its not the 40 hour work week thats the issue.
Its how much productivity is demanded in that 40 hours. and the compensation for it.
and theres a LOT more productivity demanded from workers today, than there was in 1950.
Because all the technologies that were supposed to make life easier… didnt. They just increased the amount of things we can/have to do in a day.
People working today are doing more labor, producing more effort per hour than 70 years ago, but are being paid less in purchasing power for it… and if thats not a recipe for violent upheaval i dont know what is.
The amount of time that corporations feel entitled to is ridiculous. I’ve quit my last two positions because these billion dollar companies feel that they own you for every second when you’re on the clock. It feels exploitative and gives you the sense that you’re just some beast of burden. We’re humans, not machines to push production to the maximum. But all the higher-ups see is bottom line pushers.
It’s fun when it is extended beyond work hours, too. Email/IMs/texts/Teams/Slack/whateverelsethefuck from people round the clock and on the weekend. Calls when on vacation. People asking if you could cancel your vacation just before going on one planned months in advance because of some contrived milestone. Stuff like that.
Oh, and I’m Gen-X - this kind of thing has been around since I started work, but it does seem like it’s increasing as a “norm”. People doing performative shit in public, and now others assuming this is expected - like how many commits you are doing FOR FREE on Github, or fake internet points on Stack Overflow, as an example. I honestly feel sorry for people that fall for this, thinking it’s a way to break into a job, or that they must do this to maintain one.
Though I do think that Covid did a modicum of a reset on some of the grindset nonsense. Of course, I think all the really big tech companies colluded with one another to then start doing massive layoffs to make sure that everyone still knew who was calling the tune (even if it made no sense to cut staff). Lots of managers have a real xitter envy - they’d love to cut their company to the very bone and run the place like absolute tyrants like they see fElon doing. Thing is, it is obviously a stupid way to run a business - xitter is just a Nazi bar with questionable business fundamentals at this point. But it doesn’t stop useless copycat monkeys in the C-suite from thinking he’s great.
My last job at a call center was staffed in such a way that they were basically on the phone continuously for their entire shift with no downtime between calls. This meant anytime something happened to increase call volume all the metrics the bean counters cared about went to shit. Their solution was to tighten the screws and demand lower handle times and better adherence from their already burnt out staff and cracking down on anyone who wasn’t logged in when they were supposed to be. Meanwhile the supervisors were leaving to go run errands and shit whenever they felt like it. Turnover quickly got ridiculous.
What, are not grateful that they trickle down a tiny bit of money from what is left after the shareholders and CEO take their hard earned cut? Just because you did all the work and earned all of the money? How gready can you be? I mean they graciously let you be sick 6 days a year, and let you frolic for another 10. Don’t you realize how much effort they had to put in worrying that the small smidgen of their enormous wealth that they had inherited and invested in your company was not earning them greater wealth at a rate that was grossly unhealthy for the company or the economy?
Back before the clock was invented, agricultural workers had about 160 days of the year to themselves. (Admittedly, to do intensive chores.) Also, employers gave free breakfast and lunch, with a bit of beer. Workers might also do as low as 4 hours of work IIRC, depending on the day and season. Below is a video on the subject. Civilis also covers topics, such as the fall of the Roman republic…which feels awfully relevant, nowadays.
I love Historia Civilis. I wish he’d also discuss the Roman leaders that came after Gaius Julius Augustus. A lot of historians and books stop there after the fall of the Republic, but from what I understand a lot happened within the Roman empire since then. It would be nice to learn more about it all.
One of my absolute favorite subjects! Check out “The History of Rome” podcast by Mike Duncan (dont let the audio quality of the first few episodes dissuade you, it gets suddenly better very quickly). Mr Duncan goes deep on details and provides sources if you want to dig deeper. It’s a great listen that covers the mythical period all the way to the fall of the eastern empire.
My parents holding fast with “well, it’s always been like that” made me realize how big this generational divide is.
There are good boomers who get it, yes. There are also some really dumb ones who have literally no clue what kind of world they helped create. Full stop.
And there are some Nazi gen z. We have to pull together the good ones from every generation and become helpers together. We can’t bitch about the ones that are shit, there are shit people in every generation, so it’s a waste of time and a distraction.
Yes, 100% this. There are plenty of boomers that got reamed by various elitist schemes, too. People right on the cusp of retirement only to have everything wiped out by something like an Enron or the real-estate bubble and they get to keep working another 10+ years…I think people have rose-colored glasses when it comes to the things boomers faced, too. It was not all sunshine and roses for everyone in that age bracket. It is lunacy to suggest that it was/is.
There may be some boomers doing nefarious things like Blackstone, driving up the cost of living for everyone, but I bet there are some very, very young people in schemes like that, too, making lots of money. Or individuals like fElon’s boyz - I don’t think the Dogebags are boomers. And fElon himself is Gen X…
Then there are headlines that I see like this that run counter to virtually everything you’d hear about Gen Y in recent years:
https://www.newsnationnow.com/business/your-money/millennials-financially-baby-boomers/
Lastly when the bullshit inter-generational warfare is whipped up, I remember this…
fElon
You call him like that every time. Please stop. It feels like Russian propaganda bot is talking. It’s bad and not funny to distort people’s names/surnames
Lighten up, Francis.
If Elon can’t respect people’s names and allows deadnaming on Twitter, I think it’s only fair to not respect his name.
This is some whataboutism. If he did this, it doesn’t mean that it should be acceptable.
Respect is earned. And generally mutual. You don’t respect people, I won’t respect you. I see no reason to respect anything about that Nazi.
In this case you can just call them by their surname, as they do with strangers
lol imagine getting triggered by this. Just say it. You’re an Elon fan boy.
Fuck that. This “high road” shit is what led us here in the first place. He dead names constantly. He’s a “big, stwong alpha,” he can take it.
I’ve gotta say i admire Zoomers a lot. Im a 1990 millenial and most of my generation simply put their heads down and pushed through and tried to emulate their boomers parents while not living their boomer parents reality, destroying themselves in the process. It seems that almost collectively your generation has said FUCK THIS SHIT and made moves to end it.
Its really impressive.
I don’t know any millennials like that. You sure they aren’t Gen-X?
Literally the poorest condition house would cost 100% of 8 years of take-home pay of my engineer salary where I live. That’s before accounting for loan interest on 20% down payment (I have 5%) which would push it up to 18 full years of my labor.
A single-family house is simply not worth 15+ years of my life, and I’m actively looking into cheaper options.
I don’t know about that. I’m a 1990 millennial and the vast majority of ppl my age collectively said fuck giving the extra effort for no return. I remember reading in my 20s that millennials pretty much gave up on retirement and started traveling.
Hey throw millenials in this too please.
And GenX. I bet a lot of them feel it too unless dementia has already set in.
nah yall are cringe and unfunny, pick up some humor first and we’ll include yall.
Maybe gen x could like, do something, for once. Maybe then people would care about them.
alright that’s enough of my generational slander quota for the day. Have a good day random internet people :)
What exactly do you think we aren’t doing? I’ve worked for years except when I was a stay-at-home parent. I even owned my own company and employed others for a while. I try to spend at least two hours of my time a week on political action. What else do I have to do for you to think people should care that I exist? Come up with more fresh memes?
Okay Gen Skibidi toilet, peak humor…
Thats Alpha tho…
Skibidi represents every generation raised in the brain rot of the algorithm so Gen Z onwards.
Skibidi Toilet’s audience is predominantly Generation Alpha, those born since the early 2010s. While the series does not appear on YouTube Kids, an app designed for children under 13, it is popular among elementary school students. Kim Kardashian’s 11-year-old daughter gave her a necklace reading “Skibidi Toilet”. Some members of older generations have called the show “brain rot”, while other internet users argue Generation Z had its share of bizarre memes.
Skibidi is brain rot, but brain rot is not Skibidi
Watch out, they might “prank” you by tormenting a homeless person or something
Fuck off and die.
eat my bum worms
I worked 40 hours a week and could not afford a house so I got a second job, worked my ass off for 5 years, saved a down payment and bought a 3 bedroom with a 2 stall garage on a half acre at an auction for $38k cash. I didn’t cry about having to work more, I called it an opportunity to be able to. I put another 30k into the house and used it as a stepping stone to get into a nicer place. Then I went back to one job. I did all this while being a single parent of a teen daughter.
and bought a 3 bedroom with a 2 stall garage on a half acre at an auction for $38k cash.
aha hahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahha
The whole scenario you described is the problem. You shouldn’t need to do that to yourself. The whole argument is the boomer generation was able to mostly have one parent working, supporting a family of 4, and owning a home COMFORTABLY. That is virtually nonexistent for current generations. Rising housing costs have far exceeded wage growth for decades now.
$38K?? For half an acre, 3 bedrooms and a 2 stall garage?
At an auction. Meaning it was a house that was foreclosed on. Oftentimes, they go for very cheap, sight unseen, and you need cash in hand. Granted the laws for that differ per state.
Oftentimes, they go for very cheap, sight unseen
What could possibly go wrong? That’s definitely worth a massive financial risk.
Right, that’s the point I was making. I did know a guy that would buy them and flip them. It’s a numbers game at that point. Some will be sinkers, but most will make money. If you’re buying one to live in, that’s a heck of a risk.
Then your point sure as hell wasn’t clear because I think many people thought you were saying buying a house isn’t a big deal or a risk if you get it at an auction. Hence all the downvotes.
Congrats?
The point being if you want something, you work for it, not condemn the economy and give up.
the real point is to be a good worker and let the billionaires reap the benefits
The issues today don’t stem from less work effort, then stem from opportunity lost. You can say you worked hard and that’s great but that same amount of work then doesn’t equal the same amount of output now for the worker.
Yes, the economy for the majority sucks because of the taxes being so low on the upper percentiles. Generations have voted people in who supported wealth gap growth and didn’t support the middle class. Stop blaming it on the youth, the youth werent the ones voting for what they got. Responsibility lies with those who came before them
Think about all that time you could have had with your daughter instead.
Ah, I see H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine was based in fact.
Welcome to the 21st century, traveler!
That’s a terrible way to look at the situation, did you ever wonder why it was even necessary in the first place to do that to yourself?
What year did you buy the house for 38k?
At a USDA property auction held by the county annually. Ya’ll trolls make me not want to post here either. Its already as bad as reddit and sometimes worse.
And you can’t even answer the question.
Could you be any more disingenuous?
Ya’ll trolls make me not want to post here either. Its already as bad as reddit and sometimes worse.
You went into a thread titled 'Gen Z are over having their work ethic questioned: ‘Most boomers don’t know what it’s like to work 40+ hours a week and still not be able to afford a house’ and then you made this comment:
The point being if you want something, you work for it, not condemn the economy and give up.
The economy is fucked, provably, it’s the worst time ever in history to buy a house. Your patronizing parroting of the mocked comment in the damn title didn’t go over well? What a shock.
How’s your relationship with your daughter now?
How did she feel about you choosing to work instead of spending that time with her?
Right? I have put my child first in everything I do since the day I was born and I know for a fact that she would be much less happy if we were richer but I was gone all the time.
As it is, she has a dad who stayed at home to raise her for the first two years of her life and a dad who also was able to stay at home and put her through online school because she was severely bullied for being queer and autistic to the point that the whole school was against her- but I have always been available to her and always had her back and I know she appreciates it even as a surly teenager.
And right now, we’re living in a crappy and small apartment and she is fine with it because I picked it in a location I knew she would enjoy and she gets to go out and have adventures on her own and will always have a dad she can come back to if there are any problems.
Fuck these “I worked 80 hours a week for my family and that’s why they’re in a 5-bedroom McMansion today” people. You are working for yourself. Spend less time working and more time with your kids.
$38K LMAOOOOOOOO
Yeah try that again but this time for $300k, asshole
Maybe try not being such a whiny bitch and pay attention to what they are trying to tell you.
What are they trying to tell us? That housing used to be more affordable years ago and now everyone looking for one today has missed the boat? Because that is the reality.
Wages have not meaningfully increased for the American middle class, while unchecked inflation and scarcity has caused the cost of housing to skyrocket.
If OP worked two jobs to buy a house in 1980, they’d need to work three jobs in 1990. Or five jobs in 2010. Or nine jobs in 2020. And the market has not gotten any better since then.
Around here you wouldn’t even be getting a 3-bed house with 2-bay garage for that price, unless it’s a real fixer-upper. Maybe for $500-600k.
Demand for human labor is declining, and as a result, wages are declining.
Which is precisely why wages shouldn’t be decided through market mechanisms
Or maybe we get rid of the “wages = living” bit.
We could all negotiate for the full value of our labor a lot better if we didn’t have a noose around our neck forcing us to work.
I have nothing in principle against people earning a living through dignified, honest, collective labor, with the basics being guaranteed such as housing, healthcare, education, nutrition, energy and a few others.
But that’s socialism!
Yes, I’m what you would call a communist. Or a tankie, depending on your mood!
Filthy communist wanting healthcare, security, and better society. Think about the billionaires’ children, how will they become neop babies?
Re-title this article as “Lazy, Tired Workers Are Mad At Youthful Workers Like Lazy, Tired Workers 60 Years Ago Were Mad At Them 60 Years Ago”.
Another “Don’t mind the billionaires getting richer and fight each other for the scraps instead” article.
Let’s talk about suburbs. These generations left the city because they couldn’t afford it. Now suddenly living 5 mins from work is expected but then the an entry level job can’t afford it and it’s a generational difference? Can you afford to buy a house within 45 mins to your work? Hell ya where I live but you don’t have immediate access to all city amenities.
Well that should be easy to fix. Just have a world war with a general draft and all for about 5 years. Then another one soon after in an arbitrary place. That sort of thing really brings people together, and also kills many of them, all contributing to a healthy housing market!
Among all my friends, there are two clear common denominators between those who rent and those who own houses. The ones renting have office jobs and live in the capital, while the ones who own houses live in smaller cities or the countryside and work in manual labor.
I’m not saying correlation is causation, but it’s an interesting observation - and so far, it applies to 100% of my friends.
Or have office jobs and commute a bit longer.
People say I’m crazy for commuting 1,5 hours (one way). But I get to go home to my own property. Especially now with hybrid working still being a thing, I only go to the office once or twice a week.
I must agree with the people saying you’re crazy for having that long commute. That’s over a month spent getting to and from work every year. Time is the most valuable asset in the entire world. By working we’re trading time for money but for the time spent commuting you’re not even getting paid. I would seriously consider trying to find an alternative solution to this.
I’m located in The Netherlands, the housing market here is fucked. An alternative solution would be to find something to rent closer to work, but I would pay 1,5 times as much in rent, for a small apartment in a neighborhood where I don’t want to live. Yes, I’m spending more time on my commute, but I also have more disposable income each month that I can save and invest. If all goes to plan, I can retire earlier and live mortgage free within 20 years. In essence, I’m trading a bit of time now, to have more spare time and a better financial position in the near future. I’m taking it.
ted to get the fuck out of here when she said: a lot of people wanted the lawnmower, but she doesn’t sell it to anyone (she mant she didn’t sell it to immigrants). And: “no offence to you, but your generation
do you drive, or take public transport? Americans will assume you drive, and then it is a pure waste of time. On the other hand, spending 3 hours on a train, one can sleep, work, watch a movie, read, whatever.
I drive, public transport in The Netherlands is horrible outside of the major cities. Even in the major cities it’s “meh” to be honest. The PR department of The Netherlands does a great job at portraying our country as some sort of engineering marvel / paradise. The truth is that mobility in The Netherlands is expensive and in case of public transport, it lacks proper connection to regions outside of the cities. The only reason why we “love” riding our bicycle around, is that it’s the only affordable mobility option.
Many people that cover longer distances, like myself, have a company leasing car. So it doesn’t hit my wallet as much.
I suspect you have much higher standards than Americans. Just curious, how much time/money would it cost for you to take public transport to work? (for Americans, something 70-80 miles away is literally an impossible commute without a car, except for a few exceptions along the NYC, Philadelphia, DC axis.
It would cost me about 75 euro’s (return) for a 4 hr commute (one way) with public transport to cover a distance of 150km (one way). This is a mixture of transportation modes, including bus and train.
Comparison with the car is quite difficult, but using a car cost calculator website, it says that for my car the average price per kilometer would be ~0,20 euro. So that would mean that the round trip would cost me roughly 60 euro’s by car. As for time, a one way commute to the office is about 1,5h to 2h by car, depending on traffic. So, twice as fast and 1/4th cheaper.
My company covers car expenses in the company leasing contract. All I have to pay is taxes to use the car privately, which in The Netherlands is quite high (compared to for example Belgium). So I pay 350 euro (net) a month to use the car privately. The mobility budget for the leasing car represents about 1000 euro gross a month. But of course if I were to take public transport, my company would reimburse that, but I would have to give up the car.
To be fair, the situation here in The Netherlands is not much different than you describe, outside the larger cities that is. Most people commuting to these cities from the smaller towns and villages are still heavily car dependent. Even within my own town, public transport is just a sham. If I were to take the bus to get groceries, I would have to wait 2 hours for the next bus that takes me back home. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
If they go to the office twice a week with an hour and a half commute each way that’s six hours a week driving. So 52 weeks a year that’s 312 hours or 13 days. Still not great but my commute is about 30min one way. I work five days a week so five hours a week, which would still be about 10 2/3 days a year. They also said they only have to commute once OR twice a week so they still probably drive less then the 13 days a year.
I’m just saying, sounds like a good deal
These boomers them selves could not afford to move out. Trust me no one can! Thanks Biden!
Many in GenX does, though.
https://www.redfin.com/news/homeownership-rate-by-generation-2023/
I mean not really that far of from boomers.
78.8% vs 26%?
Cripes…
26% of adult Gen Zers owned a home in 2023, little changed from 2022. Meanwhile, the homeownership rate for millennials rose to 55% from 52%, and the rate for Gen X climbed to 72% from 70%.
GenX is 72% according to that site.
I despise most of the boomers
I bought a lawnmower from someone online and went to pick it up. The lady was a turbo hoarder in her late 60’s she was smoking and smelled like a brewery. Her home was DISGUSTING. And i mean rat shit on the countertop. The only reason i was in her house was because there was so much shit around her house that the only way into her backyard was through the house. If you haven’t seen it, you can not understand how bizzare it was to carry a lawnmower through a hoarder house, when she had technically a big yard around.
I just wanted to get the fuck out of here when she said: a lot of people wanted the lawnmower, but she doesn’t sell it to anyone (she mant she didn’t sell it to immigrants). And: “no offence to you, but your generation is absolutely useless.” It was like some weird snl sketch
Wait I thought boomers were all rich and lived in nice houses?
I’m going to guess that person’s TV has a Fox News logo burned into the bottom corner.
No this was peak euro trash
I probably would have just not bought that specific lawnmower and kept using my shitty one.
Part of me wanted to leave it in the “living room” and say: fuck this shit. Problem was that it was a bar mower, and i really needed it and they are usually pricey as hell and she basically gave it away for free. The other thing was that it was so disgusting that i felt like i HAVE to get something out of it.
Please stop falling for efforts to divide the working class.
Amy such efforts should immediately be viewed as suspicious. The divide is not old vs young, or white vs black, or even rich vs poor. It is the capital class versus the labor class.
Boomers grew up in a very tiny slice of global history where the working class actually got improvements in their material conditions, so it is hard for them to understand the struggles of people before or after… but they are being ground down by capitalism the same as the rest of us.
Your comrades at work may not understand the importance of unions or collective action, but they are still your comrades. Your grandmother may not realize that all of her extra productivity went to make billionaires richer, but she is still your comrade.
or even rich vs poor. It is the capital class versus the labor class
Just another fancy way of saying rich vs poor. The difference is the poors don’t realize they are in a war.
There are plenty of people that don’t consider themselves poor or who most people would not consider poor who are still in the labor class. If you produce value more than extract value from ownership then you are labor class.
Most poor people don’t consider themselves poor because it is considered a terrible thing to be poor.
There are plenty of people that don’t consider themselves poor
That doesn’t make them right. That just makes them less poor than those that are dirt poor.
If you’re not floating around on a yacht then you’re comparatively poor. They can afford things these so called rich people you talk about could never afford.
Just because theyre not “right” doesn’t mean this person doesn’t have a point; when you use the word poor, lots of people can’t or wont identify that way.
I’m in agreement with you generally, and I have made the same argument as you before. But people wont get this, they wont hear your argument because theyre too busy feeling like youre ridiculous for calling them poor. The sheer magnitude of wealth disparity is not well understood by your average joe.
The other commenter is offering more precise wording thats less likely to be understood wrong.
If I want to teach you to cook, but we can’t move on from whether its called a “spatula” or a “flipper”, nobody is learning anything.
My grandparents aren’t comrades. They’re dead.
All my coworkers voted R. It’s really, really hard to consider them allies in any sense.
It is genuinely difficult not to hate them for it. But you need to keep telling yourself that they’re victims to propaganda from media and their upbringing. It’s hard to overcome that.
There’s a quote from a Heinlein book where he talks about how Communists can only exist in places where there are real, not imagined, ills that are not being addressed, and I feel like something similar applies for Trumpists. Their lives have gone wrong somehow, likely driven by forces beyond their control, and they’ve been promised easy answers by a vile con game. I don’t appreciate that they got hoodwinked, but I can understand how it happened.
And men under 30 voted for Trump by 16 points[1]. This is NOT old vs. young.
isn’t it fucking weird? I’ve been so disassociated for weeks now, getting some things done but it’s very hard.
Thank you for saying this. One of my posts where I tried to express similar things got voted down to the extreme, lol.
The moment right after WWII was a very unique period of time. Virtually every other country had their manufacturing decimated and we were about the only ones left. Labor unions were strong, taxation was not so regressive (top rate in the 90s) as now, etc.
And the boomers were born into that environment. And they were huge in numbers, too. So they had outsized influence and were probably given more of a chance at the lower and middle class levels than many generations before or since (though new numbers show that maybe Gen Z and Millennials have surpassed everyone). Probably as a general rule. But also, during their youth, many of them agitated for making things better. So I just don’t understand why an entire generation (even though I lived in their shadow my entire life - believe me, Gen X are the OGs when it comes to resenting boomers - we resented a lot of them very much long before it became a mainstream media hit by pitting Gen Y against the boomers decades later) can be trashed like that, just en masse. It is rather absurd and is hardly a complete picture.
They also had a lot of struggles and not all financial, either. If someone makes blanket statements about how all of boomers had it better than everyone since, well, that’s rather silly, since I bet if you look at the typical experience of a Black boomer as contrasted with a typical Black person of later generations it might be a completely inverted situation. Same for LGBTQ. Same for women. If you know any boomer women, ask them about something simple like getting a credit card. Or being allowed entry into college.
I hate this idea that people need to work themselves to death to survive. We have such a surplus of resources today that people should barely have to work. I don’t know what it was that pulled the mask off this farce of a system we have, but it sure as shit isn’t worth it to bust my ass for 45 years so the CEO or FuCKYou Incorporated can get another bigger yacht.
We have tons of excess. The problem is it’s hoarded by a small tyrannical group of psychopaths bent on increasing their wealth at the cost of everyone else.
I feel like these two comments really should be at the top.
I don’t know what it was that pulled the mask off this farce of a system we have
Greed
Sociopathic greed is the root; Covid 19 pulled the mask off when people collectively had a few months to exit the rat race and discover life apart from being constantly ground to dust for some shareholders’ profits.
and discover life apart from being constantly ground to dust for some shareholders’ profits.
but … but the grindset!
Probably this, but it had been bubbling under the surface for a while.
Of course. American prosperity fell off a cliff around 1980, so the last 40 years or so have just been inertia and grinding the middle class into dust.
Which is roughly where we are now.
Not true! The 90s were great! We signed NAFTA and shipped all our manufacturing jobs overseas!
*Cue Josh Lyman parading through West Wing gloating about globalization
I don’t get you people. Presumably you’re also complaining about Trump tariffs?
You complain when the US signs free-trade agreements, and then you complain when the US closes its borders.
Make it make sense?
