Hard work is the only way to climb. But you must choose your mountain wisely.
Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
411–420 of 715 posts
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#412Every morning, I get up at 5, and go for a two-mile walk. Often, my walk coincides with the route of the garbage collection truck. Man, those dudes work hard . It makes my shoulders ache, just watching them. They are fast, energetic, efficient, and precise. Around here, they are generally Latinos, and they have quite high-paying jobs, compared to a lot of their peers. It's a dirty, dangerous job, and the benefits are…
> It makes my shoulders ache, just watching them ?? Are they not using wheelie bins with trucks that do the lifting? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUA_gB5SuPc These have been the norm in West Europe for easily a decade plus.
That's pretty normal in most parts of the US, in my experience (though I've only lived in a half dozen different regions).
E.g. Every Tuesday we get a visit from four different garbage trucks. The first guy (who just came by a couple minutes ago, coincidentally) is the only one that does manual lifting. He picks up the glass bins (and incidentals like motor oil). He's just driving a superduty. Then a few hours from now the other three trucks will swing by pretty close together, one for yard, one for recycling, one for garbage. Not a one of those guys ever gets out of the truck (though they might have to on occasion -- there's a mention in the garbage service rate sheet about placing out an extra bag for a fee). But normally it's just wheelie bins, a robotic arm does all the lifting.
I can totally see, though, certain situations in a dense urban environment where wheelie bins are more trouble than they're worth. Maybe it makes sense for those guys to use the old-school truck where they pick up the can and dump it in the back.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. And everyone seems to think that the fact that all the billionaires came from a situation of decent familial wealth enabling them to make big bets refutes the fact that most people who don't screw up too bad end their career much better than they started and that most people's kids manage to start a rung up or so. Plumber sends his kids to community college and all that.
> Plumber sends his kids to community college and all that. This is precisely the wrong model, one which accepts that there is no guarantee of equal opportunity. You're describing a promise almost as unworkable as the promise of heaven: if you're born poor, and you do everything well in life, your grandchildren's grandchildren will have a chance to enjoy the good life! That is not what a democratic free society shoul…
It's traditionally three generations, not six. And it's just human nature to look at things in a relative sense. If you are living a lot better than when you grew up, you are very likely to be comfortable and stop there. Similarly your parents might just be happy to see you reach that next rung, rather than pushing for more.
Immigrants doing it in one generation, working blue collar jobs while sending their kids to the ivy league or med school, prove it's not based on real barriers either way.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#414One trend I have noticed is a grass is always greener hiring mentality at a lot of companies. That is, looking external for new hires versus promoting from within. This forces folks to jump around for career progression. And those that are not as willing to jump around feeling discouraged that no matter how hard they work they will likely be overlooked for someone from the outside. To this end hard work is discourage…
I feel it's become a self fulfilling prophecy. 90% of the people I've worked with who stayed in one place > 7 years were paid under market but also not great at their jobs.
I guess it depends on where you work, or perhaps the field. I have seen some truly awful external hires. I have also seen some great ones, but I suppose it is more of a gamble to go external, whereas promoting internally has a lower downside and also lower upside.
One major negative of hiring externally is it harms employee moral. There have been a number of studies that hiring internally is better for long-term organizational health.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#415As trite as it sounds, "Success = Hard Work + Opportunity" is still the default equation that makes the most sense to me. And while people from all strata of life work very hard, opportunities are obviously and incredibly unequally distributed (and perhaps becoming more so?). If you were born middle-class in US/Canada 20 - 40 years ago, your access to opportunities to improve your station were/are immense. Layer on y…
I propose Success = Hard Work * Opportunity^2. That is to say that hard work without opportunity equals nothing and opportunity without work equals nothing. But work and opportunity do not have a linear relationship, a bit more opportunity can greatly leverage a bit of extra work. Big opportunities practically become self-fulfilling. Just look at all the poor students who became president. Their lack of work in schoo…
Personally, I think there's a Luck component separate from Opportunity that needs to be factored as well. You can start with a great opportunity and get absolutely destroyed or outlandishly rewarded by bad or good luck separate from anything you do (ex. COVID destroys one kind of business while pushing another through the roof). Something like...
Success = Hard Work * Opportunity^2 * Luck
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You need to find a way to work hard such that your rewards are not capped artificially. Well said!
‘Artificially’ works but I think ‘maliciously’ is more apt; regardless of the color of your collar. Also, this comment echoes the same issue as the original maxim and just moved the ‘hard work’ to the ‘find’ing part.
The rewards are capped due to supply and demand. There is no artificial or malicious intent due to the color of one’s collar.
Also, the past couple decades have white collar workers getting automated away.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, my logic is: if you go to university (ideally STEM) and have a modicum of practical skills, how hard really is it to become a plumber later in life? I'd imagine plumbing studies are shorter, some stuff you can probably transfer over from your university studies and you can probably apprentice reasonably easily somewhere.
> I'd imagine ... Yes, and imagining is what is actually happening here, because you clearly do not understand plumbing (or any of the trades). The studies aspect of it are the least part overall. Good plumbers (and electricians and builders) get good primarily through a delightful combination of attitude and experience. The experience comes from apprenticing early, and accumulating lots of "stories" along the way as…
Yeah, this. The old guy on the job site knows more "tricks of the trade" than you will pick up in a trade school. Experience is paramount here.
It's easy to watch a youtube video on something and think that it looks easy -- until you try it. I can sweat pipes but I'd wager that 10% of them have a pinhole leak when pressurized for the first time. If it was something that I did on a daily basis, over years, I surely would get better at it. Now try doing one through a small opening in the sheetrock, and don't burn anything.
When I'm working on stuff in my house, that's when I call a professional because I recognize my limits.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#418Starting conditions (where one was born, levels of wealth and opportunity there, one's parents' education and jobs) are shockingly predictive about an individual's future. Hard work leading to social mobility has always been the exception, not the rule. Most will not beat the odds since if they did, those wouldn't BE the odds. A lot of us are just so deluded by survivorship bias borne of listening only to success sto…
How do you measure social mobility and what does the data show?
I don’t have time right now to grab the data, bu last time I looked, there was actually a surprising amount of movement between the various quintiles of wealth from one generation to the next.
It’d be great if you included data that supports your claims.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#419Every morning, I get up at 5, and go for a two-mile walk. Often, my walk coincides with the route of the garbage collection truck. Man, those dudes work hard . It makes my shoulders ache, just watching them. They are fast, energetic, efficient, and precise. Around here, they are generally Latinos, and they have quite high-paying jobs, compared to a lot of their peers. It's a dirty, dangerous job, and the benefits are…
> It makes my shoulders ache, just watching them ?? Are they not using wheelie bins with trucks that do the lifting? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUA_gB5SuPc These have been the norm in West Europe for easily a decade plus.
I am in the US and I have always seen these kinds of trucks being used. Not sure where OP is that they don't use these.
Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life
#420One trend I have noticed is a grass is always greener hiring mentality at a lot of companies. That is, looking external for new hires versus promoting from within. This forces folks to jump around for career progression. And those that are not as willing to jump around feeling discouraged that no matter how hard they work they will likely be overlooked for someone from the outside. To this end hard work is discourage…
I feel it's become a self fulfilling prophecy. 90% of the people I've worked with who stayed in one place > 7 years were paid under market but also not great at their jobs.
I see the same at my workplace. Hell, I think I'm slowly becoming one of those underpaid and underperforming people myself. The reason for this is that if there is no chance of a meaningful improvement in your salary or other benefits, why would you even try? Good old "they pretend to pay me and I pretend to work".
If there is no proper incentive system in place to encourage good performance, those who value money or career development just leave after a while and those who just want an easy life stay and underperform.