Weird shower thought: as a guy who’s nearly 30 now, I remember there just being A LOT of “office work sucks” media being on the TV. And it lead to a lot of my peers all being like “oh that must be why our parents are so miserable, working in an office, I never want to do that” so we all like went to trade school or graphic design college to try and become some freelancer laborer, and 15 years later a lot of us are exhausted and underpaid. I know a lot of people who today are like “yah know maybe majoring in accounting and getting a job where I sit in an air conditioned room and spend most of my time playing flash games while pretending to work wasn’t so bad, maybe my parents generation was blaming office work on their misery when it was actually something else.”
But I’ve never worked in an office so maybe it does actually suck that much. Idk.
I mean I think another part of it is the internet and increasing computer literacy means we’ve automated a lot of the old admin jobs that had to be done by desk workers. Used to be anyone who could type and had any sort of business major from any college could land some kind of job flying a desk, updating windows to display 20 instead of 19 in the calendar or whatever BS. Nowadays teenagers can write bots to do that in an afternoon.
Now imagine how miserable you'd be sitting in an office doing a job you know you could easily automate, but also knowing if you wrote that bot you'd be jobless.
I found a way to secure my job for life. I don't follow procedure with storing stuff on the shared server and at this point there is nothing they can do about it because it's been going on for years. Good luck finding your logo on my external hard drive filled with thousands of unorganized files that can only be sorted via searching the correct combination of keywords I use in my filenames!
Sometimes being just "high functioning" enough to blend in at the office is a blessing. The downside is I really need the kick in the ass to get me out of this job I hate... I sort of wish they'd fire me.
The work can be alienating, and social dynamics a tad weird. But yeah, for the most part you get a decent paycheck for sitting in an air conditioned room. My dad worked his whole life in a factory and then as a trucker. His advice was that work sucks no matter what you do, so do your best to get a job that won't ruin your body. I sometimes daydream about doing something more physically active for work, then I remember that I'd have to do said physical activity for 7 or more hours a day.
I'm trying to do the independent contractor thing and it's not as hard as you would think. Lot of time spent on your knees, but it's nice feeling like I'm making a difference in people's lives and I make my own hours.
Right, FWIW my parents are working class immigrants. While we had skilled tradespeople in our family, I think the assumption was that a well treated and well paid tradesperson was some weird quirk of the formerly socialist state we lived in and not something that happens under capitalism. So there was a firm belief in the dichotomy between well paid office job and getting treated like shit and ruining your body otherwise in my house. That's not quite true in practice, but how were my parents to know.
Most of my experiences working in hard labor jobs were for pretty shit pay. At least in the U.S. it's very common to make maybe a dollar above minimum wage and if you want to go beyond that you need to have a few thousand dollars in tools and a truck or go into business for yourself.
The ideal job for me would be a physical one for 6-7 hours per day with a 1 hour break and other people to socialize with. I did something like this for a while but it was minimum wage. Under communism it would be my dream job, though. Hell, my job now would be fine if DOT regulations weren't fucking awful and actually tried to protect workers. I've had days where my load was light and I got done in 8 hours without going at 120% and if that was every day I wouldn't have much to complain about. But instead my days are 9-13 hours long, with forced 6 day weeks.
Weird shower thought: as a guy who’s nearly 30 now, I remember there just being A LOT of “office work sucks” media being on the TV. And it lead to a lot of my peers all being like “oh that must be why our parents are so miserable, working in an office, I never want to do that” so we all like went to trade school or graphic design college to try and become some freelancer laborer, and 15 years later a lot of us are exhausted and underpaid. I know a lot of people who today are like “yah know maybe majoring in accounting and getting a job where I sit in an air conditioned room and spend most of my time playing flash games while pretending to work wasn’t so bad, maybe my parents generation was blaming office work on their misery when it was actually something else.”
But I’ve never worked in an office so maybe it does actually suck that much. Idk.
I don’t wanna get all political but I think the connecting link is capitalism and wage theft
Good we try to keep this place politics free.
:im-doing-my-part:
I mean I think another part of it is the internet and increasing computer literacy means we’ve automated a lot of the old admin jobs that had to be done by desk workers. Used to be anyone who could type and had any sort of business major from any college could land some kind of job flying a desk, updating windows to display 20 instead of 19 in the calendar or whatever BS. Nowadays teenagers can write bots to do that in an afternoon.
Now imagine how miserable you'd be sitting in an office doing a job you know you could easily automate, but also knowing if you wrote that bot you'd be jobless.
:graeber:
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gigachads who automate their job and dont tell anyone, especially if its a wfh job
I remember one guy on reddit did that and it was like 3 years of browsing forums all day before his bosses found out. King shit.
Yeah but at least my back wouldn’t hurt
I found a way to secure my job for life. I don't follow procedure with storing stuff on the shared server and at this point there is nothing they can do about it because it's been going on for years. Good luck finding your logo on my external hard drive filled with thousands of unorganized files that can only be sorted via searching the correct combination of keywords I use in my filenames!
Sometimes being just "high functioning" enough to blend in at the office is a blessing. The downside is I really need the kick in the ass to get me out of this job I hate... I sort of wish they'd fire me.
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The work can be alienating, and social dynamics a tad weird. But yeah, for the most part you get a decent paycheck for sitting in an air conditioned room. My dad worked his whole life in a factory and then as a trucker. His advice was that work sucks no matter what you do, so do your best to get a job that won't ruin your body. I sometimes daydream about doing something more physically active for work, then I remember that I'd have to do said physical activity for 7 or more hours a day.
I'm trying to do the independent contractor thing and it's not as hard as you would think. Lot of time spent on your knees, but it's nice feeling like I'm making a difference in people's lives and I make my own hours.
Right, FWIW my parents are working class immigrants. While we had skilled tradespeople in our family, I think the assumption was that a well treated and well paid tradesperson was some weird quirk of the formerly socialist state we lived in and not something that happens under capitalism. So there was a firm belief in the dichotomy between well paid office job and getting treated like shit and ruining your body otherwise in my house. That's not quite true in practice, but how were my parents to know.
Most of my experiences working in hard labor jobs were for pretty shit pay. At least in the U.S. it's very common to make maybe a dollar above minimum wage and if you want to go beyond that you need to have a few thousand dollars in tools and a truck or go into business for yourself.
The ideal job for me would be a physical one for 6-7 hours per day with a 1 hour break and other people to socialize with. I did something like this for a while but it was minimum wage. Under communism it would be my dream job, though. Hell, my job now would be fine if DOT regulations weren't fucking awful and actually tried to protect workers. I've had days where my load was light and I got done in 8 hours without going at 120% and if that was every day I wouldn't have much to complain about. But instead my days are 9-13 hours long, with forced 6 day weeks.
No it’s miserable even when you’re just sitting there playing video games pretending to work
gen Xers were trying to figure out what NAFTA and the internet were and somehow still decided that gommulism no food