The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#131

Post by etothepii » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 3:18 PM UTC

23B1 wrote: post #100

The easiest way for leaders to mitigate the problem of 'not wanting to work' is to make work a more desirable place to be. It's not even hard to do. Some simple rules for managers and leaders: 1. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Remember all the shitty bosses you had, and be the first to break the cycle. 2. Pay people slightly above market rate. Make that your #1 hiring message: "We pay above market rate" and…

I disagree on #2. I think if you want to build culture you need to find people who value culture over money, and that if you don't live up to your end they can complain about the deal. If you over pay and offer better culture when the culture inevitably falters people are stuck because you over pay.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#132

Post by mordae » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 3:18 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #9

swayvil wrote: 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.

>>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.

Why must the burden of getting a job that is not shitty always seem to fall on the worker and never the employee or the state?

Why don't we have a law that says "if the boss is disrespectful to the worker, they pay the worker the average of their hourly wage for every such incident" while being rude to your superior would be considered a breach of conduct that, when repeated, would be grounds for dismissal?

Stop adoring the hierarchy and licking the boot.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#133

Post by latexr » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 3:19 PM UTC

arp242 wrote: post #42

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #7

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 no…

> which is not a "long history" but just 19 quotes from the last 19 years

Maybe you’re not seeing them all, but there’s one quote per year from 2023 to (at least) 1940. 83 years.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#134

Post by darkerside » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 3:19 PM UTC

23B1 wrote: post #100

The easiest way for leaders to mitigate the problem of 'not wanting to work' is to make work a more desirable place to be. It's not even hard to do. Some simple rules for managers and leaders: 1. Treat others as you wish to be treated. Remember all the shitty bosses you had, and be the first to break the cycle. 2. Pay people slightly above market rate. Make that your #1 hiring message: "We pay above market rate" and…

Not that I totally disagree, but what happens if everybody pays above market rate?

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#135

Post by pstuart » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 3:19 PM UTC

momirlan wrote: post #106

usrbinbash wrote: post #53

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…

i agree 100% , but what is the solution to that ? just raising wages en masse erodes the power of money and leads to inflation.

I thought it was the influx of new money printed, which we've done in the form of Quantitative Easing, multiple bail outs, etc.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#136

Post by FBISurveillance » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 3:19 PM UTC

lopkeny12ko wrote: post #58

As a tech lead, the big problem I see now is that people are not hungry anymore. The best engineers I've ever worked with were consistently asking for more and leveling up the team at the same time. Now, the post-covid hires, especially the junior engineers, just do the bare minimum to scrape by, and they seem totally unbothered by it. One new hire on my team spends upwards of 2 hours per day "walking her dog." I eve…

Good for her! Taking care of personal well-being and spending time with loved ones while being productive enough - otherwise you'd have left her go, right?

Why the default assumption that everyone wants to participate in a rat race and play office politics to get a chance to be promoted?

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#137

Post by adr1an » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 3:20 PM UTC

To be fair, employers never stopped extracting surplus.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#138

Post by michaelteter » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 3:20 PM UTC

justin_oaks wrote: post #6

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

It comes down to how you define "work". People seem to want to put a lot of energy into doing stuff, sometimes stuff which is very hard labor or mentally challenging. The key is that they are most happy and willing to do this when they have a passion or a goal.

But when the "work" you are being asked to do seems pointless, or it seems like the vast majority of the benefit of your work is going to people who are already wealthy and powerful, there's much less motivation.

One of the most demotivating things is seeing your work thrown away. In the software world, we experience this often. Sometimes you can even finish a big project, really being proud at having built something great, but then something will change and render that product pointless (at least based on the current business plan).

After a few situations like that, one becomes more cautious. Performing heavy tasks on the whim of leader is less attractive.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#139

Post by tomrod » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 3:20 PM UTC

m0rissette wrote: post #76

usrbinbash wrote: post #53

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…

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.

That's part of it. But yeah, say you got massively unlucky, like a ministroke or a really bad car crash, affecting your ability to bring in cash and that took much of your savings.

Safety nets are needed, and typically are underfunded. With one in place, most people can rebound to their most able.

Re: The Long History of Nobody Wants to Work Anymore

#140

Post by dclowd9901 » Sun, Jul 30, 2023, 3:20 PM UTC

momirlan wrote: post #106

usrbinbash wrote: post #53

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…

i agree 100% , but what is the solution to that ? just raising wages en masse erodes the power of money and leads to inflation.

It seems like the primary consumer of our money is the artificial lack of housing inventory brought upon by the ability of folks to own more than one property.

I suggest (and have suggested numerous times) that we disallow ownership of property for profit. Create a system that allows people to “buy” property short term through government loan structures that have very low interest rates and allows them to create an equity building mechanism early on. On paper it would have all the benefits of purchase with all of the benefits of leasing as well.

The flood of new available property would absolutely crash our current economy, since it’s so extended on property ownership, but we did it wrong and we need to correct.