121–130 of 511 posts
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.
It's pretty simple really. If the reward from working is barely enough to cover the necessities, then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant, other than a vague notion of freedom, which in that case is the freedom to decide between working and living on the streets. And people don't like being indentured servants. History should have mad…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean maybe I have work ethic or am lucky. But I don’t struggle to pay mortgage, buy cars, or go on vacations and I am the sole breadwinner for my family… but I also started programming in 3rd grade in the 90s, didn’t go to college so have no debt, and live a pretty non materialistic punk rock life.
Take care of yourself. One burnout because of an unreasonable boss compounded with illness and good luck.
It's pretty simple really. If the reward from working is barely enough to cover the necessities, then there is technically no difference between working as a free citizen, and being forced to work as an indentured servant, other than a vague notion of freedom, which in that case is the freedom to decide between working and living on the streets. And people don't like being indentured servants. History should have mad…
History has also made it clear that people can be made to endure living conditions they don't like or a very long time.
I submit that, historically, life for the common people was far, far more often barely tolerable or even intolerable, than agreeable.
We like to hear about peasant and slave revolts in history classes, but overall those were few and far between.
My theory is that this is all true, and it’s fantastic. Generally, over the last century, in year X, nobody wants to work anymore compared to year Y (Y This is a success of social democracy and it is a success of technology. We can afford to have people work less hard and still be richer than we ever were. It’s the success story of western progress and the rest of the world is going through the same steps as we speak…
From a small business perspective, turnover is a lot higher, and a lot more of it is because the employees are simply not doing their jobs and have to be let go. I think this is the tight labor market at work, actually. Good workers are being retained because there is enough demand for them. If they move, they are not on the market, they're recruited and cherry picked. The available ones responding to ads have usuall…
Many of these small businesses were tying up a ton of talent. During COVID, their workers left to go work for larger companies and (in the case of the service industry) took office jobs.
To add to this, a number of these small businesses engaged in PPP fraud by taking out loans to designed to keep payrolls going but ended up "spending" it on an owner's draw. This was not the intention of the program: It was to stabilize the workforce. But by shedding headcount, these businesses handed over a ton of labor to white collar employers. They're likely never getting those workers back.
And I will also say, especially among younger people, small business owners have earned a reputation for being difficult to work for. So you're right, in a sense, but the other factor at play is that small businesses scare away good workers.
I will never work to make money for someone else ever again
Or looking to start your own thing?