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u/mrockracing May 28 '22
Im a trucker. How tf am I supposed to work a second job? I can barely work this one with my health problems. Technically, I can't legally work that many hours anyway. But my rent and grocery bill is still in question every month regardless. Plenty of days where my daughter ate and I didn't. It was even worse when I was OTR. I made enough money to send home and pay bills (200-600 a week depending on the "supply chain issues"). My health became so bad because I was eating nothing but canned food and microwavable junk, because I couldn't afford food to cook or anything to cook it with.
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u/KaerMorhen May 28 '22
I feel you with the health problems. I'm putting off a second back surgery, a knee surgery, AND a shoulder surgery because I don't get PTO or medical leave with my job and I can't just not work for months on end waiting to recover. So I push myself way too hard every single day until I can find a new career or end up paralyzed from one wrong move. It feels impossible to do anything for myself when I have to rest between shifts and I'm fucking exhausted and broke all the time. What the fuck are we even doing in this life?
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u/mrockracing May 28 '22
We're SUPPOSED to be living. Sadly, we suffer in this way. I'm sorry you have to deal with that. I wish I could tell you it will get better, but I feel I would be lying telling someone that these days.
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u/alpacasx 29d ago
I gasped. I'm considering being a OTR trucker, right now I'm WFH credit & collections B2B and it pays okay but the pay range my buddy has given me for his company is like 5k biweekly. I really hope you saw your worth and found a better job.
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u/Loofs_Undead_Leftie 29d ago edited 29d ago
DO NOT become an OTR driver. I was one for several years and it is misery. They promise you the world you will never get a quarter of what they say. You'll spend 26-28 days a month on the road and when you finally get home they'll be calling you the next day to go back out. You'll eat shitty food because you can't cook. You'll never see your family. You'll miss every event or gathering, even if you planned the time off months in advance. Sure you'll see the entire country but it'll be from interstates. You'll get paid pennies when your truck breaks down, which will happen a lot because no one wants to pay for upkeep. I am literally not joking when I say duct tape, wire and glue hold so many trucks together. When breakdowns happen you'll be staying in the worst hotels in the worst parts of town if you're lucky. Normally you'll spend days sitting in a repair shop lobby, all of your belongings at your feet. If you refuse for safety you'll be fired. You're treated like dirt everywhere. Drivers are meat to the industry. I cannot say this enough. Do not go OTR. Hell don't even become a driver. I spent a long time OTR and local and even local is terrible. Stay where you are. Find another career. Please don't become a driver.
ETA - I had to add this example I just remembered. One year in late summer the company I was with asked if I wanted Thanksgiving or Christmas at home. I said Christmas. When December 23 rolled around I was in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, hundreds of miles from home. They never had any intention of getting me home for Christmas. I called my receiver and got them to agree to unload me early. I drove from Elizabethtown to Texarkana, Arkansas, dropped my load and booked it a few hundred miles north to the Ozarks to make it just in time for my family's Christmas Eve celebration. I had to meticulously plan fuel stops and which DOT checkpoints I'd pass so that if I got pulled over all my logs would look compliant. I drove for over 24 hours straight just to make it. The next day my dispatcher wanted me on the road again, even after fucking me for my home time. I could tell stories for days about driving. Please don't become a driver.
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u/Capraos 29d ago
Clarify that you don't have to pay for your truck, gas, or insurance out of that 5k.
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u/maxis2bored 29d ago
I'm from Europe and perhaps don't understand the whole picture, but somehow I had the impression that truckers in America were well paid? Does your employer not offer healthcare?
Mad respect for busting your ass (literally) and putting your kid first. You're a good dude. Get well soon.
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u/Glittering-Lunch1778 May 28 '22
My grandma went to Walmart not that long ago and she said "there was only one register open. People don't want to work." I just said "I make over $30/hr and I hardly want to work. What they make at Walmart isn't enough to ever own a home."
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u/emueller5251 May 28 '22
Plus it's probably a decision by Wal-Mart to only have one register open. Corporation lays people off in the name of efficiency, people blame the workers.
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u/SnooHamsters9414 May 28 '22
Ive noticed that companies ARE raising wages but are not hiring new employees as people move on. Overworking people for a slight wage increase to keep employee payroll budgets lower or wherever they set it at. Its complete garbage.
Happy workers produce far much more. I dont see why they cant peel off a few bucks, keep T/O the same and lower hours. More production, people would fight to work there, retention would be through the roof (it costs a fortune and lost labor constantly trying to train people) and the employer could feel good about not being a lifeless sack of shit.
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u/Jackski May 28 '22
It's absolutely mental to me that companies don't give payrises to their workers who understand how things work but are willing to give new employees better wages than their current workers.
It's ridiculous that if I want a better wage I have to go to an entirely new company or otherwise I'm sitting there having to train people who are earning more money than me.
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u/ystwyth May 28 '22
It's first about quarterly profits, and second about not ceding any power whatsoever. If they pay someone an increase to keep them from leaving, even if it's the same as what they'd pay that new person, then more people will expect raises.
They'd rather pay the new person 2-3x what the old was making and hope the rest just keep the status quo. Also why they say you can't discuss wages.
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u/RAE450 May 28 '22
Don’t discus wages because every worker will find out how unfair the boss is being.
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u/KeepsFallingDown 29d ago
I've been telling my coworkers exactly what I'm paid at every opportunity. Its freeing.
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u/Class_444_SWR 29d ago
Yeah, my company is actually quite transparent on it, largely due to being a worker cooperative, and is happy with people telling, because it’s all worked out based on how long you’ve worked there and your performance, they’ve realised that it’s better that way because there isn’t really a limit on what your wage can be or how many people can have that wage until you reach the region of about £40k a year, and as a result basically everyone knows how much everyone else makes, and since there’s actually equal opportunity, even if you are paid less, you can quite easily get up to the same pay level as everyone else, and this is a fucking supermarket, a sector that’s often known for having low wages and poor conditions here
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u/Class_444_SWR 29d ago
Yeah, I’ve tried telling the older generations in my family about the real reasoning behind that idea, and only some of those on my Dad’s side, which is much more working class, actually get it, while my Mum’s side, which is much less working class, is adamant for the most part that it’s somehow better not to talk about your wages, I’ve still told them exactly what I earn anyway and I’ll keep telling them, but they still refuse to tell anyone, even their closest family
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u/BlueFaIcon May 28 '22
Let alone.. employers will pay double for supplies, fuel, parts, jobs, and their own vacations. They won’t even pay 20% more for their own employees.
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u/DextrosKnight May 28 '22
We lost a great assistant manager because she wanted a raise and corporate wouldn't give it to her. So she quit, and they hired a new guy, and surprise surprise, they're paying him more than they were paying her, and she had been there 2 years. New guy is a good dude, but he's not gonna last.
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u/Anonality5447 May 28 '22
Yes that makes absolutely no sense.
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u/someanimeguy1234 May 28 '22
It does if you can keep some mook working for 7.25 an hour instead of paying someone 15. The real problem is we require by law corporations to prioritize shareholder value (a.k.a profits) over everything else. We need to change the law to put employee welfare first.
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u/emp_zealoth 29d ago
That claim is false. Its just one of those convenient myths made up to cover for greed. That law is there to protect shareholders from obviously damaging moves by the management, like deciding to pay themselves all of the money. Of course its never used for that purpose, but you couldn't sue and win just because a corporation didn't do everything in its power to juice the stock. Hell, some of the moves that juice the stock should be punished under that law
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u/FewMagazine938 May 28 '22
Never understood that method, then they get upset when workers discuss pay 😂
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u/PizzaOldBoy May 28 '22
Ive noticed that companies ARE raising wages
the shitty ones raise their wages which looks good on paper, but they balance against that labor expense increase by cutting hours. this usually impacts current employees who lose total potential hours overall, and imo and experience, especially the less popular ones who get their hours cut to give more to popular employees so they don't quit. this maths out in practice, to a point, because managers just give more workload to less employees. both burger kings here running on like 4 people which i feel like isnt enough, never done ff someone tell me
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u/SproutasaurusRex May 28 '22 edited May 28 '22
Fine for a non-busy late night shift, anything else no.
Fixed the harmless typo
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u/PizzaOldBoy May 28 '22
holy crap that harmless typo really threw me for a loop by keying me into giant-speak, like "fee fie fo fum". i had to read that 3 times before i stopped reading it like it was some kind of Monty Python reference i wasnt getting
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u/ghostdate May 28 '22
dont see why they cant peel off a few bucks, keep T/O the same and lower hours.
Capitalist greed.
The Walton Family are some of the worst. They laid waste to entire local economies in the name of greed. I guess Amazon is basically the new Walmart in that respect.
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u/Capri_Sun_septictank May 28 '22
A few dollars difference adds up over time, and while companies can afford it, they sure as hell don't want to pay for it. They're not playing the long game, sadly
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u/SnooHamsters9414 May 28 '22
It does seem very short sighted of them. Im my field, they are ok with people walking and will just hire at a slow rate. The new people take 4-5 months before they are really proficient (we work on really obscure software) and those people have a shelf life of about 2 years.
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u/Capri_Sun_septictank May 28 '22
That's not bad, but for companies that hire at a faster pace, like fast food companies, don't even pay enough to make the job enticing in the first place. Why not have more people inclined to stay at that job?
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u/Anonality5447 May 28 '22
It erodes their profit margins. I just read that Wendys had to raise its pay finally. Now since it is a less profitable business, they are looking to sell the business. Wendys was just about the lowest paying fast food job left in my area
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u/Alimbiquated May 28 '22
Fast food chains are designed to squeeze as much money out of local markets as they can. Cities stupidly subsidize them with free infrastructure. It makes a lot more sense to encourage locally owned restaurants where the cooks design their own menus. That way the profits (and cooking know-how) stays local.
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u/partofbreakfast 29d ago
It's a shame because, according to my mom, back in the 80s when she worked there they were one of the better fast food companies out there. She could afford an apartment on her own with a manager's pay, and everyone was treated well. But now it's gone to shit both in worker care and food quality and you just don't even see people eating there anymore.
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u/JasonG784 May 28 '22
They're generally run by people who are incentivized to get the stock price up as high as they can within the next few years so they can cash out and be set for life.
The incentive structure is producing exactly what you'd expect it to.
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u/SixStringNascarFan May 28 '22 edited May 28 '22
Its all about the quarterlies, thats why businesses never make long term decisions like paying $1000 for a new machine and end up paying $500 once or twice every year to fix it.
Edit: just want to add that they're aware of this too, they would just rather lose what is a insignificant amout of money to them and keep the percentages good. Plus they're not the person who's working the machine so they don't care if its outdated, hard to use, or even dangerous.
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u/Cowcatbucket12 May 28 '22
Occams Razor: Greed.
Most of the economic problems currently being faced are because of hugely overinflated executive pay and the demand for uninterrupted, unsustainable growth from shareholders.
Execs want to protect their disproportionate paypackets and undeserved bonuses at all costs and shareholders want to play the investment game with all the rewards and none of the risk.
The current venture capital system is designed for maximum yield over the shortest amount of time. Once the well is dry, move to something else and damn the consequences.
Globalisation is as much a failed experiment as Russian communism.
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u/RAE450 May 28 '22
The shareholders want more money. Paying for 3 homes and a private chef in each one doesn’t come cheap. 😂
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u/NtheLegend May 28 '22 edited 29d ago
I worked at Walmart overnights for a few years because it was the only place within walking distance that was hiring. I got paid some base rate, plus $.50 an hour for the differential working overnight.
Somewhere around 2014 or 2015, they decided to raise wages,they were going to give us a full $.50 extra an hour! What they were doing instead was eliminating the differential in a shell game, so until I saw a performance review, I wasn't getting a raise at all that year. If I left for daytime, I'd be getting a paycut, and if I came back to nights, I wouldn't be able to even get the original base pay with differential.
Walmart is pretty easily the most inhumane place I've ever worked. For some, it's all the work they know or can have and they think that's what work is: dutiful adherence to tedious work at an acceptable pace on their terms with little to no flexibility or agency in how to work. There's a reason why you'll find employees slacking off there sometimes because it's the only agency they have before some manager yells at them for not hitting arbitrary quotas.
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u/Fantastic_Pen_7944 May 28 '22
That's the thing as lot of people don't get sometimes. Why are there so few associates working in a store? Because that's the way corporate wants it, not the mgrs and not the cashier you're yelling at about it.
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u/musicalVIRUS May 28 '22
Yeah well grandma is probably fucking delusional like most old people
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u/Jackski May 28 '22
And yet it's basically old people in charge of most of the world.
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u/PolarBearBeats May 28 '22
I work at a supermarket and we have a colleague who tries to filter queues into the self checkout. The store is also measured on how many people go through self checkout. As soon as that number hits a certain level on the right spreadsheet I know a few colleagues are getting laid off 100%.
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u/bigkeef69 May 28 '22
Yep. Costs them a lot less to have 35 self checkout lanes and only 1-2 people at the door checking receipts of "expensive looking carts"
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u/cybercuzco May 28 '22
Yeah. Walmart is definetly trying to keep the line long to force people into the self checkouts. Why pay someone to do what your customers will do for free?
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u/Merc_Mike May 28 '22
Shit, you can't even afford all of your bills on what Walmart pays.
You MIGHT be able to pay Rent. MAYBE then nothing else. So...you starve? Don't have Electric? Running Water? Internet? A Cellphone?
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u/TheGillos May 28 '22
What they make at Walmart isn't enough for anything. Full time employees regularly go to food banks.
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u/return2ozma May 28 '22
Walmart needs a union.
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u/Rod_Shaft May 28 '22
I worked there 1 Christmas and the amount of anti-union shit they had was insane. They had one guy, that got paid more than anyone actually working. Who's job it was to tell you all day long how bad unions were.
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u/Smart_Potential_3510 29d ago
Why doesn’t everyone just say to him ‘ I’ll tell you what, we’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, get us a 20% pay rise by Monday. If you can’t do that we’ll try with a Union and see how that works out- you did say we would be better off negotiating direct, so see what you can come up with.’
Monday : Here comes bull shitter Dave everyone!
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u/Chief_Chill May 28 '22
Our energy output is such that we should nearly never have to work beyond the upkeep and facilitation of new technologies and processes and maintaining consistent food/water supply. Instead, we have cube farms of people dealing in insane bullshit like insurance and telemarketing, etc.
No wonder we don't want to "work." It's all bullshit that removes us from life (family, community, exploration, freedom).
Instead of ensuring that we all can have housing, food/water, and health care, our society's master class wants to enslave us, removing what makes us happy/secure social creatures.
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u/Appropriate-Image-11 May 28 '22
The vast majority of our supermarkets here in the U.K. have robot checkouts rather than humans. There is like one human overseeing 8 or so automated checkouts
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u/Svelemoe May 28 '22
Do yours talk to you and weigh all your items and bug out like in the US, or are they normal?
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u/Appropriate-Image-11 May 28 '22
They mostly work fine, very light items sometimes don’t register, and so someone has to come and manually override it. Yeah, they talk, they sound like posh 32 year old women called Sarah, or Rebecca Mason, perhaps. Your standard U.K. Siri voice. I use them almost exclusively and have had hardly any issues.
It’s obviously trivial to shoplift when using them, I can just tell it that my Mangos are red onions, loss prevention must be a secondary concern, given how much they save on paid staff. But I tend not to steal, bound to some kind of social code. It’s the embarrassment of being caught that deters me more than anything.
One thing I’ve noticed, is that the “sorry, PAYMENT DECLINED” volume seems to be set to 11
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u/melisargh lazy and proud May 28 '22
How weird that the version of Walmart of my country (is not called Walmart here but is a chain of supermarkets that was bought by them) also has the same issue, there are only 2/4 registers open and like 20 not working all the time, I think is a worldwide management issue.
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u/ghostdate May 28 '22
Oh, no it’s an intentional corporate decision. They set the guidelines for how many people should be working during different periods. They intentionally do the bare minimum to save on wage costs. They’re also trying to move into a purely self-checkout model, with 1 or 2 employees monitoring the area. The last Walmart I went to had change out all but one of its cash registers and installed a bank of self-checkout stations. 25 registers open, 2 employees working. This trend is starting to happen at other grocery and big box stores. My regular grocery store expanded its self-checkout from 6 stations to 20+, and it only took the space of 3 traditional lanes.
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u/zoeyjax May 28 '22
I’m so sick of people acting like the cashiers are in charge of scheduling themselves. Corporate America did a real number on us.
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u/mrockracing May 28 '22
The only reason there's one register open is so that people are trapped in the store forever anyway. They could open as many registers as they wanted to, one way or the other. They just won't.
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u/Omnizoom May 28 '22
No , they have to pay cashiers , the self checkout is run by the existing cash head , they need a head of cash regardless but if they can fire 3 cashiers and only have 1 lane open then that’s 30+ an hour of operating fees gone
And where do those savings go for you to do the work for them? Right in their pockets of course
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u/ProfessionalMounter May 28 '22
Last time I went to Walmart I needed one item and the line was about 15 people deep on all 3 open lines. The self-checkout area was 25 people deep.
I put the item back and walked out, never to return for any reason. Ever.
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u/emueller5251 May 28 '22
Nobody ever wanted to work, we did it because we got paid enough to have shelter and food and a bit left to enjoy life and/or raise a family. Now people working full-time can't afford any of that. They removed the only thing incentivizing us to work and got surprised that we stopped working.
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u/Here_for_lolz May 28 '22
I've finally hit the point where I've realized the prize is out of reach, and it's depressing. It's hard to want to go in because what's the point? There is no end to reach.
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u/Kuromi87 May 28 '22
Is the prize retirement? Cause I feel like retirement is never happening. Social security may be done by the time I reach my 60s, and if it's not, the retirement age will be raised to 80 or something. I'm not even sure I want to live to 80, so the idea of having to work another 50ish years is not appealing.
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u/Flimsy_Tooth_4443 May 28 '22
Plus retirement is a shit ass prize. Oh, I can "enjoy," life now that I'm in my twighlight years, every body part is in pain, and I can barely enjoy myself as I slowly decline mentally and physically before dying of a heart attack? Wow yeah thanks... I'm glad I could live a life of wage slavery as a cog in the capitalist machine just for that. Sure was worth it.
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u/KingAndrew555000 May 28 '22
Trust, as a teacher I know I'ma have a massive heart attack around 50-55 and probably drop dead so why even save for retirement
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u/Flimsy_Tooth_4443 May 28 '22
To be honest I'm half expecting the world to be borderline unlivable by the time I retire anyway. I earn a good income and even then my retirement plan is just to get eaten by a puma at the ripe age of 67.
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u/KingAndrew555000 May 28 '22
I like that retirement plan! Might have to steal that for a back up in case the stress actually doesn't kill me.
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u/CaptainCupcakez May 28 '22
Definitely.
Our "prize" will be dying at 55 choking to death on whatever new pandemic is currently ravaging the population, unable to retire or receive medical care because the entire healthcare system has buckled under the immense pressure of climate collapse.
Not to mention the immense hatred the youth will have for us. As the only ones left from "the before times" it'll be easy to blame us and the boomers won't be around anymore.
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u/TheSurfingRaichu Communist May 28 '22
That is if you don't get shot in your classroom first.
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u/KingAndrew555000 May 28 '22
Amen, thoose glass (non bulletproof) walls in our building sure do allow for great hiding, as dictated in our terrorism training last August
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u/Kuromi87 May 28 '22
Yeah, I don't really think there's any prize at the end of this road. If you're lucky, you can squeeze things in between all the work, but definitely no reward for working your ass off for decades.
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u/ZKXX May 28 '22
Retirement isn’t even a prize. It’s to get you out of the job market because you’re now useless and sick.
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u/kylelily123abc4 May 28 '22
Work and you are meant to be able to live a happy life and retire
Work now seems more like a work till your drained and nothing to show for it but hey you made a handful of people somewhere on earth a bit richer so that's nice
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u/textingperosn May 28 '22
Why would you have children if you don't even enjoy your own life. You're just passing it onto them and making more wage slaves, taxpayers, and consumers for the rich to use.
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u/the-sugar-shack May 28 '22
This is a hot take but it shouldn't be. It's just basic empathy.
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u/textingperosn May 28 '22
Yep. I'm always astounded when people are miserable in their own lives yet have children who will have to go through the same thing (likely worse due to climate change, general pollution and environmental degradation, increasing wealth inequality, rise of the far right, etc.) when they grow up.
There's a reason why Elon Musk wants people to breed more. Who's going to build and buy his Teslas and pay taxes to bailout his company if no people are around to work and consoooom?
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u/the-sugar-shack May 28 '22
Yeah I think it's always a good rule of thumb to do the opposite of what billionaires want us to do haha
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u/71fq23hlk159aa May 28 '22
likely worse due to climate change, general pollution and environmental degradation, increasing wealth inequality, rise of the far right, etc.
Plus the fact that they have to be raised by parents who are miserable.
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u/Zargyboy 29d ago
Sidebar: I missed Musk saying this and also the time he apparently got a PhD in population genetics?!?!
Fuck outa here with this guy if I wasn't already done with him from before that. Why people think he's a genius and not simply a fat-cat business man talking out of his ass 99% of the time is beyond me.
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u/SlippyIsDead 29d ago
When had kids I wasn't miserable. After my second was when I started to realize how bad things were getting. I love my kids so much but completely regret having them. I'm so scared for their future.
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u/Goatesq May 28 '22
It's clearly all those homeless camps the map keeps generating. It's paradoxical all these empty luxury condos downtown surrounded by help wanted signs and shuttered cafes. If only these mysteries could be solved. 😞
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u/Haooo0123 29d ago
This is how revolutions start. The three classic revolutions (French, Soviet and American) have one thing in common. The exploitation of people by the wealthy. In the case of French and Soviet, it dethroned/decapitated the existing monarchy. In the American case, it was not recognizing the legitimacy of a monarch.
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u/40yrOLDsurgeon May 28 '22
Some people do want to work. Many kids dream of being doctors, lawyers, dentists, writers, athletes, dancers, actors, firefighters, policemen, etc. Some of them succeed. Harsh experience has driven this out of peoples' memories.
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u/DeidaraKoroski May 28 '22
Most children aspire to those things, i remember as a child i wanted to be any number of things. Hell, as an adult i still find myself having goals that are lofty for me because i still cling to the idea of doing something i want with my life. I never dreamed of being an office worker where i sell my sanity with 12 hour shifts in a cube for 20+ days in a row a few times a year, the rest of the time being 9-5. I thought my generation was fucked up by the system (late millennial, early gen z) but the current kids? Todays kids that have to be told they can experience what just happened in texas at any point? Their formative years being marred with the failed response to covid is also huge for small brains. This generation being raised right now is going to have a lot of problems in the mental health department, which keeps not getting funded enough. Personally I'd love to join the psychiatric work force but i cant realistically afford college and rent at the same time due to my own disability
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u/GroveStreet_CEOs_bro May 28 '22
I didn't even mind working, I just wanted to have a good time along the way, and they took that away too.
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u/SLYeeter
May 28 '22
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Working to survive another day or week is not something this country should ever be celebrating. Saying that two or more jobs is needed just to afford basic necessities and maybe a car, forget doing activities or vacationing anywhere more than out of town. A life and all your time given to capitalistic overlords while they berate you for not being more loyal to them, calling you family but treating you like dirt. It's awful and immoral to call this freedom
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u/multiarmform May 28 '22
"freedom" ...thats funny. that freedom where your own personal data isnt even yours and hasnt been for years? its bought, sold, traded without your consent and you dont see a cent. in fact youve probably been billed or at best youve PAID to have your data taken from you. and we havent scraped the surface
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u/ImPretendingToCare ✔️ May 28 '22
My dad always told me as a kid..
"Working to survive is the worst thing a human can possibly do"
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u/nickplayzgaming1 May 28 '22
Man, this reminds me I haven't taken a break from working since I started working at my current job (November 2020). I should do that.
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u/happyluckystar May 28 '22
I feel this. I just quit another job. Making decent money, too. Another job where everyone is treated like a moron and the work itself is soul sucking. Basically go to work and be depressed all day, then come home feeling too drained to attempt any hobby.
It's like I'm working to stay alive so I can keep working. Considering giving up and letting everything go into default. You know it's bad when the highlight of your day is McDonald's for lunch.
I know some people have real careers and enjoy their work. And there are a lot of those people who don't know what it's like to work job jobs types of jobs. They'll say we're just whining. Walk a mile in my shoes. With the cards I was dealt, this was my destiny all along.
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u/UchihaLegolas May 28 '22
No one wants to work like a slave. We deserve to be paid fair wages to not live hand to mouth.
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u/xena_lawless May 28 '22 •
The best use of Memorial Day is to actually fight for the freedoms that a lot of the soldiers who have died serving in the military *thought* that they were fighting for.
We need to disentangle jingoism from honorable service and actually build a country worth working, living, and fighting for.
That means honoring teachers and construction workers and community college professors and research scientists and environmentalists and farmers and ALL OF THE PEOPLE who actually work to build up this country and make it better - not just soldiers and "investment" bankers.
Society needs to evolve social and institutional defenses against kleptocrats and institutional corruption.
That's the actual work that needs to be done that would actually keep people safe and free - that's who and what people actually need to be defended from.
Honorable service comes in so many forms that go completely unrecognized in our broken society.
I want to see an America with something like "Educators' Day," as a national holiday, because teachers and professors are just as necessary and at least as much heroes to society as soldiers are.
(And as gruesome as it is, how many teachers are dying nowadays in the "line of duty", which shouldn't even be part of their job descriptions of what they're signing on for.)
This nation continually constructs itself in part through its traditions, and our traditions are well overdue for some 21st century upgrades.
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u/DudeBroManSirGuy May 28 '22
Maybe we should just do National protests during every holiday since that’s the only time the bourgeois overlords decide to give us any time off. No more capitalistic holidays nobody participates in the sales and we all hit the streets.
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u/tiernanx7 May 28 '22
The way this country's going with billionaire fanboys we're more likely to see something like Musk Day. That or perhaps just sell the holiday's naming rights to the highest bidder like they do with stadiums: Oracle Day, Amazon Day, etc.
Praise the oligarchs for the jobs they provide for us peasants!
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u/Michael_G_Bordin idle May 28 '22
Human dignity, why must the be earned? What universe are we in where basic fucking self respect has to be won through toil and blood. We're supposed to just treat eachother well by matter of course. Instead, we live in a system that demands you sacrifice your life for some rich fuckheads for a scrap of human dignity.
I see why people are just noping the fuck out.
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u/Drawtaru May 28 '22
"You can have free time when you retire!" Oh so like... when I'm 67 and exhausted and broken from working for 53 years?
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u/StaceyLuvsChad May 28 '22
And then you die shortly after because your body isn't used to not working consistently.
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u/PhilosoR4PT0R 29d ago
Lmao they fucked social security for us so none of us are going to be able to retire anyway
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u/Top-Fox-3171 29d ago
Yeah this is why I will only ever recommend people do the bare minimum to keep their jobs. Why work harder? It doesn't translate to anything beneficial in the short or long term.
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u/gmotelet May 28 '22
The thrill of possibly getting gunned down at any moment adds so much excitement, though!
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u/ih4teme May 28 '22
What I don’t get is why people have to treat other people like trash. We are all in the same mess so why not redirect that frustration towards the real problem which is not your fellow person.
I feel that people are so confused and it’s really troubling to see that we are not learning. Straight regression.
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u/janeshep May 28 '22 edited May 28 '22
What I don’t get is why people have to treat other people like trash.
Because people who have something to lose have privileges, sometimes small, sometimes big ones*. They treat other people like trash because they're afraid people in worse conditions might take away that privilege
- = even a minimum wage job, or even an hour of leisure time, can be considered a privilege. That's why it's not just rich people treating poorer ones like trash, often poor people are the ones treating like trash those in a slightly worse condition (hence why Republicans get so many votes. Remember the saying according to which every American thinks of themselves as a temporarily embarrassed billionaire)
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u/SEND_ME_REAL_PICS May 28 '22
It also reminds me of this popular (at least on Reddit) quote:
If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
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u/Electric_Ilya May 28 '22
This shit has been happening to people in developing countries for decades. And now the countries being negatively affected are those who voted for it. Capitalism is the greatest grift ever pulled, welcome to the late stage fellow Americans
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u/Advi0001 May 28 '22
My career goal is to find a work from home job that way I can find a way to automate it and turn into a mostly passive income. Then spend the rest of my time enjoying my hobbies and leisure time.
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u/scott_reids May 28 '22
I’ve wanted this for so long ngl. I’ve gotten to the point where I have started multiple very small passive incomes that now generate 250$ a month to try to eventually get to the point of not needing to work anymore. It’ll take 10 years but that’s better than 30 with a shitty retirement
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u/Dragonfire14 May 28 '22
Wait you can afford rent with your 2 jobs?! Together with my wife we have 3 jobs and still can't afford to rent/buy a place.
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u/secretarytemporar3 May 28 '22
Having kids in this system to perpetuate the cycle is practically a crime against humanity at this point.
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u/pathetic_optimist May 28 '22
The middle class has been gutted by big business and it's children are finding out what it is like to be working class.
Maybe solidarity will work this time around?
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u/Stress-Princess May 28 '22
Huge kick in the testicles for people with mental health shit trying to fit a Square into a circle hole.
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u/W1D0WM4K3R May 28 '22
I'm two days into sixteen hour days, eight hour shift at one job, eight hour shift at the second.
Once I'm off at my second job tomorrow, since I'm closing, I'll probably have ~50 hours banked between two jobs within three days.
50 hours. In 72. I drive from one job to another, get ready, etc. Those hours? Six. Fifty six hours of my time. That leaves me with sixteen hours of sleep. Except I can't sleep immediately. In any case, I had four hours of sleep yesterday, another four today. I make nice money, but damn. I can feel my body not keeping up.
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u/Specialist_Crab_6121 May 28 '22
Idk, man. Looks like unless you have rich parents, are good at sports or have an inhumane iq, you are doomed to this life.
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u/catarinavanilla 29d ago edited 29d ago
I think there needs to be a huge reckoning for mental health. I worry it’s going in the way of more treatment, which on its face is a good thing, but I feel like so much of what actually triggers imbalances are circumstances of poverty, watching people around you struggle to survive your entire life, and seeing no hope for the future. You can’t just keep prescribing sertraline and throwing people in 72-hr holds and expect them to start being okay with living in shit conditions. The situations people live in have to change.
For me, I started having depressive symptoms in like 5th grade, but I wasn’t losing productivity so I fell through the cracks because I wasn’t obviously dysfunctional. Middle school was isolating until I found my friend group. High school was even more isolating bc all my friends went to a different school. I got put on meds that were supposed to help me but I still spent my entire lunch period sneaking into the library to study bc I had no one I could trust. By college I was a mess, I don’t know how I graduated I literally remember nothing but being miserable and wanting to die every day.
Now I’m out of school, living with my partner and our two cats, I have a regularly scheduled job that pays for what I need. I’m not medicated anymore, because I truly don’t think there isn’t anything chemically wrong; I live in a fucked up society that fosters mental instability and I refuse to believe that’s my fault. It took some time in therapy and after finding myself in a much better situation that made me kick my decade-long depresh episode. Now if I feel those things coming on I feel much better equipped to get through it without any damage to myself or my relationships.
I know this isn’t the case for everyone and that medication does help some, I just think it’s becoming a buzzword to talk about mental health without looking to solve the material conditions we live in that cause mental illness like poverty, job insecurity, no safety-net, family life/parent stress, food insecurity, hostile architecture, lack of actually free time, inability to afford vacations/luxuries/travel/activities, literally all of these problems could be mitigated by supporting families and the middle class.
It’s like we’re all being repeatedly bashed in the head with a baseball bat and all anyone can offer us is an iBuprofen
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u/North91oO May 28 '22
From an outsiders perspective looking in at the working conditions in the U.S. It just looks like slavery with the illusion of freedom.
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u/Grouchy_Artichoke_90 May 28 '22 •
How do people stay away from being so heavily depressed when realising this.