this post was submitted on 29 May 2024
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Work Reform

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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.

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[–] Sanctus 116 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yeah cause wtf is the point anymore? No pensions, no raises, no houses, nothing. You literally get to stall the inevitable for another day. Fuck that.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago

Nothing to show and a day closer do death, as the song goes.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

This. I've struggled to explain the general malaise, especially to older people, but you are completely right here. There is simply no point to anything anymore. Things used to operate such that hard work = reward. Now, the reward has been almost universally removed. The system itself is failing, and any hard work just makes some other rich person richer.

[–] TommySoda 60 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This time last year I was 29 years old, had no house, $7,000 of credit card debt, and made $21 an hour.

Right now I'm 30 years old, I have no house, $7,000 of credit card debt, and make $21 an hour.

Of course I'm unsatisfied. Because I know my hard work doesn't pay off and all I'm doing is existing with no money or time left over for myself. I don't give a single fuck about my job at this point besides doing the bare minimum. Which is pretty sad because I used to actually enjoy my job and would work as hard as I could.

[–] yokonzo 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I feel you man, im 29, 4k in CC and make 18/hr, my first mistake was getting that credit limit increase

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Where I'm from credit cards aren't really a thing (they exist obviously but I think people mainly use them when on holiday elsewhere or when buying flights or something since often the card will have some sort of insurance).

Anyway, I was wondering what you use/used your credit card for to get so much debt? Not shaming you in the slightest, just curious since I don't even own a credit card. And what is the interest on it? Do you pay interest every month? What happens if you can't pay?

Just curious about the logistics of cc debt. I hear it from stories from the US all the same but don't understand how it really works.

[–] yokonzo 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The first thing was to get a tv, my simple plan was to pay it off, get some credit score, and then use it again. Next was some big emergency expenses, that raised me to I think $900 debt. Bad, but not horrible. Then my dumb young 20 something ass decided I was a genius by setting up a fake business to get a card reader and "purchase" money to myself to pay rent. That's what really got me to $2000 and stuck in debt.

Then I think after hovering around that and making payments I got this message in the mail like 2 years later saying I got a rate limit increase to $4k, i think it was the finally having some breathing room mixed with emergency purchases and dumb shit that got me to 4k, honestly i don't even remember so it must have not been important.

Now that I'm a little bit less of a dumbass I've worked my way down to around $3,500, which is hard because the more debt you have, the more fees you pay each month ( I think at 2k I was paying $90 interest a month, and now it's like $170) because go fuck yourself, but I'm whittling away at it. I can't wait till I'm finally down to zero and I don't have this monster looming over me anymore, fuck credit cards.

And to answer your question if you don't pay, eventually they'll sell your debt off to loan sharks who will harass you until either you pay or they throw you in debtors prison i think

[–] TheDemonBuer 53 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Jobs suck. That's not news, everyone has known that for a very long time. Sure, some jobs suck less than others, and some people genuinely enjoy their job, but generally jobs just suck. That's why they have to pay you to do them. But it takes more than a paycheck to make a job worth it. There was a time in America where the average person could work a job (albeit, often a sucky one) making a decent wage working only 40 hours a week, take a vacation every year, own a home, have a family and a community, all the things that make working a sucky job worth it. Over the last fifty years or so, many or all of the things that make working a sucky job worth it have slowly become less and less accessible to many people.

I am one of those people. I worked full time. It sucked, as many jobs do, but after putting in a full day's work I didn't go home to a wife and kids or a life that made me feel happy and fulfilled. I would drive my hour commute, which I hated, pick up take out or fast food, come home and watch TV, play video games, smoke pot, and drink. I'd go to sleep, wake up the next day and do exactly the same thing. I did that for years. I was absolutely miserable. People can't live like that.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago

Have you tried less avocado toast and lattes...? /S

[–] Bezzelbob 39 points 7 months ago

The good ol' American dream! Making corporations rich, as we go homeless. #AmericaNumber1

[–] [email protected] 33 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Gee, could it be forcing people back to work when they don’t want to go back? Nah…. Maybe the crippling inflation with no raise…. Nah…. What could it be? /s

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Lack of pizza parties. No foosball table collecting dust in the corner.

[–] kat_angstrom 3 points 7 months ago

We got a ping pong table. Everyone is convinced that if you're seen using it during work hours that puts a target on your back

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

Not enough pizza lunches, duh!

[–] Fedizen 26 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Corporate mergers, high profits, low wages, broken housing system

[–] okamiueru 26 points 7 months ago

Maybe a mechanism for collective bargaining can help mitigate the problem? Something, something, Reagan.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago

Pathetic raises should lead to everybody at least to shop around.

Remember high turn over imposes cost on management. Always change jobs for money bu it needs to be about 20%* so be smart :)

*depends on your job etc but that's rough ball park me and my homies use in professional services

boomers are tapping out, it is our turn to milk this bitch. working people make this whole circus work, so at least get your cut, peasants!

[–] toxicbubble 12 points 7 months ago

I would've needed like 5 x 5% raises at my last job to even make a living wage. then I've had jobs that reward you with more work because the managers don't understand employee retention and human exhaustion. please replace us with machines so we can admit capitalism is a massive failure

[–] NounsAndWords 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Overall job satisfaction among U.S. employees increased a modest 0.4 percentage points in 2023 from the year prior, according to the Conference Board’s annual Job Satisfaction survey released this month. A 62.7% majority of respondents reported being content at work last year, the highest share since the survey began in 1987.

But that record doesn’t tell the whole story: Worker sentiment fell across all 26 subcomponents of job satisfaction measured in the poll, which collected responses online from 1,699 working U.S. adults in November.

Wat?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Could be that people prioritize the underlying categories differently and based their satisfaction on one they rated positively but most others were underwater. Like if you asked sports fans "are sports fun to watch" and then asked them to if each team was fun to watch. They're likely to rate their team as more fun to watch than other teams, and in turn base their opinion of sports on watching their team, while they may not enjoy watching any of the others. Overall the survey could indicate that the majority dislike watching every team even as they also say they like watching sports.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You ask someone “How’s life?” they’re likely to say “Alright” or “Not bad”.

You ask “How’s the knee doing?” or “You still saving for that cruise?” and you’ll get a much more detailed answer which may completely contradict the original “Not bad”.

[–] isles 1 points 7 months ago

Is that the methodology used here? I'd have guessed the Overall was an aggregate of the subcategories, not it's own question. I wonder if the overall would be lower if it was asked last, after considering all the other areas.

[–] oakey66 11 points 7 months ago

I think these kind of articles allow them to collectively rachet up the misery. This is an incentive. Not a disincentive.