I agree with the article that real estate is at the core of the issue. Always follow the money.
However, I also think some mid-level supervisor types get off on the power trip of making subordinates do things they don’t want to do, such as wasting several hours a week commuting and polluting between home and office.
And of course you’ll always have the suckups who want to score points by acting so eager to show up in person. They are the reason it’s so hard to unify and fight these measures in many shops.
I’m not talking about people who have a genuine preference for working in the office. There are many legitimate reasons to have such a preference. I’m talking about psychos who want to force everyone to do it when it’s not necessary, and don’t support telecommuting as a legitimate way to work.
From what I've seen, every push to have everyone return to the office has either been that they just want control over employees or they want butts in seats because the seats aren't free. It's never been about productivity as folks that work from home normally are always happy to drive in to the office if they have to. What's the different if they drive in during morning rush hour traffic vs at lunch time when they only have to physically be in the office for a few hours.
I think a large part of the push for return to work is definitely the control of employees when management actively selects for people who are sociopaths.
From what I've seen, every push to have everyone return to the office has either been that they just want control over employees or they want butts in seats because the seats aren't free.
Yes, exactly.
Everyone keeps pointing to the real estate issue, but the simple fact of the matter is that most office-based employers don't own any commercial real estate. It's a great theory as to why the media has been promoting back-to-office stories, but it doesn't explain why employers are actually doing it.
Raw, unmitigated distrust of and disrespect for employees, though...
Also it looks good for client-facing businesses. Clients like it better when they can see the peons that will be working for them - a lot of them don’t like to accept “well our employees have lives and it’s better and easier for us to simply have them WFH rather than maintaining a huge office space for the sole reason of having an office.”
but the simple fact of the matter is that most office-based employers don’t own any commercial real estate
That’s not a fact. The reality is that all these rich assholes are friends with each other. The owner of the business is friends with the owner of the building and friends with the owner of the vendors and friends with the owner of the retailers. They all go on camping trips and to each other’s kids weddings.
The owner of the business renting the office space might not literally own the building, but they’re all friends.
Most of them are not. The reality is, workers in the US are more or less equally split between big businesses and small-to-medium businesses, and outside of the States it skews much more toward small-to-medium. These are companies that often have less than amicable relationships with their landlords, because landlords have this nasty tendency of acting like landlords.
On top of that, much commercial real estate is owned by REITs, which are managed from the biggest cities, and aren't really entities small and medium businesses get to have real relationships with, any more than an apartment renter gets to have a relationship with their residential REIT.
They're not buddies. They don't even have a direct line of contact.
We had a slow day at work we knew was going to be slow. I wfh most mornings and then commute in. Decided to just take my time got to the office an hour later than usual. My goddman coworker called our supervisor and let him know I wasn’t in. For what? There was nothing for me to do all day, except a half hour of work later in thr afternoon I easily could have done at home.
But my coworker didn’t like that. So he had to call my boss who was on PTO and let him know. (He left at 2PM because there was nothing to do though.) He’s not even my supervisor but he still had to throw his weight around for no reason.
So I’m gonna add something here… It annoys me that managers can’t form or be part of a union. Far too often low and mid level managers and supervisors get shit on just as much and have to parrot the company line coming from the higher ups that are trying to push it. I wish they could be better empowered too.
I disagree. It has nothing to do with real estate. CEOs simply prefer working in an office with all their underlings around.
It’s cheaper to run a company if you need less office space. Even if you already have a ton of office space and it’s going unused, it’s cheaper to have an empty office than a full one.
Following the money leads to embracing a WFH-first mentality. So if it was just money, then these companies wouldn’t be forcing people back.
But besides money, people also enjoy power and they feel more powerful in a full office than working from home. So that’s what they pursue even if it costs more.
Just like how rich people will spend money on big houses and nice cars, not everything they do is to save more. They send money on things they like.
Yeh the real estate argument only accounts for part of the issue I think. The majority is, as you say, the psychological gratification of management and executives. They feel more power when they can see their ‘kingdom’.
Agree, minor upper position tend to feel like “commanding” their below with a reason ‘they have position on that’ when working on office. WFH is the best alternative here for ‘many’ people to enjoy life and work with their own pace in peace without dictated by emotional impact from upper position that they will carry it wherever they are in certain circumstances and times, why we need to argue about this again? Covid time already proof this argument that productivitive has increased as people work in WFH environment. But this is just my opinion, of course everybody has their own view related this issue.
“It’s cheaper to run a company if you need less office space” unless you are the company that rents out office space. That is who is creating all this anti-WFH propaganda, people with property real estate investments. Business offices are wildly valuable assets and WFH becoming the default operations method for most businesses would see the value of those assets depreciate
I disagree in parts. Yes, I agree this “back to office” movement has something to do with CEOs power rush, but what about the investors? They don’t care about power hierarchies, only about profits and dividends. If they have enough shares and decide to make people work from home, company’s costs with office rent could be turned into investments (like better equipment or help develop new products), or turned into dividends to the investors (more likely IMO). Either way, the investors will make more money from it.
Honestly, I think office renting is a real problem, and could get catastrophic if not handled appropriately. This massive propaganda we see about “get back to office” is more likely to be a landlord’s move than anything else IMO, and CEOs decisions are just “aftershocks”
That’s true for small to medium-sized companies. For large and very large companies, you should consider than many OWN A LOT OF THEIR OFFICE REAL ESTATE, internationally, often in the billions of dollars worth. A large chunk of their assets are in the office buildings they own, and if they become worthless the company stands to lose a lot. Not to mention that they will often borrow against the value of the buildings, and as a collateral if the value drops significantly the banks might decide that they have to pay back the excess portion of their loan immediately or put up more collateral (margin call).
I still think WFH is more profitable in that sense. You could try to lease out the space, for example. Or just sit on the space while it’s empty. Less electricity, water, coffee, toilet paper, etc etc.
Forcing your employees back to an office doesn’t get you any more money unless it’s some very strange situation.
I think it’s a tragedy of the commons type scenario. If they all act together and force everyone back to the office, then the real estate will be used and have value. If they all don’t then all the real estate becomes worthless.
You’re right though, each of them individually could sell the property, or lease it and come out ahead. As soon as that starts though, it becomes a game of hot potato, who holds the buildings when they lose their value?
Very true. I also believe though that CEOs essentially never do anything for the common good of other companies or even the entire planet. If they can earn 0.00001% more revenue by firing a bunch of people, or polluting, they won’t think twice about it.
So if they could earn more by leasing their office space to another company, they would do the same thing (if they were acting equally logically/pragmatically) but I believe it’s different in this case because of my personal opinion that it’s simply the preference of the upper management types for various reasons.
But not every CEO has forced people back. Many have embraced how it’s the future of office work.
CEOs simply prefer working in an office with all their underlings around.
If CEOs want people to work at the office, they’d be working at the office. Articles trying to polarize people by categorizing us into “elites want x, everyone else wants y” just make people angry for no reason.
Lots and lots of CEOs are really happy to have people working from home. That’s why working from home is still a popular thing. There are also CEOs who think working from home hurts productivity or culture. They can order everyone back to the office whenever they want and short of wide-scale quitting, which rarely happens, they’ll get what they want.
There’s also a non zero amount of people that don’t like being home. Whether it’s the spouse or the kids they’re avoiding, WFH makes it harder to avoid whatever is going on at home.
Just my gut feeling, but I’m gonna guess lots of c suite rich dudes would rather have a reason to be away from their wives and kids than being at home working. And there’s no cute coworkers to creep on either if everyone is home!
I’ve had regular co-workers not leave the office early when everyone else was because they didn’t want to “have to watch the kid(s) alone”.
Don’t forget the industrial revolution attitude that you have to watch your employees like hawks so they don’t “steal” from the company by slacking off. Even if they have to schedule constant pointless meetings that accomplish zero work while looking like work, just so they can keep an eye on their wage-slaves while making themselves appear productive. Control freaks, social bums, ladder climbers, and tin pot tyrants aren’t the only middle manager subspecies.
I know, right? It’s almost as if an entire generation decided that they would mortgage future generations and the environment in order to have nicer things than their parents and their kids.
Worse: it’s that they leveraged four entire generations (and counting) and the environment in order to have a higher degree of nicer things than their parents had over their parents. Up until our generations (gen X is included), every generation had it better than the previous. But thank ol’ Ronnie Reagan and the culture of deregulation that literally jump started the beginning of the end of late stage capitalism.
Even in the EU, where things are “better,” the culture of deregulation changed the course of history. European citizens do have it better, but when comparing against the US, it’s like, hard to be much worse. Now, of course this is all relative and from a hugely biased ethnocentric perspective, but being the “leaders” of the world, the decision made in the US have a huge ripple effect across the world. We exploited more people, and the resulting explosion of profits led to more power for money in politics, which led to worse exploitation across the world, which led to higher profits, ad Infinitum. We’re only a few decades on from the deregul-eighties and the effects have only grown exponentially as they amass more power via more wealth, and more wealth via more power.
We’ve been reaching the logical conclusion to capitalism, and we were going to anyway. But he jump started the beginning of the endgame. More profit, lower margins is always the end goal. This was inevitable. But he clicked the process into hyper speed.
I used to work for a company that had the right idea. We brought our work trucks home, and our work day started when we turned the key, and ended when we got home.
Had to be at a job for 8 and it was an hour away? You were paid for that. Only had a job 5 minutes away? Enjoy the extra sleep in time and the short commute home.
Now, this is way different than an office job that is stationary, but there is definitely a conversation to be had about it. If nothing else, it may have more companies going back to taking WFH seriously again instead of needlesslt forcing people back into office spaces in order to prop up the commercial real estate sector.
When I had a 1hr commute through heavy city traffic, I needed a break when I walked in the door. It took me at least an hour to get up the energy to do anything. Most of the time I would sip coffee while pretending to read e-mails or talk to coworkers. My body might be there but I wasn’t doing anything. So the company was paying for my recovery time from the “work” of the commute.
I don’t know why any company would push an employee into a long commute if it’s not necessary. It costs the company a ton of money in productivity.
It’s the problem with companies focusing on time spent, not productivity. I can waste a ton of time and get nothing done if I am so inclined.
I don’t know why any company would push an employee into a long commute if it’s not necessary.
I mean, they aren’t. Unless you are dealing with something like being a housekeeper for a rich neighborhood, most bosses would love it if you lived within 30 minutes of the office.
But the reality of the housing problem is that you MIGHT be able to afford an apartment near the office. But if you want to “put down roots”, you are living on the outskirts of town. And if you look at something like the insanity that is The Bay Area, “the outskirts of town” seems to move by 10-100 miles every few years.
And… it is real shitty, but that is part of the push for hybrid schedules. If you live three hours away from the office then nobody will ever want to call you in. But… sometimes they can’t help it. And now they have the mess of “Well, The V lives 3 hours away so do we have to pay them? We don’t pay Susie who lives 30 minutes away and it isn’t fair to her that she has to spend an extra five hours a day in the office… But we also can’t give The V what is effectively a day off every time they have an in person meeting…” So the “hope” is that people will… sell their houses and go back to getting exploited by a slum lord?
This idea that to be stable or put down roots means buying a single family home in the suburbs is one of the biggest problems in America. Because of this idea, there’s so little high quality medium density housing designed for families in cities, which only reinforces this idea. It causes people spread out, they isolate, they use more energy to live and commute, they don’t have experiences with a diverse group of people.
In many Labor Economic Models, the distinction in Time is measured as Time spent working vs Time spent not working, in which the commute is factored. Many companies deal with people’s reluctance to commute by offering better pay or better benefits (if they’re seeking specific skillsets that are more difficult to find close by), but sometimes you find a gem like your company.
I know it would be difficult to implement for many companies, but I wish more companies did something like that when they could. The company I work for doesn’t pay for commutes from home, but will pay for them if you are temporarily relocated to a different office by calculating the distance between the two offices and average fuel price
From what understand that is following the U.S. tax code. The commute from your home to your assigned work location is considered the employees responsibility. If they are temporarily assigned to another location further away, the difference in mileage is considered a business expense. In some states they are required to pay the employee. In others it’s an allowable wage theft, the company claims the mileage and doesn’t reimburse the employee.
I drive a work vehicle. I have to declare how many personal miles I used the vehicle for yearly. Personal miles are all non-company related miles and the commute to my primary office. This benefit is considered income and taxed.
Currently my primary office is my home so 95% of my miles are business. At my last job they assigned my primary office to one 20 miles away (even though I was only there 1 day every 2 weeks). As such 20% of my miles were personal. A real dick move in my opinion but perfectly legal.
I’m disappointed. I really thought that TJs was more like Costco. You look at the employees and they are always smiling, just like Costco. Guess not all things are equal.
Trader Joe’s is overpriced Aldi. Their employees are told to smile, just like everywhere else you go that employees are always smiling. Nobody’s that happy at work, and that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody at this point.
Different brother. There's Aldi Sud and Aldi Nord (I think that's right), who have common family history but are now separate companies. One operates the US chain called Aldi and the other owns TJ's.
Trader Joe’s is owned by the OTHER Aldi, which is related historically but entirely separate from the Aldi stores in the US.
Interestingly the US is the only country to have both companies other than Germany itself, and even there one is in one half of the country and the other in the other.
If I want frozen garbage, I can buy it at any grocery store. No need to go to an overpriced place that leaves most of their floor space empty. I legit do not get trader joe’s or why people like it. Easily have that place is just frozen crap, and the other half is random vegetables and candy.
My grocery store’s frozen crap has never been as good, interesting, or inexpensive as it is at Trader Joe’s. It’s not that the stuff there is great or cheap, but there’s a bit of variety that is harder to find in the Krogers and Safeways and they do switch things up so every few months there are new options. For me, between variety and C quality, vs the same basic American stuff and somewhere between F to B quality, I’ll take the former. That’s why I don’t really get frozen stuff at Costco.
Costco aint much better and are very anti union, the warehouse workers get treated better than their counterparts at Walmart but the company doesn’t give a fuck about its workers, just its image of being ‘one of the good ones’. Their response to workers in Virginia forming a union is pretty telling, they also don’t give out a annual cost of living raise even for “exceptional workers”, its maxes out at 3%
I really do believe that most people who work there enjoy their job and are happy there. Costco has also released a statement about how to become a better company in response to unionization.
Yes because they don’t want a union to form because then Costco loses control and potentially their reputation. Even if you like you’re job, which I know from personal experience many a Costco do, being in a union is good, it give you a say in the way your work life goes. Costco does not want that which is why they play the song and dance, and yes some of that does equate to a better situation than similar companies, but they are still paying the lowest they believe they can get away with . Being better than their competitors like Walmart, Amazon, and Target is a really low bar
Plenty of MIT/Harvard types are into eugenics. Don’t be fooled by the level of education someone has, doesn’t mean anything about their morals or ethics
NBCUniversal acknowledged they trimmed the trees, but they claim they trim these trees annually and it just happened to coincide with the strike:
A spokesperson for NBCUniversal confirmed to The Post that the company had pruned the trees. Universal’s confirmation was first reported by Deadline.
“We understand that the safety tree trimming of the Ficus trees we did on Barham Blvd. has created unintended challenges for demonstrators,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “That was not our intention.”
NBCUniversal is working to offer picketers shade coverage, pop-up tents and water, according to the spokesperson. The company has maintained the trees for years and prunes them annually in partnership with arborists for safety ahead of the “high-wind season,” the spokesperson said.
The city confirmed the trees are supposed to be managed by the city, the studio did not have a permit to trim them for the city, and that no permits had been issued to trim those trees in the last three years:
L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia said in a tweet Tuesday evening that his office is investigating the trimmings. The pruned trees are managed by the city, though businesses can obtain permits to trim trees from the city’s Bureau of Street Services, Mejia said. He added that they should be trimmed every five years.
On Wednesday morning, Mejia said the city had not issued permits for the ficus trees to be trimmed and had not issued any tree trimming permits for the location over the last three years.
The NBCUniversal spokesperson declined to comment on the controller’s statement.
Those particular trees are trimmed yearly, but NEVER in the heart of summer. It can fuck up the trees. However, they deemed the trees “salvageable” which I mean, I guess…
We wasted so much time figuring out that none of this bullshit is logical or fair, getting mad and saying we wanted change and being ignored. Gen z just straight up walks out if they don’t like what they see and I’m all for it. My daughter is 12 and I’ve been teaching her about her rights, and her dignity at work, and that minium wage=minimum effort, that a work family is not a real thing, that you never do “favors” for a company that can afford to pay you, and that unions are a must. I’m not surprised that gen z refuses to let themselves be abused, it took me way too long to realize that i can tell my boss to eat shit.
it took me way too long to realize that i can tell my boss to eat shit.
I think the difference in upbringing you're describing is a huge part of it.
Millennials went through spending our entire early adult lives being gaslit about how all the ways we were being abused were ultimately somehow our fault because our parents refused to recognize the systemic issues we were facing.
We may have come to the realization late, but we can certainly make sure younger generations know that they can and should call bullshit when they see it.
Gen Z has no choice but to ‘Rise up’. They are facing a lifetime of 2 full time jobs plus a ‘Gig’ if they want to come close to what was a hard opportunity to Gen X. They’re already accepted that what the Boomer had will never come to pass again. It’s downright despicable.
I think Zoomers also have the benefit of not having Boomers in the work force as a counterweight. For 20 years before COVID, the two largest generations in American history were in the work force together. Now the majority of Boomers are retired, power in the workplace is leaning towards the workers instead of companies.
I made the mistake of becoming a manager about 4 years ago. This is one of the most frustrating parts of the job. If you have a good relationship with your team they’ll usually tell you something like “I’ve been getting contacted about other offers, here’s what they’re offering.”
It’s usually about a 20% bump. I’ve not once been able to convince the company I’m at to match it. Usually the best I’m allowed to do is something like a 5-6% raise in the next salary increase cycle.
I’ll usually know for 2-3 months a team member is leaving before it actually happens because of this. Of course, if I’m allowed to hire a replacement they’ll let me pay market value.
Job hopping is definitely the best way to get a pay increase.
And even if that guy they hire is really good, there is still a large period of time where that person has to learn the ropes and is most likely less useful than the person who already knew the ins and outs. Also, most of the time, they are never as good...
Well the goal of an ideal CEO is to pull more money into the company and give as little out as possible. If we saw more AI CEOs we would just have further wealth disparity in our society and workers at those companies would be paid less as the AI would optimize their pay for maximum company profits. It would be everything we hate about capitalism but amplified, and the person who owned the AI would get paid even more for doing even less.
Correct, but often the actions of CEOs are performative and don't actually support the goal of bringing money in. They like to put on a show of being ruthless, and often behave more psychopathic than an "optimal" business AI would.
For example, it's been proven that employee retention is one of the #1 ways to boost productivity. Costco is one of the few companies with a CEO which truly believes in this and despite paying higher wages than any other grocer they are one of the top performers in my investment portfolio.
Remote work? Totally profitable and AI would maximize it instead of forcing workers back to the office to "put them in their place"
4-day week? Also proven to be a net gain as workers are rested and motivated.
A "cold and calculating" AI would be far more likely to make reforms that benefit both the company and the employees, as it isn't motivated by power structures or the need to look ruthless. Cutting pay is a losing move as it loses talent more than it saves money, and deep learning algorithms would realize this easily.
Also the "person who owns the AI" would actually be the shareholders, who are often ordinary investors. Rather than funneling money to bloated C-suites, the money would be more likely to circulate in the economy through dividends.
At this point it would be most likely to be an LLM which just emulates what it has seen CEOs do in its training data and would do the same sort of thing.
Remember that Star Trek where they go to the evil mirror universe and the baddies come to the Enterprise? The bad versions get caught because it's hard for someone with no empathy to fake it.
It's a bit messy for the employer. You can't just hand out 20% raises every time someone threatens to leave. Then everyone would be threatening to leave. And that's a hefty cost to add to what's likely your largest operating expense. Also, that's not just 20% in the employee's pocket, there are additional costs like unemployment insurance and the like.
OTOH, unless your employee plain sucks or the job is simple, it's almost always better to keep them than train a replacement. Tribal knowledge is valuable knowledge.
And no, only very small-time employers expect loyalty. They understand the game, and we should as well.
Funny that lemmy whines and moans about capitalism all day, without realizing they can play as well. Jumping jobs over the last 11 years got me $14 > $22 > $39. Been at this place 5-years, thinking about jumping ship again. Probably put me over $100K with a little luck. Oh, and I've never had such fat benefits or worked less. From home to boot.
Related: When we first moved here, a friend started at an oil change place, well below his skill set and previous pay. Kept job hopping and stacking his resume, now he's the top service manager at the largest auto dealer group. He quit moving, guess he's fat and happy. Sure drags in the $.
Fine. They all claim to have offers. It's not like employers don't track turnover and market rates. Some of them just decide it's cheaper to allow high turnover. Not like they can't work an Excel sheet.
Having said that, I've found many employers wholly ignorant of metrics that aren't easily tracked. For example, 2 jobs ago I was a key player at my shitty little shop. Kept the customers rolling in, despite their aggravations with the company. You can't put a solid number on that. (And many told me they left for the competition when I quit.)
Last job, I quit for an offer doubling my pay and benefits. They loved me, wouldn't go for it. The next year they paid far more in IT costs than it would have cost to keep me.
Back to my point, work hard, achieve something to be proud of on your resume, jump ship. The game is only rigged for the employer is you're in a shit job that requires almost no skills. As to that, see the example I talked about with my oil change buddy.
Do you think employers are stone ignorant of market rates? Who said anything about mass quitting? The people not moving on are the people who can't. Hell, that's where I'm at. Pretty sure I've attained the Peter Principle for now.
We cope by saying they hire a replacement who asked for more. The reality is they generally don’t. They either offload the work to the rest of the dept and go “oh look at that we didn’t need them!” as the group drowns OR they find a wide eyed, younger professional who will take a crap - or at least lower - salary.
This varies from industry to industry but it’s very common.
We cope by saying they hire a replacement who asked for more. The reality is they generally don’t. They either offload the work to the rest of the dept and go “oh look at that we didn’t need them!” as the group drowns OR they find a wide eyed, younger professional who will take a crap - or at least lower - salary.
Which doesnt seem to be common, seeing how you have shit like the report that OP posted that job hopping massively increases income.
I keep waiting for someone to lay it out and explain how the companies are actually benefiting in some subtle way from this arrangement. As far as I can tell, no, this is just what they decided to do.
Maybe an advantage of this setup is that you ensure that your bus factor is high and you're constantly testing it to make sure it stays high? Kind of like how Netflix uses ChaosMonkey.
It all makes "business" sense for those who see employees as "commodities", i.e. all kinda equivalent and hence easilly replaceable with nothing lost when they're switched.
It's basically the MBA thinking of employees as just another "raw material" or "supplier".
The reality, more so in complex domains, is that employees have an adaptation and learning period when they arrive (unlike engineered devices, companies aren't standardized machines using standardized parts, so you a new "part" won't just seamlessly fit and start delivering full performance) and often never written institutional knowledge that goes with them when they leave.
However as those things are not easilly quantified and measurable, MBA types - being unable to add it to their spreadsheets - will simply ignore them rather than trying to balance such costs against salary costs: giving a decent salary increase (a guaranteed cost) will always look like a worse option in an accounting spreadsheet if its only counter is a sub-100% possibility that they might lose that employee (and, remember, since they don't count adaption and loss of institutional knowledge costs, that's listed there as costing nothing) and replace it with somebody else who might even be possible to get with a less "decent" salary (so, more than the current employees but less that a fair salary for the current employee).
Such approach works well if all companies are doing it and the probability that people will leave if they don't get a decent salary is low enough (which it probably is, since the majority of human beings favour stability over change).
A higher up at my company recently derisively said one of the major reasons people didn’t want to return to office was because they saved money working from home… as if that’s a ridiculous reason. Some of these executives are so out of touch with their inflated salaries.
I think this is what people mean when they say "people don't work as hard from home" are talking about. Having a little extra spending money makes you not worry as much about appeasing your boss.
It really means the bosses can’t preside over a culture of fear quite so well if people aren’t cowering outside their offices seeking their attention. They like to be the centre of attention and work being done remotely makes them feel just as meaningless as the rank and file workers.
Yet the same douchebag will cut costs in the company at every turn. And is probably cheap as fuck in personal budgeting. These people need to fuck right the hell off.
People are more productive at home. We know this. It works and has worked. These companies that refuse to acknowledge it will continue to destroy themselves.
Companies that adapt to remote work will have access to better workers who can afford to be choosey about jobs. And since remote workers concentrate better and work longer hours they’re even more productive.
Companies which force workers to come into the office will languish and become less profitable and they won’t even know why.
It's companies gaslighting us that we are either looking for new roles, or we are working hard to make more money/ask for a raise or else we'll find a new role.
Managers see both these things as "not being part of the fam", but really they just want to take more and give less while playing the victim.
Because people cannot like you and you still feel obligated to earn your paycheck and you have honor. Unlike the dip shits you are quitting from because they are drunken assholes that can't see past their whiney little emergencies.
Yeah I always thought ‘quiet quitters’ referred to people checking out of their jobs emotionally and doing just barely enough to not get fired, so actually underperforming, not because they couldn’t do better but because they stopped caring at some point. In that sense they have already quit, quietly. But now it seems that anyone who doesn’t go above and beyond can be a ‘quiet quitter’? Doesn’t make much sense to me.
Nah, quit quitting is just the new term for it. Boomers called it working to the letter of your contract. Quit quitting isn’t doing less than your job duties. It’s simply refusing to bend over backwards and give your employer all of your free time. You don’t take on extra responsibility. You don’t come in early or stay late. You come in on time, do your exact job duties as written, then you go home.
But this terrifies employers, who have historically relied on manipulation and coercion to get employees to work beyond the scope of what they were hired for. So they’ve started calling it “quit quitting” in an effort to rebrand it as something negative.
I've known people who are the best workers on their team, but put in like 40% effort. Does that count as quiet quitting? IDK.
To be clear, I'm not excusing the article, which is a bad joke. That being said, there are plenty of people out there that are really good at their jobs, but don't put in full effort. I don't have a problem with these people at all (really who does 100% effort all of the time?).
They're just toeing the line for their corporate masters. Capitalists want 150% effort for 100% pay since the profit margin on that extra 50% alone is huge.
They don't just want your work output; they want your soul.
They want the old days where people were 100% believers in their jobs at places like WeWork, Uber, Tesla, and Facebook...before the general public became disillusioned with tech companies specifically and companies in general more broadly. They want "evangelists" and the belief of the mid-Obama years back...
The only problem is that many have looked at things over the last ten years and found that the euphoric promises made by the management of companies were lies.
You are right, I assummed it was like the onion, but appears the irishtimes business section plays to the businesses it attracts ( of shitty companies avoiding taxes in their own country)
The main thing I don’t get is that the top talent at your company are the ones that can easily find another job instead of putting up with your BS. The people that aren’t competent enough to leave on a whim are the ones you’re going to be keeping.
I don’t think being fickle and being competent are necessarily linked.
Some of the best workers i’ve met over the years are making way less than some of the worst workers i’ve met, just because the ones who could talk the talk and play the bullshit made way more money and swap jobs way more often.
The highest paid company hoppers are undoubtably the first ones to go, that doesn’t mean they are the most important, talented people though.
Yeah, but you’re thinking about when the company picks people to fire. Forcing people back to the office decreases worker satisfaction across the board, and workers will respond individually. I’d argue that those highest paid will be most willing to suffer the inconvenience of commuting, regardless of their talent, so the “make working here annoying” plan will tend to retain higher paid employees while losing lower paid people through attrition. Likewise, workers are more likely to tolerate the annoyances if they don’t have any other options. Good people can more easily job-hop, so this strategy is also likely to retain the lower-performing employees while the top performers go elsewhere, not considering pay rate. Total labor costs will decline, because there’s fewer people working, but it’s not an efficient selection process.
Long story short: pissing on your employees results in a smaller, lower quality workforce.
I’d argue that those highest paid will be most willing to suffer the inconvenience of commuting, regardless of their talent
I’m not sure this is accurate. Most of the highly paid people I know (myself included), feel quite empowered by the current job market and can basically pick jobs at their leisure.
Yeah, I think I phrased that badly. I just meant that people can be paid to tolerate annoyances. More likely to happen in reverse, like if I’m going to have to do this unpleasant thing, then you’re going to have to pay me extra, but the principle’s the same.
I agree on performance, but I’m well paid and would tolerate almost zero unjustified inconvenience. I can afford to take a cut, but in reality would probably earn even more elsewhere.
More experienced folk are also more likely to go freelance, since they have the skills, experience and contacts. Perm roles only make sense when they bring stability and benefits. I expect to see this a lot more, if RTO continues.
If bad people are aware that they’re bad, they’re strongly incentivized to not risk their livelihoods by voluntarily ending their employment.
If people are clinging to a job tightly even as working condition deteriorates, it’s an indicator that they don’t think they’ll fare well on the job market.
The disconnect has more to do with perception of their own value. Good people who underestimate themselves awill be inclined to stay. Bad people who know they’re bad will be more inclined to stay.
Bad people who think they’re good, and good people who know they’re good will be the most likely to leave.
So, the strategy of intentionally tanking your conditions to prune bad people actually only successfully prunes bad people who think they’re good.
On the other hand, you loose good people who know they’re good, entrenches the bad people who know they’re bad, and demoralized the shit out of good people who don’t realize they’re good.
How are “bad people who think they are good” likely to leave, wouldn’t they find it hard to switch jobs because they are bad? that is, they thought they could easily switch jobs, but find out in interviews that it’s not easy, thus they are forced to stay?
Even better, the competent ones ask for more money
Seriously the actions of all these big companies shows they don’t really give a shit about retaining top talent. Unfortunately, for big name companies, they’ll always have an inflow of talented new grads who are willing to give up their dignity to get their name on their resumes, and it’s cheaper (in the short term, which is all shareholders care about) to churn and burn them then to invest in long term talent
We are all freely interchangeable widgets in their calculations. They don’t have time to consider that some people might be better than the job than others.
They’re betting that some will leave, most will stay, and even if the some that leave are the best, most of their money is made by the vast majority of people behind them.
They’re looking at trends, not individuals. Individuals don’t matter to them.
They’re looking at trends, not individuals. Individuals don’t matter to them.
Exactly.
They’re going to learn better, but it’s going to be an expensive process.
The irony is that the average worker already knows better.
“Name two people at your workplace who, if they quit, everything will go to shit.”
We can all do it. Only the CEO can’t. And many of us would name differet people at the same workplace, and still be correct. But the CEO rarely knows that, or more likely can only name two, themselves, when their real risk is closer to 200.
I put up with hellish demands and a nightmare commute because I thought working at Important Company was a privilege. And to so degree it was. But I don’t put up with bullshit anymore and that was a lesson I had to learn on my own, the hard way.
yup - early on in my career, working at a specific FAANG company was my life’s greatest ambition, now I don’t think there’s any amount of money they might feasibly offer me that would make me work there lol - Once you have enough income to be comfortable, work life balance is worth more than anything
Had a convo with my mum last month, where she was concerned that I wasn’t looking to supercharge my career as I enter my 40s. She couldn’t understand why I’d declined an interview with Meta.
I had to spell it out… I won’t miss that extra money. I don’t have an expensive lifestyle, and I don’t want one. I’d miss the time lost with my kids, and I’d sure as shit regret the stress and anxiety of additional work pressure.
But then, I also had to explain why staying in an unhappy marriage “for the kids” is infinitely worse than peaceful and happy co-parenting.
Yep. One of my friends works in sales and has worked from home for 3 1/2 of her 4 years with her current company. She’s in the top 10 performers out of 250-ish people in her division and her company is going to lose her if they stick to the demand that people return to the office. She’s waiting to see what happens, but she’s already had recruiters put out feelers once the tentative plan got out, and there are other top performers ready to jump ship too.
I’ve seen a lot of people with that attitude still get let go. I’ve fired people with huge ego’s that were extremely valuable to operations that really thought they were untouchable. As good as you think you are, there’s someone else just as good or better that will take your place.
That being said, fuck working for someone that doesn’t respect you, or makes demands of you purely because they want to flex on you.
Overall, employers hold almost all the power in their relationships over employees.
Depending on individual and conditions, some may find themselves with the privilege of slightly improved bargaining power, but no assumption is stable or reliable, and ultimately employers have the final word. A company always may find other workers more easily than, in the greater balance, individuals may find other job positions.
Workers have no inherent or intrinsic value in the relationship. Companies value workers only for their labor, and do so under systems of labor commodification captured beneath the whims of the market.
A company always may find other workers more easily than, in the greater balance, individuals may find other job positions.
This (emphasis mine, for clarity) is not accurate. There are currently more jobs than people, and people of certain positions have enormous power in job negotiations.
Companies value workers only for their labor
And workers only value companies for the pay. This isn’t really an argument about anything
A job opening being posted offers no important information about the situation inside any company, nor about the count of applications that have been received, nor the count that has been ignored or rejected.
For most of us, not having a job represents having a much higher risk of death. The conditions of workers are essentially conditions of work or die.
If you think workers have as much bargaining power as companies, then you are, frankly, deluded. You may personally not notice the depth of the disparity, due to your having certain privileges, but you are still giving a distorted representation of your own conditions.
Workers literally have more bargaining power than employers at the moment, be I’m not deluded about that. I work in retention and partner with recruiting daily.
You have argued that because you have encountered an abundance of job listings, therefore, employers have less bargaining power than employees.
Job listings are not a scarce resource. Any employer may create any number for any reason merely by choosing.
Your argument is fatuous.
The entire structure of the relationship between worker and employer is based on inequitable balance of power. Workers must sell their labor to employers in order to earn the means of their survival, in order to avoid destitution, homelessness, and starvation. Employers, in turn, benefit from a disciplined and stratified working class, and from a reserve army of labor.
The prevailing principle for workers, under the employment system, is work or die.
I’m not talking about seeing lots of job listings. I’m talking about the realities of recruiting personnel and the demographic and structural changes that cause those realities
Sorry you’re having trouble, but your experience is not the broad reality. There are more jobs than people and workers haven’t been this empowered since post-WW2
The prevailing principle for workers, under the employment system, is work or die
There is no system in which this is not the case, and that has nothing to do with your bargaining power.
I’m talking about the realities of recruiting personnel and the demographic and structural changes that cause those realities
…your experience is not the broad reality.
You are now being dishonest, by insinuating that I have presented an argument from personal experience, and also that you have presented a structural argument.
Both suggestions are false.
You have given no structural argument. I have given one, and have not appealed to personal experience.
There are more jobs than people and workers
As I say, job openings is not relevant. A job opening is not a resource of limited supply.
Any employer may post any number of job openings at any time, and also may eliminate any of them, at any time, and also may eliminate any job, at any time, dismissing whoever is holding it.
Indeed, an employer may also post a job opening, and simply reject every applicant, or even ignore every one.
There is no system in which this is not the case,
Yes, there is, obviously. As long as distribution of basic needs is decoupled from the system of organizing labor, everyone may survive even if not providing labor.
and that has nothing to do with your bargaining power.
It does, completely, for reasons I already explained. Only one side of the bargaining relationship is being subjected to grave threat.
Any employer may post any number of job openings at any time, and also may eliminate any of them, at any time, and also may eliminate any job, at any time, dismissing whoever is holding it.
Serious question: are you currently working as an adult in the professional world?
A job is a social relationship between a worker and an employer.
A job opening is a declaration by an employer of being willing to receive applications. If any application is accepted, by a job being offered to an applicant, then the applicant may accept the job, and may hold it, as long as the employer remains willing to maintain the employment relationship.
A job opening is only a declaration.
Do you understanding the meaning of bargaining power?
Please think about the substantive meaning of the concept, and then provide a clear explanation, based on your understanding.
Now, do the same for a company declaring a job opening. Explain the meaning, clearly.
Please offer an explanation of how you may arrive, in general, at a sound conclusion, about which side of a negotiation has more bargaining power.
Now, please provide a meaningful argument that job applicants have more bargaining power than employers.
You have so far attempted to poison the well, but have not provided any genuine argument for your stated conclusion.
Either you are trolling, or you are simply extremely thoughtless in forming your beliefs.
Clearly, you are entirely lacking any understanding of social structure.
You have rifled through a handful a variations of the same general theme, attempting to argue, or perhaps attempting to avoid arguing, that employers have less bargaining power than employees.
The employment relationship is not a relationship of mutuality or parity between the two participating parties, employer and employee.
A business is a social structure, which is completely different from an individual worker, and the billionaires who own businesses, and through them accumulate private wealth, have no shared interests with their workers.
Each business may expand to employ arbitrarily many workers, but workers have only limited time to sell.
Businesses completely control the resources in society that the population requires to survive. They profit from the labor of workers, who sell their labor to earn the right to live.
It cannot be overstated that your comparison to romantic partnership is so utterly absurd.
The number of job openings is not related to the bargaining power of employees.
Oh the invaluable people do get fired. The problem is that the company never replace them, because they can’t be replaced.
Their value is not in how smart or skilled they are but in how much they know of their work in the company. Most of this work is not documented and it can take a decade to build this knowledge.
These people are key elements of the functioning of the company. You lose months of productivity each year simply because they’re not there, and you might even lose years of work that’s now unmaintainable.
I don’t know, if companies are too arrogant to see that or if they’d rather have people who obey than a working company. I bet on the second though.
Better yet if the workers unionized they could end up with a strike or no workers at all. If these were the good ol days they may even wake up without their kneecaps.
It’s because the people making these decisions aren’t incrntivised to think about the long term effect for the company. All they need to worry about is if it makes line go up in the short-term so they can get a fat bonus then use how much line went up to get a job somewhere else before the shit hits the fan. Rinse and repeat.
Have you ever had a middle manager above you who constantly has to interfere as if to prove how necessary they are?
This is similar. It’s not always about the amount/quality of your work or even about the money; sometimes it’s just about control. Those who don’t actually do much (again, managers and CEOs, etc) want desperate people they can rule over.
If you need to work to exist, you are working class. Owners make passive income with the wealth they already have. If getting fired from your job puts your basic necessities at risk, you are working class.
And relying on your parents to bail you out does not make you owner class.
Owners make passive income with the wealth they already have
And there’s different degrees. More than half the US population own stock. Is someone who makes $200 a year via investments “owning class”? What about $20,000? $2,000,000? You see how there’s vastly different scales? That’s what the definition of middle class is and why it’s important and meaningful
Still not a great definition, because many working class people have emergency funds saved up. It’s normally advised for adults to have a 6-month emergency fund of savings to live on, and many of us responsible types do. My basic necessities could be met for a long time with no job but I would need to get one before the savings ran out of course.
If you don’t find a new job within 6 months, then what?
I have literally 3 years worth of minimum living savings, but that isn’t actually a lot of money and I only have it because I live well below my means because I’ve spent my whole life in poverty.
I’m not owner class even tho I can go 3 years without working. Because eventually I do need more income to survive. Owners don’t. They can use passive income and never ever have to work again. That’s the difference.
It’s not just about owning, it’s about living off what you own. You have to work to live? Working class. You live from passive income? Owner. As you can see, middle class definition is not meaningful in this conversation. In other contexts, sure it matters, but not here
So everyone who retires transitions from the working class to the owner class?
I’m not sure it’s that useful to say that a 70 year old retired engineer is owner class because they’re living off of the stock market returns of their 401k.
I don’t disagree with you. These seem like entirely reasonable definitions. Yet… I still kind of question their utility. It’s just semantics and the delineation of classes depends entirely on the conversation you’re having.
Want to complain about capitalism? Sure… working class vs owning class, or 1%, or whatever you want.
For more or less any other conversation we don’t use terms like “lower class” or “middle class” but we divide cohorts into segments in order to make them easier to read about. It’s not a sinister plot by capitalists to confuse the plebs, it’s just practical.
It’s because a huge amount of business is centered around made up things for going to work.
Things you need to work in an office: suits, dry cleaning for the suits, dress shoes, a car (because public transportation is woefully inadequate for this reason), gas for the car, maintenance for the car, lunch, daycare, a dog walker, you have less time so you are more likely to eat out for dinner, also more likely to hire maids, you are stuck in a commute and radio is awful, so a music subscription, maybe a new phone, and might have to go out for drinks with the coworkers on the way home.
Staying at home, and much of the country on highly limited income, taught us how much we spend on the “privilege” of work. Everyone is still shocked at the emotional and opportunity cost work had, we’re just starting to realize that most of what it sold to us either isn’t real or isn’t needed.
If people don’t go back to work a sea of businesses will fail.
You missed the most important thing. Real estate investments that aren’t allowed to go down in value, which they would if offices became superfluous. Just imagine how many buildings would become “worthless”/could be used for something else.
Yeah, this is BY FAR the biggest reason. Pretty much all the rich people and most big companies have huge investment in portfolios that contain a lot of commercial office spaces. If we were all allowed to work from home those investments would plummet and all the rich people and big companies would take MASSIVE losses on those investments. Which is why all the media and even companies like Zoom are trying to pull a 180 on working from home.
I feel like we need to talk about this more. Their whole model is promoting remote experiences and yet they are also forcing folk back to the office. I can’t think of a reason outside of external pressures that would happen.
In the Wall Street area of Manhattan, some of the biggest buildings are already being converted to apartments. It’s been a trend for a while, because the older buildings are too expensive to rewire for computers/HVAC.
That is a huge pressure, but it’s less obvious why a company in a business unrelated to real estate would want real estate prices high.
The secret is that companies aren’t in the business of making a good or providing a service, they actually are just giant schemes for raising money for “investments”. For example, airlines don’t make their money off of selling tickets, but through prospecting jet fuel. Most companies aren’t as direct and clear about what their business actually is.
Also the link between real estate and all of jobs isn’t very clear and is very abstract. It’s easy to see the costs and interactions with companies forced by working in an office, it’s difficult to see how a building losing value effects anyone.
Pre-pandemic. Maybe 2005 [?] one of the big American news companies assembles a team of financial experts to study various big companies. Then they deicde to apply all that brain power to an average American family. Husband and wife with three kids, two jobs and two cars. Both have middle class jobs. After running the numbers, the experts told the wife to quit her job. The savings on childcare, running the second car, no fast food dinners, etc. more than made up for the second salary.
I don’t have a problem finding dates. I don’t want to date. Men aren’t worth the cost, in my experience. But nice attempt, trying to attack me personally to cover up your misogyny and the misogyny of the “experts”" you quote. Such a “surprising” tactic. Too bad for you that I’m quite comfortable in my choice to live relatively male-free.
Tacking the words “expert” and “study” onto misogynistic propaganda doesn’t make it scientifically rigorous. And even though there is still truth in women making less in general, that’s changing. Women need men less and less every year. Thankfully.
If you look up the actual article you’ll see it went as I wrote. In that particular case, the wife was earning less, so it made sense for her to give up her job.
Anything you’ve added is on you.
If you’re not dating because ‘men aren’t worth it’ that says more about you than it does about the men.
I set up a 4-day trip years ago and my SO requested the time off. Denied. Changed the reservation, paid a fee and again denied. In fact, every weekend in June through August was denied due to "seniority" and other employees taking their vacations.
I changed the reservation again (and paid another fee) and told my SO the dates they'll be sick.
We called early in the morning on the way to a great trip. It felt great. FAFO
When I take vacation, I always phrase it as "I am taking vacation from X to Y". Requesting time off for vacation you're owed is such a scam to allow people with little power feel like they can control you.
Yeah, I had a manager try to pull "You'll need to find coverage for the day." I'll ask around, but that kind of sounds like your job. Everybody said no to me, so it's going to be even harder for you. Best of luck!
I had a manager try that with me back in the day when I was one of the more reliable people at my job. They told me that if I didn't find coverage I might not have a job when I come back.
They didn't appreciate me calling their bluff and saying that I'll be sure to give them a call when I get back to see if I still have my job.
Yup, this is how I do it. Had ONE manager try the whole "we actually NEED you to come in, we don't have enough coverage" thing the day I was scheduled to start my vacation, so I sent them a picture from the window of the plane I was on.
It entirely depends on the particular workplace and what is involved, but either way a decent manager should work with you.
"John, Sarah, and James have already asked for that time off, and we have to have someone in the shop. Would you be able to change to this time to this time?" And you never, ever, ever call someone in when they are on PTO. If you, as a manager, okayed it, it's on you if there's not enough coverage for whatever reason.
In fairness, I work in Search and Rescue, so operations like mine and other emergency-related workplaces can't just be like "Oh well, I guess we won't have coverage that day, Joe wanted to go hunting." If you work in an office and your work literal lives aren't depending on you and others being there, then managers should work around it as best they can.
You may work in Search and Rescue but that doesn't mean they can steal from your paycheck. In workplaces that give you a set amount of time off, that time off is treated like money you are owed. If you are fired or quit, they have to pay you out.
They literally owe you the time off. You earned it. If they don't let you take it when you need it, it's like they're not paying you for work you already did. Would you accept that? I'm guessing no amount of guilting ("it's Search and Rescue!") would convince you to give them back your paycheck.
It's their fault if they don't hire enough people for you to take a vacation. Not yours. You have to be rested in order to do all the tough aspects of your job, or people could die. Think of it that way.
That's how I approve time off. I realize people have dependents and school vacations and shit, so - if it even comes to that - I'll ask if they can move it. But I see their 'request' more as a notice that they'll be away, because they can always be 'sick'. So I'm trying to preserve the trusting relationship instead.
Because honestly, the world will keep turning even if we miss that arbitrary deadline by two weeks. Or six months.
They don't give us enough vacation time anyways, everyone should be maxing their sick days too. Assuming you're not someone prone to actually getting sick.
So, in my country (I believe it's the same in the rest of the EU), we have fixed amount of PTO days every year (the amount depends on your contract, but, like pay, it cannot be below 4 weeks), and you HAVE TO USE THEM.
Some people try to build up PTO reserves for whatever reason, and usually their employers have to force them to take time off.
That sounds like you're not being a team player. It is absolutely vital that we maintain a skeleton crew because your manager's bonus is dependent on cutting payroll to the point of nonfunctionality.
She got a job working in a corporate office for a big company. This is pretty typical of not-retail-worker-salary beating out public sector nine times out of ten.
Why would someone ever be a teacher for <50k? Anybody with an education background can move to Seattle, Washington (or other state close to big city pay) and be a corporate trainer and move up to a director level role and get paid many times what they would ever be paid as a teacher…
…except so many want to stay near family, not be near a big city, can’t move because of xyz, want a couple months off each year… etc etc etc.
To quote somebody: Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense.
Just isn’t that way today and there is a big political and economic mess in the way of getting there.
Uneducated people overthrow governments. Educated people involve themselves so they make a better, longer lasting, more stable and effective government in the long run.
There's this consistent delusion that if we just burn everything down and start anew that this time it will all work out for the best.
It hasn't worked for the past two millenia, it's not going to magically work now. All it does is give rise to new fascist states.
The French revolution is far from the most well-regarded outcome, & yet, I think it was preferable to no revolution, at the time… I agree that having a knowledgeable populace is essential to social stability.
The mess is allowing decades of union-busting to be effective. Teachers in my state of Victoria (Australia) are heavily unionised, so US$50k is the starting salary. You would absolutely be making what she is now, $64k, if you’d worked for 8yrs like she had.
Edit: And that’s just for public teaching jobs. Australia has way more private schools than the US and those pay even more. With 8yrs of experience it would be easy to get one of those positions and be making $70k.
Those salaries still sound far too low for a teacher, especially since, as I understand it, your dollar doesn’t buy you guys as much as our (US) dollar, or is that just in electronics and video games?
Either way, the vice principal in The Breakfast Club cites that he’s making $35,000 a year in 1985. I’ll assume that’s the higher end of the scale since he’s admin, and has been teaching for years at that point. The thing is that adjusted for inflation that $35,000 is closer to $87,000 today. It’s not just teachers either. No essential worker has had a raise since the early 1970s, in fact we’ve had pay cuts when you look at inflation, and expected productivity.
Edit: just noticed you specified US dollars, sorry.
It depends, some things are more expensive here. But for an example, Baldur’s Gate 3 retails at US$70 in the states, but US$57 (A$90) here. A brand new iPhone 15 Pro costs US$200 more here however.
The high end for a public school teacher is US$87k. But public school admin pays a lot more. The starting salary for an Assistant Principal is US$96k, and goes all the way up too US$147k on the high end for a Principal.
Finally, while we absolutely have a housing crisis going on, rent is still a lot cheaper here. I live in a three bedroom house in the suburbs of Melbourne. We have a backyard big enough for a few chooks, a dog and a cat. It’s a half hour’s train ride into the city centre. Our rental laws mean the landlord basically couldn’t say no to the animals. He also can’t terminate the lease without cause, and has limits on how much and how often the rent can be increased. We pay US$1260 (A$1955) a month. From what I’ve seen, it can cost $2000/month for a small apartment in a comparable city in the US.
Speaking of Unions actually, we have renter’s unions here that will help if you’re being fucked over and agitate for better rights. I pay A$12/year in dues and they’ve helped me out a few times when I’ve had a landlord trying to break the laws.
Sorry for the whole rant, I just have had people reply similarly before in a way that feels a bit dismissive. Thanks for the apology, and have a great day/night :)
Edit: Oh yeah, there’s also not having to spend money on essential medical care, that makes a big difference too.
Aw man, that’s just enough difference to make me notice.
Now I’ve got a weird question purely out of curiosity: Do you know of any makers of black denim cotton work jeans, in loose fit that isn’t stretch knit?
Wrangler & Levi seem to have decided that black jeans which fit over one’s thighs, are not important enough to make in all sizes anymore… ?
What shit did I start? I agree 100% with the sentiment of this post’s OP: Teachers moving to corporate marketing jobs just to get a survivable wage, is a tragedy of first order. The people who do our societies most vital work are not rewarded anywhere near commensurate with the importance of their work; hence my reading of this post.
I was joking about needing 18650 cells as a point of reference for pricing… mostly. I really don’t have any sense of the prices of those other commodities you mentioned. Regardless, based on what you said, it seems like Australian teachers are better off than here, but still grossly undervalued?
And no, I hated the musical episode of Strange New Worlds because it wasn’t up to my expectations based on their invoking of Buffy The Musical, but I loved most of Discovery & Stamets is freaking gold. I didn’t really think they could top the engineering hijinks until Tig Notaro as Jet Reno was introduced. She’s a treasure.
I have had good luck finding what should be basic essential goods from overseas brands, when the major US brands stop making them. I was unironically, seriously, asking if you or anyone here could suggest a brand of jeans that still comes in loose fit black, as that’s literally all I can wear to work & need them for life as well. Sorry to derail the topic; I was leery of that, but Australia has good stuff sometimes so I figured I’d risk it!
The +30 or +60 refer to credit hours of additional college coursework
Each row showed the number of years of experience.
In 1998, the upper-left (fresh out of college, no experience) salary was around $38,500 or something.
The bottom right (masters+60 or doctorate, and 30 or 35 years of experience [I forget]) was $151,000. And they got a great pension (fatter than what teachers in IL starting now will get).
You also got a small multiplier for each extra curricular you ran.
We had mostly excellent teachers as a result. Couple of duds too, but that’s life. 70+% of graduating seniors went to college of some kind within two years. I believe I went to a good school.
But this is what happens when you fund schools through property taxes: the good neighborhoods get good schools, and it propels a virtuous cycle. The bad neighborhoods get bad schools, and they just spiral downward. It’s a dumb way to fund education.
I see it as part of the contract between the government and the people. All citizens are asked to help plant trees they won’t get to enjoy the shade of.
So, expensive for me who is already completely priced out of ever responsibly having children. We all have a responsibility to the future generations so I’d still vote for it. But oof. It is a tough sell to place even more tax burden on people who will never realize the benefits.
It’s not a sell for the people who will have children. It’s a sell for the children who will grow up under that education and have their job prospects determined by it. Hey - weren’t you once a child?
It is a tough sell to place even more tax burden on people who will never realize the benefits.
But you will. We all benefit from a well-educated society. A poorly educated workforce isn’t competitive with one that is well-educated, and they attract employers with jobs that can take advantage of them. They provide the work for good-paying jobs and drive the economy we’re growing old in and hopefully retiring from someday.
Public education benefits everyone, not just the children.
You’re ignoring the massive amount of students on IEPs who require special services, as well as the fact that online education requires family support and motivation.
I would say we need to do a full assessment of where our tax dollars are going. I feel we could find a lot of money to put towards the items that matter by cutting out government ineptitude.
I live in Oklahoma. I make $40k/year teaching. I can not afford the up front cost of moving to Seattle. Long term I’d love to end up in a corporate job, but because teaching is so shit and a lot of people are leaving, transitional jobs are difficult to find.
You could move to Oklahoma City or Tulsa or something. If you can’t save a few grand to move anywhere whatsoever i’d suggest getting a second job a couple nights a week or over the summer during break to make enough to do so. It’s your livelihood anyway.
Today: What do you do when you need a new car to get to work and yours stops working from age? give up? walk many miles to work? assume the fetal position until death? I promise there is a possible way in this world to have enough to relocate, the only question is what you’re willing to sacrifice to get it done. My wife lived on rice and beans for months while she saved up enough to afford tuition which ultimately made her income go from a few hundred dollars a month in another country to a little over a thousand. She learned English on her own and got a job that was a two hour commute from her home and made even more money. Now she makes over double what you do. I’m not saying it’s easy, i’m not saying it’s fair, i’m just saying it’s possible.
Work Reform
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