What is the biggest lesson that employment has taught you?
What is the biggest lesson that employment has taught you?
597 comments
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Being emotionally detached from really stupid leadership decisions is harder than it seems
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The book The Responsibility Virus helped me a lot with this. Most people are over-responsible for the choices of others, specifically ones they can't reasonably influence, anyway.
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I found out that https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ explains a lot of the dysfunctions that one finds in an office / corporate environment.
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That hit hard πΆ
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I'm determined to ever only work in public, state-owned companies. I believe in a causal connection between being a private, profit-oriented business and the daily "wtf" moments, the only true measure of quality.
Edit: fixed the link.
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I'm afraid I'd be even more depressed by the wtf moments in a public organisation, but I am also considering it.
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I stopped giving a shit a long time ago. I do my best to consult and warn and if they don't listen it's not my problem.
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The company doesn't care about you. The company doesn't care about you. The company doesn't care about you.
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My uncle spent years preaching to me about the need to be loyal to a company. I never drank the Kool-Aid. He spent 21 years working for an investment banking company in their IT department. 4 years before he was set to retire with a full pension, etc. his company was acquired by a larger bank. He lost everything except his 401k. He then spent the next 12 years working to get his time back so heβd be able to retire. He died 2 years ago and the company sent a bouquet of flowers.
THE COMPANY DOESNβT CARE ABOUT YOU!!
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The company cares about you in the same way a beef farmer cares about his cattle.
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No, they don't care that much
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Not even if you do valuable or efficent stuff for the company. You're disposable.
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They refer to you as .... HUMAN RESOURCES
You aren't a person, you are an instrument the company uses to make more money for itself. If you die or can no longer work, you will be replaced by another human resource.
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I had a prof twisting himself into knots trying to argue that human resources really is a positive term because companies care about and maintain their resources
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The people on the top of the company don't care, either... Even if it seems like the really like you alot.
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The most important traits for doing well at work (in this order):
- clear, effective, and efficient communication
- taking ownership of problems
- having your boss and team members like you on a personal level
- competence at your tasks
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I'm halfway through scrolling this long thread, and this is the first comment I've seen that isn't overly cynical. It's also correct.
I've been working for 38 years, and I've been someone who makes promotion decisions for 15 of them. The third one is helpful, not essential, but the others are super important. The people who rise to leadership positions aren't necessarily the top technical people, they're the ones who do those things with a good attitude.
The other thing I'd add is that they're people who are able to see the big picture and how the details relate to it, which is part of strategic thinking.
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I was taught that my job is "to make sure all my bosses surprises are pleasant ones". 15 years of working as an engineer and that never changed. Now I have my own business and that's the thing I look for employees.. someone I can leave on their own to do a job. It they have problems they can always ask me. If they screw up I expect them to tell me immediately and to have a plan of action to fix it and to prevent it happening again. And I never ever get cross if someone does come to me and say they screwed up. Far better that we tell the client about a problem than wait until the client finds the problem themselves.
Reading all these comments makes me realize how lucky I've been in my career. I've always had great bosses who defended me and backed me up.
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I'm not sure if the competence is really in the last place. I'd say it's on the equal level. Great communication and ownership of the problems means little if you can't really solve the problems.
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Your employer does not care about you. You are not important or irreplaceable
Take your time and energy and put it into your life, not their business
I have had coworkers die (not work related) and by the time you hear about it (like the next day) they have already worked out who will get the work done so the machine doesn't have to stop
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I don't think taking action to fill a hole is indicative of not caring.
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This depends. Iβve had easily 100 shit jobs where nobody cared. Iβm now a software developer for a small business <10 employees and they do care.
I am aware I am living the dream now and this canβt be the case for most.
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There is no ideal place to work where they "do it right", whatever kind of "right" you care about right now. When you change jobs, you merely exchange one set of problems for another.
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Having worked 7 different jobs that all were in the same field made me have some backbone of standards that nobody else could have built without going through that, though. It's a blessing and a curse, so be warned. The things I picked up on that I never realized I would care so much about in the healthcare field is good office administration and Director of Care leadership. The morale is just as important as the pay rate.
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i worked at all the pizza chains delivering ---- the absolute shittiest ones were a nightmare, for the same 3 reasons:
- not letting employees make food themselves. it's a restaurant, you have abundant food, it's cheap, we all know it's cheap, we work long shifts, come on. the cobbler's son should have good shoes.
- overemphasis on dress code -- if you genuinely give a shit if the pizza guy has his hat backwards, you should literally be sent to the gulags.
- being overworked for low pay, especially being made to drive when exhausted [literally dangerous and life threatening!!]
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As a consultant, I now feel grateful to the variety of dysfunctions that I experienced, because they provided me with some of the credibility that I use in advising others. That's the blessing part.
That, and comedy equals tragedy plus distance.
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That said some companies do it more right than others. The problems at the current company are ones I can live with. Which is why I'm still there after way more years than expected.
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Indeed, that's what I mean: you're always exchanging one set of problems for another, until you find the set of problems that you can accept (enough (for now)).
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Is this still true if you're self-employed?
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Absolutely. There is no business yet in which you invent money from nothing. Everyone works for someone else. It might be a capitalist boss, it might be a client, it might even be constituents or donors, but no one truly works for themselves. The only winning move is to not play, and the ones fortunate enough to not have to play were born rich. Being self-employed and/or owning your own business is just trading one boss for another.
Source: Was in private practice for a decade; now I'm a corporate attorney, and it's just a different set of people making my job hard.
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I feel better about the things I do wrong, because at least I made the decisions and I can only blame myself. I can also choose which things I especially care about doing well instead of being subject to someone else's preferences. It feels better, but still yes.
And, as CEO of a tiny company, I have to interact with bureaucracies more than I did as an employee, so becoming my own boss didn't mean escaping that nonsense, anyway.
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You don't have to run the rat race to get promoted. You don't have to be at your desk at 7am and leave at 7pm to put on a show. Just be competent. Most people are not. You'll eventually get promoted once you are old and white enough.
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Getting promoted isn't a race. It's a marketing campaign. The squeaky wheel gets the grease sadly. I hate it but that's the game. You can be great but if the right people don't hear about it it won't bring a reward.
The funny thing is it's a loss for the employer since it means people spend time self-promoting themselves and their achievements instead of just doing things well.
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Getting promotions and raises is rare. Havenβt seen that happen very many times. However, many people have told me that the best way to get a raise is to switch to another company.
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I worked at βAT&T wirelessβ back in the day when dirt was new. This guy would say β squeaky wheel gets the grease.β One day after he said that our team lead said βοΏΌOr gets replaced.β Then they walked his ass out.
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Yeah. I always tell newbies "nobody ever got a promotion for work their boss didn't know they did." Sadly if you produce 100 units of value and the boss only knows about 10 of them the guy who did 20 units but won't shut up about it looks 2x as valuable even though he's actually doing 1/5 the work. Trick is to be doing the most work and have people see it
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If we take it from the other side, it's difficult for management to understand how well you're doing if you're not communicating it properly, especially if your job is highly technical but they aren't. Technical experts who would understand your work alone don't necessarily make good managers.
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I must not be old enough because I've never been promoted even though I'm practically white as a ghost. Every promotion I have ever received is from getting a new job at a new company and ending up making significantly more money that way.
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Most probably you will never be promoted anyway.
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Fully agree. You can be lazy AF, as long as you get a few key assignments done or overfulfill them. Everybody will be like 'ooh, he so good' and forget that you don't do shit for 95% of the time.
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It should be noted that this is advice specific to white men in Western countries π but yes, it's true.
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The longer you work anywhere -- and I mean ANYWHERE -- the more you see the bullshit and corruption and crappy rules or policies and inequality all over.
For me it has been about the 3 year mark anywhere I've worked: once you get past that, you fade away from "damn I'm glad to have a job and be making money!" and towards "this is absolute bulls#!t that [boss] did [thing] and hurt the workers in the process!" or similar-
3 years? What nirvana corp do you work at?
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Thanks, I agree!
Today businesses increase like mushrooms after rain, and decrease like mushrooms before summer.
Don't get attached, move on to the next better mushroom π
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Funny, that's actually what motivated me at my last job. Things were fucked up, but not so fucked up that it was overwhelming. It was the Goldilocks zone of just fucked up enough that I think I can not only fix it, but look good if I do. It was a fun journey, all told, but there were definitely frustrations, even ones that lasted years.
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the Goldilocks zone of just fucked up enough
Hahaha, I love it
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Sometimes it's better if your employer doesn't know everything you can do. If you're not careful you'll end up Inventory Controller/shipper/IT services/reception/Safety officer, and you'll only ever be paid for whatever your initial position was.
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I wanted to be a system engineer, I got hired as a devops, I started doing a bit of system engineer, called hr and said that I'm working on infrastructure and I need my title changed or else I won't be able to continue my work, my title was changed, no I do system engineer stuff and less of devops, this was a very rare occasion but it can happen from time to time.
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Success is mainly about sucking up to the right people. No matter how good you are at your job, you have to know how to play work politics. Most bosses don't know how to evaluate actual ability, and they're much less objective than they think. Usually they favor more likeable employees over capable ones if forced to choose. Human life is a popularity contest, always has been, always will be. That's the side effect of being a highly social species...
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Begrudgingly given upvote. Sigh.
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I don't think you're entirely wrong, but I think maybe you downplay the importance of a good team dynamic when choosing people. I'd take someone less skilled over a highly skilled but unapproachable jerk for the long-term health of the crew. In that way, I don't think it's bad to favor the more likable one depending on how we're defining likable, and I don't think that makes it simply a popularity contest either.
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HR protect the company first, the employees second.
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100%. The rebranding of some HR departments as "People Officers" or "People Team" drives me bonkers. When push comes to shove, they will always protect the interests of the business before the interests of the employee. Full stop.
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Just remember what hr stands for. You are a resource. No more than a stapler, that can be replaced at any time
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Well, sure. Unless you're talking about a red Swingline. I can't compete with that.
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There's a reason they're called "Human Resources" and not Human Relations.
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There's no such thing as quiet quitting. I prefer acting your wage.
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Explanation please? Not a native speaker here...
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There was a phenomenon in the US labor market during 2022/2023 called "quiet quitting" where laborers across the market realized that companies weren't paying wages adequately or to a level that reflected the kind of work laborers would perform.
It was thought that companies paid their workers short of what the workers are owed, and in response to that, a large number of people, many trending young, started behaving according to those wages.
This often meant reducing work speed or efficiency, reducing communication, etc. Laborers would claim that they were doing the bare minimum to match their wage compensation.
The other side of this is that the US labor market at that time favored laborers over companies. Workers had more leverage about getting job offers and negotiating terms than companies had, partly due to a rebound from COVID.
This meant that there wasn't as much of an anxiety of workers being fired from their position since they would find it easy to get another job. So people did look for other jobs, often while working, to see if they might improve their circumstances and land a job that pays better.
The "quiet" part was about sliding back on performance or even job tasks themselves, and the "quitting" part was about workers possibly leaving companies for other offers.
I might have conflated The Great Resignation with this, but both phenomena affect the other.
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"Quiet quitting" is a term made up my small business tyrants in the United States to describe workers doing their job as it is described on the contract, and not going "above and beyond". They somehow believe they're owed more than they pay for.
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I might have to use that in my next all hands
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My company laid off a few very efficient workers, who sacrificed a lot of time and mental health for the company, because people working remotely in India are cheaper.
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Sounds like a company I worked for. I saw the writing on the wall and got out. A lot of good people were laid off and a second office in India was opened...
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People in your workplace don't know shit. There are a few who know stuff but the majority is dumb, careless or the combination of the two. Surprisingly the higher you go the more dumb and careless there are. We are designing monster billion dollar construction projects and some of my colleagues have problems with understanding written english. Others cannot learn a software that has literally 3 buttons in them they have to press. I don't even know sometimes why I am trying.
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I think we try because we can't bear not to
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I'm now a scrum master in a government IT team. I asked my team - all new to the work - to do hands on practice of the new systems, try a first stab at building our changes. Our changes were done in the second sprint (a sprint is two weeks of work)
Another team with probably weaker leadership, and maybe fewer competent workers spent six sprints (12 weeks!) "learning" and is unlikely to finish their work before Christmas
Management think my team's great, but I think we're mediocre, just tall among dwarfs
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Efficient workers get more work if you're in the office. I work from home, and that allows me to work efficiently until my work is done, set up scheduled emails to go out at the time I would've otherwise been done, then do what I want until then.
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I see your work doesn't have invasive programs that check idle mouse and idle keyboard behaviors.
this is an old one but i can't help thinking, what if they installed it without my knowledge, after all, my work laptop was given to me already pre prepared by our IT department.
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There is an entire department at my work that employs thousands of moderators to review desktop screenshots of all employees every 5 minutes to make sure no one is βidleβ.
Makes me want to scream when I think about it.
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Yeah, they're pretty behind the times, and I'm happy for that. They gave me a work laptop, but since they didn't block me from just using my home computer instead, I just do that so that I've got an excuse if they ever bring up any strange data they might be skimming from the laptop. It's been a couple years now without any word from them about it, though, so I think I'm in the clear.
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Luckily I work in a jurisdiction that would tear the whole C-team a new one if that happened.
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It's a double edged sword. I was very efficient, and did get more work, which got me noticed and eventually promoted out of a doing position into a leading position
It's a nice change, the work is light, the people side of the work is easy. I have higher pay and much more free time
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You you're writing up more time that it actually took you. That is fraud.
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What in the boot licking fuck is this?
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Most employers pay you to be on standby for last minute tasks. That's what you are doing for the rest of the time. You are also planing on how to do these tasks more efficiently. That is all billable in my opinion.
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shut the fuck up.
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I learnt meritocracy is a joke long before I discovered that it was literally invented to be a joke.
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Your employer is ALWAYS looking for a way to either get more work out of you for the same compensation, or replace you with some one or some process that produces the equivalent output for less cost. The entire idea that employees should be loyal to their employers is one of the most successful propaganda campaigns ever spawned by capitalism.
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There was a time where more companies held on to people and you could start and retire in the same company. That's now decades ago. That era ended with the oil crisis and never came back, despite bosses pretending it's still there.
Oh, how they hate the new generations doing exactly the same as they do, and only being interested in what's in it for them in the short term and not trusting any promises.
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Well said.
If any new hires want to test this, simply ask your interviewer about the opportunities for advancement for the role you're interviewing for, as well as the ways the company rewards good performers, initiative, and efficiency. They will 100% give you an excited, optimistic view of how there's plenty of opportunity at this company and how effort and initiative are rewarded with bonuses, raises, promotions, etc.
...ask about any of those opportunities again in 2 years.
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Not always.
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Loyalty is vastly overrated. The only rational course of action is to complete exactly the tasks to which you've agreed for the wage they've determined. Your employer will demand loyalty but never reciprocate. Don't let them manipulate you.
Also, never ever let them see you sweat. It doesn't matter how good your employer is, at the first hint that you're insecure, they'll pounce and you'll be treated like garbage. Always have your briefcase packed and a box to clear out your desk on a moment's notice.
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I'm learning that second point right now and it is tough.
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It is. Especially if it catches you off-guard. Hang in there.
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IMO acting out of loyalty is never good. That is a backwards application of the concept intended to make you to act against your own interests.
Some people like to flip the idea of loyalty around from a description of behavior to a reason for behavior as a method of manipulating other people.
Like, if people see me consistently supporting my friends even when that is difficult they might think I'm 'loyal', but that's backwards. I'm not supporting them because I am loyal, I support them because I like them and want them to succeed (and hopefully they'll support me too). If someone wants loyalty from me, that's an immediate red flag that tells me they either don't understand why I do things, or they don't care and just want me to do whatever they want.
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I'm not sure that I completely understand your point, but I totally agree that loyalty is earned and not automatic. And it can be used against you to coerce acting against your own best interests. I keep running into this with my employer, despite mountains of evidence over the years.
I'm a slow learner.
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I believe the exact same thing is true.
I have yet to see an employer even attempt to prove it wrong.
Showing up and working sluggishly is the most stable pattern. Getting it done quick and then relaxing only attracts attention and criticism, and as mentioned: More work for no increase in pay.
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Getting it done quick and then relaxing only attracts attention and criticism, and as mentioned
The trick is getting your task done quickly and then pretend to still be working on it while actually doing nothing.
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Learn from George Costanza.
Carry a clipboard and look angry all the time.
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I can touch type at about 70 wpm. Why? Typing practice looks remarkably productive to anyone who doesn't know what I'm actually doing. I also find doing math puzzles helpful. Making little calculations and drawing diagrams looks super impressive to clueless managers. Of course, such strategies depend on apathetic managers.
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Minimum wage, minimum effort
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Yeah, looking busy is way more important than being productive a lot of the time. You always need to be doing something, so you just go through the motions of doing things because otherwise you'll get shit from your employers. Waiting in good faith for more real tasks to emerge isn't enough, so you must invent chores.
At least, that was very consistently my experience in retail.
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Can confirm, not in retail but a fully remote programmer, managers are still very often concerned that "everybody has something to do" much more than "everything gets done".
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"idle hands are the devil's work" but also "god rested on the seventh day".... uh oh my brain is short-circuiting....
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Walking somewhere looking focused while holding something is a great tip I picked up from a coworker.
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Yeah. Most of what I did was fake organizing, straightening, tagging, etc.
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Pretty sure I heard from Seinfeld once. Also huff, sigh, and look visibly annoyed doing stuff - to give the impression you are working under pressure.
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Hold on dearly to any leverage you might have over your employer
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Hold on to that leverage over your employer with a union
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The more someone is paid, the less actual vital work they tend to do.
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We don't have time to do it right the first time, but we will make just enough time to redo it wrong a few more times before the customer complains loudly enough that the boss pulls someone from another job which will now not be done right because we don't have time.
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Thanks, I feel like I'm at work again lol
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cries in SaaS
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Boundaries. Establish them and defend them with every ounce of your being. If you don't, most employers will grind you in to the dirt and send you out to pasture when you eventually crack under the pressure. Better to establish healthy boundaries up front. Not only will you find yourself more frequently surrounded by people you like and share mutual respect with, you will be happier and land fewer "shit" jobs because employers looking for people to send to the meat grinder will see that they can't grind you down and you'll be filtered from the hiring pool before you ever have to suffer at their hands.
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That everything I buy can be measured as totalCost/wages*0.82=hoursCost.
I love measuring things in hours.
Let's assume I make 12/hr. Is 24 cans of soda really worth more (taxes) than an hour of work? 12 bucks might not sound too bad, but over an hours wages does.
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This gets dangerous once you make semi decent money though. Like why would I take public transit that takes an hour to get there for $2.50, when I could just take a cab that costs $25 and only takes 30min to get there.
Like, sure...if making $50+/h one can justify it. But one could also instead save $23.50 for the piggy bank by taking the bus. And the 30min extra is not time one would have been at work getting paid anyway (unless your taking the bus/taxi to work I guess and actually gain 30min of pay).
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Even when I was only making $25 an hour. I would place greater value on my personal time than money. If you are sacrificing hours out of your day on transport then you will life miserably.
For me public transit is 3.25 and it would have taken me an hour to get home. Walked home for free in about 45 mins. Or paid for a cab to bring me home in 5-7 mins for $17.
Sure I've almost lost an hours wages but I have an hour of my time back as well that I could put towards household chores or my hobbies.
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This gets dangerous once you make semi decent money though. Like why would I take public transit that takes an hour to get there for $2.50, when I could just take a cab that costs $25 and only takes 30min to get there.
Like, sureβ¦if making $50+/h one can justify it. But one could also instead save $23.50 for the piggy bank by taking the bus. And the 30min extra is not time one would have been at work getting paid anyway (unless your taking the bus/taxi to work I guess and actually gain 30min of pay).
That's when you start calculating your hourly wage once all your livings costs have been deducted. Once you amortize your housing costs, car, food, retirement, student loans, and whatever other bad decisions that you're still paying for every month and figure out your hourly wage AFTER all that it's a lot easier to keep a level head.
Doing this when you make $12/hr is much too depressing though.
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good thing I donβt see myself in the danger zone for that then
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24 cans of soda probably embodies a lot more than 1 hour total work to create for a lot of people. Planting and harvesting the coca, mining the bauxite ore and refining it into aluminum, etc etc. The main reason that much cola is available to you at that price is that the coca and aluminum probably come from somewhere where workers get paid a lot less than $12/hr.
I'm all for people being paid more, but in a just and equitable world a case of soda would probably cost more than it does now.
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Never do more than you are asked, especially for free
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You can't get sick
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What job do you have where youβre not allowed to take care of your health when necessary?
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I'm not OP but this is true for a Railroader.
It's a big part of why they were near striking recently.
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I worked a job in health insurance where I couldn't take time off for doctors appointments until I had been there for 6 months. My health got super fucked.
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If the company claims that "you need to work overtimes because we are short on stuff", then that's definitely their failure to hire more people. NEVER work overtime, except if you get appropriate compensation for it.
"No" means "no", also in and especially in the work environment. If your boss asks you to stay longer to "finish the task", just say "no" and walk away.
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...with the understanding that It's often grounds for termination in which you won't even get unemployment unless OT is specifically spelled out in your contract this way. The term in these cases for "no" in which you're not being asked to break laws/regulation/contract, is usually "insubordination." Oh and company policy, though even that's sketch because company policy is sometimes dumb as shit so it will occasionally get overridden.
I'm not a bootlicker, join a union if you can, know your contract and don't do an iota more than what's required unless you gain a benefit from it, but always be wary of advice like "tell your boss to go fuck themselves!"
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It has taught me that imposter syndrome fucking sucks.
On a more serious note, itβs taught me to be a solid ally for colleagues but always be skeptical of the business owners and decision makers themselves. I woke up to a layoff along with 5 other people and was laid off for 3 months before I found a new gig. Donβt allow emotions to cloud your job search. Itβs all a negotiation and you should push for whatever you can get in terms of salary, PTO, etc. Never sell yourself short because the company sold you some story about how they need help.
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Working for the federal government in Canada I learned that following the process is far more important than getting anything done.
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It happens in everywhere if you work for the government, red tape is matters more
Results, not important
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As someone who has enjoyed much of "Letterkenny", I feel I should steer you in the direction of "Utopia".
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That, given the chance, always choose a smaller company: having a direct contact with the person that pays your salary gives you a better shot in terms of professional growth
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The downside is that in smaller companies, assholes have a bigger impact on you.
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Agree, I've been lucky (and persistent) enough to end up in an asshole-less workplace.
As they say "job interviews are both sided" and the smaller the company is, the more relevant the person interviewing you is gonna be for that company: that's a good litmus test for what your potential workplace is going to be. I turned down many offers from people I had the feeling (or proof) they could be assholes.
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Another downside with smaller companies is there not always room for you to grow or move up.
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My situation. I was told unless someone retires there isn't really a way to go up. The only reason I'm sticking around is because I have gotten decentish raises and benefits like them paying for all my personal gas. That said, 2 of the old timers retired and they just cut those positions. If I don't get a bug raise or another position come my next year I'm gonna bounce.
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A smaller company means smaller salary and bigger potential to have to fill in the cracks as management decides to not backfill.
I moved from a 10 person map to a hundreds of employees map/hosting provider and doubled my pay for minimal extra work. My team isn't much bigger than my previous team, but I don't have to work nearly as hard being a JOAT vs staying in my lane and passing off stuff that's out of my primary knowledge domain.
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I had quite the opposite experience: my last job was for a big company (800+ employees) I had a shitton of work with the downside of being extremely repetitive and alienating, just a small cog inside a huge machine.
Now it's just me and my boss. Of course I'm a JOAT and I have more responsibilities, but that makes the work way less boring and I feel more appreciated for what I do every day. I earn a little more than before and I have the upside of having learned many new skills that make me a more valuable asset on the work market.
I'm aware that not all kinds of job allow you to do this, tho.
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It's suffocating to be in a middle management position because you get squeezed by the higher-ups and your own team. If the higher-ups make a decision that your team dislikes or vice versa, you're going to be in the shitter with whichever party suffered every time even if you had the best intentions.
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This is the purpose of middle management. You're the one responsible to the C-levels for what happens on your team, and you're the first line of defense for the C-levels to ignore the complaints of their lowers. Thus you get shafted from both sides.
The only way to be good at middle management is to basically throw everyone under the bus all the time. When your subordinates complain about policy, it's all "this isn't me, management made this decision." And "I'll pass it along to management".... When management complains about the team, it's all "they're not being motivated, how about we give them pizza" or something. You know, useless one time "gifts" that should "improve morale" but actually does nothing, and costs less than actually increasing wages.
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Yup, if you take a middle management job, you better have a plan to move up quickly, or desperately need the money.
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Unfortunately for me it's the latter
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The company doesnβt care about you. The company doesnβt care about you. The company doesnβt care about you. The company doesnβt care about you. The company doesnβt care about you. The company doesnβt care about you.
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No matter how much you invest you're time and effort for your job: You are expendable, and the only people who will know you were absent from home because of work 20 years later, will be your kids.
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My biggest lesson was that decades of work means nothing if you become disabled (in the US).
You can end up with literally nothing and lose literally everything if you become disabled. Even if you still have skills, even though you worked hard to contribute to society for decades, it can all go away overnight and you can suddenly not afford food anymore. Thereβs no safety net, and you wonβt learn that until you need it.
Because fuck you.
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The "family" talk is only just talk. If an employer says "we're family here" or some similar nonsense, it's not family as in "we stick together through everything" - what a family actually is or should be.... It's more of a farengi perspective...
Rule of acquisition 111: "Treat people in your debt like family⦠exploit them."
And rule 6: "Never allow family to stand in the way of opportunity." (Which is also cited as "Never allow family to stand in the way of profit")
Fact is, they want you to be family in the way that you'll do anything for them, like you would for your own family. But when it comes time that you need them to help you out like a family would, they'll show you the door very quickly.
Related: if you're hit by a bus tomorrow, your job will be posted before your obituary. You're just a cog in their money printing machine. As soon as you lose your value in that regard, you're gone. If you slow down the machine too much, they'll find a cog that is more easily lubricated (to push the analogy). If you're broken and can't work, they'll replace you without a thought. Management is there to put a nice face on the company (for your benefit) and make it seem less like you're a number; but that's all you are.
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Don't forget Rule 211 "Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don't be afraid to step on them." (Gint, 7500 B.C.E.). It's kinda funny that the Farengi were supposed to be an exaggerated example of laissez fair capitalism on TNG, but the writers of DS9 turned the rules of acquisition into something that's more applicable in our world than Star Trek.
Gint. (7500 B.C.E) The Rules of Acquisition, Farengi Guild of Commerce. https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Gint
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Amen!
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We have nothing to lose but our chains.
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Everyone has a right to be lazy except for you.
Recruiters do nothing except tell people "no" when they need a job, and companies aren't really looking for new people otherwise they wouldn't turn down someone for not meeting ALL of their ridiculous demands.
Capitalism gets IN THE WAY of hard work, and sees hard workers as suckers, rather than rewards it.
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They're not your friends, even if they act like that.
The management just sees you as expense factor and does not care about you except for how to get the most work done for the least amount of money. Your team leader does not care about you and only cares if their numbers look good. Your colleagues do not care about you and only see you as competition or the idiot they can give their work to.
If someone is nice to you they want something from you not because they like you.
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I'm so sorry you see things this way. I just left my job after many years at the company, and while my goal wasn't to make friends I definitely ended up collecting a few along the way. I was in upper management and definitely cared about my team, and so did the directors under me. I befriended some of the people in the C-suite as well. They threw a nice, big surprise going away dinner for me, which they definitely didn't need to do. I've met up with former coworkers in other departments to catch up, because we genuinely enjoy each other's company. I hope you find a place that values you and that you can find a friend or two that you can keep in your life.
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A central purpose of doing your job is to train yourself up to do the job you would prefer - either at the company you are with - or more likely at another.
Spend your time on interesting new skills
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Doesn't work, the job I'd prefer would be no job.
Or idk, professional with-friends-chiller, or people-get-to-knower, or world-seer, or randomly-on-piano-player, or casual-video-games-player.
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The job I'd prefer is hundreds if not thousands of years from now. I want to have my own ship to explore planets and feed the data back to earth. New contact? Great send info to earth for ground troops to stop by and start procedures while i move to the next planet.
A planet that's lifeless but good for resources. Great, send info to earth for mining ships to start work on it.
Bad areas not suitable for ship travel (black holes, pulsars, etc etc). Ok mark perimeter for other ships to avoid.
Mark scenic areas for possible stations to setup.
Imagine thousands of ships that are doing this. So much data flow. Probably too much data for scientists to keep up π€£
Someone has to do it and not many would like to do it but those of us that would like to would have a blast! You could even do it as a 1 man crew with robots to help keep the ship going that way if the human lifeform were to die it's only 1 life vs the hundreds that would potentially die if it was a full crew of humans. The robots could even clean up for the next human to take over.
But that's all a dream unfortunately.
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Yeah this is my mindset too.
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Everything except world-seer can be done as an at home aid for the elderly or folks with developmental differences. Pay is shit and you may have to do personal care things, but you also mostly hang out with generally nice or at least docile folks. But then there also can be random anger and poop. Scarily enough you usually need little to no qualifications for this work.
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The company has an obligation to find workers who don't know their worth and continue to do more work without more compensation. Take the additional work, get them used to doing it, and get that raise at the next annual review, or leave.
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Learned this very early at my first job. I was new to the whole content writing industry so I kept to just writing the minimum expected 2000 words per day.
Meanwhile two other coworkers with more experience wanted to impress the management I guess and wrote way above that.
The result? More and more work for them. And also when performance reviews came along I was the only one to get a raise because βthe quality of my writing was above average in the company.β
In the end, they were punished for βover productivityβ while I was rewarded because sticking with the minimum word counts meant I had time to polish my work.
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There is no such things as the employer will provide a safe working environment. They don't care, it even more true when your safety cost them money.
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It depends on the job type really. If itβs something in the food business, you are in a literal death trap every day in the name of some random personβs sense of taste, but if youβre in a humanity job for example, they canβt afford the mentality that would cause the work scene to not accommodate to you.
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I work in agricultural robotics... Our client develops a new harvesting machine, but is unaware of the real danger of it. My boss just want the things done as fast as possible. This expose us to danger. Not really a robotic cell, not really an agricultural machine, something in between, without any direct regulation to cover it because it is new.
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- You are more important than the company, put you and your family first.
- If your company doesn't provide a pension plan you have no reason to be loyal and stay.
- Telework is an excuse for minimal working. Most remote workers schedule emails, get their work done quickly than spend the work day doing personal work on the clock.
- Charisma is more important than performance for career progression.
- Favorite employees are typically the easiest to be manipulated and taken advantage of.
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How is doing your work quickly in remote working an excuse for minimal working? If the work is done, where's the issue?
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From an employer's perspective, they are wasting their money if you work less than the work day. Most employees waste their workdays in the office, stretching out work. One of the reasons why telework is failing is because, after three years, employers finally figured out that their employees are not working the whole day. From their point of view, that means you are unproductive because you could be doing even more and can handle a much larger workload. Employees obviously don't want them to know that.
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Telework is an excuse for minimal working.
telework gives human beings their agency back. nobody, NOBODY needs to spend 8 hours straight doing emails
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That is one of the benefits, minimal working. If you can get all your work done in half the work day, good for you.
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Knowing enough of the process makes it incredibly easy to slack off, and that should always be the goal.
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Company time should be used to shit, piss, walk around mindlessly, and search for a better job.
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How's the saying go? They make a thousand, I make buck. Let's steal the catalytic converter from the company truck.
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Boss makes a dollar
I make a dime
That's why I poop
On company time
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That was a poem from a simpler time
Boss makes a million, I don't make jack
Which is why I steal my stolen wages back
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Itβs about who you know. Donβt socially isolate your self even when you are great at your job. Being invisible is a sure fire way to be overlooked when it comes to promotions or a raise. Also being likable means your colleagues will more likely have your back and root for you.
A couple of months ago there was a post on Reddit of a Gen Z person who hated when people would say a simple good morning to them. They rather walk into work, sit down, do their work and go home without talking to anyone. And a lot of other Gen Z people agreed with them. Crazy that they donβt understand how the βgameβ works, nobody is going to root for you when you act like that. Also no wonder Gen Z is struggling with loneliness.
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Let's not start shitting on the next generation, please. We promised to be better, so let's make an attempt at empathy yeah? IDK how old you are but keep in mind they're inheriting a dying planet, late stage capitalism, and in general, hopelessness. I'm very securely in the millennial range and we were also shit on heavily when entering the workforce. Be better.
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That could very well be depression. I certainly don't like dealing with people when depression is getting the upper hand.
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