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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'

#271

Post by hypertele-Xii »

mkr-hn wrote: post #114
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…

Spend every waking hour out with my camera exploring every corner of every small town around me and writing about it. Like this: https://viewfinderfox.com/first-post-vaccination-excursion-i... But all the time.

Oh pretty cool. We've been doing that with my fiance for a few years. Her English isn't quite as good as mine but I proof-read it once.

https://hypertele.fi/fbd0998dd2834f08

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

#272

Post by lovegoblin »

lm28469 wrote: post #183
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.

> every professional office worker under ~30 I know has been absolutely miserable during this remote work experience I mean, we've been through major lockdowns/curfews/personal freedom restrictions, lots of people got sick, lots of people died, most non digital entertainment ceased to exist, most sports couldn't be practiced... imho you can't pin point "remote work" as the main cause of why people felt miserable in t…

Yeah. I've been 100% remote for several years - and while I personally love it overall I know it's not for everyone - but I really can't emphasize enough that pandemic remote work is not normal remote work.

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

#273

Post by cableshaft »

subsubzero wrote: post #240
haswell wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two thoughts: 1. Even though the economy may be booming, that doesn't have to mean job changes aren't also driven by re-evaluation of priorities. The two may be complementary. 2. I think we've only seen the tip of the iceberg. I work with multiple people all in the process of looking for new roles. People that I would not have expected to leave - "heart of the team" kinds of people. This is after 4-5 devs (in a depar…

I think well paid workers may even leave in higher numbers, I am thinking of quiting myself after having a horrific year working almost nonstop with my Wife also working as well. Couple that with a child being forced inside and its been a complete nightmare. 2021 has been even more stressful as the company is piling new projects and initiatives ever higher. I may quit by summers end and I expect an avalanche of resig…

Yep, suddenly all the projects are back but not the hiring to go with them, and I was already stressed and doing multiple former employees' jobs and underpaid in a hot developer market, so...why should I stick around any longer?

Currently interviewing with several recruiters. One will definitely give me a higher salary than I can expect from my company, if they ever decided to give raises again (this year's annual review came and went and other than having me fill out a self-eval four months ago and hearing nothing since).

I even kept quiet in meetings for upcoming projects recently where I was told by other people in the company "You better not leave, we need you for this!" Not my problem they don't have "Hit by a Bus" redundancy in place.

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

#274

Post by cwkoss »

kingsuper20 wrote: post #109
kaycebasques wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A decade is too big of a window. It's tough to pick one decade over another but I do think I could pick one year out of every decade over the others. To put my thought another way, if you think of society as a system, you've got a short period where the rules are being changed, and then we let the system run its course for multiple years. Eventually there are some gross inefficiencies that become too big to ignore an…

>A decade is too big of a window. I think that it's too small. Consider the swathes of time that are examined in history books. It all looks amazing and fast moving when you are living it, particularly when you are younger.

The rate of technological advancement is growing exponentially, so the duration of an 'era' is becoming compressed.

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

#275

Post by conro1108 »

streamofdigits wrote: post #83
mjburgess wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which among others has demolished the brain-damaged neoliberal narrative oh?

had governments not bailed out unconditionally a big chunk of the economy many business sectors would have collapsed. This would have triggered a run on the financial system like no one in recorded history. maybe we should have left "creative destruction" to play out. after all a pandemic is a known business risk.

I might be misunderstanding some sarcasm from someone, but isn't government intervention and support during a time of crisis pretty firmly in the neoliberal playbook?

From where I'm standing it's... pretty much everyone else who rails against large scale bailouts. The libertarian crowd is more on the "see where the chips fall" side of things while the more left-leaning/progressive groups didn't appreciate govt money going to businesses instead of to workers directly.

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

#276

Post by jandrewrogers »

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #209
jandrewrogers wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the US government (BLS), the median household has the ability to save about $1,000 per month without changing how much they spend on ordinary costs of living. So not everyone can but most people can if they choose to. Of course, Americans are notoriously poor savers, which is the bigger culprit.

If I have monthly income of 3000 and spend it all, how am I to save 1000 monthly without lowering my costs? This sounds impossible, unless maybe you’re not counting all spending as “ordinary costs”?

This is a term of art. An "ordinary expense" are categories of expenses required to live a decent average life, as evidenced by the fact that most people actually spend money on them. This includes housing, transportation, clothes, food, healthcare, utilities, taxes, etc. It makes no judgement on how the money is spent in ordinary categories e.g. buying a BMW is an ordinary expense because it is transportation. It isn't prescriptive and it includes pretty much everything you would expect. Ordinary expenses include a lot of luxury and non-essential spending.

If you look at all the categories that are "non-ordinary" because most people spend no money on them, they are pretty obviously lifestyle flexes. For example, if you blow your entire paycheck on a bar tab, that is not classified as an ordinary expense because most people don't do that.

Subtract the median ordinary expense from the median income, you are left with more than $12,000 per year as a surplus. This is called "discretionary income", money you can spend on fun, hobbies, or -- relevant to this thread -- savings. If we restricted it even further to ordinary and essential spending, the income level that no longer generates any surplus is in the region of 15th percentile IIRC. That is still 20 million households in the US with no ability to save but that isn't the experience of the vast majority of households.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Federal Reserve publishes surprisingly detailed statics of what people spend money on and how income surpluses are used.

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

#277

Post by rsync »

dogman144 wrote: post #255
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…

... and if you have not read the classic "Premium Mediocre Life of Maya Millennial" you really owe it to yourself to:

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/08/17/the-premium-mediocre-l...

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

#278

Post by mensetmanusman »

wonderwonder wrote: post #268
mensetmanusman wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved about 8 years ago and met people here having coffee every Monday morning at 6. Great way to start the week!

appreciate the tip, assuming you mean at a coffee shop or something similar? Still have the kids though :) so cant really go grab coffee that early. I am sure most of the problem is me not figuring it out but I am pretty much at a loss, I work remotely, have younger kids that I have to take to school and pickup, feed etc. Finish work at like 6 then kids until 9. So weekdays are out. Then weekends seems like there is…

I have a kids as well, and it helps that my wife is at home then. Definitely the whole house is sleeping until 7 or so. But just 1 day a week helps.

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

#279

Post by UncleOxidant »

imtringued wrote: post #254
UncleOxidant wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

There is interest in building housing by home builders, but it's at the expensive end of the market, not the much more affordable housing that we need.

Property value is the biggest component of home prices in many desirable areas. Increasing current low-density home building won't change that, but increasing density would help with affordability. Problem is that many in the US still have low density housing as their housing goal.

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

#280

Post by cmrdporcupine »

notacoward wrote: post #89
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…

> most of the other Googlers How much of that is because of productivity, how much is for social (i.e. non-task-oriented) interaction, and how much is getting away from the place where you also have to do your own cooking and cleaning and possibly deal with kids? I'm guessing productivity is the least of these reasons, for most FAANGers. After all, they self-selected to be in such environments.

Nah, not me ... I didn't self-select for that. I came from an acquisition, I never applied to Google... I just... arrived here. Hotel California style.
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