Antiwork

[Conundrum]

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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Same industry and story for me. We're starting to see the turnover. And it's great for me as a young Xer. Insurance tends to be a relationship business first and those who have built the relationships with the olders by showing up over the years are becoming anointed into the club. Sure, it's a lame club to join but the money is pretty good. It's an often overlooked industry that is going to need people.

What I've seen the last 3-4 years (from a spectrum of age groups) is that new hires expect the money too fast and quit when they haven't put in the work and time. Which is a bummer for them.

If you want to be part of the scam, get in line and wait your turn.

[sb]

I am silent retiring.

[Buzzworthy]

I can't be the only one that immediately thought of this:

Yet no one says a damn thing about the O2 while puffin down haha!

[jono]

Sure, maybe. It was meant just as an example, even though it’s a real one. I’ve heard similar messages from plenty of places. Another example is my (much) younger brother who wasn’t interested in learning how to be a manager at his shitty service job. I counseled him and he listened and it worked out well for him for that period of his life (no real credit to me, he just needed a minute to see past this low effort mentality).

The greenhorn guy fires off the occasional report that looks like a class assignment, and he makes suggestions for things that we can do, and he expressed interest in pursuing these things further. I worked with his direct supervisor and the department manager to carve out a unique job description for him that included exploring some of his ideas, mostly in a self-directed way. Basically, “you have ideas, here is a significant amount of time/week to just noodle on them and see what might have legs. If they do, we will build a role around them and you can design it. If they don’t, keep on noodling.” This was done in the context of a general promotion that also allowed him to work from home.

He’s a good kid and I’m interested in some of his ideas, but not interested enough to create a role that is specific to his interests, and if we did create that role he wouldn’t be qualified for it anyways.

Thanks, that's interesting. Makes me even more curious about the youngster's perspective on it. I kinda expect it's rather...creative. It's a shame if people can't actually maximize their opportunities right now, it feels like a once in a lifetime moment.

[dunfree]

But if you flip the scenario - worker wants additional compensation without providing any excess value to management, there’s no way management is going to consider that fair. So why should they expect the first case to be fair.

Long form of his argument here:

https://ez.substack.com/p/quiet-quit...eath-of-office

isn’t the media narrative of the last several years that this isn’t fair? That bosses deserve to pay workers shit for ReAsOnS and there is a natural wage shit workers deserve (that of course slllws for profit)?

[schuss]

I think a big part is also the wage compression at the low end with rapid promotion being more normalized to keep people from hopping, but the middle of the pipe gets jammed as there's not enough leadership or senior technical seats. So people either look elsewhere or just slow down as they know they're getting nowhere fast regardless and profit gets given to execs and equity holders only while they cry "inflation" yet don't raise wages to keep pace.
Hard to get people to buy your bullshit when companies are talking out of both sides of their ass.

[JimmyCarter]

I can't be the only one that immediately thought of this:

Jay meets Evan Dando

[CarlMega]

Jay meets Evan Dando

Jason Mewes, a man with a well known capitalist spirt and resourceful entrepreneur. Through his keen insights he recognized the folly of pursuing company work and found his niche as a self employed man. Thus, never had to quiet quit.

"Fifteen bucks little man, put that shit in my hand"

Be the Jay.

[Mustonen]

Thanks, that's interesting. Makes me even more curious about the youngster's perspective on it. I kinda expect it's rather...creative. It's a shame if people can't actually maximize their opportunities right now, it feels like a once in a lifetime moment.

Yeah, it was frustrating. Seemed like it was a pretty cool thing we were trying to do and he just wasn’t interested without being paid as a data scientist/statistician. Those aren’t jobs you typically just walk into with an undergrad degree, and especially to an organization that doesn’t really have those roles.

It’s not dead, just stalled until he realizes it might be fun to explore and nothing falls into his lap in the meantime.

[Cocximus]

I think safety on construction sites is grossly overstated. Yes, major sources of injury have been minimized but overall wellness is still lacking. For example my biggest gripe is air quality. The amount of particulate in the air is staggering. Most times a generic, poorly fitting, n95 is supposed to be the solution. As many found out during COVID wearing a mask for hours is very unpleasant. Many times I suggested HEPA/negative air pressure but no one's interested(colleagues, union, company, gc). There's also lots of nasty stuff in the air. Lead, asbestos... no one's monitoring sites for those. I saw many asbestos isolation barriers disturbed during projects. Safety policy is to minimize liability and avoid shutdowns, not actually improve welfare.

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[The AD]

I think the point is that management is expecting to get something they aren’t entitled to at no cost (worker going above and beyond their job description, without additional compensation).

But if you flip the scenario - worker wants additional compensation without providing any excess value to management, there’s no way management is going to consider that fair. So why should they expect the first case to be fair.

Okay, good explanation. But isn't this guy arguing that quiet quitting doesn't make sense? It seems like this argument is exactly the opposite of that to me. Neither the employee nor the manager should be expected to get or give anything extra?

edit: I had to read your additional link to get it. I thought this guy was against this "work to rule" mindset the young employees have. He's actually against the notion behind this being "quiet quitting." His explanation now makes sense.

[AK47bp]

Slow news cycle is why we’re talking about this stupid made up shit “quiet quitting”. Media buzz phrase of the week. Will be gone in 3 days from our collective memory.




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[Not DJSapp]

I think safety on construction sites is grossly overstated. Yes, major sources of injury have been minimized but overall wellness is still lacking. For example my biggest gripe is air quality. The amount of particulate in the air is staggering. Most times a generic, poorly fitting, n95 is supposed to be the solution. As many found out during COVID wearing a mask for hours is very unpleasant. Many times I suggested HEPA/negative air pressure but no one's interested(colleagues, union, company, gc). There's also lots of nasty stuff in the air. Lead, asbestos... no one's monitoring sites for those. I saw many asbestos isolation barriers disturbed during projects. Safety policy is to minimize liability and avoid shutdowns, not actually improve welfare.

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What jobsite you working on bro? Residential? Hazmat abatement is job 1 before anyone shows up and starts eating paint chips sprinkles with asbestos fibers, but that's really what it takes to get sick. Lead also doesn't go airborne unless you're burning it, and any knuclehead worth a shit knows you scrape or chemical peel anything painted before taking a torch to it. Asbestos needs containment because a breeze will blow it off site and onto your sandwich, but containment flaps are just to keep the wind out. It's not some bio-weapon virus containment thing, nor does it need to be.

Dust containment and filtration has moved leaps and bounds forward in the last 10 years, as well as OSHA enforcement of said standards. Hilti took a huge lead here in steering the industry with silica capture systems for drilling and grinding, making vac attachments to all their gear that gets trapped and hepa filtered. It also makes their tools perform better as the bits are cutting fresh material and aren't clogged with dust. Full negative air systems are a huge PITA to setup, suck up fuel at $6/gallon, and cost a fortune, but occasionally they're the right tool for the job. A full face with P100's, mach 5 razor, and a can of barbasol is under $100 and you can take it from job to job and it is the right thing for most applications.

[Mustonen]

If they didn't pay me, I wouldn't do things in front of a computer. The end.

Right.

My own philosophy has always been that if I’m gonna be there for 40 hours I’d rather do the most interesting and highest level thing that I could, even if it didn’t immediately translate to more $$$. And when I see somebody who not only doesn’t have that philosophy, but seems to have an air of moral superiority around it, I’m left scratching my head a bit.

[Ted Striker]

If they're paying me to sit in an airplane for 40 hours, I'm gonna have a nap!

oops

[The AD]

If they're paying me to sit in an airplane for 40 hours, I'm gonna have a nap!

oops

I always thought you lived in Washington, not Ethiopia.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-...issed-landing/

[John_B]

I always thought you lived in Washington, not Ethiopia.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/report-...issed-landing/

Goddamnit I just went hunting for a link about that!

Also every time I see this thread I think about how much more antiwork I am on Monday morning vs Thursday afternoon.

[Ted Striker]

For myriad reasons I won't bore you with, pilot strikes are almost never successful. And regardless of the realities, public support is always close to nil.

[californiagrown]

should we care about quiet quitters? It would seem like the same people following this path would have been the quiet time-wasters anyways? Probably not too many rising stars employing this strategery?

[Cocximus]

What jobsite you working on bro? Residential? Hazmat abatement is job 1 before anyone shows up and starts eating paint chips sprinkles with asbestos fibers, but that's really what it takes to get sick. Lead also doesn't go airborne unless you're burning it, and any knuclehead worth a shit knows you scrape or chemical peel anything painted before taking a torch to it. Asbestos needs containment because a breeze will blow it off site and onto your sandwich, but containment flaps are just to keep the wind out. It's not some bio-weapon virus containment thing, nor does it need to be.

Dust containment and filtration has moved leaps and bounds forward in the last 10 years, as well as OSHA enforcement of said standards. Hilti took a huge lead here in steering the industry with silica capture systems for drilling and grinding, making vac attachments to all their gear that gets trapped and hepa filtered. It also makes their tools perform better as the bits are cutting fresh material and aren't clogged with dust. Full negative air systems are a huge PITA to setup, suck up fuel at $6/gallon, and cost a fortune, but occasionally they're the right tool for the job. A full face with P100's, mach 5 razor, and a can of barbasol is under $100 and you can take it from job to job and it is the right thing for most applications.

I work for one of the biggest electrical company in Canada doing mostly institutional/comercial renos and new construction. Steamfitters and sheet metal guys often blow big holes in walls painted with lead and asbestos ceilings. Yes most of the time penetrations are done following safety standards but at 3am when things don't line up the big hilti comes out and it blasts through whatever. The safe level of exposure to lead is 0. Asbestos builds up over time. No safety authority is lax about exposure to asbestos, lead and silica. Only boot lickers and those who stand to loose money dismiss the seriousness of exposure. This is Canada where health care is public. The public ends up subsidizing scabby contractors when their employees get sick latter in life.

Drywallers are not required to capture sanding dust, and they never do. That's a lot of particulate in the air. That shit drives me nuts.

Dust capture drills are great but many times they are too bulky to use in congested ceilings.

My company has been quite accommodating, I have a collection of masks from N95s to full face powered p100. Again they are very uncomfortable to wear all day. OHSA mandate is to first control the hazard and use PPE as last resort.

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[AK47bp]

should we care about quiet quitters? It would seem like the same people following this path would have been the quiet time-wasters anyways? Probably not too many rising stars employing this strategery?

Shouldn’t you be working?


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[Ted Striker]

Seems like the dock worker should be comparing his juice quantity to his boss in the trailer, not the Bezos' of the world.

But in my analogy he wasn't. He was faced with a demand for increased productivity without a commensurate increase in compensation due to his low level position. He wasn't asking to pick the pocket of his immediate supervisor.

In Catch 22 the number of missions required keeps getting raised. The similarity is no accident.

Bezos will be fine when amazon workers quiet quit. He remains pretty much unaffected. the middle managment though will suffer as their staff lets them down and/or starts taking a larger percentage of their pay. And the middle mgmt doesnt want to quite quit because most of them have designs on moving up into upper mgmt. So the ones who get fucked over the most are the middle mgmt types who squeeze harder and harder to make up for less squeezing from their staff, in order to produce the same amount of juice to show to upper mgmt.

aka divide and conquer.

I only said Bezos so I could say juice. And the fact that literally nothing could make him poor is the point.

Looking at Jassy, the CEO, he makes over 210 million. Median pay is 33k. So a multiple just shy of 6500. That's a lot of juice to spare.

[Supermoon]

So funny thing about Amazon, they plan on their entire frontline workforce turning over every three years (yikes), but now can’t find people to do their shitty, underpaid work in places like San Bernardino in particular because they’ve churned through anyone who is willing to do it.

[east or bust]

Interesting conversation.

I think there’s a lot of both sides of this coin going on and it just comes down to personal experience regarding which side may be perceived as more prevalent (the “hard worker” vs. “quiet quitting” is what I’m getting at here).

First of all, take the shitty employee out of the equation right off the bat. They were always a useless pile of shit before quiet quitting was a thing. We have a real problem with retaining talented employees because employers are not adjusting to the paradigm shift that’s happening right now wrt work life balance.

What I’ve noticed with the younger workforce is that they are much more easily discouraged than those more seasoned workers. To some extent maybe it’s impatience and wanting it all now, but more so it seems like they are reading a bit too deeply into what their future might look like if they hold course.

I’m a bit shy of the millennial midpoint and just dipping my toes into a management level position. I think when people make it to that 5-7 year mark while busting their ass they have essentially accepted it as the norm, which they may not love, but for better or worse is what they expect those below them to experience as well. I’ve personally had a lot more of those thoughts bouncing around my head lately even though I fundamentally disagree with them.

As several others here I work in the construction industry for one of those large corporate deals, and can pretty assertively say that the general industry work model is an unsustainable fucking nightmare. I’m talking entry level field engineer through project executive. Over the last couple projects our turnover rate for field engineers has got to be higher than 75%. I should really crunch the numbers sometime.

The main problem in my eyes is there’s just no light at the end of the tunnel. Work life balance didn’t leave the chat, because it was never in the chat to begin with. Why is some college educated kid going to be busting their ass 12 hours a day essentially making a day laborers rate but locked into 8hrs, with the promise of someday becoming a project manager? Sure you’ll be making some decent coin, but probably working more hours… That same kid can go to industry/job xyz and make way better money, immediately, and work less hours to boot. To me that’s not laziness at all, it’s the move I probably should have made 5 years ago.

Don’t even get me started on vacation accruals, which assume an 8hr day, that no one has ever worked ever in this industry. Yea, hard work and perseverance got me to where I’m at, but it doesn’t hide the jaded very well. And the juice definitely ain’t worth the squeeze long term.


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[Ted Striker]

So funny thing about Amazon, they plan on their entire frontline workforce turning over every three years (yikes), but now can’t find people to do their shitty, underpaid work in places like San Bernardino in particular because they’ve churned through anyone who is willing to do it.

It's like fast food, without the free shift meal.