Poll: Are J*bs Getting Worse?

[Cobra9777]

Late in my 25-year career at Megacorp, a peer of mine joked that he liked it better early on, when he didn't realize how screwed up everything was. I could definitely relate to that. Plus he and I had reached a level where the work was all-absorbing, with tons of travel. High stress was unavoidable and the corporate shenanigans and politics had become near-toxic to one's mental and physical health.

So it would be easy for me to jump on the negativity bandwagon that this thread seems to invite. But in my reflections about all this since retiring 6 years ago, I don't think any of that had anything to do with the job or the workplace becoming inherently "worse."

As far as the job, the problem was me... I chose the career path. I chose to think about work 24/7. I chose to check my email at midnight. I chose to be an over-achiever. As it turns out, the compensation for over-achievers was pretty good. I got large annual bonuses and stock options that steadily grew for about the last 15 years. Today, I have a DB pension and heavily-subsidized retiree health insurance.

Plus, I saw so many positive changes in the workplace that others have already mentioned, like flexibility to work from home and many more.

So on balance, I think my attitude is slightly more positive than any of the poll choices, which all sounded pretty negative to me, even the one that was apparently intended to be positive. So I answered 'Other.'

 

[Mdlerth]

Ultimately it's all about me

Sometimes we forget that working in a "traditional" job setting for MegaCorp or Da Gov is strictly up to us. Our choice. If we don't like it, we could leave...

Excellent observation. In my OP, I suggested that many early retirees are doing exactly that.

...and work for a non-traditional employer, become self-employed, start a business, try frugal FIRE, whatever. But, it is easier to blame "the man" than take responsibility for being where we are, when we are.

When you wake up tomorrow morning and groan over having to commute to MegaCorp and slave all day there, just try to remember that it's your choice. If you feel like your current personal circumstances would make it painful to earn a living another way, remember it's likely your own previous decisions and actions that got you to where you are.

Yes, I'm into personal responsibility!

No disagreement here, although I wasn't trying to kindle a discussion about choices and consequences. There have been other recent threads about that.

What I hope to explore with this poll is whether it's widely becoming more unpleasant to go to w*rk than we remember from years past. (And no, I'm not talking about 19th century sweatshops or medieval indentured servitude or building the pyramids.) The more painful the j*b, the more people with alternatives will beat feet.

It won't affect me directly, because in 48 days I hand in my pass! But it occurs to me that my kitty is stuffed into indexes. The S&P500 is a collection of megacorps; if a bunch of those MCs suffer because they chased away their most valuable employees, then my index investment drops and my retirement security is threatened. So it affects me indirectly.

I agree. I see much vitriol toward "megacorp"

If so and it's really true, why not work for "microcorp"

You are the perfect straight man, setting me up for the 64,000 dollar question:

"If it's really true that megacorps are driving their best people away, where are they going and how do I, the retiree, adjust my investment strategy? For example, are most good people really migrating toward microcorps, where they will contribute and prosper? Therefore should I be dumping S&P and moving into the Russell 2000?"

 

[foxfirev5]

After 3 1/2 years I don't have a clue. I guess the transition is complete.

 

[Amethyst]

I do, too. When I was younger, the workplace culture had a certain masochistic bent, or maybe it was Puritanism. The more you seemed to be living at work full-time, the more everyone respected you. Exercise was considered frivolous, verging on sinful vanity!

+1. Many of us experienced what I hope was the peak of so called balance abuse. That is, no balance, all work.

I started to see the pendulum swing when I got out. Megas were realizing the kids wouldn't put up with the sh..

I hope for their sake, they keep up the push back. .

 

[Amethyst]

I had a work friend who used to say he hated our workplace, but was afraid nobody else would have him. He was brilliant, and a very good human being, but eccentric and defiant withal.

He also died in his sleep just shy of retirement eligibility. I still miss talking to him.

Sometimes we forget that working in a "traditional" job setting for MegaCorp or Da Gov is strictly up to us. Our choice. If we don't like it, we could leave and work for a non-traditional employer, become self-employed, start a business, try frugal FIRE, whatever.

 

[nancyfrank232]

My career spanned 8 Companies from school to retirement. Oh yeah, some were better than others. Half fired me and I fired the other half. We're even.

Nice.

I’ve never fired an employer

Canadian severance is too good. Better for me to engineer my own termination $$$

 

[24601NoMore]

I voted "worse" (than the good ole' days). Reasons being..

- Everything is KPI'd TO DEATH. And the KPIs are usually totally unrealistic and unachievable.

- When you don't meet the totally unrealistic and totally unachievable KPIs, management beats you to death - because YOUR KPIs roll up to THEIR KPIs..and you can guess who's going to be blamed when the (totally unachievable) KPIs are not met.

- Most professional jobs are expected to be 24x7x365. They "own" you, lock, stock and barrel.

- Expectations that you will answer email or be available for calls 24x7x365. (I had a VP ~3 years ago get very irate that no-one answered an email he sent on a SUNDAY at 10 AM within 30 minutes..um, I was in CHURCH..am I supposed to be checking email IN CHURCH?)

- Vacation? What's that? I got "unlimited PTO" in my last job and was not able to take a day off for 3 years straight. When I did get some time off, you guessed it..I took my cellphone, laptop, etc..and was expected to be on them pretty much constantly.

- Politics, politics and MORE politics. EVERYTHING is political. Nothing is done for the "right reasons" anymore. Somehow (against all odds) do a good job? Your boss will take the credit. Do a less than 100% perfect job? Guess what..you're going to be blamed.

- Cheap labor - companies are driving every last penny out of their cost, and love to use cheap labor even if it's totally inept. Witness the software industry (the business I started in during the 70s). Cheap Indian labor is the strong preference of most management today. Who cares that they can't write code..can't diagnose problems..but, hey - they're cheap! So, we have crap software. Buggy systems. Basically, junk and disposable apps and systems.

- Companies don't care if you get ANY time with your family or loved ones. Have a family member dying from some incurable disease? Tough! Suck it up and get it done..no excuses. Oh, and forget about going to Tommy's T-Ball game or school play. 9 PM at night is work time!! (As is Saturday..and Sunday..basically all day, every day..and don't forget to respond to those Sunday AM emails!)

I could go on..and on..but, yeah, work is MUCH worse than it ever was 20-40 years ago.

If I could find a gig without any of that nonsense, I'd do it tomorrow..but that's like expecting I'm going to find a purple unicorn strolling across my front grass, also.

 

[aja8888]

I voted "worse" (than the good ole' days). Reasons being..

- Everything is KPI'd TO DEATH. And the KPIs are usually totally unrealistic and unachievable.

- When you don't meet the totally unrealistic and totally unachievable KPIs, management beats you to death - because YOUR KPIs roll up to THEIR KPIs..and you can guess who's going to be blamed when the (totally unachievable) KPIs are not met.

- Most professional jobs are expected to be 24x7x365. They "own" you, lock, stock and barrel.

- Expectations that you will answer email or be available for calls 24x7x365. (I had a VP ~3 years ago get very irate that no-one answered an email he sent on a SUNDAY at 10 AM within 30 minutes..um, I was in CHURCH..am I supposed to be checking email IN CHURCH?)

- Vacation? What's that? I got "unlimited PTO" in my last job and was not able to take a day off for 3 years straight. When I did get some time off, you guessed it..I took my cellphone, laptop, etc..and was expected to be on them pretty much constantly.

- Politics, politics and MORE politics. EVERYTHING is political. Nothing is done for the "right reasons" anymore. Somehow (against all odds) do a good job? Your boss will take the credit. Do a less than 100% perfect job? Guess what..you're going to be blamed.

- Cheap labor - companies are driving every last penny out of their cost, and love to use cheap labor even if it's totally inept. Witness the software industry (the business I started in during the 70s). Cheap Indian labor is the strong preference of most management today. Who cares that they can't write code..can't diagnose problems..but, hey - they're cheap! So, we have crap software. Buggy systems. Basically, junk and disposable apps and systems.

- Companies don't care if you get ANY time with your family or loved ones. Have a family member dying from some incurable disease? Tough! Suck it up and get it done..no excuses. Oh, and forget about going to Tommy's T-Ball game or school play. 9 PM at night is work time!! (As is Saturday..and Sunday..basically all day, every day..and don't forget to respond to those Sunday AM emails!)

I could go on..and on..but, yeah, work is MUCH worse than it ever was 20-40 years ago.

If I could find a gig without any of that nonsense, I'd do it tomorrow..but that's like expecting I'm going to find a purple unicorn strolling across my front grass, also.

Maybe try to land political spot or become a movie star. That would get you out of most of the above.

(Notice I didn't say "political JOB")

 

[socca]

If I could find a gig without any of that nonsense, I'd do it tomorrow..but that's like expecting I'm going to find a purple unicorn strolling across my front grass, also.

My family may be relocating an office to Florida within the next five years, and we'll be looking to hire one full-time employee or two part-time employees. I would prefer to hire 1099 independent contractors but the IRS might argue that they should be reclassified as W2, a nasty battle worth avoiding. So, there is an interesting related question: Are Employees Getting Worse? Our current employees have worked for the family for decades and may be hard to replace.

The employer perspective is radically different than the employee perspective, but win-win situations are possible. I'm not looking forward to interviewing candidates for our new positions.

 

[Amethyst]

Never having owned a business, I don't know if employees are getting worse, but they sure seem to be one royal headache. Since we moved to FL, we've had to engage more than a dozen small businesses to work on various things. The biggest headache, for every one of them, is finding and keeping reliable employees. Before we left MD, we had a lot of work done by a highly skilled handyman who had previously paved our driveway. He was so fed up with his crew not showing up, showing up drunk, not paying attention etc., that he ditched his paving business and went back to being on his own. He was good enough to command high enough prices to make money. But most can't make much money without expanding.

So, there is an interesting related question: Are Employees Getting Worse? Our current employees have worked for the family for decades and may be hard to replace.

The employer perspective is radically different than the employee perspective, but win-win situations are possible. I'm not looking forward to interviewing candidates for our new positions.

 

[38Chevy454]

24601 reminded me of an old manager at a past job. He used to say "Friday, just two more workdays until Monday". Needless to say he had no work/life balance.

 

[MRG]

At Megacorp a standard response to less seasoned employees who foolishly told a PM they had too much to do: "What are you doing between midnight and six AM?".
Sadly it was often the expectation.

24601 reminded me of an old manager at a past job. He used to say "Friday, just two more workdays until Monday". Needless to say he had no work/life balance.

 

[bolt]

I voted "worse" (than the good ole' days). Reasons being..

- Everything is KPI'd TO DEATH. And the KPIs are usually totally unrealistic and unachievable.

- When you don't meet the totally unrealistic and totally unachievable KPIs, management beats you to death - because YOUR KPIs roll up to THEIR KPIs..and you can guess who's going to be blamed when the (totally unachievable) KPIs are not met.

- Most professional jobs are expected to be 24x7x365. They "own" you, lock, stock and barrel.

- Expectations that you will answer email or be available for calls 24x7x365. (I had a VP ~3 years ago get very irate that no-one answered an email he sent on a SUNDAY at 10 AM within 30 minutes..um, I was in CHURCH..am I supposed to be checking email IN CHURCH?)

- Vacation? What's that? I got "unlimited PTO" in my last job and was not able to take a day off for 3 years straight. When I did get some time off, you guessed it..I took my cellphone, laptop, etc..and was expected to be on them pretty much constantly.

- Politics, politics and MORE politics. EVERYTHING is political. Nothing is done for the "right reasons" anymore. Somehow (against all odds) do a good job? Your boss will take the credit. Do a less than 100% perfect job? Guess what..you're going to be blamed.

- Cheap labor - companies are driving every last penny out of their cost, and love to use cheap labor even if it's totally inept. Witness the software industry (the business I started in during the 70s). Cheap Indian labor is the strong preference of most management today. Who cares that they can't write code..can't diagnose problems..but, hey - they're cheap! So, we have crap software. Buggy systems. Basically, junk and disposable apps and systems.

- Companies don't care if you get ANY time with your family or loved ones. Have a family member dying from some incurable disease? Tough! Suck it up and get it done..no excuses. Oh, and forget about going to Tommy's T-Ball game or school play. 9 PM at night is work time!! (As is Saturday..and Sunday..basically all day, every day..and don't forget to respond to those Sunday AM emails!)

I could go on..and on..but, yeah, work is MUCH worse than it ever was 20-40 years ago.

If I could find a gig without any of that nonsense, I'd do it tomorrow..but that's like expecting I'm going to find a purple unicorn strolling across my front grass, also.

hmmm. Worse than the good Old days eeh?
History dictates many children under 18 used to work as coalminers to help feed the family in the good old days(20s-50s) at one extreme.

Yet youngsters today can threaten their parents w/manipulation of child protection laws.

When I was working, 24-7-365 my crew & I did everyones job we came in contact with. That invariably sped up our compensation.

Good luck & Best wishes though.....

 

[nancyfrank232]

^ jobs are tougher today if you’re a sensitive soul

 

[SpinDoctorTX]

I can tell you this I dont trust corporations - my cash balance plan came with me when i left. Ask the retirees from PanAm what they think of pensions.

Good comment. My DD's was reduced in a BK, so the minute I took ER, I turned my small pension into an immediate 100% annuity to get it out of their hands.

... no worse but different.

Make no mistake, you are at work for one reason only. To get a paycheck. If you think you are there for socialization, accolades, interesting work and pats on the back, those days are over! Keep your head down, accept that there are bad managers who get rewarded; and make that money. When you get tired it --time to leave.

Agreed. I liked what I did, but it was a means to an end- period.

After 3 1/2 years I don't have a clue. I guess the transition is complete.

Lucky you! I still see girlfriends, so I hear the news. latest. THey are hoping for a package.

Nice.

I’ve never fired an employer

Canadian severance is too good. Better for me to engineer my own termination $$$

Here in TX it's an at will hire/fire state, so good luck getting severance unless they did something truly egregious & provable.

I voted "worse" (than the good ole' days). Reasons being..

- Everything is KPI'd TO DEATH. And the KPIs are usually totally unrealistic and unachievable.

- When you don't meet the totally unrealistic and totally unachievable KPIs, management beats you to death - because YOUR KPIs roll up to THEIR KPIs..and you can guess who's going to be blamed when the (totally unachievable) KPIs are not met.

- Most professional jobs are expected to be 24x7x365. They "own" you, lock, stock and barrel.

- Expectations that you will answer email or be available for calls 24x7x365. (I had a VP ~3 years ago get very irate that no-one answered an email he sent on a SUNDAY at 10 AM within 30 minutes..um, I was in CHURCH..am I supposed to be checking email IN CHURCH?)

- Vacation? What's that? I got "unlimited PTO" in my last job and was not able to take a day off for 3 years straight. When I did get some time off, you guessed it..I took my cellphone, laptop, etc..and was expected to be on them pretty much constantly.

- Politics, politics and MORE politics. EVERYTHING is political. Nothing is done for the "right reasons" anymore. Somehow (against all odds) do a good job? Your boss will take the credit. Do a less than 100% perfect job? Guess what..you're going to be blamed.

- Cheap labor - companies are driving every last penny out of their cost, and love to use cheap labor even if it's totally inept. Witness the software industry (the business I started in during the 70s). Cheap Indian labor is the strong preference of most management today. Who cares that they can't write code..can't diagnose problems..but, hey - they're cheap! So, we have crap software. Buggy systems. Basically, junk and disposable apps and systems.

- Companies don't care if you get ANY time with your family or loved ones. Have a family member dying from some incurable disease? Tough! Suck it up and get it done..no excuses. Oh, and forget about going to Tommy's T-Ball game or school play. 9 PM at night is work time!! (As is Saturday..and Sunday..basically all day, every day..and don't forget to respond to those Sunday AM emails!)

I could go on..and on..but, yeah, work is MUCH worse than it ever was 20-40 years ago.

If I could find a gig without any of that nonsense, I'd do it tomorrow..but that's like expecting I'm going to find a purple unicorn strolling across my front grass, also.

Sounds familiar. My last few years I drew some real boundaries, and it wasn't a popular choice among those to whom I reported. No laptop, no phone calls when on holiday. It made no difference as my backup colleagues knew what they were doing and did it even better without me looking over their shoulder by being over-available. I wish I'd done that sooner.

^ jobs are tougher today if you’re a sensitive soul

That is true, and the older I get, it seems the more sensitive I become. It felt as if my soul was being sucked right out of me towards the end of my career.

 

[CaliKid]

As a business owner for about 30 years I would say employees are worse today.

 

[friar1610]

And ironically those changes have made all our investments more profitable, would we rather those companies held on to the past and failed?

Related to the above quote, I've always found it ironic that, for most of those who want to leave megacorp and RE, the means for doing so is generally to save more to be able to invest more money in precisely the same kinds of megacorps they're trying to escape.

 

[ATX78701]

I voted "Neither worse nor better, just different". I remember back in the day having a CYA box under my desk. Now I have an electronic version of the CYA box. Back in the day we people could smoke in the office; nowadays that's gone which is good. However, back in the day we weren't leashed with technology as we are now. Back in the day, there were people in my start class that lied and were not trustworthy; today I see those same attributes in others in my peer group 28 years later. FIRE cannot come soon enough for me.

 

[JK7255407]

Props to the original poster. This is so timely for me. I voted worse, based on my own experience and based on several of my friends' experiences.

In my own case I have been through several mergers & acquisitions. I have always had superiors two or more levels up who have valued my contributions and had my back. For the past 2 years I haven't had that same level of appreciation or support. There is new "leadership" that is immature and petty... people who haven't managed at the scale of this combined company who I work for. It has become a tribe mentality and I am not part of the tribe.

The good news is that I am retiring in January. I needed to layoff a few people and I put myself first on the list... severance and the modest pension are soon ours. I'm 59 and ready.

 

[cooch96]

I’ve skimmed through all the comments. Mostly what I was expecting, but I figured I’d see a few more posts about how things are better Now as sexist and racist acts have been effectively quelled the past few decades.

So now I wonder, was discrimination not so bad back in our collective memory? Or perhapsnearly all of us posters enjoy the fortune of being part of the majority? Or is discrimination just as bad as it used to be? Or do most posters suffer from recentcy bias?

I’ve only been toiling since the 90’s, so I’m genuinely curious what some older posters have to relate.

 

[meleana]

I am 63 and worked all my life until being forced out last year by a new narcissistic a hole manager/company. Mainly targeted older woman there- I was not the only one. Hired younger woman for cheap.



The workplace is vastly different. Employees are miserable because of how they are treated. No consideration. No "fun" anymore. Management just taking everything away that made jobs pleasant to be at day in and day at. Lucky to even get a paycheck. Good riddance.


I miss some of my coworkers and clients but not the job or work environment/culture.

 

[trumpeting_angel]

I never worked in MegaCorp, so I missed out on the big paychecks and bonuses. Wait, I once got a Christmas bonus of $45 from a large non-profit.

I have been a professional in both education and psychology. I could never work as a teacher now. The demands are staggering. Endless statistics-keeping, frequent idiotic in-service trainings, non-stop testing. All of the joy taken out of classroom teaching for the teacher, and much taken out for the kids.

I worked as a psychologist at the beginning of managed care. Suddenly my skills had little value to the MegaCorp paying for them. I had to beg for more psychotherapy sessions for clients who were suicidal, and be "granted" 6 more sessions. Twice-weekly therapy resulted in more reviews and limitations. Our rates were cut, and a colleague once calculated that he made the same (after inflation) in private practice today as he had almost 40 years prior. The bills that have passed Congress requiring parity between medical and mental health policies have been ignored and cheated on, but things are improving there. Clinics, though, with a greater proportion of Medicaid clients, hire young professionals with Master's degrees fee-for-service. No benefits, no payment if your client doesn't show up, little job security. With a Master's degree!

As a professional in hospital and (medical) clinic settings, I have watched physicians spending more and more time on infuriating electronic medical records, limiting time to listen to patients and even to look at them. Their suicide rates are climbing, and burnout is increasing.

This seems to be a societal problem. Less time for connection, recreation, and a disconnection from any sense of purpose. Those blue-collar handymen coming to work drunk or not showing up? It might be that it has less to do with their character, and more about a loss of the meaning of work in our culture, of being part of a community, and of contributing to something and being recognized for it. I dunno. I am relieved to be retired.

 

[cyber888]

I work in Education. Not only are students getting dumber, not capable of critical thinking, but holy cow .. MBA students are rampantly cheating, and everyone thinks they deserve an A+. And Andrew Yang, Presidential candidate, says many will be displaced by Artificial Intelligence and automation .. we already have robots that flip burgers, bake pizza, robot bartenders in Vegas, self-driving trucks and taxis. AI is going to displace millions of workers in 5-10 years. The gig economy where people work for Uber and stuff - they don't have retirement benefits and even health benefits. It's Badddd!!

 

[AnonEMouse]

Some objective evidence that j*bs are getting worse:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/steved...erstanding-the-us-economy-lots-of-rotten-jobs

Basically, the quality of jobs have been in decline since the 90s:

"The US Private Sector Job Quality Index (JQI) measures the ratio of what the researchers call “high-quality” versus “low-quality” jobs. The JQI is the weighted ratio of the “high quality” jobs that pay more than the average weekly wage and tend to have more hours per week, and the “low quality” ones that pay less and offer fewer hours. The index is averaged over the previous three months to cut out the noise and adjusted to ensure inter-sectoral comparability. "

 

[JoeWras]

Some objective evidence that j*bs are getting worse:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/steved...erstanding-the-us-economy-lots-of-rotten-jobs

Basically, the quality of jobs have been in decline since the 90s:

I'll quote the following, which applies to many of us ER people. We have many threads here about why we quit, and why we ER. We have other threads about other folks who work into their 80s because they like the work and don't need the money.

Too many of us do not like the work. We have no flexibility. We are beaten down. We are forced to be on 24/7. Etc. So we ER. That's me. I'd love to continue to do some software, but have no desire in the current w*rk environment. (BTW, the boss said I could work part time, he didn't want to lose me. Ha ha, last guy who tried that was on 24/7 and paid part time. You won't fool me!)

Darn right, I have "no apparent interest in sending out a resume."

Why Is Participation In The Workforce So Low?Another perennial debate among economists is: why is participation in the workforce so low? Tens of millions of working-aged Americans are still not formally employed and have no apparent interest in sending out a resume. If the job market is so hot, why are so many people sitting on the sidelines? One frequently cited explanation is the growing proportion of older generation workers. Now we have another more important element. Workers don’t re-enter the workforce because many of the the jobs themselves are rotten.