This is the confusion. Everyone was saying the “worker” is essential, when what they meant was the “position“ is essential.Quote:
Originally Posted by oldnew_guy
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This is the confusion. Everyone was saying the “worker” is essential, when what they meant was the “position“ is essential.Quote:
Originally Posted by oldnew_guy
Or maybe it’s the “work” that is essential?Quote:
Originally Posted by JimmyCarter
The assumed structure is that businesses provide goods and services and we take for granted that the “worker” part of that equation will take care of itself with supply and demand and the free market, as if a part of the role of business isn’t also to provide work and distribute income to the workers who live in the community. Meanwhile, worker leverage has eroded as unions are busted and automation explodes.
It’s all great if you’re at the top, but it’s a game of “winning” while we tell ourselves the lie that we earned every dollar through grit, ingenuity, and determination. It’s nonsense, but it’s absolutely baked into our culture such that I’m resigned we’ll sail right off the cliff at full send.
You have to win the lottery to be a longshoreman.Quote:
Originally Posted by Toadman
Then you have to have the flexibility to show up every day knowing you'll likely not get work until you get enough hours to move up the seniority ranks.
I guarantee if you show up at the Carpenters, Pile Drivers, or Ironworkers hall in California (anywhere) with a good attitude and willingness to work, you have a job, and in any of those trades you'll be making North of 100k within 5 years with a GED. I know everyone here loves to single out the mythical longshoreman job, but the rest of the heavy construction trades need people. Yes, the work is physically demanding, but the construction workplace is safer than it has ever been.Quote:
Originally Posted by Falcon3
Ask me how I know all of this. I just updated our labor rates for 2022-2023 for NCal, OR and WA. The master agreements are up in 2024, so they're all likely to get a big inflation bump then too as they've been riding a steady 3%/year bump for the last 5 years.
And FWIW, we ran the numbers against our VP's wife who is a ER trauma doctor. Her lifetime earnings + reasonable student debt and starting work at age 30 vs. an Ironworker who apprenticed out of high school at age 18, worked uninjured, and progressed to a foreman, general foreman and superintendent. We assumed both would make similar intelligent financial and investment decisions (perhaps a questionable assumption, but we had to do something). The Ironworker makes more money and has a better retirement than the ER doc. ER doc didn't have a positive net worth until age 40 and the Ironworker was cash positive pretty much from year one.
DJ
stop that shit man you know better this is tgr no one wants to hear that crap
like any fat sluff sitting at a desk all day knows he'll say "what about their body?" and yeah your fat ass sitting around all day isn't getting broken too? Just a different way?
Rather be bending rebar at 50 than sitting at a desk but people have turned into absoulute pussies
Non DJ. Agree.
I work with electricians. Most of the top guys get in the office pretty quickly, avoiding the broken body scenario, and all make good cash. Mostly non union here, but similar apprentice programs with outfits like ABC and IES. They train and trade people depending on the job needs. They are begging for people and paying for them to learn on the job.
My buddy runs a crew of welders that work on giant boilers. He makes some CA$H money, but is always on the road. I don't see the "broken body" aspect as being the biggest problem in the trades. Anyone with a halfway decent head on their shoulders is going to move up to super or PM, or lead in short order. The bigger problem is the time away from family. Most of these guys travel far to job sites, have per diems, and live on the road. Money is good, but they are never around to spend it. Of course, I know corporate types that the same applies.
That is certainly true at least in Oahu.. Friend I know waited 14 years until he was able to get a spot there as a long shore man.. Not sure who he had to kill...Quote:
Originally Posted by mb6f50
Sparkies make some of the best money out there, but it's harder to get in as a construction inside wireman than any of the rest. Just helped a friend's son get into the IBEW down in SoCal and they only had lighting and audio positions open (likely film and movies, not construction). Still good money.Quote:
Originally Posted by warthog
Re: Trades / Broken Bodies
With advancement of tech and stronger safety standards - these guys aren’t breaking their bodies in the same way they were 20 years ago.
One example …We’re doing a 15,000sf deck pour today and the hose is being dragged by a machine (line dragon) not by humans…
However ironworkers, drywallers, flooring installers - Would be the exception to that….
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pretty much
even in residential some of the change has occurred due to lack of labor and people working smarter not harder which has also increased costs of building
plumbers use mini track hoes now to dig underground lines 20 years ago it was all hand dug
we used to hump big wood beams steel beams and walls no one does that anymore call a crane or have a lift on site
I took over a phased in structural remediation project for a shitty condo complex the manager was alittle thrown back by the way I was going to do things
the contractor who started the project retired and was old school hand digging holes mixing concrete you name it
I'm like machines and trucks
going over safety shit we settle on a man lift too no ladders major costs increases but easier on the workers and safer
Call before you dig!
^^^word.
I hit my gas line only a few inches underground at my house last year installing a french drain. 1 good hit with my mattock and the loudest hiss was heard everywhere. Had the ems crews at my house in minutes.
Youre less likely to be maimed or killed these days for sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by nickwm21
However, the handful of electricians and plumbers i know all have chronic use injuries in their wrists or elbows or backs. thankfully im a desk jockey because with how sloppy my shoulders are now, theres no way i could do what they do everyday. I sublexed a shoulder brushing my teeth the other night.
The handful of software engineers (desk job) I know is the same. Less so with the elbows, but lots of wrist and back problems.Quote:
Originally Posted by californiagrown
Wonder if they're running ads in Highlights.
https://i.redd.it/3qiclmc2exf91.jpg
I think Matt Gaetz cruises the personals in the back pages.
Now that Florida is re-examining what information can be taught in schools, did you know they will only recognize 17 as a prime number, because that's the age Matt Gaetz considers women to be in their prime?Quote:
Originally Posted by rideit
I have noticed that instead of companies doing things like, idk, allowing employees to sit or have longer lunch breaks, they just get bigger Now Hiring signs.
Yeah, that oughta do it! Everyone loves standing on concrete for 8hrs interrupted only by a half hour lunch break and 2 15's. And don't forget the angry customers venting their impotent rage (and rona!) all up in your face.
Ugh, nobody wants to work anymore!
Have we discussed the huge demographic shift that's happening as the boomers all retire around the same time, leaving many jobs unable to be filled simply due to a lack of people? Is this even a thing?
Is availability of people really an issue? Non-boomers outnumber boomers.
https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-conte...tionSize_1.png
It's a combination of that and our limiting of legal immigration over the past several years. Which is also a major contributing factor towards inflation.Quote:
Originally Posted by paulster2626
Yes. Mostly anecdotal from my immediate experience, but far more in my world are retiring (and retiring earlier due to real estate and other long-term investment massive rise over the past 5yrs), than those available or willing to enter into the entry level positions becoming vacant as all move up the ladder to replace the retirees. Compounded with wage stagnation, COVID and WFH, and changing societal expectations & outlooks have put us in this mess. Especially in health care, the schools have not foreseen or considered the demand from retiring folk, and my wife gave a stat from her mgmt that something like 40%+ of new hires don’t last more than 6mo. Job conditions being #1 and pay being #2. Don’t get me started on the compound effect of WFH’ers moving out to the sticks, paying massively inflated house prices/rents, causing crazy accommodation shortfalls in the rural towns.Quote:
Originally Posted by paulster2626
But ya, Maz is partly right in that there is no single massive reason or solution to the current mess, including boomer retirement.
Job conditions and wages are solvable problems. Especially in highly profitable industries like healthcare.
(In the context of US...countries with real healthcare systems may vary.)
Another anecdotal observation is that I see most of the older generations (both boomers, genX) started their careers in work that was in the physical meat-space, and still largely in those careers, generally.
Over the past 15yrs, so many more careers have arisen in the cyber realm, so available workforce has been further degraded by those opportunities, thus the challenge in the trades getting younger people interested in the profession. I think we are in for a rough realization there are not enough people to build and maintain our physical world as too many primarily contribute via an online presence. This doesn’t keep the lights on, so-to-speak. Maybe tech will fill the gap for the meat-space, yet labour has fought against automation for decades (centuries?). Might be time to revisit that paradigm.
EDIT: yes, my perspective on the Health Care is from Canada.
The meat-space question is interesting to me.
I know more than a handful of people that got degrees at top Ivy or adjacent universities, started white-collar careers in tech/finance/govt and burnt out after 5-10 years. Couple of them are now carpenters. Ones a plumber. Ones a classic car mechanic. Two are nurses/RNs. It seems like it isn't just a burgeoning romanticism of blue collar work, but a recognition from many that it is just as if not more difficult mental labor than a lot of white collar gigs. And the pay is as good or better. Lots of geographic mobility in the trades. From Gen-Zers in my hood I know (one of whom runs a very successful landscaping biz), seems like that generation gets it too.
I wrestle a bit with “quiet quitting.” On the one hand, it’s obvious that there is often (usually?) an unequal commitment between employer and employee. But… quiet quitting feels a little bit like lack of effort and disinterest in growth. At least that’s the message that seems to be too often heard/presented.
Example: I have a guy on one of my teams who has some educational background and a stated interest in statistical analysis. He doesn’t need that for the job he has and he doesn’t have any real credentials or experience in it, but when offered the opportunity to spend up to 25% of his time (not overtime, not extra unpaid time) on figuring out how we might apply some of his skillset to adjacent areas of his job, he kicks it back that he isn’t paid to do that. Fair, I guess, but we don’t need him to do that either. No skin off my nose if he’d rather just focus on his job, but if he’s interested in such a thing we literally offered him an opportunity to spend work time on it and see if he can’t carve out a role with a value proposition that he WOULD be paid for and that could kick his career into that direction. And even if it never ended up being something that made sense for us to resource beyond his side-hobby we’d happily support him by formalizing it enough with a title and whatever else so he could add that to his resume.
But no, he’s paid to be a clerk and I guess that’s all he’s interested in doing. He does a good job, but he isn’t setting himself up for any next steps that I can see and that’s frustrating.
By contrast: There’s another guy who has a different clerical role who has an interest in IT. We offered to let him “intern” for a couple months with the IT group at his current rate of pay, his time spent on equal parts training and ticket management such that he can achieve some basic IT certifications (that we’ll pay for) and a chance to move into the IT department full time, at an IT salary, if he’s successful and if we decide we want him on that team. That feels like a good thing, but runs contrary to the anti work movement.
Both are early 20’s. Both have radically different approaches to work. One will double his income within 2-3 years if he maintains his current pace. Sooner if he uses some of his free time to increase the pace of his training using resources we provide (which we aren’t asking him to do).
The boomers retiring is a major issue in my industry (insurance). Boomers still hold about half the jobs and a significant majority of the highly paid and important ones. The Silent’s stuck around forever, many working well into their 70s or beyond, often died before fully retiring. I don’t think the boomers will do this and will leave the workforce.
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people are wondering why I'm charging so much
well when you displace housing with investments when people who have no ties to the local economy move in when you buy or build homes that signal your economic accomplishments in life that kinda pushes out all the people who are just working to get by
then people have become absurdly lazy and so many other people don't give a fuck
they rather be social media stars than learn a trade
I call it supply and demand not sure what everyone else learned
there is a huge demand and there is no supply of willing able and/or skilled people to work to get their hands dirty
nothing is going to change anytime soon keep sucking down the high fructose corn syrup high fatty diet pasty white skin and sit inside all day lamenting on the internet that life isn't fair
I am in the middle of the millenial generation and this is similar to my feelings on the anit-work and quiet-quitting, etc movements/fads. I have no problem with my staff doing their job, and nothing more. In fact that makes it really easy to manage them as i dont have to think about their growth, development, keeping them happy with opportunities for advancement, etc. The problem comes with people who are hired with the clear expectation that they will grow into the role/job title, but then show no ambition or motivation to grow beyond their previous level of expertise/workload. There was an explicit agreement that we are hiring them (or promoted them) into a role that is a step up for them, and they need to grow into that role, but instead of putting in the extra effort that it always takes to learn and grow into a new higher role, they do not feel the NEED to succeed. There is a lack of personal responsibility for their own success it seems... a lot of blame shifting which is really off-putting. I had a young staff member say "well that sucks for you" when i informed them that one of their mistakes, that i didnt catch, cost us a significant redesign on our own dime. That kind of attitude seems to be the undercurrent of this movement. They deserve success, and any challenges that come their way are the problem of their superiors who didnt set them up for success well enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mustonen
I like knot working 4 others.
I struggle as well with scenarios like the first guy you presented. He's a clerk, and at least in the accounting world means he isn't making much money. And while he might have the training, I think it is at least somewhat legitimate for him to push back a bit in that you are trying to get higher level work out of a guy without paying just compensation for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mustonen
On the flip side, I'm on the very oldest end of the millennial group, and paid my dues where the conceptual adage "dress for the job you want, not the one you have" still was in effect. I have definitely seen the benefit, as I think I'm a better employee and a better director as a result. I definitely have a higher skill set, and I don't think I would be in the position I am now if I hadn't gone that extra mile.
My personal management style seems to have settled on splitting the difference, tossing said clerk an extra buck or two an hour with the implication that you'll get paid much more if the trajectory holds. That seems to let me sleep at night as I look back on the years of extra value I provided at zero cost to the employer, and wanting to make things better for my employees. That said, they still don't even know what they don't know, so the expectation needs to be kept somewhat in check.
I think most of the anti-work and notably quiet quitting ignores that experience is not a binary thing, in the sense that someone with little doing the same work as someone with a lot has two different values to the employer. They just see task x should be paid y when the reality is the final product of task x can vary wildly, usually based on their experience level with the work.
I'm also in the middle of millenials. Have held managerial and director-level roles (still do, but used to too.) I've had staff tell me similar. Thing is -- if I didn't catch their fuck up and it cost us a bunch, that's shit is on me as a manager. Not on the employee.Quote:
Originally Posted by californiagrown
I had an employee blow an allocation model that costs us a few hundred thousand in services that didn't get delivered to kids. That sucked. But if that employee is working for me and it was an honest mistake -- you own that as a manager until it becomes a pattern.
The flip side of this is that lazy often equals bored and or a manager that is unable to motivate people.Quote:
Originally Posted by californiagrown
For instance: Mr/Ms “sucks for you” was let go or was put on a correction plan? The person who is promoted and isn’t getting it done is getting remedial training, corrective direction or demoted?
Adiron gets it.Quote:
Originally Posted by AdironRider
The other reality is many many people have experienced their coworkers leaving or getting fired/downsized and the workload not changing and being expected to pick up three peoples critical duties, resulting in stress, working outside of position description yet no bonus, extra time off or pay.
100% i owned it. My stamp is on the final product, i am liable.Quote:
Originally Posted by doebedoe
But, that kind of attitude is so fucking shitty and seems to fit in with my perception of the antiwork/quiet-quitting movement.
Fixed for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by SB
When he’s able to provide value with his analysis, then he’ll get paid for it, but I don’t need him to do anything other than the job he was hired for. In the meantime, the limited stuff he has come up with is greenhorn shit that doesn’t do anything for us. I’ll happily work with him to build something, though, and even toss some resources his way (like 25% of his paycheck plus training and software development tools) to turn something he’s interested in into his career.Quote:
Originally Posted by AdironRider
And likewise - I’m an old millennial and would currently be making a quarter of my salary if all I ever did was the job I was hired to do.
The term "quiet quitting" as just about as dumb as "police defunding." To me it sounds like you're still taking pay, but not actually doing the job, and I'm sure that's what some people are doing, but I don't think that's supposed to be the basic premise.
Congratulations, last few posters, your metamorphosis into 'nobody wants to work anymore' guy is complete.