71–80 of 260 posts
In 1845, Karl Marx wrote that in a communist society workers would be freed from the monotony of a single draining job to “hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner” Starve in the morning, starve in the afternoon, starve in the evening, self-criticise instead of dinner. FTFY.
I’m stuck in a dead end job right now. I will never be granted a shred of decision making capacity or autonomy. It is a waiting game. Waiting for more assignments. Waiting until 5PM. Waiting for my paycheck. Waiting to get fired. Waiting to retire. Waiting to die. ( n * (Commute. Sit. Wait. Commute. Eat. Sleep.)) Die. Where n == the days I have left in this world. The things I work on feel like absurd, meaningless bo…
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Some people get caught in situations where furthering their career and eating next week are mutually exclusive propositions.
If actual slaves were able to escape and make their way to freedom and satisfying lives, then surely office workers can do the same.
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These conversations I feel always seem shallow to me. Automation is definitely helping to free us from a lot of work.. but the world we live in today feels like a preview of what an automated world feels like. In reality, our material lifestyle is still supported by a very large number of people working away in countries most Americans can't find on a map for extremely low wages. If we're going to talk about "reorgan…
Do you know that 8 people in the world have as much wealth as 3.6 BILLION people. That inequality is STAGGERING. Where do you think the problem lies?
Unpopular opinion: It is easy to work less or nearly work nothing and still get by fine (in the context of the modern western world!), the issue is more that people spend their money in bad ways and make bad long term decisions. If you live reasonable and don't spend money on things you don't need you also don't need to work so much...And I often heard from people now "I don't even know why I work so much, I don't ne…
Unpopular opinion: It is easy to work less or nearly work nothing and still get by fine (in the context of the modern western world!), the issue is more that people spend their money in bad ways and make bad long term decisions. If you live reasonable and don't spend money on things you don't need you also don't need to work so much...And I often heard from people now "I don't even know why I work so much, I don't ne…
I’m stuck in a dead end job right now. I will never be granted a shred of decision making capacity or autonomy. It is a waiting game. Waiting for more assignments. Waiting until 5PM. Waiting for my paycheck. Waiting to get fired. Waiting to retire. Waiting to die. ( n * (Commute. Sit. Wait. Commute. Eat. Sleep.)) Die. Where n == the days I have left in this world. The things I work on feel like absurd, meaningless bo…
What makes you stuck? You sound like you've accepted your fate. If you want to change things, just do it. If your reality is so bad that you want to die, then how is taking action to potentially change things worse? A big part of this discussion is people want meaningful work and a meaningful life, but they want other people to give it to them. Why is that expected?
If only that was as easy as saying it. People have responsibilites and stomachs that don't like (naturally) staying empty. Sometimes you just can't do it.
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What makes you stuck? You sound like you've accepted your fate. If you want to change things, just do it. If your reality is so bad that you want to die, then how is taking action to potentially change things worse? A big part of this discussion is people want meaningful work and a meaningful life, but they want other people to give it to them. Why is that expected?
Meaningful work doesn't grow on trees.
Even if you have to have an "interesting" job, most people aren't but a few years of schooling out. Hell, we're in tech where you're a few years of study and practice from being world class and/or making hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Yeah, you've got to work at it, but that's really meaningful work.
Am I the only one who likes work? And I don’t mean my job, just work in general.
If you like work in general, then either you are very easily entertained, or you have never had a truly boring job. Have you ever worked on a factory line for 40 hours a week on minimum wage, doing something only slightly too complicated for a machine?
My favorite gig was probably stocking groceries, as I enjoyed my coworkers and working at night.
Almost all of these jobs have been “truly boring”, but I’ve also been unemployed and completely without direction. That period of my life was very difficult, and I found that work, no matter how boring the job is, afforded me a dignity and purpose that I couldn’t find anywhere else. Of course, others may feel differently, and I understand that.