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“Great resignation” wave coming for companies

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Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#741

Post by yibg »

screye wrote: post #263

> Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs. This number is meaningless without previous year trends. In my circles, everyone from 25-35 is simultaneously preparing to FIRE and no-one that's 35+ has actually changed jobs despite being 'financially independent'. Expressing intent to resign, and actually resigning are completely different things. (edit: to clarif…

This is me. FIRE was one of the dreams / goals from many years ago. I'm technically able to retire now but I'm still working. A few reasons I think:

1) Sense of (in)security. There is the thought of, what if my investments lose a lot of value. What if costs suddenly go up. So the number keeps shifting up. Just another x dollars and I'll retire.

2) As I get older, the thought of retiring is also starting to lose appeal. Life's priorities change and preferences change. I wanted to be able to not work and travel the world. Now that sounds some what exhausting and unanchored. Personal situation also comes into play. Single vs those in relationships. Will the partner welcome the FIRE lifestyle etc.

3) There is a bit of how society will view a 30 something with no job and no plans to get a job.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#743

Post by maybelsyrup »

nonotreally6 wrote: post #709
maybelsyrup wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Real Translation: Covid has made people miserable in their jobs. Small quibble: Covid has shown people how miserable their jobs have always been. All it's taken is a slight shift, a small perk, here and there, and people see it clear as day, and they want out. White collar workers got work from home: actually, it turns out I can give legal advice while planting basil in my backyard and no one on the conference call…

You mean the Fed printed a ton of money and sent it to everyone making less than a certain amount, and the government guaranteed wages for those who no longer wish to work, and caused a labor shortage and inflation. Soon those benefits will be insufficient, due to inflation, if the government continues to print money, and the real wages of the existing wage earners who actually produce value for the good of society b…

> for those who no longer wish to work

> to those who don't wish to work

> those who choose not to work at all

> the same for working and for doing nothing, that people choose the latter

You're making my point for me with the arbeit macht frei dog-whistles here. So let me be clear: if "work" is defined as "millions of white and blue collar professional lives before Covid, lives replete with Kafka-esque meaninglessness in the former group and actual, medieval misery in the latter", then what I am saying is:

1. Yes guy, exactly: people no longer wish to "work", by that definition.

2. This is a good and deeply hopeful thing.

A society that's serious about human flourishing will grapple with these questions on a deeper level than "what's the unemployment rate?" or "should Amazon be lauded for 'creating jobs?'" Covid has forced us to grapple with them.

The usual Cato Institute talking points all involve pointing at the poor and moralizing about how they don't want to work, but comments like yours hold less and less water as time passes, largely because of shit like Covid. The notion - your notion - that there's an enormous class of people out there who are nothing but shiftless layabouts who fundamentally want to leech off of the rest of us is a strawman. While I'm sure there's a parasite or two out there, human beings of every class find deep meaning in labor. But the labor has to be meaningful!! Or, at least, not soul-crushing or immiserating. (And let's not even get into the really fun side-claim I'd make that there are proportionally way more parasites at the top of the socioeconomic pile than the bottom.)

So: to the extent that anyone doesn't want to work, they don't want to work because the labor available to them is innovatively life-ruining and in most cases vastly underpaid. To want to work in such conditions when there are suddenly alternative choices, as you imply they should, is to be deeply ill. Actually insane. And more of a reflection of where your heart is than anything else.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#744

Post by gaoshan »

I fear that this trend will end up hurting a large percentage of the people that buy fully into this trend. The ideal, from my perspective, would be a shift in how business as usual is conducted, not a wholesale rejection of it. We are just coming out of an extreme period and I feel like some of this reaction is just rebound that could end up hurting many people.

At my company we are trying to use this sentiment to shift to a mix of the old work from the office full time (with flexible policies about WFH as needed) to a more hybrid approach where we will still provide for a solid collaborative in-person environment while baking in even more flexibility for managing your WFH needs (maybe in office 3 days a week with WFH available 2 days a week... still trying to figure out the right balance).

I'm sure we will still have at least a little attrition but suspect this will leave us with a stronger than ever core (while allowing those that leave to try to find something more suitable to their needs... but again, I worry about this ending up the case for them).

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#745

Post by sdenton4 »

baccheion wrote: post #514
screye wrote: post #263

> Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs. This number is meaningless without previous year trends. In my circles, everyone from 25-35 is simultaneously preparing to FIRE and no-one that's 35+ has actually changed jobs despite being 'financially independent'. Expressing intent to resign, and actually resigning are completely different things. (edit: to clarif…

I wonder if they really think the powers that be will allow them to retire early. Most will be working until 75+, unless the socialism/automation conspiracy theory comes to fruition.

The powers that be need to start making offers that are harder to refuse for people who don't actually /need/ a job, then. For example, allowing part-time work...

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#746

Post by martin_a »

commandlinefan wrote: post #487
martin_a wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, maybe that's not specific to Germany, but in this company there are lots of people who think something like this: - Totally not my problem, see how you figure it out for yourself - We've never done it that way - We've always done it this way - Don't look left and right while doing your work - I don't want to improve but I don't like where you are - If you're not physically at work you can't be working at all I th…

> If you're not physically at work you can't be working at all Isn't that a deliberate choice as a way to put an end to the scourge of unpaid overtime?

Hm, I found this more in the context of the work from home situation we are in.

More than once I had a call later in the afternoon and people (explicitly one of the C-levels) were really surprised that I answered the Teams call right away, was well dressed and sitting at my desk.

Don't know what they were expecting. Motivated, happy people will work a lot from home, too, the lazy ones are lazy whether they are sitting in the office or at home...

But there's lots of "old school" leadership people in Germany, and they are really looking forward on ending WFH. For us it will happen in July, team leads can define "exceptions" where their members can stay at home but only "once a week" and not regularly.

Old habits die slow, I guess, but I think Germany needs a new leadership culture to keep up with the US et al.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#747

Post by francisofascii »

sokoloff wrote: post #462
vidarh wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the one who suggested the answer to the question of how much the free drinks cost should be "less than the cost of hiring a single engineer".

Used to work at an office where they got rid of free drinks. The morning it happened, Top Engineer 1 sent a mail to all Boston staff announcing he was thirsty and asked if anyone else was similarly thirsty and wanted to join him on a grocery trip to buy soda. Three cars full of engineers went to the grocery store, taking a little over an hour. Free drinks returned later that same week.

Right, the whole point of free food/drinks was the keep the engineer from wanting to leave the office. It was not really a perk but a way to entice the employee to working more.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#748

Post by amyjess »

Well, I can finally say it: I'm part of the Great Resignation.

I found a new position that's 100% remote, I put in my notice at my current job the week before last, and my last day is coming up this week.

It's kind of bittersweet: I'm leaving just before my fifth anniversary here, and this is the only company where I've even made it to three years, much less five, but it is what it is. I like what I do, and I like my coworkers, but I just can't go back to working in an office after spending the last year working from home, so it's time for me to move on.

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#749

Post by oarabbus_ »

screye wrote: post #263

> Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs. This number is meaningless without previous year trends. In my circles, everyone from 25-35 is simultaneously preparing to FIRE and no-one that's 35+ has actually changed jobs despite being 'financially independent'. Expressing intent to resign, and actually resigning are completely different things. (edit: to clarif…

>In my circles, everyone from 25-35 is simultaneously preparing to FIRE and no-one that's 35+ has actually changed jobs despite being 'financially independent'.

I think less than 1 in 10 people who talk about FIRE have some kind of realistic expectation about FIRE (i.e. you can't stay in the USA and also live like a king)

Re: “Great resignation” wave coming for companies

#750

Post by oarabbus_ »

sadfasf122 wrote: post #723
screye wrote: post #263

> Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs. This number is meaningless without previous year trends. In my circles, everyone from 25-35 is simultaneously preparing to FIRE and no-one that's 35+ has actually changed jobs despite being 'financially independent'. Expressing intent to resign, and actually resigning are completely different things. (edit: to clarif…

There are a lot of people in tech making a lot of money. Particularly at FANG/startups that have exited, they can "FIRE" after less than 10 years of working. I know many people in this category. During the pandemic many people also made some changes to their lives (bought a house, moved out the city, moonlight second job, started consulting remotely, etc.). Then you throw in the crazy rise in the markets (stocks, cry…

> Particularly at FANG/startups that have exited, they can "FIRE" after less than 10 years of working. I know many people in this category.

Less than 10? I would need to know more details on this before believing it at face value. Say a FANG person makes 300k/year on average over 8 years.

That's 2.4 million pre-tax, something like 1.4M post-tax, and not enough for FIRE for most people.

Maybe if someone was early in a startup that had a massive exit, sure. But that definitely doesn't describe the typical FIRE person/FAANG worker/etc.

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