guards for non-essential locations are actually *less* competent than a simple doberman drone with a taser weapon mount), but because even in a dystopia, humans hesitate to kill other humans.

[kzt]

You have to pay low for people expected to interact with paying customers. Do you really want someone who looks and smells like they live in a dumpster making a soyburger for you?

And how many drones can you buy for 6000 nuyen? Which works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

[RedFish]

I realize the rules don't have... rules for it, but any machine needs both maintenance as well as fuel of some sort to keep going, whereas you don't need to maintain a human employee (in the Shadowverse anyhow) to any meaningful degree in a corporate world where your employees live off of your own products to a large extent.

Soy is cheap, and the corporate housing you provide at a premium is easy to stack on top of each other with cutting edge Shadowrun-tech!

[Summerstorm]

Na you don't have to. People can throw money together for lifestyle. Just have a family live together, or people have a lifepartner or just roommates makes it cheaper. It was like 50% extra i think, so two people living low style just costs 3000. So you can just provide cheap 10-men working baracks and charge 1500 for food and clothing and such, and pay the dudes 200 in cash a months or so. Everybody wins.

But yeah, drones are still cheaper for everything which needs less than a skill of 4.

[RedFish]

and pay the dudes 200 in cash a months or so.

Pay? How novel. After I deduce Mr. Blue-collar's food consumption from our corp-sponsored stuffershack, his use of our wireless nodes and local entertainment system, his corp-owned housing and the leasing of our skillwires as well as various other services, I seem to notice that he comes a few (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) short every month.

How regrettable. On the plus side we provide him with a job so that he can work towards paying off his ever-increasing debts.

Huh? Oh we'll handle the interests on the same account for ease of bookkeeping. How he'll pay the interests? Well, I suppose he will have to work overtime once again today. Shame that.

[Bladehate]

I always viewed the actual cost of materials as the "cheap" part of buying a drone.

The sheer manhours a dedicated gearhead would pour into his bots to make them function smoothly over time would probably add very significantly to the drone's actual cost of operation.

By comparison, a corp wage tech guy servicing a drone pool of 10-50 is going to be extremely overworked and only able to do the minimum required to keep a drone barely functional. Depending on the size of the drone pool, and the job performed by the drones, 1 guy isn't likely to be enough. Also, there will be a fairly significant need of spare parts etc to keep the drones functional. If the drones operate in any kind of stressful situations, their life expectancy is likely to drop through the floor without extensive (and expensive) maintenance.

In the context of SR, that's not really a problem because a Rigger is assumed to use most of his downtime tinkering with his bots. Hence a significant portion of the drone's expense is absorbed by the rigger character during downtime.

But in the context of a wage environment, the manhours needed to maintain a drone fleet would be pretty significant I should think...

[kzt]

No, you just use maintenance drones for that. 6,000 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) per, so far cheaper than any mechanic.

Like I said, SR4's odd economic structure makes the most sense if you assume that SR4 is really a Cyberpunk genre sabotage project.....

[Bladehate]

So you're saying that SR4 drone techonology has advanced to the point where drones can build and maintain themselves with minimal human intervention?

That's not quite the setting I recall from the novels, but I haven't really read up on the rigger material yet.

[kzt]

You'd need a good mechanic somewhere, but all the annoying routine crap is done by the maintenance bots.

I'm not arguing that this makes any sense, I'm arguing that this is what the rules say and furthermore what they imply.

[RedFish]

So people just assume drones run on air as well? Or did I miss some place in the fluff where the world has invented a new, cheap source of energy that is capable of sustaining an infinite number of drones? That's a serious question, because it's very likely that it's part of the story, but I haven't seen it.

People also need to keep in mind that if you don't care too much about the long-term health of your workers (and why would you if you don't need to worry about job-training and can just reclaim the skill-wires from your dead ex-worker?) there are some rather glaring examples of just how cheaply you can sustain a human being in this day and age.You're paying through the nose for something that some third-world citizen has been payed 10 cents an hour to mass produce, and you're telling me drones run cheaper than that, even if your employee is spending his/her wages on your products exclusively?

Besides, some jobs require an arbitrary judgment to be passed on a product, and looking at the rules for pilot programs, there's a good chance a human would be the better alternative.

In the end though, the whole world of shadowrun requires the ability to abstract away from some of the background. Some people seem to blame 4th edition. While I haven't seen any of the earlier editions, the old mega-corp structure seems to have been there all the time, and even that requires a humongous amount of flexibility in common sense - not to mention the entire idea of shadowrunners itself, which is fanciful at best.