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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'

#251

Post by Apocryphon »

jason0597 wrote: post #162
wil421 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been saying this since I was in high school post dot com bubble burst. “Don’t get into IT or software development it’s all going to be outsourced.”

Outsourcing is not exclusive to India. What if they outsource to Italy? Spain? Ukraine? Greece? Hell even Germany. All of those places have salaries that are a fraction of the typical US salary. US salaries are incredibly ridiculous on the global stage. And all of those places with actually good developers

Then why hasn't this been happening in significant amounts to impact the U.S. software job market in the past thirty years?

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

#252

Post by wonderwonder »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #145
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.

That's baffling, haven't people got friends?

I am in my early 40's with 0 friends. Had them earlier in life and once I had kids I just could not figure out how to balance kids, work and friends. Now I have no idea how to make new ones.

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

#254

Post by imtringued »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #214
fullstackchris wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People stopped borrowing money. Either because they became old or the financial crisis made them risk averse. This drops interest rates.

The few things that people buy with debt then rises in value. There is also no interest in building more housing because that would result in lower single family home property values.

You have to consider that it's the bank that is paying for the house. As the owner you only pay the mortgage, whose monthly payments are limited by how much people can afford in the first place.

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

#255

Post by dogman144 »

kaycebasques wrote: post #45

On a tangential note, it really feels like we continue to live in a historic time. Maybe it's a completely personal experience but it just seems like so many basic societal assumptions are getting meaningfully challenged or brought into focus. The pandemic panic and subsequent lockdowns focused our relationships with other humans. The racism protests also. The "inner temple" of the US empire getting breached/"violate…

Agree and it's hard to find cohesive takes which stitch together all these events in a way that make sense, i.e. the analysis includes enough tech-awareness to believe it.

The only stuff I've found which felt in the ballpark of spot-on were:

1) https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/the-great-weirding This was a fascinating series of essays that generally walks through why, after "Harambe" in 2016 or whenever, things seemed to have gone off the rails towards something new.

2) Cypherpunk movement's source docs. If I could bold, underline, and highlight this, I would. I have never read any group of literature/essays, especially with publishing dates in the 1990s, that more felt like a post-mortem on the 2014->2021 craziness than cypherpunk docs. I had actually wondered for a while where this core movement went, but the quick answer I've come to is cryptocurrency/e2e messaging projects absorbed a lot of it, and then the the writing often took a turn for the crazy/non-PC in the final 10 yards. But, they so accurately diagnose the growth of virtual communities and their pseudo-governmental influence, digital economy developments and all the second order effects, and so on and so on. If you're looking for people who really saw what was coming, this is the group. One of the good reads: http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~wex/panoptic-paper.html

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

#256

Post by asciimov »

praxulus wrote: post #223
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.

Downtown cores have the highest population density, and thus the lowest average commute for a typical set of workers distributed around a metro area.

The largest groups that live in my metros downtown core are, swaths of poor people who's crime ridden neighborhoods have yet to gentrify, the insanely wealthy who gentrified the best of the dilapidated old homes, and young hipsters who live in condos.

For the most part (in my area), the only reason companies have moved downtown is because the city has given them sweetheart deals to be there. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of workers commute into the downtown area, because it's not a desirable place to live.

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

#257

Post by BTCOG »

kayamon wrote: post #123
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many of us it's actually been a wake up call about how important it is to be physically present with coworkers and a realization of how much the office actually does offer in terms of productivity and morale boost. I know this is a very unpopular opinion here on HN threads about this situation. And all power to the people who love remote work. But out of all the engineers I know personally and of all the people o…

I spent the last few years doing remote work, before COVID. I don't want to waste any more years of my life staring into a rectangle. If I go back to programming it's sure as hell going to be onsite. It's all fun and games at first. "Look, I can work from home in my underpants!" Then after a while you realize you're just sitting there alone in your underpants.

I think you, like many of us are tired of computers but reluctant to admit it after all these years of forcing the smiles. Time to switch to an entirely different and active? career.

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

#258

Post by mgolawala »

kingsuper20 wrote: post #99
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine living in a society where basic income is guaranteed no matter what, and even its worst places - its prison cells - compare favorably to the finest hotels of other countries. You have so many options you feel constantly overwhelmed, stressing about making bad choices because everything your primitive heart could ever desire is not merely available, but plentiful and cheap. And it'll recruit you if you're not…

"Imagine living in a society where basic income is guaranteed no matter what, and even its worst places - its prison cells - compare favorably to the finest hotels of other countries." What I see are bored young males hanging out and getting in fights, not a whole generation of people learning cuneiform in their newfound free time.

Interesting. Perhaps we are kind of already at that point? Isn't that what video games like MMORPGs or Fortnite are for? Where the bored young males get to accomplish great adventures , build and show off their skills for status, compete and crush their enemies, and fulfill a sense of accomplishment.. all virtually?

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

#259

Post by Buttons840 »

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…

Commutes: heat, stress, grey, pavement, dirt and chemicals, danger, frustration, noise; all things that come to mind with commutes. Never again, I hope.

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

#260

Post by fridif »

praxulus wrote: post #223
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.

Downtown cores have the highest population density, and thus the lowest average commute for a typical set of workers distributed around a metro area.

Now imagine if your downtown core was "anywhere with an internet connection"[1], and your commute time was "sub 500ms".

[1] including Africa, the open ocean, space, Papua New Guinea, a jail cell....

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