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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'

#211

Post by katbyte »

skciva wrote: post #203
Robotbeat wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to make friends as an adult. Especially: 1) If you don’t have kids (socializing with other parents). 2) Don’t go to church/synagogue/etc (church attendance in decline) 3) Do not live where you grew up. (People chase opportunities in other cities.) 4) Aren’t in school any more. Neighbor friends are also possible, but it can take many years for people to become comfortable enough to be friends, and due to #3,…

I've been seeing this sentiment shared recently and what I always suggest is to 1) Look at your hobbies 2) Find people who share those hobbies Plenty of opportunities exist whether through meetup, BumbleBFF, local postings in cafes/on lamp posts, etc. (this is true of cities, remote destinations may be more difficult but thats the tradeoff of living around less people I suppose) If you can't find groups for your hobb…

echoing this, i've met and made most of my current deep friendships via climbing and snowboarding. shared experience and time lead to friends

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

#212

Post by mjburgess »

username90 wrote: post #53
mjburgess wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect, based on a type of ecological-thermodynamic reasoning, that china will never be middle class. I think the "global class structure" we have today might be the peak of history. The relevant calculation: Annual US Energy Consumption per Capia: 7,000 kg oil equivalent. China: 2,000 kg. So you're looking at +5,000kg per capita * 1.4bn people annual . So you'll need to add that energy capacity to the world, ie.,…

Germany is 3,800 kg oil equivalent, USA is a huge outliner on this. China reaching Europes level isn't that infeasible.

I think there's something here about how dense countries are. I believe most of the reason the US looks higher is the extremely low density and correspondingly high transportation/communication/etc. costs.

I'm not sure how to factor density into this.

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

#213

Post by tomkat0789 »

jghn wrote: post #199
srackey wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also anecdotally, every professional office worker under ~30 I know has been absolutely miserable during this remote work experience, and is yearning to get back to the office - most for a full 5 days a week.

My own anecdote tracks. Never thought about the age correlation but most of my team are early 30s and younger. That group has been very negative about the remote experience. I'm much older and while I didn't like it at first, I'm in the camp of people who don't ever want to go back to an office. The people who are in between age-wise are a bit of a mix.

Possible reason from my own anecdata: I joined a new company in a new industry in the middle of the pandemic. I definitely prefer working remotely (I'm just past 30), but as a new hire I felt some disadvantages.

Mainly: my co-workers who have been at the company longer than I weren't very helpful with onboarding me! We're a little company, so documentation of a bunch of our software is non-existent and the specialized hardware setup we have has a lot of quirks I had to slowly teach myself the last year. I'd hit lots of problems that'd take 5 seconds of their time to diagnose and fix and I'd end up stuck for over an hour while waiting for them to answer a Slack message - or they'd randomly drop offline.

So there I am, working in my bedroom in a new job wondering if I'm a needy little snowflake not digging hard enough or whether the people I work with are just unhelpful because... reasons (still haven't met them in-person since my pre-pandemic interview). After a year I think it really is the latter, but it made me grumpy my early months here.

That could be a possible source of resentment from newer, younger employees. Set us up for success!

I still prefer working from home, but I did commute to the office for a happy hour recently. It was nice to randomly get coffee with the CTO in the morning and hang out with new friends in the evening - none of the "unhelpful" people showed up! :P

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

#214

Post by UncleOxidant »

fullstackchris wrote: post #206
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…

Hearing stuff like this a lot recently, I always think about the often repeated vision that Keynes had, saying that we (his grandchildren) would be working 15 hour work weeks. I think our economy is so rich and efficient now, that scenario could actually exist, but everyone is still duped by the workaday culture infinitely persisting the 40 hour work week idea. Before I'm barraged with "what about people in the servi…

> I think our economy is so rich and efficient now, that scenario could actually exist, but everyone is still duped by the workaday culture infinitely persisting the 40 hour work week idea.

Not sure we're duped by the 40 hr / week idea so much as we're slaves to our desire for consumer goods. That and housing is very expensive now which means more work to pay for it.

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

#215

Post by acomjean »

School-Cotton wrote: post #98
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like every year there’s a new study showing how cubicle farms are bad for productivity and health. Everyone hates them. Same thing for long commutes, they’re terrible. But still companies keep building new cubicle farms in downtown cores. Maybe office workers are just done with this stupid shit.

I would love to be in a cubicle farm rather than the school-cafeteria-inspired open office dystopia.

I miss office cubes. Last 2 jobs where in an open office. Also while I haven't disliked my bosses, the last 3 I've been seated less than 15 feet from them. Covid work from home was a pretty nice break, and we're going hybrid from now on.

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

#216

Post by MattGaiser »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #91
wreath wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jobs are handing out more money with more flexibility than ever seen before. I may be naive, but I guess this office-work-exodus would result to improvements in office spaces in general to attract devs (or other employees in tech). This would also make it easier for people who are looking to move to the US to find office jobs, since the competition is less fierce. Am I off mark here and too naive?

It seems like every year there’s a new study showing how cubicle farms are bad for productivity and health. Everyone hates them. Same thing for long commutes, they’re terrible. But still companies keep building new cubicle farms in downtown cores. Maybe office workers are just done with this stupid shit.

I hated the cubicle until I worked in an open office. I would be quite happy with a cubicle now.

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

#217

Post by nickthemagicman »

caseysoftware wrote: post #110
nickthemagicman wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2/3 of America lives paycheck to paycheck. Taking a year off is definitely not the norm

Most people pay $100+/month for cable, eat out multiple times per week, have thousands of credit card debt, and an unexpected $400 bill would ravage them. If you want to live a un-average life, you need to have un-average priorities and sacrifice. Few on HN should be living paycheck to paycheck. Check out Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover for a starting model. And yes, you'll have to sacrifice now to benefit later.

This is called the myth of overconsumption.

It creates a simple fairy tale that financial success or failure rests solely on the individual.

It allows people to ignore wage stagnation, inflation, rising costs of critical goods and services, rising inequality, and fundament structural inequities with society.

Here's a more in-depth academic paper that provides data beyond unsourced colloquialisms if you're interested.

https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol82/iss4/8...

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

#218

Post by mgkimsal »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #80
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 figured it was just a matter of time before the resignations started flooding in The headline and the anecdote in the opening paragraph of the article are somewhat misleading. The statistics about millions of people resigning aren’t from people choosing to leave the workforce or take sabbaticals. It’s mostly people who are simply changing jobs due to the booming economy creating new opportunities and hiring press…

> The normal turnover rate is in the 1-2% range (monthly) and the current post-COVID spike is in the 2-3% range, ... That means only about an additional 1% of workers ...

It's also 50% more workers, if I'm reading that right, which seems like it's potentially a big swing/change.

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

#219

Post by jason0597 »

dudul wrote: post #174
jason0597 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But India/China are not the only places where you can outsource to. What about France? Minimal cultural differences, and you still get massive savings when it comes to paying salaries.

You absolutely do not save anything by outsourcing from the US to France. And cultural differences are there too. That was probably the worst possible example in the EU :-) That being said, yes there are other options. Eastern Europe is more and more popular for outsourcing, so is South America. Honestly, I'm maybe dead wrong but when I compare the mentality two decades ago (ie let's minimize cost by any means, who c…

Hmm. US salaries are $100k or more. French salaries are in the range of €30k-€45k, is that not savings?

Unless I'm wrong somewhere

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

#220

Post by hda111 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #14

It's a new world. We'll have to see what rises from the ashes. I think that a lot of the stressors were there, before COVID, but the pandemic was the straw that broke the camel's back. As an older software engineer, I find the statement that "everyone wants devs" to be fairly amusing. I'm rather grateful that I don't need to work for a living. Instead, I'm working for free. I'm glad to have the tools that are availab…

isn’t it illegal to work for free?
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