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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'

#301

Post by [deleted] »

newfriend wrote: post #269
nickthemagicman wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

And this is the myth of "The Man is keeping me down". It allows people to ignore that their choices are by far the biggest factor in what happens in their lives, and instead allows them blame society and take no responsibility.

[deleted]

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

#302

Post by RickJWagner »

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.

Better than Dave Ramsey, check out Bogleheads.org.

You (and everyone else) really do own your financial life. There can be curveballs-- a catastrophic illness, for example-- but for the vast majority of people, having money or not is really a series of personal decisions made over a lifetime.

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

#303

Post by caseysoftware »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #217
caseysoftware wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Here's some sourced data for my claims to look at the "myth" if you're interested:

"65% of Americans are still paying for cable TV."

"According to cable cord-cutting subscribers statistics for 2018, the average viewer in the US can save up to $104 per month by taking the plunge."

Ref: https://techjury.net/blog/cable-tv-subscribers-statistics/

"According to Zagat, if you are like the average American, you go out for lunch and dinner 4.9 times each week."

Ref: https://us1035.iheart.com/featured/sarah/content/2018-01-09-...

Average credit card debt in 2020: $5315

Ref: https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/consumer-credit-...

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

#305

Post by dmitrygr »

srackey wrote: post #134
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…

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.

You kidding? I loved this pandemic so much, i want to marry it and have children with it!

No pointless work "morale events"; no wasting hours a day on commute; ability to do something useful while a build is building, like putting in a load of laundry instead of just reading HN while waiting; and spending a lot more time with my GF as she is also WFHing.

I suspect you are speaking only about people who are unable/unwilling to put effort into the "life" part of "work-life balance" and thus depend on the "work" part to give them what "life" gives to all others: companionship/friendship/fun/purpose

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

#306

Post by shdh »

quaffapint wrote: post #286

Im a senior dev in the US and my company just said we have to come back full time in the office. This is even after we've had record revenue months. I would be totally fine with hybrid, but they said they investigated that and decided against it (don't know why). I'm looking around at my alternatives, but the pay is just not there for both hybrid and remote. So I dont know where all this demand is, unless it's the sa…

What’s your salary range?

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

#307

Post by carom »

sureglymop wrote: post #194
HarryHirsch wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As someone in their 20s without social media, I have exactly 0 friends. I live in a central European country and everyone around me has a friend group that originated during their childhood; they have childhood friends. I do not, mainly because throughout my time in school I switched schools a whole lot for various reasons. Over the years I've also grown quite insecure about it and anxious. Now I also happen to not l…

I don't smoke or drink. You can still go play billiards, work out at a gym, find a pull up bar in public, join a bicycle group ride, skateboard, join a yoga class, hang out at a maker space, go to a car meetup, go off road driving, go camping or hiking in a national park, go to concerts, start muay thai or bjj, etc. I meet a ton of people without alcohol.

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

#308

Post by ArkanExplorer »

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

Those places have payroll taxes in the realm of 30-70%, and high progressive income taxes.

The overall labour cost is similar.

American developers are just lucky that they live in a low-tax society.

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

#309

Post by warlog »

bdcravens wrote: post #166
adolph wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> booming economy. We poured stimulus money s/oom/ubl/

If you want to go with the "clever mic drop without elaboration" it works better if there's no errors. You're spelling "bubbling" wrong.

Well actually

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

#310

Post by Nasrudith »

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…

The 15 hour work week prediction seems to have been an oversimplification unfortunately. Just the introduction of varied scarcity of labor and scalability (you try getting enough doctors for them to work 15 hours a week), let alone lack of "baton passability" of tasks between people. On a personal level an obstacle is the labor market's demands for those who want uncommon arrangements.

As a current status quo most jobs which would accept 15 hour weeks and more employees are lower valued and lower productivity ones. More retirement hobby jobs as a model than even something to sustain a spartan lifestyle. Higher paying and higher productivity jobs tend to be scarcer.

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