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The Age of the Crisis of Work

harpers.org

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Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#41

Post by epups »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #2

Explain to me why as an employee, I should care whether my employer greatly succeeds, just slides along, or slowly crumbles? As far as I can tell, except over the very long term, I end up in the same place. Or for a more specific example, I am aware of about a 50K a year in cloud waste. But in my org, I know I won't get anything for reporting it as I am not going for a promo (promos pay a lot less than job hopping wh…

Doing your job properly can lead to unexpected rewards. I found great contacts that helped me job hop after I performed some tasks with excellence. Mediocrity or active sabotage as you suggest also do not motivate me at all.

Ultimately society is the result of our collective effort. If I'm employed and assigned to a task, I do my best to finish it well, within reason - no overtime, not working on weekends, etc. I think this attitude leads to much better outcomes personally and socially than the one you describe.

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#42

Post by mnd999 »

spyckie2 wrote: post #35

This article has a point but takes about 6x the words to get to it, and the writing is not enjoyable enough to make up the extra time spent. ChatGPT to the rescue! https://smmry.com/https://harpers.org/archive/2023/05/the-ag... My own digestion: Capitalism as a paradigm worked because wage corresponded both to economic value and identity. It is failing because wage is still attached to economic value, but less so ide…

So now I have to read the article and summary to see if it’s a reasonable summery. Thanks.

But seriously, these low effort ChatGPT posts add very little.

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#43

Post by epups »

The article is a quite interesting read, but it paints everything strongly with intellectual doomerism colors.

> But today it is hard not to feel that if we have been, in fact, changing the world, we have been changing it for the worse.

Really? By what metric? Similar statements are made about the tech sector, which the author equates to social media and Tesla apparently, ignoring the immense value the Internet alone has provided worldwide in the last decades.

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#44

Post by davesque »

frje1400 wrote: post #39
denkmoon wrote: post #38

Why the fuck would I ever put in more effort than absolutely necessary when I will not be rewarded proportionately for the increased effort? It probably won't even be noticed. and even if I were, where does that get me? Still sucking eggs in a housing market that is now more than ever before for business rather than for fulfilling a human need, still suffering through the bureaucratic uncaring nightmare that is the s…

Because even if don't get more money you get to do more fun work with more autonomy if you are good at what you do.

[flagged]

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#45

Post by papito »

Is quiet quitting a US thing, or is this happening elsewhere?

US is unique in this sense because when we lose our job, we lose our health insurance, risking financial ruin. This forces us to go above and beyond so to not end up in that bottom 10% that gets regularly laid off. We overcompensate not to have a great life, but to not be completely broke.

This makes us easy marks for work abuse, this is why we respond to emails and Slack messages at 9PM, this is why we are afraid to leave at 5PM to be with our loved ones, even though we are totally spent to do any effective work (or do shit work at that point).

What we call quiet quitting may be just snapping back to what work should be, after the COVID lockdowns made people realize they were wage slaves.

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#47

Post by somedude895 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #27
avereveard wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because for the next job hop you can put on the resume "saved 50k a month in cloud waste" and it'll make for an interesting discussion.

You can put it on the resume anyways and as long as you are able to describe how you would do it and field questions about the idea, no one really will fact check too hard.

I honestly do that. If I have an idea that I know will be near-impossible to get through the internal politics and that likely nobody will really care about (like the saving 50k example), I put the idea on my CV as if I actually implemented it. I get asked about it at interviews and just fantasize about what would have happened had I done it. People tend to be mighty impressed. I tend to choose under-the-radar things that my boss wouldn't necessarily know about.

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#48

Post by adrienthebo »

epups wrote: post #43

The article is a quite interesting read, but it paints everything strongly with intellectual doomerism colors. > But today it is hard not to feel that if we have been, in fact, changing the world, we have been changing it for the worse. Really? By what metric? Similar statements are made about the tech sector, which the author equates to social media and Tesla apparently, ignoring the immense value the Internet alone…

    - Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels
    - Oceanic temperatures and pH
    - Quantities in PFAS in the environment
    - Opiate deaths (and other deaths of despair) per capita
    - Percentage of children and teenagers with depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation or have attempted suicide
    - Per-capita income in Africa and South America over the last two decades
    - School shootings per capita and firearms related deaths in children within America
The Internet is pretty rad, we've improved a number of health outcomes for a number of communities, and we're closing to making humanity a truly space-faring species; but for every statistic we can provide indicating progress there's usually a handful of related numbers that paint a grimmer picture.

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#49

Post by Thorrez »

denkmoon wrote: post #38

Why the fuck would I ever put in more effort than absolutely necessary when I will not be rewarded proportionately for the increased effort? It probably won't even be noticed. and even if I were, where does that get me? Still sucking eggs in a housing market that is now more than ever before for business rather than for fulfilling a human need, still suffering through the bureaucratic uncaring nightmare that is the s…

I enjoy my job. I enjoy getting stuff done.

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#50

Post by epups »

adrienthebo wrote: post #48
epups wrote: post #43

The article is a quite interesting read, but it paints everything strongly with intellectual doomerism colors. > But today it is hard not to feel that if we have been, in fact, changing the world, we have been changing it for the worse. Really? By what metric? Similar statements are made about the tech sector, which the author equates to social media and Tesla apparently, ignoring the immense value the Internet alone…

- Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels - Oceanic temperatures and pH - Quantities in PFAS in the environment - Opiate deaths (and other deaths of despair) per capita - Percentage of children and teenagers with depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation or have attempted suicide - Per-capita income in Africa and South America over the last two decades - School shootings per capita and firearms related deaths in children with…

Climate change is an interesting example, because we are obviously making things worse for climate overall for centuries. However, our rate of improvement is dramatically increasing.

The other examples you provide are local. I don't think that everything is improving everywhere obviously, that would be ludicrous. But if you broaden your metrics a bit more fairly - gdp per capita globally, child mortality and life expectancy - our improvement is significant.

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