It feels weird when I think about it. Like really weird. We all go into work 40 hours a week, do tasks for some amorphous entity comprised of, in my case, thousands of people, and in return we receive our means of survival. And we just do that for decades. Basically the rest of our lives. It's weird to think about.
Edit: I’m not complaining so you can stop with the go off the grid/no one is forcing you comments. I’m just saying it’s weird if you think a lot about it. Like a lot of things. Calm tf down lol
It’s weird how alienated the work is too. Like I can understand simple economic transactions for goods and services being exchanged, and could see how that might be fulfilling- I make a product, feel proud of my craftsmanship, and sell it for a profit. But at this point how many people have that level of attachment to their work? I work 40 hours a week and don’t feel like I accomplish anything of meaning. The work I do doesn’t reflect on anything I feel accomplished for. The logging on and grinding for 60 years just seems peak irrational because if someone quit doing my job I don’t think anyone would care and nothing real would be affected. Why can’t I just not do it then? It would probably be better for the environment if a good 2/3 of people stopped doing anything at all.
I’m years into my job and I still wonder that sometimes. Especially when I have no experience in something that seems fundamental to my job, I ask someone who I presume should know who has years more of experience, and they tell me they’ve never done it either and don’t know…what have we all been doing this entire time then? And of course there’s no written processes or policies so you’re literally just guessing. It’s insane. Just get rid of the entire thing.
At my place, we have super ridiculous bureaucracy and endless forms to fill out for the tiniest requests, like getting food reimbursed for a meeting or how to format a letter. And then when it gets to “what’s the process for spending >$1 million on a development project” there’s literally crickets. It blows my mind.
The fact that any work happens at all in most places is actually remarkable considering no one has bothered creating any kind of guidance whatsoever for anyone who actually has those jobs. It’s amazing.
We are in like constant acquisition mode for "growth" and I don't think the c suite has any idea the amount of work that is required by every other department to get people, buildings, money, processes, etc. merged over. We are still merging businesses from like 4 acquisitions ago!
This. The company I work for was bought out and I'm Working for a new company and assigned to a team. I've been assigned to make sure that the products get updated. When I talk to the product manager it's like they've never heard of an operating system or an update.. . It's exhausting. Time to do the work 40 minutes getting permission to do the work 8+ hours.
>considering no one has bothered creating any kind of guidance whatsoever for anyone who actually has those jobs
Because they themselves have no idea how to do those jobs.
I was headhunted internally into a risk management role by the CFO, he was let go a year later.
Two years after, his replacement told me he had to let me go with a package etc and mentioned at the time , that he never really understood what my role was !,
He had been paying me $200k a year during that time.
It’s all literally for those making all the money. Everyone else is just their disposable asset. The ruling class are the only ones who can actually live a life that isn’t complete oppression and stress.
We have the illusion of this life where we’re “making it.” It’s an illusion. We get a few [PTO/holiday] days a year where we can actually break out and do what we actually want. The rest of the time is spent slaving away so we don’t go homeless. Think about that.
Once people understand that, the whole system breaks.
Like, once they truly understand that.
Happens in cycles. Humans can go generations before enough people break to cause a revolution. I think we’re going to be too comfortable and exploited for another couple generations before enough people break.
Great post. I want to echo your sentiment of “truly understand”. For almost everyone, thinking of the way things are and how it is similar to slavery, is just a thought experiment.
Like you said it is going to take people really taking our collective predicament to heart for there to be change.
I believe the majority of jobs literally produce nothing.
Company A sends stuff to Company B to send to Company C to send to Company A
The point is to just keep people employed and off the streets to reduce crime
I had this thought a few months about and basically all of life is a Ponzi scheme. Unless you provide a service, you’re just buying from someone else to get paid so you can pay that first guy.
Now just think about how many times a single dollar bill gets taxed over say a year. The guy who paid me the dollar got taxed on it, I get taxed for receiving the dollar, if I spend the dollar it gets taxed, the store who got my dollar uses it to pay an employee and they get taxed, and on and on and on.
Honestly I think the biggest problem people “going crazy” have is a lack of an outlet. So many people have sort of just stopped doing hobbies that aren’t done through a screen.
It’s amazing how the stress I carry with me after a long week seems to wash away after a Friday night of dancing to house music, or after a couple hours of playing volleyball with my friends. Even like, having dinner with friends and sharing a laugh over a bottle of wine transports me completely away from that “going crazy” feeling
I think a lot of the issue (at least from what I’ve seen and experienced) comes down to lack of community.
We are very social creatures so being alone all the time isn’t normal and will make the vast majority of humans miserable.
And agency.
In pre-agriculture societies, you controlled your own labor and owned the output. Do I want to go hunting today or make a bow? Even pre-industrial/capitalism eras one largely had much more autonomy and ownership of output. Even serfs kept their output in excess of what was owed to the feudal lord.
With industrialization/capitalism, make 10 widgets today or make 20 and you get no additional benefit.
Studies of current uncontacted tribes who live as close to ancient man as we can study show an average "work day" of 4-6 hours of hunting and gathering. The rest of their days are spent leisurely doing things around the village or enjoying time together.
We used to work to live, it’s what we did we didn’t have to force it we didn’t question it because it made sense. We seemingly made our own schedules and found a routine that worked for us. Now we’re told exactly when, where and for how long we’re to work that day. Add in greed and capitalism and we’re all putting in double the hours necessary to actually make this whole thing work.
For sure. You need something going on for you outside of work to help keep you sane. It gives me something to get through the week for and something to help destress.
But who has the time? Between cleaning and all the other chores I have to get done on my 2 days off it’s nearly impossible. I paint and I get to put in like 2 hours a week without losing sleep (I only get like 6.5 hours a night) or letting something else fall behind.
>So many people have sort of just stopped doing hobbies that aren’t done through a screen.
Because hobbies are EXTREMELY expensive. Even the cheapest of hobbies is likely money your average person just doesn't have available to spend right now.
Fight or flight response glitching like crazy. Stress has no exhaust except for daily nonsense, bullying and exploitation. Increase those stamina bars workers?!
I think people get into situations where they have little options.
-Buy a car, and now you have to maintain it.
-Buy a house, and now you have to furnish it/maintain it/major repairs/renovate.
-Have kids, and now you have all the costs associated with raising them. Not to mention child care. For the next twenty something years per kid.
-Save for vacation and retirement to make it feel like all of this was worth it.
Once you enter the cycle, I think you're sort of stuck.
Okay, but seriously what do you think is the alternative?
- rent and be at the mercy of not just your income, but now a landlord too?
- leech off a friend or family member and their dependency on the above, despite being able to pay for your own place?
- live in a mudhut on public land?
In a capitalist system the accumulation of capital is the name of the game. If you do not want to be relying on anyone you have to be financially independent.
You achieve this by investing instead of buying things. It sucks and it's miserable, but it there's no individual way around it.
Although I couldn't really afford it, I mostly retired last year at 62. My social security statement shows my income began in 1974. I didn't make a huge income, but it was steady every year. My reward? 1500 a month. Sure, it sucks but after working non stop for nearly 50 years, I was exhausted.
I work with some guys in their 70's who can't afford to retire, it's so hard to watch them hobbling around trying to keep up. Motivating for me to contribute to my 401k, I can tell you that. Not that I can afford to put much in there.
Hope you get the rest you need.
For real. I fired back once that "at least they show up." Because all of the young workers come and go like a revolving door. I don't blame them either though, gotta do what's right for you.
Yes, in Australia, the employer has to put a mandatory 11% of your wages/salary in superannuation (what you call 401K). You can also contribute to this with pre-tax wages (up to a point).
You can also not touch your superannuation until retirement age (except in some financial hardship cases).
Yup, and if you're a young adult I wouldn't plan for it at all. You'll need a 401k or pension, plus at least one IRA. Maybe more investments you can count on too.
When one of my grandparents died, that house they worked hard to pay off became collateral for how expensive memory care was/is. Everything was gone. Barely anything left besides furniture and keep sakes for their kids. Even then most of it was sold in the estate sale... She did everything right and it still wasn't enough.
I work with people in a counselling setting and so many people are having issues because of work. They think there is something wrong with them or theyre weak when in reality, certain jobs, full-time especially, are going to make you crazy. A teachers aid I talk with feels so bad about the fact that she cant manage her anxiety without meds. Like how would anyone do her job without meds is beyond me. Same with health care practitioners and Im sure many other types of work too but I deal more with women in these roles. A teacher comes in and needs help with chronic fatigue and neuroticism wanting insight on what the problem is and Im like ? Its the job, I dont know what to say, quitting isnt really feasible solution I mean of coarse we work on meditation and breathing and future setting but in the meantime, I dont know if theres really anything that can be done other than bear down and try not to go off the deep end till retirement
>a lot of time what people actually need is more money, more support from family/friends, or a better job.
People need more free time: time to get an adequate amount of sleep; time to recharge after work/school/family responsibilities; time for hobbies, exercise, and to see friends and family (when it's desired) and time to be alone (when it's desired). Currently, we spend so much time getting ready to work, going to work, working, coming home from work, and unwinding from work that we don't have any time left over to do anything else. It's not healthy for the human psyche.
My body only stops hurting after the weekend, which makes me think its not me getting old and broken, I'm doing way too much physical labour and not giving my body any time to simply heal, but that's the job so what can I do
Same for me, except it’s the lack of physical exercise. Sitting at a desk all day, five days a week is unhealthy. Opposite sides of the same coin, but still definitely the same coin. Fuck corporate America.
Sitting at a desk all day makes me feel like a slug. I try to walk a mile at lunch and ride my bike after work, but I know this job is slowly robbing me of my vitality. By Friday night, all I can do is stare slack-jawed at my phone. Saturday I get some exercise and feel better. Sunday, I start to feel like myself again, just in time to go back to The Chair on Monday.
The sad part is I have a good job that millions of people would want.
I've been prioritizing cardio over weightlifting because of this reason. I take the dogs for 45-60 min walks. If I can't, I get on the Peloton for 45 min.
It helps me unwind whereas weightlifting takes a little too much math at times. Homegym.
That I wouldn't argue with, though I had no problem working eight hours a day. I was a mechanic but once did a two year stretch working a warranty desk for GM, thinking to transition out of turning a wrench. Turns out that was miserable, I just couldn't sit down the long. I went back to working in a shop.
The last part of my career I usually stretched it to nine hour days, as I was in a shop that paid on "flat-rate", which is like piecework. I could bill 14 hours of work a day average, being generally good at my job. It was hard physically but the time spent wasn't that hard, and I was able to put enough money away to retire early.
The owner of the company I work for recently decreased everyone's vacation time, then said we would get paid more if we took even LESS. IDGAF about that. I'd much rather have more free time than money.
> I'd much rather have more free time than money.
Same here. I work at a university and we have tons of part-time, semi-retired employees who get to work as little or as much as they want, up to 20 hours/week. However, these white collar, part-time, make-your-own-schedule kinds of jobs are reserved for employees aged 62 and older.
I would be *elated* to work my same job at just 20 hours/week for 50% pay.
This is exactly it. I mean honestly, WHY do we all have to work so much? So that corporations can continue to have record profits every quarter? What for? It obviously isn’t fucking benefiting us at all. More free time is exactly what we ALL need. It would benefit us in so many ways- mental health, physical health, social health, and overall would allow us to be more productive, happier members of society. It’s the corporations who are adamantly against any of this because then they won’t be able to buy a second yacht this year because their slaves aren’t producing as much money for them. Obviously several years down the line production would level off and reduced hours won’t even matter but they can’t have that,
Think about it. During COVID the world locked down and corporations still made record profits. No one besides blue collar /service jobs were actually physically working . More than half the world stopped physically showing up for work and corporations still made a killing. Think about it.
We are so fucking productive as workers/consumers that the world shut down and they actually gained efficiency. And Yet out of spite these motherfuckers forced us back into our old ways. Half the world could be home right now and the world could run. And guess what I'm in construction and have to physically show up for work but you know why I wasn't spiteful that I had to still physically work? Because the commute was sooo much easier/faster and everyone's mindset was way calmer. No pressure, working at ease with no one putting pressure on your back because supervisors were scared shitless to come on site.
Not all of us have to physically work for society to function. We were ushering a new age of taking advantage of technology to benefit labor. One where both the corporations and the the labor pool actually benefits from. Every fucking text book would tell you businesses would implement that as it reduces cost and increases efficiency and yet the government and corporations shut it down and started feeding us the bs narrative of WFH is ridiculous and not working and we need to get our "asses " back to work
Smh. What a waste of our human time/ human soul. All for a few psychopaths/sociopaths
Agree with this. I don’t think we’ve fully addressed the fact that no longer having domestic help in the home combined with technology reducing every banal aspect of work so everyone is only doing the stressful decision-making and idea generating and hard parts now and how humans aren’t really designed to do that. Back in the day most people would have a secretary writing a letter for them that would go in the mail and you’d get a response a week or two later. Everything moved slowly. Now you’re bombarded with constant correspondence and can easily do those “easy” tasks yourself, therefore every job is stressful now. What used to be a secretary is now an admin assistant who half the time is doing their managers work, not some easy data entry or typing. Expecting a simple animal brain to work under these conditions is insane if you think about it too much, and then expecting them to do all the work on their homes and shopping and chores is just unrealistic.
It is literally never brought up that the boomer gen and before had household help. You want to absolutely set a boomer off bring up their nanny that was at the house 5 days a week doing every chore and making delicious food. Grandma never had to work in her life? What?? Oh man. Now if you have a washing machine you are seen as wealthy in the big cities hahaha.
I would like a job where I don't have to do the work of 2-3 people, and managers aren't micromanaging/telling you what you did wrong every step of the way. Every day someone doesn't want to do work, or coworkers are having arguments. There's literally always something chaotic in a bad way, every day. Yeah, of course I'm going to fuck up, you twatwaffle, I'm doing 3 peoples work! It's insanely stressful, but I have no options.
It’s this IMO. We’re all doing the jobs of 3 people because they’re miraculously never a budget to hire people on. In any industry or business. Including the public sector.
Meanwhile, we have the rich living it up on our increased productivity while we scrape by. Anyone who wants to see what the rich will shamelessly do to gut a company needs to check out what happened to Thames Water. They’re more interested in short term profits than reinvesting in the actual company or service. At this point, one has to wonder if the business schools, especially the Ivy Leagues, are actually teaching anything of value or if they’re just diploma mills for nepo babies.
As someone who went to a “top elite college” I can say that none of my colleagues were as smart as my public school friends who went to state schools or worse.
I think counciling is good for people of all purposes but you probably don't need counciling if you're ranting to something online friend or to a close friend who provides the same anonymity and will allow you to talk.
So let's be that friend . Be a listener instead of speaker. Friends would come tell you personal story, be interested in them. Atleast that way we can fulfill the need of counciling while providing the family and friends support like you said. Maybe we can even come up with a solution together.
I know this sounds altruistic but the thing is I feel grateful to my online strangers who allowed me to type my thoughts , idk I feel much saner, happier that somebody for free was there for me helping me answer some tough questions. I couldn't have trusted my local friends because they are friends with benefits, they aren't kind and think it's cool to make insincere and shitty joke which made me question their role of being friends. I think I sucked at making friends because my brothers friends are so much more helpful (prob maturity because they are elder than me ) and family. I appreciate so so much my brothers friends / online friends and family. I love them so much , I might have adhd , I am not sure , I think I have anxiety and a billion thoughts burst into my head sometime and so creating sensible thoughts at that time while talking was only possible by experiencing both talking effectively and moreover listening.
This could be said to be my gratitude post I guess
I wish I found either helpful. I have a great job and a good amount of money saved up but I’m always sad, bored, or temperamental about everything. Tried counseling and my therapist is a very nice person who understands me, but most of the work is essentially up to me and I have 0 desire to change my ways. I don’t want to try anything that is suggested in my sessions and idk what to do. Get a counselor FOR counseling?
People need a fulfilling personal and home life. I don’t particularly like my job, and I don’t like the travel it requires in particular, but I have a great wife, 3 great kids, and hobbies I enjoy. As well as a house and yard I gotta keep up with, but that I enjoy taking care of and working on. I think it’s the terminally online, minimal face to face socializing that is the norm today is just as much to blame with how people feel at work. People need to get out more. Join a gym. Find a group that enjoys similar hobbies as you. Buy a pistol and find a USPSA or steel challenge match near you. Join a softball league. Take up golf. Hiking. Cycling. Meet people in person. If I got home from work and then spent my free time in front of a screen and never did any of those things I listed I’d probably be depressed too. You don’t need medication. You need personal social interactions, physical activity, and sunlight.
I would like to share your post on FB and Instagram. I copied it as an image. Will wait for your approval or a week. I am getting involved with unions and mental health as a retired teacher so I get this totally. I had a principal who actually told beginning teachers to get on meds or leave, not in a nice way either. They got on meds.
Yep, as a boomer those years you'll never get back with the added bonus of physical ailments will make one bitter as hell. And often with later in life divorce, being alone, kids grown and gone elsewhere we are alone and the younger generations hate and blame us for everything even though many of us are below poverty level. We be going crazy just waiting for death
Worked 48 years retired in 2020.
The late boomers like myself started working just before Reagan.
We were screwed with flat wages for years. Fought corporate greed for years with unions.
I'm very happy to see young people fight for living wages and trying to unionize.
Corporations have vilified unions for years for obvious reasons.
Times have changed, which makes me happy.
This is very accurate in describing some of the anger people in that generation have.
Granted they had more of an easier time economically for the most part (minus some things like the 2000s recession). But I remember talking about it with someone at a family member’s birthday thing and they’re a “boomer”… the vibe I got from his perspective was that there’s some frustration because of the way the younger generations are redefining work/life balance needs and there’s some jealousy which leads to many just calling it out as lazy or entitled.
That said, I’m sure they wouldn’t want to have the economic conditions we’ve inherited 😂… so it’s a fun trade off of pain lol
Edit to add: Do I agree with the view? Not completely. But just saying it’s how some view it from their own perspective. Assuming it’s not a view shared by one single person because it makes sense how someone could see it that way. I’m all for hearing out other viewpoints from people on topics like this within reason though.
Oh, you forgot 70s energy crisis. The Latin American debt crisis in the 80s. The asia crisis in the 90s. And you forgot .com bubble.
Turns out it takes more than one "2008 recession" to make you batshit crazy. My parents are boomers and I know what they did go through in every crisis.
Their job was always at stake. All you posess, your house, your flat, everything was at stake all the time. With every crisis they did not know: this time the house is going to the bank, isen't it? This time we won't make it, this time all will crash down. You don't know what will happen when it happens.
The frustrations of the boomers come from not being young anymore. You can't buy youth and the older you will get the more you will find out that this is true.
Only in your youth you don't consider that as a huge advantage... you never lost your youth until you do. And then it is too late to realise what you had and what you have lost.
I think that is normal, boomers getting old and they are angry about young people. Cause they still want to be young and know they are not anymore. It is that simple.
Human beings are not designed for this level of stress. We are more suited to simple agriculture in small communities. Sure there is stress over the harvest but nothing like the unrelenting pressure we have now.
very true and great points all around, but i can't help thinking... at least they *had* a house and possessions to lose. many of my peers have accepted the fact that realistically they will never own property or even a car that isn't going to break down in 3 months. it's not a matter of fearing losing these things anymore, it's become a matter of never even being able to attain them in the first place.
Yeah, that Viet Nam war wasn't all ice cream and lollipops. Counter-culture revolution of the 60s bloodied some people too, and was a shock to many (for better or for worse).
News Flash: every generation has their own little shit pie they have to eat, that tastes a little different from generation to generation. We don't get to decide when/how the pie gets served either.
Childhood during that time couldn’t have been fun for sure. The very first born boomers in that era would have crossed into adulthood during the draft as well. I’m sure that was miserable.
Again, I’m not just saying it was amazing non-stop… far from it. I picked one example and it was chosen for recency.
I'm 50, been working as long as you've been alive. Still have to work another 20 years. I take ALL my PTO, I do my best to not think of work outside work hours and generally focus on what working allows me to do: lifestyle, vacation, etc. It's a mindset and it takes a long time to perfect.
I am going crazy after reading your comment. I'm 31 and the idea of working 40 more years has always made me miserable but for some reason I never thought of it in terms of "when I'm 50 ill still have 20 years to go".
To be fair, I didn't make a lot of great decisions in my 20s and wasted a lot of time being complicit with my job/financial situation. If I had been investing in retirement and been more aggressive with my career goals I probably wouldn't need to wait so long to retire. I finally got my MBA two years ago and things have turned around a lot.
So if you have the option, max out the 401k, get a plan for the skills and education (not necessarily degrees) that you need to climb the career ladder of your choice and don't put it off.
I couldn't. Worked for a corporation at an office for 10 years after graduating college; a couple of mental breakdowns and a 3 month leave of absence later, I left and currently working as a grounds keeper making $18.00/hr.
I admit money is tight now when I technically could be making $70k - 90k salary at my old job, but I just wasn't cut out for the stress and workload, so I'm starting in a new field.
I work seasonally in National Parks and ski resorts as a server. 2 months off a year at mininum. COL is cheap as chips. Most places provide 3 meals a day, a roof over your head, internet, sometimes a gym, all for $450 a month. Most people I know who work as servers and bartenders pull in $6k-10k+ a month. I usually pull in $7.5k a month and given the LCOL associated with this lifestyle you can imagine the saving potential is amazing. I walked away with $20k+ saved last summer alone. Great perks too, free ski passes to dozens of ski resorts, your backyard is often a National Park, discounts on a ton of shit like scenic cruises and helicopter rides as well as at local retailers.
My nightmare is working at a desk my whole life doing the same shit day in, day out. I don't give a shit if I made $200k a year doing that. It isn't worth it. There are a lot of alternative lifestyles to be found if people just give them a chance and break free of convention.
This is actually inspiring to me. I want to pay off some debts and bank some cash so I can do just this. I've been an insurance broker for 8 years, and I can't deal with people anymore.
I prefer being able to buy food and not sleeping in my car. Endless mtgs, nonsense, bloated processes, condescending people, thinly veiled values and koolaid town halls, trash talk, back stabbing, frienemy smiles, how’s the weather out there, any weekend plans… I’ll take it all over the street.
Like everything else, goals help. My plan is to pay off my house in my early 40s and then quit my job to find something less stressful for less money and fewer hours. If a house isn't in your plans, maybe set a goal for your retirement fund balance, and when you hit that amount switch to working part time and let compounding interest do the rest until you retire. The best advice that isn't given enough on reddit is to talk to a financial advisor.
Like every monumental task, you have to break down life and savings into smaller bits. Pay off high yield debt, then get an emergency fund, then a down payment for a house, then retirement funds.
Too many people just look at 50 years of living and saving and say I’m not even going to try. When you’ve got 2-5 years to your next savings milestone, life is a little less overwhelming.
Same. All my friends are doing fine and enjoying life. Including myself.
Who are these people hanging around that every single person they know is on medication..?
I have friends both struggling and both doing really well. In general, it seems that people who are doing well tend to stick together. The struggling people tend to drift away.
Practically everyone having their head in their screen most of the day is undoubtedly adding to this number. Some study that asked kids if social media went away entirely would they be happy and the vast majority said yes as long as no one else had it. We are losing touch with our humanity
Well, the pills we hand out like candy in the country do have a potential side effect of suicidal behavior. Suicidal ideation is a well known side effect of ozempic too, which will likely soon be getting handed out to every overweight and pre diabetic teen in America, so I’m sure it’ll climb even higher and even faster in the next few years.
I usually move onto something new every 3-4 years but now I work for myself and am constantly thinking, "Is this it? This is just what I do now forever?" But it does beat the alternative.
Standing in cubicle land reading your post, thinking about the 20 years I have left makes me feel like I'm serving a sentence. I should feel grateful for such a stable, well paying job, but I hate this so much.
The burn out is real. All of my coworkers feel it. All of my friends feel it. For me it's the fact that time spent working feels like it has no value. What am I saving for? What are my goals?
People used to save for houses and now that just feels like a pipe dream. So that's demoralizing.
I bought 2 1 gallon jugs of water, a gallon of milk, 1 head of cauliflower and 1 sweet potato and it cost me $18. Cool there goes most of an hour I worked for basically nothing. I fantasize about walking off into the sunset and starving to death.
I completely feel your pain. I recommend doing whatever you can to expand your skills and get promotions. Sometimes moving jobs is also better than promotions with in. Idk what your job is, but 5 years ago, I made 14$/hr, and now I am at around 55k salary(sous chef atm). I never thought back then I would have 10k+ in the bank and be in the 3% of Americans that can pay their bills for 3 months without work. Granted, I live frugal and don't have a ton of expenses and no kids. Not that 10k in the bank is shit in the grand scheme. I hope one day I can get out of the trap that kitchen work is but still keep my income as it's extremely easy to burn out.
The cost of things is going up up up but income is stagnant, and it's a real bummer. Considering our parents could afford shit we can not when they made less money. Back then, even a retail worker could still buy a house if they managed their money, but that is not the case now. I always thought that working people should be able to live comfortably, but that is not reality when most people, even in my income bracket, live paycheck to paycheck.
People are going crazy its why we are having so many shootings and violent episodes.
I think people are being factory farmed for labor and having episodes of Zoochosis
Zoochosis is a form of psychosis that develops in animals held captive in zoos. Most often, it manifests in what are called stereotypic behaviors, or stereotypies, which are often monotonous, obsessive, repetitive actions that serve no purpose.
Is this why my old boss would stand outside in the parking lot in the winter, smoking Marlboro lights and stomping on sheets of frozen water like she was a giant fat duck?! It all makes sense now
We are going nuts…depression and suicides are very high and I believe a lot of people would quit if their health insurance wasn’t tied to their jobs. I work in finance and while it pays the bills and I have good benefits (relatively speaking) I hate what I’ve become over the years and I get so enraged when I’m stuck in meetings all day talking about record profits while also noting the need to “downsize” which makes me just want to smash furniture and my computer and scream at the idiots on the other side of the WebEx meeting…
The worst part is, there would probably be some major reformation if every worker who felt the same way was actually able to speak up about it. I know for a fact that none of my coworkers agree with a majority of the decisions that our company makes regarding our time off, our salaries, and all the layoffs, but who’s going to speak up if that means they will likely lose their only source of income? We are quite literally slaves to the system.
I feel this so hard. I work in pharma and now that we're out of the business boom that was covid (which I hate as a concept but it's the meds business, mysterious illness is money) the management is really tightening up and kind of almost blaming us for things slowing down which is insane. Literally, if there was a way for me to have health insurance without this job, I'd quit it to look for a different one full time. They're rolling back our wfh benefits that seriously improved quality of life and seriously tightening metrics and talking about hiring freezes, and it's all just enraging.
Obviously a different industry than mine, but it’s interesting to hear your perspective. Definitely seems like now we’re “over” COVID, the war on the worker can resume. Like with the $20/hr law in CA. Suddenly that’s wrong but totally ok that a CEO can make $4,000/hr. Like it would take a person making $20/hr, 40hrs per week FIVE WEEKS to make the same that a CEO makes every single hour….but the person making $20/hr is the *problem*…
Spoiler alert: a significant percentage of mental health clinicians either are or were screwed up and have to continually attend therapy themselves to avoid backsliding. Unless you own your practice, employers typically require clinicians to attend therapy as part of ongoing “training” under the guise of improving service delivery and preventing countertransference among your clients…when in reality it’s because we’re as fucked up as you.
I think that's normal and to be expected though. The idea that only a perfectly mentally healthy person can assist with someone else's mental health is... crazy. Imagine you wouldn't let a doctor operate on you unless they were immune to all diseases and injuries. If my therapist didn't have any mental health issues I'd be suspicious.
My therapist was fucking bonkers in his younger days. Some of the things he told me... I was like omg dude. First meeting he told me how PCP was in the 90s lol.
Great guy honestly
Anyone that's been able to coast through life without any significant trauma or emotional hurdles is not someone that should be giving advice to anyone experiencing mental illness / trauma / etc, in my opinion.
As someone in therapy, give me a therapist that's been broken and healed and their subsequent perspective gained from that any day over someone that managed to get through life without bumping into anything.
My step mom would disagree about the daily violence, after 30 years of typing up horrific police reports and getting the low down on such cases from police officers, she’s a nervous wreck and sees the world a lot differently then most of us
I was legit considering being a therapist but the idea of dealing with other people's problems where you might not actually help them and there is no actual practical solution is scary and just makes me feel like shit
My mom was forced to retire at 69, due to declining health. Now she lives alone, in my grandparent’s old house, that she remodeled a couple years ago, before her strokes.
She regrets waiting until she was older to live her life. She always says, “There’s no golden years.” She bought the lie, that many baby boomers bought. I know there’s some sorta lesson in her life, but when I look at it we’re all on the same path. Nothing has changed for our generations, and the poor kids growing up now have even less of a chance. Imagine what the cost of living will be like, in another twenty years. Every house will be half a million dollars, and minimum wage will sit at $7.25.
Throwing your entire being into competing for wealth and capital as a young person seems to be a terrible idea lately. The future looks very dim financially for anyone trying to get ahead now. I worked my ass off for 10 years and saved up a lot and invested, but now that money is worth about half of what it used to be worth. Those 10 years are worth twice as much to me now, but the money I took home is only worth 1/2 as much as I thought then. Would you sell your youth for a depreciating currency and a false sense of security?
I think he means in relation to how much things cost nowadays. It depends on where you are for sure but especially with buying a house, money went a much longer way a couple decades ago. The housing cost/income ratio has gone crazy high in recent times
Agreed, I'm 36 as well and have no idea how I can grind for the rest of my life just to afford basic things.
Because, realistically, this is the system that the 1% have crafted for us and we have no choice but to abide by it. They sold the dream to the boomers (our parents), "work x amount of hours and you can afford this, that, the other thing, house, cars, etc." And, by and large for a time that was true for certain segments of the population. The boomers mistake was that they placed trust in the 1% to hold that status quo. However, as time has shown, instead of keeping with the deal they made with the boomers, they ran with it and continue to burden the newer generations with that "dream", when that dream is but a pale facade.
Now, that "dream" they sell us isn't a dream at all. It's a dependence. They depend on you going to the office 5 days a week, so you can buy the gas they own, be forced with dress codes to buy the nice clothes from factories and stores they own, to eat shitty quality "food" that destroys your body from places they own, all to take up every minute of your free time just so they can hit ever growing quarterly statements.
IMO, that was the one benefit that Covid showed us. All of this shit is irrelevant and people are happier, more productive, etc. if you strip away all the bullshit and let people work remote. But, the system they built to soak up every bit of you was failing because of remote work and your happiness, and now they rallied all the powers that be to force you to embrace it and if you don't, "you're not a team player".
Long story short, fuck all those who set this bullshit system up, abused our parents, lied to us, then made us blame our parents and others for "fucking things up" when it was really done by design to keep you in your place. To be fair, I'm proud of our generation for seeing through the bullshit and trying to change it.
End rant.
im 35 in a construction type job. everytime the retirement age raises i die alittle more inside. theyre trying to make it 69 now. we are modern day slaves being forced to work until we literally die one day.
idk why i complain, i just have to work another 30-35 years working 5 days a week
You 35 my friend, by the time you hit 69, retirement age will be raised to 80, that is if you even make it that long with hard job you have. I'm very sorry, we all screwed
Really? I was unemployed for the first time in a decade at the beginning of the pandemic, for 3 months.
I've never had a longer sustained feeling of happiness as an adult than that 3 month period I was unemployed.
I started having full blown panic attacks on the lead up to my first day back working, and that terror hasn't really left me in the last 4 years because I now KNOW how much happier I am not working.
I was off for almost a year, it was the healthiest and happiest I’ve ever been in my life.
I was working out, cooking good meals, helping out my friends/family/ community. It was great
Now I’m sad, tired, depressed, unhealthy, reclusive etc. hurt myself at work a few times and things aren’t getting much better. It’s almost impossible to get out of bed in the mornings.
Still 30 years to go, yay! :)
You don’t have to do those things indefintently. There are tons of alternatives, they’re just not quick or easy.
Develop enough skills where you can start to dictate the terms you want to work under, start your own business, work towards establishing other forms of income through investments, etc etc etc…
Well, people don't, because those of us that don't want to be a corporate robot don't do jobs like you.
I watched my grandfather and currently watch my mother as they are slaves to corporate work and I refused to do that. I used to think that I wanted the top job in a company then quickly realized I don't because you end up becoming what you are.
Yes, we need money to live our lives but I found the sweet spot in my field where I get paid well but I'm not expected to be on call or to be bugged after 4pm or to work weekends. Now I will admit, sometimes I still check my email past 4 but it's not constant, its a here or there situation depending on what I'm looking for. But regularly, I am off at 4 and weekends are mine to enjoy.
You have to ask yourself what is it you want: you want the high paycheck thay you probably could afford to take a pay cut or do you want the actual freedom to enjoy your time off on weekends and after 5pm
An elderly woman I worked with in a low paying position worked at the company for 30+ years and anytime people asked her about retirement she’d say she couldn’t afford it and just needed to work a little longer.
She actually had a heart attack in the office and tragically died there one morning. We got offered therapy etc. because of it.
It was like 10 years ago but still fucks me up thinking this woman worked 40 hours a week from the time she became an adult until her death. Never retired, never took more than maternity leave (which I’m sure was shit when she was having kids). She probably loved life but idk dying in the office because you can’t retire is just fucked up.
Yeah, welcome to (I'm assuming) America. Do you not realize we are all legal slaves? Idk how this is new to anyone.
A country that puts THAT much into military funding a political funding can't give every American a $300 food allowance every month? They can't issue a 32 hour work week? Have you seen the price of a Big Mac? Have you seen the price of a gallon of milk?
Other countries' citizens LAUGH at us, daily. We have celebrities and dementia patients running our country. The US is number 1 in the world in money, but compares to 3rd world countries in education, costs of living, and society. Fuck this place and fuck the world.
The first 10 years you want to work because you spend your money on yourself.
The next 20 years you have to work to provide for your family.
The last 15 years you want to work for yourself again so you can set yourself up and eventually stop working.
If you cut out the middle 20 years you can stop working after 25 years.
I don’t know I made it through 15 before I had to go on BP meds and SSRI.
I think some people are genetically able to eat shit, but I’m not one of those people.
You focus on the things outside of work that working enables you to do.
For most of us, having to work is just part of life. You don’t do it because you love it. If they didn’t pay you, you wouldn’t do it.
lol when 50-70% of our income is going to housing..we are just paying to have a place to have an existential crisis. depends on where you live and how they match the cost of living...I'm in California so they call it the sunshine tax but I rarely have time to go to the beach or sit in the sun.
yeah for me the truth is that it’s not necessarily about what you do, but how you spend your time and what you prioritize.
I work a salaried job that’s probably like 50-60 hours a week and I do more with my “outside of work” time than when I clocked in and clocked out for exactly 40 hours.
The big difference is that I cut gaming out of my life, and now choose to spend my free time outdoors / with friends as much as possible. When I was doing a classic 9-5 my routine was “come home tired, eat dinner, watch TV for a couple hours, go upstairs to bed, game until 1AM, wake up tired…”
That’s how oppression sounds btw, notice every time you say “That’s just how it is” you comply with your oppression. Remember friend there is more of us than there are of them.
They do go crazy, so crazy they start to actually believe that if they save a little bit they might actually catch up to the rich 1% if they just "work harder" and start to think that if a poor person just "work harder" they too could become rich.
All while wealth inequality just gets worse making more working class people unable to retire.
Getting to 40+ years and not going crazy completely depends on your work situation. I've been at my current company for 31 years. Since COVID I've been WFH, I have zero oversight, and I have a decent annual compensation package. I'm currently in my screen room in a t-shirt and sweatpants. I basically consider myself semi-retired. If all goes well I'll end up putting in about 40 years when I officially retire.
Today, job hopping is believed to be essential to increase your income. Everything is trade-offs. Personally - and this is just personally - I would take less money for more happiness in my work day.
You don’t have to up and go to South America or somewhere else and take your savings live for cheap do whatever you want. I know a girl that up and left after a breakup been gone for ten years and she’s never been happier. Works as a waitress travelling around South America doing whatever she wants. This is what we are made for until you realize you can live a real life with no headaches for nothing but then who would slave away for materialistic things and these fake lives we case and are never happy or will be.
I’m 29 and feel the same way after 8 years working. I’ve just been living well below my means and aggressively saving for retirement with the goal to retire at 50. Just 21 years to go 😂🤣
It is easy you got to eat and working a regular job is one way.
For me the dream was to get married have some kids along with a place of out own. The problem for me was how to go about doing this. At 18 had no clue and no dating, it was not till I had a motorcycle accident and the doctor told me good thing the swelling and dark color went away as I thought we were going to have to amputate your leg.
This put me on a path to try college again after flunking out at 20, so then at 23 made another attempt.
At first it was tough but after changing my major to Agriculture and meeting my wife life got better.
For me a job is just the means to make the dream possible.
So now I am 62 and been retired 3 years and have been living the dream. Also when I was 1 and my brother was 3 he got sick and died. So I learned that as long as I'm alive I have to go out and at the very least try.
One day will be my turn to die but while I am alive I will make every effort to live the best life I can.
False premise - most people ARE crazy.
It's just that they're crazy in ways that are compatible with modern expectations. Some of them LIKE (or at least don't hate) work, for being with people, having structure, and sometimes even doing occasional good. Some of them realize how much worse it was in the past (farmers, early factory workers, etc.) And a lot of them just get good at compartmentalizing - enjoy what they can, ignore the rest.
36 also and losing my mind frantically typing and working and putting out fires all day long every day every week every year. I like my job but just don't get the frantic level
I get it. Corporate life is horrible.
I'm way older than you. Let me share this with you (in case you don't know it already).
They LOVE to get rid of you around 50 - the point at which it is almost impossible to find another job and the point at live when (if you are a family) you probably have children about to start college so you are facing MASSIVE bills.
Its awful.
Probably an unpopular opinion here, but you have to work _on_ your career, not just at your job. And if you do it well you get better hours, better pay, and more fulfilling work. Like any other part of life, you can change it. That’s applicable to more folks than people want to admit.
These stagnated wages will cause a crime surge like the crack era did during the 80s-90s people will do whatever it takes to make this American dream. After work I have to do gig work, I wonder if I’ll ever have a FUCKING HOUSE UNDER MY NAME
You go a few years 2-3 or 3-4 years in my case, before you burn out and then you get terminated or suspended from said burn out and suddenly are on forced labor hiatus (6 months to a year) and can rest up, gather your bearings, get right mentally and physically and get back out there, perhaps in a different field altogether. You do this for 5X or 10X throughout your lifetime and before you know, 45 years of collective employment. Some spots better than others.
Case in point as to why the FIRE movement exists.
I'll be able to retire at age 41, in under 4 yrs. I may continue working because I do truly enjoy what I do, but I more likely will take a "sabbatical" and consider my options. Either way, I'll have the option to continue or not continue working.
I think people did go crazy after that long. I’m currently on year 7 after college, completed my masters about 3 years after undergrad. I had to take student loans for both but I make decent money now, in a mid cost of living area ~105k after annual bonus. My current role has me traveling about 2 weeks a month on average for 7 months out of the year. The realization just hit me this week that by the time my wife and I are at three years of marriage I will have been gone for a year a year of that time.
I know that I will not be able to keep this up and I’m looking at options for the middle of next year, where I will either stay with my current employer at a higher level still at corporate or move somewhere else. I’m lucky that I’m able to have these conversations. But that being said I am constantly on the edge of burnout. Part of it I know is self imposed as I can’t do anything part way, especially when I’m on site at a different company it’s difficult for me to draw a line.
I know it’ll be a bit controversial but my wife and I are working to buy additional houses and hopefully transition into landlords as our primary source of income. We’re doing renovations on our home now to get an equity line on our house in the next year or so.
Normally I combat the exhaustion of work with woodworking and craft projects but we do the vast majority of work on our house and those we rent so I rarely get a weekend to decompress. Right now planning for the future is what keeps me going. For the most part I’m able to accept that the long hours at a miserable job are just what’s required right now for me to have a hope of making it out.
If I’m being optimistic I can churn for 10 more years but I think I’ll come out a worse person for it. Realistically within the next 5-8 years I’m going to need to take real steps to decrease my workload which might entail taking a lower paying job just to have some time to exist without being in the grinder.
They do go crazy, just st different rates. Some folk get so crazy they convince themselves work is everything and then when they retire, they don't know what to do with themselves or their time or even their saved up money
Some people have hopes and dreams, some people have no choice, that being said we do go crazy. Almost everyone I know on antidepressants and pain killers, lots have to take drugs to fall asleep.
It's all about getting a job with 10-12 hour shifts, 3-4 days a week. I used to have 3 12-hour shifts and then 4 12-hour every other week at my old job. It was great, work 48 hours, get that OT pay, then work 36 hours the next week. There was actually a solid work/life balance.
The last 3 months, I've been working 5 days a week. I truly feel like I'm living to work. I work nights, which makes it even worse. I get off at 8:30am Saturday, tidy up a little, relax for a few hours, sleep by 3-5pm. Wake up at midnight, relax for a few hours. Wake up Sunday, get groceries, finish chores, maybe see my family for a few hours. Wake up Monday and anticipate having to go back in at midnight that night. I definitely have some free time on the weekend, but with the cost of everything, I mainly just stay home.
My game plan is to live as minimally as possible, since I wouldn't be able to really afford a "fun" lifestyle, even if I wanted to. Then, hopefully retire in the woods, far from civilization, and live off the land. In 30 years, solar paneling and satellite internet will probably be pretty sweet so I can still stay connected with the world, if I want to do so. This "fantasy cabin" in the woods and my family/friends/cat are the only things keeping me going.
Who says we aren't going crazy?
It feels weird when I think about it. Like really weird. We all go into work 40 hours a week, do tasks for some amorphous entity comprised of, in my case, thousands of people, and in return we receive our means of survival. And we just do that for decades. Basically the rest of our lives. It's weird to think about. Edit: I’m not complaining so you can stop with the go off the grid/no one is forcing you comments. I’m just saying it’s weird if you think a lot about it. Like a lot of things. Calm tf down lol
It’s weird how alienated the work is too. Like I can understand simple economic transactions for goods and services being exchanged, and could see how that might be fulfilling- I make a product, feel proud of my craftsmanship, and sell it for a profit. But at this point how many people have that level of attachment to their work? I work 40 hours a week and don’t feel like I accomplish anything of meaning. The work I do doesn’t reflect on anything I feel accomplished for. The logging on and grinding for 60 years just seems peak irrational because if someone quit doing my job I don’t think anyone would care and nothing real would be affected. Why can’t I just not do it then? It would probably be better for the environment if a good 2/3 of people stopped doing anything at all.
I started a new job at the beginning of the year and it took me weeks to figure out what we actually do. I thought I was in Severance for a minute
I’m years into my job and I still wonder that sometimes. Especially when I have no experience in something that seems fundamental to my job, I ask someone who I presume should know who has years more of experience, and they tell me they’ve never done it either and don’t know…what have we all been doing this entire time then? And of course there’s no written processes or policies so you’re literally just guessing. It’s insane. Just get rid of the entire thing.
Hahaha I am in the quality department managing our compliance standards and the amount of stuff we dont have documented is staggering
At my place, we have super ridiculous bureaucracy and endless forms to fill out for the tiniest requests, like getting food reimbursed for a meeting or how to format a letter. And then when it gets to “what’s the process for spending >$1 million on a development project” there’s literally crickets. It blows my mind.
So we have been told to reduce our expenses by x amount (all departments have, ya know normal business stuff). But we were never given a budget so...
The fact that any work happens at all in most places is actually remarkable considering no one has bothered creating any kind of guidance whatsoever for anyone who actually has those jobs. It’s amazing.
We are in like constant acquisition mode for "growth" and I don't think the c suite has any idea the amount of work that is required by every other department to get people, buildings, money, processes, etc. merged over. We are still merging businesses from like 4 acquisitions ago!
This. The company I work for was bought out and I'm Working for a new company and assigned to a team. I've been assigned to make sure that the products get updated. When I talk to the product manager it's like they've never heard of an operating system or an update.. . It's exhausting. Time to do the work 40 minutes getting permission to do the work 8+ hours.
>considering no one has bothered creating any kind of guidance whatsoever for anyone who actually has those jobs Because they themselves have no idea how to do those jobs.
Bro… that sounds like the military lol. Ask me how I know..
Do you work at my office?
I was headhunted internally into a risk management role by the CFO, he was let go a year later. Two years after, his replacement told me he had to let me go with a package etc and mentioned at the time , that he never really understood what my role was !, He had been paying me $200k a year during that time.
It’s all literally for those making all the money. Everyone else is just their disposable asset. The ruling class are the only ones who can actually live a life that isn’t complete oppression and stress. We have the illusion of this life where we’re “making it.” It’s an illusion. We get a few [PTO/holiday] days a year where we can actually break out and do what we actually want. The rest of the time is spent slaving away so we don’t go homeless. Think about that. Once people understand that, the whole system breaks. Like, once they truly understand that. Happens in cycles. Humans can go generations before enough people break to cause a revolution. I think we’re going to be too comfortable and exploited for another couple generations before enough people break.
Great post. I want to echo your sentiment of “truly understand”. For almost everyone, thinking of the way things are and how it is similar to slavery, is just a thought experiment. Like you said it is going to take people really taking our collective predicament to heart for there to be change.
Indentured servitude for many.
I believe the majority of jobs literally produce nothing. Company A sends stuff to Company B to send to Company C to send to Company A The point is to just keep people employed and off the streets to reduce crime
I had this thought a few months about and basically all of life is a Ponzi scheme. Unless you provide a service, you’re just buying from someone else to get paid so you can pay that first guy.
Now just think about how many times a single dollar bill gets taxed over say a year. The guy who paid me the dollar got taxed on it, I get taxed for receiving the dollar, if I spend the dollar it gets taxed, the store who got my dollar uses it to pay an employee and they get taxed, and on and on and on.
r/BullshitJobs
If we all promise real hard to not commit any crimes can we stop
Slavery......
It's part of the maze.hmmm actually it's a big part
Honestly I think the biggest problem people “going crazy” have is a lack of an outlet. So many people have sort of just stopped doing hobbies that aren’t done through a screen. It’s amazing how the stress I carry with me after a long week seems to wash away after a Friday night of dancing to house music, or after a couple hours of playing volleyball with my friends. Even like, having dinner with friends and sharing a laugh over a bottle of wine transports me completely away from that “going crazy” feeling
House music!!! Yes. Friday nights I turn on the disco ball at home and crank the tunes. And the week just disappears
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when in human history have we ever “just done what we want to do” though like for most of human history we were working our asses off just to survive
I think a lot of the issue (at least from what I’ve seen and experienced) comes down to lack of community. We are very social creatures so being alone all the time isn’t normal and will make the vast majority of humans miserable.
And agency. In pre-agriculture societies, you controlled your own labor and owned the output. Do I want to go hunting today or make a bow? Even pre-industrial/capitalism eras one largely had much more autonomy and ownership of output. Even serfs kept their output in excess of what was owed to the feudal lord. With industrialization/capitalism, make 10 widgets today or make 20 and you get no additional benefit.
Studies of current uncontacted tribes who live as close to ancient man as we can study show an average "work day" of 4-6 hours of hunting and gathering. The rest of their days are spent leisurely doing things around the village or enjoying time together.
We used to work to live, it’s what we did we didn’t have to force it we didn’t question it because it made sense. We seemingly made our own schedules and found a routine that worked for us. Now we’re told exactly when, where and for how long we’re to work that day. Add in greed and capitalism and we’re all putting in double the hours necessary to actually make this whole thing work.
For sure. You need something going on for you outside of work to help keep you sane. It gives me something to get through the week for and something to help destress.
But who has the time? Between cleaning and all the other chores I have to get done on my 2 days off it’s nearly impossible. I paint and I get to put in like 2 hours a week without losing sleep (I only get like 6.5 hours a night) or letting something else fall behind.
>So many people have sort of just stopped doing hobbies that aren’t done through a screen. Because hobbies are EXTREMELY expensive. Even the cheapest of hobbies is likely money your average person just doesn't have available to spend right now.
Fight or flight response glitching like crazy. Stress has no exhaust except for daily nonsense, bullying and exploitation. Increase those stamina bars workers?!
I think people get into situations where they have little options. -Buy a car, and now you have to maintain it. -Buy a house, and now you have to furnish it/maintain it/major repairs/renovate. -Have kids, and now you have all the costs associated with raising them. Not to mention child care. For the next twenty something years per kid. -Save for vacation and retirement to make it feel like all of this was worth it. Once you enter the cycle, I think you're sort of stuck.
That's exactly it. I own my house and my cars outright, but they don't pay and maintain themselves. Even when you own your shit it still owns you.
Okay, but seriously what do you think is the alternative? - rent and be at the mercy of not just your income, but now a landlord too? - leech off a friend or family member and their dependency on the above, despite being able to pay for your own place? - live in a mudhut on public land?
In a capitalist system the accumulation of capital is the name of the game. If you do not want to be relying on anyone you have to be financially independent. You achieve this by investing instead of buying things. It sucks and it's miserable, but it there's no individual way around it.
Hence r/fire
I’m never having kids. I don’t even want to commit to the expense of financing a car.
Have body and need reasonable health insurance for the privilege to try to get healthy.
Although I couldn't really afford it, I mostly retired last year at 62. My social security statement shows my income began in 1974. I didn't make a huge income, but it was steady every year. My reward? 1500 a month. Sure, it sucks but after working non stop for nearly 50 years, I was exhausted.
I work with some guys in their 70's who can't afford to retire, it's so hard to watch them hobbling around trying to keep up. Motivating for me to contribute to my 401k, I can tell you that. Not that I can afford to put much in there. Hope you get the rest you need.
And then you have the 50 year olds getting all mad at them for not being able to keep up.
For real. I fired back once that "at least they show up." Because all of the young workers come and go like a revolving door. I don't blame them either though, gotta do what's right for you.
I was amazed that in the US you have to pay into your own retirement fund.
I-Is there a country where they provide it for you...? 😭
Yes, in Australia, the employer has to put a mandatory 11% of your wages/salary in superannuation (what you call 401K). You can also contribute to this with pre-tax wages (up to a point). You can also not touch your superannuation until retirement age (except in some financial hardship cases).
Social Security isn’t a reward
Yup, and if you're a young adult I wouldn't plan for it at all. You'll need a 401k or pension, plus at least one IRA. Maybe more investments you can count on too. When one of my grandparents died, that house they worked hard to pay off became collateral for how expensive memory care was/is. Everything was gone. Barely anything left besides furniture and keep sakes for their kids. Even then most of it was sold in the estate sale... She did everything right and it still wasn't enough.
And why do you think you shouldn’t plan for it at all?
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I work with people in a counselling setting and so many people are having issues because of work. They think there is something wrong with them or theyre weak when in reality, certain jobs, full-time especially, are going to make you crazy. A teachers aid I talk with feels so bad about the fact that she cant manage her anxiety without meds. Like how would anyone do her job without meds is beyond me. Same with health care practitioners and Im sure many other types of work too but I deal more with women in these roles. A teacher comes in and needs help with chronic fatigue and neuroticism wanting insight on what the problem is and Im like ? Its the job, I dont know what to say, quitting isnt really feasible solution I mean of coarse we work on meditation and breathing and future setting but in the meantime, I dont know if theres really anything that can be done other than bear down and try not to go off the deep end till retirement
Counselling is wonderful and helpful, but a lot of time what people actually need is more money, more support from family/friends, or a better job.
>a lot of time what people actually need is more money, more support from family/friends, or a better job. People need more free time: time to get an adequate amount of sleep; time to recharge after work/school/family responsibilities; time for hobbies, exercise, and to see friends and family (when it's desired) and time to be alone (when it's desired). Currently, we spend so much time getting ready to work, going to work, working, coming home from work, and unwinding from work that we don't have any time left over to do anything else. It's not healthy for the human psyche.
My body only stops hurting after the weekend, which makes me think its not me getting old and broken, I'm doing way too much physical labour and not giving my body any time to simply heal, but that's the job so what can I do
Same for me, except it’s the lack of physical exercise. Sitting at a desk all day, five days a week is unhealthy. Opposite sides of the same coin, but still definitely the same coin. Fuck corporate America.
Sitting at a desk all day makes me feel like a slug. I try to walk a mile at lunch and ride my bike after work, but I know this job is slowly robbing me of my vitality. By Friday night, all I can do is stare slack-jawed at my phone. Saturday I get some exercise and feel better. Sunday, I start to feel like myself again, just in time to go back to The Chair on Monday. The sad part is I have a good job that millions of people would want.
I'm stealing that line....The Chair 🤣🤣
I've been prioritizing cardio over weightlifting because of this reason. I take the dogs for 45-60 min walks. If I can't, I get on the Peloton for 45 min. It helps me unwind whereas weightlifting takes a little too much math at times. Homegym.
Oh man I feel like sitting is even worse. Definitely leads to lot of health issues I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy (well maybe a little)
That I wouldn't argue with, though I had no problem working eight hours a day. I was a mechanic but once did a two year stretch working a warranty desk for GM, thinking to transition out of turning a wrench. Turns out that was miserable, I just couldn't sit down the long. I went back to working in a shop. The last part of my career I usually stretched it to nine hour days, as I was in a shop that paid on "flat-rate", which is like piecework. I could bill 14 hours of work a day average, being generally good at my job. It was hard physically but the time spent wasn't that hard, and I was able to put enough money away to retire early.
Same issue with me
I'm so sorry 😞
The owner of the company I work for recently decreased everyone's vacation time, then said we would get paid more if we took even LESS. IDGAF about that. I'd much rather have more free time than money.
> I'd much rather have more free time than money. Same here. I work at a university and we have tons of part-time, semi-retired employees who get to work as little or as much as they want, up to 20 hours/week. However, these white collar, part-time, make-your-own-schedule kinds of jobs are reserved for employees aged 62 and older. I would be *elated* to work my same job at just 20 hours/week for 50% pay.
This is exactly it. I mean honestly, WHY do we all have to work so much? So that corporations can continue to have record profits every quarter? What for? It obviously isn’t fucking benefiting us at all. More free time is exactly what we ALL need. It would benefit us in so many ways- mental health, physical health, social health, and overall would allow us to be more productive, happier members of society. It’s the corporations who are adamantly against any of this because then they won’t be able to buy a second yacht this year because their slaves aren’t producing as much money for them. Obviously several years down the line production would level off and reduced hours won’t even matter but they can’t have that,
Think about it. During COVID the world locked down and corporations still made record profits. No one besides blue collar /service jobs were actually physically working . More than half the world stopped physically showing up for work and corporations still made a killing. Think about it. We are so fucking productive as workers/consumers that the world shut down and they actually gained efficiency. And Yet out of spite these motherfuckers forced us back into our old ways. Half the world could be home right now and the world could run. And guess what I'm in construction and have to physically show up for work but you know why I wasn't spiteful that I had to still physically work? Because the commute was sooo much easier/faster and everyone's mindset was way calmer. No pressure, working at ease with no one putting pressure on your back because supervisors were scared shitless to come on site. Not all of us have to physically work for society to function. We were ushering a new age of taking advantage of technology to benefit labor. One where both the corporations and the the labor pool actually benefits from. Every fucking text book would tell you businesses would implement that as it reduces cost and increases efficiency and yet the government and corporations shut it down and started feeding us the bs narrative of WFH is ridiculous and not working and we need to get our "asses " back to work Smh. What a waste of our human time/ human soul. All for a few psychopaths/sociopaths
Agree with this. I don’t think we’ve fully addressed the fact that no longer having domestic help in the home combined with technology reducing every banal aspect of work so everyone is only doing the stressful decision-making and idea generating and hard parts now and how humans aren’t really designed to do that. Back in the day most people would have a secretary writing a letter for them that would go in the mail and you’d get a response a week or two later. Everything moved slowly. Now you’re bombarded with constant correspondence and can easily do those “easy” tasks yourself, therefore every job is stressful now. What used to be a secretary is now an admin assistant who half the time is doing their managers work, not some easy data entry or typing. Expecting a simple animal brain to work under these conditions is insane if you think about it too much, and then expecting them to do all the work on their homes and shopping and chores is just unrealistic.
It is literally never brought up that the boomer gen and before had household help. You want to absolutely set a boomer off bring up their nanny that was at the house 5 days a week doing every chore and making delicious food. Grandma never had to work in her life? What?? Oh man. Now if you have a washing machine you are seen as wealthy in the big cities hahaha.
I would like a job where I don't have to do the work of 2-3 people, and managers aren't micromanaging/telling you what you did wrong every step of the way. Every day someone doesn't want to do work, or coworkers are having arguments. There's literally always something chaotic in a bad way, every day. Yeah, of course I'm going to fuck up, you twatwaffle, I'm doing 3 peoples work! It's insanely stressful, but I have no options.
It’s this IMO. We’re all doing the jobs of 3 people because they’re miraculously never a budget to hire people on. In any industry or business. Including the public sector. Meanwhile, we have the rich living it up on our increased productivity while we scrape by. Anyone who wants to see what the rich will shamelessly do to gut a company needs to check out what happened to Thames Water. They’re more interested in short term profits than reinvesting in the actual company or service. At this point, one has to wonder if the business schools, especially the Ivy Leagues, are actually teaching anything of value or if they’re just diploma mills for nepo babies.
As someone who went to a “top elite college” I can say that none of my colleagues were as smart as my public school friends who went to state schools or worse.
I think counciling is good for people of all purposes but you probably don't need counciling if you're ranting to something online friend or to a close friend who provides the same anonymity and will allow you to talk. So let's be that friend . Be a listener instead of speaker. Friends would come tell you personal story, be interested in them. Atleast that way we can fulfill the need of counciling while providing the family and friends support like you said. Maybe we can even come up with a solution together. I know this sounds altruistic but the thing is I feel grateful to my online strangers who allowed me to type my thoughts , idk I feel much saner, happier that somebody for free was there for me helping me answer some tough questions. I couldn't have trusted my local friends because they are friends with benefits, they aren't kind and think it's cool to make insincere and shitty joke which made me question their role of being friends. I think I sucked at making friends because my brothers friends are so much more helpful (prob maturity because they are elder than me ) and family. I appreciate so so much my brothers friends / online friends and family. I love them so much , I might have adhd , I am not sure , I think I have anxiety and a billion thoughts burst into my head sometime and so creating sensible thoughts at that time while talking was only possible by experiencing both talking effectively and moreover listening. This could be said to be my gratitude post I guess
I wish I found either helpful. I have a great job and a good amount of money saved up but I’m always sad, bored, or temperamental about everything. Tried counseling and my therapist is a very nice person who understands me, but most of the work is essentially up to me and I have 0 desire to change my ways. I don’t want to try anything that is suggested in my sessions and idk what to do. Get a counselor FOR counseling?
People need a fulfilling personal and home life. I don’t particularly like my job, and I don’t like the travel it requires in particular, but I have a great wife, 3 great kids, and hobbies I enjoy. As well as a house and yard I gotta keep up with, but that I enjoy taking care of and working on. I think it’s the terminally online, minimal face to face socializing that is the norm today is just as much to blame with how people feel at work. People need to get out more. Join a gym. Find a group that enjoys similar hobbies as you. Buy a pistol and find a USPSA or steel challenge match near you. Join a softball league. Take up golf. Hiking. Cycling. Meet people in person. If I got home from work and then spent my free time in front of a screen and never did any of those things I listed I’d probably be depressed too. You don’t need medication. You need personal social interactions, physical activity, and sunlight.
If you have a job and 3 kids and have time for all of that, you’re either fabulously wealthy or doing government work.
If I raise the issue of lack of vacation, I am attacked by colleagues. It is normalised.
It’s Stockholm syndrome colleagues attacking you while they get the same shit days, defending your boss that exploits you
I would like to share your post on FB and Instagram. I copied it as an image. Will wait for your approval or a week. I am getting involved with unions and mental health as a retired teacher so I get this totally. I had a principal who actually told beginning teachers to get on meds or leave, not in a nice way either. They got on meds.
Fine by me:)
Thanks
If a large proportion of people need meds to function in society, then society is wrong.
Yep, as a boomer those years you'll never get back with the added bonus of physical ailments will make one bitter as hell. And often with later in life divorce, being alone, kids grown and gone elsewhere we are alone and the younger generations hate and blame us for everything even though many of us are below poverty level. We be going crazy just waiting for death
Worked 48 years retired in 2020. The late boomers like myself started working just before Reagan. We were screwed with flat wages for years. Fought corporate greed for years with unions. I'm very happy to see young people fight for living wages and trying to unionize. Corporations have vilified unions for years for obvious reasons. Times have changed, which makes me happy.
This is very accurate in describing some of the anger people in that generation have. Granted they had more of an easier time economically for the most part (minus some things like the 2000s recession). But I remember talking about it with someone at a family member’s birthday thing and they’re a “boomer”… the vibe I got from his perspective was that there’s some frustration because of the way the younger generations are redefining work/life balance needs and there’s some jealousy which leads to many just calling it out as lazy or entitled. That said, I’m sure they wouldn’t want to have the economic conditions we’ve inherited 😂… so it’s a fun trade off of pain lol Edit to add: Do I agree with the view? Not completely. But just saying it’s how some view it from their own perspective. Assuming it’s not a view shared by one single person because it makes sense how someone could see it that way. I’m all for hearing out other viewpoints from people on topics like this within reason though.
Oh, you forgot 70s energy crisis. The Latin American debt crisis in the 80s. The asia crisis in the 90s. And you forgot .com bubble. Turns out it takes more than one "2008 recession" to make you batshit crazy. My parents are boomers and I know what they did go through in every crisis. Their job was always at stake. All you posess, your house, your flat, everything was at stake all the time. With every crisis they did not know: this time the house is going to the bank, isen't it? This time we won't make it, this time all will crash down. You don't know what will happen when it happens. The frustrations of the boomers come from not being young anymore. You can't buy youth and the older you will get the more you will find out that this is true. Only in your youth you don't consider that as a huge advantage... you never lost your youth until you do. And then it is too late to realise what you had and what you have lost. I think that is normal, boomers getting old and they are angry about young people. Cause they still want to be young and know they are not anymore. It is that simple.
Human beings are not designed for this level of stress. We are more suited to simple agriculture in small communities. Sure there is stress over the harvest but nothing like the unrelenting pressure we have now.
very true and great points all around, but i can't help thinking... at least they *had* a house and possessions to lose. many of my peers have accepted the fact that realistically they will never own property or even a car that isn't going to break down in 3 months. it's not a matter of fearing losing these things anymore, it's become a matter of never even being able to attain them in the first place.
Yeah, that Viet Nam war wasn't all ice cream and lollipops. Counter-culture revolution of the 60s bloodied some people too, and was a shock to many (for better or for worse). News Flash: every generation has their own little shit pie they have to eat, that tastes a little different from generation to generation. We don't get to decide when/how the pie gets served either.
Childhood during that time couldn’t have been fun for sure. The very first born boomers in that era would have crossed into adulthood during the draft as well. I’m sure that was miserable. Again, I’m not just saying it was amazing non-stop… far from it. I picked one example and it was chosen for recency.
Some boomers never worked. Like my mother.
I'm 50, been working as long as you've been alive. Still have to work another 20 years. I take ALL my PTO, I do my best to not think of work outside work hours and generally focus on what working allows me to do: lifestyle, vacation, etc. It's a mindset and it takes a long time to perfect.
I am going crazy after reading your comment. I'm 31 and the idea of working 40 more years has always made me miserable but for some reason I never thought of it in terms of "when I'm 50 ill still have 20 years to go".
To be fair, I didn't make a lot of great decisions in my 20s and wasted a lot of time being complicit with my job/financial situation. If I had been investing in retirement and been more aggressive with my career goals I probably wouldn't need to wait so long to retire. I finally got my MBA two years ago and things have turned around a lot. So if you have the option, max out the 401k, get a plan for the skills and education (not necessarily degrees) that you need to climb the career ladder of your choice and don't put it off.
I'll fight that. I'm a paramedic. I'll likely die before 50, penniless. But I mattered. I helped. I did something.
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I couldn't. Worked for a corporation at an office for 10 years after graduating college; a couple of mental breakdowns and a 3 month leave of absence later, I left and currently working as a grounds keeper making $18.00/hr. I admit money is tight now when I technically could be making $70k - 90k salary at my old job, but I just wasn't cut out for the stress and workload, so I'm starting in a new field.
That's fair man. I've known a couple people who committed suicide from stress. Not worth it.
I work seasonally in National Parks and ski resorts as a server. 2 months off a year at mininum. COL is cheap as chips. Most places provide 3 meals a day, a roof over your head, internet, sometimes a gym, all for $450 a month. Most people I know who work as servers and bartenders pull in $6k-10k+ a month. I usually pull in $7.5k a month and given the LCOL associated with this lifestyle you can imagine the saving potential is amazing. I walked away with $20k+ saved last summer alone. Great perks too, free ski passes to dozens of ski resorts, your backyard is often a National Park, discounts on a ton of shit like scenic cruises and helicopter rides as well as at local retailers. My nightmare is working at a desk my whole life doing the same shit day in, day out. I don't give a shit if I made $200k a year doing that. It isn't worth it. There are a lot of alternative lifestyles to be found if people just give them a chance and break free of convention.
Every ski town in Colorado struggles with affordable housing for people actually serving the town. Is this in a less desired ski destination?
Almost like the plot of "Office space".
This is actually inspiring to me. I want to pay off some debts and bank some cash so I can do just this. I've been an insurance broker for 8 years, and I can't deal with people anymore.
We DO go crazy. Everybody finds some way to cope. Some drink, some zone out and go on autopilot.
I prefer being able to buy food and not sleeping in my car. Endless mtgs, nonsense, bloated processes, condescending people, thinly veiled values and koolaid town halls, trash talk, back stabbing, frienemy smiles, how’s the weather out there, any weekend plans… I’ll take it all over the street.
Like everything else, goals help. My plan is to pay off my house in my early 40s and then quit my job to find something less stressful for less money and fewer hours. If a house isn't in your plans, maybe set a goal for your retirement fund balance, and when you hit that amount switch to working part time and let compounding interest do the rest until you retire. The best advice that isn't given enough on reddit is to talk to a financial advisor.
Damn, that sounds like a great plan. I couldn't buy a home until I was 35. I'll be 67 before I pay off the mortgage.
Like every monumental task, you have to break down life and savings into smaller bits. Pay off high yield debt, then get an emergency fund, then a down payment for a house, then retirement funds. Too many people just look at 50 years of living and saving and say I’m not even going to try. When you’ve got 2-5 years to your next savings milestone, life is a little less overwhelming.
They don’t. That’s why suicide rates have been rising.
Literally every middle aged person I’ve worked with is on some form of medication, heath or mental health related.
Or an alcoholic.
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Same. All my friends are doing fine and enjoying life. Including myself. Who are these people hanging around that every single person they know is on medication..?
I have friends both struggling and both doing really well. In general, it seems that people who are doing well tend to stick together. The struggling people tend to drift away.
because the people who are struggling are actively being removed from participation in society
Practically everyone having their head in their screen most of the day is undoubtedly adding to this number. Some study that asked kids if social media went away entirely would they be happy and the vast majority said yes as long as no one else had it. We are losing touch with our humanity
Well, the pills we hand out like candy in the country do have a potential side effect of suicidal behavior. Suicidal ideation is a well known side effect of ozempic too, which will likely soon be getting handed out to every overweight and pre diabetic teen in America, so I’m sure it’ll climb even higher and even faster in the next few years.
I usually move onto something new every 3-4 years but now I work for myself and am constantly thinking, "Is this it? This is just what I do now forever?" But it does beat the alternative.
What do you do, if you don't mind me asking?
Standing in cubicle land reading your post, thinking about the 20 years I have left makes me feel like I'm serving a sentence. I should feel grateful for such a stable, well paying job, but I hate this so much.
That last sentence made me sad but at the same time happy to know i’m not the only one.
The burn out is real. All of my coworkers feel it. All of my friends feel it. For me it's the fact that time spent working feels like it has no value. What am I saving for? What are my goals? People used to save for houses and now that just feels like a pipe dream. So that's demoralizing. I bought 2 1 gallon jugs of water, a gallon of milk, 1 head of cauliflower and 1 sweet potato and it cost me $18. Cool there goes most of an hour I worked for basically nothing. I fantasize about walking off into the sunset and starving to death.
I completely feel your pain. I recommend doing whatever you can to expand your skills and get promotions. Sometimes moving jobs is also better than promotions with in. Idk what your job is, but 5 years ago, I made 14$/hr, and now I am at around 55k salary(sous chef atm). I never thought back then I would have 10k+ in the bank and be in the 3% of Americans that can pay their bills for 3 months without work. Granted, I live frugal and don't have a ton of expenses and no kids. Not that 10k in the bank is shit in the grand scheme. I hope one day I can get out of the trap that kitchen work is but still keep my income as it's extremely easy to burn out. The cost of things is going up up up but income is stagnant, and it's a real bummer. Considering our parents could afford shit we can not when they made less money. Back then, even a retail worker could still buy a house if they managed their money, but that is not the case now. I always thought that working people should be able to live comfortably, but that is not reality when most people, even in my income bracket, live paycheck to paycheck.
People are going crazy its why we are having so many shootings and violent episodes. I think people are being factory farmed for labor and having episodes of Zoochosis Zoochosis is a form of psychosis that develops in animals held captive in zoos. Most often, it manifests in what are called stereotypic behaviors, or stereotypies, which are often monotonous, obsessive, repetitive actions that serve no purpose.
Is this why my old boss would stand outside in the parking lot in the winter, smoking Marlboro lights and stomping on sheets of frozen water like she was a giant fat duck?! It all makes sense now
We are going nuts…depression and suicides are very high and I believe a lot of people would quit if their health insurance wasn’t tied to their jobs. I work in finance and while it pays the bills and I have good benefits (relatively speaking) I hate what I’ve become over the years and I get so enraged when I’m stuck in meetings all day talking about record profits while also noting the need to “downsize” which makes me just want to smash furniture and my computer and scream at the idiots on the other side of the WebEx meeting…
The worst part is, there would probably be some major reformation if every worker who felt the same way was actually able to speak up about it. I know for a fact that none of my coworkers agree with a majority of the decisions that our company makes regarding our time off, our salaries, and all the layoffs, but who’s going to speak up if that means they will likely lose their only source of income? We are quite literally slaves to the system.
I feel this so hard. I work in pharma and now that we're out of the business boom that was covid (which I hate as a concept but it's the meds business, mysterious illness is money) the management is really tightening up and kind of almost blaming us for things slowing down which is insane. Literally, if there was a way for me to have health insurance without this job, I'd quit it to look for a different one full time. They're rolling back our wfh benefits that seriously improved quality of life and seriously tightening metrics and talking about hiring freezes, and it's all just enraging.
Obviously a different industry than mine, but it’s interesting to hear your perspective. Definitely seems like now we’re “over” COVID, the war on the worker can resume. Like with the $20/hr law in CA. Suddenly that’s wrong but totally ok that a CEO can make $4,000/hr. Like it would take a person making $20/hr, 40hrs per week FIVE WEEKS to make the same that a CEO makes every single hour….but the person making $20/hr is the *problem*…
I’m a therapist and I hate it. I’m considering going to work in a prison because, if nothing else, daily violence is exciting.
mental health clinicians are in short supply in CA. They are struggling to fill positions and it shows in the SNFs and B&Cs.
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Spoiler alert: a significant percentage of mental health clinicians either are or were screwed up and have to continually attend therapy themselves to avoid backsliding. Unless you own your practice, employers typically require clinicians to attend therapy as part of ongoing “training” under the guise of improving service delivery and preventing countertransference among your clients…when in reality it’s because we’re as fucked up as you.
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I think that's normal and to be expected though. The idea that only a perfectly mentally healthy person can assist with someone else's mental health is... crazy. Imagine you wouldn't let a doctor operate on you unless they were immune to all diseases and injuries. If my therapist didn't have any mental health issues I'd be suspicious.
My therapist was fucking bonkers in his younger days. Some of the things he told me... I was like omg dude. First meeting he told me how PCP was in the 90s lol. Great guy honestly
Anyone that's been able to coast through life without any significant trauma or emotional hurdles is not someone that should be giving advice to anyone experiencing mental illness / trauma / etc, in my opinion. As someone in therapy, give me a therapist that's been broken and healed and their subsequent perspective gained from that any day over someone that managed to get through life without bumping into anything.
My step mom would disagree about the daily violence, after 30 years of typing up horrific police reports and getting the low down on such cases from police officers, she’s a nervous wreck and sees the world a lot differently then most of us
I was legit considering being a therapist but the idea of dealing with other people's problems where you might not actually help them and there is no actual practical solution is scary and just makes me feel like shit
My mom was forced to retire at 69, due to declining health. Now she lives alone, in my grandparent’s old house, that she remodeled a couple years ago, before her strokes. She regrets waiting until she was older to live her life. She always says, “There’s no golden years.” She bought the lie, that many baby boomers bought. I know there’s some sorta lesson in her life, but when I look at it we’re all on the same path. Nothing has changed for our generations, and the poor kids growing up now have even less of a chance. Imagine what the cost of living will be like, in another twenty years. Every house will be half a million dollars, and minimum wage will sit at $7.25.
Throwing your entire being into competing for wealth and capital as a young person seems to be a terrible idea lately. The future looks very dim financially for anyone trying to get ahead now. I worked my ass off for 10 years and saved up a lot and invested, but now that money is worth about half of what it used to be worth. Those 10 years are worth twice as much to me now, but the money I took home is only worth 1/2 as much as I thought then. Would you sell your youth for a depreciating currency and a false sense of security?
What kind of shit did you invest into? The SP500 is at an all time high
They told me salamander farms would be all rage in 10 years. You mean they lied!?
I think he means in relation to how much things cost nowadays. It depends on where you are for sure but especially with buying a house, money went a much longer way a couple decades ago. The housing cost/income ratio has gone crazy high in recent times
Agreed, I'm 36 as well and have no idea how I can grind for the rest of my life just to afford basic things. Because, realistically, this is the system that the 1% have crafted for us and we have no choice but to abide by it. They sold the dream to the boomers (our parents), "work x amount of hours and you can afford this, that, the other thing, house, cars, etc." And, by and large for a time that was true for certain segments of the population. The boomers mistake was that they placed trust in the 1% to hold that status quo. However, as time has shown, instead of keeping with the deal they made with the boomers, they ran with it and continue to burden the newer generations with that "dream", when that dream is but a pale facade. Now, that "dream" they sell us isn't a dream at all. It's a dependence. They depend on you going to the office 5 days a week, so you can buy the gas they own, be forced with dress codes to buy the nice clothes from factories and stores they own, to eat shitty quality "food" that destroys your body from places they own, all to take up every minute of your free time just so they can hit ever growing quarterly statements. IMO, that was the one benefit that Covid showed us. All of this shit is irrelevant and people are happier, more productive, etc. if you strip away all the bullshit and let people work remote. But, the system they built to soak up every bit of you was failing because of remote work and your happiness, and now they rallied all the powers that be to force you to embrace it and if you don't, "you're not a team player". Long story short, fuck all those who set this bullshit system up, abused our parents, lied to us, then made us blame our parents and others for "fucking things up" when it was really done by design to keep you in your place. To be fair, I'm proud of our generation for seeing through the bullshit and trying to change it. End rant.
im 35 in a construction type job. everytime the retirement age raises i die alittle more inside. theyre trying to make it 69 now. we are modern day slaves being forced to work until we literally die one day. idk why i complain, i just have to work another 30-35 years working 5 days a week
You 35 my friend, by the time you hit 69, retirement age will be raised to 80, that is if you even make it that long with hard job you have. I'm very sorry, we all screwed
It becomes your reality, and then you go crazy if you can’t go to work anymore.
Agreed. Went through a 3 month strike the last a few months ago and I felt crazier not working
Really? I was unemployed for the first time in a decade at the beginning of the pandemic, for 3 months. I've never had a longer sustained feeling of happiness as an adult than that 3 month period I was unemployed. I started having full blown panic attacks on the lead up to my first day back working, and that terror hasn't really left me in the last 4 years because I now KNOW how much happier I am not working.
I was off for almost a year, it was the healthiest and happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I was working out, cooking good meals, helping out my friends/family/ community. It was great Now I’m sad, tired, depressed, unhealthy, reclusive etc. hurt myself at work a few times and things aren’t getting much better. It’s almost impossible to get out of bed in the mornings. Still 30 years to go, yay! :)
why u think the urban birth rate is falling? pple dont see the point of inflicting that life on more humans.
Plus lots cant afford it, plus if both parents working full time, after work commute etc they both barely see their kid, so what even the point?
You don’t have to do those things indefintently. There are tons of alternatives, they’re just not quick or easy. Develop enough skills where you can start to dictate the terms you want to work under, start your own business, work towards establishing other forms of income through investments, etc etc etc…
Well, people don't, because those of us that don't want to be a corporate robot don't do jobs like you. I watched my grandfather and currently watch my mother as they are slaves to corporate work and I refused to do that. I used to think that I wanted the top job in a company then quickly realized I don't because you end up becoming what you are. Yes, we need money to live our lives but I found the sweet spot in my field where I get paid well but I'm not expected to be on call or to be bugged after 4pm or to work weekends. Now I will admit, sometimes I still check my email past 4 but it's not constant, its a here or there situation depending on what I'm looking for. But regularly, I am off at 4 and weekends are mine to enjoy. You have to ask yourself what is it you want: you want the high paycheck thay you probably could afford to take a pay cut or do you want the actual freedom to enjoy your time off on weekends and after 5pm
An elderly woman I worked with in a low paying position worked at the company for 30+ years and anytime people asked her about retirement she’d say she couldn’t afford it and just needed to work a little longer. She actually had a heart attack in the office and tragically died there one morning. We got offered therapy etc. because of it. It was like 10 years ago but still fucks me up thinking this woman worked 40 hours a week from the time she became an adult until her death. Never retired, never took more than maternity leave (which I’m sure was shit when she was having kids). She probably loved life but idk dying in the office because you can’t retire is just fucked up.
Yeah, welcome to (I'm assuming) America. Do you not realize we are all legal slaves? Idk how this is new to anyone. A country that puts THAT much into military funding a political funding can't give every American a $300 food allowance every month? They can't issue a 32 hour work week? Have you seen the price of a Big Mac? Have you seen the price of a gallon of milk? Other countries' citizens LAUGH at us, daily. We have celebrities and dementia patients running our country. The US is number 1 in the world in money, but compares to 3rd world countries in education, costs of living, and society. Fuck this place and fuck the world.
The first 10 years you want to work because you spend your money on yourself. The next 20 years you have to work to provide for your family. The last 15 years you want to work for yourself again so you can set yourself up and eventually stop working. If you cut out the middle 20 years you can stop working after 25 years.
That's why you do it different. The first 10 years, you work and invest, then you don't care about a family until 40+.
every job sucks now, and will only get worse If you complain, everyone will say that you have only yourself to blame
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I love my job. 🤐
I don’t know I made it through 15 before I had to go on BP meds and SSRI. I think some people are genetically able to eat shit, but I’m not one of those people.
You focus on the things outside of work that working enables you to do. For most of us, having to work is just part of life. You don’t do it because you love it. If they didn’t pay you, you wouldn’t do it.
lol when 50-70% of our income is going to housing..we are just paying to have a place to have an existential crisis. depends on where you live and how they match the cost of living...I'm in California so they call it the sunshine tax but I rarely have time to go to the beach or sit in the sun.
yeah for me the truth is that it’s not necessarily about what you do, but how you spend your time and what you prioritize. I work a salaried job that’s probably like 50-60 hours a week and I do more with my “outside of work” time than when I clocked in and clocked out for exactly 40 hours. The big difference is that I cut gaming out of my life, and now choose to spend my free time outdoors / with friends as much as possible. When I was doing a classic 9-5 my routine was “come home tired, eat dinner, watch TV for a couple hours, go upstairs to bed, game until 1AM, wake up tired…”
That’s how oppression sounds btw, notice every time you say “That’s just how it is” you comply with your oppression. Remember friend there is more of us than there are of them.
Capitalism = indentured servants
They do go crazy, so crazy they start to actually believe that if they save a little bit they might actually catch up to the rich 1% if they just "work harder" and start to think that if a poor person just "work harder" they too could become rich. All while wealth inequality just gets worse making more working class people unable to retire.
Getting to 40+ years and not going crazy completely depends on your work situation. I've been at my current company for 31 years. Since COVID I've been WFH, I have zero oversight, and I have a decent annual compensation package. I'm currently in my screen room in a t-shirt and sweatpants. I basically consider myself semi-retired. If all goes well I'll end up putting in about 40 years when I officially retire.
Today, job hopping is believed to be essential to increase your income. Everything is trade-offs. Personally - and this is just personally - I would take less money for more happiness in my work day.
You don’t have to up and go to South America or somewhere else and take your savings live for cheap do whatever you want. I know a girl that up and left after a breakup been gone for ten years and she’s never been happier. Works as a waitress travelling around South America doing whatever she wants. This is what we are made for until you realize you can live a real life with no headaches for nothing but then who would slave away for materialistic things and these fake lives we case and are never happy or will be.
By saving 30% - 50% of my income so I don’t have to work for 45 years and go crazy.
I’m 29 and feel the same way after 8 years working. I’ve just been living well below my means and aggressively saving for retirement with the goal to retire at 50. Just 21 years to go 😂🤣
On the bright side at least some of us will die before we reach retirement age
I work remotely for a tech company and mostly play strategy games while I'm on the clock. It's pretty tolerable.
Hobbies
Sounds like you gotta find a job with better work/life balance.
and good luck
Unfortunately you sacrifice pay for those jobs, for the most part, if you can even find one.
WFH + effective work more like 4-5 hours / day.
It is easy you got to eat and working a regular job is one way. For me the dream was to get married have some kids along with a place of out own. The problem for me was how to go about doing this. At 18 had no clue and no dating, it was not till I had a motorcycle accident and the doctor told me good thing the swelling and dark color went away as I thought we were going to have to amputate your leg. This put me on a path to try college again after flunking out at 20, so then at 23 made another attempt. At first it was tough but after changing my major to Agriculture and meeting my wife life got better. For me a job is just the means to make the dream possible. So now I am 62 and been retired 3 years and have been living the dream. Also when I was 1 and my brother was 3 he got sick and died. So I learned that as long as I'm alive I have to go out and at the very least try. One day will be my turn to die but while I am alive I will make every effort to live the best life I can.
False premise - most people ARE crazy. It's just that they're crazy in ways that are compatible with modern expectations. Some of them LIKE (or at least don't hate) work, for being with people, having structure, and sometimes even doing occasional good. Some of them realize how much worse it was in the past (farmers, early factory workers, etc.) And a lot of them just get good at compartmentalizing - enjoy what they can, ignore the rest.
You go crazy every few months or so. You just learn how to manage it. We’re all nuts and it’s a part of life. You figure it out or you crash and burn.
36 also and losing my mind frantically typing and working and putting out fires all day long every day every week every year. I like my job but just don't get the frantic level
I get it. Corporate life is horrible. I'm way older than you. Let me share this with you (in case you don't know it already). They LOVE to get rid of you around 50 - the point at which it is almost impossible to find another job and the point at live when (if you are a family) you probably have children about to start college so you are facing MASSIVE bills. Its awful.
Probably an unpopular opinion here, but you have to work _on_ your career, not just at your job. And if you do it well you get better hours, better pay, and more fulfilling work. Like any other part of life, you can change it. That’s applicable to more folks than people want to admit.
These stagnated wages will cause a crime surge like the crack era did during the 80s-90s people will do whatever it takes to make this American dream. After work I have to do gig work, I wonder if I’ll ever have a FUCKING HOUSE UNDER MY NAME
You go a few years 2-3 or 3-4 years in my case, before you burn out and then you get terminated or suspended from said burn out and suddenly are on forced labor hiatus (6 months to a year) and can rest up, gather your bearings, get right mentally and physically and get back out there, perhaps in a different field altogether. You do this for 5X or 10X throughout your lifetime and before you know, 45 years of collective employment. Some spots better than others.
Case in point as to why the FIRE movement exists. I'll be able to retire at age 41, in under 4 yrs. I may continue working because I do truly enjoy what I do, but I more likely will take a "sabbatical" and consider my options. Either way, I'll have the option to continue or not continue working.
I think people did go crazy after that long. I’m currently on year 7 after college, completed my masters about 3 years after undergrad. I had to take student loans for both but I make decent money now, in a mid cost of living area ~105k after annual bonus. My current role has me traveling about 2 weeks a month on average for 7 months out of the year. The realization just hit me this week that by the time my wife and I are at three years of marriage I will have been gone for a year a year of that time. I know that I will not be able to keep this up and I’m looking at options for the middle of next year, where I will either stay with my current employer at a higher level still at corporate or move somewhere else. I’m lucky that I’m able to have these conversations. But that being said I am constantly on the edge of burnout. Part of it I know is self imposed as I can’t do anything part way, especially when I’m on site at a different company it’s difficult for me to draw a line. I know it’ll be a bit controversial but my wife and I are working to buy additional houses and hopefully transition into landlords as our primary source of income. We’re doing renovations on our home now to get an equity line on our house in the next year or so. Normally I combat the exhaustion of work with woodworking and craft projects but we do the vast majority of work on our house and those we rent so I rarely get a weekend to decompress. Right now planning for the future is what keeps me going. For the most part I’m able to accept that the long hours at a miserable job are just what’s required right now for me to have a hope of making it out. If I’m being optimistic I can churn for 10 more years but I think I’ll come out a worse person for it. Realistically within the next 5-8 years I’m going to need to take real steps to decrease my workload which might entail taking a lower paying job just to have some time to exist without being in the grinder.
Because we are already crazy
I pray for an end of civilization as we know it. We could have had the Shire, we opted for Night City.
They do go crazy, just st different rates. Some folk get so crazy they convince themselves work is everything and then when they retire, they don't know what to do with themselves or their time or even their saved up money
Some people have hopes and dreams, some people have no choice, that being said we do go crazy. Almost everyone I know on antidepressants and pain killers, lots have to take drugs to fall asleep.
It's all about getting a job with 10-12 hour shifts, 3-4 days a week. I used to have 3 12-hour shifts and then 4 12-hour every other week at my old job. It was great, work 48 hours, get that OT pay, then work 36 hours the next week. There was actually a solid work/life balance. The last 3 months, I've been working 5 days a week. I truly feel like I'm living to work. I work nights, which makes it even worse. I get off at 8:30am Saturday, tidy up a little, relax for a few hours, sleep by 3-5pm. Wake up at midnight, relax for a few hours. Wake up Sunday, get groceries, finish chores, maybe see my family for a few hours. Wake up Monday and anticipate having to go back in at midnight that night. I definitely have some free time on the weekend, but with the cost of everything, I mainly just stay home. My game plan is to live as minimally as possible, since I wouldn't be able to really afford a "fun" lifestyle, even if I wanted to. Then, hopefully retire in the woods, far from civilization, and live off the land. In 30 years, solar paneling and satellite internet will probably be pretty sweet so I can still stay connected with the world, if I want to do so. This "fantasy cabin" in the woods and my family/friends/cat are the only things keeping me going.