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This weekly thread will focus on work and work culture.
This has been a back-burnered issue since COVID came and upended many workplace traditions worldwide, but I’d really like to hear about what you all think about it!
Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):
- What is the ideal work / life balance? Right now, the worldwide average is 5 days per week, 8-5 PM. Is this too much / too little / just right?
- With productivity skyrocketing and wages falling, what would you like to see to fix things?
- Would you accept less money and shorter hours?
- What would you feel minimum wage should do to adjust?
- Do you feel that the current resurgence of Unions is positive or negative?
I feel like the whole world should just have a big giant job internet where there’s just… if something needs to be done you post it on the job internet and somebody who can do it can go do it… if they fail, they don’t get accepted for that type of job again until they get trained… if they’re really good at something and they want to keep doing that thing, then maybe a contract can be signed… if somebody is exploiting the job internet and taking the good jobs over and over and over again maybe there can be some kind of cap on how many times you can accept a certain job without a contract… I don’t know, but I feel like we should be able to get up and go to a job if we want to, but also not have to get up and go to a job.
I have never ever ever wanted to work in my life and the fact that everyone around me expects that I will have to work is infuriating. And it’s not like it’s laziness, when I enjoy something, I just do it… it’s not work or labor, it’s just doing something. But I don’t want to be forced to do things on planet Earth …I didn’t ask to be here, I don’t agree with the system, I don’t agree with money, and I feel like if everybody has free will, we should be able to choose to never work. That should also be a legitimate choice.
As for unions, I can understand how they can be good for achieving things from corporate bosses or whatever… but I once worked at a place there was a union, and because I wasn’t a 40-year-old Islander gossiping with the rest of them and I actually did my job and we were over quota everyday when I was working and I was bei ng too efficient, I ended up being fired by the union because they didn’t want me around… they wanted to be lazy and sit around and gossip instead of do their jobs and be efficient. So that wasn’t very fun, I had no recourse… I couldn’t ask to be not fired because nobody was representing me because I was on probationary… I don’t really have a positive opinion on unions anymore because according to the experience, I will never be able to even join a union because they’re going to fire me before my probationary period is up.
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I was productive because I like work and I like putting the little wires into the little thingy and make it work good… I liked every single station they put me on I like the one where I had to test the circuit boards, I like the one where I had to put all the little pieces together and make the stuff float, I like the little wire part, I like the work. And I liked that I could go to a work, do the work, and then leave the work at work and go home at the end of the day… it was fulfilling… it also paid me more than I had been paid to that point.
I was perfectly happy, and the stupid Union thought that I was not good enough for them so that’s great.
I understand that jobs are shitty and that’s why I don’t work now at all. but I miss that job because it was the most productive I have ever felt. And a union fucking ripped it away from me.
Oh, I’ve also been a temp worker hired as temporary work… you know what they do to Temporary workers when the job is done? They fire them… that shit fucking sucks too, by the way. I’d rather see your shitty manager get an office chair then hire me for a couple months and then fire me because I am temporary labor. Being a temporary laborer sucks. And even though we’re lightning workloads and all that, we still get treated like shit by the actual long-term workers too so there’s also that.
So I guess my perspective is, fuck all work. fuck work entirely. Fuck managers fuck presidents fuck CEOs fuck unions fuck laborers fuck everything that has to do with work at all lol it’s all a damn waste of time
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What is the ideal work / life balance?
I agree with you that one size doesn’t fit all, but I feel there has to be some kind of baseline standard. When I was looking around, I was unable to find when the current standard in North America changed from 9-5 to 8-5, but that shit needs to stop. A large amount of work is now decentralized due to computer and data storage, so there’s no reason hours have to be (with in-person requirement exceptions like restaurants and stores). Given the productivity increases of the last 50 years, we could work one day a week and still be more productive than equivalent work week 50 years past.
Greedy CEOs
I strongly believe that income ratios would be one of the most impactful things we could do. No person working full-time at a company deserves more than, say, 5 times more than any other full-time employee and should factor in “perks” like dividends and such. This kind of thing should be legally mandated.
UBI
I adore the idea of UBI, but we have to make sure the implementation is solid. I love some of the ideas I’ve seen from economists for them (and no, economists are not interested in growing bottom lines, they’re interested in how economic systems function). I also feel the economy has to be made more cyclical which would assist in this.
Unions
I like the resurgence as well, but I’m wary of power and sway over things not related to the unions. The leaders of these unions need to be kept honest just like corporate leaders should be because the ability to abuse the power is also possible (see many union leaders in the 1970s). Open books to members of the union should be the minimum required.
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I just quit my job to start a business with a friend and I thought the reaction I received from my coworkers was interesting. Most were genuinely confused, didn’t understand why I would want to quit, and were surprised that I would do so without any guarantee of employment somewhere else (somewhere that isn’t a non-funded startup).
One manager, at a loss for words, just asked (in a weirdly childlike way) “why?” And I didn’t have a good answer for him. Because I can’t imagine staying at this job until I’m middle management? Because I hate the internal corporate pressure to produce crappy software? Because I want to set my own schedule and have a shot at wealth that will give me freedom from the 9-5 before I’m in my 60’s?
I want to be free, and I want my son to be free.
I think many people have a deep aversion to being unemployed, or are scared of being in an untenable financial situation. If I have an unexpected expense in the next three months, I’m screwed, and that’s a scary place to be in. It’s not a place that most of my coworkers have ever been in. It’s been a while since I’ve been in that place, but I have been there, and rolling the dice with your home or vehicle on the line is easier when you have had the experience of doing so, failing, and recovering from that failure. If you were raised middle class or in stable poverty of some sort, you may never have found yourself with all of your belongings in a rucksack and then come back from it.
Anyway, just an observation.
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Very cool story! Thanks!
