[HN Gopher] As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Say...
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As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'
Author : pseudolus
Score : 316 points
Date : 2021-06-25 10:46 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| streamofdigits wrote:
| There is no doubt that the pandemic has been a huge mental shock
| (and hopefully it will trigger overall more sustainable and
| meaningful behaviors). But sketching how the post-pandemic work
| landscape would look like seems extremely premature. People
| currently underappreciate the impact of government support at all
| levels. The sense of calm and control (or the absence of panic if
| you wish) is the result of an unprecedented intervention (which
| among others has demolished the brain-damaged neoliberal
| narrative).
|
| Yet only after the government support gets withdrawn will we see
| how the diverse actors in the private economy sectors restore
| their eternal "games". To be continued...
| mjburgess wrote:
| > which among others has demolished the brain-damaged
| neoliberal narrative
|
| oh?
| streamofdigits wrote:
| had governments not bailed out unconditionally a big chunk of
| the economy many business sectors would have collapsed. This
| would have triggered a run on the financial system like no
| one in recorded history.
|
| maybe we should have left "creative destruction" to play out.
| after all a pandemic is a known business risk.
| bradlys wrote:
| But the bailing out hasn't really changed anyone's mind
| about capitalism. The fun part of capitalism in America is
| that people think individually they are owed stuff from the
| government but collectively should have no intervention.
| willis936 wrote:
| Only the biggest boats can weather the storm. Big boats
| don't need life preservers, but the little guys do.
| conro1108 wrote:
| I might be misunderstanding some sarcasm from someone, but
| isn't government intervention and support during a time of
| crisis pretty firmly in the neoliberal playbook?
|
| From where I'm standing it's... pretty much everyone else
| who rails against large scale bailouts. The libertarian
| crowd is more on the "see where the chips fall" side of
| things while the more left-leaning/progressive groups
| didn't appreciate govt money going to businesses instead of
| to workers directly.
| pseudolus wrote:
| A similar story with more quantitative data appeared recently in
| the Economist :
|
| https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/06/21/american...
| david-gpu wrote:
| https://archive.is/1RUTL
| akomtu wrote:
| These workers need to form a "software engineering association"
| that will push busy bodies in legislatures to change laws.
| Otherwise that "I quit" is a kid's tantrum who refuses to eat
| oatmeal today.
| [deleted]
| psychlops wrote:
| Millions say 'I Quit' every month. The variation here is
| unsurprising. Take a look at Chart 2 in the pdf:
|
| https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/jolts.pdf
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye. Articles like these are so numbingly boring disappointments
| when you dig into the numbers and it is just a bit of noise in
| a longer trend that are presented as a big sudden change. Sure,
| the pandemic gave a interesting spike in the graph, but is not
| like 20% quit their jobs now all of a sudden, but more like
| back to the extrapolation of the pre pandemic trend.
| Riesling wrote:
| Inflation of specific asset prices is also playing into this.
| Money is losing its value. Try buying a house with a regular wage
| nowadays. Politicians, central banks and economic experts are
| sleeping at the helm.
| imtringued wrote:
| I'm not sure this is true in the US. There were multiple
| stimulus checks and generous unemployment benefits. A lot of
| central bank money ended up in the hands of regular people.
| This is something that should have happened a lot sooner than
| 2020-2021.
|
| Land values going up is how the system is rigged. That has
| nothing to do with your money.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| It's the 0.1% that pays them to sleep on the job we're paying
| for with our middle class taxes.
| heterodoxxed wrote:
| Cheap wants, expensive needs. This is our economy now.
|
| _" I love my iPhone, but I worry about health insurance."_ as
| I've heard it put here on HN.
|
| Ironically, the Soviet system fell from opposite. Expensive
| wants, cheap needs. Everyone saw the West getting cheaper and
| cheaper consumer goods and central planning failed to keep up.
|
| Now we get to see what happens.
| yetihehe wrote:
| Soviet system fell because there was not enough to even
| satisfy needs. There were always some shortages.
| heterodoxxed wrote:
| Once Perestroika liberalized their economy, they had
| distribution issues, sure.
|
| But before then, housing, food, clothing all were cheap and
| available. The food was simple, the apartments small and
| the clothing dull, but it was all there and for very little
| cost.
|
| https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-
| RDP85M00363R0006014...
|
| But they liberalized their economy in order to compete on
| the consumer goods boom in the West. That desire for
| consumer goods had a big role in destabilizing the system.
|
| And today, the converse desire for cheap staples and
| necessities in the face of intense asset inflation may be
| destabilizing our current system.
| eyivghh wrote:
| The Soviet system was "expensive needs, non-existany wants,
| faked numbers to fool the useful idiots in the West"
| mc32 wrote:
| Millions of people are quitting their current jobs to take better
| jobs!
|
| (But that is a very different narrative). Damn you NPR.
|
| From their text:
|
| >" So when his employer began calling people back to the office
| part time, he balked at the 45-minute commute. He started looking
| for a job with better remote work options and quickly landed
| multiple offers."
| xwdv wrote:
| I am glad the pandemic has been a wake up call for so many people
| about the value of their time and how different things could be
| if they cut out pointless meetings and long commutes that they
| don't even get paid for.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| For many of us it's actually been a wake up call about how
| important it is to be physically present with coworkers and a
| realization of how much the office actually does offer in terms
| of productivity and morale boost.
|
| I know this is a very unpopular opinion here on HN threads
| about this situation. And all power to the people who love
| remote work.
|
| But out of all the engineers I know personally and of all the
| people on my team and most of the other Googlers I've talked to
| off record personally in the last months... I'd say about 85%,
| 90% of them are eager for return to office.
|
| So let's not assume homogeneity of opinion. Remote work is not
| for everyone. It may not even be the preference for the
| majority of us.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| I think that's your personal bubble. Of all the google res I
| know, none of them want to go back to the office, and that's
| probably just my bubble too.
|
| Personally I work at Apple, so I'm not getting the choice,
| but I am close to my vacation cap, so I'll be "forced" to
| take a day off every fortnight; you can bet that I'll be
| using an "in-office" day for that, so I'll be working 5 days
| of every 10 in the office.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Well, I'm not in the Bay Area, I work out of Google
| Waterloo. So your experience might just be saying something
| about how crappy it is working in an office in the Valley.
|
| I've personally never much enjoyed my trips to the
| Googleplex. :-) I like my own office much more.
| kayamon wrote:
| I spent the last few years doing remote work, before COVID. I
| don't want to waste any more years of my life staring into a
| rectangle. If I go back to programming it's sure as hell
| going to be onsite.
|
| It's all fun and games at first. "Look, I can work from home
| in my underpants!" Then after a while you realize you're just
| sitting there alone in your underpants.
| BTCOG wrote:
| I think you, like many of us are tired of computers but
| reluctant to admit it after all these years of forcing the
| smiles. Time to switch to an entirely different and active?
| career.
| danuker wrote:
| > to waste any more years of my life staring into a
| rectangle
|
| Do you not stare into a rectangle on-site? Do you prefer to
| _additionally_ go through soul-sucking commute?
| bradlys wrote:
| It's a bit presumptuous to assume everyone has a soul
| sucking commute. Most of my jobs I've had a 10 minute
| commute.
|
| I've decided to take a longer commute now (30ish minutes)
| but it's not a big deal because it's in a place where I
| was going many times a week anyway and had to do the
| commute then too. Also, it's going to be hybrid now and
| isn't 5-days/week probably.
| notacoward wrote:
| > most of the other Googlers
|
| How much of that is because of productivity, how much is for
| social (i.e. non-task-oriented) interaction, and how much is
| getting away from the place where you also have to do your
| own cooking and cleaning and possibly deal with kids? I'm
| guessing productivity is the least of these reasons, for most
| FAANGers. After all, they self-selected to be in such
| environments.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Nah, not me ... I didn't self-select for that. I came from
| an acquisition, I never applied to Google... I just...
| arrived here. Hotel California style.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| As someone who's practically spent all of their life, and
| whose best friends have all been, online, I never thought I'd
| agree with this, and I'm sad that I do.
|
| >how important it is to be physically present with coworkers
| and a realization of how much the office actually does offer
| in terms of productivity and morale boost.
|
| This depends on your home situation, but with mine I wouldn't
| say the office is more productive. But the frequency and
| richness of interactions you have with coworkers in person is
| a world apart from being remote.
|
| Immersive telecommute VR when?
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| Only because they expect the government to take care of them
| ud_0 wrote:
| I'm one of these. I'm an allrounder software dev in his late
| fourties, "lured" into a non-software middle management position
| by the promise of money and stability a few years ago.
|
| In practice, the money has never materialized because our sector
| took a big hit and much of that promise was tied to incentives
| based on the company's success. I can't really blame anyone for
| this, but that's strike one as far as job satisfaction goes.
|
| Second strike, I love writing code, and I don't get to do that a
| lot anymore. I'm listing these "pre-existing conditions" because
| I believe it's common for us _quitters_ to have other areas of
| dissatisfaction that hadn 't been enough to drive us over the
| edge by themselves.
|
| Third strike, while my company does not support WFH after Covid,
| I did get to experience at least a partial WFH program, and it
| was absolutely wonderful. There's a problem though: I would
| absolutely like to continue working from home, but I also want to
| work on my own projects, on my own terms, on my own schedule. A
| traditional full time job is not compatible with that.
|
| So I put in my notice for the end of this year, to allow current
| company projects to come to a conclusion and/or hand them off. I
| want to stress that for a man in my age group, with no
| significant savings or other safety net, this is extremely scary.
| It's just that this Angst is outweighed by the thought of staying
| on the treadmill hoping for an eventual reward that may never
| come and seeing the little time I have left drain away.
| [deleted]
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| I'm in a similar boat where upper-management is completely out
| of touch.
|
| For us WFH is an option because it boosts productivity: People
| often end up working later.
|
| Leading a high-performance team, I should be able to do team-
| wide things as a reward to boost morale and combat burn out.
|
| Yet here I am, seriously contemplating leaving.
| lowercased wrote:
| "...for a man in my age group, with no significant savings or
| other safety net, this is extremely scary"
|
| I'm sorry you are in this situation. I applaud your self-
| awareness, and suspect you have enough skills and discipline to
| turn this around in the next few years. You may never get to
| the point of having millions tucked away for retirement, but do
| hope you can get to a point where you do have 'significant
| savings'. I'd measure that by your measure of 'extremely
| scary'.
|
| My wife and I have no kids, so 'saving' has been somewhat
| easier 'by default' than some of our peers. That said, it's not
| automatic, and I know plenty of folks who are high earners who
| will manage to spend it all without 'significant savings' to
| speak of.
| ud_0 wrote:
| Thank you! Don't have too much pity though, I'm doing okay. I
| live in the EU, no spouse, no kids, no commitments really.
| Not planning ahead is 100% my fault, but it's not an
| existential problem (yet). It's just time to finally stop
| spending everything as it comes in.
|
| It's kind of obnoxious to even admit this, but I always
| assumed I'd be a successful person at some point down the
| line. This was of course utterly ridiculous and led to some
| really bad decisions. It was exploitable by other people,
| too. My work made a few people rich, and while I was always
| compensated for my time, I never got a proportional cut from
| the outcomes. But it wasn't a bad life, and there is still
| some fuel in the tank :)
| lowercased wrote:
| Oh... EU... your 'social safety net' is ... stronger than
| ours in the US. _I_ am nervous /scared about the future,
| and I have about 3-4 years of expenses in savings (not
| counting investments and retirement accounts). But I'm
| still somewhat 'nervous/scared'.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| There is no single EU when it comes to topics like these,
| some parts are much better than others. But no place will
| ever save you from really bad financial mistakes or tons
| of small ones.
|
| But you won't ever starve or have no place to sleep and
| your health will generally be taken care of, albeit not
| always in best way possible (ie dental care).
| lowercased wrote:
| > But you won't ever starve or have no place to sleep and
| your health will generally be taken care of
|
| Which are things I concerned myself with early on. I
| probably _won 't_ ever have to be homeless, but... health
| stuff - knowing that if I stop paying for 'insurance',
| regardless of how much I've paid in over... decades...
| I'll be denied things - that's still troubling.
| Everhusk wrote:
| Yeah I think it's a major transition for both employees and
| employers to figure out where to go from here. I suspect the best
| thing for people looking for new work is to find something that
| matches your values. As a startup founder, I started Earth Wallet
| around these core values - Creating a Better Planet, Innovating &
| Evolving, and Trust & Respect.
|
| If anyone believes in these values, we offer a flexible, remote-
| friendly lifestyle, with two meetups a year at cool places like
| Bali, Greece, Costa Rica, Barbados, and adding new ones as time
| goes on! So if you're a developer looking for a new way of
| working in the decentralization space, feel free to reach me at
| developers@earthwallet.io!
| Clubber wrote:
| >As a startup founder, I started Earth Wallet around these core
| values - Creating a Better Planet, Innovating & Evolving, and
| Trust & Respect.
|
| This is such a tired line. It's like reading, "So and so
| company who just got caught doing shady shit really takes shady
| shit seriously and we intend to fully investigate the matter.
| We fully respect so and so and this and that."
|
| I'm not saying you are doing shady shit, but it reads as the
| same phony stuff as any PR drone has been regurgitating for the
| last 40 years.
| cableshaft wrote:
| So not to single you out, but I've been seeing a lot of pitches
| from recruiters recently, and after a few interviews where
| afterwards the recruiter circles back and clarifies "so by
| remote-friendly we mean they will let you work from home
| _maybe_ once or twice a week, instead of never, is that okay?
| ", or "it's remote...but only until labor day" (what all
| companies have deemed 'post-covid' apparently). So I'm quickly
| learning to avoid jobs that advertise themselves as 'remote-
| friendly'.
|
| If you're 100% remote or 'remote except a couple of optional
| team building events' or 'remote except come into the office
| once every month or two', I would be very specific and say so,
| and not just say 'remote-friendly' or 'remote-flexible' (even
| just saying 'remote' is starting to be suspicious), because
| those terms seem to have morphed into a signal that the
| opposite is true.
|
| Also, if your company was remote before the pandemic, you
| should also say that, because that gives me reason to believe
| it will stay that way, instead of being another bait-and-switch
| "we're 100% remote!...for a few more months".
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| This article opens with a person experiencing burnout and
| choosing to leave a job where he needed to commute 1.5 hours per
| day, but the story isn't really about people quitting work or
| leaving the workforce.
|
| The majority of people resigning their jobs are simply changing
| jobs, and the article doesn't provide any evidence that people
| are changing to remote work in large numbers.
|
| The biggest driver of the increase in job changes is simply the
| booming economy. We poured stimulus money into the economy at
| unprecedented rates and this has created economic booms at every
| level. Companies are scrambling to hire and wages reflect this,
| so people are taking the opportunity to switch up their careers
| and collect a pay bump.
|
| Most of the business world appears to be snapping back to
| business as normal at a rapid rate, but with a booming economy
| pouring fuel on the fire. The media has been pushing narratives
| that COVID changes everything and that we're entering a whole new
| world, but aside from companies adding a little more flexibility
| it seems most are eager to simply return to business as usual.
|
| On the ground, I'm not seeing a massive shift toward remote work
| like I keep reading about in these articles. Yes, there are
| somewhat more remote jobs, but companies are largely eager to
| return to in-office work. Even many employees I know are eager to
| get back to the office because remote isn't for everyone.
| adolph wrote:
| > booming economy. We poured stimulus money
|
| s/oom/ubl/
| bdcravens wrote:
| If you want to go with the "clever mic drop without
| elaboration" it works better if there's no errors. You're
| spelling "bubbling" wrong.
| adolph wrote:
| Thanks for the tip. I'm glad the spellin was close enough
| for you to get the point.
| lumberingjack wrote:
| Remember the housing market boom right before the bubble popped
| they propped it up with stimulus money everybody was like oh
| wow this is great houses are such a low price...... You're
| basically talking about the same thing there
| mywittyname wrote:
| No. I do remember people being like, 'holy shit, houses are
| getting so expensive' in the years leading up to the bubble
| popping. And knowing a few people stuck in their houses after
| real estate agents convinced them to buy at way more than
| market value.
|
| What stimulus are you talking about? Mortgage rates were
| laughably high by today's standards. Maybe the $600 bush tax
| cut? I remember some first time home-buyers programs, but
| those were largely in response to 2008.
| danuker wrote:
| I suspect it's the Fed injecting liquidity:
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WM2NS
| lkrubner wrote:
| Most couples take a second job to increase their standard of
| living, but now millions were forced by the pandemic to reduce
| their standard of living, and many are now saying "Wait, this
| reduction in my standard of living is really an improvement in my
| standard of living." That's especially true when some phase-shift
| decision was made, like taking in roommates to one's apartment,
| or moving back in with one's parents, suddenly one's expenses are
| much lower, and one can think more carefully about what kind of
| work one is willing to take.
| toxik wrote:
| Interesting shift but it's probably confined to the US. It seems
| the US has been toughest on its lowest paid workers. Many if not
| most other western countries already have extensive welfare
| programs, with the benefits and ailments that it brings. This
| means many low-paid jobs simply don't exist, e.g. bellhop,
| elevator operators, etc, and that any work requiring employees is
| much more expensive. The question is, can the US rein it in
| again? I think so, sadly.
| [deleted]
| lumberingjack wrote:
| 30 years ago I realized the same thing and stop being a slave too
| but the federal government is making it increasingly harder and
| harder to own your own business every time I turn around some
| entity with an alphabet name once a huge portion of money like
| the EPA
| iammisc wrote:
| Let's hope it increases wages for the rest of us.
| lordnacho wrote:
| The first guy in the article is a dev. There's never been a
| better time to find work as a dev. Jobs are handing out more
| money with more flexibility than ever seen before. On top of it
| all, if your firm wants people back in the office soon, now is
| the time to do loads of remote interviews so that you can keep
| being remote.
|
| I was interviewing recently and almost everyone is at least
| partly remote, with a huge number of 100% remote. Even people
| that I know don't like the idea are bending and giving two or
| three days remote.
|
| On the restaurant-type work, I'd say a bunch of people have been
| given a breather from the treadmill, and they're using it to look
| around. I see this as mostly positive, but it does suggest that a
| lot of people are completely swamped, working all the time,
| spending everything. The little bit of credit they got from the
| pandemic payment has unlocked a great reckoning with the labor
| market. Previously if you didn't like your job, you were screwed.
| Somehow find time to interview/upskill, or somehow jump the gap
| with your savings.
| beforeolives wrote:
| > Jobs are handing out more money with more flexibility than
| ever seen before.
|
| I'm in the UK and not seeing any of this.
| lordnacho wrote:
| I'm in the UK too. But also remote means you can get a job
| "based" anywhere. Check out some US firms for instance, many
| are hiring and are happy with euro time zones.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Is that your experience with US companies hiring at the
| moment?
|
| I never considered this type of roles before because it was
| sort of a given in my head that they would want US based
| candidates for taxation reasons.
|
| Have you seen a big change regarding this, from US based
| companies?
| lordnacho wrote:
| Yeah they'll just pay your private company, and you sort
| out your own taxes.
|
| I found there's loads and loads of US firms that are
| happy to take Europe based candidates.
| ixs wrote:
| The US companies are hiring, just like everybody else.
|
| Multi-nationals now seem to post most jobs as "remote"
| which means global. A smaller number is "US-remote".
| Usually this is not for tax reasons but for business or
| security reasons if dealing with the US government.
|
| Hiring remotely is easy for these companies as they
| usually have a subsidiary already in country. But even if
| not, there are now agencies that take care if things like
| taxation etc. I believe remote.com might be the one most
| known but it is certainly not the only one.
| draw_down wrote:
| Hilarious
| [deleted]
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Y'all have Brexit to thank for that. All my clients relocated
| any technical work they had in the UK to Poland or the
| baltics.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| It's a bit of coup out to jump on the British where somehow
| everything negative that happens is due to Brexit.
|
| As counter anecdata, I am in the Netherlands and I am (now,
| as much as before) receiving calls for job opportunities
| from UK based recruiters. They are for the majority
| concentrated around London, Oxbridge, Bristol, Manchester.
| Depending on where GP is based in the UK, the landscape and
| opportunities can be quite different.
|
| Irrespective of the politics and bitter emotions, London's
| VC funding scene is arguably the closest we have in Europe
| to SV/Seattle/NY and it will continue to play a role in
| making the UK relevant in the tech scene.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| The person you replied to wrote that all their clients _"
| relocated any technical work they had in the UK to Poland
| or the Baltics"_. That's not politics and bitter
| emotions, that's sharing their own anecdotal data.
|
| Of course, one could criticize generalizing based on that
| one data point, but that's a different thing altogether.
| the-dude wrote:
| The comment you are commenting on literally(yes really)
| starts with blaming Brexit.
|
| How you can deny that is politics and bitter emotions is
| literally beyond me.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Saying that Brexit is the cause of something based on
| one's experience with clients, expressed in a way that
| suggests that it did not positively or negatively affect
| themselves in any way, does not strike me as particularly
| bitter, but suit yourself.
| the-dude wrote:
| It is phrased as 'it is your own fault' ( _Y 'all have to
| thank_ ). How is that not bitter.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| First, nothing about "y'all have to thank" suggests that
| they consider the person they are responding to
| responsible for Brexit, which is a requirement for it to
| imply that they are putting some sort of blame on the
| person (or the collective group they represent).
|
| But let's for the sake of it accept that "it's your own
| fault" is what was meant by it anyway. That still doesn't
| imply bitterness.
|
| If parents explains to their child not to run with
| scissors because they might hurt themselves, the child
| does so anyway and ends up hurting themselves, and one of
| the parents says in-between consoling their child "but do
| you see how you only have yourself to blame for it, if
| you decided to do this anyway after we warned you this
| would happen?", then that might not be the most
| considerate timing for sharing a harsh truth, but there's
| nothing _bitter_ about the statement.
| onion2k wrote:
| _There 's never been a better time to find work as a dev._
|
| There's a lot of jobs, but there's also a lot of work to do for
| every application. Applying takes effort.
| wreath wrote:
| > Jobs are handing out more money with more flexibility than
| ever seen before.
|
| I may be naive, but I guess this office-work-exodus would
| result to improvements in office spaces in general to attract
| devs (or other employees in tech). This would also make it
| easier for people who are looking to move to the US to find
| office jobs, since the competition is less fierce. Am I off
| mark here and too naive?
| CoolGuySteve wrote:
| It seems like every year there's a new study showing how
| cubicle farms are bad for productivity and health. Everyone
| hates them.
|
| Same thing for long commutes, they're terrible.
|
| But still companies keep building new cubicle farms in
| downtown cores. Maybe office workers are just done with this
| stupid shit.
| praxulus wrote:
| Downtown cores have the highest population density, and
| thus the lowest average commute for a typical set of
| workers distributed around a metro area.
| asciimov wrote:
| The largest groups that live in my metros downtown core
| are, swaths of poor people who's crime ridden
| neighborhoods have yet to gentrify, the insanely wealthy
| who gentrified the best of the dilapidated old homes, and
| young hipsters who live in condos.
|
| For the most part (in my area), the only reason companies
| have moved downtown is because the city has given them
| sweetheart deals to be there. Meanwhile, hundreds of
| thousands of workers commute into the downtown area,
| because it's not a desirable place to live.
| azemetre wrote:
| I think this is vastly dependent on the state and the
| "downtown." Where I live, Boston, it's mostly the upper
| classes that live in and around the city. All the poor
| people have been nearly priced out to the suburbs or even
| other states (New Hampshire or Rhode Island).
|
| Of course there are wealthy cities and suburbs, but if
| you want a walkable commute within reason, <15 minutes,
| you pay a premium.
| fridif wrote:
| Now imagine if your downtown core was "anywhere with an
| internet connection"[1], and your commute time was "sub
| 500ms".
|
| [1] including Africa, the open ocean, space, Papua New
| Guinea, a jail cell....
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I hated the cubicle until I worked in an open office. I
| would be quite happy with a cubicle now.
| umanwizard wrote:
| I would _love_ to be in a cubicle farm rather than the
| school-cafeteria-inspired open office dystopia.
| acomjean wrote:
| I miss office cubes. Last 2 jobs where in an open office.
| Also while I haven't disliked my bosses, the last 3 I've
| been seated less than 15 feet from them. Covid work from
| home was a pretty nice break, and we're going hybrid from
| now on.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Cubes done right are fine. I had "office cubes" with 6ft
| tall walls and ~40sq ft of space, and they were awesome.
| Plenty of space to stretch out, room for a bookshelf and
| a chair for visitors, a computer desk and a writing desk.
|
| Noise could be a little much, but people were generally
| polite and quiet.
|
| My next job was literally a desk in the middle of the
| floor. All the prime employees had desks that went along
| the edge of the wall, forming a horseshoe and, when they
| ran out of room, they started putting desks in the
| center. So i was basically working on a stage in front of
| 40 people. It was awful, but I never slacked off! (well,
| i went for walks a lot)
| ahoy wrote:
| I like working in an office, I just don't like that it
| takes me 40 minutes to get there. In a better world I could
| live _in_ that downtown core, a short walk or bike ride
| away from work.
| granshaw wrote:
| What'd be really interesting is if some companies start
| paying a premium for employees to be onsite. That might be
| something I'd bite on
| wreath wrote:
| I have no issue with that tbh as long as conditions are
| bearable (team room, flexible timing etc). I do prefer a
| good office+colleagues over a good home office tbh.
| aroundtown wrote:
| That premium for me is going to be higher than they
| imagine.
|
| Among my coworkers I have an average commute time, and I
| loose 10-12 hours a week driving to and from work. I figure
| if I was being paid at my normal rate they'd need to pay me
| between 25-45%[1] more money just to come in.
|
| [1]- Used to be that workers weren't exempt from overtime
| pay. At time and a half, 12 extra hours over 40 would be
| the equivalent of 18 hours. That is 45% of a normal 40 hour
| work week. (10 hours at non-overtime pay is 25% of the work
| week)
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| First part wrong. Doesn't make any sense to try to improve an
| office to attract devs when so many devs are leaving the
| office. Office space improvements would be expensive right
| now due to various factors: labor shortage, materials
| inflation, etc. Plus the cheaper move is to snap up fancier
| existing office spaces since offices are in lower demand now,
| thus the price of existing ones will have decreased.
|
| Second part you have a point. This is the best time to move
| to the US on an H1B. If you're an int'l student, this is the
| time to look for that office job that will hold you till a
| green card.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Most people would be happier in offices with a door. Managers
| have decided that THEIR work is the only work that requires
| privacy and quiet.
|
| Employees often equate their own job satisfaction by the
| differences between how their managers treat themselves
| versus how they treat the people under them. When you have
| your own office with a door and a white board and have a
| company card to expense your meals while your devs are
| working with their headphones on because of the noise level
| in their cubicles, you're going to have a problem.
| abgfm wrote:
| I was into FIRE movement until I realized that i cannot retire
| until I am about 60 (42 now). A big meh moment. Thus new goal is
| that in about 5yrs to be able to work max 3 days per week, remote
| or not (though highly biased towards remote). Even if that means
| switching careers Product to Dev (re)learning, etc, I'd be fine
| with it. + Frugal living, of course, i did all the grind +
| material accumulations, as result of hard work + career advaces
| in tech + wife in marcom. I find it that 3 days work vs 4 days
| for life is a good balance (self time, raising kids, travel, the
| whole set). The big economy sistem should support in general more
| flexible methods of earning a living.
| vincentmarle wrote:
| This is admirable but the truth is that these jobs will not
| disappear, they will simply be outsourced abroad. There's swaths
| of competent people abroad that are happy to take your (overpaid)
| place and the major shift to remote work tools has made it all
| the easier to blend in your team even if they're working from
| another country. On top of this, foreign workers usually get paid
| 1/3 of the American salary, so the employers are extra
| incentivized to outsource these jobs.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| The first counterargument that comes to my mind is timezones. I
| was on a team distributed across San Francisco, New York,
| London, Munich, Australia, Tokyo. Not being able to schedule a
| meeting time that works for everyone was a neverending source
| of friction and frustration. In other words while I don't
| disagree that there is a lot more work that can be outsourced,
| perhaps we will reach the limit earlier than you expect.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| Timezones arguably benefit some places that require a 24/7
| coverage schedule.
| bluedino wrote:
| Doesn't matter. I'm not sure what time it is in India, the
| Philippines, or the Czech Republic, but the support teams
| answer the phone between 8am and 5pm our time.
| beckingz wrote:
| One growing trend in the US is outsourcing to South America.
| Lots of great value developers down there in the same
| timezone.
|
| The second issue that still comes up is communication and
| culture. Successful cross cultural communication requires
| more clarity in messaging and tasks. It can work and can work
| well and deliver good quality at great prices, but the
| obvious savings are partially offset by the higher
| communication and management costs. Sometimes more than fully
| offset.
| [deleted]
| TexanFeller wrote:
| There are tons of competent developers in Central and South
| America in time zones close to the US. The language/accent
| barriers as well as cultural differences are much less than
| say India IMHO. On average the folks I've worked with haven't
| been as good as US staff, but I bet the gap could close
| quickly.
| FredPret wrote:
| I'm from the third world and have moved to the west, so I have
| experience of working in both environments and with both sets
| of people.
|
| The difference in pay is not just due to proximity and will
| likely persist to some degree.
| _dibly wrote:
| From reading the article it seems like the job areas getting
| hit the hardest would be low level hospitality jobs and on-site
| jobs with little to no remote opportunity. I imagine those
| would be the hardest positions to outsource. People quitting
| their job at McDonalds are in more danger of losing their job
| to a high school dropout than a foreign agent.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| We'll have to see how that works out in the aggregate.
|
| Here in the US, we pretty much outsourced our manufacturing to
| China.
|
| This has always been the case (since after WWII), but this
| time, we did it to such an extent, that we have destroyed our
| domestic manufacturing infrastructure.
|
| A number of folks made a _lot_ of money on this, but a much
| larger number of folks have really taken it in the shorts.
| Arguably, a lot of the troubles we 've had, over the last
| decade, have found a root cause in this.
|
| It's no secret. Pretty much everyone knows this, but the will
| to do something about it is weak.
|
| It's been my experience, that when the pain gets great enough,
| the change will come. That's not always a good thing. Change
| like that, more often resembles an amputation, as opposed to a
| disinfectant swab and some stitches.
| mjburgess wrote:
| This narrative is largely false. Both because nothing was
| "outsourced" and because american manufacturing is at an all
| time high.
|
| Automation ended the vast majority of high-labour
| manufacturing. What was left was only economical to do
| without automation at extremely low labour costs.
|
| In the next decade, china itself will see large segments of
| its manufacturing labour gone to automation.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Yes and no. It depends on what is being manufactured. We
| manufacture big, expensive things. I have friends that run
| Garment District companies, and they are pretty much a
| Bellwether for this kind of thing.
|
| _> In the next decade, china itself will see large
| segments of its manufacturing labour gone to automation._
|
| I agree. It will be slower than Japan and Korea, because
| China has a much larger population of poor folks that will
| work 996, but, one day, we will see a very different China.
|
| It will be a consumer powerhouse. If you think America is a
| consumeristic society, just wait until China becomes mostly
| middle-class. There's a reason why so many corporations are
| abasing themselves so much for entry into the Chinese
| market.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| China is hitting a demographic wall, so the changes will
| happen much faster than many expect. 996 is more of a
| tech worker thing, not lower skilled manufacturing labor.
| mjburgess wrote:
| I suspect, based on a type of ecological-thermodynamic
| reasoning, that china will never be middle class.
|
| I think the "global class structure" we have today might
| be the peak of history.
|
| The relevant calculation:
|
| Annual US Energy Consumption per Capia: 7,000 kg oil
| equivalent. China: 2,000 kg.
|
| So you're looking at +5,000kg per capita * 1.4bn people
| _annual_.
|
| So you'll need to add that energy capacity to the world,
| ie., a c. 10 trillion kg oil eqv. -- it's not clear we
| can do this.
| username90 wrote:
| Germany is 3,800 kg oil equivalent, USA is a huge
| outliner on this. China reaching Europes level isn't that
| infeasible.
| mjburgess wrote:
| I think there's something here about how dense countries
| are. I believe most of the reason the US looks higher is
| the extremely low density and correspondingly high
| transportation/communication/etc. costs.
|
| I'm not sure how to factor density into this.
| refurb wrote:
| I'm wondering about that too but for another reason - the
| aging population. There are article in Asian about "China
| getting old before it gets rich".
|
| Basically the small group of younger workers are going to
| have their wealth siphoned off to support the much larger
| older population who doesn't have financial means to
| support themselves. Not a big deal when it's 5 workers to
| one retired. Huge deal when it's 2 to 1.
|
| The expectation is that will stall growth for decades.
| China will be richer, but stuck in a lower income range
| until they come out the other side.
|
| It's an interesting theory.
| boomlinde wrote:
| This doesn't look at the potential causes for high energy
| use. The geographical and infrastructural conditions of
| the US don't necessarily apply elsewhere.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Oh, we'll do it. And then everyone will die off or be
| living near the Arctic Circle or in Antartica. But by
| golly, we'll get it done.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > Nothing was 'outsourced'.
|
| What do Foxconn and TSMC (and 100s of others) _do_ then?
|
| * - first relevant factory operations in 1988 and 1987,
| respectively.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| >his has always been the case (since after WWII), but this
| time, we did it to such an extent, that we have destroyed our
| domestic manufacturing infrastructure.
|
| Is this true? I am under the impression that the US still has
| loads of high end manufacturing, it's just the low end stuff
| that no longer exists and even then it's partially due to
| automation
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> high end manufacturing_
|
| Exactly. High end has higher margins, and a simpler
| distribution chain.
|
| It isn't worth it to do the small stuff here, but the small
| stuff is a really big deal. There are many American
| households that have nothing made in the USA. China knows
| this quite well.
| wil421 wrote:
| People have been saying this since I was in high school post
| dot com bubble burst.
|
| "Don't get into IT or software development it's all going to be
| outsourced."
| [deleted]
| u678u wrote:
| Its true though. 75% of my IT dept are outsourcers - or those
| who used to work for such companies.
| cwkoss wrote:
| In my experience, outsourced code is almost always harder to
| maintain and I haven't seen example of successful outsourcing
| of ongoing code maintenance.
|
| I'm sure there's a lot of variance, but I don't think
| "outsourced everything" will be practical for most software
| businesses that place importance on quality of service.
|
| Outsourcing can be great for developing a green-field new
| initiative, but at some point the in house folks are going to
| need to learn the new codebase so they can fix bugs, scale,
| and keep the lights on.
| vsskanth wrote:
| The software field expanded so much that there is a massive
| need for both in-house developers for tech firms and
| outsourcing for traditional businesses with legacy systems
| like banks, insurance etc.
| jason0597 wrote:
| Outsourcing is not exclusive to India. What if they outsource
| to Italy? Spain? Ukraine? Greece? Hell even Germany.
|
| All of those places have salaries that are a fraction of the
| typical US salary. US salaries are incredibly ridiculous on
| the global stage. And all of those places with actually good
| developers
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Then why hasn't this been happening in significant amounts
| to impact the U.S. software job market in the past thirty
| years?
| mehphp wrote:
| > There's swaths of competent people abroad that are happy to
| take your (overpaid) place
|
| How is it overpaid? Engineers provide a lot more value than
| they are getting paid. If anything, people abroad are
| underpaid.
| willis936 wrote:
| The answer is bigger than the question. Almost everyone in
| the West is overpaid because Western Society reaps the
| benefits of an underpaid working class on another continent.
| Out of sight, out of mind.
| bradlys wrote:
| I don't know if the west is overpaid or if it's just that
| the people outside the west are underpaid. I think it's
| more likely the latter.
|
| _Both_ can be underpaid, ya know?
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| I think it's less that some people are overpaid and more
| that some goods are too cheap (mostly the goods that the
| West has stopped producing in favor of outsourcing to
| underpaid working class on another continent).
| granshaw wrote:
| I'm on a slack channel with other startup founders and just
| this week I was seeing chatter about how asking rates for
| Eastern EU devs were skyrocketing lately
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Yeah, the offshoring boom is over. Everyone is bringing those
| roles back to the US. The communication, cultural and skill
| gaps are too great and costs aren't that much lower anymore.
| Anyone who has worked on virtual teams will back up how much
| less productive things are when having to juggle time zones
| even between the east and west coast of the US, much less
| different countries without overlapping work hours.
|
| Nobody wants to offshore to India anymore because the business
| culture at the big body shops is totally unethical by western
| standards and there's just an expectation of getting swindled
| on QoS; so people only ship low-value jobs like customer
| service over there. And even those are moving to South America
| for time zone reasons (and the business culture more closely
| aligns with the US).
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| It's really hard to outsource middle management and executive
| roles, which are the next step for most dev roles. So the
| outsourcing effect has lots of limitations.
|
| I welcome outsourcing though. I do quality work and know what
| it's worth and can advocate for myself. Any foreign worker who
| can do the same is welcome.
| dudul wrote:
| This was attempted in the 2000s and it was a massive disaster.
| username90 wrote:
| China in 2000 and China in 2021 is like night and day in
| terms of standard of living, education etc. Just because it
| didn't work back then doesn't mean it wont work today.
| dudul wrote:
| The massive outsourcing experiment failure had nothing to
| do with standard of living or education. It was the
| combination of timezones and cultural differences.
|
| Turns out cultural differences around work, communication,
| etc between the US and India/China are pretty massive. I
| seriously doubt that these went away in 2 decades.
|
| Also, your argument around standard of living and education
| would actually be more proof that outsourcing would not
| work. It is no longer as financially beneficial.
|
| That being said, you're also right, past failure doesn't
| mean that it can't ever be successful in the future.
| jason0597 wrote:
| But India/China are not the only places where you can
| outsource to.
|
| What about France? Minimal cultural differences, and you
| still get massive savings when it comes to paying
| salaries.
| dudul wrote:
| You absolutely do not save anything by outsourcing from
| the US to France. And cultural differences are there too.
| That was probably the worst possible example in the EU
| :-)
|
| That being said, yes there are other options. Eastern
| Europe is more and more popular for outsourcing, so is
| South America. Honestly, I'm maybe dead wrong but when I
| compare the mentality two decades ago (ie let's minimize
| cost by any means, who cares who writes the code? it's
| just code) and today, I truly see an equivalent to the
| "not invented here" syndrome.
| jason0597 wrote:
| Hmm. US salaries are $100k or more. French salaries are
| in the range of EUR30k-EUR45k, is that not savings?
|
| Unless I'm wrong somewhere
| [deleted]
| quaffapint wrote:
| Im a senior dev in the US and my company just said we have to
| come back full time in the office. This is even after we've had
| record revenue months.
|
| I would be totally fine with hybrid, but they said they
| investigated that and decided against it (don't know why). I'm
| looking around at my alternatives, but the pay is just not there
| for both hybrid and remote. So I dont know where all this demand
| is, unless it's the same demand that's always there when they
| won't pay people anything. I may end up taking a pay cut just to
| do hybrid/remote which is really sad, but my well being may be
| worth it.
| shdh wrote:
| What's your salary range?
| BTCOG wrote:
| Clickbait stub article. You aren't "quitting" by laterally moving
| from one slave job for an employer into another one remotely.
| Now, you're just enslaved in your own home! I've been working
| remotely for nearly 2 years now and work FAR more lately from
| home than the office. Quitting, the way that all these articles
| are making it sound would be changing your way of life. Quitting
| an office dev job to start working for another employer with
| deadlines and the same dev work from home really isn't quitting
| and it's just moving laterally into the same job.
| samsquire wrote:
| All the power to them!
|
| I think society has to invent new kinds of work* or introduce
| UBI. There's too many people toiling away in low wage jobs which
| will never escape and will have to work until 68.
|
| You would have thought that a job that nobody wants to do would
| pay more than one that is cushy.
|
| * Getting rid of manufacturing has gotten rid of a huge amount of
| jobs that provided stability to our economies. Now all our
| economies are service economies. We can't all be shopkeepers.
| What are people meant to do with their lives?
|
| Life is more important than work. I'd like to see labour have
| more leverage over capital.
| ianai wrote:
| I think a suspicion is that UBI could help transition the
| market from being intimately dependent upon positive growth to
| stasis. Though I also have to question whether that's needed
| when there's so much inequality. Definitely, equality would
| bring more energy and resource use...then there's the
| developing parts of the world.
| [deleted]
| eric4smith wrote:
| Fantastic opportunity for more automation and labor saving
| software innovation.
|
| Also fantastic opportunity to make more money for those who
| continue to work. Salaries for them could be higher.
|
| Great for offshore workers especially in tourism countries that
| suffered big decline too!
|
| Not against the guys who want to take a break at all.
|
| It's just a good opportunity. Just as it was during the pandemic
| when people took the time to learn new stuff.
| amyjess wrote:
| I quit my job because my company wanted us to go back to the
| office 3 days a week. Funny thing is, my last day ended up being
| two days before my fifth anniversary at the old place. Longest
| job I ever stayed at, and I'd still be there if upper management
| didn't decide they valued keeping us where we can be monitored
| and controlled 24/7 over our actual mental health.
|
| I found a new position that pays _way_ more than my old one and
| is fully remote. I was even told by the recruiter that I could be
| a digital nomad and travel wherever, bring my company laptop with
| me, work during the day, and explore whatever city I 'm in at
| night.
|
| Not having to commute during the pandemic has done wonders for my
| mental health, and I simply can't go back to working in an
| office. If I couldn't find an all-remote position, I would've
| just quit my job, broken my lease, moved back in with my mom, and
| lived like a bum in her spare room.
|
| Funny thing is, my boss actually fought for us. He knew most of
| us were going to quit if we had to go back, so he fought like
| hell with upper management and HR to negotiate an exception for
| the team. The day I got my offer at the new place was the day he
| told us he got an exception where we'd be allowed to work from
| home most of the time (except for monthly one-on-ones and
| biweekly meetings with an internal customer). I still took the
| offer though (and I've already started the new job), because a)
| it pays so much more than the old job, b) I have a senior title
| now, c) fully remote 100% of the time plus being able to be a
| digital nomad is better than having to go in for certain meetings
| and not being allowed to leave the metro area, and d) I was told
| that, at the old company, if any of our performance was found to
| be insufficient we could be pulled back into the office as a
| punishment at any time, which just screams "trap" to me.
| draw_down wrote:
| Isn't it funny how employers want to play these games where
| they offer you 20% of what you're asking for when you can go
| out and get so much more? It's like they're daring you to quit.
| Then they complain they can't find talent. Same as it ever was.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I have often worked remotely for years, but...I'm a
| contractor/consultant, and a programmer. I am unemployed several
| months out of the year, typically, and I am always intentionally
| short-to-medium term where I work.
|
| I fear that many of the people demanding remote work now, will be
| surprised when (not if) the first layoffs come, and they find out
| that the person who's in the office every day is more awkward to
| fire than the remote person. Me, I'm always temporary, so I know
| this and am ok with it. I fear many of the people looking for
| remote work now think it will be just like office work, except
| they get to work at home. It's not. It's a much more tenuous
| relationship with your employer, and you have to always assume
| (e.g. in your budget) that you can/will lose your paycheck with
| little or no notice. If you're ok with that kind of perpetual
| instability, great, but I'm not sure most of the people looking
| for remote work now are aware of this tradeoff.
| disease wrote:
| In my admittedly anecdotal experience, it's been a very long
| time since employers have had the luxury to be able to layoff
| software engineers.
| bradlys wrote:
| Weird. I've seen it at almost every job I've had. Layoffs -
| not just firings.
| aroundtown wrote:
| I've been laid off more times due to outsourcing than I'd
| like to admit.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| Best point here.
|
| WFH is a hybrid between employee and contractor.
| timbit42 wrote:
| Expendable wage slave.
| danuker wrote:
| Millions of people figured out they work to live, not live to
| work.
| dougmwne wrote:
| 5 years ago I hit a burnout point and took a year off work. It
| was a huge perspective shift. I realized that my day-to-day of a
| rushed commute to work, a stressful and distracting office,
| thimble-deep coworker relationships and a life completely
| orientated around doing the above was an insane waste of my short
| time on Planet Earth. I reoriented my life around family, remote
| work, flexibility and balance. My quality of life has hugely
| improved and there is no turning back the clock.
|
| When I saw what the pandemic was doing to nearly every
| professional office worker, I figured it was just a matter of
| time before the resignations started flooding in. Everyone had a
| whole year "pause" to reevaluate if their lives were organized
| around their goals, and for millions, the answer was no. There's
| no putting this genie back in the bottle.
| deegles wrote:
| "Is your life organized around your goals?"
|
| What a powerful question and distillation of what society is
| facing. I will think about this.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _Everyone_
|
| As we subconsciously blend anecdata from HN into our mental
| models, remember that we self-selecting to visit here
| commenting are already extreme outliers.
|
| Weight our in(group)sights accordingly.
| Agenttin wrote:
| We are probably the people this article applies best to. I
| know I'm reading it in my boxers.
| suketk wrote:
| I had the same experience [0]. The tunnel vision from work is
| so strong, that you forget about what's really important. Now,
| the office feels like a past life - I do not miss the commute,
| unnecessary meetings or facade of comradery. Ideally I don't
| have ever to go back to work, but even if I do the perspective
| shift has made sure I'll do it in a more balanced way next
| time.
|
| [0] https://suketk.com/why-i-quit-google
| kaycebasques wrote:
| I wrote a similar blog post [1] about why I'm taking a
| sabbatical and it's really fascinating to compare
| motivations.
|
| > My thesis is that if I focus on enjoying the journey,
| everything else will follow.
|
| I wrote:
|
| > I don't have a single big project in mind for my
| sabbatical... I do have a single overarching theme, however:
| joie de vivre. Everything that I do, even the mundane stuff
| (especially the mundane stuff), I'm going to focus on
| enjoying it fully. How you do anything is how you do
| everything, as the Buddhists say. I have come to believe that
| the person who can enjoy whatever they're doing and make that
| joy contagious will actually end up accomplishing the most.
| Yet even if I don't accomplish anything, I'll still be
| joyful, so what would it matter anyways?
|
| [1] https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical/prologue
| carlgreene wrote:
| Im interested to hear how that goal worked out
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I figured it was just a matter of time before the
| resignations started flooding in
|
| The headline and the anecdote in the opening paragraph of the
| article are somewhat misleading. The statistics about millions
| of people resigning aren't from people choosing to leave the
| workforce or take sabbaticals.
|
| It's mostly people who are simply changing jobs due to the
| booming economy creating new opportunities and hiring pressure.
| Millions sounds like a big number, but in a country with
| hundreds of millions of people it's only a couple percent of
| the workforce. Even during normal times, a million or more
| people resign according to these statistics, again mostly to
| change jobs.
|
| To put it in perspective: The normal turnover rate is in the
| 1-2% range (monthly) and the current post-COVID spike is in the
| 2-3% range, which is consistent with a booming economy. That
| means only about an additional 1% of workers are choosing to
| change jobs each month, which isn't exactly the upheaval this
| article makes it sound like.
| iNane9000 wrote:
| Similar to recent treatment of the housing boom in the media.
| People couldn't afford homes before the pandemic so it's
| unlikely they can now. The current market frenzy is what you
| expect with people moving. It's not an increase in wealth of
| housing supply. It's also heavily driven by speculation from
| large institutions who are capitalizing on restricted housing
| supply and rapid inflation. What it is not is some new era
| where everyone can now afford to buy a home or quit work for
| a year.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| > The normal turnover rate is in the 1-2% range (monthly) and
| the current post-COVID spike is in the 2-3% range, ... That
| means only about an additional 1% of workers ...
|
| It's also 50% more workers, if I'm reading that right, which
| seems like it's potentially a big swing/change.
| haswell wrote:
| Two thoughts:
|
| 1. Even though the economy may be booming, that doesn't have
| to mean job changes aren't also driven by re-evaluation of
| priorities. The two may be complementary.
|
| 2. I think we've only seen the tip of the iceberg. I work
| with multiple people all in the process of looking for new
| roles. People that I would not have expected to leave -
| "heart of the team" kinds of people. This is after 4-5 devs
| (in a department of ~60) already made the choice to leave for
| other opportunities in the past few months.
|
| Some relevant details: large SV-based SaaS with excellent
| financials, regarded as a good place to work, etc.
| subsubzero wrote:
| I think well paid workers may even leave in higher numbers,
| I am thinking of quiting myself after having a horrific
| year working almost nonstop with my Wife also working as
| well. Couple that with a child being forced inside and its
| been a complete nightmare. 2021 has been even more
| stressful as the company is piling new projects and
| initiatives ever higher. I may quit by summers end and I
| expect an avalanche of resignations as well as burnout
| reaches epic proportions.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Yep, suddenly all the projects are back but not the
| hiring to go with them, and I was already stressed and
| doing multiple former employees' jobs and underpaid in a
| hot developer market, so...why should I stick around any
| longer?
|
| Currently interviewing with several recruiters. One will
| definitely give me a higher salary than I can expect from
| my company, if they ever decided to give raises again
| (this year's annual review came and went and other than
| having me fill out a self-eval four months ago and
| hearing nothing since).
|
| I even kept quiet in meetings for upcoming projects
| recently where I was told by other people in the company
| "You better not leave, we need you for this!" Not my
| problem they don't have "Hit by a Bus" redundancy in
| place.
| changingtalk wrote:
| > I work with multiple people all in the process of looking
| for new roles.
|
| I also am noticing this around me.
|
| Years ago I did the startup thing for 5 years, grinding
| really hard for someone else (mainly investors) to make a
| ton of money. Burned myself out, quit with no plans, and
| ended up consulting as a freelance dev from then on.
| Realized I'm much happier with this arrangement, with the
| ability to take months off and travel if I want. I could
| make more money at a large corporation, or if I didn't take
| so much time off, but honestly I'm much happier.
|
| That's all to say, today I have two separate coffee dates
| with engineers at my client's company, both wanting to ask
| me about how they can do the same thing as me. One is a
| senior engineer that leads a department. The other is a
| very talented engineer. These are not the only people that
| have approached me wanting to setup time to talk about the
| same thing. This is at an SF based company that seems to
| really respect their engineer's time, provides high
| salaries, interesting work, etc.
|
| I get the sense that at least for this niche of highly
| skilled, highly paid, in demand roles people are wanting to
| trade for more free time in their lives. I totally don't
| blame them, as it's what I found myself moving to 7 or so
| years ago.
| srackey wrote:
| And also anecdotally, every professional office worker under
| ~30 I know has been absolutely miserable during this remote
| work experience, and is yearning to get back to the office -
| most for a full 5 days a week.
| gambiting wrote:
| Anecdotally - I'm 30(just), I'm leading a team of people
| under 30, and everyone is saying that they cannot imagine
| ever working in the office again. Our company announced they
| will expect people to come in for at least 2 days a week from
| September and we're extremely unhhappy about it. If I get an
| offer for full remote from someone I can't say I won't be
| tempted.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I'm quite definitely under 30, and I just quit in order to
| stay remote. I'm so much more relaxed, and I can spend actual
| quality time with my wife and friends. I'm not sure why
| anyone would want to go back.
| foobarian wrote:
| I'll wager a guess that a lot of those other "under 30"
| cases were people living with 3 other jerk roommates who
| used to just come home to sleep but now had to put up with
| each other for a whole year.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Yeah, if I were single and living in a Big City(tm), I'd
| be desperate to be in an office again, too.
| Agenttin wrote:
| Oddly, this has become an environment where something
| like WeWork could actually make sense. I might like to
| have a workspace without any coworkers.
| rpmisms wrote:
| There's plenty of shared workspaces in many cities.
| WeWork just leveraged some workspaces into an absolutely
| comical valuation.
| jghn wrote:
| Yeah I suspect the real connection are people who look to
| depend on the office culture to provide a key part of their
| social interaction. In some cases that will track with age,
| but not always.
| rpmisms wrote:
| I mean, I like my coworkers well enough, but I'm a
| redneck at heart. I'm never going to actually fit in with
| the yuppies.
| joejerryronnie wrote:
| I quite enjoyed showing up to my big tech parking lot in
| the F250. Nobody knew quite what to make of me.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| You kidding? I loved this pandemic so much, i want to marry
| it and have children with it!
|
| No pointless work "morale events"; no wasting hours a day on
| commute; ability to do something useful while a build is
| building, like putting in a load of laundry instead of just
| reading HN while waiting; and spending a lot more time with
| my GF as she is also WFHing.
|
| I suspect you are speaking only about people who are
| unable/unwilling to put effort into the "life" part of "work-
| life balance" and thus depend on the "work" part to give them
| what "life" gives to all others:
| companionship/friendship/fun/purpose
| lm28469 wrote:
| > every professional office worker under ~30 I know has been
| absolutely miserable during this remote work experience
|
| I mean, we've been through major lockdowns/curfews/personal
| freedom restrictions, lots of people got sick, lots of people
| died, most non digital entertainment ceased to exist, most
| sports couldn't be practiced...
|
| imho you can't pin point "remote work" as the main cause of
| why people felt miserable in the last few months
| lovegoblin wrote:
| Yeah. I've been 100% remote for several years - and while I
| personally love it overall I know it's not for everyone -
| but I really can't emphasize enough that _pandemic remote
| work is not normal remote work._
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I'm seeing similar sentiment among my peers.
|
| Even some of the people who thought they wanted remote work
| are realizing it's not always as fun as it sounds.
|
| We read a lot of headlines about how the future is remote
| work and the HN bubble is full of people claiming they're
| never going back from remote work, but I'm not seeing a huge
| shift toward remote work in actual job listings.
|
| I worked remote pre-COVID. It anything, it feels harder to
| even land interviews for the few remote job opportunities
| because so many people are competing for a similar small
| number of remote jobs now.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| 1. Depends if the large companies who have committed to
| indefinite remote work will stay true to that policy. Then
| you'll still have a great deal of remote positions.
|
| 2. Those peers and their companies usually have had remote
| work forced upon them. See what it's like in a less
| traumatic time when people can work out of cafes and public
| spaces, maskless.
| decafninja wrote:
| I wonder if there are regional issues at play too.
|
| My office is in Manhattan. It's been my observation that few
| people that work in Manhattan actually live in Manhattan.
| Nearly everyone I know of dreads having to go back to the
| office, and one of the primary reasons is because of the
| nightmare commute into the island of Manhattan via the
| various clogged up chokepoints.
| jghn wrote:
| My own anecdote tracks. Never thought about the age
| correlation but most of my team are early 30s and younger.
| That group has been very negative about the remote
| experience. I'm much older and while I didn't like it at
| first, I'm in the camp of people who don't ever want to go
| back to an office. The people who are in between age-wise are
| a bit of a mix.
| spfzero wrote:
| I think it may be stressful to feel that unless you're in
| the office being noticed, you have to create a lot of
| little things to do which are visible on-line. Especially
| if you are new and don't have a long well-known history of
| being reliable and self-motivated.
| tomkat0789 wrote:
| Possible reason from my own anecdata: I joined a new
| company in a new industry in the middle of the pandemic. I
| definitely prefer working remotely (I'm just past 30), but
| as a new hire I felt some disadvantages.
|
| Mainly: my co-workers who have been at the company longer
| than I weren't very helpful with onboarding me! We're a
| little company, so documentation of a bunch of our software
| is non-existent and the specialized hardware setup we have
| has a lot of quirks I had to slowly teach myself the last
| year. I'd hit lots of problems that'd take 5 seconds of
| their time to diagnose and fix and I'd end up stuck for
| over an hour while waiting for them to answer a Slack
| message - or they'd randomly drop offline.
|
| So there I am, working in my bedroom in a new job wondering
| if I'm a needy little snowflake not digging hard enough or
| whether the people I work with are just unhelpful
| because... reasons (still haven't met them in-person since
| my pre-pandemic interview). After a year I think it really
| is the latter, but it made me grumpy my early months here.
|
| That could be a possible source of resentment from newer,
| younger employees. Set us up for success!
|
| I still prefer working from home, but I did commute to the
| office for a happy hour recently. It was nice to randomly
| get coffee with the CTO in the morning and hang out with
| new friends in the evening - none of the "unhelpful" people
| showed up! :P
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| That's baffling, haven't people got friends?
| aoifjaslfivjcam wrote:
| Not since covid, no.
|
| Some of us have been stuck in single rooms with no family
| or social contact for over a year.
|
| Exercise groups - Illegal meeting up with other people -
| Illegal dating - Illegal going outside without a valid
| reason - Illegal
|
| Former friends with established families and large
| properties with gardens berate you for complaining, as its
| selfish, "people are dying!", but they travel for holidays,
| take their kids to stay with their parents so they can have
| a weekend getting drunk in their garden, etc that sort of
| thing. Not friends anymore.
|
| Also most people who I considered friends before, it turns
| out are just acquaintances. People I've known for 10-15
| years who it turns out don't care about my wellbeing, just
| see me as a guy they did activity X with, went to events
| with, etc. A whole lot of that. Also lots of people do not
| like the fact that I questioned the rationale for the
| lockdown measures, questioned the data ( as in wanted to
| know what the actual data was), etc. They did not like it
| AT ALL.
|
| Now restrictions might be lifting in the future, I am faced
| with the situation of being without a social circle. A
| social life of nothing. The only people I speak to are my
| colleagues, and that's how it's been for quite some time.
| Again I emphasize that it has been illegal to even try to
| change that, and socially taboo enough to question this and
| say that this is making me miserable as fuck that any
| existing friends have abandoned me, lots of blocked
| contacts on whatsapp (there's this impression amongst many
| that questioning the lockdowns, asking for data, saying
| this is not good you personally makes me a republican
| conspiracy theorist nutcase, etc).
|
| How do I rebuild a new life when my ability to trust other
| people is lower than I ever thought it could be?
|
| I have no family to lean on for support.
|
| As far as I am concerned I might as well be a secret Jew in
| 1944 Berlin for the level of trust I have for other people
| now.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| >Also lots of people do not like the fact that I
| questioned the rationale for the lockdown measures,
| questioned the data ( as in wanted to know what the
| actual data was), etc. They did not like it AT ALL.
|
| >As far as I am concerned I might as well be a secret Jew
| in 1944 Berlin for the level of trust I have for other
| people now.
|
| Holy persecution complex, batman!
|
| Millions were dying and being asked to wear a mask,
| social distance and wash your hands was too much of a
| sacrifice for you? You may want to take a hard look at
| yourself.
| cloverich wrote:
| I don't think its right to downplay another persons
| suffering. We are social creatures and many people were
| put into situations that both actually isolated them
| while revealing the shallowness of their suposed support
| networks all at once. That's more or less what this
| person is explaining / venting about and it. I don't know
| if you've ever been isolated and / or lonely, but once
| you are you realize it is not a state we are built to
| withstand.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| social distance means different things to different
| people based on where they are and their situation. For
| OP social distance seems to have meant spending all of
| their time completely alone in their home as leaving it
| was actually illegal. In addition they found out that
| none of the people they considered friends really cared
| enough to even reach out and see how they were doing.
| That can be quite a slap in the proverbial face and it is
| jarring to discover you are alone in the world.
| phobosanomaly wrote:
| Apparently not.
|
| _As psychologists worry that the coronavirus pandemic is
| triggering a loneliness epidemic, new Harvard research
| suggests feelings of social isolation are on the rise and
| that those hardest hit are older teens and young adults.
|
| In the recently released results of a study conducted last
| October by researchers at Making Caring Common, 36 percent
| of respondents to a national survey of approximately 950
| Americans reported feeling lonely "frequently" or "almost
| all the time or all the time" in the prior four weeks,
| compared with 25 percent who recalled experiencing serious
| issues in the two months prior to the pandemic. Perhaps
| most striking is that 61 percent of those aged 18 to 25
| reported high levels._
|
| https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/02/young-
| adults-...
|
| I'm excited to go back to work in-person. Working with my
| colleagues gives me a great deal of joy throughout the day.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| It's hard to make friends as an adult. Especially:
|
| 1) If you don't have kids (socializing with other parents).
|
| 2) Don't go to church/synagogue/etc (church attendance in
| decline)
|
| 3) Do not live where you grew up. (People chase
| opportunities in other cities.)
|
| 4) Aren't in school any more.
|
| Neighbor friends are also possible, but it can take many
| years for people to become comfortable enough to be
| friends, and due to #3, there's often not enough time for
| that to happen before people move.
|
| Half my friends are from work and half are parents. They're
| not super shallow friendships but also not soul-level deep,
| either. Deep friendships were left behind from college
| days.
| altcognito wrote:
| I could see that. These folks should: Join a club,
| volunteer for a charity, play a sport, add a hobby, visit
| nature.
| dv_dt wrote:
| With covid remote, I finally started exercising more
| regularly and attending meetings for local hiking groups
| and a maker group that I had been putting off for ages.
| And I think my productivity at work increased because of
| it.
|
| Changed jobs to negotiate a permanent remote situation
| and am not going back.
|
| I think it's fine for some people to want to be on
| office, but think that a lot of work in the tech area
| should have the option of remote - and frankly would be
| better remote first with in-office allowances instead of
| vice versa.
| Gene5ive wrote:
| I find this perspective interesting. I'm 36, have no
| kids, don't go to church, don't live anywhere near where
| I grew up or my biological family, and haven't been in
| school for a very long time but have no shortage of
| friends or even deep friendships. I think culture is a
| huge reason. I live in close-in Portland, Oregon and I
| think the main thing we all have in common is that we all
| enjoy going to see live music and DJs together. Urban
| living and music can have a huge ability to replace
| everything on that list. In fact, my partner and I will
| be throwing a vaccinated-only music festival this summer
| and we have about 100 people invited, the vast majority
| personal friends and only a handful have kids. However, I
| think working in tech helps. Most of my old friends who
| never made the jump from the service industry into tech
| by going to code school or something like that had to
| move away because the city got too expensive. In short,
| music + tech + urban makes finding and keeping friends
| easy, at least in Portland.
| skciva wrote:
| I've been seeing this sentiment shared recently and what
| I always suggest is to
|
| 1) Look at your hobbies 2) Find people who share those
| hobbies
|
| Plenty of opportunities exist whether through meetup,
| BumbleBFF, local postings in cafes/on lamp posts, etc.
| (this is true of cities, remote destinations may be more
| difficult but thats the tradeoff of living around less
| people I suppose)
|
| If you can't find groups for your hobbies, try starting
| them! Doesn't have to be a permanent leadership role, but
| if you get the ball rolling others will likely come and
| BOOM you've found potential friends.
|
| If you don't have hobbies, look into volunteer groups.
| Rewarding and often extremely kind people who will value
| what you bring to the table.
|
| Hope this helps!
| katbyte wrote:
| echoing this, i've met and made most of my current deep
| friendships via climbing and snowboarding. shared
| experience and time lead to friends
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Contemporary architecture doesn't help. In 70's
| developments houses have front porches, but sometime in
| the 90's they turned houses around, and now everyone sits
| on their back deck or their games room in their cardboard
| palace. You don't encounter people any more when you are
| walking the dog.
| sureglymop wrote:
| As someone in their 20s without social media, I have
| exactly 0 friends. I live in a central European country and
| everyone around me has a friend group that originated
| during their childhood; they have childhood friends. I do
| not, mainly because throughout my time in school I switched
| schools a whole lot for various reasons. Over the years
| I've also grown quite insecure about it and anxious.
|
| Now I also happen to not like alcohol or smoking which
| really reduces my chances of meeting someone my age to 0,
| because I don't go out to parties and such. Not that it was
| even possible during COVID-19.
|
| I'm happy that I at least have supportive parents, siblings
| and family. But I think there are a lot of young people in
| my situation and many of them only have parasocial
| relationships, for example with Twitch streamers and
| YouTubers.
|
| Homeoffice has been hard with all the distractions home has
| to offer and I really do miss eating lunch with coworkers.
| I'm going to start studying at university this fall so I'm
| optimistic that I might make some friends there.
| spfzero wrote:
| Maybe try reaching out to some coworkers and see if
| they'll meet you for lunch somewhere in between. I have
| one I meet every week, and one I meet once a month or so,
| and another who I meet up with but not for lunch, just a
| 10 minute chat or so.
|
| They probably are feeling a lot like you.
| aksss wrote:
| You need to join organizations - hobby groups, collector
| groups, professional groups, etc.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I am in my early 40's with 0 friends. Had them earlier in
| life and once I had kids I just could not figure out how to
| balance kids, work and friends. Now I have no idea how to
| make new ones.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I moved about 8 years ago and met people here having
| coffee every Monday morning at 6. Great way to start the
| week!
| wonderwonder wrote:
| appreciate the tip, assuming you mean at a coffee shop or
| something similar?
|
| Still have the kids though :) so cant really go grab
| coffee that early. I am sure most of the problem is me
| not figuring it out but I am pretty much at a loss, I
| work remotely, have younger kids that I have to take to
| school and pickup, feed etc. Finish work at like 6 then
| kids until 9. So weekdays are out. Then weekends seems
| like there is always something to do or I am just
| exhausted and feel bad abandoning my wife and kids to go
| do something.
|
| I know I am the cause of my own issues, just not sure of
| the solution.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I have a kids as well, and it helps that my wife is at
| home then. Definitely the whole house is sleeping until 7
| or so. But just 1 day a week helps.
| cloverich wrote:
| I also feel bad abandoning my wife and vice versa but I
| realized recently its still important to find space for
| that. After some mutual encouragement we've begun taking
| turns here and there watching the kids, purely for the
| other person to make plans and go out. Of course, it
| doesn't help making friends necessarily, but having that
| habbit does provide the space for it when the
| opportunities arise.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| This is because a lot of them have social lives that revolve
| around the workplace, usually because they're still at their
| first or second place of employment and they don't have kids.
| When work leads to evening dinners and bar runs, it's a vital
| part of the social experience. When you work with a bunch of
| seasoned developers in their 30s and 40s, you find that they
| have taken ownership of their social lives and their
| priorities after hours often do not include you.
| munificent wrote:
| _> Everyone had a whole year "pause" to reevaluate if their
| lives were organized around their goals, and for millions, the
| answer was no._
|
| It's important to remember that everyone also had a one year
| _traumatic experience_. Physically confined for a year with the
| threat or reality of unpredictable agonizing death to you or
| loved ones in the middle of an absolutely insane US political
| situation is going to take a toll on people.
|
| There's this media narrative that the past year gave everyone
| this beautiful moment of clarity about how to live their lives.
| There is some truth to that. But it's also true that it's given
| people a whole shit load of psychological damage to work
| through and I wouldn't be certain that all of these people
| making radical life changes are 100% in their right minds.
|
| I think we're going to see a _lot_ of lifestyle churn over the
| next few years as people deal with what they went through but
| any one who claims that the current rapid velocity of any
| particular pendulum is somehow a straight linear projection is
| lying to themselves. I look forward to articles a year from now
| about this "unexpected movement" of people going back to in-
| office jobs, or working longer hours at shit jobs because they
| burned through all of their savings, or just wanting more
| financial stability.
|
| I don't think we can make many reliable extrapolations today
| based on the aggregate behavior of a huge number of
| psychologically traumatized people, while the trauma is still
| not even over. Articles like this read to me like someone
| during the Blitz seeing victory gardens and confidently
| predicting that after WII every Londoner is going to become a
| farmer.
|
| I'm not saying that things will return to any pre-COVID state,
| just that after the shock we've been through, the entire
| interconnected spring-mass system of our lives has in no way
| settled down into a stable state yet. Shit is still chaotic.
| u678u wrote:
| Right, I'm from a small town myself and moved to a big city.
| Small towns are very convenient but life is more about having
| a convenient commute, easy parking and a big back yard.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Nice you have the option
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Imagine living in a society where basic income is guaranteed
| no matter what, and even its worst places - its prison cells
| - compare favorably to the finest hotels of other countries.
| You have so many options you feel constantly overwhelmed,
| stressing about making bad choices because everything your
| primitive heart could ever desire is not merely available,
| but plentiful and cheap. And it'll recruit you if you're not
| careful. Money fails to motivate when you have enough of it
| regardless. Life wants meaning.
|
| Imagine having all the time in the world, just thinking about
| everything. Your whole life.
|
| What would you _do?_
| mkr-hn wrote:
| Spend every waking hour out with my camera exploring every
| corner of every small town around me and writing about it.
|
| Like this: https://viewfinderfox.com/first-post-
| vaccination-excursion-i...
|
| But all the time.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Oh pretty cool. We've been doing that with my fiance for
| a few years. Her English isn't quite as good as mine but
| I proof-read it once.
|
| https://hypertele.fi/fbd0998dd2834f08
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Imagine living in a society where basic income is
| guaranteed no matter what
|
| Realistic UBI proposals wouldn't exactly provide a
| comfortable wage. They'd provide just enough to get by on
| the basics, if that. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be
| helpful, but it does mean that it won't be an attractive
| alternative to work for anyone who isn't comfortable
| staying poor forever.
|
| UBI would still be a safety net, not an attractive
| alternative to working. The idea that UBI would enable
| people to become free of work and follow their dreams for
| free has been greatly exaggerated. It's just not possible
| to tax enough to pay everyone high UBI wages. Safety net
| wages, maybe, but it won't be a fun living situation to
| depend entirely on UBI.
| modulusshift wrote:
| Personally I think that even if UBI wouldn't provide a
| living wage in today's economy, that it will
| fundamentally change market dynamics in interesting ways.
| Companies constantly adjust prices up in the US because
| of increased buying power, aka "they can afford to give
| us more profit". There's an entire industry of cheap
| smartphones that don't release in the US, only in India,
| China, and third world countries, and they're plenty
| profitable, but they deliberately only release even more
| profitable models in the US.
|
| I think creating a significant class of people with
| reduced buying power in the US will actually lower prices
| here, as at least some companies decide they don't want
| to miss out on that portion of the market just to soak
| the rest of the Americans for even more money.
|
| Of course that's expressing a lot of faith in capitalism
| so it's entirely possible, even likely, that it would
| somehow make the entire situation even worse.
| afpx wrote:
| Write crappy programs, make crappy art and music, and write
| crappy stories. I'm low in talent, high in motivation.
|
| Most people are probably low in talent and motivation
| (because lacking talent is demotivating).
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| "Imagine living in a society where basic income is
| guaranteed no matter what, and even its worst places - its
| prison cells - compare favorably to the finest hotels of
| other countries."
|
| What I see are bored young males hanging out and getting in
| fights, not a whole generation of people learning cuneiform
| in their newfound free time.
| haskellandchill wrote:
| I disagree, I've been learning Krav Maga in my newfound
| free time. Want to fight about it?
| Pokepokalypse wrote:
| your skills are weak, old man.
| mgolawala wrote:
| Interesting. Perhaps we are kind of already at that
| point? Isn't that what video games like MMORPGs or
| Fortnite are for? Where the bored young males get to
| accomplish great adventures , build and show off their
| skills for status, compete and crush their enemies, and
| fulfill a sense of accomplishment.. all virtually?
| SavageBeast wrote:
| Absolutely. There is no free lunch. UBI comes on the
| backs of the value adding class of society. Some people
| actually LIKE to work, hard as it is for some to believe.
|
| The Value Adding Class will have privilege thrust upon
| them in the form of paying for those young males to hang
| out and get in fights.
|
| Ive had the dubious honor of knowing more than one kid
| who was never going to have to work a single day in life
| owing to who their parents and grandparents were. They
| tend to end up chemical addicted for the most part.
|
| Idle hands do the devils work.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I've not seen any serious proposals to implement ubi
| before automation has substantially increased
| unemployment. In that case, not only are people idle, but
| also desperate.
|
| Fwiw, I don't mind working at all, but in an ideal world,
| my work would be varied and my hours would be of my
| choosing. Sure, you can get that if you freelance, but
| most corporate jobs want 8h/d 40h/w, at least, and is
| that how _anyone_ wants to spend their time on earth?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Read the results of actual basic income pilot programs
| and you'll see that people are far from idle.
| goatse-4-u wrote:
| * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
| * *
| * / \ \ / \ *
| *| | \ | | *
| *| `. | | : *
| *` | | \| | *
| * \ | / / \\\ ____ \\ : *
| * \ \/ ___~~ ~____| \ | *
| * \ \__~ ~__\ | *
| * \_ \ _.______ .______\| | *
| * \ \______// _ ___ _ (_(__> \ | *
| * \ . C ___) ______ (_(____> | / *
| * /\ | C ____)/ \ (_____> |_/ *
| * / /\| C_____) | (___> / \ *
| * | ( _C_____)\______/ // _/ / \ *
| * | \ |__ \\_________// (__/ | *
| * | \ \____) `____ ___' | *
| * | \_ ___\ /_ _/ | *
| * | / | | \ | *
| * | | / \ \ | *
| * | / / | | \ |*
| * | / / \__/\___/ | |*
| * | / | | | |*
| * | | | | | |*
| * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
| rorykoehler wrote:
| This is a side effect of society overly focusing on money
| instead of knowledge as the primary success metric.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > The Value Adding Class will have privilege thrust upon
| them in the form of paying for those young males to hang
| out and get in fights.
|
| If anything existing basic income experiments have
| revealed the opposite:
|
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/stockton-ca-gave-
| residents...
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-05/what-
| did-...
|
| https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/richmond-
| califo...
| nickpp wrote:
| Exactly 3 things: smoke weed, jerk off and play games on my
| Xbox. In that exact order.
|
| Sorry for my honesty, I have no filter.
| jason0597 wrote:
| That gets boring pretty damn quickly. You'd feel sick of
| yourself in a couple of weeks. Humans surprisingly want
| to feel meaningful. Tickling your pleasure neurons for
| day after day just doesn't feel good, it doesn't make you
| happy. Pleasure != happiness.
|
| It reminds me of this meme:
| https://i.imgur.com/dRvwSsI.jpg
| nickpp wrote:
| I don't know, I did it for a whole sabbatical once and
| some stretches in the Pandemic - it did not make
| returning to work any easier.
|
| Now I agree about needing some variety, so I would
| probably get a PlayStation too.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| I'm more of a PC guy, but yeah, pretty much. For a while.
| But even that gets boring at some point. Human brains are
| weird, man.
| nickpp wrote:
| I really wonder dude, I really wonder. The older I get
| the harder I find to be excited by shit. I do believe
| that if I was in the iPhone team I would've been like
| "another f-ing phone, why should I care?".
|
| The paycheck is pretty much all that is getting me out of
| bed in the morning, even if at this point I can't say I
| really need it anymore.
| adflux wrote:
| Guess its a normal part of aging, but maybe its not
| normal to not get excited by stuff you used to like
| ghaff wrote:
| >maybe its not normal to not get excited by stuff you
| used to like
|
| People absolutely fall in and out of interest in
| different types of activities. This is especially true of
| people who really jump into things with both feet.
| cghendrix wrote:
| I feel the absolute same way. I've learned to be
| satisfied rather than passionate/excited about work. It's
| much more sustainable in the long run.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Don't you? Why not? Because of financials? Job availability
| in your region?
|
| There's always an option. It might entail a more extensive
| change and change is hard, that's for sure.
| YrAz3EGttt wrote:
| It indeed is a luxury to be able to take a year off at
| will. Big reason I can think of is financials.
|
| In my opinion, burnout is a problem only faced by people
| who can afford to do so. I am not saying everyone doesn't
| face burnout, they probably do, but not everyone can afford
| to take a sabbatical, dip into savings, indulge in a hobby
| etc. There are many people who don't earn as much as a
| silicon valley engineer, have low savings to dip into, and
| perhaps even have/inherit debt - Making rent and being able
| to afford essentials takes priority to dealing with burnout
| in such situations.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| 2/3 of America lives paycheck to paycheck.
|
| Taking a year off is definitely not the norm
| caseysoftware wrote:
| Most people pay $100+/month for cable, eat out multiple
| times per week, have thousands of credit card debt, and
| an unexpected $400 bill would ravage them.
|
| If you want to live a un-average life, you need to have
| un-average priorities and sacrifice. Few on HN should be
| living paycheck to paycheck.
|
| Check out Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover for a
| starting model. And yes, you'll have to sacrifice now to
| benefit later.
| JoeQuery wrote:
| I totally recommend everyone read Dave Ramsay's work to
| understand how to approach money. It was an eye opener
| for me.
|
| But you have to understand that consumerism is pushed
| down our throats from all around starting at a very young
| age. Dave Ramsay doesn't just come into your
| consciousness like advertising does, and unless one is
| close to someone who is very anti consumerism and
| advertising you will likely be subjected to an onslaught
| of messages aimed at your subconscious that you are
| completely ill-equipped to fight.
|
| I think many people in these comments are speaking on
| behalf of the general population who does not have the
| luxury of taking a year off.
|
| This comment of yours drips with privilege.
|
| Edit: I was introduced to dave Ramsay's work in my 20s by
| a close friend who was wealthy and had businesses and
| homes. He volunteered with some organizations to provide
| financial literacy classes. I was lucky to have been
| given that reference.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| While many here are commenting on the abstract general
| population, most are speaking about themselves with
| variations of "must be nice!"
|
| When you fly, the emergency briefing tells you to put on
| your own mask before helping others. In lifeguard
| training, you're taught to keep yourself afloat before
| the victim.
|
| If you don't have your own finances in order, your
| opinion on others' finances is just noise and about as
| valuable.
| JoeQuery wrote:
| > most are speaking about themselves with variations of
| "must be nice!"
|
| Not necessarily. It's called empathy. And your lifeguard
| story makes no sense.
| Clubber wrote:
| A drowning victim will instinctively push the rescuer
| under the water, so the rescuer must have a secure
| flotation device. It was (probably still is) taught to
| pull the rescue-e to land by having the victim facing
| away with your arm around their neck and under the armpit
| facing away. This is to keep them from drowning you.
|
| This is also biblical - take the splitter out of your own
| eye before you take the splinter out of another's eye
| (paraphrasing).
| JoeQuery wrote:
| I know that. But it is not apparent why that was relevant
| to the conversation.
| [deleted]
| RickJWagner wrote:
| Better than Dave Ramsey, check out Bogleheads.org.
|
| You (and everyone else) really do own your financial
| life. There can be curveballs-- a catastrophic illness,
| for example-- but for the vast majority of people, having
| money or not is really a series of personal decisions
| made over a lifetime.
| YrAz3EGttt wrote:
| Can speak for myself, I don't live paycheck to paycheck
| now but I grew up in a household with a lot less money
| than I make now in comparison - Involved lot of
| sacrifices and accumulating modest savings over a
| lifetime to help the next generation to live a bit better
| and make fewer such sacrifices.
|
| > Most people pay $100+/month for cable, eat out multiple
| times per week, have thousands of credit card debt, and
| an unexpected $400 bill would ravage them.
|
| There's also a cohort that might not earn a lot but is
| financially responsible, frugal and makes modest gains
| towards big goals e.g. education for kids, home ownership
| which can take almost a life time. There's a big spectrum
| from being poor due to being financially irresponsible
| and being lucky enough to be in their 20s, debt free and
| paying off a mortgage instead of rent (with help for
| college, down payment etc from family to have a healthy
| head start). Not everyone who doesn't have the means is
| in such a place because they are lazy or is financially
| irresponsible. Simply stating that most people are a
| certain way without evidence is just disingenuous and
| judgemental, perhaps exposes a bias more than anything.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| > _Involved lot of sacrifices and accumulating modest
| savings over a lifetime to help the next generation to
| live a bit better and make fewer such sacrifices._
|
| Congrats. That's awesome and it's what we should strive
| for. Sacrificing _sucks_ but doing it now so we have to
| do less of it later (or later generations have to do
| less) is powerful. Your parents setting that example for
| you - and you passing it down - is exceptionally valuable
| too. I grew up in similar financial circumstances without
| learning those lessons until much much later.
|
| > _There 's also a cohort that might_...
|
| Yes, there are cohorts in all circumstances. That's why I
| said "most" and not "all."
| goatse-4-u wrote:
| * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
| * *
| * / \ \ / \ *
| *| | \ | | *
| *| `. | | : *
| *` | | \| | *
| * \ | / / \\\ ____ \\ : *
| * \ \/ ___~~ ~____| \ | *
| * \ \__~ ~__\ | *
| * \_ \ _.______ .______\| | *
| * \ \______// _ ___ _ (_(__> \ | *
| * \ . C ___) ______ (_(____> | / *
| * /\ | C ____)/ \ (_____> |_/ *
| * / /\| C_____) | (___> / \ *
| * | ( _C_____)\______/ // _/ / \ *
| * | \ |__ \\_________// (__/ | *
| * | \ \____) `____ ___' | *
| * | \_ ___\ /_ _/ | *
| * | / | | \ | *
| * | | / \ \ | *
| * | / / | | \ |*
| * | / / \__/\___/ | |*
| * | / | | | |*
| * | | | | | |*
| * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
| ranma4703 wrote:
| Do you actually know anyone like this, or are you basing
| this off of what cable news personalities say?
|
| I know plenty of people with no cable, no Internet other
| than their phone, living paycheck to paycheck... This
| idea that poor people just need to stop wasting their
| money is propaganda used to justify starvation wages
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| This is called the myth of overconsumption.
|
| It creates a simple fairy tale that financial success or
| failure rests solely on the individual.
|
| It allows people to ignore wage stagnation, inflation,
| rising costs of critical goods and services, rising
| inequality, and fundament structural inequities with
| society.
|
| Here's a more in-depth academic paper that provides data
| beyond unsourced colloquialisms if you're interested.
|
| https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol82/iss
| 4/8...
| caseysoftware wrote:
| Here's some sourced data for my claims to look at the
| "myth" if you're interested:
|
| _" 65% of Americans are still paying for cable TV."_
|
| _" According to cable cord-cutting subscribers
| statistics for 2018, the average viewer in the US can
| save up to $104 per month by taking the plunge."_
|
| Ref: https://techjury.net/blog/cable-tv-subscribers-
| statistics/
|
| _" According to Zagat, if you are like the average
| American, you go out for lunch and dinner 4.9 times each
| week."_
|
| Ref: https://us1035.iheart.com/featured/sarah/content/201
| 8-01-09-...
|
| Average credit card debt in 2020: $5315
|
| Ref: https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-
| experian/consumer-credit-...
| newfriend wrote:
| And this is the myth of "The Man is keeping me down".
|
| It allows people to ignore that their choices are by far
| the biggest factor in what happens in their lives, and
| instead allows them blame society and take no
| responsibility.
| [deleted]
| ranma4703 wrote:
| Your unsourced colloquialisms is a pretty tone deaf
| response to this comment, but I guess you're
| demonstrating their point, good job
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| I think your claim is partially true.
|
| People can make good/bad choices but the amount and types
| of choices a person even has available to them, is very
| dependent on pre-existing family success/wealth.
|
| Jeff Bezo's kids will have more choices/opportunities
| than a middle class kid who will have more
| choices/opportunities than a poor kid.
|
| Starving Syrian Refugess have very minimal choices or
| opportunities.
|
| So your average middle class or poor person has some
| choices but is much more at the mercy of their
| ENVIRONMENT than Jeff Bezo's kids who can bend the
| environment to their will with money.
|
| Your heels seem pretty dug into your belief's so there's
| a good chance I'm wasting my time by talking to you but
| whatever.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| If you're young, have no children, and don't mind picking
| up and moving and giving up local connections, sure.
|
| That's not common, though.
|
| Really though, the solution is to change jobs. Despite how
| it looks from HN comments, there are plenty of companies
| out there with good work life balance.
|
| Painting this as a false dichotomy between staying in
| burnout-inducing jobs or dropping everything to become
| jobless isn't helpful. There's an entire spectrum of
| options that should be explored to change a burnout-
| inducing situation.
| [deleted]
| beauzero wrote:
| I found this working for state government. Trying to put
| my skills to use helping taxpayers get what they deserve
| in usable government websites. There is a lot of "feel
| good" there...feels like it did back in 96-97.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I had no special circumstances, I just made a choice to put
| years of savings to work for myself immediately instead of in
| the uncertain future. I sold everything and lived simply. Not
| everyone could do it, but many could who think they can't.
| paulcole wrote:
| > I just made a choice to put years of savings
|
| In America (and much of the world) this is the ultimate
| special circumstance. The idea of being able to
| consistently save significant amounts of money for YEARS is
| foreign to billions of people.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| Being able to save, especially for years, is a special
| circumstance. At least in the US where wages have been flat
| for quite a while even as cost of living skyrocketed.
| spfzero wrote:
| It does require discipline and sacrifice, and it's harder
| or easier depending on circumstance, but it is always
| possible. You may not be able to save very much, but even
| a small amount can get you through some situations that
| would otherwise have cost you more, in interest or lost
| time at work or whatever. Those small solutions add up
| over time, so that you're always better off with saving,
| than without.
| ykevinator3 wrote:
| Especially if you have kids and work as labor
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Per the US government (BLS), the median household has the
| ability to save about $1,000 per month without changing
| how much they spend on ordinary costs of living. So not
| everyone can but most people can if they choose to. Of
| course, Americans are notoriously poor savers, which is
| the bigger culprit.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| There is a 21 trillion dollar economy built largely on
| companies fighting over that $1000 with lies and
| manipulation from people who devote careers to
| outsmarting people.
|
| Another thread on HN helpfully has examples of people
| refusing to go along with it. I don't think they're
| representative.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27629543
| mandelbrotwurst wrote:
| If I have monthly income of 3000 and spend it all, how am
| I to save 1000 monthly without lowering my costs?
|
| This sounds impossible, unless maybe you're not counting
| all spending as "ordinary costs"?
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| This is a term of art. An "ordinary expense" are
| categories of expenses required to live a decent average
| life, as evidenced by the fact that most people actually
| spend money on them. This includes housing,
| transportation, clothes, food, healthcare, utilities,
| taxes, etc. It makes no judgement on _how_ the money is
| spent in ordinary categories e.g. buying a BMW is an
| ordinary expense because it is transportation. It isn 't
| prescriptive and it includes pretty much everything you
| would expect. Ordinary expenses include a lot of luxury
| and non-essential spending.
|
| If you look at all the categories that are "non-ordinary"
| because most people spend no money on them, they are
| pretty obviously lifestyle flexes. For example, if you
| blow your entire paycheck on a bar tab, that is not
| classified as an ordinary expense because most people
| don't do that.
|
| Subtract the median ordinary expense from the median
| income, you are left with more than $12,000 per year as a
| surplus. This is called "discretionary income", money you
| can spend on fun, hobbies, or -- relevant to this thread
| -- savings. If we restricted it even further to ordinary
| and _essential_ spending, the income level that no longer
| generates any surplus is in the region of 15th percentile
| IIRC. That is still 20 million households in the US with
| no ability to save but that isn 't the experience of the
| vast majority of households.
|
| The Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Federal Reserve
| publishes surprisingly detailed statics of what people
| spend money on and how income surpluses are used.
| kd0amg wrote:
| It's not counting all spending as costs _of living_.
| alecst wrote:
| I don't want to sound like a know it all, but I managed
| to save a lot of money living in a big city in a grad
| student stipend, which is about $25k. It can be done. I
| spent very little biking, cooking from home, buying used,
| having roommates, not drinking, not buying much.
|
| There are exceptions like kids and chronic health issues
| but most people could save a lot more money if they
| wanted.
|
| I say this without judgment, people just have different
| priorities. I recognize my advantages, but I have more
| savings than most people in my family, despite probably
| having the lowest lifetime income.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| This really needs a time frame. $25k in a big city means
| different things depending on era. The curves of wage
| growth, cost of living, and wealth disparity didn't start
| to diverge so wildly until the 2000s. This took a lot of
| people by surprise and people whose experiences diverge
| by era aren't always aware of how quickly things changed
| for other people.
|
| Someone who graduated in 2005 will often have a
| completely different experience from someone who
| graduated in 2008 or 2009. People who haven't had to look
| for a job since the '80s are especially befuddled to
| learn "ask for the manager" leads to "there's an online
| application kiosk by the door, go there." Usually along
| with "we don't have any openings, but we keep it on file
| for 6 months!"
| alecst wrote:
| I graduated college in 2012, grad school the following 6
| years.
| haskellandchill wrote:
| You got lucky with the roommates, that's one thing
| outside of your control that can go very badly.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Commutes: heat, stress, grey, pavement, dirt and chemicals,
| danger, frustration, noise; all things that come to mind with
| commutes. Never again, I hope.
| fullstackchris wrote:
| Hearing stuff like this a lot recently, I always think about
| the often repeated vision that Keynes had, saying that we (his
| grandchildren) would be working 15 hour work weeks. I think our
| economy is so rich and efficient now, that scenario could
| actually exist, but everyone is still duped by the workaday
| culture infinitely persisting the 40 hour work week idea.
|
| Before I'm barraged with "what about people in the service
| industry!?" I do confess, I'm not sure what the argument would
| be - indeed, some people are perhaps only working part time at
| those positions, perhaps maybe around that 15 hour figure. But
| for those who work full time in the service industry, I guess
| I'm not sure what there leverage could be - raising the minimum
| wage perhaps? But that argument is age old and I've heard pros
| and cons both for and against. Also, in a country like the US
| where are social programs are far behind most of places like
| the EU for example, it's especially hard to argue or expect
| anything to actually become a reality for some of those service
| jobs. I guess only time will tell.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > I think our economy is so rich and efficient now, that
| scenario could actually exist, but everyone is still duped by
| the workaday culture infinitely persisting the 40 hour work
| week idea.
|
| Not sure we're duped by the 40 hr / week idea so much as
| we're slaves to our desire for consumer goods. That and
| housing is very expensive now which means more work to pay
| for it.
| Agenttin wrote:
| The issue is that pay hasn't kept up with productivity. As
| things become more efficient employers are having to pay
| far less for the same amount of work.
| kansface wrote:
| It has in tech - in fact I'd wager approximately 100% of
| productivity gains since the 80s have been in the tech
| sector which in turn has probably captured nearly all of
| those gains for itself.
| imtringued wrote:
| People stopped borrowing money. Either because they became
| old or the financial crisis made them risk averse. This
| drops interest rates.
|
| The few things that people buy with debt then rises in
| value. There is also no interest in building more housing
| because that would result in lower single family home
| property values.
|
| You have to consider that it's the bank that is paying for
| the house. As the owner you only pay the mortgage, whose
| monthly payments are limited by how much people can afford
| in the first place.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| There is interest in building housing by home builders,
| but it's at the expensive end of the market, not the much
| more affordable housing that we need.
|
| Property value is the biggest component of home prices in
| many desirable areas. Increasing current low-density home
| building won't change that, but increasing density would
| help with affordability. Problem is that many in the US
| still have low density housing as their housing goal.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Cool, so how do you pay for food and rent?
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > remote work
| Aboh33 wrote:
| Similar story. I left tech for about 5 months back in early
| Spring to refocus after delivery of a huge project (contract).
| Now looking at re-entering with a product/company I actually
| want to contribute to.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| I am on a 1 year sabbatical as of the start of this month. I
| wrote a "prologue" [1] summarizing my motivations, fears, and
| plans and I plan on posting an "epilogue" at the end to compare
| my expectations with the actual outcome.
|
| [1] https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical/prologue
| Yenrabbit wrote:
| Good luck, and I hope it goes well. I started a similar journey
| in February and am loving it so far, although I didn't have a
| set time period and am juuust starting to pick up little bits
| of work to ease back into things. I know experience can be hard
| to generalize, but for what it's worth some top things that
| seemed to work well for me were 1) Don't feel bad taking the
| first few weeks as complete 'off' time. The side project ideas
| can wait a bit while you relax :) 2) It's really fun working on
| 'inconsequential' things, especially if previously you were
| doing important/urgent stuff a lot. Things don't have to be
| monetize-able, useful or inspiring especially when you're on a
| break! Again, good luck :)
| teekay wrote:
| I have already began the switch to a mostly remote delivery of my
| services as a software contractor before Covid hit, and so the
| pandemic only sealed the deal.
|
| I am not going back.
|
| Most of the teams I have worked with that required on-site
| presence didn't have the culture I'd be comfortable with anymore:
| too many meetings, open plan office space with ridiculously cheap
| and uncomfortable chairs and no standing desks (or only for
| permanent employees and not us dirty contractors). Most
| importantly, once COVID hit, it turned out none of that office
| stuff mattered for productivity anyway.
|
| Europe was lagging behind in terms of remote work but one of the
| few positives of 'ro was the evening out of the playing field.
| And, once offices open, whether or not the contracts still offer
| remote work will be a great filter for potential clients.
|
| I am just not sure that being remote automatically solves the
| work-life balance problem. I know I am prone to spending the
| entire day at my computer and it's something I have to work on.
| mabbo wrote:
| I wonder how this might affect political measures. For decades,
| _the_ measurements governments have used for themselves have
| mostly been economical. How 's GDP? How's average income? How's
| productivity? And look at how my policies improved all of those
| numbers! You'd best re-elect me.
|
| What will politicians do when the people whose votes they want
| care less and less about those things? In a perfect world, they
| might start selling themselves on measures that matter which
| aren't about how much money someone made.
|
| A small cultural shift in the west _away_ from economics as the
| religion of the masses would be, in my mind, a silver lining to
| this whole, awful pandemic.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| I keep waiting for one of these stories where the journalist
| writes, "We tried contacting a labor economist for their take on
| this trend, but they all quit." Or even better, "Editor's note:
| we assigned this story on people quitting dead end jobs to our
| journalist, but he quit before he finished it."
| jedimastert wrote:
| You know, I was just at Walmart, where they only had one cashier.
| I heard a group of people complain about how "no one wanted to
| work anymore" not one of them moved to the self-checkout line
| when a bunch of them opened up.
| e15ctr0n wrote:
| Those people probably wanted to pay with cash. Walmart self-
| checkouts[0] switched to electronic payment only[1] when the
| national coin crisis hit in June 2020[2].
|
| [0] https://corporate.walmart.com/newsroom/2020/06/30/new-
| checko...
|
| [1] https://www.quora.com/Why-are-Walmart-self-checkout-
| register...
|
| [2]
| https://www.frbservices.org/news/communications/063020-feder...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| It's a new world. We'll have to see what rises from the ashes.
|
| I think that a lot of the stressors were there, before COVID, but
| the pandemic was the straw that broke the camel's back.
|
| As an older software engineer, I find the statement that
| "everyone wants devs" to be fairly amusing. I'm rather grateful
| that I don't need to work for a living. Instead, I'm working for
| free. I'm glad to have the tools that are available these days,
| and the means to afford them.
| hda111 wrote:
| isn't it illegal to work for free?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Nope.
| hda111 wrote:
| In my home country it's illegal. We have minimum wage.
| Suro wrote:
| I'm currently living in a country with an healthy approach on
| work/life balance, seeing the appalling situation in the us
| always made me defiant to move there. I hope this awakening on
| the issue will be picked up by politics and will lead to better
| regulation.
| _dibly wrote:
| The first thing I said when the $600/week unemployment started
| rolling out was that people were going to realize how little they
| were being paid to work, and here we are. It's almost like they
| didn't know any better.
|
| I'm sure the landscape is different for people already set in
| their careers or making some decent money, but everyone making
| minimum wage got to see how little $10/hr actually is.
| bluedino wrote:
| It ends on Sept 1st so we'll see how things go then.
| _dibly wrote:
| Where I live, the $300 from the federal gov't continues until
| early September but the $300 from the state ends this month,
| I could be wrong but I assume it's going to differ moderately
| from state to state.
|
| At any rate, a lot of people I know that quit have already
| found or started looking for a different job. Most people
| aren't looking to keep living off the system so much as they
| are looking to find a job that doesn't pay them _and_ treat
| them like dirt. Social services companies around here are
| literally offering $1000+ referrals because they can't keep
| group homes staffed or run any community interactions. I
| think it's pretty clear at this point that it's not just
| about the handouts, it's about people realizing how atrocious
| their working conditions were and not wanting to put up with
| it anymore.
| baggachipz wrote:
| I'm no economist, but I think we're due for a rude awakening
| once that gravy train stops.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| On a tangential note, it really feels like we continue to live in
| a historic time. Maybe it's a completely personal experience but
| it just seems like so many basic societal assumptions are getting
| meaningfully challenged or brought into focus. The pandemic panic
| and subsequent lockdowns focused our relationships with other
| humans. The racism protests also. The "inner temple" of the US
| empire getting breached/"violated" focused thought around the
| existing global political order. Remote work and these supposed
| waves of resignations focusing thought around capitalism (as
| mentioned in other comments I'm on a 1-year sabbatical as of this
| month [1] and know a few people doing or considering the same so
| I definitely think there is possible truth to the story). All of
| these things have been bubbling for a long time, no doubt, but
| the focus on each one seems more intense lately.
|
| [1] https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical/prologue
| dogman144 wrote:
| Agree and it's hard to find cohesive takes which stitch
| together all these events in a way that make sense, i.e. the
| analysis includes enough tech-awareness to believe it.
|
| The only stuff I've found which felt in the ballpark of spot-on
| were:
|
| 1) https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/the-great-weirding This was
| a fascinating series of essays that generally walks through
| why, after "Harambe" in 2016 or whenever, things seemed to have
| gone off the rails towards something new.
|
| 2) Cypherpunk movement's source docs. If I could bold,
| underline, and highlight this, I would. I have never read any
| group of literature/essays, especially with publishing dates in
| the 1990s, that more felt like a post-mortem on the 2014->2021
| craziness than cypherpunk docs. I had actually wondered for a
| while where this core movement went, but the quick answer I've
| come to is cryptocurrency/e2e messaging projects absorbed a lot
| of it, and then the the writing often took a turn for the
| crazy/non-PC in the final 10 yards. But, they so accurately
| diagnose the growth of virtual communities and their pseudo-
| governmental influence, digital economy developments and all
| the second order effects, and so on and so on. If you're
| looking for people who really saw what was coming, this is the
| group. One of the good reads:
| http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~wex/panoptic-paper.html
| rsync wrote:
| ... and if you have not read the _classic_ "Premium Mediocre
| Life of Maya Millennial" you really owe it to yourself to:
|
| https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/the-premium-
| mediocre-l...
| foobarbecue wrote:
| Aren't all times historic? What would you consider the least
| historic decade?
| reidjs wrote:
| Would you agree that 2020-2021 was a more interesting period
| of time than 2018-2019?
| kaycebasques wrote:
| A decade is too big of a window. It's tough to pick one
| decade over another but I do think I could pick one year out
| of every decade over the others. To put my thought another
| way, if you think of society as a system, you've got a short
| period where the rules are being changed, and then we let the
| system run its course for multiple years. Eventually there
| are some gross inefficiencies that become too big to ignore
| and we have another short period where the rules are changed
| again, and so on.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >A decade is too big of a window.
|
| I think that it's too small. Consider the swathes of time
| that are examined in history books.
|
| It all looks amazing and fast moving when you are living
| it, particularly when you are younger.
| cwkoss wrote:
| The rate of technological advancement is growing
| exponentially, so the duration of an 'era' is becoming
| compressed.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| You know, that's a great discussion to have at another
| time.
|
| Is it growing exponentially? Personally, I'd say that
| changes at the margin are becoming smaller. I think that
| the difference between 1940-1980 is much greater than
| 1980-2020.
|
| As an aside, it's funny how static music has been for
| years. There are numerous bands that sound like they
| would have been reasonably successful in 1970 (and visa
| versa). 1920 vs 1970 is a whole 'nother issue.
| cwkoss wrote:
| > I think that the difference between 1940-1980 is much
| greater than 1980-2020.
|
| I vehemently disagree with this, but agree this is
| veering off topic, so I'll leave it at that.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| We should stop calling it remote. Perhaps online, or just, work
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Exactly, it's just the evolution of work based on changes of
| the working environment, mindset and needs. In the past we had
| only manual labour, then the (bad) machines came along and we
| had factories/industries, then the (bad) computers came along
| and we have remote working...and so on...
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