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The Who Cares Era

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Re: The Who Cares Era

#181

Post by ewhanley »

WalterBright wrote: post #150
0_____0 wrote: post #5

I was just kvetching about this to my partner over breakfast. Not exactly, but a parallel observation, that a lot of people are just kind of shit at their jobs. The utility tech who turned my tiny gas leak into a larger gas leak and left. The buildings around me that take the better part of a decade to build (really? A parking garage takes six years?) Cops who have decided it's their job to do as little as possible.…

I did some business with the a city department at one time. I discovered that from Thanksgiving to New Years, no work was done at that department. Everyone was "out of the office" or will "be back later".

This is only an example of people being bad at their jobs or not caring if you are referring to the management/administration responsible for staffing and scheduling over that time period. The people who are actually out of the office are presumably using approved PTO.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#182

Post by ryandrake »

b112 wrote: post #40
saltwatercowboy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK real wages stagnated directly in line with the 2008 financial crisis [1]. Enough has been written about 'too big to fail' that I don't need to rehash it, but ascribing guilt to the workers of a chronically underpaid and historically innovative nation doesn't feel right. [1] Office of National Statistics via BBC: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standard/2560/cpsprodpb/13FD8/p...

Wage stagnation always happens at the start of any economic downturn. However, once over and the economy resumes, typically the stagnation ends, and wages jump. The massive, huge cynic in me says, people make less because all they do is stare at their phones. Yes, I know, I'm overstating things a bit. But the other day I noticed the approx 20 year old garbage collector, was staring at his phone the whole time. I am n…

This isn't just a problem on the job. EVERYONE suddenly seems addicted to their phones. You walk into a coffee shop or restaurant. Everyone (including behind the counter) is staring at a phone. Look at other drivers on the road. Everyone is scrolling their phones while driving 70mph on the freeways. Even social gatherings among friends. I used to do movie night with friends, but we stopped doing it because people pull out their phones within 5 minutes of the movie starting, and there's no point. Might as well just turn off the movie and sit there in silence while everyone watches videos of random nobodies. And if I instituted a no-phones rule, nobody would come. My 11 year old has invited a few friends over to our house to play, and their parents come with, but they don't socialize! They just sit their awkwardly silent staring at their phones. I remember one parent didn't even hear me when I offered her some coffee.

As a non phone user, when I go out into the world, I feel like I'm on that movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where I'm surrounded by these weird non-humans everywhere, and nobody thinks any of their behavior is odd but me.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#183

Post by toomuchtodo »

XorNot wrote: post #171
toomuchtodo wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acting their wage is reasonable. Can't ask for a smile and pride in work from those forced to participate in the torment nexus. 60 percent of Americans can't afford to meet their basic needs, for example. If we want better outcomes, employers must provide the necessary comp, benefits, and work life balance to arrive at those outcomes. Otherwise, we get slop because that's what is paid for.

Which is of course an argument for the idea that workers rights, civil liberties and welfare might just have outsized effects on productivity and economic growth compared to their sticker price.

All roads lead to unionization and strong worker rights, which HN is allergic to (broadly speaking). “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” Churchill supposedly said. Wages must go up, worker power must go up, there is no other legal path to success (broad improvements in economic security) in this context. If you can show me an alternate path derived from first principles, I’m all ears.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#184

Post by palmotea »

pixl97 wrote: post #169
palmotea wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately it’s becoming more obvious that “short-term” is all we really have in this world. There is no long term. That's definitely not true. It sounds like a rationalization for the existing bad and unwise behavior. > So why plan for long term? Life is a series of short-term wins until you finally die. So, dump the untreated toxic waste into the river, then? > Same with companies. Things change so fast now th…

>That's definitely not true. It sounds like a rationalization for the existing bad and unwise behavior. You seem to miss that companies that think quarter to quarter behave just like this. >So, dump the untreated toxic waste into the river, then? You mean like the current administration that's trying to get rid of the EPA?

>> That's definitely not true. It sounds like a rationalization for the existing bad and unwise behavior.

> You seem to miss that companies that think quarter to quarter behave just like this.

Did I miss that, or was I commenting on that exact thing?

>> So, dump the untreated toxic waste into the river, then?

> You mean like the current administration that's trying to get rid of the EPA?

What's your point with that political derail? It's honestly baffling.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#185

Post by layer8 »

WalterBright wrote: post #157
palmotea wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> There's a culture of indifference, an embrace of mediocrity. I don't think it's new, but I do think perhaps AI has given the lazy and prideless an even lower energy route to... I'm not sure. What is the goal? > I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees. It's difficult to take pride…

> it's all due to the focus on short-term financial results I've heard that my whole life. If that were generally true, company stocks would be going steadily downwards.

There is no contradiction between stocks going up and things being mediocre due to focus on short-term profits.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#186

Post by vjvjvjvjghv »

thewebguyd wrote: post #172
sp0rk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a culture of indifference, an embrace of mediocrity. I don't think it's new, but I do think perhaps AI has given the lazy and prideless an even lower energy route to... I'm not sure. What is the goal? I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees. It's difficult to take pride in…

> I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees. It's difficult to take pride in work done for an employee that you aren't proud of, or actively dislike. I agree that I think this is a big chunk of it. There's no loyalty on either side, and it's not rewarded if there is. Doing good work is…

“ There's no loyalty on either side, and it's not rewarded if there is”

Loyalty actually gets punished. The only way to get a decent raise is to change companies. Your car insurance will keep going up until you change companies. With cable the best deals are available only for new customers and existing customers see their cost go up.

It seems companies hate their employees and customers

Re: The Who Cares Era

#187

Post by sam-cop-vimes »

squigz wrote: post #162
sam-cop-vimes wrote: post #120

It comes down to what is "popular" culture. When I was young, society presented mostly people with intellectual achievements as role models which spurred a generation to strive. Hard work, humility, respect for others were actively inculcated into the growing generation. Children had few external influences other than their immediate circle of family, friends, neighbours and the school community. Now we have reality…

> Hard work, humility, respect for others were actively inculcated into the growing generation. Sure, and then, after we started getting more "external influences", we all realized that "hard work" isn't going to get us anywhere. It's really easy to blame this on some kind of change in individual values - kids these days don't respect hard work, etc. It's harder to come to terms with the idea that maybe those values…

Not sure how you got the impression that I'm blaming the kids - that wasn't what I was trying to say at all. I'm blaming the society we have created for kids who are growing up today.

Re: The Who Cares Era

#188

Post by thewebguyd »

II2II wrote: post #163
sp0rk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a culture of indifference, an embrace of mediocrity. I don't think it's new, but I do think perhaps AI has given the lazy and prideless an even lower energy route to... I'm not sure. What is the goal? I think pride in work has declined a lot (at least in the US) because so many large employers have shown that they aren't even willing to pretend to care about their employees. It's difficult to take pride in…

I'm not trying to absolve employers here, since they are almost certainly the ones who initiated this trend, but there are very few incentives to care about employees when employees take advantage of it. The end result is they make life more difficult not just for the employer, but for their fellow employees.

It's kind of a self-fulfilling cycle in that way. Employers have taken away any and all incentives to do anything but the absolute bare minimum to not get fired, so now that's what they get.

Because that's now employees behave, now employers won't offer anything else - but without offering anything else, employee attitudes aren't going to change.

I think strong unions are the only way forward

Re: The Who Cares Era

#189

Post by jmalicki »

angry_moose wrote: post #19
jaccola wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe (and I mean this genuinely, I don't know for certain) "Who cares?" is a cause of wage stagnation.

It might be part of the feedback loop, but from my experience it always starts at the company level. I think I've been under a pay freeze for 4 of the last 6 years, and a capped 2% raise one of the others. No matter how much effort I put in, my wages would have stagnated.

The effort you could put in would be to switch companies

Re: The Who Cares Era

#190

Post by amanaplanacanal »

dkarl wrote: post #104
0_____0 wrote: post #5

I was just kvetching about this to my partner over breakfast. Not exactly, but a parallel observation, that a lot of people are just kind of shit at their jobs. The utility tech who turned my tiny gas leak into a larger gas leak and left. The buildings around me that take the better part of a decade to build (really? A parking garage takes six years?) Cops who have decided it's their job to do as little as possible.…

> a lot of people are just kind of shit at their jobs A lot of this derives from people not respecting what they do. We're too elitist as a society to care about the quality of what most people consume and experience on a daily basis. I've never worked at a newspaper, but I went to college with journalism majors for four years, and I know that 98% of a newspaper consists of content that journalism students consider w…

Most people would probably like to contribute something good to the world, and make it a better place in some way or another. A lot of folks are forced to produce things they hate because otherwise they have no health care and may not eat. All so somebody else can take most of the profit and leave them with a pittance.
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