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As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

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Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#31

Post by kaycebasques »

suketk wrote: post #20
dougmwne wrote: post #11

5 years ago I hit a burnout point and took a year off work. It was a huge perspective shift. I realized that my day-to-day of a rushed commute to work, a stressful and distracting office, thimble-deep coworker relationships and a life completely orientated around doing the above was an insane waste of my short time on Planet Earth. I reoriented my life around family, remote work, flexibility and balance. My quality o…

I had the same experience [0]. The tunnel vision from work is so strong, that you forget about what's really important. Now, the office feels like a past life - I do not miss the commute, unnecessary meetings or facade of comradery. Ideally I don't have ever to go back to work, but even if I do the perspective shift has made sure I'll do it in a more balanced way next time. [0] https://suketk.com/why-i-quit-google

I wrote a similar blog post [1] about why I'm taking a sabbatical and it's really fascinating to compare motivations.

> My thesis is that if I focus on enjoying the journey, everything else will follow.

I wrote:

> I don't have a single big project in mind for my sabbatical... I do have a single overarching theme, however: joie de vivre. Everything that I do, even the mundane stuff (especially the mundane stuff), I'm going to focus on enjoying it fully. How you do anything is how you do everything, as the Buddhists say. I have come to believe that the person who can enjoy whatever they're doing and make that joy contagious will actually end up accomplishing the most. Yet even if I don't accomplish anything, I'll still be joyful, so what would it matter anyways?

[1] https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical/prologue

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#32

Post by wayoutthere »

vincentmarle wrote: post #9

This is admirable but the truth is that these jobs will not disappear, they will simply be outsourced abroad. There’s swaths of competent people abroad that are happy to take your (overpaid) place and the major shift to remote work tools has made it all the easier to blend in your team even if they’re working from another country. On top of this, foreign workers usually get paid 1/3 of the American salary, so the emp…

Yeah, the offshoring boom is over. Everyone is bringing those roles back to the US. The communication, cultural and skill gaps are too great and costs aren’t that much lower anymore. Anyone who has worked on virtual teams will back up how much less productive things are when having to juggle time zones even between the east and west coast of the US, much less different countries without overlapping work hours.

Nobody wants to offshore to India anymore because the business culture at the big body shops is totally unethical by western standards and there’s just an expectation of getting swindled on QoS; so people only ship low-value jobs like customer service over there. And even those are moving to South America for time zone reasons (and the business culture more closely aligns with the US).

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#33

Post by throwaway6734 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #26
vincentmarle wrote: post #9

This is admirable but the truth is that these jobs will not disappear, they will simply be outsourced abroad. There’s swaths of competent people abroad that are happy to take your (overpaid) place and the major shift to remote work tools has made it all the easier to blend in your team even if they’re working from another country. On top of this, foreign workers usually get paid 1/3 of the American salary, so the emp…

We'll have to see how that works out in the aggregate. Here in the US, we pretty much outsourced our manufacturing to China. This has always been the case (since after WWII), but this time, we did it to such an extent, that we have destroyed our domestic manufacturing infrastructure. A number of folks made a lot of money on this, but a much larger number of folks have really taken it in the shorts. Arguably, a lot of…

>his has always been the case (since after WWII), but this time, we did it to such an extent, that we have destroyed our domestic manufacturing infrastructure.

Is this true? I am under the impression that the US still has loads of high end manufacturing, it's just the low end stuff that no longer exists and even then it's partially due to automation

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#34

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

mjburgess wrote: post #29
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll have to see how that works out in the aggregate. Here in the US, we pretty much outsourced our manufacturing to China. This has always been the case (since after WWII), but this time, we did it to such an extent, that we have destroyed our domestic manufacturing infrastructure. A number of folks made a lot of money on this, but a much larger number of folks have really taken it in the shorts. Arguably, a lot of…

This narrative is largely false. Both because nothing was "outsourced" and because american manufacturing is at an all time high. Automation ended the vast majority of high-labour manufacturing. What was left was only economical to do without automation at extremely low labour costs. In the next decade, china itself will see large segments of its manufacturing labour gone to automation.

Yes and no. It depends on what is being manufactured. We manufacture big, expensive things. I have friends that run Garment District companies, and they are pretty much a Bellwether for this kind of thing.

> In the next decade, china itself will see large segments of its manufacturing labour gone to automation.

I agree. It will be slower than Japan and Korea, because China has a much larger population of poor folks that will work 996, but, one day, we will see a very different China.

It will be a consumer powerhouse. If you think America is a consumeristic society, just wait until China becomes mostly middle-class. There's a reason why so many corporations are abasing themselves so much for entry into the Chinese market.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#35

Post by dudul »

vincentmarle wrote: post #9

This is admirable but the truth is that these jobs will not disappear, they will simply be outsourced abroad. There’s swaths of competent people abroad that are happy to take your (overpaid) place and the major shift to remote work tools has made it all the easier to blend in your team even if they’re working from another country. On top of this, foreign workers usually get paid 1/3 of the American salary, so the emp…

This was attempted in the 2000s and it was a massive disaster.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#36

Post by sokoloff »

mjburgess wrote: post #29
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll have to see how that works out in the aggregate. Here in the US, we pretty much outsourced our manufacturing to China. This has always been the case (since after WWII), but this time, we did it to such an extent, that we have destroyed our domestic manufacturing infrastructure. A number of folks made a lot of money on this, but a much larger number of folks have really taken it in the shorts. Arguably, a lot of…

This narrative is largely false. Both because nothing was "outsourced" and because american manufacturing is at an all time high. Automation ended the vast majority of high-labour manufacturing. What was left was only economical to do without automation at extremely low labour costs. In the next decade, china itself will see large segments of its manufacturing labour gone to automation.

> Nothing was ‘outsourced’.

What do Foxconn and TSMC (and 100s of others) do then?

* - first relevant factory operations in 1988 and 1987, respectively.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#37

Post by NKosmatos »

cblconfederate wrote: post #16

We should stop calling it remote. Perhaps online, or just, work

Exactly, it's just the evolution of work based on changes of the working environment, mindset and needs. In the past we had only manual labour, then the (bad) machines came along and we had factories/industries, then the (bad) computers came along and we have remote working...and so on...

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#38

Post by [deleted] »

vincentmarle wrote: post #9

This is admirable but the truth is that these jobs will not disappear, they will simply be outsourced abroad. There’s swaths of competent people abroad that are happy to take your (overpaid) place and the major shift to remote work tools has made it all the easier to blend in your team even if they’re working from another country. On top of this, foreign workers usually get paid 1/3 of the American salary, so the emp…

[deleted]

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#39

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #33
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll have to see how that works out in the aggregate. Here in the US, we pretty much outsourced our manufacturing to China. This has always been the case (since after WWII), but this time, we did it to such an extent, that we have destroyed our domestic manufacturing infrastructure. A number of folks made a lot of money on this, but a much larger number of folks have really taken it in the shorts. Arguably, a lot of…

>his has always been the case (since after WWII), but this time, we did it to such an extent, that we have destroyed our domestic manufacturing infrastructure. Is this true? I am under the impression that the US still has loads of high end manufacturing, it's just the low end stuff that no longer exists and even then it's partially due to automation

> high end manufacturing

Exactly. High end has higher margins, and a simpler distribution chain.

It isn't worth it to do the small stuff here, but the small stuff is a really big deal. There are many American households that have nothing made in the USA. China knows this quite well.

Re: As the Pandemic Recedes, Millions of Workers Are Saying 'I Quit'

#40

Post by DoingIsLearning »

wayoutthere wrote: post #24
beforeolives wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jobs are handing out more money with more flexibility than ever seen before. I'm in the UK and not seeing any of this.

Y’all have Brexit to thank for that. All my clients relocated any technical work they had in the UK to Poland or the baltics.

It's a bit of coup out to jump on the British where somehow everything negative that happens is due to Brexit.

As counter anecdata, I am in the Netherlands and I am (now, as much as before) receiving calls for job opportunities from UK based recruiters. They are for the majority concentrated around London, Oxbridge, Bristol, Manchester. Depending on where GP is based in the UK, the landscape and opportunities can be quite different.

Irrespective of the politics and bitter emotions, London's VC funding scene is arguably the closest we have in Europe to SV/Seattle/NY and it will continue to play a role in making the UK relevant in the tech scene.

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