Poll: Are J*bs Getting Worse?

[38Chevy454]

Work has always been a 4 letter word. It is different now, but it still is where you trade off your life hours in exchange for some compensation.
I agree some things have improved such as smoke free, better ergonomics, work hours flexibility, and work from home options some have. Also agree about the things that are worse like elimination of defined benefit pension plans in favor of defined contribution 401k/etc, way overboard on the political correct BS, much higher bureaucracy or administrative workload, expected salary overtime, and commutes getting worse.
But in the end we just swapped the bad things out and it's still work and it sucks.

 

[marko]

I think that many companies go through an evolution; ours did as we grew from $1MM a year to $1MM over 30 years.

You start out small with a good team of focused people, good benefits and a lot of leeway. As time goes one, the money starts coming in faster and faster and the culture drifts away from a 'team' mindset to an 'accounting' one.

Early on, our engineers and marketeers were those setting the tone but as we grew new folks coming started worrying more about 'this quarter' than our original market share focus. I interviewed one newly minted MBA weenie who looked me straight in the eye and said "What's good for the customer is bad for a company and vice versa".

So, I don't think it's a matter of today being worse than before, but more about where your company is in it's evolution.

 

[Dtail]

Thankfully, I don't have a clue!

Amen +1

 

[Walt34]

I voted "other" simply because I've been out of law enforcement for 17+ years now so I don't really know what it's like for sure anymore. But based on what I see from the outside it is not a career that I would recommend to anyone now.

 

[geeky_grrl]

Oh, oh! You hit a nerve! I saw the same decline. Seems like someone would complain about just about every activity that could exclude someone, even if alternative activities were provided.

So instead, we have these mindless exercises in conference rooms that offend everybody.

Well done, Megacorps.

Bleh, I always hated the mindless conference room team building but I also hated the pressure to participate in after hours company sponsored sports or other activities.

I probably would have worked longer if I could have just done my job without all that BS in a quiet office.

 

[Lsbcal]

...
I don't have confidence that a stock portfolio based on intolerable w*rkplaces will be sufficiently sustainable that it will sustain me. So I put it to this group. Are w*rkplaces genuinely worse than they used to be?

I'm not sure there is any correlation between good workplaces and stock performance. If there is a positive correlation then the market going up (jaggedly) for 10 years indicates that workplaces are getting better. But workplaces are in general better in good times then in bad times. When they start scaling back on good coffee and goodies you know this, although it would be a trailing indicator.

In general wealth is growing so my guess is things are getting better in the workplaces. But not uniformly across companies.

 

[pb4uski]

.... I didn’t vote because I’ve been out of the work world for too long to know.

+1 Though I will admit that when I talk with colleagues from a mega that I worked at in the mid-80s to late-90s they all lament that it isn't as nice a place to work as "back in the day" but IIRC the people who I worked with there during that time that were in their 50s and 60s pretty much said the same thing.

I suspect that is it harder and there is more pressure but at the same time there is more freedom to work from home or flex hours. In sum... I dunno and am glad that I dunno.

 

[bigcmagor]

The company lost all the true team building like company sponsored golf, bowling, and softball leagues long ago.

We used to sponsor lots of similar events for team building. That was before the company canoe trip resulted in one fellow overconsuming, falling off of a pickup truck tailgate and being run over by a car full of employees that was following too close. Now we don't provide alcohol at any event where we aren't also providing transportation and lodging - which cut down on the number of events considerably.

Miraculously, he survived.

 

[Fleur58]

I voted no worse but different.

At my large megacorp, we had get togethers every 2nd Friday afternoon with catered food and beer and wine for all. Sometimes hired merrymakers and DJs, games, etc.

Most young people in late 20s and 30s make 6 figures, they sure didn't for most of my career.
Open air environment with treadmill desks, elevated workstations, meeting pods, everybody gets 2 monitors; no time cards, ample work from home policy, fancy health and wellness facility. BBQs outside in the summer! Box seats available for certain employees at sporting events. Huge bonuses!

I walked away from all that cause the management sucked. No matter the department, inept managers making employees lives miserable. I was there for 10 years and it was a revolving door.

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.

 

[Calico]

Oh, oh! You hit a nerve! I saw the same decline. Seems like someone would complain about just about every activity that could exclude someone, even if alternative activities were provided.

So instead, we have these mindless exercises in conference rooms that offend everybody.

Well done, Megacorps.

YUP - we'll be having yet another company-wide "team building experience" for 8.5 hours straight in February. The only good thing about it is it will be the last one I ever have to attend!

 

[CoolRich59]

Luckily, I did not experience it but I voted 'getting worse' because I see Amazon-style analytics becoming a reality for more and more workplaces.

I was recently talking to a young lady I know who had just quit her job at a mid-size retailer. She was telling me that their job duties were changing weekly as new directives came down from corporate that reflecting the HQ's newest "thinking" on how they should perform tasks differently to increase productivity.

 

[Montecfo]

For me the work got easier, both because of my experience and due to software that automated more tasks. Expectation to get results and be more productive is inherent in being in a growing, competitive business ( at least if you want longevity and growing comp), so was expected.

Most of my career I was not at huge megacorps, but at smaller enterprises where you can have more influence. Also, early career was public companies and later private, which can be a different experience.

Work becoming more flexible (again, due to tech enhancements) was a plus. I never worked a job where I earned a pension, and last time I had a matched 401(k) was, well, not in the last 2 decades of my career. I tended to work in more entrepreneurial enterprises where "upside" was in equity participation and incentive pay (though both of these were all but nonexistent over last 2 decades).

Fortunately, they can't stop you from saving, investing and dreaming. But I think automation and analytics improve most jobs by handling the most mundane tasks (though positions can be lost also) and focusing efforts on those with highest value. Comp increases are paid out of profit growth.

I think cynicism toward workplaces can be a product of age and experience. CEOs and top management teams who are talented and creative enough to instill a successful longterm vision and sense of mission usually run successful growing businesses. I think too that out little community here is populated by a lot of people who came to dislike their jobs and were determined to get "out*, which can negatively skew polling. I was not one of those, I just always viewed getting out early as part of being a success and valued free time.

 

[ckelly78z]

With the current unemployment at an all time low, and every company searching for new meat, you would think they would get the bright idea of caring for the workers they already have to retain them. There are so many out there who don't want to work, that the ones who actually show up, end up having to pick up the slacker's slack.

Companies have also figured out that it is cheaper to require constant overtime, and mandatory shifts, than it is to have a larger workforce. Unfortunately, the company doesn't increase benefits, or pay for the good workers who are working their tails off, and this creates animosity, and bad attitudes.

What I describe above seems to be a blueprint for the Megacorp I still work for (20 years), but luckily, I have risen above the production floor level, and now have a more tolerable position.

 

[Amethyst]

Spot on. Also, a new generation seems to have different notions of what it's like to have a good or bad workplace. In my later years at work, I watched younger people push through several work-life balance improvements (actual changes in department policy) that I'd asked for years earlier - and been laughed at by HR and management. "That's department policy! We can't do anything about it!'

I think a lot of it is your personal lens, especially as you age in your career.

A.

 

[Bir48die]

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.

I was really lucky in total. Had two layoffs. Out of work once for seven months resulting in a career change. After that worked for several outstanding companies and people.

My rub with things going worse were two things:

Everything was life and death. Defcon 1

24/7. No privacy. Call anytime.

At the end we had two major recalls. Just sheer craziness. Remember on a Sunday watching football and drinking beer with my buddies. Get a text to have a conf call at 5:00. Put the phone on mute and tried to ignore the whole thing. Knew first thing Monday it was chaos.

 

[jIMOh]

I think working for a small business later in life will be more rewarding than working for a mega corp

 

[JoeWras]

Spot on. Also, a new generation seems to have different notions of what it's like to have a good or bad workplace. In my later years at work, I watched younger people push through several work-life balance improvements (actual changes in department policy) that I'd asked for years earlier - and been laughed at by HR and management. "That's department policy! We can't do anything about it!'

+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. Well, they actually didn't push back much. They just quit and went somewhere else. Megas were forced to change in order to keep their shiny new objects.

 

[cooch96]

On the whole much better: Far fewer obligatory Saturdays and much less red-faced screaming.

And since I reached lean/survivor FI, I’ve refused positions which would require 6hr regular commuting. They haven’t terminated me yet, but I suspect I put myself at the front of the line the next time there’s a tightening in funding.

 

[Which Roger]

I voted better. Back in the day, a lot more people worked in dirty/dangerous conditions where the work wasn't particularly fulfilling. Now those jobs aren't as dirty/dangerous as they used to be, and most new industries that have sprung up involve working in a comfortable office. And much, much better for any demographic that was previously excluded from such jobs due to biases or whatnot.

 

[FI_RElater]

while I didn't vote, I'd say before I retired it was definitely getting worse

no training for the newbies.... and they didn't want to pay for experience. I'm wasn't gonna train someone who doesn't have the required background.... we didn't have funds to replace half mil plus equipment if the newbie screwed the pooch. Pay definitely didn't keep pace with inflation.... DB plan changed for the worse multiple times, then..... I was fortunately senior enough that I could push back on any crazy OT, and was very often the "go to" that others came to or that management relied upon; I've kept in touch generally with a couple still back in last place and it's a zoo with lots of people leaving. (I wasn't in positions for work at home for most of my time; early in history (before marriage) didn't think much of staying longer to get projects on line.... and had less micro management.... in later positions far more micro management and push for often unrealistic timetable (at least if you wanted a quality output with sustainable uptime)

 

[cooch96]

I did struggle a bit over how to parse that option, since I can't recall ever seeing a thread with "I hated my job in the beginning, but I stayed there anyway and after 20 years it grew on me". I tried to capture it with "no worse and may be worse”.

But I believe we’ve seen several posts about folks successfully descoping their job, reducing hours, working from home, etc. And even more from RE’s who have been enticed to return; so the conditions at those mega-corps had either improved or never been intolerable.

Perhaps the poll is intended to focus on cultural improvements rather than improvements in conditions?

 

[jollystomper]

I voted just different. There are a lot of tradeoffs between the time I started and the time I retired, particularly in the Information Technology industry. As both a producer and a consumer of IT, there are some things that are much better, but some things that seem worse, but likely from my perspective bias. It is more different that worse. It is too much of a job for me to type in my list right now.

 

[Chuckanut]

I can only go by what acquaintances in K-12 teaching are telling me about their current jobs. And it isn't good.

On this subject I must plead ignorance and apathy. I don't know and I don't want to know.

 

[youbet]

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. 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!

 

[RobbieB]

I agree. I see much vitriol toward "megacorp"

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