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The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

mstdn.ca

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Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. If that's the case then you need to find a different job. Plenty of people are really satisfied with what they do at work. I've accepted lower salary for years because the job I did was really satisfying and I'm still glad I was part of it.

Blaming workers for their poor conditions is elitist and fragile advice. There are not “good jobs” available for all or most. Your cushy PMC role is contingent on miserable labor supporting it. See the contractor/full time divide at Google or Meta for instance

>>Blaming workers for their poor conditions is elitist and fragile advice

I literally don't see where I said such a thing.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#42

Similarly … The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. 400BC

This is of course the famous quote from Socrates, and I absolutely hate this "argument". "Socrates was wrong in 400BC and it's wrong today" is one possible scenario, but it's also entirely possible that:

- Socrates was right in 400BC.

- at multiple points in 2,400 years there was a problem with "kids these days".

- Socrates was wrong in 400BC, but it's fair today or at other points in history.

It's just a complete non-argument.

Edit: and according to a sibling comment it's not even a genuine quote, but that doesn't matter: it's a non-argument whether it's a genuine quote or not.

The same applies to this "list", which is not a "long history" but just 19 quotes from the last 19 years from random people. Maybe some had a point and some didn't? Maybe none did? Maybe all did? That 19 people about of several hundred million complained about something (fairly or unfairly) in the last 19 years is just a non-argument.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speak for yourself, I know many people who derive a lot of joy from their work and find it energizing, myself included.

“Not all men” type argument Obviously rich people provide inspiration to many miserable workers to improve their conditions, doesn’t mean it’s achievable for most

Not really. First, it’s unfair to extrapolate one persons toxic mindset to work in general. But aside from that, what I’m saying is that there are plenty of examples of people who are happy at their jobs and if one wants to be happy at their jobs they can follow those examples or use them as inspiration.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#44
post #4

Modern work is weird. All your energy goes into it. But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. Just emptiness and exhaustion. So you invest your remaining time in entertainments, drugs and shopping. Frantically groping for a scrap of joy. My friends in carpentry call it "feeding the monkey". The monkey must be fed, one way or another.

Speak for yourself, I know many people who derive a lot of joy from their work and find it energizing, myself included.

I've enjoyed my work before (especially working on games I enjoyed), but I've never found it energizing.

Any mentally challenging work at the end of the day has alays left me feeling pretty low energy afterwards.

Also physically challenging (I remember working 10 hour days in a warehouse and then going home and having a quick bite to eat and then immediately sleeping for 10 hours, I didn't even have the energy to watch tv).

Also not physically or mentally challenging jobs either (as if just having to be present and 'on' during that time is enough to drain the energy).

The only times I usually still have energy to do something are in the mornings before work or on weekends, and that's pretty much when all the chores and errands and personal project work has to happen.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#45

To be called ”Long History” i think it should to extend beyond the current generation.

His Twitter version of this thread goes back to 1912, I think the Mastodon one just got cut off somehow? https://twitter.com/paulisci/status/1682459194589433857?s=20

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming workers for their poor conditions is elitist and fragile advice. There are not “good jobs” available for all or most. Your cushy PMC role is contingent on miserable labor supporting it. See the contractor/full time divide at Google or Meta for instance

>>Blaming workers for their poor conditions is elitist and fragile advice I literally don't see where I said such a thing.

You literally told the worker that his misery is his own fault for having chosen the wrong job.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#47

To be honest, people generally don't want to work. In what way is this surprising?

I think people do want to work when they can enjoy and feel pride for the fruits of their labor. But often the fruits of labor in our economic system either don't pay the bills, aren't worthy of pride, or are almost entirely enjoyed by someone else in exchange for a small wage.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#48
When did anyone want to actually work? Everybody strives for as much as possible of money at at least possible work needed to get that money.

But the question has edge cases where some reforms should be done.

1) On one hand you have businesses that want people to do a lot of work for not enough money and then complain... in my country, that means that either the right government gives them foreign workers, because they "care" about the business, or the left government giving them foreign workers, because they "care" about the people (even if foreign).

There are many ways to solve that (eg. minimum wage for foreigners should be higher than the average for local workers in the same field, so if local workers doing job X get paid on average Y amount of money every month, you shouldn't be able to get a foreigner unless you pay that foreigner eg. 10% above average Y.. so you first have to try to get a local at above average local pay to do it, and if there are really no locals available, even at above average pay, only then you get someone from abroad.

2) The second problem is, that in some countries (eg. mine), you still have a relatively large percentage of people not working and getting social benefits... on one hand, social benefits are needed to help people when there is no work available, on the other, with all the benefits possible, some abuse of the system and maybe some under the table work, you're better off than someone actually work 8h per day.

Forcing someone to get a job at a company is impossible, since they intentionally act incompetent and no company wants someone who doesn't want to work and just wants to get fired, but community service could still be an option. Depending on the physical capabilities (if you're a paraplegic, you can't be picking up trash by the highway) some community service tasks would be given out, people who should be job-seeking (without that, you can't get the benefits) would calculate that an actual job pays more, and the taxpayers would get something back for the money they pay for "lazy bums", who suddenly wouldn't be as lazy as before, since they'd be keeping the streets clean. Sure, it's not a perfect system, some nuances between the ideal and realistic have to be solved, but social benefits abuse has been rampant in many many countries, not just mine (former socialist one), but even large and "organized" ones, such as germany ( https://www.dw.com/en/duisburg-police-make-arrests-impound-l... )

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#49
post #4

Modern work is weird. All your energy goes into it. But at the end of the day there's no satisfaction. Just emptiness and exhaustion. So you invest your remaining time in entertainments, drugs and shopping. Frantically groping for a scrap of joy. My friends in carpentry call it "feeding the monkey". The monkey must be fed, one way or another.

Speak for yourself, I know many people who derive a lot of joy from their work and find it energizing, myself included.

I think those people are typically called the "clueless":

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Not all men” type argument Obviously rich people provide inspiration to many miserable workers to improve their conditions, doesn’t mean it’s achievable for most

Not really. First, it’s unfair to extrapolate one persons toxic mindset to work in general. But aside from that, what I’m saying is that there are plenty of examples of people who are happy at their jobs and if one wants to be happy at their jobs they can follow those examples or use them as inspiration.

I’m sure there were some happy servants in the past as well.
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