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The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

gallup.com

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Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#211

Post by jrs235 »

serial_dev wrote: post #157
mrRandomGuy wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AKA "we spent way too much on the lease for you to just work from home pleb"

I honestly think it comes down to this in the majority of the cases. "Look, we have a two-years contract where we pay X thousand dollars a month for 100 desks and we have on an average day 3 developers in our office. After one year of lockdowns, we know our developers work at least as well from home as from the office, but higher ups ask us why we pay so much for an empty building, so we will force you come back to t…

Sunk cost fallacy! Keep it empty and save on the variable electric and heating/cooling costs.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#212

Post by jrs235 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #156
cratermoon wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When something critical comes up The problem: everything looks 'critical' to folks with a greedy and selfish streak who rise high in management and have their pay tied to the quarterly stock price. That's how we ended up with 24/7 support and "five nines" availability. I'm old enough to remember that banks opened late and closed early, didn't operate on weekends or holidays, and if you didn't get your paycheck cash…

>The problem: everything looks 'critical' to folks with a greedy and selfish streak who rise high in management and have their pay tied to the quarterly stock price. That's how we ended up with 24/7 support and "five nines" availability. I think it was because customers preferred to patronize banks and stores that were open longer hours, and so they won business by selling something customers wanted. Similarly, I tho…

I think lots of people needed to bank when they weren't working so banking hours needed to get extended. The banks that filled that need saw increases in customers and most other banks had to do the same or lose customers.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#213

Post by muffinman26 »

cratermoon wrote: post #202
Dylan16807 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a really good thing for banks and grocery stores to be open more, though. There's a big difference between trying to squeeze more hours out of a salaried worker vs. hiring more people to cover more shifts. For support, it depends on whether you're hiring more people (good), offering optional on-call time for extra money or reduced hours (probably fine), or forcing people to be on-call on top of a normal work wee…

> It's a really good thing for banks and grocery stores to be open more, though Is it? Why? What has the average person gained from being able to shop and bank 24/7? Are you sure they aren't just being given more incentive to spend money and support greedy management and investors?

Well, the average person does gain something from being able to shop and bank at all.

If you are required to be in the office from 9 am - 5 pm Monday-Friday and grocery stores and banks are only open from 9 am - 5 pm Monday-Friday (or even 8 am - 6 pm if you live in an area where long commutes are normal) you're effectively excluded from banking and shopping entirely.

This seems to be a systematic means of excluding people in some places in Europe. Stores and banks in some places were only open from 8 am to 5 or 6 pm Monday - Saturday. Orthodox Judaism forbids work (including house work) on Saturday, so Jewish people working 9-5 jobs had very limited access to services.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#214

Post by foobiekr »

oxymoran wrote: post #37

Interesting tidbit regarding Gallup: the Fortune 500 company I work for manipulates our surveys by asking general questions about the company and then holding the supervisors accountable for the results even if all of the questions are way out of their control. So they leverage the the employee-supervisor relationship to make it seem like there is more happiness and less discontent. That being said, I find it hard to…

I work for an employer where anything is on the table for dealing with the deservedly poor reputation including buying "Best Workplace" awards. So... most of these surveys are actually probably counter-indicators.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#215

Post by cratermoon »

jrs235 wrote: post #212
lotsofpulp wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem: everything looks 'critical' to folks with a greedy and selfish streak who rise high in management and have their pay tied to the quarterly stock price. That's how we ended up with 24/7 support and "five nines" availability. I think it was because customers preferred to patronize banks and stores that were open longer hours, and so they won business by selling something customers wanted. Similarly, I tho…

I think lots of people needed to bank when they weren't working so banking hours needed to get extended. The banks that filled that need saw increases in customers and most other banks had to do the same or lose customers.

Or.... maybe people shouldn't have to work jobs where they can't even get away to go to the bank to do business. Oh, but wait, companies can't let anyone go run errands, who is going to keep the 24/7 machine going?

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#216

Post by jrs235 »

bartread wrote: post #178
hinkley wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some highly engaged coworkers who are in the process of burning out. I think they’re only still here because the entire company would crumble if they stopped. Coworkers have commented that if we lose these people we are fucked, and I just keep thinking: can’t you see that they are already gone? You better make plans, because as soon as they go I’m splitting too.

> I have some highly engaged coworkers who are in the process of burning out. This is a real problem. I'm consistently encouraging my team to take time off as and when they need it, and to make sure they're only working their contracted hours: everyone running themselves into the ground is the last thing we need. Also, if everyone's running on the red line the whole time you actually lose the ability to plan effectiv…

I highly recommend Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency by Tom DeMarco.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#217

Post by ericmcer »

bartread wrote: post #20

> because the highest quit rate is among not engaged and actively disengaged workers. As opposed to what, exactly? What are you expecting to see? Highly engaged employees mass quitting? The situation described in this piece sounds fairly normal to me. People who aren't that fussed about their jobs, or actually dislike them, are always much more likely to quit. The real question is whether there has been an increase i…

I think employees are more disengaged. This is anecdotal, but the pandemic and climate change have tainted my work with a certain hopelessness. It’s hard to listen to “best quarter yet!” CEO pep speeches and feel like enthusiastic about some new feature you code when existential threats seem close at hand. Combine that with economic policies that seem to create and obliterate fortunes with a hand wave, an increasing wealth gap, and an extremely inaccessible housing market, and it is hard to keep your your hopes up and your nose down.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#218

Post by rowanG077 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #209
rowanG077 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High school age is generally 14 to 18. And I wouldn't be so confident adults in unchecked power are better then high schoolers on morality and decency.

So the concept of "well adjusted adult' is a myth?

I'm not entirely sure what you are expecting me to say. I didn't say every adult will be a bully. But not every teenager in high school is a bully either. The existence of "well adjusted adult" doesn't have anything to do with this. You can have "well adjusted adults" and still have rampant bullying. The point I'm making is that a traditional hierarchy tries to put the "wall adjusted adults" with good leadership skills in leadership positions. In contrast to a flat hierarchy where it's essentially just a popularity contest.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#219

Post by irrational »

iammisc wrote: post #135
axguscbklp wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure that this attitude is the minority? I can easily go have fun with people outside of work, so I have no incentive to put up with the annoying parts of office work just to get to interact with people.

Well you have to work, so it's better to do it with people you like. Obviously, if you didn't have to work, you wouldn't work just to see office mates. But if you do have to work, slogging away in a common place with friends is more compelling than sitting behind a computer.

I like all the people I work with and have know them all for 10+ years, but I would never spend time with them outside of work. The idea of conflating my private and public lives is anathema to me.

Re: The 'Great Resignation' is really the 'Great Discontent'

#220

Post by cratermoon »

muffinman26 wrote: post #213
cratermoon wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a really good thing for banks and grocery stores to be open more, though Is it? Why? What has the average person gained from being able to shop and bank 24/7? Are you sure they aren't just being given more incentive to spend money and support greedy management and investors?

Well, the average person does gain something from being able to shop and bank at all. If you are required to be in the office from 9 am - 5 pm Monday-Friday and grocery stores and banks are only open from 9 am - 5 pm Monday-Friday (or even 8 am - 6 pm if you live in an area where long commutes are normal) you're effectively excluded from banking and shopping entirely. This seems to be a systematic means of excluding…

> If you are required to be in the office from 9 am - 5 pm Monday-Friday

But.. why should companies require that? No time to go out for an errand?

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