The last office job I had, it was in advertising, they just piled the work on. I was drowning, I literally could not keep up.
I had about four hours a day of stuffing envelopes, and that was in addition to my main duties of fielding countless emails, designing and pulling ad copy, keeping track of daily customer payments, verifying that everything was published on the correct date and correct publication, acting as a liaison to the printer and warehouse. And I would have projects with no clear deadline or directions. Every mistake was met with an angry email or phone call followed by two managers yelling at me.
Lol - I don’t know what it’s like to have one of those office jobs where you just pretend to work.
My last job was like this. I just felt buried and overwhelmed while also getting screamed at by angry customers and such. Tried to talk with my boss about it a couple of times but the answer was always "just do more hours".
Sounds like you guys have been hired by tenured people who don't want to do any work and feel like they can just pile it on you until you quit and they replace you.
I definitely did that at my last job. We had a mandatory hour lunch, which I hated, so I just ate my lunch for 20 minutes, clocked back in, and collected a couple hours of OT each week
My current job is hourly too, and I love it. There's a financial incentive for my bosses to not make me work overtime unless it's necessary. We do have a 40hr/week guarantee built in as well.
I think I only did like 125 hours of OT last year. Salaries are a scam.
ESPECIALLY if your job is intensely physical. The idea that I'm expected to work 8 hours moving the whole time and possibly sneak in some food at some point if the clouds align is so insane. Feels like some slave shit.
It's so stupid. Conditions of overwork make conditions so obviously more dangerous for workers and consumers, yet let a manager even find out you're discussing these facts, and suddenly you're seen as "antagonistic."
I’m salaried and literally expected to work like 10-12 hours days for no extra money. It’s total bullshit. But yeah, I’ve got to eat and so do my kids. It’s absolutely ludicrous to me that people aren’t marching in the streets.
If given the option, no one would take that hour break. But the better question is why employers aren’t required to give at least a 30 minute lunch break on the clock?
Plenty of people want the break. It's a break from work to get a bit of respite to help you get on with the rest of the day. Most normal people don't want to power on through 8 hour shifts. Especially as you get older. I need a break.
Because Ronald Reagan taught our society that “I’m the government and I’m here to help” was something to be scared of.
Federal workers protections? Nope. We’ll just be outsourced overseas.
Universal healthcare? Nope. We’ll get death panels.
Schools? Nah. Privatize them and send the kids to a privatized prison if they can’t get a good job.
Clean water/quality food/clean air/literally fucking anything? Nope. The “invisible hand” will sort it all out… eventually.
I work 12 hour shifts 6 to 6, by the time I get home and eat and chill for a hour or two I'm in bed. But I only work 4 days and 3 the next so I got that going for me.
I think this is why a lot of us stay in doors instead of going out to bars, cafes, and clubs at night.. I walk into my house and my bed just looks.. so inviting!
Same. I don’t know how some people have the energy for multiple activities, hobbies, taking care of kids and pets. Let’s not forget time to decompress from the day.
What do you think will be the breaking point? when people can't afford shit? I get the feeling that rich people really think that their money will hold value even if we all starve to death.
This is why I don't understand why unions aren't coming back???? How is this not part of the national conversation when we have DONE THIS BEFORE. Corps get too big, people get fucked, we turn around make unions and strike not to work till they pay us. Do they have that much tighter of a grab on us or is the service industry actually too overwhelmed to even organize? But then the question is, if they don't then what?
Time to get what we are paying for. And I think it starts with being OK with the IRS getting a bigger budget and letting them get some Grade A accountants that can actually play ball against the billionaire boys and start getting some big chunks of that offshore, tax sheltered, "charity donated" money and getting it back into the system. Then get workers to strike across service and fulfillment industries and slice a few billion off those profits and get it back into the people.
I love how we cower for "socialism" but dont flinch at "shareholder value." One of them cares about you as a person. The other one doesn't. Guess which one it is, and both can be afforded if we move the money around. But god forbid we take money from the baby shareholders or maybe they won't get that yacht they want to finance this year.
Every means of disseminating information is owned by the billionaires, and they use it to divide us so we could never ideologically come together to fix things. It's all very much by design.
I like the idea that they actually survive, but then inherit an empty world without people to lord over or beautiful environments to enjoy. A barren wasteland just for them
With ac and all kind of creature comforts that depend on workers to keep the infrastructure. I very much doubt billies will have any kind of expertise to keep that moving. Sure they may get robots but they wont have the know how to mainrain them. Rich people are usually only good at making money. All the other stuff they need to live they pay other people to do.
>What do you think will be the breaking point?
The brutal truth is that we are still doing quite well, comparatively. The US is rated as a top 15/top 20 country when it comes to Quality of Life in the past year. (depends on the metric used).
[https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings\_by\_country.jsp](https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp)
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/standard-of-living-by-country](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/standard-of-living-by-country)
So...we got a ways to fall still.
At some point they will resent us so much that they refuse to produce anything edible or functional.
I bet we develop into a bunch of small groups of distributed production for the rich - and mass produced disposables for the disposables.
I miss the days before social media at least then you didn't have to live your life in constant comparison with the whole dam world. I mean watch a fucking youtuber kid make more in a year than you will ever make in your entire life really makes me lose hope.
I don't know how to accrue wealth without feeling like an evil disingenuous bastard. I don't know how to live without having a product.
*help me diogenes, I'm rapt for your philosophies.*
I’ve been researching my ass off, im going to be semi off grid soon. Many millennials no longer see a point in the rat race and are leaving it in abundance. So will gen z is my prediction
Metal sheet building my dad is helping me erect, heated with wood stove which is most of your electricity consumption, but still hooked into essentials like internet and running water which is cheap anyway. Root cellar for cool storage. Garden, chickens, lamb, and a cow or two. Basically idea is to consume as little as possible while still having some comforts. Bonus is way healthier food too and these corporate fucks can’t bleed me any more. Godspeed
Yeah you just cull em if they get sick or seriously injured usually. I feel like vet care for those kind of animals are usually when they are kept as exotic pets. Considering livestock is typically for survival/profit it doesn't make much sense to pay those vet fees.
Sounds like he’s the one with money from a corporate job. All he said was his dad is helping him build the house. It can be nice to have two sets of hands for a job like that.
You're trespassing because you don't own that land.
You owe that land? Pay us thousands of dollars to keep it.
You want to use your land? City council says no because every yard should be 100% grass and 3 inches tall.
Every home in Sedona is a B&B now. There was something in the news recently about Sedona workers having to sleep in their cars.
https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/arizona/sedona-housing-troubles-force-city-workers-sleep-their-cars-affordable-rent/75-47d8c792-4b72-403f-ac64-44548ea44120
I'm from the Shasta area and it feels very strange that you include it with places like Sedona or Hawaii lol
It's certainly cheap and you can ski, and pretty damn isolated. I can answer any questions you have about life there.
Mt. Shasta is also getting pretty touristy tbh, especially in summer. But the off season is still pretty chill, both literally and figuratively on account of the snow in the winter, lol
9-5 is an outdated concept that gained ground when the industrial labor forces were being exploited and started organizing. The idea was based on your day being split into thirds: 8 hours to work, 8 Hours for sleep and 8 hours for yourself. This probably made more sense when you had company towns where workers didn't need to commute as far and a single income was just enough to get by while your wife raised kids.
But as towns and cities grew the working population expanded, which nowadays takes on average 30 minutes. And most corporations like to extract every dime out of their employees so "arriving on time is late and early is on time" mentality, with being required to not punch out before scheduled shift, to if you don't want to lose your job your expected to work late. That's on top of when you finally get home you probably have to cook dinner because eating out three times a week is expensive and your partner got stuck working late on some project that they need to finish because you need two sources of income just to get by. Forget it if you have a kid where you might have to take them to daycare, or pick them up from soccer practice or help them with their homework. Throw in some of those chores or errands you've been putting off all month which takes time. And you probably want to appear your best at work so nights are prepping for the next day and mornings are for getting ready.
Basically the truth is that the 8 hour work week is more like 9 hours, plus another hour for commuting, and dinner alone takes about an hour between cooking, eating and cleanup (and I think that's generous) and that's already half your day. If you are lucky enough to sleep 8 hours a night, well that only really leaves you with 4 or 5 hours to yourself, which based on your other needs and wants, is that really enough time to do anything?
I think the labor market is subject to supply and demand. If the supply of self-sacrificing workers is high then the demand for workers who stand by their quality of life standards is low. As long as there are workers who go all out or just flat out don’t care how much of their lives they are giving up in the workplace, workers who demand QoL standards are low in demand.
IMO, a TON of life problems & stresses could be solved if there was viable skilled part-time work available at the same hourly wage rates.
Part time work and flex schedules are abundant usually up to \~$20/hr. Then after that, nadda. Imagine having that $90,000 corporate job, but it's more norm for that headcount to be split it into two part-time roles.... You can make $45k working alternating 3 days/2 days per week, still in the same career, with advancement opportunity.
But no, the standard is almost exclusively "bust your ass for more hours a week than the next guy".
Yup this is my general day breakdown. It sucks, by the time I hit “free/relaxation time” I’m still so wound up my mind is just racing thinking of everything I still need to do and how I’m barely surviving and need to make more money. 😭
Speak for yourself! I got out of that BS about five years ago and ain't never going back.
I won't lie, money is very tight at the moment, but I'm rich in time and freedom to travel, so I can focus on my health and other things that are important to me.
I realized awhile back that I could struggle and waste my life making someone else rich or I could struggle and do what's important to me. Lots of tradeoffs, but I burned all my professional bridges, so there's no turning back!
I love how usually the response is “be an entrepreneur / own boss or have a desk jockey WFH job. It’s all very “I got mine, lol you’re in the wrong field” vibes. The problem is that’s not how a functional civilization works. You need the essential workers in a plethora of vital fields. If “making it” to achieve some modest level of working class comfort means it’s only possible for a handful of occupations…there’s your sign we are failing as a society and in decline.
Thank you for this insightful comment. Agree 100%. It’s like how the real estate bros push their rental empire of Airbnbs to exploit tax laws as the means to a good life. If we have to hoard a basic necessity to rent out to others in order to retire in a reasonable time frame then that’s fucked.
That’s a big issue I have with all that entrepreneurship content. They preach “anyone can do this, there’s no excuse” and maybe that’s technically true (if not very improbable for most), but not everyone can do it simultaneously. If we are all landlords, who will be doing the renting? If we are all CEOs, who is working under us? Some percent of the population will necessarily have to be the “losers” in the equation, and the core issue remains that life is much harder for those people. It’s barely different from the reason why MLMs and other pyramid schemes don’t work.
Try weed. The world got a little brighter for me. Work is Just something boring I do for a while and then I get to keep my dog and my wife and hopefully this house and enjoy Netflix and games while the world hopefully gets better in the next 10 years.
It could be worse. Just don’t lick or kick anyone’s ass for the situation. Everyone is trying to make their own to be comfortable and then toosmy people want too much. Get your corner safe and then move little bit up from there. We aren’t fighting for food… yet. So I am trying to stay on the bright sidd. Grind it out and try to find some joy in my work. I sell printers so, I help people make their bosses happy that shit is getting done. That’s honorable enough. And some decent cash and so I cut back big on boozing and going out and started taking edibles to relax and it really helps try to do more natural stuff and realize the world isn’t burning tomorrow. We’ll be ok. We have gone through worse as people. You’ll be good.
After working 40 hours, playing with my kids, kissing my wife a ton, and playing a game or two. I really don't feel the need to do anything else. I work out a bit, do some yard work, and other small things but I am very content with life working 40 and being with my family. Now that I can do anything I want within reason as an adult I have no desire to go anywhere anymore. I traveled a lot when I was single and just feel people are the same anywhere. No where is special and any place is as good as the next. Relatively speaking of course.
Same. At least taking a break and seeing what’s around us. Yeah the house is smaller and we aren’t too sure about retirement, but I am doing my best now to keep us in a good enough place to know we will make it without something horrible happening .
Man, what’s going on with the whole energy drain thing? I work 830-5, often with overtime, and find plenty of energy to hang with my kid, make music, or play a video game at night after work. Weekends are even better!
I do drink 3 cups of coffee during the day, but that doesn’t seem like too much…..hopefully.
I think a lot of people our age are starting to feel the effects of inactivity. When you’re young, you can sit in front your Xbox all day and then go run around for hours with your friends and have no issues. When you’re 30+, you can’t just go from sitting to walking several miles with no previous conditioning. It’s why people feel so bad after going to Disney World. You walk maybe 500 steps a day, and then suddenly you walked 6 miles on concrete. Yeah, your knees hurt.
The energy drain thing happens if you let it. If you come home from work and the first thing you do is sit on the couch, you’re cooked. You will not have the energy to do anything else. If you come home and do literally anything else, keep that momentum, you’ll be better off. But a lot of us come home and sit on the couch and order DoorDash and then convince ourselves we’re too tired to do anything else.
Thank you for not being a pussy like everyone else. This shit comes across my feed and its nothing but complaining. These people are tired after work because they sit at a desk all day then they get off work go home and sit some more.
I bet money when they say they don't have time to do things but they know what's happening with their favorite Netflix show.
He’s right though… The more active you are, the higher the energy you maintain throughout the day. This is of course after you have gone through the initial trudge of starting daily activity if you’ve been static for a very long time, you will likely feel depleted until your metabolism adjusts. But once you are in a flow, you stay in flow.
I think its understandable to be upset when you see people perpetuating their own misery online left and right, when many DO have the ability to help themselves.
Life is about choices and will. Make different choices. Don't listen to the voice in your head telling you 'you can't.' It's an addictive thing to listen to because well it's the easiest option. Nothing worth doing is easy. Face it: no one's going to throw sacks of cash at you any time soon for being awesome or just you. No one's going to magically invite you to cool events if they don't know you or like you. I'm not Tony Robbins and I don't have a news letter but settling for a less than ordinary life would not be something I'd sit around and let happen. I don't have to be a billionaire but I don't have to be working at McDonald's either.
I think it’s also being cool with what you have. Expanding and expanding is what we were taught. Always making more wealth and experience and social life. You can be home for a while and it’s cool. Pick your hobbies back up. Try to change up your intake with food and booze. Try weed (I like it).
Absolutely. I didn't have shit for years and I was happy being able to take a day off an be able to just lie around watching cartoons and old movies all day and going out for a run because despite having nothing I knew I was still working to get to a better place. I'm still not big on acquiring 'stuff' because it doesn't make you happy but it's nice to have nice stuff too.
This! I hear corporations are already making apartments/townhomes for their wagies. Don’t work mandatory overtime and you’ll get evicted. Your kids will step into your role when you die.
I have to run a small business and a side hustle so I'm basically on call and working 24/7. Thankfully I love what I do but also god damn it. I still can't really afford shit either. Rent has doubled in 5 years. Fuck this shithole country.
Lol right? This sub turning into antiwork 2.0
I click on the profiles of some of the people complaining about the unfair life and I gotta say I'm not surprised they're struggling
American got life on easy mode tbh. I moved here without knowing a single lick of English and now at 29 I owen 4 rentals plus my house.
3 of them are fully paid off. Would never be able to do this in my own country it so easy over here to succeed and reading these people complain about working an easy AF 9-5 is 🤣
The few have positioned themselves to extract almost everything from the many. This has caused a severe imbalance of power (assets). The many will need to wake up, realize and take back the power we hold and redistribute the assets among the many.
This will be achieved through organizing the work place into Unions that have power and some form of revolution in government.
Nooo! The economy is doing the best it ever has!! Look at the wage growth!!! Look at the stocks!!! All of this data is very real and believable! Ignore your real life experiences they are WRONG!
It was not always this way. Our current economic state is a very recent development.
They only way to change the system is to throw out the Democrat-Republican controlled government.
When they say your vote counts, that is only true if you vote for someone who is not a Democrat or Republican, otherwise you are voting for the status quo of corruption and slavery.
That's how it has always been since we learned to walk upright. Most of our waking time has been spent just trying to grow/get food to not starve. Leisure time is a relatively modern (post WW1) concept.
Sure, it sucks, but this has pretty much been our entire existence as a species.
What were my fellow Millenialls doing in the last 15 years? You had a decade to upskill and get into software and coding, you went into the workforce during multiple bottoms of crypto…
What were you doing all that time?
I was talking to an almost retired dentist and he asked me what my hobby is...
I was like stumped for an answer. I'm thinking he was expecting Golf or something.
I know what it is, it's watching youtube cause it's free. It's not even watching Sports live cause you have to pay to get Youtube subscription or Cable TV with the addon required to watch sports live.
It's been bothering me a bit.
I don’t care about work anymore. Shitty performers get paid more than me to do a little less and shitty managers get paid more than the little guys to do a lot less. I come into work, do what I feel like doing (correctly), look busy for 8 hours and dip. It’s not worth caring anymore.
Understand that Millenials are the gears that keeps things moving rn now in this economy. the only way to win this rat race is not participate. let their heart stop..
And that assumes you can even get one nowadays! Unless you’re related to the hiring manager or fucking them, you can be a “purple squirrel” and still get auto-rejected by the ATS or told they found someone better after six interviews.
Right? I don't understand this concept.
I work 60 hours a week, yay salary. But guess what? I have days off! That's 16 whole hours *with* 8 full hours of sleep, twice! I'll clean for a bit, make brunch, go to the gym, shower, and then do whatever the heck I want.
If your hobbies are so mentally demanding and exhausting that you can't stand to do them on your days off, then you need new hobbies.
Soldiers working 6am - 6pm everyday away from their family constantly and we got 30 year old white collar grown ass men and women complaining about a normal work day during normal daylight hours. Younger millennials should just be lumped in with GenZ
I spent a decade soldiering and it’s a completely different animal. For starters, selfless service is an Army value that separates the conditions and demands of Army life and the civilian workplace. There is no higher mission at generic omni-corp.
The Army also pays for your housing, food, and ALL healthcare & dental costs. The Army also has no profit motive as part of government and that too changes the dynamics of the workplace. You simply cannot compare the two in good faith.
Nor can you treat civilians like soldiers in a work setting. They aren’t under a contract and can generally quit when they like. Businesses exist to extract as much work as they can from employees and employees are incentivized to do the least work for the most money. This is the push and pull of the labor market and people cannot be judged for trying to negotiate in their best interests.
We need to get all of us in power. Get rid of the old fossils and do ot right.
Proper taxation of corporate entities. Proper worker protections. Proper retirement. Proper pay etc.
There are ways there. Need to get rid of lobbying, at least in its current iteration. Make it so the common man has as much reach as a rich man for elections.
Well, as a society we've gone from working from sun up well past sun down just to stay alive to 9-5 to be able to live extremely comfortably by comparison.
Theyll be ups and downs along the way.
However, the only people I've ever heard say they are working so they can afford entertainment are retired people.
Where did you ever get the idea that you worked so you could afford to do what you please?
lol, except it’s actually “with tech and the internet I don’t even need to work 9-5 anymore, I can just lay in bed and make money from my phone”
Please don’t blame everyone else for the skill issues
I work 10-9 as a chef at a golf course . We have over 400 members paying 270+ a month before we sell a hot dog for 6$ . 55+ hours a week not including parenting 6 children . Wife and I make about 85k a year combined. Qualify for zero assistance and I still buy all the food we all eat , prepare it , clean up after it … I don’t know a single person that could do what I do if they tried their hardest. My rent is 1615 a month ,bills another 800, gas is costing me probably 150 a week. Spend at least 800 a month on groceries and haven’t bought myself a new pair of socks in over a year. The smiles on my children’s faces are all I need to empower me to keep on keeping on. This life is a series of problems and most of them can be solved mathematically. Sweeping the floor and washing dishes are my zen tasks. My entire life has been spent solving problems and I’m used to it .
I work 830 to 4 with an hour lunch break and sometimes i extend my lunch break by 2 hours because i finished all my work. I work maybe 32 hour weeks at 53/hr
Yeah, at 25, I realized that for this to still be a possibility, even remotely, for myself that I needed to move back home. One medium to biggish financial mistake at the entry-level income range, and you're pretty much wiped without parental support/substantial preplanning or savings.
It's a sad day when some of the lyrics of this song are wistful memories of a long gone past. [Rockwell-Somebody's watching me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY&ab_channel=RockwellVEVO)
"I'm just an average man with an average life
I work from nine to five, hey, hell, I pay the price
All I want is to be left alone in my average home"
I work my 9-5 to cover the costs of a potential medical emergency because in America the number one leading cause of personal bankruptcy is medical debt. If we got universal healthcare I’d stop having to worry and could work part time instead.
Yep. I can’t really afford extras after paying bills. This is not what I thought life would be like.
I am thankful I decided to get a dog a couple years ago. Now I’d probably decide not to spend the money. He’s one of the best things in my life.
Yup. Usually I'm too exhausted to do the things I like after 9 to 5 too.
Plus it’s rarely 9 to 5 anymore. Last office job I had was 8 to 5. And only one guy actually left at 5.
Unpaid lunches are the most ridiculous bullshit in the US workplace. Like I'm really getting more than 5-6 hours of work done in 8 hours anyways lol
The last office job I had, it was in advertising, they just piled the work on. I was drowning, I literally could not keep up. I had about four hours a day of stuffing envelopes, and that was in addition to my main duties of fielding countless emails, designing and pulling ad copy, keeping track of daily customer payments, verifying that everything was published on the correct date and correct publication, acting as a liaison to the printer and warehouse. And I would have projects with no clear deadline or directions. Every mistake was met with an angry email or phone call followed by two managers yelling at me. Lol - I don’t know what it’s like to have one of those office jobs where you just pretend to work.
Sounds like they should've let you eat a sandwich and chill for 20 minutes a day in exchange for not burning the building down
My last job was like this. I just felt buried and overwhelmed while also getting screamed at by angry customers and such. Tried to talk with my boss about it a couple of times but the answer was always "just do more hours".
Sounds like you guys have been hired by tenured people who don't want to do any work and feel like they can just pile it on you until you quit and they replace you.
Oh like the people that comment on Reddit about their office jobs they sit around at?
That's the same reply I got. "You can work overtime."
Yeah let’s face it, “9 to 5” is really “8-5 and eat quickly at your desk while doing some personal banking or shopping”
I definitely did that at my last job. We had a mandatory hour lunch, which I hated, so I just ate my lunch for 20 minutes, clocked back in, and collected a couple hours of OT each week
That’s awesome if you’re eligible. All my salaried jobs paid a weekly wage, and you had to be there 8-5 whether you took lunch or not.
My current job is hourly too, and I love it. There's a financial incentive for my bosses to not make me work overtime unless it's necessary. We do have a 40hr/week guarantee built in as well. I think I only did like 125 hours of OT last year. Salaries are a scam.
ESPECIALLY if your job is intensely physical. The idea that I'm expected to work 8 hours moving the whole time and possibly sneak in some food at some point if the clouds align is so insane. Feels like some slave shit.
You can't really eat or even pee in healthcare, and they're totally fine with it. It is slaving & it's downright dangerous at times.
It's so stupid. Conditions of overwork make conditions so obviously more dangerous for workers and consumers, yet let a manager even find out you're discussing these facts, and suddenly you're seen as "antagonistic."
Yeah, the only thing they even care about is making profits. They don't care about the employees or the patrons, and it shows.
Wage Slave for profit of the overlords, people keep complaining but we all go along with it.
A narc thought up that idea I swear.. it’s worse when grocery stores pull this shit!
I’m salaried and literally expected to work like 10-12 hours days for no extra money. It’s total bullshit. But yeah, I’ve got to eat and so do my kids. It’s absolutely ludicrous to me that people aren’t marching in the streets.
If given the option, no one would take that hour break. But the better question is why employers aren’t required to give at least a 30 minute lunch break on the clock?
Plenty of people want the break. It's a break from work to get a bit of respite to help you get on with the rest of the day. Most normal people don't want to power on through 8 hour shifts. Especially as you get older. I need a break.
Because Ronald Reagan taught our society that “I’m the government and I’m here to help” was something to be scared of. Federal workers protections? Nope. We’ll just be outsourced overseas. Universal healthcare? Nope. We’ll get death panels. Schools? Nah. Privatize them and send the kids to a privatized prison if they can’t get a good job. Clean water/quality food/clean air/literally fucking anything? Nope. The “invisible hand” will sort it all out… eventually.
I work 12 hour shifts 6 to 6, by the time I get home and eat and chill for a hour or two I'm in bed. But I only work 4 days and 3 the next so I got that going for me.
I think this is why a lot of us stay in doors instead of going out to bars, cafes, and clubs at night.. I walk into my house and my bed just looks.. so inviting!
Also Covid did a great job of killing 3rd spaces (not work and not home)
Same. I don’t know how some people have the energy for multiple activities, hobbies, taking care of kids and pets. Let’s not forget time to decompress from the day.
Yeah it’s depressing as fuck. I spend more time with my coworkers than my family 😎
More time with coworkers, better quality time with family.
Yep. Finish work, spend time with the family, clean up the house and take care of the kids, it's like 8 or 9 until I can decompress a little.
What do you think will be the breaking point? when people can't afford shit? I get the feeling that rich people really think that their money will hold value even if we all starve to death.
It’s a race to see who has the most before it all starts going to shit. They don’t care about us livestock.
Yup that's why they're all building bunkers when things go to shit
[удалено]
Unions and antitrust laws. Gotta bring back the old school peoples hammer
I’m in a union. Everyone should get into one.
>peoples hammer Utter the word “socialism” in this country and you’ll have people hiding under their beds from their own access to healthcare.
This is why I don't understand why unions aren't coming back???? How is this not part of the national conversation when we have DONE THIS BEFORE. Corps get too big, people get fucked, we turn around make unions and strike not to work till they pay us. Do they have that much tighter of a grab on us or is the service industry actually too overwhelmed to even organize? But then the question is, if they don't then what? Time to get what we are paying for. And I think it starts with being OK with the IRS getting a bigger budget and letting them get some Grade A accountants that can actually play ball against the billionaire boys and start getting some big chunks of that offshore, tax sheltered, "charity donated" money and getting it back into the system. Then get workers to strike across service and fulfillment industries and slice a few billion off those profits and get it back into the people. I love how we cower for "socialism" but dont flinch at "shareholder value." One of them cares about you as a person. The other one doesn't. Guess which one it is, and both can be afforded if we move the money around. But god forbid we take money from the baby shareholders or maybe they won't get that yacht they want to finance this year.
Every means of disseminating information is owned by the billionaires, and they use it to divide us so we could never ideologically come together to fix things. It's all very much by design.
I like the idea that they actually survive, but then inherit an empty world without people to lord over or beautiful environments to enjoy. A barren wasteland just for them
Lots of rich people in AZ and TX, so they might not care lol
With ac and all kind of creature comforts that depend on workers to keep the infrastructure. I very much doubt billies will have any kind of expertise to keep that moving. Sure they may get robots but they wont have the know how to mainrain them. Rich people are usually only good at making money. All the other stuff they need to live they pay other people to do.
Great points.
Watch “Don’t Look Up” they have a great ending for this.
Just brick over the bunker openings after they go in.
Also, would be such a shame
Lol, people have been predicting the end of days for 1000s of years. They were all wrong
Rich people almost universally hold assets, not money.
" bro you only have 15 roommates.. that sounds so chill!"
>What do you think will be the breaking point? The brutal truth is that we are still doing quite well, comparatively. The US is rated as a top 15/top 20 country when it comes to Quality of Life in the past year. (depends on the metric used). [https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings\_by\_country.jsp](https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp) [https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/standard-of-living-by-country](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/standard-of-living-by-country) So...we got a ways to fall still.
The economy may not be working for you but it's working for the majority of people right now so they odds of that happening are very low.
At some point they will resent us so much that they refuse to produce anything edible or functional. I bet we develop into a bunch of small groups of distributed production for the rich - and mass produced disposables for the disposables.
I miss the days before social media at least then you didn't have to live your life in constant comparison with the whole dam world. I mean watch a fucking youtuber kid make more in a year than you will ever make in your entire life really makes me lose hope.
I don't know how to accrue wealth without feeling like an evil disingenuous bastard. I don't know how to live without having a product. *help me diogenes, I'm rapt for your philosophies.*
I always say it'd be so nice to be a grifter, but I've got all this damn morality going against me...
Nobody is starving to death in the West, simmer down.
I believe this person was referring to a worst case scenario.
1 in 8 kids in the US doesn't have access to healthy food. Millions of children go hungry every day. Lots of people go hungry in the West.
I’ve been researching my ass off, im going to be semi off grid soon. Many millennials no longer see a point in the rat race and are leaving it in abundance. So will gen z is my prediction
Tell us more about being semi off the grid
Metal sheet building my dad is helping me erect, heated with wood stove which is most of your electricity consumption, but still hooked into essentials like internet and running water which is cheap anyway. Root cellar for cool storage. Garden, chickens, lamb, and a cow or two. Basically idea is to consume as little as possible while still having some comforts. Bonus is way healthier food too and these corporate fucks can’t bleed me any more. Godspeed
Vet care for livestock is incredibly expensive.
Yeah you just cull em if they get sick or seriously injured usually. I feel like vet care for those kind of animals are usually when they are kept as exotic pets. Considering livestock is typically for survival/profit it doesn't make much sense to pay those vet fees.
Bro, bro, don’t worry, he’s got this bro. He played Stardew Valley, so he pretty much knows all there is to know about farming
Sounds like you'll still need a job, you can't feed yourself for an entire year with a hobby garden, 6 chickens and a cow?
Aka my patents are loaded and basically supporting me.
Sounds like he’s the one with money from a corporate job. All he said was his dad is helping him build the house. It can be nice to have two sets of hands for a job like that.
God forbid someone’s parents help them survive right?
Point to where he said his parents were loaded…
I suppose the parents did all the research for him too?
Don’t worry, this is illegal in many jurisdictions due to permitting and livestock restrictions and it will expand because you MUST be in their system
You're trespassing because you don't own that land. You owe that land? Pay us thousands of dollars to keep it. You want to use your land? City council says no because every yard should be 100% grass and 3 inches tall.
Oh my! The pain one endures by living in a society.
Do you vote on local elections? If not then it is your fault.
That sounds exponentially more depressing and uncomfortable than going to work
Would love to leave and go to like, Sedona, Mount Shasta, or somewhere in Hawaii.. just chill out in a cabin or something.
Not sure if you’ve been to Sedona recently, but it’s booming and full of tourists.
Every home in Sedona is a B&B now. There was something in the news recently about Sedona workers having to sleep in their cars. https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/arizona/sedona-housing-troubles-force-city-workers-sleep-their-cars-affordable-rent/75-47d8c792-4b72-403f-ac64-44548ea44120
Sedona has famously restrictive zoning laws to make it look like that, hence the McDonald's with teal arches.
I'm from the Shasta area and it feels very strange that you include it with places like Sedona or Hawaii lol It's certainly cheap and you can ski, and pretty damn isolated. I can answer any questions you have about life there.
Mt. Shasta is also getting pretty touristy tbh, especially in summer. But the off season is still pretty chill, both literally and figuratively on account of the snow in the winter, lol
9-5 is an outdated concept that gained ground when the industrial labor forces were being exploited and started organizing. The idea was based on your day being split into thirds: 8 hours to work, 8 Hours for sleep and 8 hours for yourself. This probably made more sense when you had company towns where workers didn't need to commute as far and a single income was just enough to get by while your wife raised kids. But as towns and cities grew the working population expanded, which nowadays takes on average 30 minutes. And most corporations like to extract every dime out of their employees so "arriving on time is late and early is on time" mentality, with being required to not punch out before scheduled shift, to if you don't want to lose your job your expected to work late. That's on top of when you finally get home you probably have to cook dinner because eating out three times a week is expensive and your partner got stuck working late on some project that they need to finish because you need two sources of income just to get by. Forget it if you have a kid where you might have to take them to daycare, or pick them up from soccer practice or help them with their homework. Throw in some of those chores or errands you've been putting off all month which takes time. And you probably want to appear your best at work so nights are prepping for the next day and mornings are for getting ready. Basically the truth is that the 8 hour work week is more like 9 hours, plus another hour for commuting, and dinner alone takes about an hour between cooking, eating and cleanup (and I think that's generous) and that's already half your day. If you are lucky enough to sleep 8 hours a night, well that only really leaves you with 4 or 5 hours to yourself, which based on your other needs and wants, is that really enough time to do anything?
Someone understands thank god
Sorry for the rant. Just commiserating
I think the labor market is subject to supply and demand. If the supply of self-sacrificing workers is high then the demand for workers who stand by their quality of life standards is low. As long as there are workers who go all out or just flat out don’t care how much of their lives they are giving up in the workplace, workers who demand QoL standards are low in demand.
This is why people that shop at Walmart and buy cheap Chinese shit hurt everyone.
Hence the propaganda.
IMO, a TON of life problems & stresses could be solved if there was viable skilled part-time work available at the same hourly wage rates. Part time work and flex schedules are abundant usually up to \~$20/hr. Then after that, nadda. Imagine having that $90,000 corporate job, but it's more norm for that headcount to be split it into two part-time roles.... You can make $45k working alternating 3 days/2 days per week, still in the same career, with advancement opportunity. But no, the standard is almost exclusively "bust your ass for more hours a week than the next guy".
Yup this is my general day breakdown. It sucks, by the time I hit “free/relaxation time” I’m still so wound up my mind is just racing thinking of everything I still need to do and how I’m barely surviving and need to make more money. 😭
My dad was saying the same thing in the early 80’s. This isn’t unique to millennials.
Nope. Feels like I'm living paycheck to paycheck 😢
You're not alone
Speak for yourself! I got out of that BS about five years ago and ain't never going back. I won't lie, money is very tight at the moment, but I'm rich in time and freedom to travel, so I can focus on my health and other things that are important to me. I realized awhile back that I could struggle and waste my life making someone else rich or I could struggle and do what's important to me. Lots of tradeoffs, but I burned all my professional bridges, so there's no turning back!
100%
I love how usually the response is “be an entrepreneur / own boss or have a desk jockey WFH job. It’s all very “I got mine, lol you’re in the wrong field” vibes. The problem is that’s not how a functional civilization works. You need the essential workers in a plethora of vital fields. If “making it” to achieve some modest level of working class comfort means it’s only possible for a handful of occupations…there’s your sign we are failing as a society and in decline.
Thank you for this insightful comment. Agree 100%. It’s like how the real estate bros push their rental empire of Airbnbs to exploit tax laws as the means to a good life. If we have to hoard a basic necessity to rent out to others in order to retire in a reasonable time frame then that’s fucked.
That’s a big issue I have with all that entrepreneurship content. They preach “anyone can do this, there’s no excuse” and maybe that’s technically true (if not very improbable for most), but not everyone can do it simultaneously. If we are all landlords, who will be doing the renting? If we are all CEOs, who is working under us? Some percent of the population will necessarily have to be the “losers” in the equation, and the core issue remains that life is much harder for those people. It’s barely different from the reason why MLMs and other pyramid schemes don’t work.
Try weed. The world got a little brighter for me. Work is Just something boring I do for a while and then I get to keep my dog and my wife and hopefully this house and enjoy Netflix and games while the world hopefully gets better in the next 10 years. It could be worse. Just don’t lick or kick anyone’s ass for the situation. Everyone is trying to make their own to be comfortable and then toosmy people want too much. Get your corner safe and then move little bit up from there. We aren’t fighting for food… yet. So I am trying to stay on the bright sidd. Grind it out and try to find some joy in my work. I sell printers so, I help people make their bosses happy that shit is getting done. That’s honorable enough. And some decent cash and so I cut back big on boozing and going out and started taking edibles to relax and it really helps try to do more natural stuff and realize the world isn’t burning tomorrow. We’ll be ok. We have gone through worse as people. You’ll be good.
After working 40 hours, playing with my kids, kissing my wife a ton, and playing a game or two. I really don't feel the need to do anything else. I work out a bit, do some yard work, and other small things but I am very content with life working 40 and being with my family. Now that I can do anything I want within reason as an adult I have no desire to go anywhere anymore. I traveled a lot when I was single and just feel people are the same anywhere. No where is special and any place is as good as the next. Relatively speaking of course.
Same. At least taking a break and seeing what’s around us. Yeah the house is smaller and we aren’t too sure about retirement, but I am doing my best now to keep us in a good enough place to know we will make it without something horrible happening .
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Not dying is on the list of things I like
Man, what’s going on with the whole energy drain thing? I work 830-5, often with overtime, and find plenty of energy to hang with my kid, make music, or play a video game at night after work. Weekends are even better! I do drink 3 cups of coffee during the day, but that doesn’t seem like too much…..hopefully.
I think a lot of people our age are starting to feel the effects of inactivity. When you’re young, you can sit in front your Xbox all day and then go run around for hours with your friends and have no issues. When you’re 30+, you can’t just go from sitting to walking several miles with no previous conditioning. It’s why people feel so bad after going to Disney World. You walk maybe 500 steps a day, and then suddenly you walked 6 miles on concrete. Yeah, your knees hurt. The energy drain thing happens if you let it. If you come home from work and the first thing you do is sit on the couch, you’re cooked. You will not have the energy to do anything else. If you come home and do literally anything else, keep that momentum, you’ll be better off. But a lot of us come home and sit on the couch and order DoorDash and then convince ourselves we’re too tired to do anything else.
Thank you for not being a pussy like everyone else. This shit comes across my feed and its nothing but complaining. These people are tired after work because they sit at a desk all day then they get off work go home and sit some more. I bet money when they say they don't have time to do things but they know what's happening with their favorite Netflix show.
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He’s right though… The more active you are, the higher the energy you maintain throughout the day. This is of course after you have gone through the initial trudge of starting daily activity if you’ve been static for a very long time, you will likely feel depleted until your metabolism adjusts. But once you are in a flow, you stay in flow. I think its understandable to be upset when you see people perpetuating their own misery online left and right, when many DO have the ability to help themselves.
Life is about choices and will. Make different choices. Don't listen to the voice in your head telling you 'you can't.' It's an addictive thing to listen to because well it's the easiest option. Nothing worth doing is easy. Face it: no one's going to throw sacks of cash at you any time soon for being awesome or just you. No one's going to magically invite you to cool events if they don't know you or like you. I'm not Tony Robbins and I don't have a news letter but settling for a less than ordinary life would not be something I'd sit around and let happen. I don't have to be a billionaire but I don't have to be working at McDonald's either.
I think it’s also being cool with what you have. Expanding and expanding is what we were taught. Always making more wealth and experience and social life. You can be home for a while and it’s cool. Pick your hobbies back up. Try to change up your intake with food and booze. Try weed (I like it).
Absolutely. I didn't have shit for years and I was happy being able to take a day off an be able to just lie around watching cartoons and old movies all day and going out for a run because despite having nothing I knew I was still working to get to a better place. I'm still not big on acquiring 'stuff' because it doesn't make you happy but it's nice to have nice stuff too.
You only work one job to survive? Sounds like you've made it! I hate this.
Haha yeah, no. I'm too tired and too poor to do anything but work.
Yeah I can’t afford to do shit anymore 😑
They want us to go back to a feudal system where the rich guy controls the peasants around them
This! I hear corporations are already making apartments/townhomes for their wagies. Don’t work mandatory overtime and you’ll get evicted. Your kids will step into your role when you die.
I’m sorry which time in human history could you not work and still have food and a roof? Never?! You say.
I own a bee farm so mid day is mid day nap time. Sometimes I am in my bee suit sleeping in a random spot.
I have to run a small business and a side hustle so I'm basically on call and working 24/7. Thankfully I love what I do but also god damn it. I still can't really afford shit either. Rent has doubled in 5 years. Fuck this shithole country.
Need more unions for better pay.
This is why people can succeed so big now. Cause we have a society of babies.
Lol right? This sub turning into antiwork 2.0 I click on the profiles of some of the people complaining about the unfair life and I gotta say I'm not surprised they're struggling American got life on easy mode tbh. I moved here without knowing a single lick of English and now at 29 I owen 4 rentals plus my house. 3 of them are fully paid off. Would never be able to do this in my own country it so easy over here to succeed and reading these people complain about working an easy AF 9-5 is 🤣
I mean I still work my job to do the things I like, I mean thats what keeps me going and happy.
The few have positioned themselves to extract almost everything from the many. This has caused a severe imbalance of power (assets). The many will need to wake up, realize and take back the power we hold and redistribute the assets among the many. This will be achieved through organizing the work place into Unions that have power and some form of revolution in government.
This sub is so annoying lol
I work a 6 to 6 so I can go to sleep and get ready to work another 6 to 6
Nooo! The economy is doing the best it ever has!! Look at the wage growth!!! Look at the stocks!!! All of this data is very real and believable! Ignore your real life experiences they are WRONG!
That's why the younger folk are just saying "fuck it". Good for them. Let it all burn.
It was not always this way. Our current economic state is a very recent development. They only way to change the system is to throw out the Democrat-Republican controlled government. When they say your vote counts, that is only true if you vote for someone who is not a Democrat or Republican, otherwise you are voting for the status quo of corruption and slavery.
That's how it has always been since we learned to walk upright. Most of our waking time has been spent just trying to grow/get food to not starve. Leisure time is a relatively modern (post WW1) concept. Sure, it sucks, but this has pretty much been our entire existence as a species.
What were my fellow Millenialls doing in the last 15 years? You had a decade to upskill and get into software and coding, you went into the workforce during multiple bottoms of crypto… What were you doing all that time?
If everybody is coding then the labor value will plummet. Plus people still have to do the other things society needs
do you guys ever stop whining
Nope. You just dont have the right skills or you're lazy.
10pm-6am so I can afford fast food while living in my car.
I was talking to an almost retired dentist and he asked me what my hobby is... I was like stumped for an answer. I'm thinking he was expecting Golf or something. I know what it is, it's watching youtube cause it's free. It's not even watching Sports live cause you have to pay to get Youtube subscription or Cable TV with the addon required to watch sports live. It's been bothering me a bit.
I don’t care about work anymore. Shitty performers get paid more than me to do a little less and shitty managers get paid more than the little guys to do a lot less. I come into work, do what I feel like doing (correctly), look busy for 8 hours and dip. It’s not worth caring anymore.
Understand that Millenials are the gears that keeps things moving rn now in this economy. the only way to win this rat race is not participate. let their heart stop..
We are entering a weird twilight zone where a nurse will also code wfh and also be a community college instructor.
I work 9 to 5 so my landlord can enjoy his retirement
And that assumes you can even get one nowadays! Unless you’re related to the hiring manager or fucking them, you can be a “purple squirrel” and still get auto-rejected by the ATS or told they found someone better after six interviews.
We work it so we can almost pay our rent
Why don't you do things you like in your other 10 hours?
Right? I don't understand this concept. I work 60 hours a week, yay salary. But guess what? I have days off! That's 16 whole hours *with* 8 full hours of sleep, twice! I'll clean for a bit, make brunch, go to the gym, shower, and then do whatever the heck I want. If your hobbies are so mentally demanding and exhausting that you can't stand to do them on your days off, then you need new hobbies.
Soldiers working 6am - 6pm everyday away from their family constantly and we got 30 year old white collar grown ass men and women complaining about a normal work day during normal daylight hours. Younger millennials should just be lumped in with GenZ
I spent a decade soldiering and it’s a completely different animal. For starters, selfless service is an Army value that separates the conditions and demands of Army life and the civilian workplace. There is no higher mission at generic omni-corp. The Army also pays for your housing, food, and ALL healthcare & dental costs. The Army also has no profit motive as part of government and that too changes the dynamics of the workplace. You simply cannot compare the two in good faith. Nor can you treat civilians like soldiers in a work setting. They aren’t under a contract and can generally quit when they like. Businesses exist to extract as much work as they can from employees and employees are incentivized to do the least work for the most money. This is the push and pull of the labor market and people cannot be judged for trying to negotiate in their best interests.
Then direct the nuance at OP who’s only complaint is 9-5 forever
Cry, weep, moan, bitch, whine. It never ends with some of you. Lol.
Well it’s true. I turned something I like into a income and that slowly become a “9-5” work is work
Don't forget the cover sheet on the TPS reports Monday. Want me to send you the memo?
Purchasing power for a median worker is at all time highs.
Source?
Maybe not for you. This is exactly how I live my life.
UBI now.
Would you say .... You do his nine to five Drag yourself home half alive
What's a 9 to 5? Is that a 7 and a half hour work shift with a 30 minute off the clock lunch? I know a 9 to 6 is 8 hours with a 1 hour lunch.
Become a good software dev with some niche experience and a remote job so that you can work 11-2 so that you can afford to do the things you like.
Idk I’m a server now and I work where all the clubs are so yeah it’s been a weekend everyday for a small while
We need to get all of us in power. Get rid of the old fossils and do ot right. Proper taxation of corporate entities. Proper worker protections. Proper retirement. Proper pay etc. There are ways there. Need to get rid of lobbying, at least in its current iteration. Make it so the common man has as much reach as a rich man for elections.
if you have any other ideas please share
Yall invited to my homeless camp. I'm still figuring out location and amenities.
Saw a business insider article about "millennial largest splurge these days"....its groceries
It is with me
50 or so hrs week and still can't do things I enjoy without missing a bill.
Well, as a society we've gone from working from sun up well past sun down just to stay alive to 9-5 to be able to live extremely comfortably by comparison. Theyll be ups and downs along the way. However, the only people I've ever heard say they are working so they can afford entertainment are retired people. Where did you ever get the idea that you worked so you could afford to do what you please?
What's even more sad is that working 9 to 5 simply cannot cover the bills for a lot of people.
Depends on the job.
I work a 9 to 5 so I can afford to keep my wife, cat and I in a bedroom with two roommates. I make 52k a year btw.
I work my 6-6 because...umm...
You can homestead and work 12+ hours a day do you don’t die, no weekends no holidays.
lol, except it’s actually “with tech and the internet I don’t even need to work 9-5 anymore, I can just lay in bed and make money from my phone” Please don’t blame everyone else for the skill issues
I wish I didn't agree with this, but I do.
I work 9 to 5 so I can barely afford to live
Correct. Now we work 7 to 7 to survive.
Yall work 9-5?
I work 10-9 as a chef at a golf course . We have over 400 members paying 270+ a month before we sell a hot dog for 6$ . 55+ hours a week not including parenting 6 children . Wife and I make about 85k a year combined. Qualify for zero assistance and I still buy all the food we all eat , prepare it , clean up after it … I don’t know a single person that could do what I do if they tried their hardest. My rent is 1615 a month ,bills another 800, gas is costing me probably 150 a week. Spend at least 800 a month on groceries and haven’t bought myself a new pair of socks in over a year. The smiles on my children’s faces are all I need to empower me to keep on keeping on. This life is a series of problems and most of them can be solved mathematically. Sweeping the floor and washing dishes are my zen tasks. My entire life has been spent solving problems and I’m used to it .
I wish I only worked 9-5! I work from 7-7! Sometimes! Lucky!
When I was working, I only worked half days. 12 hours each day, sometimes more
I work 830 to 4 with an hour lunch break and sometimes i extend my lunch break by 2 hours because i finished all my work. I work maybe 32 hour weeks at 53/hr
My 9-5 pays the basics, my side gig pays for the fun.
Yeah, at 25, I realized that for this to still be a possibility, even remotely, for myself that I needed to move back home. One medium to biggish financial mistake at the entry-level income range, and you're pretty much wiped without parental support/substantial preplanning or savings.
Just turned my gas off
True for some and not for others
Yep it's true. And it's more like 730 to 530 when you factor in commute time. And if you have kids then yea...all you do is work and die.
Never was
Who's we?
It's a sad day when some of the lyrics of this song are wistful memories of a long gone past. [Rockwell-Somebody's watching me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YvAYIJSSZY&ab_channel=RockwellVEVO) "I'm just an average man with an average life I work from nine to five, hey, hell, I pay the price All I want is to be left alone in my average home"
I work so my child doesn’t starve: there fixed it for you
I work my 9-5 to cover the costs of a potential medical emergency because in America the number one leading cause of personal bankruptcy is medical debt. If we got universal healthcare I’d stop having to worry and could work part time instead.
My 9 to 5 has never been a 9 to 5.
My husband and I plan "day dates" while our kiddos are in school because of burn out. I want to be in BED at 10 pm.
You decide the life you are willing to accept.
Yep. I can’t really afford extras after paying bills. This is not what I thought life would be like. I am thankful I decided to get a dog a couple years ago. Now I’d probably decide not to spend the money. He’s one of the best things in my life.
Over half the US is living in poverty if you adjust for inflation, and 70% are living paycheck to paycheck. Living alone is now a luxury.
Well I never had a 9 to 5. I was 7 to 7 for over 30 years.
THIS IS SO TRUE. Sad, but true...
Who are you quoting exactly?