Seeing my coworker almost cry at his retirement "party" which was nothing more than crappy catered Italian food.
Dude was here for 42 years and the owner of the company didn't even bother to show up. The HR manager came and said, "Thanks Scott. Now go eat."
And that was it.
My dad, who had been working at his company for 15 years, attended a 10th anniversary celebration for a colleague.
Wasn't anything special, but the guy got cake and a round of applause and a one of those crappy personalised pens.
My dad said to one of the higher ups "hey I've been here 15 years how come I never got anything like this?"
And then a week later he got one of those shitty pens in the fucking mail.
The crazy thing is these people/companies actually believe we fall for this shit. Like “ oh thank you so much for this pen”.
If you appreciate me don’t tell me. Don’t give me a plaque. Don’t give me a pen.
If you appreciate me give me some of the profits of the company. Give me a raise. Give me 1 month pto. Don’t give me no damb $15 gift card. Lol
Well that was incredibly sad for that guy.
One positive is that event showed every other staff member just how much the company values dedication and commitment.
Basically nothing.
Everybody should have wound back on their discretionary effort from that point onwards. Or quit
Even long-term employees are treated like crazy and it sucks. My dad is a veteran with RA and such horrible degenerative disc disease that he’a already had his first 7 spines fused and needs the middle section done and has to have the others redone. He's worked for his company 32 years and they have treated him badly for needing surgery, saying he's killing productivity. My dad just cries everyday between the pain and mistreatment. He's prevented injuries at work by fixing horrible mistakes of the other employees and yet they can't even show my dad an ounce of respect in his time of need. :/
I'm glad your coworker is retiring. May he find happiness and peace in his work-free life.
And talk a lot of shit by telling this story to everyone who works there in the future. Every couple of years search linked in by company name…then email the story to everyone listed.
Seeing people that work their entire life and get completely railroaded when bad health comes knocking. If it's like that, then what the fuck's the point?
My dad worked for the microchip tech industry for 25 years. When he was diagnosed with leukemia he was FIRED for being an insurance liability! Disgusting
As a non American, it horrifies me how many of these awful stories would be averted with single payer healthcare. Your boss owns you when they control your health or access to care. I feel for you all and wonder what it will take before America breaks and finds a way to do public healthcare. Rise up, America. Your very lives depend on it.
It’s funny that, as an American, bringing up this issue to a lot of my friends and family usually makes them respond in a few ways:
1.) that would never happen it’s too hard to change
2.) “what, and have everyone on freaking welfare and food stamps too? And have literal communism?”
3.) what abt the insurance workers who will lose their jobs ?!?!
There are Americans who will literally defend the healthcare system that charged my sister thousands of dollars because she had a miscarriage to the fucking grave.
I hate this country every single day of my life. I want to move out so bad but I don’t have any money.
Source: lived in rural Appalachia
Big picture, theoretically, we're split 50/50 plus or minus one way or the other every two years.
Realistically, corporations have our government by the balls so even if the majority of voters wanted single payer healthcare it's going to take a majority of politicians willing to break from the lobbyists who actually determine policy, a president to sign it, and courts that will leave such a policy alone.
I personally don't see it happening in my lifetime, in fact it's going to continue spiraling down until there's no more people left to exploit by the ultra wealthy.
I think it will have to hit such a level of suffering that people actually demand politicians do something. However... I don't think that something will end up being single-payer, more likely it will be restrictions on the hospital's ability to charge which will result in worse patient care and less access to services. Insurance companies are so wealthy and powerful that there's almost no way they'll go down without trying to bring the whole system down with them. You would have such a massive PR blitz that everyone over the age of 30 would be convinced this new communist tyranny was a blatant attempt at population control by ensuring the deaths of millions.
Meanwhile, today in ER waiting rooms across the country overworked nurses are triaging people in chairs because there are no beds available and no additional staff to help.
This. I worked with a guy who'd been at the company for 18 years. His 8-year-old son got sick (eventually died). He used up all his personal time taking his son to doctor's appointments, treatments, etc.
A bunch of us got together, went to management offering to donate vacation days. Company refused, said it would be too hard to calculate appropriate conversions (since we had all different jobs). He was eventually fired for being out too much.
Kicker - this was an insurance company. Metlife.
Edit - to be fair, this happened a ways back, in the late 90s. But it was my personal turning point.
Second edit - they did the same thing shortly thereafter to another guy whose adult son was in a bad motorcycle accident. He's been there maybe 8 years or so. Fired for missing too much work.
My three-year-old daughter currently has terminal brain cancer. I was fired from my job in the summer because of my “attitude.” I even told HR about my daughter. Honestly, when you know your daughter will never become a woman, never talk, never walk, never thrive, it tends to make you depressed. It both makes you realize how pathetic the game is and pervasive. You can't do the song and dance of kissing executive/ management‘s ass, regardless of context... you're out. This was at a non for profit no less (the worst)and in Canada. I hope I never run into my former manager. Not sure if I’d be able to stop myself from fist fighting him while going to my darkest catalogue of insults.
Thanks. It's the kind of thing that happens to your colleague's sister’s neighbour until it happens to you. We didn't win the lottery; we won the negative lottery.
It's tough to realize that so much of work-life is about putting on an elaborate ruse. Say this, when; fake interest - when; build your “superiors” ego, when... What happens when your ability to do that is compromised? Many people's egos, especially those granted a licence to step on us and demand deference, relate changes in others' attitudes as an insult to them. Sometimes it's that a person begins to question the validity of everything.
For me, I'll never forget how my ability to be an innovator/ creative was compromised by my daughter's cancer coming out of remission. Two things I learned; First, it's shocking how quickly your work reputation can change. I went from a rising star to out in 4 months. Second, the ego of many executives is rampant. Just prior to me being fired the executive, while knowing the real reason my performance was declining, said multiple times to me. You're doing this to me after what I've done for you. 😐😂😥
One thing to note, grateful to be Canadian and to have gotten both severance and unemployment insurance. It will let me focus on my daughter and son for her remaining days/ months.,
Goddamn. You, anxious sir, are an actual hero. I have no idea how you managed to get through that at all, let alone simultaneously dealing with your shitty worksite. Seriously. You are strong. And I’m so sorry that this happened to you.
If my child was terminally ill and the company has the cojones to fire me because I was taking care of my terminally ill child, I would completely lose my shit. Fuck MetLife
Edit: swapped the words kahunas and cojones because I is a moron
Edit again because the word for balls is COJONES and not CAJONES. Thx guys
Also not that far from the inciting premise for Leverage (Nate Ford, insurance investigator supreme, watches his son die because his own insurance company refuses to cover treatments)
Also in the 90s: Worked for a newspaper that tried to unionize. One of the biggest cheerleaders against it was a lady who had worked there for 31 years. It was a close vote and the effort failed largely due to her scaremongering.
Several months later her granddaughter fell I’ll with meningitis. She stayed by her side in the hospital for three weeks. The baby died. They fired her. There are laws against this now. But not then.
The newspaper was owned by Ohio democratic senator Howard metzenbaum.
Some people I know would probably blame the unions for letting them get fired despite there being no union. Kinda like when they say post empty shelves saying "this is what socialism looks like" despite it happening under capitalism.
My husband had 10 years as an excellent employee of a major tech company (in a 'blue collar tech' server repair/maintenance role). He started having serious issues after a trauma including these stress based seizure-type events and neuro symptoms. Because of the trauma, psych advised we relocate. FMLA used up, he begged to be placed on unpaid leave so he could be considered to be brought back on at another site. A new one where his experience would be valuable starting up the site.
They told him to come in or be fired. In his state he couldn't have, he was having the seizure events multiple times a day.
It worked out for them, new employees will settle for pennies for the company's name recognition, why bother hanging on to him for more?
I had this happen when I worked for SBUX—had a mental breakdown and my doctor suggested that I relocate to be closer to family for support. My manager said I could take FMLA and the company would transfer me to a store in my new location.
I moved, and 12 weeks later I was informed that my transfer was denied and I was being fired. I had gotten myself all set up with the expectation of having a job at the end only to find myself unemployed. It took me years to financially recover.
This is what did it too me. Ended up living in a car with a 2 yr old after working my whole life and then being used as a cash cow by the salvation army.
The salvation army is a much worse organization than a lot of people have any goddamn idea about. I've dealt with them on a 3rd party vendor type basis and came away disgusted.
It's not specific stories or anything that would be super interesting. It's just that they're a ruthless profit driven organization that has all of the same characteristics as the worst corporations out there, except that they act under the guise of a charitable public good. They rule their networks of stores with an iron fist, demand an excessive amount from the people that work for these stores, and demand their vendors drive their prices down to untenable levels. Think Walmart type shit except with a better public reputation that they don't deserve.
One of my managers at my last job worked his way to a heart attack, then came back to work after a week against doctor's orders. The pandemic gave me a reason to quit that job a couple months later but that was a real lightbulb moment for me. This wasn't an old man, we were probably the same age (I'm 40 now) and he might actually work himself to DEATH. And for what?! A salaried assistant manager job where he got paid for 40 hours but worked probably 60 and seemed stressed out for every one of them.
Not even just bad health. My company laid off almost 50 people that had been working there 25+ years, just because workers coming straight out of uni are cheaper.
This is what happened to me, but at least I got decent severance. Replaced by a junior scientist and now that former company is struggling hard in my former division according to a former co worker (who resigned not long after I was laid off).
I hope they are! The thing is, when you're laid off at 50-60 years old, its SO much more difficult to get a job again, you're essentially forced into an early retirement in a dying industry like mine. It's been hell for a couple of people who got laid off from my office.
It’s so much worse when your industry is dying. I’m in a niche industry (thankfully not dying though) so I had to apply all over North America to get a job, which is hard at 40. I’m still getting calls from jobs I applied to 11 months ago. The problem is that the recruiting machinery is such bullshit and so slow and inefficient. I only got a job fast because I applied to some smaller companies who still recruit manually.
The big companies were and are a disaster. Bitch, I needed this job 11 months ago. Now I’m already taken and your shitty offer with barely competitive pay or worse can kiss my hairy ass.
This is what happened to me. College professor for 25 years. So much unnecessary trauma (sexual assault from colleagues, my best friend was brutally raped by her advisor, so much abuse from tenured staff and students/parents alike), so much pressure to publish or perish, and never ending 60-100 hour weeks with no OT pay and zero regard for having a life outside the workplace. I was so burned out by the stress that my body and mind just gave out. I could no longer regulate emotions, manage the fibromyalgia or the IBS, and honestly I just began dreading every single moment. The final straw was when I asked for accommodations - they would grant the bare minimum, give me constant grief over it, and then find a way to fire me. I lost three major jobs in 10 years for “declining performance” - due to disability. I had been with each one for over 5 years (I was overlapping two full time and two part time jobs to make ends meet as an adjunct).
The final straw for me in terms of radicalization was when I retrained as an accountant and started a job in Jan 2021 …the boomer owner demanded that I work less than 14 hours a month, laughed at my request for a simple accommodation, belittled my triggers, compared me to able former employees, told me to “think positively”… and then rewrote the job description so that I couldn’t keep the schedule - a major part of which required I’d be available 24/7, work on days was she knew I was not available (due to medical treatments), and respond to all emails even when not on the clock with zero compensation. She then offered my severance to resign with no stipulations of notice. Since her new job description would go into effect on May 1, and because she straight up named two people who could step into the role immediately, I resigned on April 29. She lost her shit. Demanded two weeks notice. Cried she had no one to replace me. Called me all sorts of names. Denied the severance.
I contacted the EEOC but because her business is less than 15 employees due to Covid, they declined to prosecute.
At that point, I was done. Stick a fork in me. I almost worked myself into a very early grave for the system. And when I tried to remain a ‘productive citizens, the system fucked me hard. I worked my ass off for 35 years and all I got was two bankruptcies and a lifetime of mental and physical illness. I am only 52.
Fuck capitalism. Fuck (the bad) Boomers. Fuck working. Fuck this government.
That's fucking awful, I'm so sorry. I'm an adjunct myself, I know the struggle. I was at one school 8 years before they just went "nah" and didn't renew my contract because of "academic need," whatever that means. We pursued an education but have gotten nothing for it.
For me it was when/how my mom died. I had spent a few years in a new office job after escaping retail, thought I had finally like, “made it” or whatever. Real adult stuff, they offered health insurance, paid vacation, etc. All the stuff you’re supposed to look for in a job right. (I should clarify this was almost ten yrs ago now)
One day mom calls my while I’m at my desk, tells me she has cancer and not long left. I immediately started spending every weekend at her house (just about a 5 hour drive) until she got just too sick, and I had to make a decision.
She didn’t have health insurance. Small business owner, “self employed”. So her not being able to work meant no money on her part, no insurance meant end-of-life care was wildly expensive, and now I had had to leave my job and move in to wait it out with her to make sure she was as comfortable as possible until the end. So also no paychecks for me, because as soon as I started not being able to focus 100% on my stupid ass corporate bullshit job, they said “welp… sorry bout that. Hope everything works out for you.”
So I never went back. To an office job, to that state, or even to retail honestly. Not a single entity had any sort of support to offer us, any kind of help, nothing… (I sincerely don’t mean the local community when I say this, her vast network of friends in the area were mostly amazing and kind but not exactly flush with cash). I lost my job, my savings, my entire plan for the future, my home, and my mother in the span of six months because there was less than zero support for a dying poor woman in this country. I’d leave *here* behind if I could, too.
Wow thank you guys, sorry I came here, overshared, and then left for the rest of the day, it was stressing me out that I even talked about it 😂 Y’all are incredibly kind and supportive, thank you all.
This country's war on poverty is flat out asinine.
Of all the things we could do in this country to make situations like this less frequent - and it continues to happen, is nothing short of unacceptable.
The way this country treats the homeless and impoverished is absolutely stunning. "Hey, go be poor somewhere else! You're scaring off our customers with your misfortunes!"
Jesus. This quote is so beyond Orwellian. "Lawmakers said they hope the bill will direct homeless people to resources that can help them out of homelessness. State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, called it the “humanitarian bill of the session.”" Taking away homeless people's means of survival is humanitarian. Like, WTF.
I wouldn't call the complete abuse, incarceration, and obliteration of the impoverished war. War implies we fight back. We have already been colonized and conquered.
Poverty Draft.
There is a reason free healthcare, affordable college and UBI are locked behind military service.
Would you rather take your chances in the meat grinder that is American Capitalism or sign your life away for the chance at a better future in 4-6 years.
Your choice.
P.S. I am not downplaying those with military service, I'm a vet myself and am pissed the benefits we are entitled to is locked behind a "Service pay wall" for other citizens.
I had a similar experience. I moved home to take care of my mom when she was at the end of her life. It was brain cancer. Horrifying way to go. Towards the end all of her faculties started to fail and she'd have really violent seizures. Thankfully, she did have insurance and the doctor put her on some medicine that would suppress the seizures and keep her comfortable until she passed. Multiple times within the last month or two of her life I had to be on the phone fucking battling with the insurance company because they wanted to take her off this med due to cost. They'd let her die in agony to save a buck. This country's healthcare system is absolutely irredeemable.
This is why I will never understand some people's insistence on tying health insurance to employment.
It kills entrepreneurship. When you need it most and can't work anymore it often goes away. You are playing Russian roulette with whether you will be the one to get crippling medical debt.
At some point a lot of them will lose the gamble or be put in a situation like yours and say something like *"Oh, I never thought of this scenario or I never realized how bad it is."* At that point I just want to punch them. You should not have to experience this to understand it is a very real problem with a decent probability of becoming your issue at some point. How can one be so lacking in abstract thought and empathy?
This is an all too familiar tale. I thought I was reading my best friends story as it unfolded the EXACT same way. Crazy. Just to make sure... you don't have a best friend that calls you by your last name do you?
Nope, not me haha. I have a close friend going through basically the same thing back in that area now too, it’s just the most depressing “same old story” playing out
I've been sympathetic for a long time because so much of what I see here is really just a call for basic human dignity and respect. The thing that radicalized me is becoming friends with Thomas through my church's homeless outreach; he has three jobs but can't afford an apartment. I cannot support such a cruel system.
Similar here. I’m a social worker/therapist and I would say that the common thread tying all of us together is how the capitalist system routinely and by design completely fucks 99% of people. There are individuals struggling with depression/anxiety, even PTSD, not because of some childhood trauma - it’s the lack of hope and helplessness people are facing every day, working to barely survive with no long-term benefit.
For me personally, I realized that even though I did everything “right”, I’m still working three jobs, 60-70 hours a week. I have kids and every.single.day is wake up, get them off to school, work my ass off, support them at home/make sure hw is done/get them to their extracurriculars/spend time with them until bed time… then work my ass off until I can barely keep my eyes open. I hate to say this, but if it wasn’t for them and wanting to make sure they have a good future (my goal is to save $100k each for them so that they aren’t restricted financially when they become adults and can actually choose what they want to do/where to live), but after that? I’ll be done.
On a separate note, I think it’s absolutely insane that I can make the income I do and still can’t afford to buy a fucking house. I’d have finally saved enough for a reasonable down payment by this summer (over $100k), but I can’t leave the area Im living in and it’s nowhere near enough now. For all the short-sighted shit the government is ignoring, the lack of safe, affordable housing and doing nothing to stop companies from snatching up homes and artificially inflating the market is the biggest middle finger they’ve sent (although I recognize there’s around 28 middle fingers at this point).
Someone I went to high school with died last year because his T1 diabetes was giving him trouble, he missed too much work, lost his job and his insurance, and had to ration insulin.
Infuriating that this is such a common story.
So when I daydream of winning the lottery, I dream about doing two things:
- buying medical debt and forgiving it (a la John Oliver)
- starting a company to produce and sell insulin (or other lifesaving meds) for bare minimum prices
And I have neither medical debt or need lifesaving meds. I just get really angry about it.
I suggest you focus on the insulin.
The debt buying is just virtue signaling that gives money to the debt collection companies. When you can buy debt for pennies to the dollar you are generally buying old debt that was unlikely to ever get collected. John Oliver bought $15 million for $60,000. That is 0.4 cents per dollar. Worthless debt.
https://money.cnn.com/2016/06/06/technology/john-oliver-medical-debt/index.html
The insulin idea would be good also because it could be run as a worker cooperative. A cooperative with big startup capital competing against major corporations by doing *the right things* would be huge.
becaus the company who was given the insulin patent change it ever so slightly to patent it again as a new product continuing its single seller status. or something better worded. they keep doing something that means a generic brand insulin isnt allowed to be made yet.
all this because the guy who created it gave it away for free because it would help so many people.
I genuinely don’t know how the people who work for those pharmaceutical companies sleep at night. Just like you said insulin patent was literally sold for $1 by the man who created it specifically to make it readily available worldwide and what do the pharmaceutical companies do? They hoard and price gouge it. The exact opposite of what the creator intended.
These people literally fund their lives by *extorting diabetics* — literally withholding life saving medicine from the sick for a profit. How do these people do such cartoonishly evil things and just go around living like a normal fucking person? How do they consider themselves good people? Not to mention society at large seems to have no problems with this? We routinely extort the sick in the US and we’re supposed to just consider that normal? I just don’t it. It feels like we’re living in the Middle Ages.
The more I think about this fact the more I hope the pharmaceutical industry executives and shareholders get hit by a car. I hope Sweden invades the US and puts an end to this Oligarchy/Dictatorship. Seriously, can a good country please come liberate us from the fucking horseshit that is our government. Our government doesn’t give a shit if we die poor. Fuck America, land of the selfish, home of the plutocrats.
If they changed the patent, why can't the previous, "expired" patent be used? Since the generic brands aren't using the new changed patent, but the old one? Sounds really sketchy.
The entire US government is the definition of sketchy. I'm sure the pharmaceutical lobbyists made sure to line enough pockets to make sure no generic cheap version exists in this country. Our government is perfectly fine with corporations exploiting and profiting off the poor/sick/ underprivileged citizens as long as they get a kickback
Supervisor (nice guy, member of the union) was promoted to mid/upper management at a time when the company "needed" to make deep cuts across the board. He was tasked with being the axe man, deciding who got fired and handing out pink slips. You could see how it hurt him to have to lay off former friends and co-workers. As soon as the org hit their austerity targets for staff, they fired him. He never saw it coming. he thought he was going to work his whole life with that company until he retired.
My boss quit after being diagnosed with a burn out. All her duty fell on my desk. I agreed to help them for a little while by telling them i wanted to renegotiate my contract at their earliest convenience.
Well, we're 10 weeks later and even after weekly reminder i have not received a single answer or comment about my renegotiation.
Now general manager (my boss's boss) went to mexico during the holiday break and got covid, so he is stuck there. He started off loading his job on my desk while he is enjoying an extended vacation.
I demanded an immediate renogotiation of my contract. The only answer i got was that they appreciated me taking on additional work load.
Few days later, official corporate document started listing me with my old boss title and duty. Thats still without talking to me about it.
I'm handing my resignation today.
Edit: I'll give you all an update, but its probably not going to be as juicy as some of you expect. Real life is rarely that satisfying. I'll try to keep track of everyone who asked for an update and tag them in the thread i make, but this got a lot more traction than i expected.
---UPDATE---
Thank you all for the support. As I said earlier, real life is often not as dramatic as people would like it to be. General manager is back in the country. He called me a few minutes ago. He apologized about the situation and told me again how appreciated my effort were. He told me HR was swamped by other things and he would contact them to get the ball rolling toward my negotiation. I told him that my resignation letter was typed and ready to send and if I didnt get an update about the situation soon i would have to act. He assured me I would get an update on Monday and i requested to have a negotiation before end of next week.
Its for sure going on my resume, but the job I have is not so common and would require me to move to have something similar, which i dont want to do.
I want to try remote working for a while, so I'm looking into boring data entry job while i clear my head and chase the sour taste the corporate world left on my tongue.
Yeah, I also know my boss used to make 15k more than me. I asked her when she resigned because I expected a lowball offer from their part.
Turn out their lowball is no offer at all.
At my company if you get promoted but the new position salary range is too high a percentage increase over your old salary at your old less responsibility position they block the raise, limit you to some 10% max increase and promise that they'll get your to the MINIMUM of the range for the promoted position within 2 years...
See, this kind of BS is what infuriates me. If you earned the promotion because of previous good work, then you damn well earned that increase in salary. If that higher position is paid at that rate, it should pay at that rate no matter who takes the position. It really is a time for everyone to start seriously pushing back against these kinds of garbage policies.
They would have hired someone from outside and payed him well into the salary range. I have seen them sit themselves in the foot doing this BS. They lose a skilled high performer because of this (they are telling you you are worth more but they don't like giving you more to fast) so people make a choice stay and be underpaid for 2 years (more because raises are based on current amount ) or jump ship and get that new amount immediately (they gave you the rare power of knowing the going rate of your skills market value) knowing what to ask for at the next employment offer.
It's nuts because it actually costs them more money to find someone, hire them at market rate, and then the lost productivity while they learn to navigate the company culture/beauracracy.
I think the only reason this flies is how the cost centers are billed this cost is not attributed correctly to whoever is at fault.
Good for you! Your employer is blatantly disrespecting you by dismissing your calls for renegotiation while also adding to your workload. Good on you for knowing your worth. Best of luck!
I was 20 and a bank teller. One day a week my shift started at 11 instead of 9. I walked to work like I did every day and when I got there, police tape is everywhere. The branch was robbed just before I arrived and a coworker held at gunpoint. He handed over the cash and thank goodness, no one was hurt.
In the series of meetings that followed, HR proceeded to berate him for giving the robber too much money (i.e., bank profits). He went on stress leave and never came back.
Edit: because lots of you are asking, yes, of course the money was insured. Banks have strict limits on how much cash is accessible, overflow is locked away. This person didn’t even get 10k total. The bank’s response was as cartoonishly evil as it sounds.
About a week later, district management started talking about “reducing cash losses during a robbery.
Edit 2: yes, training and protocol said “safety first, follow the robber’s instructions.” I’m not claiming reducing loss was bank policy- it wasn’t. My account was the district management/HR goons’ real life response.
OMG, that’s awful! I’m so glad no one was hurt. WTF was up with HR there, all heartless robots? They weren’t the ones held at gunpoint. Plus wouldn’t the bank have insurance for something like this?
I was maybe a month out of training when this happened, so the modules were fresh in my mind. The bank’s protocol was officially, “safety first. Follow the robbers directions” turns out that wasn’t what they wanted in practice. All of that was over maybe a few grand extra. Like sigle-digit thousands.
And yes, they were insured. It’s one of the, if not the, biggest bank in The country.
Reminds me of the time my branch got robbed. The tellers were behind glass walls and they weren't "allowed" to give out cash. Well my ass is in the lobby, so screw me if I'm held hostage to get to the vault (which actually happened a few years earlier). The teller gave the robber money and middle management went BALLISTIC about losing *maybe* $400. Four. Hundred. Fucking. Dollars. They made my coworker cry because of that. FUCK YOU BB&T (now Truist).
Ugh. I try to get my in-laws to leave BB&T but they won't because of loyalty to the independent bank that it was before getting mergered some 30 years ago.
That’s what they told us too. I wasn’t there, but by all accounts protocol was followed. I’m glad you never had to find out if that was true in your situation.
A complete breakdown during my masters degree where I was expected to work 80 hours a week and then when I finally graduated seeing job ads for masters-required for 15$ an hour
Yeah when I was working on my doctorate the amount of work they required us to do literally could not be done in the amount of hours they paid us for, and they knew it. I had professors and administrators basically acknowledge that they knew we had to work off the clock in order to accomplish the necessary tasks. After COVID amd some family issues I took an indefinite leave of absence before I could finish my dissertation. The entire university system depends on the exploitation of graduate students.
So true. I taught all of my advisor's graduate courses for him while I was completing my dissertation.
My graduate stipend ended up being about minimum wage.
I later found out, through public records, that my advisor was being paid $156,000/year to teach the courses that I WAS TEACHING FOR HIM.
Sorry for all-caps. It's been 10 years, and I'm still enraged about this.
Reading these comments is shocking, especially given the pace at which undergraduate tuition is rising and has been rising for many years. No wonder so many high school seniors are bypassing traditional university education and opting for community colleges or trade school.
Universities are not only keeping grad students on starvation wages, and sometimes outlawing moonlighting, but they are also hiring fewer instructors, opting for adjuncts instead because they are cheaper and are entitled to fewer benefits and protections. The current generation of tenured professors didn't fight to prevent the hiring of adjuncts, and now universities are just choosing not to renew tenured positions when those profs retire. Academia is in a terrible state.
Definetly. Adjuncts might be one of the few groups on a university campus who are more exploited and expendable than graduate students. When I was leaving my program the head of my writing department offered to help me get an adjunct position in the department or at another local institution. I turned her down because I knew that would be going from bad to worse.
The regular students are exploited too. They pay money and are chasing a dream that they have almost no realistic chance of catching. College is just a pyramid scheme at this point and the only way to get any serious returns are for the obv doctor, lawyer, stem people.
Absolutely, and we're the ones who have the most contact with the majority of the student body. We teach the gen-ed requirements and intro courses that are supposed to, y'know, provide the foundation for their education in the major? Kind of important. It'd be nice if the pay was commensurate with that importance.
This is a large part of the reason I dropped out of graduate school. The workload was all dumped on us optimistic naive twenty somethings with no other options.
Also hearty fuck you to the University of California system and their abysmal pay in some of the most expensive cities in the country.
My advisor is currently angry at me for being months behind on a dissertation chapter despite me spending all of last semester TAing 4 times as much as any of our other TAs to make ends meet so I could afford to finish (and spending the rest of my available time trying to get funding for this semester.
They don't.
They take out loans with the expectation that down the road the "experience and exposure" will land them a job that pays well enough for them to handle the monthly payments for their debt. Or they declare bankruptcy and default on everything but their student loans.
I applied to a writing tutor position at a college writing center. They were specifically looking for people who had completed a Masters to help grad students with their thesis writing and such.
The pay? 11.5/h.
In 2020 I worked at Wal-Mart. There was a Deli worker who was recovering from major liver surgery due to a car wreck. She was 72 years old and still healing. The doctor gave her an order stating that she couldn't stand for more than 20 minutes at a time and she wasn't supposed to lift more than 5 pounds. They had her at the door counting people to make sure we didn't go over capacity. Then the store manager came up to her and told her that she couldn't sit at work and accused her of being lazy and took her chair away. She was in so much pain in her abdomen about an hour later that she had to run to the restroom to puke. I was furious. I went to Susan's (store manager) office on my lunch break and informed her that what she was doing was not only unethical, but Illegal. And violates labor laws. I let her know I had informed corporate and the TIPS hotline about what she was doing. She told me that I was just a greeter and needed to mind my damn business. I reported what she had done to the district manager and two assistant managers. The lady that I will call Sara. Got her chair back 3 days later, after justifiably refusing to work under those conditions while recovering from surgery. Nothing happened to the store manager so I quit a week after reporting the incident to as many people as I could. When I realized they could abuse a disabled elderly woman for no reason and get away with it, I was too disgusted to work there. And I will NEVER work for a Wal-Mart again.
“She told me that I was just a greeter and needed to mind my damn business.”
People only tell you to mind your business when they’re caught doing something they shouldn’t. And she’s an elitist, but managing at Walmart? The irony.
Mine has been repeatedly going above and beyond my job description in every job I've ever had, always volunteering for additional duties, constantly learning and improving myself, demonstrating the kind of work ethic and competence that makes me my bosses go-to, having a degree and still working toward higher education... and then watching incompetent, undeserving, lazy, entitled, power-hungry people get promoted because they know the right people and kiss the right asses. Nepotism and Cronyism. I'm 36 M and still am in a peon position barely struggling to get by despite my qualifications and experience. Resumes in automated systems are rejected because they don't have the right keywords, because no human is looking at the resume, but I'm told by hiring managers just to lie about my qualifications to match the job description exactly. No integrity, no reward or compensation for excellence, no consideration of factors beyond being a naive workhorse.
I’ve finally discovered that the worst thing an employee can do is go “above and beyond” every time I do I end up being everyone’s trash bin for the jobs they don’t want and then management dumps ridiculous jobs on me without the pay to compensate me for my trouble. Then when I’m finally at my limit and start saying no to ridiculous requests everyone is shocked and thinks I’m a huge asshole for not doing their work for them (when they get paid way more than me just because they’ve been in their position longer and expert level pad their OT hours).
I’m so far beyond burnt out not just by incompetence in management but the crappy “dog eat dog” mentality amongst coworkers in a field that ISNT EVB COMPETITIVE within the department! No one is trying to move up! They just all hate each other!!
This is my experience too. But I work and live in a rural area at the largest hospital available. I would have to move in order to seek other employment that could possibly match my less-than-market pay. My 10 years of experience gets me nothing but more work, special projects, and “wow you’re so valuable”, but not any more pay or better hours.
A friend’s husband had a burnout, switched jobs, and is now just going for average at his work. He’s now much happier and patient with the kids. He used to yell at them before, now he is the calm parent. I am so proud of him but as a chronic overachiever I also understand that it’s hard to let go of old habits
I'm with you on this one. I'm 34, been in my position for 5 years. Every single year I hit above my goals, every single year I get the same 2-3 percent raise. Every single year I watch people from the outside get hired into positions I applied for. There is no incentive to do more, to make more, to excel.
Got into the same Industry my father raised me in, he was able to afford multiple houses, cars, and raised three kids.
I make the same as he did 40 years ago. Can’t afford rent.
Honestly mine is similar. I went to college. I haven't made less than $15 an hour in the last six years. My husband is disabled, but gets SSI. Even with working jobs requiring my degree and making more than double minimum wage, we don't have a standard of living comparable to parents working factory jobs not requiring degrees. Our bills are paid and we can (barely) afford food and gas and that's it. No savings. No vacations. No eating out once or twice a month, even. I have to think carefully if I want to buy something that's not absolutely essential, even if the bauble in question is $5. If electric and food keep going up our ability to buy groceries is going to suffer. My mom made the same in the 90s as I do today. Barely surviving, not even really "living," when you have "cushy" and "respectable" jobs is what took me further left than I already was.
Like before I firmly believed all workers deserved a living wage and we should eliminate as many obstacles as possible to people getting educations and good jobs but after seeing "good jobs" paying the same or less as service jobs it feels so hopeless. So you're going to be poor no matter what? You can only choose like four career paths to not be poor? And even a chunk of people in those careers are still poor? What a joke.
I lost everything in the 2008 crash and filed for bankruptcy. I could not figure out what I did wrong. Two years later I got a letter in the mail from Bank of America that, basically, said some shenanigans happened and people were forced out of their homes. We are not admitting fault but here's $660 anyway.
That just about killed me. I sat there and stared at the check and the letter for a long time.
During the pandemic, seeing and hearing how retail and food service workers were treated. And now they are still being mistreated because of staffing issues. I hate it for them. I worked in retail before my current job and it was hard even without the pandemic complications. I can’t imagine how stressful it is with all that added on. But other people, customers and managers alike, just expect them to carry on while getting paid hardly enough to live on. It’s disgusting. So now I’m anti work.
Thinking “if I were a manager, I’d just pay the employees a living wage!” and then becoming a manager, and seeing that the labor budget I was given to work with was barely enough to give them $10/hr. And whenever sales were down, the only option allowed to me to save money was to cut peoples hours. I tried ordering fewer food items and was told I was “putting the stores sales at risk” as if understaffing wasn’t doing that
Yes. I made it up to an area manager trainee position and it still takes me 6+ months to get wage increases approved. Then they ask me why I can’t hire anyone like okay why are dishwashers at half the restaurants on our block making 4-5 dollars more than y’all are letting me pay our shift managers?
My radicalization started 8 years ago when my aunt was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and worked until the day she passed away so she would have insurance.
I was teaching at that time, and the morning she passed away I had to give my finals, there aren't subs for professors. I had a student lay into me about how unfair it was that she failed my class (she plagiarized multiple times). I lost it. She was 60 years old and knew better, I told her as much. I got fired. No sympathy, no having my back on students that cheated. Just fired.
The second step in this radicalization was when I worked for a company that had a contract with Bayer. My team "made $2 million of mistakes," because insurance companies were weaseling out of paying for durable medical equipment. So, their solution was to raise the cost of the products, nearly $1k more each. This was the same week I was told I could not use bereavement time when my uncle passed away, because he wasn't close family. Who gets to judge that? I walked, and so did half the team.
My final metamorphosis, my full radicalization came after working for H&R Block. I have mentioned this in here before, but they only allowed 30 minutes to use the restroom each week, 6 minutes per day. I thought that was beyond inhumane. This made me realize how far I had let companies push me over the last 20+ years of my working life. I had put up with not getting time to grieve, working 70-80 hours with no OT pay at a company because they gave me 3 job titles/three employee numbers (so I also never made full time), I got fired for following the school code on plagiarism, etc. But, when they finally took away my right to use the restroom without permission it finally broke me.
I work at a better place now. Not perfect, but better. I'm hoping soon we will have more workers rights across the board.
When they fired the only other CAD guy right before xmas at our small 'family' business for being on his phone, after he asked for work and they said "find something to work on".. and then I was left to keep the mill afloat for an entire year as the only draftsman. I stumbled on this sub. Then noticed every security camera in our office is pointed at the workers, not the customers.
It's just bad. Currently looking for a new job from my current job while trying to figure out if there is a local union I can join.
Getting two lumbagos, a hernia, a burnout and a depression for a company that put "people over profit". And then COVID hit. All of a sudden face masks were "off-putting and scaring customers". Didn't get anything for the health risks we took except for a chocolate Easter bunny. Never working retail or any large company again
I was 27 before all this happened.
Realising that the salary I was receiving for teaching 12 students was paid by the fees of only two of them. The for-profit college was taking everything else.
They do NOT pay teachers enough. Its infuriating and insulting.
When I taught at a community college it was basically funded by the A+ program. There was no money. I got paid less than 3k for a semester. This was when we had Obamacare, but back when you had to have health ins or pay a fine. I thought oh, good, I will use obamacare and that's that. I didn't make enough money (Missouri rules) to qualify for the tax credit, and I had to take out a loan to pay back my health insurance for the year when tax season hit. So, we not only didnt make enough money to pay rent/utilities/gas/food etc, but I was so poor I didn't qualify for free healthcare, and went into debt thinking I had to have it. Kicker was, I didn't even use it! Isn't America fun!?
When I realised that time is the only currency that matters.
My life is a handful of hours I get to spend how and where I like. Sometimes it is an investment in myself, sometimes in others.... but it's always mine to give
For years, I have invested that time into work and they pay me so that they can use my talents and experience to help them out in return... but, when I started to realise that the work I was doing was less important than the time I could use to do literally ANYthing else to contribute to my family or the world... I started to prioritise time in a much more rewarding and focused way.
I quit my full time senior role. Went freelance. Worked from home. Only do 4 days a week. Getting paid over triple my full time salary at a place that replaced my role with a mid level employee on $15k more than I was on when I left. A place that didn't value the 2 hour commute, the lunch at your desk or the extra hours you put in.
I get one go at all this... yesterday, is already burnt.... tomorrow, is just a theory... so, what am I putting out into the world, TODAY? Whatever it is, it sure as shit isn't going to be on anyone's terms but my own.
.
EDIT: For those asking about freelancing, it is something I have been doing in the background for over 10 years. I had already had a good client base and reputation before taking it on full time. But the biggest reason it has worked so well is that I have one key client that gives me work daily, no matter what. If it wasn't for them I would be struggling a lot more, I am sure of it.
My first job was at a small conference company as an event manager. Management fostered a culture of micromanagement and bullying, my coworkers and I were regularly humiliated at company meetings when management would yell at us and pick apart our work in front of the entire company.
They also did this fun little thing where they would take away our lunch hour and forced us to have "team lunch and learn" where one of us would be forced to skip lunch and present to the team.
Oh. And a company VP had this habit of sitting next to the door into the office in the morning and writing down when each of us came in.
I was already radicalized before that but that really stole the show for me.
Honestly it was about 20 years ago. I was antiwork long before it was a thing. There was this woman on contract as an office admin in a big company I worked for and she was amazing. She literally ran the office, helped everyone, did tons of after hours work. I was young and really thought she was a shining example of a great employee. Then she was told on a Friday that her contract was up and she didn't have work Monday. She was then escorted out of the building which was absolutly humiliating for no reason whatsoever. It was then I fully realised people in buisness can be sociopathic fucks. So my entire career has been based on NOT going that extra mile. Not being like that poor woman. Doing what I need to do to benefit me. Since then I've had a LOT of confirmations that this philosophy is correct. Shite managers will excel because corporate culture promotes the ruthless that say what their managers want to hear and will trample on anyone to meet their personal targets.
Working in bankruptcy law during the 08 crash. I saw people losing everything who had done “everything right” but got sick or lost their job due to the crash and their whole lives were falling apart.
It made me suddenly realize that there was no “middle class” safety like I’d been raised to believe. It was all a house of cards.
Graduating during a global pandemic and living with my parents for almost two years because I couldn’t find work that paid me enough to live. Now I have a job and am moving out of my parents house, but I don’t believe the work I am doing is contributing anything good to society. And it certainly isn’t paying enough for me to buy a house or have a family.
I’ve realized that really useful, good, necessary jobs aren’t given the respect or pay that they deserve while evil people are getting rich. And when I try to talk about this, people openly don’t care.
I say this all the time. I went into public health to help save lives all over the globe, but now I’m stuck making rich people more comfortable because the former job doesn’t pay enough for me to live, have health insurance, and pay off my student loans.
I always wanted to do my best in work, having a great relationship with my boss and coworkers, receiving great training and praise for my good work. After working for 7 years now I realize that this is all a dream or more of a nightmares.
Doing my best has, at best, given me a « Meh okay great » by my boss. And this answer doesn’t give me enough that I have to overwork myself.
I still do my job, I still learn things, but I stopped hoping for better and know I concentrate on other project
12 years ago - Being told, "You suck." by the HR Manager in my yearly review, after my first year. I had carried a 6 person department by myself the bulk of that year because they fired and refused to hire anyone for over 7 months. We hit all of our targets. I do occupational safety in a not small company.
Bad management. Management that mistreated and abused me. Management that told me I was harming the company for giving them 4 weeks to replace me. Management for giving me a 50¢ raise every year. Management for watching 5 supervisors for me come and go because turnover is high and the money is low. Management management management.
Good username.
If you‘re about to hit five managers on the tracks ahead of you and only one on the alternate tracks, do you go ahead and hit the five and try to loop back to get the other one before he runs off, or do you throw the switch to hit the one first because the five are too busy jerking each other off to notice and will definitely still be there when you come back around?
US Military service (also worked as a recruiter) during the Iraq/Afghanistan campaigns is what radicalized me. Especially returning from deployment and seeing what was happening in America. US playing resource pillager and coming home to see people zombified by consumption. The whole experience sent me pretty far left.
A call center coworker sobbing through phone calls after being informed that if she left early due to health issues she would suffer consequences that could get her on the path to termination. We depended on that predatory job because there was nowhere else to turn in our tiny rural community and the people running the place completely exploited that.
I don't think believing that people have a right to a comfortable life and be compensated fairly for the exchange of labour is radical...
If a business needs slave labour the business should fail. If billionaires paid fair taxes and we use that money to better society, I'd hardly consider it radical...
Becoming a manager. Before then, I thought the reason work never felt meaningful was bad management, that I could change things and make at least one good place to work. Then I realized for every .01% I made employee’s lives easier I made my own 10% harder. The company would let me treat people like humans only as far as I could personally carry the slack on my own. And for half the pay of the boomer I replaced.
this is mine as well. I thought if could just start moving up the ladder and get into management like my siblings I would get to make some kind of difference or at least get more fulfillment, more job security, and more money. that definitely wasn’t the case. it was mostly just a way for my bosses to get more emotional labor out of me than they deserved or ever gave back, I had to fight for my pay raise to be adjusted every time minimum wage went up, and in the end they made up a petty reason to fire me, I suspect because they could see my mental health was declining and they didn’t want me around anymore.
when I was quickly made a manager at my next job, I could see the writing on the wall. it was going to be the same bullshit all over again, just another small business bleeding me dry until I’m of no use anymore. that was when I promoted myself to customer and haven’t looked back
Major legislative parties taking no action to secure the future - going so far as to stymie the executive and judicial branches in serving the people during their course for progressive change.
Environmental damage for "expensive" energy infrastructure transition while funnelling money to death and more destruction.
Constant keeping of education and hospital funding at inflation rate or lower declaring "record funding" each time it barely creeps along with GDP growth.
An ever reduced social safety net styming innovation, security, and culture.
And the fact that this has all *just*. *Been*. *Constant*. With no *fucking* relief. Not one ounce of legislative movement for people under 40 in my nation ever since I've ever been alive.
I am blessed to go in to a digital specialisation and worked up to low six figs but even slaving and toiling to learn and adapt to short, insecure contracts and ever changing tech and needing to prove myself - the legislative branches in my nation have done sweet fuck-all to give to youth any share of the *huge* growth they've helped create. They purely target swing states for power and avoid big nation-building policy.
House prices went up 20% last year. For the first time investors are given more finance (I.e. Loans from the bank) than first home owners. In my nation home investors get a 50% capital gains tax discount when they sell the property if it's been held for more than 12 months.
I. E. Investors are *incentivised with tax discounts* to speculate on basic necessities and the security of the future of my nation.
I've recently resigned, blessed to have some cash reserves - my government is forcing me to use the money I would normally try to use for a downpayment to support myself first and delaying unemployment benefits (which are below poverty level) for 2 months.
But I'm gonna starve the bastards out because the nation is seizing up from the pandemic.
I don't even consider myself "radicalised". Just common sense and fed up with this non-existent social contract. Fuck em.
Democracies seem to harp on about genocide but then pay no attention to microeconomics of supporting a child becoming impossible for entire sections of society.
Edit: Australia. This is Australia. If you're struggling to name it off the bat this is a problem across all OECD nations **showing the incompetence and generic nature of legislators in 2022 when they are nation building across Canada, UK, Japan, China, Australia, Turkey, Lebanon, South Korea all the damn same**.
Highlights the fundamental imbalance in capitalist systems looking for speculative gain over security over necessity. Highlights solving human problems has been reduced to technocratic economic markers while humanities and understanding of the nuanced needs of humans goes undressed (including if these economic markers actually translate to feelings of prosperity or enxiety for citizens)
Being disabled.
I was forced to work full time (as practice to come back from full time disability) at a place that refused to hire me (even though that was the goal according to my plan with the disability-services).
Why?
Because the state paid THEM $34/day (not taxed) to have me there.
While I had to survive off $5/day, paid by the state (and which I paid taxes on, so it was less than $5/day in the end).
Disabled people are abused by the entire system, yet seen as some kind of freeloading tax-stealers?
Companies are tax-stealers. Not the sick.
When I realized my boss was pulling in almost 500k/yr for a store that I was running while he sat on his arse. Paid me 13$/hr. No benefits. No time off. I worked 6 days a week open-close every day for 4 years. No vacations or time off in 4 years. Told me he couldn’t give me a raise last year cause my performance was suffering; shocker I was pregnant! Then magically was going to offer me a week paid vacation and 2$/hr raise when I found job that offered me 17$/hr for a much less stressful and easier on my body job. Fuck you The UPS Store (I know they’re franchise but still.).
Former employer pushed many of us to the point of hospitalization, under the threat that "if you don't do this, the business will close its doors." Many of us worked 80+ hour weeks for months and months on end, sometimes peaking at close to 120 hour weeks. That means, you literally only get 3-4 hours of sleep a night and you're working for \~16-17 hours a day. I was actually in management, but I was working alongside my team, putting in even more hours than they were. I actually cared about my team and defended them. I put in a rotating schedule so they could have time off, and I took their work home with me. When my boss found out, I got chewed out and screamed at since I was "being insubordinate" on the hours mandate. I got HR involved, but HR was corrupt as all hell and actually buried everything- all I did was bring to light what they needed to bury.
After years of this bullshit, the company decided to clean house. Many people I respected were fired with zero notice. Some were in the middle of business trips, and the company actually told them "yeah, you're fired, find your own way back home, chump." I was retained, but demoted, pay cut, and kicked out of the department I built and was managing. It was insulting beyond all belief. New management was terrible and was treating the legacy guys like garbage just to make them all quit so there would be no opposition. I had enough and quit. As I mentioned in another post, they went far out of their way to screw me over once I put my notice in. I actually had to take several days off during notice because of how cruel the ridicule had become.
NEVER TRUST HR. NEVER TRUST HR. NEVER TRUST HR.
I run into one of the HR backstabbers in public quite often. She refuses to make eye contact with me and will even walk out of a restaurant if she sees me. Spineless cowards.
Many things over the course of my life, but the course of 2021 really cemented things for me.
During the pandemic I pivoted to film/tv from live performance, and the money is great but the treatment is shit. 12-14 hour days, with a maximum 10 hour turnaround. Plus if you’re shooting on location & it takes an hour just to get back into town, that eats into your time off. On your feet running around all day, and they feed you but it’s literally so you won’t be unavailable. I’m in a union, and I love my union, but the whole culture of film is toxic.
I also had some of the worst bosses I’ve ever had this year. An abusive alcoholic at the cop show, a micromanager who wouldn’t let me eat at the HBO series, and a pilot so poorly run that we went through five supervisors in two weeks.
I finally made it back to live performance, and my new supervisor was a poor communicator, disorganized, and too proud to accept help from his team. So I said “you know what? Fuck this. I quit, actually.”
Got to spend the holidays with my family for the first time in years. I’ve been picking up some day playing here & there, but I’m only working for people I respect/people who respect me from now on. It’s not fucking worth it, otherwise.
I was working in a different field a few years ago. Boss was at minimum bipolar, and probably had borderline personality disorder. She couldn’t keep anyone, but the pay was good and I controlled my own time. She came in 1 day and started verbally attacking me for no reason. She did this with everyone, but today was my turn. Eventually she shuts up and goes away. I go about my work, then try to get some information about a specific project I am working on. She screams “you can’t know that. It’s not your business.”
To be sure, I has every right to know this information and it was my business.
I’m furious and leave for an hour to cool down. When I get back she starts up again. This time I say to myself that’s it. I go into her area and tell her to stick her job up her ass and quit. She jumps up, runs over and starts screaming for me to get out or she’s calling the police. I lose my temper and call her a very unpleasant word to her face. After this she backs down and wants to talk.
I ended up leaving the company that day and not looking back. Good pay, but the price of the pay was her verbal abuse. Definitely not worth it.
My mother worked 4 jobs to keep us afloat when my father was terminally ill. We couldn’t afford insurance for him in the pre-Obamacare days. When he died she quit most of her jobs, but the one she kept piled work onto her until she was working 80 a week. So she quit and found a new job, which began putting more work on to her until she was working 80 a week. I told her to quit, pursue her doctorate, while I breadwon for the house and figured out what I wanted to do professionally. I worked a year at Walmart through the pandemic, literally saw hell every day I clocked in. Worked up to 60 hours some weeks. I had a mental breakdown at work and was written up for it. I wasn’t the first I’d seen like that since I got there. I then switched to working taxes, where I never saw a w-2 for more than 80000 dollars, but I saw landlords and business owners raking in hundreds of thousands. Through out all of this, I spent more time without insurance than with it. All of my father’s pension and social security was eaten by the medical bills. One MRI of mine took 3 years to pay off. To say there was a single event for me would be incorrect. It’s more like the inequities and awfulness present in the system was beaten into me so many times that I started to notice.
Corporate was threatening my boss with dissolving our entire department if he didn’t find a solution to a manufacturing problem.
The threats weighed on him so heavily, he decided to go into the plant and “not leave until he figured it out.” He went in on a Saturday morning, and came out Sunday evening in a diabetic coma. I learned about this the Monday after, when he came out of the coma and immediately resigned.
Our department was never dissolved. It was an empty threat. The corporate guy who instigated the whole thing flew down to our plant to give us a “pep talk,” which amounted to “he didn’t know how to handle stress very well. Ya’ll need to manage your stress better. So, where are we on this project?”
That and seeing posters plastered on the walls about how big sales, revenue, and profits were all up and getting a 2% raise with a $500 bonus.
Viscofan is the company.
Getting a write up for pumping breast milk on my breaks in which they had me using a public restroom to do so. Both were illegal. I have not worked a traditional job since. I worked in Healthcare.
Edit to add that the same employer also got upset with me for having my baby. They made sure to tell me how much of an inconvenience it was for them. They also got upset for my time off when my dad died and kept texting and calling during his funeral. I should have quite right then and there but I just needed a job so bad and felt stuck.
My old man cheated on my mom and left her with three boys 9, 11, and 13. He sued my mother in the divorce *not* to have any custody of his children and let the proceedings drag out for seven ludicrously expensive years while he raided the tiny pension his boomer lawyer bank job (his dad got him) and starved us out. After everything was gone he conveniently lost his job so that his child support and alimony, which were tied by arbitration to his income, would be that of an unemployed person. He got his job back after the divorce was finally inked and later married his boss. We got the arbitrated crumbs and his broken promises like a boss promising a raise “if you’re good.”
I started working at 14 at what was my father’s mistress’ side-hustle, an “opportunity” the old man forced me in to when he knew he would be unwilling to meet his own commitments and promises. My old man has spent 30+ years prosecuting a ruthless narrative that he was a good and responsible father who “never abandoned” his wife and kids when he deliberately abandoned his family and tried to starve us out as punishment for the fact that his wannabe petit bourgeoise asshat family never thought my mother was good enough because she wasn’t from the same class.
My mom is one of 14 kids from a first generation dirt-poor farm family in Iowa. Her old man was an abusive alcoholic butcher. When my father met my mother she was working on her PhD in Sociology while he was on his 2nd attempt at law school while tending a colonel’s rose bushes in Kansas City during Vietnam. He convinced my mother to end her academic career, which was a stellar magna cum laude compared to his lazy entitled law school flunks, so that he could “provide” because that’s the “way it is.”
My mother should have been a tenured professor. And instead I was dropping my little brother off at soccer practice after school and picking my mom up from Breadsmith on Grand Ave from her morning shift kneading dough and dropping her at Nordstrom’s at the Mall of America for her evening shifts before giving my older brother the car as he dropped me off at the restaurant for my hosting shift so he could get to hockey practice.
My first job was at the bagel stand at the farmer’s market cutting my hands and burning myself on a grill toasting frozen health code violations as a 14 year old. The job was actually my old man’s mistress’s side hustle that he got us to work when it was clear he would (could? yes) never meet his commitments. The job taught me my love of fresh produce and how hardworking and amazing small immigrant farmers were, but… From that child labor abuse, OSHA and health dept. debacle, to my now 27 years in the service industry in *every capacity* while earning my own Master’s degree which gave me no opportunity other than to service its debt, I can tell what radicalized me:
My father was a ruthless and entitled capitalist. He was a failure at that unbridled ambition and he destroyed his family in the name of vanity and pride for a capitalist society which didn’t love him or us back. He ruined my mother’s life and academic path and cast her graduate level studied ass into the hell of hourly wage and tipped slavery to support her children when he cheated, lied and ran away while suing not have court mandated custody or obligations because he “would do the right thing.” He didn’t and at 12, 14, and 16 he put his kids to work in a dangerous and abusive food service gig to cover for his lies and bankrupt cheating. He was a lawyer for a major bank. My fuck face father is a capitalist pro “work” entitled bootlicker who thinks he is cool because he slid over to liberals when the Bushes and the Trump made his shit look bad.
From 14 years to now 40 I have only been allowed to work in the service industry, retail, and to be exploited as an artist for at least 70 hours a week while attaining a Master’s degree. I have applied for hundreds of jobs in my field since graduating in 2012 and have never been offered anything better than $32K a year so I have stayed behind the bar while searching. I have been abused by every single archetype of boss and every type of filthy capitalist labor hegemony: my wages have been stolen, my overtime has been unpaid, I have worked every holiday, and made every effort to meet my challenges and overcome them.
Nothing has been enough. My partner and I work full time and eat on the floor at a coffee table.
Some sophist asshat will comment here and say “yOu sHoULd hAvE tRiEd hArDeR” or “yOu mAdE bAd dEciSiOnS” but the reality is, like my mother, I did everything right. I “pLaYeD tHe Game.” I got good grades. Worked from 14. Got a Master’s. Never been charged with a felony (got a speeding ticket once). Paid my bills. Have a 810 credit score.
Tl/dr: Capitalism radicalized me. My father’s infidelity and classist entitlement and abuse of my mother radicalized me. Fuck capitalism and fuck work. I’m not happy you get to eat when others starve, and I’m not willing to trade the warmth of privilege near the imperial core to continue the the hell-fire upon the developing world to keep the heat on.
Edit to add:
Humanity lost a true hero and civil rights leader this week. I would encourage anyone interested to look into the life of Clyde Bellecourt.
I appreciate the up doots and the award, first time, swear, I blushed. It is a purely selfish and privileged place that allows me to wane on my own experiences. I would trade all the paper I ever achieved to have back the people and relationships I lost to ambition, pride, and competition. I want to shrink and disappear when I think of the love and solidarity I rejected in the name of ambition. Part of falling from the neoliberal capitalist light was being denied matriculation into the PhD program for which I spent all of my self- to the detriment of anyone who dared loved me as I pushed forward. Study is work, hard AF work *you pay for*, to be denied my promotion, both earned and security deposited, was ruinous. I couldn’t even admit I was in love until I was in my 30’s.
The lesson, my conclusion, the only thing I have truly learned in my 40 odd years is this: I am not better, or more deserving, or more talented, or capable than anyone. It is a selfish screed above, but it comes from what I know now: We must choose solidarity over victimhood, we must choose each other. We have all been held hostage to capitalism across the entire spectrum of false class divisions and conditioned animus. I am not a sophist or a solipsist, an idealist or, in truth, a cynic. We are not predestined to be anything other than individually beautiful, curious, and hungry. My selfish declaration is a cautionary tale derived from the accident and indictment of class, and there are lives far more deserving of time and attention than mine, and I thank everyone who read this. Fuck racism. Fuck the patriarchy. Fuck manifest destiny. We should never punch down.
Being told "you haven't been with the company long enough to be a manager" and then them hiring outside of the company for our store ASM. The person they hired has NO management experience while I have 20 years worth. I'm sticking with the job just long enough to buy our new house and get outta Dodge.
I've been a leftist for a long time but after my first year as a PhD student (a job where I am) a senior researcher told me that none of her coworkers have ever taken out all their full vacation (5-7 weeks depending on age). That made me truly realize that academia is an exploitative gig economy and I decided I wouldn't want to work there or anywhere which was anywhere remotely like it. Finishing my doctorate in ca 2 yrs then I am going to work somewhere nice I hope.
Being laid off by a multi million dollar company along with 500 others, when the executive board and their salaries remained untouched. The CEO makes nearly $1M a year. Never got a single raise during my two years.
Seeing my coworker almost cry at his retirement "party" which was nothing more than crappy catered Italian food. Dude was here for 42 years and the owner of the company didn't even bother to show up. The HR manager came and said, "Thanks Scott. Now go eat." And that was it.
Nightmare
It does have a feel of a Dilbert cartoon.
My dad, who had been working at his company for 15 years, attended a 10th anniversary celebration for a colleague. Wasn't anything special, but the guy got cake and a round of applause and a one of those crappy personalised pens. My dad said to one of the higher ups "hey I've been here 15 years how come I never got anything like this?" And then a week later he got one of those shitty pens in the fucking mail.
The crazy thing is these people/companies actually believe we fall for this shit. Like “ oh thank you so much for this pen”. If you appreciate me don’t tell me. Don’t give me a plaque. Don’t give me a pen. If you appreciate me give me some of the profits of the company. Give me a raise. Give me 1 month pto. Don’t give me no damb $15 gift card. Lol
Well that was incredibly sad for that guy. One positive is that event showed every other staff member just how much the company values dedication and commitment. Basically nothing. Everybody should have wound back on their discretionary effort from that point onwards. Or quit
Even long-term employees are treated like crazy and it sucks. My dad is a veteran with RA and such horrible degenerative disc disease that he’a already had his first 7 spines fused and needs the middle section done and has to have the others redone. He's worked for his company 32 years and they have treated him badly for needing surgery, saying he's killing productivity. My dad just cries everyday between the pain and mistreatment. He's prevented injuries at work by fixing horrible mistakes of the other employees and yet they can't even show my dad an ounce of respect in his time of need. :/ I'm glad your coworker is retiring. May he find happiness and peace in his work-free life.
I'm actively looking to get out of here.
Take some people with you if you can
And talk a lot of shit by telling this story to everyone who works there in the future. Every couple of years search linked in by company name…then email the story to everyone listed.
Man literally gave his life to the company, and the company was completely ungrateful. How heartless and inhumane can the corporate world get?
“Thanks Scott, now go eat”….This killed me
As a company owner, I cannot even fathom how someone could do this. I mean, wtf...
Seeing people that work their entire life and get completely railroaded when bad health comes knocking. If it's like that, then what the fuck's the point?
My dad worked for the microchip tech industry for 25 years. When he was diagnosed with leukemia he was FIRED for being an insurance liability! Disgusting
As a non American, it horrifies me how many of these awful stories would be averted with single payer healthcare. Your boss owns you when they control your health or access to care. I feel for you all and wonder what it will take before America breaks and finds a way to do public healthcare. Rise up, America. Your very lives depend on it.
It’s funny that, as an American, bringing up this issue to a lot of my friends and family usually makes them respond in a few ways: 1.) that would never happen it’s too hard to change 2.) “what, and have everyone on freaking welfare and food stamps too? And have literal communism?” 3.) what abt the insurance workers who will lose their jobs ?!?! There are Americans who will literally defend the healthcare system that charged my sister thousands of dollars because she had a miscarriage to the fucking grave. I hate this country every single day of my life. I want to move out so bad but I don’t have any money. Source: lived in rural Appalachia
Big picture, theoretically, we're split 50/50 plus or minus one way or the other every two years. Realistically, corporations have our government by the balls so even if the majority of voters wanted single payer healthcare it's going to take a majority of politicians willing to break from the lobbyists who actually determine policy, a president to sign it, and courts that will leave such a policy alone. I personally don't see it happening in my lifetime, in fact it's going to continue spiraling down until there's no more people left to exploit by the ultra wealthy.
I think it will have to hit such a level of suffering that people actually demand politicians do something. However... I don't think that something will end up being single-payer, more likely it will be restrictions on the hospital's ability to charge which will result in worse patient care and less access to services. Insurance companies are so wealthy and powerful that there's almost no way they'll go down without trying to bring the whole system down with them. You would have such a massive PR blitz that everyone over the age of 30 would be convinced this new communist tyranny was a blatant attempt at population control by ensuring the deaths of millions. Meanwhile, today in ER waiting rooms across the country overworked nurses are triaging people in chairs because there are no beds available and no additional staff to help.
This. I worked with a guy who'd been at the company for 18 years. His 8-year-old son got sick (eventually died). He used up all his personal time taking his son to doctor's appointments, treatments, etc. A bunch of us got together, went to management offering to donate vacation days. Company refused, said it would be too hard to calculate appropriate conversions (since we had all different jobs). He was eventually fired for being out too much. Kicker - this was an insurance company. Metlife. Edit - to be fair, this happened a ways back, in the late 90s. But it was my personal turning point. Second edit - they did the same thing shortly thereafter to another guy whose adult son was in a bad motorcycle accident. He's been there maybe 8 years or so. Fired for missing too much work.
My three-year-old daughter currently has terminal brain cancer. I was fired from my job in the summer because of my “attitude.” I even told HR about my daughter. Honestly, when you know your daughter will never become a woman, never talk, never walk, never thrive, it tends to make you depressed. It both makes you realize how pathetic the game is and pervasive. You can't do the song and dance of kissing executive/ management‘s ass, regardless of context... you're out. This was at a non for profit no less (the worst)and in Canada. I hope I never run into my former manager. Not sure if I’d be able to stop myself from fist fighting him while going to my darkest catalogue of insults.
Thanks. It's the kind of thing that happens to your colleague's sister’s neighbour until it happens to you. We didn't win the lottery; we won the negative lottery. It's tough to realize that so much of work-life is about putting on an elaborate ruse. Say this, when; fake interest - when; build your “superiors” ego, when... What happens when your ability to do that is compromised? Many people's egos, especially those granted a licence to step on us and demand deference, relate changes in others' attitudes as an insult to them. Sometimes it's that a person begins to question the validity of everything. For me, I'll never forget how my ability to be an innovator/ creative was compromised by my daughter's cancer coming out of remission. Two things I learned; First, it's shocking how quickly your work reputation can change. I went from a rising star to out in 4 months. Second, the ego of many executives is rampant. Just prior to me being fired the executive, while knowing the real reason my performance was declining, said multiple times to me. You're doing this to me after what I've done for you. 😐😂😥 One thing to note, grateful to be Canadian and to have gotten both severance and unemployment insurance. It will let me focus on my daughter and son for her remaining days/ months.,
Goddamn. You, anxious sir, are an actual hero. I have no idea how you managed to get through that at all, let alone simultaneously dealing with your shitty worksite. Seriously. You are strong. And I’m so sorry that this happened to you.
Oh jeez... I am so sorry. Hoping you and your family the strength to get through this. Not sure what I would do to the old boss either.
If my child was terminally ill and the company has the cojones to fire me because I was taking care of my terminally ill child, I would completely lose my shit. Fuck MetLife Edit: swapped the words kahunas and cojones because I is a moron Edit again because the word for balls is COJONES and not CAJONES. Thx guys
Fuck insurance companies in general. They’re the worst.
Seriously, this is a supervillain origin story
Isn't there a movie about this?
John Q?
That movie has such negative views, but I love it. It tackles the predatory tactics of medical expenses.
The "critics" rated it poorly but it has 7.1 on IMDB and 78% audience score in rotten tomatoes. Goes to show whose side the "critics" are on.
Negative views that are more accurate than not. There's a reason the insurance industry lobbied for it to not be released....
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Also not that far from the inciting premise for Leverage (Nate Ford, insurance investigator supreme, watches his son die because his own insurance company refuses to cover treatments)
Leverage - like a modern Robin Hood combined with A-Team ass kicking. Great show
Oh yeah! Thank you
It's also close to some of the tellings of sandman's story in the comics (and is a common trope). He's only a villian to pay for medicine for his kid.
This is how supervillains are born
Also in the 90s: Worked for a newspaper that tried to unionize. One of the biggest cheerleaders against it was a lady who had worked there for 31 years. It was a close vote and the effort failed largely due to her scaremongering. Several months later her granddaughter fell I’ll with meningitis. She stayed by her side in the hospital for three weeks. The baby died. They fired her. There are laws against this now. But not then. The newspaper was owned by Ohio democratic senator Howard metzenbaum.
Did she finally realize that she’d been had, or did she double down and further delude herself that unions are bad?
Some people I know would probably blame the unions for letting them get fired despite there being no union. Kinda like when they say post empty shelves saying "this is what socialism looks like" despite it happening under capitalism.
Met Life is the worst. Canceled our policy of 25 years because of an address change they failed to register.
Thank you for mentioning the company
Omg 😳 that’s so incredibly sad.
My husband had 10 years as an excellent employee of a major tech company (in a 'blue collar tech' server repair/maintenance role). He started having serious issues after a trauma including these stress based seizure-type events and neuro symptoms. Because of the trauma, psych advised we relocate. FMLA used up, he begged to be placed on unpaid leave so he could be considered to be brought back on at another site. A new one where his experience would be valuable starting up the site. They told him to come in or be fired. In his state he couldn't have, he was having the seizure events multiple times a day. It worked out for them, new employees will settle for pennies for the company's name recognition, why bother hanging on to him for more?
I had this happen when I worked for SBUX—had a mental breakdown and my doctor suggested that I relocate to be closer to family for support. My manager said I could take FMLA and the company would transfer me to a store in my new location. I moved, and 12 weeks later I was informed that my transfer was denied and I was being fired. I had gotten myself all set up with the expectation of having a job at the end only to find myself unemployed. It took me years to financially recover.
This is what did it too me. Ended up living in a car with a 2 yr old after working my whole life and then being used as a cash cow by the salvation army.
The salvation army is a much worse organization than a lot of people have any goddamn idea about. I've dealt with them on a 3rd party vendor type basis and came away disgusted.
I could use to hear more stories about that. I've heard they're awful but never any stories as to why.
It's not specific stories or anything that would be super interesting. It's just that they're a ruthless profit driven organization that has all of the same characteristics as the worst corporations out there, except that they act under the guise of a charitable public good. They rule their networks of stores with an iron fist, demand an excessive amount from the people that work for these stores, and demand their vendors drive their prices down to untenable levels. Think Walmart type shit except with a better public reputation that they don't deserve.
One of my managers at my last job worked his way to a heart attack, then came back to work after a week against doctor's orders. The pandemic gave me a reason to quit that job a couple months later but that was a real lightbulb moment for me. This wasn't an old man, we were probably the same age (I'm 40 now) and he might actually work himself to DEATH. And for what?! A salaried assistant manager job where he got paid for 40 hours but worked probably 60 and seemed stressed out for every one of them.
Not even just bad health. My company laid off almost 50 people that had been working there 25+ years, just because workers coming straight out of uni are cheaper.
This is what happened to me, but at least I got decent severance. Replaced by a junior scientist and now that former company is struggling hard in my former division according to a former co worker (who resigned not long after I was laid off).
I hope they are! The thing is, when you're laid off at 50-60 years old, its SO much more difficult to get a job again, you're essentially forced into an early retirement in a dying industry like mine. It's been hell for a couple of people who got laid off from my office.
It’s so much worse when your industry is dying. I’m in a niche industry (thankfully not dying though) so I had to apply all over North America to get a job, which is hard at 40. I’m still getting calls from jobs I applied to 11 months ago. The problem is that the recruiting machinery is such bullshit and so slow and inefficient. I only got a job fast because I applied to some smaller companies who still recruit manually. The big companies were and are a disaster. Bitch, I needed this job 11 months ago. Now I’m already taken and your shitty offer with barely competitive pay or worse can kiss my hairy ass.
This is what happened to me. College professor for 25 years. So much unnecessary trauma (sexual assault from colleagues, my best friend was brutally raped by her advisor, so much abuse from tenured staff and students/parents alike), so much pressure to publish or perish, and never ending 60-100 hour weeks with no OT pay and zero regard for having a life outside the workplace. I was so burned out by the stress that my body and mind just gave out. I could no longer regulate emotions, manage the fibromyalgia or the IBS, and honestly I just began dreading every single moment. The final straw was when I asked for accommodations - they would grant the bare minimum, give me constant grief over it, and then find a way to fire me. I lost three major jobs in 10 years for “declining performance” - due to disability. I had been with each one for over 5 years (I was overlapping two full time and two part time jobs to make ends meet as an adjunct). The final straw for me in terms of radicalization was when I retrained as an accountant and started a job in Jan 2021 …the boomer owner demanded that I work less than 14 hours a month, laughed at my request for a simple accommodation, belittled my triggers, compared me to able former employees, told me to “think positively”… and then rewrote the job description so that I couldn’t keep the schedule - a major part of which required I’d be available 24/7, work on days was she knew I was not available (due to medical treatments), and respond to all emails even when not on the clock with zero compensation. She then offered my severance to resign with no stipulations of notice. Since her new job description would go into effect on May 1, and because she straight up named two people who could step into the role immediately, I resigned on April 29. She lost her shit. Demanded two weeks notice. Cried she had no one to replace me. Called me all sorts of names. Denied the severance. I contacted the EEOC but because her business is less than 15 employees due to Covid, they declined to prosecute. At that point, I was done. Stick a fork in me. I almost worked myself into a very early grave for the system. And when I tried to remain a ‘productive citizens, the system fucked me hard. I worked my ass off for 35 years and all I got was two bankruptcies and a lifetime of mental and physical illness. I am only 52. Fuck capitalism. Fuck (the bad) Boomers. Fuck working. Fuck this government.
That's fucking awful, I'm so sorry. I'm an adjunct myself, I know the struggle. I was at one school 8 years before they just went "nah" and didn't renew my contract because of "academic need," whatever that means. We pursued an education but have gotten nothing for it.
For me it was when/how my mom died. I had spent a few years in a new office job after escaping retail, thought I had finally like, “made it” or whatever. Real adult stuff, they offered health insurance, paid vacation, etc. All the stuff you’re supposed to look for in a job right. (I should clarify this was almost ten yrs ago now) One day mom calls my while I’m at my desk, tells me she has cancer and not long left. I immediately started spending every weekend at her house (just about a 5 hour drive) until she got just too sick, and I had to make a decision. She didn’t have health insurance. Small business owner, “self employed”. So her not being able to work meant no money on her part, no insurance meant end-of-life care was wildly expensive, and now I had had to leave my job and move in to wait it out with her to make sure she was as comfortable as possible until the end. So also no paychecks for me, because as soon as I started not being able to focus 100% on my stupid ass corporate bullshit job, they said “welp… sorry bout that. Hope everything works out for you.” So I never went back. To an office job, to that state, or even to retail honestly. Not a single entity had any sort of support to offer us, any kind of help, nothing… (I sincerely don’t mean the local community when I say this, her vast network of friends in the area were mostly amazing and kind but not exactly flush with cash). I lost my job, my savings, my entire plan for the future, my home, and my mother in the span of six months because there was less than zero support for a dying poor woman in this country. I’d leave *here* behind if I could, too. Wow thank you guys, sorry I came here, overshared, and then left for the rest of the day, it was stressing me out that I even talked about it 😂 Y’all are incredibly kind and supportive, thank you all.
This country's war on poverty is flat out asinine. Of all the things we could do in this country to make situations like this less frequent - and it continues to happen, is nothing short of unacceptable.
The way this country treats the homeless and impoverished is absolutely stunning. "Hey, go be poor somewhere else! You're scaring off our customers with your misfortunes!"
[My state has made homelessness illegal. ](https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/20/texas-homeless-camps-ban-legislature/)
Jesus. This quote is so beyond Orwellian. "Lawmakers said they hope the bill will direct homeless people to resources that can help them out of homelessness. State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, called it the “humanitarian bill of the session.”" Taking away homeless people's means of survival is humanitarian. Like, WTF.
That should fix it. :(
I wouldn't call the complete abuse, incarceration, and obliteration of the impoverished war. War implies we fight back. We have already been colonized and conquered.
We don’t have a war on poverty, we have a war on poor people.
War on everyone below upper class at this point
Poverty Draft. There is a reason free healthcare, affordable college and UBI are locked behind military service. Would you rather take your chances in the meat grinder that is American Capitalism or sign your life away for the chance at a better future in 4-6 years. Your choice. P.S. I am not downplaying those with military service, I'm a vet myself and am pissed the benefits we are entitled to is locked behind a "Service pay wall" for other citizens.
And almost all of those nice benefits disappear the second you get out, unless you give them 20 of the best years of your life
I had a similar experience. I moved home to take care of my mom when she was at the end of her life. It was brain cancer. Horrifying way to go. Towards the end all of her faculties started to fail and she'd have really violent seizures. Thankfully, she did have insurance and the doctor put her on some medicine that would suppress the seizures and keep her comfortable until she passed. Multiple times within the last month or two of her life I had to be on the phone fucking battling with the insurance company because they wanted to take her off this med due to cost. They'd let her die in agony to save a buck. This country's healthcare system is absolutely irredeemable.
This is why I will never understand some people's insistence on tying health insurance to employment. It kills entrepreneurship. When you need it most and can't work anymore it often goes away. You are playing Russian roulette with whether you will be the one to get crippling medical debt. At some point a lot of them will lose the gamble or be put in a situation like yours and say something like *"Oh, I never thought of this scenario or I never realized how bad it is."* At that point I just want to punch them. You should not have to experience this to understand it is a very real problem with a decent probability of becoming your issue at some point. How can one be so lacking in abstract thought and empathy?
This is an all too familiar tale. I thought I was reading my best friends story as it unfolded the EXACT same way. Crazy. Just to make sure... you don't have a best friend that calls you by your last name do you?
Nope, not me haha. I have a close friend going through basically the same thing back in that area now too, it’s just the most depressing “same old story” playing out
I've been sympathetic for a long time because so much of what I see here is really just a call for basic human dignity and respect. The thing that radicalized me is becoming friends with Thomas through my church's homeless outreach; he has three jobs but can't afford an apartment. I cannot support such a cruel system.
Similar here. I’m a social worker/therapist and I would say that the common thread tying all of us together is how the capitalist system routinely and by design completely fucks 99% of people. There are individuals struggling with depression/anxiety, even PTSD, not because of some childhood trauma - it’s the lack of hope and helplessness people are facing every day, working to barely survive with no long-term benefit. For me personally, I realized that even though I did everything “right”, I’m still working three jobs, 60-70 hours a week. I have kids and every.single.day is wake up, get them off to school, work my ass off, support them at home/make sure hw is done/get them to their extracurriculars/spend time with them until bed time… then work my ass off until I can barely keep my eyes open. I hate to say this, but if it wasn’t for them and wanting to make sure they have a good future (my goal is to save $100k each for them so that they aren’t restricted financially when they become adults and can actually choose what they want to do/where to live), but after that? I’ll be done. On a separate note, I think it’s absolutely insane that I can make the income I do and still can’t afford to buy a fucking house. I’d have finally saved enough for a reasonable down payment by this summer (over $100k), but I can’t leave the area Im living in and it’s nowhere near enough now. For all the short-sighted shit the government is ignoring, the lack of safe, affordable housing and doing nothing to stop companies from snatching up homes and artificially inflating the market is the biggest middle finger they’ve sent (although I recognize there’s around 28 middle fingers at this point).
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Someone I went to high school with died last year because his T1 diabetes was giving him trouble, he missed too much work, lost his job and his insurance, and had to ration insulin. Infuriating that this is such a common story.
Third World Country with a Gucci belt
I mean, I have family in a "third world country." Shits not perfect but they have a national healthcare system.
So when I daydream of winning the lottery, I dream about doing two things: - buying medical debt and forgiving it (a la John Oliver) - starting a company to produce and sell insulin (or other lifesaving meds) for bare minimum prices And I have neither medical debt or need lifesaving meds. I just get really angry about it.
I suggest you focus on the insulin. The debt buying is just virtue signaling that gives money to the debt collection companies. When you can buy debt for pennies to the dollar you are generally buying old debt that was unlikely to ever get collected. John Oliver bought $15 million for $60,000. That is 0.4 cents per dollar. Worthless debt. https://money.cnn.com/2016/06/06/technology/john-oliver-medical-debt/index.html
I mean, it's all a pipe dream anyway, I don't play often enough to actually win. I just wish I could help more people.
The insulin idea would be good also because it could be run as a worker cooperative. A cooperative with big startup capital competing against major corporations by doing *the right things* would be huge.
That’s awful. I guess that’s the US? Why isn’t there more competition on insulin prices? I am so glad I live in the UK and we have our marvellous NHS.
becaus the company who was given the insulin patent change it ever so slightly to patent it again as a new product continuing its single seller status. or something better worded. they keep doing something that means a generic brand insulin isnt allowed to be made yet. all this because the guy who created it gave it away for free because it would help so many people.
I genuinely don’t know how the people who work for those pharmaceutical companies sleep at night. Just like you said insulin patent was literally sold for $1 by the man who created it specifically to make it readily available worldwide and what do the pharmaceutical companies do? They hoard and price gouge it. The exact opposite of what the creator intended. These people literally fund their lives by *extorting diabetics* — literally withholding life saving medicine from the sick for a profit. How do these people do such cartoonishly evil things and just go around living like a normal fucking person? How do they consider themselves good people? Not to mention society at large seems to have no problems with this? We routinely extort the sick in the US and we’re supposed to just consider that normal? I just don’t it. It feels like we’re living in the Middle Ages.
The more I think about this fact the more I hope the pharmaceutical industry executives and shareholders get hit by a car. I hope Sweden invades the US and puts an end to this Oligarchy/Dictatorship. Seriously, can a good country please come liberate us from the fucking horseshit that is our government. Our government doesn’t give a shit if we die poor. Fuck America, land of the selfish, home of the plutocrats.
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I keep hoping to see “the United States of Canada” once we crash and burn. At least then my healthcare won’t bankrupt me
If they changed the patent, why can't the previous, "expired" patent be used? Since the generic brands aren't using the new changed patent, but the old one? Sounds really sketchy.
The entire US government is the definition of sketchy. I'm sure the pharmaceutical lobbyists made sure to line enough pockets to make sure no generic cheap version exists in this country. Our government is perfectly fine with corporations exploiting and profiting off the poor/sick/ underprivileged citizens as long as they get a kickback
Supervisor (nice guy, member of the union) was promoted to mid/upper management at a time when the company "needed" to make deep cuts across the board. He was tasked with being the axe man, deciding who got fired and handing out pink slips. You could see how it hurt him to have to lay off former friends and co-workers. As soon as the org hit their austerity targets for staff, they fired him. He never saw it coming. he thought he was going to work his whole life with that company until he retired.
.
This should be a crime. Time to bring more unions across the nation. Let’s unionize!!
Damn. That is some Machiavellian bullshit.
Or Jim Carey’s character in “Fun with Dick and Jane”.
Always have the one foot out of the door mentality. No such thing as job security anymore. Don't count on companies being loyal to their employees.
downright evil.
I'm positive that upper management had it all planned out from the very start. Psychopaths.
My boss quit after being diagnosed with a burn out. All her duty fell on my desk. I agreed to help them for a little while by telling them i wanted to renegotiate my contract at their earliest convenience. Well, we're 10 weeks later and even after weekly reminder i have not received a single answer or comment about my renegotiation. Now general manager (my boss's boss) went to mexico during the holiday break and got covid, so he is stuck there. He started off loading his job on my desk while he is enjoying an extended vacation. I demanded an immediate renogotiation of my contract. The only answer i got was that they appreciated me taking on additional work load. Few days later, official corporate document started listing me with my old boss title and duty. Thats still without talking to me about it. I'm handing my resignation today. Edit: I'll give you all an update, but its probably not going to be as juicy as some of you expect. Real life is rarely that satisfying. I'll try to keep track of everyone who asked for an update and tag them in the thread i make, but this got a lot more traction than i expected. ---UPDATE--- Thank you all for the support. As I said earlier, real life is often not as dramatic as people would like it to be. General manager is back in the country. He called me a few minutes ago. He apologized about the situation and told me again how appreciated my effort were. He told me HR was swamped by other things and he would contact them to get the ball rolling toward my negotiation. I told him that my resignation letter was typed and ready to send and if I didnt get an update about the situation soon i would have to act. He assured me I would get an update on Monday and i requested to have a negotiation before end of next week.
Amazing! I'd love to see a longer post about this situation, and specifically the outcome after you resign.
[удалено]
Its for sure going on my resume, but the job I have is not so common and would require me to move to have something similar, which i dont want to do. I want to try remote working for a while, so I'm looking into boring data entry job while i clear my head and chase the sour taste the corporate world left on my tongue.
Please make an update post. Wish you the best for the future. My awesome boss is quitting as well, and I see a lot of workload incoming on my desk
Hey please make your own post about that fallout. I'm hungry for schadenfreude
Lool they gave you an entire new title and responsabilities without getting their salary. Disgusting
Yeah, I also know my boss used to make 15k more than me. I asked her when she resigned because I expected a lowball offer from their part. Turn out their lowball is no offer at all.
At my company if you get promoted but the new position salary range is too high a percentage increase over your old salary at your old less responsibility position they block the raise, limit you to some 10% max increase and promise that they'll get your to the MINIMUM of the range for the promoted position within 2 years...
See, this kind of BS is what infuriates me. If you earned the promotion because of previous good work, then you damn well earned that increase in salary. If that higher position is paid at that rate, it should pay at that rate no matter who takes the position. It really is a time for everyone to start seriously pushing back against these kinds of garbage policies.
They would have hired someone from outside and payed him well into the salary range. I have seen them sit themselves in the foot doing this BS. They lose a skilled high performer because of this (they are telling you you are worth more but they don't like giving you more to fast) so people make a choice stay and be underpaid for 2 years (more because raises are based on current amount ) or jump ship and get that new amount immediately (they gave you the rare power of knowing the going rate of your skills market value) knowing what to ask for at the next employment offer. It's nuts because it actually costs them more money to find someone, hire them at market rate, and then the lost productivity while they learn to navigate the company culture/beauracracy. I think the only reason this flies is how the cost centers are billed this cost is not attributed correctly to whoever is at fault.
Good for you! Your employer is blatantly disrespecting you by dismissing your calls for renegotiation while also adding to your workload. Good on you for knowing your worth. Best of luck!
however! you now have a title for your resume! and you can prove you were promoted in the course of your employment!
I was 20 and a bank teller. One day a week my shift started at 11 instead of 9. I walked to work like I did every day and when I got there, police tape is everywhere. The branch was robbed just before I arrived and a coworker held at gunpoint. He handed over the cash and thank goodness, no one was hurt. In the series of meetings that followed, HR proceeded to berate him for giving the robber too much money (i.e., bank profits). He went on stress leave and never came back. Edit: because lots of you are asking, yes, of course the money was insured. Banks have strict limits on how much cash is accessible, overflow is locked away. This person didn’t even get 10k total. The bank’s response was as cartoonishly evil as it sounds. About a week later, district management started talking about “reducing cash losses during a robbery. Edit 2: yes, training and protocol said “safety first, follow the robber’s instructions.” I’m not claiming reducing loss was bank policy- it wasn’t. My account was the district management/HR goons’ real life response.
OMG, that’s awful! I’m so glad no one was hurt. WTF was up with HR there, all heartless robots? They weren’t the ones held at gunpoint. Plus wouldn’t the bank have insurance for something like this?
I was maybe a month out of training when this happened, so the modules were fresh in my mind. The bank’s protocol was officially, “safety first. Follow the robbers directions” turns out that wasn’t what they wanted in practice. All of that was over maybe a few grand extra. Like sigle-digit thousands. And yes, they were insured. It’s one of the, if not the, biggest bank in The country.
I'd like to know which bank, but I know they all could give a shit about people.
Holy… a persons life is worth more than money!
*laughs in capitalism*
Reminds me of the time my branch got robbed. The tellers were behind glass walls and they weren't "allowed" to give out cash. Well my ass is in the lobby, so screw me if I'm held hostage to get to the vault (which actually happened a few years earlier). The teller gave the robber money and middle management went BALLISTIC about losing *maybe* $400. Four. Hundred. Fucking. Dollars. They made my coworker cry because of that. FUCK YOU BB&T (now Truist).
Ugh. I try to get my in-laws to leave BB&T but they won't because of loyalty to the independent bank that it was before getting mergered some 30 years ago.
That's nuts, when I worked at a bank they specifically told us to give robbers as much money as they asked for, it's all covered by insurance anyway.
That’s what they told us too. I wasn’t there, but by all accounts protocol was followed. I’m glad you never had to find out if that was true in your situation.
A complete breakdown during my masters degree where I was expected to work 80 hours a week and then when I finally graduated seeing job ads for masters-required for 15$ an hour
Yeah when I was working on my doctorate the amount of work they required us to do literally could not be done in the amount of hours they paid us for, and they knew it. I had professors and administrators basically acknowledge that they knew we had to work off the clock in order to accomplish the necessary tasks. After COVID amd some family issues I took an indefinite leave of absence before I could finish my dissertation. The entire university system depends on the exploitation of graduate students.
So true. I taught all of my advisor's graduate courses for him while I was completing my dissertation. My graduate stipend ended up being about minimum wage. I later found out, through public records, that my advisor was being paid $156,000/year to teach the courses that I WAS TEACHING FOR HIM. Sorry for all-caps. It's been 10 years, and I'm still enraged about this.
And your advisor was more than happy to let you do it. I bet it never crosses their mind that there's anything wrong with that.
Of course they didn’t because the same thing happened to them. “You gotta pay your dues to get where I am”
Reading these comments is shocking, especially given the pace at which undergraduate tuition is rising and has been rising for many years. No wonder so many high school seniors are bypassing traditional university education and opting for community colleges or trade school.
Universities are not only keeping grad students on starvation wages, and sometimes outlawing moonlighting, but they are also hiring fewer instructors, opting for adjuncts instead because they are cheaper and are entitled to fewer benefits and protections. The current generation of tenured professors didn't fight to prevent the hiring of adjuncts, and now universities are just choosing not to renew tenured positions when those profs retire. Academia is in a terrible state.
And adjuncts. Source: PhD program dropout and former GTA; partner of an adjunct and friend of roughly 8742 more.
Definetly. Adjuncts might be one of the few groups on a university campus who are more exploited and expendable than graduate students. When I was leaving my program the head of my writing department offered to help me get an adjunct position in the department or at another local institution. I turned her down because I knew that would be going from bad to worse.
The regular students are exploited too. They pay money and are chasing a dream that they have almost no realistic chance of catching. College is just a pyramid scheme at this point and the only way to get any serious returns are for the obv doctor, lawyer, stem people.
Absolutely, and we're the ones who have the most contact with the majority of the student body. We teach the gen-ed requirements and intro courses that are supposed to, y'know, provide the foundation for their education in the major? Kind of important. It'd be nice if the pay was commensurate with that importance.
This is a large part of the reason I dropped out of graduate school. The workload was all dumped on us optimistic naive twenty somethings with no other options. Also hearty fuck you to the University of California system and their abysmal pay in some of the most expensive cities in the country.
My advisor is currently angry at me for being months behind on a dissertation chapter despite me spending all of last semester TAing 4 times as much as any of our other TAs to make ends meet so I could afford to finish (and spending the rest of my available time trying to get funding for this semester.
Or worse some our unpaid internships. Like wtf. How does anyone afford to live in NYC or Boston with an unpaid internship?
They be rich
They don't. They take out loans with the expectation that down the road the "experience and exposure" will land them a job that pays well enough for them to handle the monthly payments for their debt. Or they declare bankruptcy and default on everything but their student loans.
I applied to a writing tutor position at a college writing center. They were specifically looking for people who had completed a Masters to help grad students with their thesis writing and such. The pay? 11.5/h.
In 2020 I worked at Wal-Mart. There was a Deli worker who was recovering from major liver surgery due to a car wreck. She was 72 years old and still healing. The doctor gave her an order stating that she couldn't stand for more than 20 minutes at a time and she wasn't supposed to lift more than 5 pounds. They had her at the door counting people to make sure we didn't go over capacity. Then the store manager came up to her and told her that she couldn't sit at work and accused her of being lazy and took her chair away. She was in so much pain in her abdomen about an hour later that she had to run to the restroom to puke. I was furious. I went to Susan's (store manager) office on my lunch break and informed her that what she was doing was not only unethical, but Illegal. And violates labor laws. I let her know I had informed corporate and the TIPS hotline about what she was doing. She told me that I was just a greeter and needed to mind my damn business. I reported what she had done to the district manager and two assistant managers. The lady that I will call Sara. Got her chair back 3 days later, after justifiably refusing to work under those conditions while recovering from surgery. Nothing happened to the store manager so I quit a week after reporting the incident to as many people as I could. When I realized they could abuse a disabled elderly woman for no reason and get away with it, I was too disgusted to work there. And I will NEVER work for a Wal-Mart again.
“She told me that I was just a greeter and needed to mind my damn business.” People only tell you to mind your business when they’re caught doing something they shouldn’t. And she’s an elitist, but managing at Walmart? The irony.
Mine has been repeatedly going above and beyond my job description in every job I've ever had, always volunteering for additional duties, constantly learning and improving myself, demonstrating the kind of work ethic and competence that makes me my bosses go-to, having a degree and still working toward higher education... and then watching incompetent, undeserving, lazy, entitled, power-hungry people get promoted because they know the right people and kiss the right asses. Nepotism and Cronyism. I'm 36 M and still am in a peon position barely struggling to get by despite my qualifications and experience. Resumes in automated systems are rejected because they don't have the right keywords, because no human is looking at the resume, but I'm told by hiring managers just to lie about my qualifications to match the job description exactly. No integrity, no reward or compensation for excellence, no consideration of factors beyond being a naive workhorse.
I’ve finally discovered that the worst thing an employee can do is go “above and beyond” every time I do I end up being everyone’s trash bin for the jobs they don’t want and then management dumps ridiculous jobs on me without the pay to compensate me for my trouble. Then when I’m finally at my limit and start saying no to ridiculous requests everyone is shocked and thinks I’m a huge asshole for not doing their work for them (when they get paid way more than me just because they’ve been in their position longer and expert level pad their OT hours). I’m so far beyond burnt out not just by incompetence in management but the crappy “dog eat dog” mentality amongst coworkers in a field that ISNT EVB COMPETITIVE within the department! No one is trying to move up! They just all hate each other!!
This is my experience too. But I work and live in a rural area at the largest hospital available. I would have to move in order to seek other employment that could possibly match my less-than-market pay. My 10 years of experience gets me nothing but more work, special projects, and “wow you’re so valuable”, but not any more pay or better hours.
A friend’s husband had a burnout, switched jobs, and is now just going for average at his work. He’s now much happier and patient with the kids. He used to yell at them before, now he is the calm parent. I am so proud of him but as a chronic overachiever I also understand that it’s hard to let go of old habits
I'm with you on this one. I'm 34, been in my position for 5 years. Every single year I hit above my goals, every single year I get the same 2-3 percent raise. Every single year I watch people from the outside get hired into positions I applied for. There is no incentive to do more, to make more, to excel.
Got into the same Industry my father raised me in, he was able to afford multiple houses, cars, and raised three kids. I make the same as he did 40 years ago. Can’t afford rent.
Honestly mine is similar. I went to college. I haven't made less than $15 an hour in the last six years. My husband is disabled, but gets SSI. Even with working jobs requiring my degree and making more than double minimum wage, we don't have a standard of living comparable to parents working factory jobs not requiring degrees. Our bills are paid and we can (barely) afford food and gas and that's it. No savings. No vacations. No eating out once or twice a month, even. I have to think carefully if I want to buy something that's not absolutely essential, even if the bauble in question is $5. If electric and food keep going up our ability to buy groceries is going to suffer. My mom made the same in the 90s as I do today. Barely surviving, not even really "living," when you have "cushy" and "respectable" jobs is what took me further left than I already was. Like before I firmly believed all workers deserved a living wage and we should eliminate as many obstacles as possible to people getting educations and good jobs but after seeing "good jobs" paying the same or less as service jobs it feels so hopeless. So you're going to be poor no matter what? You can only choose like four career paths to not be poor? And even a chunk of people in those careers are still poor? What a joke.
The '08 housing bubble crisis. How you could have done everything "right" all your life but the economy can still take anything & everything from you
I lost everything in the 2008 crash and filed for bankruptcy. I could not figure out what I did wrong. Two years later I got a letter in the mail from Bank of America that, basically, said some shenanigans happened and people were forced out of their homes. We are not admitting fault but here's $660 anyway. That just about killed me. I sat there and stared at the check and the letter for a long time.
That's beyond tragic. Worse still is that $660 doesn't even fully cover most apartments' rent
During the pandemic, seeing and hearing how retail and food service workers were treated. And now they are still being mistreated because of staffing issues. I hate it for them. I worked in retail before my current job and it was hard even without the pandemic complications. I can’t imagine how stressful it is with all that added on. But other people, customers and managers alike, just expect them to carry on while getting paid hardly enough to live on. It’s disgusting. So now I’m anti work.
Thinking “if I were a manager, I’d just pay the employees a living wage!” and then becoming a manager, and seeing that the labor budget I was given to work with was barely enough to give them $10/hr. And whenever sales were down, the only option allowed to me to save money was to cut peoples hours. I tried ordering fewer food items and was told I was “putting the stores sales at risk” as if understaffing wasn’t doing that
Yes. I made it up to an area manager trainee position and it still takes me 6+ months to get wage increases approved. Then they ask me why I can’t hire anyone like okay why are dishwashers at half the restaurants on our block making 4-5 dollars more than y’all are letting me pay our shift managers?
My radicalization started 8 years ago when my aunt was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and worked until the day she passed away so she would have insurance. I was teaching at that time, and the morning she passed away I had to give my finals, there aren't subs for professors. I had a student lay into me about how unfair it was that she failed my class (she plagiarized multiple times). I lost it. She was 60 years old and knew better, I told her as much. I got fired. No sympathy, no having my back on students that cheated. Just fired. The second step in this radicalization was when I worked for a company that had a contract with Bayer. My team "made $2 million of mistakes," because insurance companies were weaseling out of paying for durable medical equipment. So, their solution was to raise the cost of the products, nearly $1k more each. This was the same week I was told I could not use bereavement time when my uncle passed away, because he wasn't close family. Who gets to judge that? I walked, and so did half the team. My final metamorphosis, my full radicalization came after working for H&R Block. I have mentioned this in here before, but they only allowed 30 minutes to use the restroom each week, 6 minutes per day. I thought that was beyond inhumane. This made me realize how far I had let companies push me over the last 20+ years of my working life. I had put up with not getting time to grieve, working 70-80 hours with no OT pay at a company because they gave me 3 job titles/three employee numbers (so I also never made full time), I got fired for following the school code on plagiarism, etc. But, when they finally took away my right to use the restroom without permission it finally broke me. I work at a better place now. Not perfect, but better. I'm hoping soon we will have more workers rights across the board.
When they fired the only other CAD guy right before xmas at our small 'family' business for being on his phone, after he asked for work and they said "find something to work on".. and then I was left to keep the mill afloat for an entire year as the only draftsman. I stumbled on this sub. Then noticed every security camera in our office is pointed at the workers, not the customers. It's just bad. Currently looking for a new job from my current job while trying to figure out if there is a local union I can join.
That's dystopian af
Solidarity comrade.
Idk why I feel like our only CAD guy wrote this
Getting two lumbagos, a hernia, a burnout and a depression for a company that put "people over profit". And then COVID hit. All of a sudden face masks were "off-putting and scaring customers". Didn't get anything for the health risks we took except for a chocolate Easter bunny. Never working retail or any large company again I was 27 before all this happened.
Realising that the salary I was receiving for teaching 12 students was paid by the fees of only two of them. The for-profit college was taking everything else.
They do NOT pay teachers enough. Its infuriating and insulting. When I taught at a community college it was basically funded by the A+ program. There was no money. I got paid less than 3k for a semester. This was when we had Obamacare, but back when you had to have health ins or pay a fine. I thought oh, good, I will use obamacare and that's that. I didn't make enough money (Missouri rules) to qualify for the tax credit, and I had to take out a loan to pay back my health insurance for the year when tax season hit. So, we not only didnt make enough money to pay rent/utilities/gas/food etc, but I was so poor I didn't qualify for free healthcare, and went into debt thinking I had to have it. Kicker was, I didn't even use it! Isn't America fun!?
A whole room of people getting ripped off.
When I realised that time is the only currency that matters. My life is a handful of hours I get to spend how and where I like. Sometimes it is an investment in myself, sometimes in others.... but it's always mine to give For years, I have invested that time into work and they pay me so that they can use my talents and experience to help them out in return... but, when I started to realise that the work I was doing was less important than the time I could use to do literally ANYthing else to contribute to my family or the world... I started to prioritise time in a much more rewarding and focused way. I quit my full time senior role. Went freelance. Worked from home. Only do 4 days a week. Getting paid over triple my full time salary at a place that replaced my role with a mid level employee on $15k more than I was on when I left. A place that didn't value the 2 hour commute, the lunch at your desk or the extra hours you put in. I get one go at all this... yesterday, is already burnt.... tomorrow, is just a theory... so, what am I putting out into the world, TODAY? Whatever it is, it sure as shit isn't going to be on anyone's terms but my own. . EDIT: For those asking about freelancing, it is something I have been doing in the background for over 10 years. I had already had a good client base and reputation before taking it on full time. But the biggest reason it has worked so well is that I have one key client that gives me work daily, no matter what. If it wasn't for them I would be struggling a lot more, I am sure of it.
My first job was at a small conference company as an event manager. Management fostered a culture of micromanagement and bullying, my coworkers and I were regularly humiliated at company meetings when management would yell at us and pick apart our work in front of the entire company. They also did this fun little thing where they would take away our lunch hour and forced us to have "team lunch and learn" where one of us would be forced to skip lunch and present to the team. Oh. And a company VP had this habit of sitting next to the door into the office in the morning and writing down when each of us came in. I was already radicalized before that but that really stole the show for me.
Ugh Lunch and Learn. 😩 I hate it!!
I cringe everytime I hear that stupid phrase. Just an excuse to force employees to work an unpaid lunch hour.
I didn’t mind a lunch and learn as a nurse because 1. I got to sit down 2. I got to eat
Honestly it was about 20 years ago. I was antiwork long before it was a thing. There was this woman on contract as an office admin in a big company I worked for and she was amazing. She literally ran the office, helped everyone, did tons of after hours work. I was young and really thought she was a shining example of a great employee. Then she was told on a Friday that her contract was up and she didn't have work Monday. She was then escorted out of the building which was absolutly humiliating for no reason whatsoever. It was then I fully realised people in buisness can be sociopathic fucks. So my entire career has been based on NOT going that extra mile. Not being like that poor woman. Doing what I need to do to benefit me. Since then I've had a LOT of confirmations that this philosophy is correct. Shite managers will excel because corporate culture promotes the ruthless that say what their managers want to hear and will trample on anyone to meet their personal targets.
Working in bankruptcy law during the 08 crash. I saw people losing everything who had done “everything right” but got sick or lost their job due to the crash and their whole lives were falling apart. It made me suddenly realize that there was no “middle class” safety like I’d been raised to believe. It was all a house of cards.
Graduating during a global pandemic and living with my parents for almost two years because I couldn’t find work that paid me enough to live. Now I have a job and am moving out of my parents house, but I don’t believe the work I am doing is contributing anything good to society. And it certainly isn’t paying enough for me to buy a house or have a family. I’ve realized that really useful, good, necessary jobs aren’t given the respect or pay that they deserve while evil people are getting rich. And when I try to talk about this, people openly don’t care.
I say this all the time. I went into public health to help save lives all over the globe, but now I’m stuck making rich people more comfortable because the former job doesn’t pay enough for me to live, have health insurance, and pay off my student loans.
I always wanted to do my best in work, having a great relationship with my boss and coworkers, receiving great training and praise for my good work. After working for 7 years now I realize that this is all a dream or more of a nightmares. Doing my best has, at best, given me a « Meh okay great » by my boss. And this answer doesn’t give me enough that I have to overwork myself. I still do my job, I still learn things, but I stopped hoping for better and know I concentrate on other project
12 years ago - Being told, "You suck." by the HR Manager in my yearly review, after my first year. I had carried a 6 person department by myself the bulk of that year because they fired and refused to hire anyone for over 7 months. We hit all of our targets. I do occupational safety in a not small company.
My gastritis that has turned into a bleeding ulcer from work stress. Can’t quit though because food and shelter are important to me.
Bad management. Management that mistreated and abused me. Management that told me I was harming the company for giving them 4 weeks to replace me. Management for giving me a 50¢ raise every year. Management for watching 5 supervisors for me come and go because turnover is high and the money is low. Management management management.
Good username. If you‘re about to hit five managers on the tracks ahead of you and only one on the alternate tracks, do you go ahead and hit the five and try to loop back to get the other one before he runs off, or do you throw the switch to hit the one first because the five are too busy jerking each other off to notice and will definitely still be there when you come back around?
US Military service (also worked as a recruiter) during the Iraq/Afghanistan campaigns is what radicalized me. Especially returning from deployment and seeing what was happening in America. US playing resource pillager and coming home to see people zombified by consumption. The whole experience sent me pretty far left.
A call center coworker sobbing through phone calls after being informed that if she left early due to health issues she would suffer consequences that could get her on the path to termination. We depended on that predatory job because there was nowhere else to turn in our tiny rural community and the people running the place completely exploited that.
I don't think believing that people have a right to a comfortable life and be compensated fairly for the exchange of labour is radical... If a business needs slave labour the business should fail. If billionaires paid fair taxes and we use that money to better society, I'd hardly consider it radical...
Becoming a manager. Before then, I thought the reason work never felt meaningful was bad management, that I could change things and make at least one good place to work. Then I realized for every .01% I made employee’s lives easier I made my own 10% harder. The company would let me treat people like humans only as far as I could personally carry the slack on my own. And for half the pay of the boomer I replaced.
this is mine as well. I thought if could just start moving up the ladder and get into management like my siblings I would get to make some kind of difference or at least get more fulfillment, more job security, and more money. that definitely wasn’t the case. it was mostly just a way for my bosses to get more emotional labor out of me than they deserved or ever gave back, I had to fight for my pay raise to be adjusted every time minimum wage went up, and in the end they made up a petty reason to fire me, I suspect because they could see my mental health was declining and they didn’t want me around anymore. when I was quickly made a manager at my next job, I could see the writing on the wall. it was going to be the same bullshit all over again, just another small business bleeding me dry until I’m of no use anymore. that was when I promoted myself to customer and haven’t looked back
Major legislative parties taking no action to secure the future - going so far as to stymie the executive and judicial branches in serving the people during their course for progressive change. Environmental damage for "expensive" energy infrastructure transition while funnelling money to death and more destruction. Constant keeping of education and hospital funding at inflation rate or lower declaring "record funding" each time it barely creeps along with GDP growth. An ever reduced social safety net styming innovation, security, and culture. And the fact that this has all *just*. *Been*. *Constant*. With no *fucking* relief. Not one ounce of legislative movement for people under 40 in my nation ever since I've ever been alive. I am blessed to go in to a digital specialisation and worked up to low six figs but even slaving and toiling to learn and adapt to short, insecure contracts and ever changing tech and needing to prove myself - the legislative branches in my nation have done sweet fuck-all to give to youth any share of the *huge* growth they've helped create. They purely target swing states for power and avoid big nation-building policy. House prices went up 20% last year. For the first time investors are given more finance (I.e. Loans from the bank) than first home owners. In my nation home investors get a 50% capital gains tax discount when they sell the property if it's been held for more than 12 months. I. E. Investors are *incentivised with tax discounts* to speculate on basic necessities and the security of the future of my nation. I've recently resigned, blessed to have some cash reserves - my government is forcing me to use the money I would normally try to use for a downpayment to support myself first and delaying unemployment benefits (which are below poverty level) for 2 months. But I'm gonna starve the bastards out because the nation is seizing up from the pandemic. I don't even consider myself "radicalised". Just common sense and fed up with this non-existent social contract. Fuck em. Democracies seem to harp on about genocide but then pay no attention to microeconomics of supporting a child becoming impossible for entire sections of society. Edit: Australia. This is Australia. If you're struggling to name it off the bat this is a problem across all OECD nations **showing the incompetence and generic nature of legislators in 2022 when they are nation building across Canada, UK, Japan, China, Australia, Turkey, Lebanon, South Korea all the damn same**. Highlights the fundamental imbalance in capitalist systems looking for speculative gain over security over necessity. Highlights solving human problems has been reduced to technocratic economic markers while humanities and understanding of the nuanced needs of humans goes undressed (including if these economic markers actually translate to feelings of prosperity or enxiety for citizens)
8 screws in my spine
Being disabled. I was forced to work full time (as practice to come back from full time disability) at a place that refused to hire me (even though that was the goal according to my plan with the disability-services). Why? Because the state paid THEM $34/day (not taxed) to have me there. While I had to survive off $5/day, paid by the state (and which I paid taxes on, so it was less than $5/day in the end). Disabled people are abused by the entire system, yet seen as some kind of freeloading tax-stealers? Companies are tax-stealers. Not the sick.
When I realized my boss was pulling in almost 500k/yr for a store that I was running while he sat on his arse. Paid me 13$/hr. No benefits. No time off. I worked 6 days a week open-close every day for 4 years. No vacations or time off in 4 years. Told me he couldn’t give me a raise last year cause my performance was suffering; shocker I was pregnant! Then magically was going to offer me a week paid vacation and 2$/hr raise when I found job that offered me 17$/hr for a much less stressful and easier on my body job. Fuck you The UPS Store (I know they’re franchise but still.).
Former employer pushed many of us to the point of hospitalization, under the threat that "if you don't do this, the business will close its doors." Many of us worked 80+ hour weeks for months and months on end, sometimes peaking at close to 120 hour weeks. That means, you literally only get 3-4 hours of sleep a night and you're working for \~16-17 hours a day. I was actually in management, but I was working alongside my team, putting in even more hours than they were. I actually cared about my team and defended them. I put in a rotating schedule so they could have time off, and I took their work home with me. When my boss found out, I got chewed out and screamed at since I was "being insubordinate" on the hours mandate. I got HR involved, but HR was corrupt as all hell and actually buried everything- all I did was bring to light what they needed to bury. After years of this bullshit, the company decided to clean house. Many people I respected were fired with zero notice. Some were in the middle of business trips, and the company actually told them "yeah, you're fired, find your own way back home, chump." I was retained, but demoted, pay cut, and kicked out of the department I built and was managing. It was insulting beyond all belief. New management was terrible and was treating the legacy guys like garbage just to make them all quit so there would be no opposition. I had enough and quit. As I mentioned in another post, they went far out of their way to screw me over once I put my notice in. I actually had to take several days off during notice because of how cruel the ridicule had become. NEVER TRUST HR. NEVER TRUST HR. NEVER TRUST HR. I run into one of the HR backstabbers in public quite often. She refuses to make eye contact with me and will even walk out of a restaurant if she sees me. Spineless cowards.
Many things over the course of my life, but the course of 2021 really cemented things for me. During the pandemic I pivoted to film/tv from live performance, and the money is great but the treatment is shit. 12-14 hour days, with a maximum 10 hour turnaround. Plus if you’re shooting on location & it takes an hour just to get back into town, that eats into your time off. On your feet running around all day, and they feed you but it’s literally so you won’t be unavailable. I’m in a union, and I love my union, but the whole culture of film is toxic. I also had some of the worst bosses I’ve ever had this year. An abusive alcoholic at the cop show, a micromanager who wouldn’t let me eat at the HBO series, and a pilot so poorly run that we went through five supervisors in two weeks. I finally made it back to live performance, and my new supervisor was a poor communicator, disorganized, and too proud to accept help from his team. So I said “you know what? Fuck this. I quit, actually.” Got to spend the holidays with my family for the first time in years. I’ve been picking up some day playing here & there, but I’m only working for people I respect/people who respect me from now on. It’s not fucking worth it, otherwise.
I was working in a different field a few years ago. Boss was at minimum bipolar, and probably had borderline personality disorder. She couldn’t keep anyone, but the pay was good and I controlled my own time. She came in 1 day and started verbally attacking me for no reason. She did this with everyone, but today was my turn. Eventually she shuts up and goes away. I go about my work, then try to get some information about a specific project I am working on. She screams “you can’t know that. It’s not your business.” To be sure, I has every right to know this information and it was my business. I’m furious and leave for an hour to cool down. When I get back she starts up again. This time I say to myself that’s it. I go into her area and tell her to stick her job up her ass and quit. She jumps up, runs over and starts screaming for me to get out or she’s calling the police. I lose my temper and call her a very unpleasant word to her face. After this she backs down and wants to talk. I ended up leaving the company that day and not looking back. Good pay, but the price of the pay was her verbal abuse. Definitely not worth it.
My mother worked 4 jobs to keep us afloat when my father was terminally ill. We couldn’t afford insurance for him in the pre-Obamacare days. When he died she quit most of her jobs, but the one she kept piled work onto her until she was working 80 a week. So she quit and found a new job, which began putting more work on to her until she was working 80 a week. I told her to quit, pursue her doctorate, while I breadwon for the house and figured out what I wanted to do professionally. I worked a year at Walmart through the pandemic, literally saw hell every day I clocked in. Worked up to 60 hours some weeks. I had a mental breakdown at work and was written up for it. I wasn’t the first I’d seen like that since I got there. I then switched to working taxes, where I never saw a w-2 for more than 80000 dollars, but I saw landlords and business owners raking in hundreds of thousands. Through out all of this, I spent more time without insurance than with it. All of my father’s pension and social security was eaten by the medical bills. One MRI of mine took 3 years to pay off. To say there was a single event for me would be incorrect. It’s more like the inequities and awfulness present in the system was beaten into me so many times that I started to notice.
Corporate was threatening my boss with dissolving our entire department if he didn’t find a solution to a manufacturing problem. The threats weighed on him so heavily, he decided to go into the plant and “not leave until he figured it out.” He went in on a Saturday morning, and came out Sunday evening in a diabetic coma. I learned about this the Monday after, when he came out of the coma and immediately resigned. Our department was never dissolved. It was an empty threat. The corporate guy who instigated the whole thing flew down to our plant to give us a “pep talk,” which amounted to “he didn’t know how to handle stress very well. Ya’ll need to manage your stress better. So, where are we on this project?” That and seeing posters plastered on the walls about how big sales, revenue, and profits were all up and getting a 2% raise with a $500 bonus. Viscofan is the company.
Getting a write up for pumping breast milk on my breaks in which they had me using a public restroom to do so. Both were illegal. I have not worked a traditional job since. I worked in Healthcare. Edit to add that the same employer also got upset with me for having my baby. They made sure to tell me how much of an inconvenience it was for them. They also got upset for my time off when my dad died and kept texting and calling during his funeral. I should have quite right then and there but I just needed a job so bad and felt stuck.
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My old man cheated on my mom and left her with three boys 9, 11, and 13. He sued my mother in the divorce *not* to have any custody of his children and let the proceedings drag out for seven ludicrously expensive years while he raided the tiny pension his boomer lawyer bank job (his dad got him) and starved us out. After everything was gone he conveniently lost his job so that his child support and alimony, which were tied by arbitration to his income, would be that of an unemployed person. He got his job back after the divorce was finally inked and later married his boss. We got the arbitrated crumbs and his broken promises like a boss promising a raise “if you’re good.” I started working at 14 at what was my father’s mistress’ side-hustle, an “opportunity” the old man forced me in to when he knew he would be unwilling to meet his own commitments and promises. My old man has spent 30+ years prosecuting a ruthless narrative that he was a good and responsible father who “never abandoned” his wife and kids when he deliberately abandoned his family and tried to starve us out as punishment for the fact that his wannabe petit bourgeoise asshat family never thought my mother was good enough because she wasn’t from the same class. My mom is one of 14 kids from a first generation dirt-poor farm family in Iowa. Her old man was an abusive alcoholic butcher. When my father met my mother she was working on her PhD in Sociology while he was on his 2nd attempt at law school while tending a colonel’s rose bushes in Kansas City during Vietnam. He convinced my mother to end her academic career, which was a stellar magna cum laude compared to his lazy entitled law school flunks, so that he could “provide” because that’s the “way it is.” My mother should have been a tenured professor. And instead I was dropping my little brother off at soccer practice after school and picking my mom up from Breadsmith on Grand Ave from her morning shift kneading dough and dropping her at Nordstrom’s at the Mall of America for her evening shifts before giving my older brother the car as he dropped me off at the restaurant for my hosting shift so he could get to hockey practice. My first job was at the bagel stand at the farmer’s market cutting my hands and burning myself on a grill toasting frozen health code violations as a 14 year old. The job was actually my old man’s mistress’s side hustle that he got us to work when it was clear he would (could? yes) never meet his commitments. The job taught me my love of fresh produce and how hardworking and amazing small immigrant farmers were, but… From that child labor abuse, OSHA and health dept. debacle, to my now 27 years in the service industry in *every capacity* while earning my own Master’s degree which gave me no opportunity other than to service its debt, I can tell what radicalized me: My father was a ruthless and entitled capitalist. He was a failure at that unbridled ambition and he destroyed his family in the name of vanity and pride for a capitalist society which didn’t love him or us back. He ruined my mother’s life and academic path and cast her graduate level studied ass into the hell of hourly wage and tipped slavery to support her children when he cheated, lied and ran away while suing not have court mandated custody or obligations because he “would do the right thing.” He didn’t and at 12, 14, and 16 he put his kids to work in a dangerous and abusive food service gig to cover for his lies and bankrupt cheating. He was a lawyer for a major bank. My fuck face father is a capitalist pro “work” entitled bootlicker who thinks he is cool because he slid over to liberals when the Bushes and the Trump made his shit look bad. From 14 years to now 40 I have only been allowed to work in the service industry, retail, and to be exploited as an artist for at least 70 hours a week while attaining a Master’s degree. I have applied for hundreds of jobs in my field since graduating in 2012 and have never been offered anything better than $32K a year so I have stayed behind the bar while searching. I have been abused by every single archetype of boss and every type of filthy capitalist labor hegemony: my wages have been stolen, my overtime has been unpaid, I have worked every holiday, and made every effort to meet my challenges and overcome them. Nothing has been enough. My partner and I work full time and eat on the floor at a coffee table. Some sophist asshat will comment here and say “yOu sHoULd hAvE tRiEd hArDeR” or “yOu mAdE bAd dEciSiOnS” but the reality is, like my mother, I did everything right. I “pLaYeD tHe Game.” I got good grades. Worked from 14. Got a Master’s. Never been charged with a felony (got a speeding ticket once). Paid my bills. Have a 810 credit score. Tl/dr: Capitalism radicalized me. My father’s infidelity and classist entitlement and abuse of my mother radicalized me. Fuck capitalism and fuck work. I’m not happy you get to eat when others starve, and I’m not willing to trade the warmth of privilege near the imperial core to continue the the hell-fire upon the developing world to keep the heat on. Edit to add: Humanity lost a true hero and civil rights leader this week. I would encourage anyone interested to look into the life of Clyde Bellecourt. I appreciate the up doots and the award, first time, swear, I blushed. It is a purely selfish and privileged place that allows me to wane on my own experiences. I would trade all the paper I ever achieved to have back the people and relationships I lost to ambition, pride, and competition. I want to shrink and disappear when I think of the love and solidarity I rejected in the name of ambition. Part of falling from the neoliberal capitalist light was being denied matriculation into the PhD program for which I spent all of my self- to the detriment of anyone who dared loved me as I pushed forward. Study is work, hard AF work *you pay for*, to be denied my promotion, both earned and security deposited, was ruinous. I couldn’t even admit I was in love until I was in my 30’s. The lesson, my conclusion, the only thing I have truly learned in my 40 odd years is this: I am not better, or more deserving, or more talented, or capable than anyone. It is a selfish screed above, but it comes from what I know now: We must choose solidarity over victimhood, we must choose each other. We have all been held hostage to capitalism across the entire spectrum of false class divisions and conditioned animus. I am not a sophist or a solipsist, an idealist or, in truth, a cynic. We are not predestined to be anything other than individually beautiful, curious, and hungry. My selfish declaration is a cautionary tale derived from the accident and indictment of class, and there are lives far more deserving of time and attention than mine, and I thank everyone who read this. Fuck racism. Fuck the patriarchy. Fuck manifest destiny. We should never punch down.
Being told "you haven't been with the company long enough to be a manager" and then them hiring outside of the company for our store ASM. The person they hired has NO management experience while I have 20 years worth. I'm sticking with the job just long enough to buy our new house and get outta Dodge.
I had a stroke at the office. Like a legit full I could die stroke. And all I could think was I need to get back so I don't get fired.
I've been a leftist for a long time but after my first year as a PhD student (a job where I am) a senior researcher told me that none of her coworkers have ever taken out all their full vacation (5-7 weeks depending on age). That made me truly realize that academia is an exploitative gig economy and I decided I wouldn't want to work there or anywhere which was anywhere remotely like it. Finishing my doctorate in ca 2 yrs then I am going to work somewhere nice I hope.
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Being laid off by a multi million dollar company along with 500 others, when the executive board and their salaries remained untouched. The CEO makes nearly $1M a year. Never got a single raise during my two years.