I got a new prospective on the antiwork movement

[CRLLS]

Years ago I worked for a certain big company. Every computer shop I had ever worked in had rotating on-call lists in case something went wrong at night or over the weekend. People were free to trade on-call weeks as long as they kept the manager notified. Worker also knew the on-call weeks at least 3 months ahead of time so they could schedule around them or arrange a swap earlier.

But, this mega-corp insisted we all be on-call all the time. I protested. Not even my doctor is on call all the time. His practice rotated the on-call physician. Then we were told we could not go far from home or be out of pager range (yes, pagers) even on weekends, just in case we were needed. We needed to be 100% reachable all the time, and no more than a 1.5 hour drive away from the work site. My partner (among others) had no problems with this. He even bought several extra sets of rechargeable batteries for his company pager so it would always be on. Me? I found another job. So I suppose that in the eyes of many who worked there, I was the slacker, the lazy bum, and the anti-work guy.

DW was a supervisor in accounting of a manufacturing company when a new boss came in. This was 1990-something. He had his assistant ask every one of his reports for their cell phone number in case something came up outside of office hours and he needed to contact them. When the assistant came to DW, she said I don't have a cell phone. Well, this didn't go over too well. The boss called her in and asked if this was true. She said yes. He replied with "We will get you one" She promptly replied that wasn't necessary. Her time away from the office was hers, not the company's. And that's the way it was left. I married a girl with moxie.

 

[jollystomper]

I believe what we may be observing in younger generations regarding "work ethic", willingness to "pay dues" and sticking to long term career goals may be more based on WHEN they grew up.

I would also add WHERE as well. For example, my anecdotal experience in modern times is that many of the younger people I observe with a strong work ethic are immigrants (across the race/ethnic range) from countries with many challenges, or the first generation of recent immigrants.

As times get more difficult (and we may be on the cusp of more difficult economic and geopolitical challenges), I expect we may see the youngers begin to adopt the past work habits of the elders, simply because they have to.

I hope so. I worry that there is so much "you have less because others have more/have taken what you deserve" messaging today that rougher times would only increase that messaging, resulting in more "we need to take from others" actions instead of more focus on work habits.

But then again, here I am, retired at 60, now 64, yet still able to work. Maybe I should roll up my sleeves and go back to work... After all, what would my (deceased) Depression-Era parents think?

I also retired at 60, and am now 64, maybe we are twins . I know my parents, also deceased, would be happy for me and my siblings. They saw nothing wrong with enjoying the rewards of ones hard work. I remember the first time my Dad came to visit after we bought our home, he looked all around the inside and outside, smiled, and said "this is nice. I know you work hard, but be sure to take time and enjoy this". My mother lived long enough to see my oldest brother retire, and in conversations with them the only thing she tell him is "I'm glad you have all his time, be sure use some of it to help others not as fortunate".

 

[Markola]

Here’s what I’ve learned about generalizing young, middle aged and older people: You just never can tell.

 

[sengsational]

I think those kind of numbers are really a red herring. Assuming a competitive market, an employer billing at 10x labor costs is getting the big numbers because he is providing something more than just bodies.

In my case, it was supply and demand; there just weren't that many people who knew the software and could manage solid two way communication with the process owners. The company had nothing but sales people and implementation people...no hard capital. Well, they gave everybody a laptop computer, but expected you to use your personal cell phone, lol!

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

The last nail in my working coffin was being asked to work on Thanksgiving and Christmas -- not on call, but just developing software in order to hit some mythical impossible schedule the following summer. I nearly lost my mind.

A few of us dug deep, deep, deep into the company policies and found a policy that said we should be paid a nominal amount even though we were exempt. The on-call thing was in there too. I brought it up to the boss. He was mortified to see this because he didn't want to talk to his boss, who was the instigator of all this nonsense. That guy came from a different culture where literal sweatshops are the norm, so we just didn't want to poke this bear.

My boss was a kind man and he found some other ways to get us extra vacation time on our books. I was not happy, but satisfied enough with this because I knew the banked vacation would pay out when I pulled the plug a few months later. There was no way I could use it since they literally wanted us to work all the time. But it would pay out when I quit.

I pulled the plug. My boss transferred out of that hellish department shortly after.

In retrospect, as I was pulling the plug, I should have put a complaint in with ER on the a-hole sweatshop middle manager.

In the service industry, employees often are "promoted" quickly to management because then they can be worked like rented mules. My DSiL had a job at a convenience store/filling station that demanded ridiculous hours, often (edited) on call. If someone was sick or didn't show up, he'd get pulled in on his day off. And of course, absenteeism and turnover were rife because the company didn't value their workers.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I saw a meme the other day, probably on antiwork, about imagine a time in the U.S. when one spouse could stay home and the other, without a college education, could support a family and buy a house. That was most of my neighborhood growing up, probably a big part of my state. It seems like a fantasy now, even outside the very HCOL areas.

Do any of you live where this is still possible?

 

[Bamaman]

Turnover isn't a major part of today's labor problems. People choosing not to work (either for themselves or for an employer) is. When people make no or little effort to support themselves, the pot of stew we should all be contributing to is smaller yet everyone still wants to dish themselves out a heaping bowl.

I think the seed of the problem began with COVID and the relief efforts made by our gov't. Many folks found themselves in a position where unemployment benefits + relief packages paid more than returning to work. That can be a hard thing to turn around.

There is a huge subculture of young adults that choose to not work. If they have a child, they can get into Section VIII housing with utilities paid and other benefits worth $22K+ per year for not working. They'll get into hustling to find enough "drug money"--selling dope, thieving, etc.

In our community, the local jail built for 150 has 250 inmates every night--many sleeping on the floor. 90% are there for something related to meth--buying, selling, using, stealing to buy it. They're in and out of the jail constantly. No drivers licenses because they won't and cannot pay their court fines. No one will hire them because of their criminal histories. Their families have thrown them out because they're tired of bailing them out of jail--only for them to do the same dumb illegal act and get thrown back into jail.

There's a lost generation of people out there that won't be helped as the meth has a hold on their minds. And they refuse to accept they have a problem.

 

[ncbill]

I saw a meme the other day, probably on antiwork, about imagine a time in the U.S. when one spouse could stay home and the other, without a college education, could support a family and buy a house. That was most of my neighborhood growing up, probably a big part of my state. It seems like a fantasy now, even outside the very HCOL areas.

Do any of you live where this is still possible?

Keep in mind most of those families lived in Levittown-sized houses (2 bedrooms, 3 if you enclosed the carport/garage, 1 bathroom, ~1,000 sqft.) no central A/C, with one car for the whole family.

No regular 'eating out' except maybe for a malted on the weekend, often meat-less meals by necessity, not by choice.

Helped to have a large garden, and I don't mean for flowers.

My in-laws match most of the above, and as much as people b***h about office work my FIL had to work 2nd & 3rd shifts for over a decade before having enough seniority to move to 1st shift.

 

[Bigdawg]

I always enjoyed (and still do) jobs that paid you for the work and not the hours. In the USMC I always enjoyed night shift. Day shift had set hours. Night shift you worked until the work was done. Sometimes you worked 1600-2200. Other nights you met day crew in the morning. I still enjoy those types of jobs. When faced with assignments like this, I work very hard and go home when I'm done. I don't want to work for 8 hours so I bust my butt and get the tasks done in 6. If the boss instists we work a full 8, I begin looking for the next thing. Currently I am valued for my experience and job accomplishment. Not 40 hours per week. In a sense I am lazy. I want to get paid the most, in the least amount of actual time. Most bang for littlest buck.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

The unemployment rate in the U.S. is at 3.5%, the lowest rates since 1969 and lower than the seventies. So much for the younger generation is all on drugs and nobody wants to work any more.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Keep in mind most of those families lived in Levittown-sized houses (2 bedrooms, 3 if you enclosed the carport/garage, 1 bathroom, ~1,000 sqft.) no central A/C, with one car for the whole family.

No regular 'eating out' except maybe for a malted on the weekend, often meat-less meals by necessity, not by choice.

Helped to have a large garden, and I don't mean for flowers.

It is much easier to eat at home when you have a stay at home spouse to do the cooking.

 

[GenXguy]

The unemployment rate in the U.S. is at 3.5%, the lowest rates since 1969 and lower than the seventies. So much for the younger generation is all on drugs and nobody wants to work any more.

Scary thought to think that they are the future of the country. At least there are some exceptions for now, but more and more of them seem to not want to work, feel entitled, taking advantage of the free benefits mentioned earlier, or living in their parent's basement with no responsibilities.

 

[ncbill]

Scary thought to think that they are the future of the country. At least there are some exceptions for now, but more and more of them seem to not want to work, feel entitled, taking advantage of the free benefits mentioned earlier, or living in their parent's basement with no responsibilities.

Strong Jobs Report Underscores Just How Much Of A Loser Unemployed Man Is

 

[GenXguy]

Strong Jobs Report Underscores Just How Much Of A Loser Unemployed Man Is

Ha! Some people immediately came to mind.

 

[USGrant1962]

The unemployment rate in the U.S. is at 3.5%, the lowest rates since 1969 and lower than the seventies. So much for the younger generation is all on drugs and nobody wants to work any more.

Setting aside the Covid shutdowns, the Labor Force Participation Rate is the lowest it's been since 1977. Or, labor force non-participation is the highest it's been since 1977. And applying that rate to the growing population, perhaps the highest ever in raw number of people? Quick math says there were 80M non-participants in 1969 and 125M today. There are lots of people who don't need to work - or don't want to.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

The unemployment rate only considers people seeking jobs and has nothing to do with people who don't want to work.

 

[Gumby]

Setting aside the Covid shutdowns, the Labor Force Participation Rate is the lowest it's been since 1977. Or, labor force non-participation is the highest it's been since 1977. And applying that rate to the growing population, perhaps the highest ever in raw number of people? Quick math says there were 80M non-participants in 1969 and 125M today. There are lots of people who don't need to work - or don't want to.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

The unemployment rate only considers people seeking jobs and has nothing to do with people who don't want to work.

I notice that the participation rate downtrend coincides with the Millennials coming of age.

 

[Chuckanut]

There was a lawsuit 30-40 years ago that required employees on call to be paid at least minimum wage while on call. I workedd for the organization that was sued although I was not impacted. Not sure if it was state or federal though. This radically changed the organization's on-call policy as I'm sure you can imagine.

We were salaried and I imagine that the rules were different for us.

When some of us objected to the requirement to always be near enough to be contacted, and never go so far away that we could not get to work in under 1.5 hours, we were told that our salary included pay for that. That was the first time we had heard about that, assuming it wasn't something made up by my immediate boss. Most of my coworkers had already put in many years and built up vacation time, retirement credits, etc. Their golden handcuffs were very shiny. I was the newbie and my cuffs where knotted scratchy rope. I decided there was no long term future for me with the company and gave notice a few months later.

.

 

[Irishgirlyc58]

Google the Black Plague and the middle class. You will see references to how the plague shifted the labor market and opened the door for creating a middle class.

 

[chris2008]

It is much easier to eat at home when you have a stay at home spouse to do the cooking.

Not if you are the stay at home person.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

 

[Chuckanut]

Google the Black Plague and the middle class. You will see references to how the plague shifted the labor market and opened the door for creating a middle class.

I have heard historians who claim that the plague would wipe out all the generations of some noble land owning family. The surviving peasants would simply take over the land and farm it for themselves instead of the former nobility that owned it. In return for food the surviving local officials created deeds that gave them ownership of the property. I guess it was there version of squatters rights. You've farmed the land for NN years, nobody else has come around with a valid claim to it, so it's yours.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Setting aside the Covid shutdowns, the Labor Force Participation Rate is the lowest it's been since 1977. Or, labor force non-participation is the highest it's been since 1977. And applying that rate to the growing population, perhaps the highest ever in raw number of people? Quick math says there were 80M non-participants in 1969 and 125M today. There are lots of people who don't need to work - or don't want to.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

The unemployment rate only considers people seeking jobs and has nothing to do with people who don't want to work.

And how much of the participation rate is due to stock market fueled early retirements, Covid concern early retirements, Covid long haulers and other factors vs. a drug addled, nobody wants to work any more generation?

And even among the drug addled, is the root cause sheer laziness and lack of personal responsibility or did the opoid manufacturers and distributors have a role? Four drug companies have already agreed to pay out $26 billion for their part. Now even the pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens have been losing lawsuits, too, for their roles.

 

[aaronc879]

I saw a meme the other day, probably on antiwork, about imagine a time in the U.S. when one spouse could stay home and the other, without a college education, could support a family and buy a house. That was most of my neighborhood growing up, probably a big part of my state. It seems like a fantasy now, even outside the very HCOL areas.

Do any of you live where this is still possible?

Any of the union mill jobs can pay close to $100K/yr or even over that with a decent amount of OT worked which is plenty to raise a family in Wisconsin. Very few still have pensions though so they better be putting a good amount away for retirement and most people won't be working past 59.5 because it is difficult work(12hr shifts mostly on your feet on cement). Doable but difficult.

 

[aja8888]

There is a huge subculture of young adults that choose to not work. If they have a child, they can get into Section VIII housing with utilities paid and other benefits worth $22K+ per year for not working. They'll get into hustling to find enough "drug money"--selling dope, thieving, etc.

My DW used to run several Sec 8 properties in the Houston area. Most people on this board have no concept of that part of the U.S. It's a culture all to itself and fully paid for by the taxpayers. And there a lots of these complexes. Even when she hired off duty cops to hang around the locations, it still was drugs/crime/violence as usual.

I suspect that someday when the U.S. can't print money at will anymore (lose reserve status), this culture will change and we don''t have nearly enough prisons to handle the impact.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Here is a whole article on "nobody wants to work anymore" vs. actual data - "Enrique Lopezlira, director of the Low-Wage Work program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, noted that after controlling for population growth and the aging of the workforce, about 2 million workers were “missing” in the June 2022 jobs report compared with February 2022. But it’s not because people stopped wanting to work.“Two-thirds of these missing workers are 65 years and older, which makes sense given that we are still in a pandemic where older people face the greatest health risk,” he told MarketWatch. “But the workforce has largely returned to its pre-pandemic level, so this does not support the idea that ‘nobody wants to work anymore.'”
Source: 'Nobody wants to work anymore’ has been said for 100 years. It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now. - https://www.marketwatch.com/story/n...nt-true-then-and-it-isnt-true-now-11659019444

 

[Souschef]

These stories bring back memories. I was once on cll over a weekend and given a Blackberry. I got a call at 2 AM, and it went to voicemail by the time I got to it. The idiots did not give me the password for voicemail.
Another company was big on "face time", especially on weekends. I finall said that I was not going to drive an hour and a half to show my face for an hour. I was told I had a bad attitude. I left shortly thereafter.
As an aside, a week or 2 after I left, the FBI raided the company for the "Ill Wing" scandal. I wonder if anyone thought I had anything to do with it.