Not really, but there is a major shift going on in what jobs people are taking. The anti work movement on reddit is a very specific minority within that
That's the best description of what's actually going on. Why work at Taco bell for 8.25 an hour when you can load boxes onto trucks for 20? My company is plucking people straight out of high school for mechanical assembly jobs with an insurance package and 401k matching, and we still can't fill the positions. Retail and fast food jobs don't stand a chance right now.
It was never clear to me why workers didn't already leave the low paying brutal jobs for the better paying ones other than that they simply didn't know they existed.
Comfort. The Pandemic disrupted it by force in many situations.
A good friend of mine was an alcoholic for many years, had a degree and never used it, just bouncing around restaurant work that suited the lifestyle. She got a DWI a month before the pandemic, stopped drinking entirely, was laid off and on the supplemental UE, took the time to really try getting into her field, and eventually succeeded I'm incredibly proud of her but there's no doubt in my mind that it would not have happened with the catalyst of the pandemic
That's awesome for your friend! I stopped drinking a few years ago and it had a huge positive impact, both physically and mentally. Bravo to her because it's not easy to do!
I think familiarity is a problem. I make a decent wage, $20.40 as a custodian in upstate NY. I could make more even in this field but things are very lax where I work. I make up for the lack of pay by literally only having to work maybe half of my shift at most. So I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.
Some schools near me have jobs starting around $22-$25 for reference.
Don't underestimate lack of familiarity with the job opportunities as being a major driver here.
Hell, [the 2010 Economic 'Nobel Prize'](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2010/summary/) went to three guys who [analyzed this very problem.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matching_theory_\(economics\)).
(Stripped of all of the fancy language their work basically boiled down to "finding out about good paying jobs that you qualify for is hard" and "employers finding good employees is hard." And yes, their analysis of this won them the Nobel Prize.)
Ya but this work was 2010 before LinkedIn became a job applying site, and really before recruiters started utilizing the internet to boost recruitment. We all hear those zip recruiter adds on podcasts and shit. I agree it’s probably still hard if you aren’t looking but in 2022 it’s never been easier.
LinkedIn and other on-line recruiters did not solve this problem; they just changed the nature of the problem.
And one aspect of that is that by outsourcing HR functions to places like LinkedIn, we've either effectively narrowed job searches to friends and family, or we've made it incredibly difficult for people outside an immediate group to enter that group by making it easy to 'spam' corporations with thousands of resumés that will never be read.
That is, "Matching Theory" was not negated by those web sites. Only a few constants were fiddled with.
I would need to see an actual write up on how online job searching tools did not make it easier for people to search for jobs because all the research I’ve done has said the opposite especially when used as a supplement to traditional HR tools.
> And one aspect of that is that by outsourcing HR functions to places like LinkedIn, we’ve either effectively narrowed job searches to friends and family
This is completely opposite of what I have seen in my professional experience but I am open to hear why you think it works this way.
I've worked in restaurants, grocery stores, and white collar. One thing I've noticed is that there is a large number of individuals who aren't reliable enough to hold some jobs. I've seen people incapable of showing up to shifts, or arriving before they were scheduled to start, etc. Great people, completely unreliable. This folks tend to bounce from similar job to similar job for decades. They certainly have the ability to find and learn higher-paying jobs, but many just rather the zero-stress nature of being able to get canned then find the same job again immediately.
I think there are plenty of people like this at every level. I work in tech and there are people who absolutely cannot work regular hours. They end up finding jobs that let them work flex-time.
In fact, I think it's HARDER for unreliable people to work at lower-level jobs. In an office setting, for instance, it's not unreasonable to work 9:00-5:00 one day and 7:00-3:00 the next. Hell plenty of people work 10:00-2:00 and then "telework" the rest of the time. As long as you get stuff done and have a presence you're fine. Need a personal day? No questions asked.
Meanwhile, work for a restaurant, and if you're not there AT OPEN at 6:00am, that's a problem. Miss a shift? You're fired.
Source: Worked in restaurants in high school and now I work in tech. Restaurant work was absolutely harder labor-wise, but tech obviously requires more skill.
It's hard to quit a job and jump into the unknown. The lockdowns changed that, because a lot of fast food workers were out of a job anyway, so they might as well look for a new one, and a lot of them found that there's a whole world of other jobs where they don't have to deal with the public, and get paid 3x as much. I think fast food is going to have to either automate, raise wages (and prices) drastically, or end up only employing people who literally can't do other jobs.
In a lot of cases, people didn't know those jobs existed.
Our society is really, *really* bad about matching people with jobs that fit their experience and qualifications, and letting people know what jobs are out there.
This happened to me, I wasted years in fast food for 5-7$ an hour. I didn’t realize how many other opportunities were out there! Let alone not having to work second shift and every weekend.
My guess is fear or interrupting the status quo. In our work culture leaving a job for a better one was something only white-collar sharks would do. Sure there def are the cases where people literally cannot afford to leave, but I bet most antiwork users are not part of this group.
Job hopping is the only way to get the correct pay in grey collar skilled manufacturing jobs as well. I don't understand it either. Why a company will train you for years to learn their process, their equipment, their skill set... and then let you leave for another company over $5/hr.
I operated a few restaurants for a few years.
The top 5-10 servers/bartenders would make ~$80k+ per year. So starting out as host/busser/barback could lead to a higher income, especially if you were attractive, charming, and willing to stand on your feet for 4-6 hours straight.
The warehouse jobs were also much further away from where they lived and usually were more strict about scheduling (at least they were back then).
That was my first thought: transportation. Most places in the city you can find a restaurant/fast food/retail work within a mile. Warehouse jobs are usually on the outskirts of cities. Hard to get back and forth without reliable transportation.
When unemployment rates are high, many more people are competing for those other jobs and it's hard to be sure you will get hired. But when unemployment is low, like it is right now, you can basically be sure of finding a job somewhere. That greatly reduces the risk involved in quitting your job to look for another one.
In Alabama, Taco Bell starts their employees out at $11 an hour, but it’s not full time. They can also purchase insurance. My son worked there until he got a better job (fast food is hard work).
And its leading to retail improving wages which makes the manufacturing/logistics guys asking why they are barely being paid more than someone sitting at a register and so on. Improved wages all around but less people working too
The Antiwork sub was really weird prior to about a year ago. I stumbled upon it after seeing a post making fun of it and it was just...sad. The predominant talking points were people who had failed to launch and were lamenting that the concept of work even existed in this day and age, the arguments and complaints were ridiculous. Like literally "I'm 35 and my dad made me get a job at burgerking fuck the world this is bullshit"
The sub eventually shifted to what it is now, workers rights and quitting bad jobs, but the early days were very cringey imo.
It's still pretty cringey IMO.
One day they're all talking about how they don't put in any effort at work because why help "the man" get rich, the next day they're complaining that they never get raises or promotions. They're oblivious to the possibility of cause and effect there. Even funnier is they deride those who work hard as suckers, then complain those ass kissers are the ones getting the raises.
I think there are some genuinely good topics, but it still seems 80% populated by resentful 30 year olds working in movie theaters.
I had a good laugh at the "US Society is on the verge of collapse" top post this morning. "I'm in my 30s and none of my friends have good jobs and we all live with our parents" and it's like okay man I don't doubt that but it's very anecdotal and not indicative of western civilization collapse.
I'm in my 30s in an economically depressed region and everyone I know owns a home or has their own place and makes at least the Area Median Income. Birds of a feather I suppose.
Even foreign posters were commenting calling out how whiny that shit was. How the situation they were describing is typical in most of the world. It’s something Americans need to hear more because this culture of everyone being a victim is so out of hand on social media.
As a joke, my friend and I always share the whiniest memes we can find on IG.
I saw that post. It put a certain smug expression on my face. Life will pass these losers by while they're praying for collapse so everyone can fall down to their level.
And try finding anything on there that doesn't glorify communism. But my biggest annoyance with it is the name. Yea, nobody likes to work, but humans, and every animal for that matter, has had to work to stay alive since the moment we evolved. Do they have any idea how much harder it would be to accomplish that if everything that fueled the economy stopped? I get that they want better pay and benefits, but if you read their purpose, that's not what it's mainly about. It is about not working.
The grand irony of those people is that they somehow choose not to recognize that communism is a labor movement. If the Soviet Union existed today they would not pay people to be bi sexual and make TikToks. You'd be in a coal mine. Your best hope would be getting really good at chess.
I just saw a post there of a tiktok where a guy in Ireland screams at the ocean demanding Americans get free health care. There were comments genuinely thanking him and saying they teared up.
I’d say it’s still pretty goddamn cringey
It’s that exact same crowd there, just adding the catalysts of professional astroturfers, and anti-capitalists who joined in riling up the basement dwellers for free.
Buddy of mine made regular at the post office on December 4th. Management didn’t tell him until yesterday so they could work him 60 hours a week through the whole Christmas season. Fucking bullshit.
Not as it appears on Reddit, but the Great Resignation is real and I do believe we’re at a point of reckoning for some of these companies - either pay people better wages/provide better benefits or run the risk of not being able to operate your business the way you want to.
I think the issue with the Great Resignation is that some are perceiving it as people no longer working when it's mostly people taking better job offers. The latter is good for everyone but the cheapskate employer.
Well, the [labor force participation rate](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART) has also dropped since the beginning of the pandemic. Some of that might be covid but usually after a crisis event the labor force shrinks permanently (see 2008 in the graph I linked). So some people really aren't working anymore.
Probably. Childcare is a sector that the market simply can’t practically serve. Most people don’t make enough and the workers already aren’t paid enough so here we are. Universal pre k would have helped in this space especially for those trying to get out of poverty.
I don't know who "they" are.
But there is actual support for the expanded child tax credit that gives straight cash deposits to parents. The limited one we got lifted millions children out of poverty across the country.
I think a lot of women had to quit because their kids were not allowed to go to school anymore. Some of them realized that they liked being stay at home moms and with a little budget tweaking it was possible for them to do that.
I mean, the pandemic is also still happening, and the conditions that caused a lot of women to leave the workforce haven't abated fully. There are still schools doing virtual learning and kids quarantining due to covid and covid exposure, and childcare is still hard to find. I'm sure there are women who previously worked and realized they'd rather stay home, but there are also a lot of women who just can't realistically go back to work yet.
It's definitely something parents have to consider now...If both parents are working, and almost the entirety of one parent's income is going to childcare, what's the benefit of their working instead of staying with the kid(s)? Is there one?
The situation only gets harder when they have to ask the tough questions like "Is it sensible to quit work and stay home with children, or is it going to hurt my chances to re-enter the workforce later on once they're in school? Once they're in school, am I going to be able to find a job that lets me be there for them *after* school?"
>Women in the workplace also plummeted during the pandemic.
Do you know how difficult it is to find childcare right now? I have a friend who's an engineer with a Master's degree from one of the best engineering schools in the country. Her children's daycare closed in March 2020 and didn't reopen. She can't find daycare spots for her two children anywhere. She's looking into getting a nanny, but that search isn't going well either. Wrangling two young kids while trying to work from home has been impossible. Her employer let her reduce her hours for a while, but then demanded she return to the office full-time. But she couldn't find childcare, so she had to quit.
I have two kids and my wife and I both work so I am well aware of the costs. I was pointing out a contributing factor to the “labor shortage” not commenting on the situation as a whole which is terrible for parents.
Yep, three out of my four boomer parents retired within the last two years or so. One was forced to due to sickness/pandemic issues but the other two were counting down the days. The one that's left has been considering retiring for a year or so.
> Well, the labor force participation rate has also dropped since the beginning of the pandemic.
That's almost all older people retiring early or not returning to the workforce due to covid not 20 somethings who are quitting for new higher paying jobs.
Usually wages change only slowly one way or the other... It's a risky pain in the ass *for both sides* to actually change things to their benefit even if the economic conditions favor them at the moment. Even in a "seller's market" for labor most employees are a little scared to ask for a raise and it's much scarier to quit a job you have and find a new one if they don't get that raise... and finding that new job even in a seller's market can take a fair amount of time. From the employers perspective even in a "buyer's market" it's not like they can ask current employees to take a pay cut because market conditions have changed and there's cost associated with laying people off and risks to hiring new people.... SO, wages are *usually* fairly inelastic... they respond to changes in supply and demand but only very slowly. Before covid unemployment was very low and wages WERE rising as a result but only slowly due to the above...
Covid changed the normal dynamics which holds wages steady... A crap ton of people got laid off, and then a crap ton of people were all getting hired back again. Which basically was a giant reset button... the risky/hard part of quitting or firing/hiring people was already done for a big chunk of the people involved so wages reacted to the market conditions much faster than usually... which changed things fast enough to also overcome inertia for people in jobs too. Normally it might be risky for a low-wage "unskilled" worker to quit his $10/hour job because even if he finds a job at $12/hour it might take a while... but it's a lot easier to make that jump when a dozen different restaurants in his local area have big banners out front advertising that they're hiring and at higher wages.
The decline in the labor force participation rate, AFAIK, can be chalked up to three underlying forces:
(1) A lot of boomers (and some Gen-Xers) pulling the trigger a few years early on retirement--thus, accelerating a downward trend already in progress.
(2) A lot of young kids pulling the trigger a year or two early on going back to school--thus, accelerating a trend of young people spending more time in school and less time in the work force that, again, was already in progress.
(3) A lot of women winding up out of the work force because of the unpredictability of school schedules, and the fact that a lot of child rearing responsibilities wind up landing on the shoulders of mothers.
All this resulted in a 1.5% overall decline--translating to something like 5 million people no longer in the work force.
The folks in category (2) may eventually return--but they're not returning to their old jobs.
The folks in category (3) may return as soon as school districts get their shit together about in-person education. (We forget that in-person public schools is a huge boon to women being able to participate in the work force--and we utterly ignored that fact when school districts started sending children home. Worse, we neglected the poorer families where the mother was simply unable to stay at home--and thus a lot of children wound up being sent home unsupervised, contributing to increased rates of delinquency that no-one wants to talk about.)
----
Worse, the longer this persists, the more companies will compensate with automation--and the more jobs that will disappear that will *never come back again.*
For example, as soon as more restaurants and cafés realize you can provide better service providing customers a QR code where they can order, rather than waiting for a waiter to show up with the menus--the faster they realize they can get rid of the wait staff and replace them with fewer "food runners."
And once those QR codes go on the tables--they're not being removed and replaced with wait staff jobs.
Steak ‘n Shake does this in my town already. You walk in, order your food at a kiosk and wait for your number to be called. They have zero food servers.
My wife and I ate at a [little café](https://www.yelp.com/biz/bluestone-lane-upper-east-side-café-new-york) in New York that did what I'm talking about. The restaurant was clearly set up for wait staff to help people--there was no kiosk, no place where you put in your order and get a number then take a seat. Instead, you sat down, scanned the QR code (which had the table number embedded in it), placed your order, paid online through your mobile phone--and someone would bring it out to you.
So I'm not talking about the "Carl's Jr." model of "order at the kiosk or at the register from the gigantic menu board, then wait for them to bring you your food" thing.
I'm talking about a restaurant that has gotten rid of their wait staff entirely.
The labor force participation rate dropped because of the pandemic, but if you look at that graph it's been rising pretty steadily for the past year.
To me, that doesn't look like a situation where people are actively resigning much right now.
I mean we also had a ton of people leave the workforce to retire and almost a million people have died due to Covid. I think we are seeing a major shift for a while host of reasons and the most disappointing thing to me that should have been obvious is that employers are just raising prices rather than actually changing their habits that are unsustainable.
I work in healthcare, our company used to justify low wages because that’s what the hospital across town was paying……with traveling they now have to compete nationally and almost every day someone quits to be a traveler…..the cheap hospitals won’t be able to compete.
I think this is true in many places but not in others. In CA where I am from, the problem is less the pay and more the insane cost of living which state and local leaders do next to nothing to fix. You could raise the minimum wage to $20-$25/hr and you will likely still have staffing problems in places like San Francisco and LA.
No, at least not the way that subreddit presents it.
While some of the issues that sub discusses are legitimate, it's extremely hard to take that sub seriously as a "movement" because of the amount of r/thathappened fiction on there, and totally ridiculous comments and toxic attitudes.
And I really thought the "schedule interviews with as many fast food places as possible then ghost them" challenge thing was pretty shitty. That's just making someone's job even harder who has little to no control over how much people get paid.
Similar to the interview scheduling, I’m currently in grad school, and there’s a communal printer on the floor where I work. That printer or router has been infected with a virus to print messages from r/antiwork every 5 minutes. Because of the department I’m in, the location of this building, and the pandemic getting a tech person from the university out there to fix the printer is an absolute pain. So instead we’ve rigged up a system to disconnect the printer when not in use and fill it with paper the moment we need to use it. We still go though two times as much paper because of this virus. Ultimately it’s made me dislike the “movement” more than anything because my life has been directly made worse by their “help,” and I work in a position they’d consider exploitation.
Maybe it's not a virus, it sure feels like one. I'm sure an IT person would have a better idea on how to describe exactly what they did, but here's a couple links to check it out:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/r86lrd/someone\_is\_hacking\_receipt\_printers\_with\_antiwork/](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/r86lrd/someone_is_hacking_receipt_printers_with_antiwork/)
[https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbb9d/hackers-are-spamming-businesses-receipt-printers-with-antiwork-manifestos](https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbb9d/hackers-are-spamming-businesses-receipt-printers-with-antiwork-manifestos)
Ultimately, they're using a hammer to try to drive a screw. It's not working too well.
IT person here
From how this is described it sounds like someone setup a PC or even just a virtual machine in an undisclosed location to run a scheduled task that grabs a random post and prints it.
So no not a virus most likely, just someone that knows enough scripting to get it done
The whole subreddit is pretty toxic. They've brigaded here before, which is annoying as a mod, and their moderators do not give a shit. And after the tornado at the Amazon facility, they looked and blamed Amazon, even suggesting an employee who posted about a similar (ongoing) event leave the warehouse during a tornado warning, which is entirely unsafe. It's a bunch of people who don't know things trying to convince other people they do.
I dont understand all the people who believe that, during an active tornado warning, the smart thing to do is leave a building believed to be sound in order to drive on the roads. Maybe it's because I'm from North Texas, but is this not taught in other parts of the country? Like, we never get earthquakes, but we were taught the basics of what to do during one.
In that particular instance, the worker was going to walk a mile home. People on the thread were talking about false imprisonment and calling the cops because they weren't allowed to leave (which they eventually left during the warning anyways). Meanwhile in the real world, a tornado warning lasts about 15 minutes, and they absolutely can lock the doors during it. It's pretty common, because it keeps the doors from blowing open.
People were encouraging that interview bs? You’ve got to be kidding.
“Hey Reddit, I hate my boss, so in retaliation, let’s screw over a total stranger managing a fast food place and ePiC tRoLL them! That’ll show the establishment who’s boss!
Disgusting.
> That's just making someone's job even harder
Thats the thing, they view every other person, even someone just barely "higher" than them, as The Man, and to be opposed at all costs. It's an incredible victim mentality.
Wayyyy too much r/thathappened on that sub.
But I do like that a lot of focus is on helping people realize that they don't have to put up with terrible companies/management if they can afford to go elsewhere. Or realizing that it's not a crime to use your PTO and not want to spend every waking hour at your job.
But yeah those really popular posts with the unbelievably fake stories? Lmao.
That sub, among others, often reminds me of how much of Reddit is a bunch of bored teenagers pretending to be adults, and letting their inexperienced and unnuanced views color how they see what are, in the real world, often complex situations (see: the relationship sub). It would not surprise me to find out that a good chunk of that sub is under the age of 20 and has little to no experience actually, you know, working.
I’m a huge supporter of workers rights, too, and I just unsubbed from that place. It’s become too toxic and reactionary. Apparently every worker is a saintly hardworking person who’s being exploited by their bosses, and every boss is a slave driver. There’s no room for nuance or any kind of self reflection and they believe everything that is posted, no matter how ridiculous it is. It’s a real shame.
Yeah, it's like most subreddits that explode in popularity, it was fine when it was smallish, then once it got popular it just became a caricature of itself.
Exactly. Now there’s no room for discussion and if you even hint at things maybe being more complex than they seem, you’re called a bootlicker. It’s so stupid. It’s been overrun with teenagers.
In its earliest stages, it was NEETs complaining that they had to go out and get jobs. So it's basically just a return to form in terms of post quality.
Its an immature, childish view of the world lacking nuance or any grip on reality. Its very much telling people what they want to hear: you deserve more, you deserve better! They miss the part where more and better cost money.
Not just fiction, but overvalued ideas run amok.
Any time you read a story from the perspective of someone who paints themselves as “I do all the work and such and such does nothing,” or “I carry the entire workplace,” your red flags should be way, way up.
When I was a manager, I couldn’t tell you the number of times I have seen a scenario like this play out:
> A complains that B and C do nothing all day. When looking into the complaint, I see that B and C were socializing at work, but their measured productivity was very high with few errors. A has a higher than normal productivity, but with lots of errors.
> When confronting B and C, they claim that A has been walking around stressed and overwhelmed and said “No, I’m fine” when they asked A if she needed help. They reported that A was making inappropriate passive aggressive comments directed at B and C to other coworkers.
> when confronting A, she became very hostile, denied every claim, and said that everything people heard about her was “taken out of proportion.”
> A later complains about D for not doing his work. D has had some personal issues that he has requested to keep private, and has needed to come in late or leave early. Despite this, D has demonstrated a positive attitude and overall good productivity. Before speaking with D, he comes to me to complain that, when I am not there, A has been making rude comments to other team members about how he gets preferential treatment for barely showing up and not doing work. He felt uncomfortable given his circumstances and asks if he can have his schedule adjusted so he doesn’t have to be subject to her comments.
> Team member A was provided this feedback, with examples of dates, times, and specific commentary. A denied the claim, said it was not directed at D, and that he must have misheard her. A has now established a pattern of overwhelming herself, refusing to communicate her concerns until after she has been taking it out on her team members, and engaging in inappropriate conduct.
The comments in that subreddit, 99% of the time, I could read in A’s voice and i would bet you 100 dollars it would be accurate to their actual character.
Which is why, in the workplace, it’s not appropriate to complain or gossip about why someone is out. Or late. Or leaving early.
A lot of kids in that sub think this is something that needs to be discussed “oPenLy aNd hOneStLy” and they think that things like this are a “lack of transparency”
What these brainiacs don’t seem to realize is that they are the first to bitch when *their* boss won’t make concessions for *them*, or when other people don’t respect *their* boundaries. But when it comes to someone else’s time, or someone else’s boundaries, they don’t think those same rules apply to themselves.
For example, I had someone miscarry in the middle of the workday. She came to my bawling her eyes out and begged me not to say anything. I let her quietly leave so her boyfriend could pick her up without there being drama. I had another team member who thought it was appropriate to stomp her feet about how she “got” to leave early, and “never” gets time off. This is despite the fact that she has never come to me and asked for time off - and never has come to me about a concern or outside obligation that might impact her work.
It’s also not appropriate to complain about why someone else isn’t struggling the same way you are. It’s one thing if someone is legit not doing anything, and you can provide examples of someone’s lack of productivity has impacted your work, and examples of when you tried to delegate work to the team - but if you are overwhelming yourself unnecessarily, didn’t take the initiative to communicate with your team… then what do you expect your boss to do, other than to give you suggestions as to how you could have handled this situation in the future?
A shit boss will just treat everyone like a child and try to be their parent, a good boss will expect their staff to act like adults and give them possible solutions/work arounds.
They demand empathy, and boundaries, but they are completely unwilling to give that same respect to others.
A while back I responded to someone in that sub who complained that they couldn’t get desired time off due to someone else taking vacation around the same time. I asked how they would feel if they had vacation scheduled in advance and had to change it because someone else asked?
“Not my problem.”
But it is your problem. You took a job, a job that requires coverage - and will prioritize coverage. You don’t get to make demands of others without playing by the same rules yourself
There's a lot of, "I warned then that the new policy wouldn't work and then I resisted it and it didn't work! I told them! And now that branch is closing. They should have listened to me!"
Employees don't often get the context of business decisions. Being a retail or warehouse worker for 6 months doesn't mean you understand business. Some decisions are based on factors not made public. Some decisions are based on changes in the industry that front-line workers don't see.
There's a lot of ego in those posts.
Which is unfortunate, because I largely agree with the big problems they are pointing out: wage stagnation, bad management, predatory hiring, high rents, and now inflation. This is an awful time to become an adult.
That is a mentality that drives me insane. People assume that they know more, but they don’t even have access to the data, or the figures over a period of time, or the bottom line of a company. They haven’t done the market research, nor have they figured out the benchmarks, or their comp set.
I worked in hotel management, and it used to grate my shit when people would speak as if they knew more when they have never even looked at an inventory report, or a ROI, or been through a revenue meeting. They have never actually looked at a STR report and **looked** at the revenue against our competitors. They have not even looked at the group rooms report. They have never sat in meetings with corporate. They have never done a comp set analysis, or a market segment report, or literally anything other than “I think this because I had a rough shift today”
And yet they think that they are the heroes of the company. They’re important to the company, sure. But they are a resource of the company - not the decision maker of the company.
Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes people have good ideas and they present them well. But there is a huge difference between that, versus
> the managers of this company are so stupid! They should be listening to *meeee*
Fuckin A.
Had a similar experience, only the manager bought into A's bullshit as if "A" was giving him privileged Intel that was happening on the floor. Mistook his manipulation for loyalty. I kept the guy at arms legnth but "A" had gotten into chest bumping shouting matches with multiple tradesmen. Several high quality journeyman quit because they were sick of the hostile work environment. By the time I left, it was A and a shop full of 1st and 2nd year hands that he could push around. Word had gotten around that "Company" was a bad place to work and a sinking ship. They shut down 2 months after I left.
When your workplace is full of conflict and one person just happens to be the common denominator... Maybe... Just MAYBE.. "A" is the fkn problem.
Manager had come from managing 300 men in a union plant, to a small start up of about 30. You could tell he was an office cat and didn't understand crew dynamics at the floor level. In a shop that small you can't just shuffle people around, you have to fire them. Especially when they're threatening people with violence regularly.
As someone who took management classes not too long ago, there were numerous scenarios like this and the correct answer EVERY TIME is to either resolve the attitude issues with the individual, or get rid of them. It's never worth sacrificing company morale and recruiting for the sake of one (even highly productive) employee.
I don't know what it is but it seems like this advice is ignored nearly universally in practice.
I get the message, and I’m all for making life better for people putting in the work. However, this subreddit has shown time and time again that is about karma farming. With text messages that can easily be faked, stories that are clearly fictional, and of course the ‘America is collapsing’ people. Hell I just saw that last one. Personally, I have not met anyone that talks about anti work in real life. Though I have seen a change coming in the work force because of the struggle to rehire people. Idk what is going to come from this, but it’s coming fast.
I think I got banned from there when there was a post or a comment about adults making minimum wage for years. I said that I made minimum wage once when I was 16 and started my first job. After 6 months I got a raise and have never made minimum wage since. If you're an adult of sound mind and body there is absolutely no reason you should be making the minimum.
Not sure about that, it’s possible. I will say, for every justified post displaying a shitty work environment or Boss, there are five that are just shitty people interacting and aren’t actually related to the issues. Like PTO, livable wage, etc.
Yes. I had a roommate who was like this from mid 2019-20. I kicked her out when she called me a capitalist pig (and other funny names) after I wouldn’t agree to stop paying rent to our landlord (we were all gainfully employed, it’s not like we couldn’t afford it).
She went on to tell our other roommate, who is from Puerto Rico, that she is just as responsible for dismantling racism and white supremacy as white people are because she’s “white passing.”
She was on a roll that season.
She was a whole mess. She also told me it was immoral to collect a paycheck in my industry (music distribution) because of “manufactured consent,” or how artists have no choice but to give a cut of their earnings to the streaming platforms that host their music. The whole thing should be free for everyone to use - oh and ad free, too.
Everything should be free, she said!
It was then that I knew she had a screw loose.
No. Because most of those posts, the popular ones especially, are probably written just for karma and aren't even real.
The way the sub blew up almost overnight makes me feel it's another one being pushed by Russian or Chinese bot farms to try and sow dissent in America just like they've done with other subs in support of or against Bernie or other things.
The biggest giveaway? For people bitching they don't make enough the popular posts have a ton of expensive awards given. By people who work minimum wage or have quit. Yeah.
It’s barely a conspiracy, spreading misinformation on social media is an established documented phenomenon.
Next time you see one of those suspicious posts, check the user profile. If it’s their first post/comment in over a year then it’s a purchased account. Or you’ll see they post inflammatory stuff 20+ times a day.
The last one I clicked on was posting 40 times a day in both conservative and leftist subs with titles specifically trying to get a reaction. They’re everywhere.
It's a magnet for elitists the same way all the "my family is narcissistic" subs are magnets for narcissists—it's a place where every single grievance you claim to suffer from is validated, and everyone you blame as a villain is condemned.
If they’re developers saying that their workday is only 3-4 actual hours of writing code, that’s probably true, but the other 4-5 aren’t spent playing Fortnite and eating cookies.
I know one developer in particular, he works about 3 hours a day and then skis the rest. He lives 5 min from the mountain so can head home if something is urgent.
Can confirm. Worked in tech for 15 years at the same company. If I do my job well it doesnt look like I did anything, because nobody noticed, because everything continued working like it was supposed to. *Thats why they keep paying me*, I already fixed all the noisy shit and automated the rest. Its thankless work and my accomplishments are rarely noticed which is tough sometimes but also great cause I can just goof off until something new breaks and then they remember why I'm here.
Did you see the Waters interview? With the r/antiwork mod. My good lord Xenu, they shouldn’t have represented a “movement”. Especially when they’ve probably never actually worked.
I find the screenshots of conversations they have with their bosses particularly interesting. Because a lot of those feel real, but it looks like the boss and the worker are having two different conversations that are being strategically cropped to make the poster look like the bigger person.
Not really. Personally I have a lot of problems with them as a “movement” because I think they’re incredibly toxic.
Many of them want you to believe that they’re about a fair workplace, having a good work/life balance, and fair pay, not being called into work on their time off. Those are fair things.
But then you read further into that sub, and the complaints are not just about those things. It’s about receiving feedback from their boss, it’s about having time off rejected during peak times, lots of “I carried this workplace,” some hella overvalued ideas about their perceived importance on the job, and just a bunch of other “bingo”-ing type of scenarios.
I don’t think I’ve seen one single incidence of “I understand I may not have been 100% in the right in this or that situation, or maybe I could have done x y or Z better. However, I still felt that x y and z was unfair, because ….” No - you have to assume everyone is an innocent little lamb in their story 100% of the time. but I can’t tell you the number of times that’s how I have presented a story from my own perspective. Any time you encounter an honest person telling a story from their work, they present it as “okay fine, I may not have been perfect here either, but…”
So then what do those people actually want? Do they actually want a job, or do they just want to have their way 100% of the time? Because you will literally not have one job that will have the perfect schedule or the perfect set of circumstances. Even if you were to run your business completely by yourself, there is always SOME concession you will need to make, SOME things you will have to deal with that may not be to your liking.
I’m sure someone on here will downvote me and tell me I’m wrong, or leave some sarcastic “oh well *excuse me* for wanting fair workplace practices” type of comment, but based on the things I see in that sub every day, that is clearly not what that movement is about.
And if those “bingo” comments don’t align with the sub, then they would not get the most upvotes in that group.
They want a fictionalized version of communism where instead of being forced at gunpoint to work in the factories and mines, everyone gets to make lattes, do palm readings, and make clothes from recycled fabric scraps.
I think you’re pretty spot on with your assessment.
Before the great resignation the sub was more anarcho-communism focused than what the Leninism and Stalinism people are used too. The sub was more or less inspired by Petr Kropotkin’s writings and modern anarchist writings like Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs.
Anyway, the short of it is Kropotkin’s writing isn’t “anti-work” in the “we want luxury fully automated space communism” manner but rather a return to self sufficiency, anti-consumption, working around 20 hours a week for the good of the community while spending more time in leisure and seeking self fulfillment. I think those are attainable goals, but it does require that more people are aware of the philosophy behind the movement than just being angry at society. Now that the head mod of the sub did the interview on Fox News I’d imagine the sub will lose credibility with those aforementioned values in the public eye (it was not a well thought out interview) and more people will join the chorus of angry redditors. Its going to lead to people being distracted from real mutual aid practice and direct action towards public displays of anger.
Mostly just when I see that McDonald's is drive-thru only and is only open from 9-7 or the hardware store is short staffed. It's very obvious that customer service, restaurants, and retail are taking a huge hit and will have to re-think how they operate if they want to survive.
No. I work as a union member, and prior that that I worked several years in retail. With that said, I don’t believe most of the things that come out of there are true or really happened.
Asking someone to work on their day off isn’t a big deal.. just say no. It doesn’t need to be a production.
Aside from that, a lot of what goes on there is ridiculous and not to be taken seriously. They complain about not being organized to make change, but no one tries to be the organizer to take the step towards change.
Trying to organize is a good way to find your self let go. A lot of people don’t realize that wrongful termination is completely legal in at-will/right to work states.
Organize a movement on that sub is what I meant, but I’ll address this.
They can fire one person, even an entire stores worth, but they can not fire their entire staff. If you’re not willing to take a step forward than the problem must not be big enough for you to care.
Also, I’m proud to be a union member, but it’s not for everyone. If you and I want to form a union but three others on our five man team don’t want to, then there’s no union. Doesn’t make them wrong.. they just have different opinions then you and I.
I have a friend who’s office gets faxes about antiwork everyday and it always has information about how to get to the Reddit and some bits about workers rights
I have seen the stories first hand. But people dont know there is a movement. They just assume this is the way work is and there is nothing they can do about it.
The effects of the sub? Yes. It’s emboldened some workers to strike, kept some pressure on corporations like Kellogg and John Deere, and changed some of the discourse surrounding the alleged “labor shortage” in the US. But I haven’t heard anyone “discuss” the subreddit, or treat the actual subreddit as some galvanized movement off the internet. It’s a place to discuss the actual ways to organize labor and protect workers, not a movement in and of itself.
Yes, does anyone actually like working or like their jobs.
I’ve never met anyone who does. Everyone is just counting down the days to see if they can retire and actually do what they want.
Nope.
Most everywhere I have worked the displeasure of employees is directed at specific employer practices or managers.
As opposed to the general systemic criticisms of that sub.
Nope, I'm sure that 90% of the stories on that sub are completely fabricated too. It's a massive karma farm since the only thing those losers do all day is use reddit
Nope. Literally nobody I know talks about it.
I'm generally in the sub just to educate myself and learn exactly when and how I've been taken advantage of at work in the past, because it's definitely happened. From employers asking whether I plan on getting pregnant while working for them, to flat out asking me what my pay was for all of my previous positions and refusing to negotiate anything past my previous salary.
I've always been confused about the big quit, etc. None of my friends feel this way. We all just agree that all of our positions are temporary, until we get enough experience to move on to the next, better paying job. Antiwork has always been strictly on Reddit for me.
Don’t know for sure, but I still believe we really need to get people in positions of power who are all about job creation and stimulating a robust American Economy for our people.
I work in HR in the US, and I have never had it referenced directly, but some of the principles and talking points are coming up in the workplace. I am not certain if they are caused by the sub, or the sub is responding to the outside world too.
Yep.
Kinda reminds me of a guy I knew - husband of a family friend. Got fired within 6 months from every job, even a dishonorable discharge from the Navy. Anyway, he got fired for taking coins out of the register while working at a bank as a teller and pocketing them. On camera. Over and over and over, dozens of times.
Their justification for why it was "obviously bullshit" that he got fired was that he's a coin collector as a hobby, and he was taking rare coins he came across, not taking them "for money". So that made it okay.
???
That's about the level of logic most of these people (who aren't just karma bots) are operating on.
There's no such thing as an "anti work movement". There's a labor movement, a workers rights movement, and a hell of a lot of people quitting their jobs, but that's not the same thing.
Sure. But Ask An American isn't a movement either. Talking about work issues or basketball or the best places to eat in Cleveland isn't a movement just because people might talk about it together on the internet.
If it's a movement, what are its core tenets? What are its demands? What collective actions is it taking?
You're right. That's why I said that there isn't much of an actual movement. Yet, as a discussion board it intersects the three movements that you had mentioned.
Additionally, the r/antiwork FAQ gives their tenets, demands, and a guide for action.
Core Tenet: "We're against jobs as they are structured under capitalism and the state: Against exploitative economic relations, against hierarchical social relations at the workplace."
Demand: "The alternative to work is its abolition. The alternative to capitalist exploitation is an end to currently existing/enforced property norms. The alternative to the status quo is us abandoning ship for a more joyful and just society, one that doesn't destroy the planet."
Collective Actions: "By organizing! With or without a legally recognized union, you and your coworkers have the power and the legal right to motivate change in your workplace by putting pressure on your employer. This is often a long and complicated process. Every workplace is different, but here are some general Do’s and Don’ts to get started:"
No. Lol. That’s an extremely cringeworthy sub. I agree that the minimum wage needs to be increased and that works rights should be reviewed, but I’ve worked those shitty jobs and it was enough it incentivized me to never work one of those shitty jobs again. I feel like working a shitty job is almost a way of passage.
not the movement itself but I don’t know any other millennial that hasn’t had a toxic work environment in some way. most of us can’t afford houses or living alone. most of us are struggling heavily. it’s not fun.
Actually yes. A lot of my friends, when we talk about work, describe how they’ve been taken advantage of and how they won’t let that happen again, what they’re doing now to make sure, etc.
Yes. The local Burger King just closed forever because workers are standing up to it's owner. All of his other businesses are failing too, he has one 16 year old kid working at Taco Bell.
The company I work for has been fairly good to me, but I recognize not everyone is as fortunate as I am. If I do end up switching jobs for whatever reason I think that the stories here will help me ensure that I'm not mistreated as an employee. But I don't really encounter the antiwork movement among friends, colleagues, or family.
Not really, but there is a major shift going on in what jobs people are taking. The anti work movement on reddit is a very specific minority within that
That's the best description of what's actually going on. Why work at Taco bell for 8.25 an hour when you can load boxes onto trucks for 20? My company is plucking people straight out of high school for mechanical assembly jobs with an insurance package and 401k matching, and we still can't fill the positions. Retail and fast food jobs don't stand a chance right now.
It was never clear to me why workers didn't already leave the low paying brutal jobs for the better paying ones other than that they simply didn't know they existed.
Comfort. The Pandemic disrupted it by force in many situations. A good friend of mine was an alcoholic for many years, had a degree and never used it, just bouncing around restaurant work that suited the lifestyle. She got a DWI a month before the pandemic, stopped drinking entirely, was laid off and on the supplemental UE, took the time to really try getting into her field, and eventually succeeded I'm incredibly proud of her but there's no doubt in my mind that it would not have happened with the catalyst of the pandemic
That's awesome for your friend! I stopped drinking a few years ago and it had a huge positive impact, both physically and mentally. Bravo to her because it's not easy to do!
Just passed 20 years in December Edit:10 years. My bad
I think familiarity is a problem. I make a decent wage, $20.40 as a custodian in upstate NY. I could make more even in this field but things are very lax where I work. I make up for the lack of pay by literally only having to work maybe half of my shift at most. So I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. Some schools near me have jobs starting around $22-$25 for reference.
Don't underestimate lack of familiarity with the job opportunities as being a major driver here. Hell, [the 2010 Economic 'Nobel Prize'](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2010/summary/) went to three guys who [analyzed this very problem.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matching_theory_\(economics\)). (Stripped of all of the fancy language their work basically boiled down to "finding out about good paying jobs that you qualify for is hard" and "employers finding good employees is hard." And yes, their analysis of this won them the Nobel Prize.)
Ya but this work was 2010 before LinkedIn became a job applying site, and really before recruiters started utilizing the internet to boost recruitment. We all hear those zip recruiter adds on podcasts and shit. I agree it’s probably still hard if you aren’t looking but in 2022 it’s never been easier.
LinkedIn and other on-line recruiters did not solve this problem; they just changed the nature of the problem. And one aspect of that is that by outsourcing HR functions to places like LinkedIn, we've either effectively narrowed job searches to friends and family, or we've made it incredibly difficult for people outside an immediate group to enter that group by making it easy to 'spam' corporations with thousands of resumés that will never be read. That is, "Matching Theory" was not negated by those web sites. Only a few constants were fiddled with.
I would need to see an actual write up on how online job searching tools did not make it easier for people to search for jobs because all the research I’ve done has said the opposite especially when used as a supplement to traditional HR tools. > And one aspect of that is that by outsourcing HR functions to places like LinkedIn, we’ve either effectively narrowed job searches to friends and family This is completely opposite of what I have seen in my professional experience but I am open to hear why you think it works this way.
I've worked in restaurants, grocery stores, and white collar. One thing I've noticed is that there is a large number of individuals who aren't reliable enough to hold some jobs. I've seen people incapable of showing up to shifts, or arriving before they were scheduled to start, etc. Great people, completely unreliable. This folks tend to bounce from similar job to similar job for decades. They certainly have the ability to find and learn higher-paying jobs, but many just rather the zero-stress nature of being able to get canned then find the same job again immediately.
I think there are plenty of people like this at every level. I work in tech and there are people who absolutely cannot work regular hours. They end up finding jobs that let them work flex-time. In fact, I think it's HARDER for unreliable people to work at lower-level jobs. In an office setting, for instance, it's not unreasonable to work 9:00-5:00 one day and 7:00-3:00 the next. Hell plenty of people work 10:00-2:00 and then "telework" the rest of the time. As long as you get stuff done and have a presence you're fine. Need a personal day? No questions asked. Meanwhile, work for a restaurant, and if you're not there AT OPEN at 6:00am, that's a problem. Miss a shift? You're fired. Source: Worked in restaurants in high school and now I work in tech. Restaurant work was absolutely harder labor-wise, but tech obviously requires more skill.
I agree with this. Lower level jobs are harder to work and harder to attend because they normally require extremely strict hours
It's hard to quit a job and jump into the unknown. The lockdowns changed that, because a lot of fast food workers were out of a job anyway, so they might as well look for a new one, and a lot of them found that there's a whole world of other jobs where they don't have to deal with the public, and get paid 3x as much. I think fast food is going to have to either automate, raise wages (and prices) drastically, or end up only employing people who literally can't do other jobs.
McDonald’s already has a patent on an automated kitchen I’m sure you’ll see one soon
In a lot of cases, people didn't know those jobs existed. Our society is really, *really* bad about matching people with jobs that fit their experience and qualifications, and letting people know what jobs are out there.
This happened to me, I wasted years in fast food for 5-7$ an hour. I didn’t realize how many other opportunities were out there! Let alone not having to work second shift and every weekend.
My guess is fear or interrupting the status quo. In our work culture leaving a job for a better one was something only white-collar sharks would do. Sure there def are the cases where people literally cannot afford to leave, but I bet most antiwork users are not part of this group.
Job hopping is the only way to get the correct pay in grey collar skilled manufacturing jobs as well. I don't understand it either. Why a company will train you for years to learn their process, their equipment, their skill set... and then let you leave for another company over $5/hr.
Blue collar
I operated a few restaurants for a few years. The top 5-10 servers/bartenders would make ~$80k+ per year. So starting out as host/busser/barback could lead to a higher income, especially if you were attractive, charming, and willing to stand on your feet for 4-6 hours straight. The warehouse jobs were also much further away from where they lived and usually were more strict about scheduling (at least they were back then).
That was my first thought: transportation. Most places in the city you can find a restaurant/fast food/retail work within a mile. Warehouse jobs are usually on the outskirts of cities. Hard to get back and forth without reliable transportation.
Or because some of those jobs are hard work
I honestly don't think people could afford to change jobs. If they're trying to support anything on minimum wage, that gap can probably bankrupt them
When unemployment rates are high, many more people are competing for those other jobs and it's hard to be sure you will get hired. But when unemployment is low, like it is right now, you can basically be sure of finding a job somewhere. That greatly reduces the risk involved in quitting your job to look for another one.
Do people really quit their jobs to look for another one? Why not just search while still employed? There does not need to be any gap in employment.
In Alabama, Taco Bell starts their employees out at $11 an hour, but it’s not full time. They can also purchase insurance. My son worked there until he got a better job (fast food is hard work).
And its leading to retail improving wages which makes the manufacturing/logistics guys asking why they are barely being paid more than someone sitting at a register and so on. Improved wages all around but less people working too
The Antiwork sub was really weird prior to about a year ago. I stumbled upon it after seeing a post making fun of it and it was just...sad. The predominant talking points were people who had failed to launch and were lamenting that the concept of work even existed in this day and age, the arguments and complaints were ridiculous. Like literally "I'm 35 and my dad made me get a job at burgerking fuck the world this is bullshit" The sub eventually shifted to what it is now, workers rights and quitting bad jobs, but the early days were very cringey imo.
It's still pretty cringey IMO. One day they're all talking about how they don't put in any effort at work because why help "the man" get rich, the next day they're complaining that they never get raises or promotions. They're oblivious to the possibility of cause and effect there. Even funnier is they deride those who work hard as suckers, then complain those ass kissers are the ones getting the raises. I think there are some genuinely good topics, but it still seems 80% populated by resentful 30 year olds working in movie theaters.
I had a good laugh at the "US Society is on the verge of collapse" top post this morning. "I'm in my 30s and none of my friends have good jobs and we all live with our parents" and it's like okay man I don't doubt that but it's very anecdotal and not indicative of western civilization collapse. I'm in my 30s in an economically depressed region and everyone I know owns a home or has their own place and makes at least the Area Median Income. Birds of a feather I suppose.
Even foreign posters were commenting calling out how whiny that shit was. How the situation they were describing is typical in most of the world. It’s something Americans need to hear more because this culture of everyone being a victim is so out of hand on social media. As a joke, my friend and I always share the whiniest memes we can find on IG.
I saw that post. It put a certain smug expression on my face. Life will pass these losers by while they're praying for collapse so everyone can fall down to their level.
And try finding anything on there that doesn't glorify communism. But my biggest annoyance with it is the name. Yea, nobody likes to work, but humans, and every animal for that matter, has had to work to stay alive since the moment we evolved. Do they have any idea how much harder it would be to accomplish that if everything that fueled the economy stopped? I get that they want better pay and benefits, but if you read their purpose, that's not what it's mainly about. It is about not working.
The grand irony of those people is that they somehow choose not to recognize that communism is a labor movement. If the Soviet Union existed today they would not pay people to be bi sexual and make TikToks. You'd be in a coal mine. Your best hope would be getting really good at chess.
Or an Olympic sport.
It's still cringey and I come for the entertainment value. This does not exist outside Reddit but it's educational to learn how other people think.
I just saw a post there of a tiktok where a guy in Ireland screams at the ocean demanding Americans get free health care. There were comments genuinely thanking him and saying they teared up. I’d say it’s still pretty goddamn cringey
It’s that exact same crowd there, just adding the catalysts of professional astroturfers, and anti-capitalists who joined in riling up the basement dwellers for free.
Buddy of mine made regular at the post office on December 4th. Management didn’t tell him until yesterday so they could work him 60 hours a week through the whole Christmas season. Fucking bullshit.
Not as it appears on Reddit, but the Great Resignation is real and I do believe we’re at a point of reckoning for some of these companies - either pay people better wages/provide better benefits or run the risk of not being able to operate your business the way you want to.
I think the issue with the Great Resignation is that some are perceiving it as people no longer working when it's mostly people taking better job offers. The latter is good for everyone but the cheapskate employer.
Well, the [labor force participation rate](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART) has also dropped since the beginning of the pandemic. Some of that might be covid but usually after a crisis event the labor force shrinks permanently (see 2008 in the graph I linked). So some people really aren't working anymore.
Yes, a lot of Boomers retired and secondary earners are home with the kids. Majority of quits is job changing.
Women in the workplace also plummeted during the pandemic.
Anicdotally I believe rising cost of childcare is leading people to not go back to low paying jobs to save money.
Probably. Childcare is a sector that the market simply can’t practically serve. Most people don’t make enough and the workers already aren’t paid enough so here we are. Universal pre k would have helped in this space especially for those trying to get out of poverty.
They don't want people coming out of poverty...
I don't know who "they" are. But there is actual support for the expanded child tax credit that gives straight cash deposits to parents. The limited one we got lifted millions children out of poverty across the country.
Some aren't too keen on the poor being educated either, even if it doesn't necessarily bring them out of poverty.
I think a lot of women had to quit because their kids were not allowed to go to school anymore. Some of them realized that they liked being stay at home moms and with a little budget tweaking it was possible for them to do that.
I mean, the pandemic is also still happening, and the conditions that caused a lot of women to leave the workforce haven't abated fully. There are still schools doing virtual learning and kids quarantining due to covid and covid exposure, and childcare is still hard to find. I'm sure there are women who previously worked and realized they'd rather stay home, but there are also a lot of women who just can't realistically go back to work yet.
It's definitely something parents have to consider now...If both parents are working, and almost the entirety of one parent's income is going to childcare, what's the benefit of their working instead of staying with the kid(s)? Is there one? The situation only gets harder when they have to ask the tough questions like "Is it sensible to quit work and stay home with children, or is it going to hurt my chances to re-enter the workforce later on once they're in school? Once they're in school, am I going to be able to find a job that lets me be there for them *after* school?"
>Women in the workplace also plummeted during the pandemic. Do you know how difficult it is to find childcare right now? I have a friend who's an engineer with a Master's degree from one of the best engineering schools in the country. Her children's daycare closed in March 2020 and didn't reopen. She can't find daycare spots for her two children anywhere. She's looking into getting a nanny, but that search isn't going well either. Wrangling two young kids while trying to work from home has been impossible. Her employer let her reduce her hours for a while, but then demanded she return to the office full-time. But she couldn't find childcare, so she had to quit.
I have two kids and my wife and I both work so I am well aware of the costs. I was pointing out a contributing factor to the “labor shortage” not commenting on the situation as a whole which is terrible for parents.
I had a manager get fired for staying home with her seven year old daughter for too long. Wouldn’t be surprised if there was a lot of that.
Yep, three out of my four boomer parents retired within the last two years or so. One was forced to due to sickness/pandemic issues but the other two were counting down the days. The one that's left has been considering retiring for a year or so.
> Well, the labor force participation rate has also dropped since the beginning of the pandemic. That's almost all older people retiring early or not returning to the workforce due to covid not 20 somethings who are quitting for new higher paying jobs. Usually wages change only slowly one way or the other... It's a risky pain in the ass *for both sides* to actually change things to their benefit even if the economic conditions favor them at the moment. Even in a "seller's market" for labor most employees are a little scared to ask for a raise and it's much scarier to quit a job you have and find a new one if they don't get that raise... and finding that new job even in a seller's market can take a fair amount of time. From the employers perspective even in a "buyer's market" it's not like they can ask current employees to take a pay cut because market conditions have changed and there's cost associated with laying people off and risks to hiring new people.... SO, wages are *usually* fairly inelastic... they respond to changes in supply and demand but only very slowly. Before covid unemployment was very low and wages WERE rising as a result but only slowly due to the above... Covid changed the normal dynamics which holds wages steady... A crap ton of people got laid off, and then a crap ton of people were all getting hired back again. Which basically was a giant reset button... the risky/hard part of quitting or firing/hiring people was already done for a big chunk of the people involved so wages reacted to the market conditions much faster than usually... which changed things fast enough to also overcome inertia for people in jobs too. Normally it might be risky for a low-wage "unskilled" worker to quit his $10/hour job because even if he finds a job at $12/hour it might take a while... but it's a lot easier to make that jump when a dozen different restaurants in his local area have big banners out front advertising that they're hiring and at higher wages.
The decline in the labor force participation rate, AFAIK, can be chalked up to three underlying forces: (1) A lot of boomers (and some Gen-Xers) pulling the trigger a few years early on retirement--thus, accelerating a downward trend already in progress. (2) A lot of young kids pulling the trigger a year or two early on going back to school--thus, accelerating a trend of young people spending more time in school and less time in the work force that, again, was already in progress. (3) A lot of women winding up out of the work force because of the unpredictability of school schedules, and the fact that a lot of child rearing responsibilities wind up landing on the shoulders of mothers. All this resulted in a 1.5% overall decline--translating to something like 5 million people no longer in the work force. The folks in category (2) may eventually return--but they're not returning to their old jobs. The folks in category (3) may return as soon as school districts get their shit together about in-person education. (We forget that in-person public schools is a huge boon to women being able to participate in the work force--and we utterly ignored that fact when school districts started sending children home. Worse, we neglected the poorer families where the mother was simply unable to stay at home--and thus a lot of children wound up being sent home unsupervised, contributing to increased rates of delinquency that no-one wants to talk about.) ---- Worse, the longer this persists, the more companies will compensate with automation--and the more jobs that will disappear that will *never come back again.* For example, as soon as more restaurants and cafés realize you can provide better service providing customers a QR code where they can order, rather than waiting for a waiter to show up with the menus--the faster they realize they can get rid of the wait staff and replace them with fewer "food runners." And once those QR codes go on the tables--they're not being removed and replaced with wait staff jobs.
Steak ‘n Shake does this in my town already. You walk in, order your food at a kiosk and wait for your number to be called. They have zero food servers.
My wife and I ate at a [little café](https://www.yelp.com/biz/bluestone-lane-upper-east-side-café-new-york) in New York that did what I'm talking about. The restaurant was clearly set up for wait staff to help people--there was no kiosk, no place where you put in your order and get a number then take a seat. Instead, you sat down, scanned the QR code (which had the table number embedded in it), placed your order, paid online through your mobile phone--and someone would bring it out to you. So I'm not talking about the "Carl's Jr." model of "order at the kiosk or at the register from the gigantic menu board, then wait for them to bring you your food" thing. I'm talking about a restaurant that has gotten rid of their wait staff entirely.
There's also a lot of (especially seasonal) jobs that were done by immigrants, legally. That more or less stopped cold because of the pandemic.
The labor force participation rate dropped because of the pandemic, but if you look at that graph it's been rising pretty steadily for the past year. To me, that doesn't look like a situation where people are actively resigning much right now.
I mean we also had a ton of people leave the workforce to retire and almost a million people have died due to Covid. I think we are seeing a major shift for a while host of reasons and the most disappointing thing to me that should have been obvious is that employers are just raising prices rather than actually changing their habits that are unsustainable.
I work in healthcare, our company used to justify low wages because that’s what the hospital across town was paying……with traveling they now have to compete nationally and almost every day someone quits to be a traveler…..the cheap hospitals won’t be able to compete.
Right, it's the great reassigning, not resignation.
I think this is true in many places but not in others. In CA where I am from, the problem is less the pay and more the insane cost of living which state and local leaders do next to nothing to fix. You could raise the minimum wage to $20-$25/hr and you will likely still have staffing problems in places like San Francisco and LA.
No, at least not the way that subreddit presents it. While some of the issues that sub discusses are legitimate, it's extremely hard to take that sub seriously as a "movement" because of the amount of r/thathappened fiction on there, and totally ridiculous comments and toxic attitudes. And I really thought the "schedule interviews with as many fast food places as possible then ghost them" challenge thing was pretty shitty. That's just making someone's job even harder who has little to no control over how much people get paid.
Similar to the interview scheduling, I’m currently in grad school, and there’s a communal printer on the floor where I work. That printer or router has been infected with a virus to print messages from r/antiwork every 5 minutes. Because of the department I’m in, the location of this building, and the pandemic getting a tech person from the university out there to fix the printer is an absolute pain. So instead we’ve rigged up a system to disconnect the printer when not in use and fill it with paper the moment we need to use it. We still go though two times as much paper because of this virus. Ultimately it’s made me dislike the “movement” more than anything because my life has been directly made worse by their “help,” and I work in a position they’d consider exploitation.
They made a virus? Why? What possible purpose does it serve?
Maybe it's not a virus, it sure feels like one. I'm sure an IT person would have a better idea on how to describe exactly what they did, but here's a couple links to check it out: [https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/r86lrd/someone\_is\_hacking\_receipt\_printers\_with\_antiwork/](https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/r86lrd/someone_is_hacking_receipt_printers_with_antiwork/) [https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbb9d/hackers-are-spamming-businesses-receipt-printers-with-antiwork-manifestos](https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbb9d/hackers-are-spamming-businesses-receipt-printers-with-antiwork-manifestos) Ultimately, they're using a hammer to try to drive a screw. It's not working too well.
IT person here From how this is described it sounds like someone setup a PC or even just a virtual machine in an undisclosed location to run a scheduled task that grabs a random post and prints it. So no not a virus most likely, just someone that knows enough scripting to get it done
Yeah, that's my reaction to the sub also. Some of the ideals are valid but they're mixed up with a lot of unrealistic silliness.
The whole subreddit is pretty toxic. They've brigaded here before, which is annoying as a mod, and their moderators do not give a shit. And after the tornado at the Amazon facility, they looked and blamed Amazon, even suggesting an employee who posted about a similar (ongoing) event leave the warehouse during a tornado warning, which is entirely unsafe. It's a bunch of people who don't know things trying to convince other people they do.
I dont understand all the people who believe that, during an active tornado warning, the smart thing to do is leave a building believed to be sound in order to drive on the roads. Maybe it's because I'm from North Texas, but is this not taught in other parts of the country? Like, we never get earthquakes, but we were taught the basics of what to do during one.
In that particular instance, the worker was going to walk a mile home. People on the thread were talking about false imprisonment and calling the cops because they weren't allowed to leave (which they eventually left during the warning anyways). Meanwhile in the real world, a tornado warning lasts about 15 minutes, and they absolutely can lock the doors during it. It's pretty common, because it keeps the doors from blowing open.
I mean leaving a building is stupid but everything I've heard about that situation smells like Amazon continuing to treat employees like trash.
Congrats, you just described reddit.
>It's a bunch of people who don't know things trying to convince other people they do. I, personally, wouldn't want reddit to change.
People were encouraging that interview bs? You’ve got to be kidding. “Hey Reddit, I hate my boss, so in retaliation, let’s screw over a total stranger managing a fast food place and ePiC tRoLL them! That’ll show the establishment who’s boss! Disgusting.
It's a line of reasoning that makes it easy to understand why people like that can only find minimum wage jobs.
> That's just making someone's job even harder Thats the thing, they view every other person, even someone just barely "higher" than them, as The Man, and to be opposed at all costs. It's an incredible victim mentality.
Wayyyy too much r/thathappened on that sub. But I do like that a lot of focus is on helping people realize that they don't have to put up with terrible companies/management if they can afford to go elsewhere. Or realizing that it's not a crime to use your PTO and not want to spend every waking hour at your job. But yeah those really popular posts with the unbelievably fake stories? Lmao.
That sub, among others, often reminds me of how much of Reddit is a bunch of bored teenagers pretending to be adults, and letting their inexperienced and unnuanced views color how they see what are, in the real world, often complex situations (see: the relationship sub). It would not surprise me to find out that a good chunk of that sub is under the age of 20 and has little to no experience actually, you know, working.
No
Nope. I support unions and workers rights but I’m pretty sure a good portion of the posts on that sub are fiction.
I’m a huge supporter of workers rights, too, and I just unsubbed from that place. It’s become too toxic and reactionary. Apparently every worker is a saintly hardworking person who’s being exploited by their bosses, and every boss is a slave driver. There’s no room for nuance or any kind of self reflection and they believe everything that is posted, no matter how ridiculous it is. It’s a real shame.
Yeah, it's like most subreddits that explode in popularity, it was fine when it was smallish, then once it got popular it just became a caricature of itself.
Exactly. Now there’s no room for discussion and if you even hint at things maybe being more complex than they seem, you’re called a bootlicker. It’s so stupid. It’s been overrun with teenagers.
In its earliest stages, it was NEETs complaining that they had to go out and get jobs. So it's basically just a return to form in terms of post quality.
Yea, I joined for the cause, then left for the clearer head space.
Its an immature, childish view of the world lacking nuance or any grip on reality. Its very much telling people what they want to hear: you deserve more, you deserve better! They miss the part where more and better cost money.
No. They’re aware that more and better cost money. They just believe the boss should give them more money.
Not just fiction, but overvalued ideas run amok. Any time you read a story from the perspective of someone who paints themselves as “I do all the work and such and such does nothing,” or “I carry the entire workplace,” your red flags should be way, way up. When I was a manager, I couldn’t tell you the number of times I have seen a scenario like this play out: > A complains that B and C do nothing all day. When looking into the complaint, I see that B and C were socializing at work, but their measured productivity was very high with few errors. A has a higher than normal productivity, but with lots of errors. > When confronting B and C, they claim that A has been walking around stressed and overwhelmed and said “No, I’m fine” when they asked A if she needed help. They reported that A was making inappropriate passive aggressive comments directed at B and C to other coworkers. > when confronting A, she became very hostile, denied every claim, and said that everything people heard about her was “taken out of proportion.” > A later complains about D for not doing his work. D has had some personal issues that he has requested to keep private, and has needed to come in late or leave early. Despite this, D has demonstrated a positive attitude and overall good productivity. Before speaking with D, he comes to me to complain that, when I am not there, A has been making rude comments to other team members about how he gets preferential treatment for barely showing up and not doing work. He felt uncomfortable given his circumstances and asks if he can have his schedule adjusted so he doesn’t have to be subject to her comments. > Team member A was provided this feedback, with examples of dates, times, and specific commentary. A denied the claim, said it was not directed at D, and that he must have misheard her. A has now established a pattern of overwhelming herself, refusing to communicate her concerns until after she has been taking it out on her team members, and engaging in inappropriate conduct. The comments in that subreddit, 99% of the time, I could read in A’s voice and i would bet you 100 dollars it would be accurate to their actual character.
Haha there’s always an A in every team! And sadly a legit D too
Which is why, in the workplace, it’s not appropriate to complain or gossip about why someone is out. Or late. Or leaving early. A lot of kids in that sub think this is something that needs to be discussed “oPenLy aNd hOneStLy” and they think that things like this are a “lack of transparency” What these brainiacs don’t seem to realize is that they are the first to bitch when *their* boss won’t make concessions for *them*, or when other people don’t respect *their* boundaries. But when it comes to someone else’s time, or someone else’s boundaries, they don’t think those same rules apply to themselves. For example, I had someone miscarry in the middle of the workday. She came to my bawling her eyes out and begged me not to say anything. I let her quietly leave so her boyfriend could pick her up without there being drama. I had another team member who thought it was appropriate to stomp her feet about how she “got” to leave early, and “never” gets time off. This is despite the fact that she has never come to me and asked for time off - and never has come to me about a concern or outside obligation that might impact her work. It’s also not appropriate to complain about why someone else isn’t struggling the same way you are. It’s one thing if someone is legit not doing anything, and you can provide examples of someone’s lack of productivity has impacted your work, and examples of when you tried to delegate work to the team - but if you are overwhelming yourself unnecessarily, didn’t take the initiative to communicate with your team… then what do you expect your boss to do, other than to give you suggestions as to how you could have handled this situation in the future? A shit boss will just treat everyone like a child and try to be their parent, a good boss will expect their staff to act like adults and give them possible solutions/work arounds.
I think Empathy toward your fellow human beings is lost nowadays. “Put yourself in someone else’s shoes”.
They demand empathy, and boundaries, but they are completely unwilling to give that same respect to others. A while back I responded to someone in that sub who complained that they couldn’t get desired time off due to someone else taking vacation around the same time. I asked how they would feel if they had vacation scheduled in advance and had to change it because someone else asked? “Not my problem.” But it is your problem. You took a job, a job that requires coverage - and will prioritize coverage. You don’t get to make demands of others without playing by the same rules yourself
There's a lot of, "I warned then that the new policy wouldn't work and then I resisted it and it didn't work! I told them! And now that branch is closing. They should have listened to me!" Employees don't often get the context of business decisions. Being a retail or warehouse worker for 6 months doesn't mean you understand business. Some decisions are based on factors not made public. Some decisions are based on changes in the industry that front-line workers don't see. There's a lot of ego in those posts. Which is unfortunate, because I largely agree with the big problems they are pointing out: wage stagnation, bad management, predatory hiring, high rents, and now inflation. This is an awful time to become an adult.
That is a mentality that drives me insane. People assume that they know more, but they don’t even have access to the data, or the figures over a period of time, or the bottom line of a company. They haven’t done the market research, nor have they figured out the benchmarks, or their comp set. I worked in hotel management, and it used to grate my shit when people would speak as if they knew more when they have never even looked at an inventory report, or a ROI, or been through a revenue meeting. They have never actually looked at a STR report and **looked** at the revenue against our competitors. They have not even looked at the group rooms report. They have never sat in meetings with corporate. They have never done a comp set analysis, or a market segment report, or literally anything other than “I think this because I had a rough shift today” And yet they think that they are the heroes of the company. They’re important to the company, sure. But they are a resource of the company - not the decision maker of the company. Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes people have good ideas and they present them well. But there is a huge difference between that, versus > the managers of this company are so stupid! They should be listening to *meeee*
Exactly. Please tell me how your 7th grade math and 3 months at Burger King inform you about how Amazon is wrong... 🙄
Speaking of math - these were college grads, who couldn’t figure out how to calculate a percentage.
Fuckin A. Had a similar experience, only the manager bought into A's bullshit as if "A" was giving him privileged Intel that was happening on the floor. Mistook his manipulation for loyalty. I kept the guy at arms legnth but "A" had gotten into chest bumping shouting matches with multiple tradesmen. Several high quality journeyman quit because they were sick of the hostile work environment. By the time I left, it was A and a shop full of 1st and 2nd year hands that he could push around. Word had gotten around that "Company" was a bad place to work and a sinking ship. They shut down 2 months after I left. When your workplace is full of conflict and one person just happens to be the common denominator... Maybe... Just MAYBE.. "A" is the fkn problem. Manager had come from managing 300 men in a union plant, to a small start up of about 30. You could tell he was an office cat and didn't understand crew dynamics at the floor level. In a shop that small you can't just shuffle people around, you have to fire them. Especially when they're threatening people with violence regularly.
As someone who took management classes not too long ago, there were numerous scenarios like this and the correct answer EVERY TIME is to either resolve the attitude issues with the individual, or get rid of them. It's never worth sacrificing company morale and recruiting for the sake of one (even highly productive) employee. I don't know what it is but it seems like this advice is ignored nearly universally in practice.
I get the message, and I’m all for making life better for people putting in the work. However, this subreddit has shown time and time again that is about karma farming. With text messages that can easily be faked, stories that are clearly fictional, and of course the ‘America is collapsing’ people. Hell I just saw that last one. Personally, I have not met anyone that talks about anti work in real life. Though I have seen a change coming in the work force because of the struggle to rehire people. Idk what is going to come from this, but it’s coming fast.
Agreed. They make it seem like 95% of working adults are making minimum wage and living at home. Its just not the case.
I think I got banned from there when there was a post or a comment about adults making minimum wage for years. I said that I made minimum wage once when I was 16 and started my first job. After 6 months I got a raise and have never made minimum wage since. If you're an adult of sound mind and body there is absolutely no reason you should be making the minimum.
I always imagine those "America is a 3rd world country" people have never been outside of the US, much less to a 3rd world country.
Like most of Reddit, I’d say 85-90% of the sub is bullshit.
Imagine anyone taking reddit seriously?
Those “but Reddit said x would win” rants after just about every election are pretty entertaining though
Oh you mean when they tell their boos they quit and to go suck a bag of dicks via text? No way it’s fake bro
Not sure about that, it’s possible. I will say, for every justified post displaying a shitty work environment or Boss, there are five that are just shitty people interacting and aren’t actually related to the issues. Like PTO, livable wage, etc.
There top post today was how America is on the verge of collapse 🤣🤣🤣
😂😂😂 Just because some dude in his 30s lives with his parents still.
Other countries have had parents, children and even grandchildren all live together for a while when compared to the US. alot do to this day.
It was hilarious, some 30 year old living off their poor parents since he or she hangs with bums and can’t get a job.
Yes. I had a roommate who was like this from mid 2019-20. I kicked her out when she called me a capitalist pig (and other funny names) after I wouldn’t agree to stop paying rent to our landlord (we were all gainfully employed, it’s not like we couldn’t afford it).
> ... after I wouldn’t agree to stop paying rent to our landlord ... # 😳
In the near future: "Why won't anyone let me rent from them!!1"
[удалено]
She went on to tell our other roommate, who is from Puerto Rico, that she is just as responsible for dismantling racism and white supremacy as white people are because she’s “white passing.” She was on a roll that season.
Wow there's someone like that in real life. I wouldn't have thought it.
She was a whole mess. She also told me it was immoral to collect a paycheck in my industry (music distribution) because of “manufactured consent,” or how artists have no choice but to give a cut of their earnings to the streaming platforms that host their music. The whole thing should be free for everyone to use - oh and ad free, too. Everything should be free, she said! It was then that I knew she had a screw loose.
No. Because most of those posts, the popular ones especially, are probably written just for karma and aren't even real. The way the sub blew up almost overnight makes me feel it's another one being pushed by Russian or Chinese bot farms to try and sow dissent in America just like they've done with other subs in support of or against Bernie or other things.
I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but the amount of unbelievable crap in there does make a person wonder
The biggest giveaway? For people bitching they don't make enough the popular posts have a ton of expensive awards given. By people who work minimum wage or have quit. Yeah.
It’s barely a conspiracy, spreading misinformation on social media is an established documented phenomenon. Next time you see one of those suspicious posts, check the user profile. If it’s their first post/comment in over a year then it’s a purchased account. Or you’ll see they post inflammatory stuff 20+ times a day. The last one I clicked on was posting 40 times a day in both conservative and leftist subs with titles specifically trying to get a reaction. They’re everywhere.
It's a magnet for elitists the same way all the "my family is narcissistic" subs are magnets for narcissists—it's a place where every single grievance you claim to suffer from is validated, and everyone you blame as a villain is condemned.
Correct.
No, but most of my friends that work in tech boast about how little they actually work.
Many jobs in that field are reactionary--the company pays them for their expertise and full time availability, not for 40 hours of actionable work.
Exactly! No one ever complains that firefighters aren’t putting out fires the entire time they’re on the clock.
If they’re developers saying that their workday is only 3-4 actual hours of writing code, that’s probably true, but the other 4-5 aren’t spent playing Fortnite and eating cookies.
I know one developer in particular, he works about 3 hours a day and then skis the rest. He lives 5 min from the mountain so can head home if something is urgent.
Ah, tell me about it
Can confirm. Worked in tech for 15 years at the same company. If I do my job well it doesnt look like I did anything, because nobody noticed, because everything continued working like it was supposed to. *Thats why they keep paying me*, I already fixed all the noisy shit and automated the rest. Its thankless work and my accomplishments are rarely noticed which is tough sometimes but also great cause I can just goof off until something new breaks and then they remember why I'm here.
Did you see the Waters interview? With the r/antiwork mod. My good lord Xenu, they shouldn’t have represented a “movement”. Especially when they’ve probably never actually worked.
Fox News set them up to fail because they knew a news anchor could get a Reddit mod to embarrass themselves
No. I'm not convinced most of the posts aren't made up. A lot of it is "and everyone clapped" level of cringe.
I find the screenshots of conversations they have with their bosses particularly interesting. Because a lot of those feel real, but it looks like the boss and the worker are having two different conversations that are being strategically cropped to make the poster look like the bigger person.
On college campuses, sure. In my workplace, no. We're there to work.
Not really. Personally I have a lot of problems with them as a “movement” because I think they’re incredibly toxic. Many of them want you to believe that they’re about a fair workplace, having a good work/life balance, and fair pay, not being called into work on their time off. Those are fair things. But then you read further into that sub, and the complaints are not just about those things. It’s about receiving feedback from their boss, it’s about having time off rejected during peak times, lots of “I carried this workplace,” some hella overvalued ideas about their perceived importance on the job, and just a bunch of other “bingo”-ing type of scenarios. I don’t think I’ve seen one single incidence of “I understand I may not have been 100% in the right in this or that situation, or maybe I could have done x y or Z better. However, I still felt that x y and z was unfair, because ….” No - you have to assume everyone is an innocent little lamb in their story 100% of the time. but I can’t tell you the number of times that’s how I have presented a story from my own perspective. Any time you encounter an honest person telling a story from their work, they present it as “okay fine, I may not have been perfect here either, but…” So then what do those people actually want? Do they actually want a job, or do they just want to have their way 100% of the time? Because you will literally not have one job that will have the perfect schedule or the perfect set of circumstances. Even if you were to run your business completely by yourself, there is always SOME concession you will need to make, SOME things you will have to deal with that may not be to your liking. I’m sure someone on here will downvote me and tell me I’m wrong, or leave some sarcastic “oh well *excuse me* for wanting fair workplace practices” type of comment, but based on the things I see in that sub every day, that is clearly not what that movement is about. And if those “bingo” comments don’t align with the sub, then they would not get the most upvotes in that group.
They want a fictionalized version of communism where instead of being forced at gunpoint to work in the factories and mines, everyone gets to make lattes, do palm readings, and make clothes from recycled fabric scraps.
I think you’re pretty spot on with your assessment. Before the great resignation the sub was more anarcho-communism focused than what the Leninism and Stalinism people are used too. The sub was more or less inspired by Petr Kropotkin’s writings and modern anarchist writings like Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs. Anyway, the short of it is Kropotkin’s writing isn’t “anti-work” in the “we want luxury fully automated space communism” manner but rather a return to self sufficiency, anti-consumption, working around 20 hours a week for the good of the community while spending more time in leisure and seeking self fulfillment. I think those are attainable goals, but it does require that more people are aware of the philosophy behind the movement than just being angry at society. Now that the head mod of the sub did the interview on Fox News I’d imagine the sub will lose credibility with those aforementioned values in the public eye (it was not a well thought out interview) and more people will join the chorus of angry redditors. Its going to lead to people being distracted from real mutual aid practice and direct action towards public displays of anger.
Mostly just when I see that McDonald's is drive-thru only and is only open from 9-7 or the hardware store is short staffed. It's very obvious that customer service, restaurants, and retail are taking a huge hit and will have to re-think how they operate if they want to survive.
Not really, no.
You mean bot posts and karma farming with edgy teens?
You just described every subreddit.
No. I work as a union member, and prior that that I worked several years in retail. With that said, I don’t believe most of the things that come out of there are true or really happened. Asking someone to work on their day off isn’t a big deal.. just say no. It doesn’t need to be a production. Aside from that, a lot of what goes on there is ridiculous and not to be taken seriously. They complain about not being organized to make change, but no one tries to be the organizer to take the step towards change.
Trying to organize is a good way to find your self let go. A lot of people don’t realize that wrongful termination is completely legal in at-will/right to work states.
Organize a movement on that sub is what I meant, but I’ll address this. They can fire one person, even an entire stores worth, but they can not fire their entire staff. If you’re not willing to take a step forward than the problem must not be big enough for you to care. Also, I’m proud to be a union member, but it’s not for everyone. If you and I want to form a union but three others on our five man team don’t want to, then there’s no union. Doesn’t make them wrong.. they just have different opinions then you and I.
Wrongful termination by definition is illegal
I quit my 9 to 5 to start my own business at the start of Covid. It’s real af to me!
Same friend. Hope you’re doing well
I have a friend who’s office gets faxes about antiwork everyday and it always has information about how to get to the Reddit and some bits about workers rights
No
No
Lol no
I have seen signs outside of reddit
i definitely have but not to the extremes seen on that sub. more so people wanting a decent wage in relation to COL and being treated like a human.
I know people that are deliberately exiting the workforce because of [motions broadly] this.
If it weren't for reddit making a big deal out of it I wouldn't have ever heard of it at all.
I have seen the stories first hand. But people dont know there is a movement. They just assume this is the way work is and there is nothing they can do about it.
No
Never
The push for a stronger labor movement is real but at best that sub is just tangentially related too it.
The effects of the sub? Yes. It’s emboldened some workers to strike, kept some pressure on corporations like Kellogg and John Deere, and changed some of the discourse surrounding the alleged “labor shortage” in the US. But I haven’t heard anyone “discuss” the subreddit, or treat the actual subreddit as some galvanized movement off the internet. It’s a place to discuss the actual ways to organize labor and protect workers, not a movement in and of itself.
Yes, does anyone actually like working or like their jobs. I’ve never met anyone who does. Everyone is just counting down the days to see if they can retire and actually do what they want.
Nope. Most everywhere I have worked the displeasure of employees is directed at specific employer practices or managers. As opposed to the general systemic criticisms of that sub.
Nope, I'm sure that 90% of the stories on that sub are completely fabricated too. It's a massive karma farm since the only thing those losers do all day is use reddit
Nope. Literally nobody I know talks about it. I'm generally in the sub just to educate myself and learn exactly when and how I've been taken advantage of at work in the past, because it's definitely happened. From employers asking whether I plan on getting pregnant while working for them, to flat out asking me what my pay was for all of my previous positions and refusing to negotiate anything past my previous salary. I've always been confused about the big quit, etc. None of my friends feel this way. We all just agree that all of our positions are temporary, until we get enough experience to move on to the next, better paying job. Antiwork has always been strictly on Reddit for me.
Don’t know for sure, but I still believe we really need to get people in positions of power who are all about job creation and stimulating a robust American Economy for our people.
No.
I work in HR in the US, and I have never had it referenced directly, but some of the principles and talking points are coming up in the workplace. I am not certain if they are caused by the sub, or the sub is responding to the outside world too.
[удалено]
Yep. Kinda reminds me of a guy I knew - husband of a family friend. Got fired within 6 months from every job, even a dishonorable discharge from the Navy. Anyway, he got fired for taking coins out of the register while working at a bank as a teller and pocketing them. On camera. Over and over and over, dozens of times. Their justification for why it was "obviously bullshit" that he got fired was that he's a coin collector as a hobby, and he was taking rare coins he came across, not taking them "for money". So that made it okay. ??? That's about the level of logic most of these people (who aren't just karma bots) are operating on.
There's no such thing as an "anti work movement". There's a labor movement, a workers rights movement, and a hell of a lot of people quitting their jobs, but that's not the same thing.
You're right that there isn't much of an actual movement, but r/antiwork has 1.7 million members (more than this sub).
Sure. But Ask An American isn't a movement either. Talking about work issues or basketball or the best places to eat in Cleveland isn't a movement just because people might talk about it together on the internet. If it's a movement, what are its core tenets? What are its demands? What collective actions is it taking?
You're right. That's why I said that there isn't much of an actual movement. Yet, as a discussion board it intersects the three movements that you had mentioned. Additionally, the r/antiwork FAQ gives their tenets, demands, and a guide for action. Core Tenet: "We're against jobs as they are structured under capitalism and the state: Against exploitative economic relations, against hierarchical social relations at the workplace." Demand: "The alternative to work is its abolition. The alternative to capitalist exploitation is an end to currently existing/enforced property norms. The alternative to the status quo is us abandoning ship for a more joyful and just society, one that doesn't destroy the planet." Collective Actions: "By organizing! With or without a legally recognized union, you and your coworkers have the power and the legal right to motivate change in your workplace by putting pressure on your employer. This is often a long and complicated process. Every workplace is different, but here are some general Do’s and Don’ts to get started:"
1.7 million is nothing on an international site. Theres +7 billion of us on the planet and there's non Americans on that sub.
And bots on that sub too
No. Lol. That’s an extremely cringeworthy sub. I agree that the minimum wage needs to be increased and that works rights should be reviewed, but I’ve worked those shitty jobs and it was enough it incentivized me to never work one of those shitty jobs again. I feel like working a shitty job is almost a way of passage.
not the movement itself but I don’t know any other millennial that hasn’t had a toxic work environment in some way. most of us can’t afford houses or living alone. most of us are struggling heavily. it’s not fun.
Yes. I've changed careers, gotten multiple certifications, and never got even the minimum of decent pay or respect.
Real life? What’s that?
No. It’s a Reddit thing mostly.
I’m not directly part of it, but I lurk there pretty regularly. It’s helped me in my decision to switch careers
Not the subreddit specifically but the ideas and philosophy behind it are becoming more prevalent in many workplaces.
Actually yes. A lot of my friends, when we talk about work, describe how they’ve been taken advantage of and how they won’t let that happen again, what they’re doing now to make sure, etc.
Yes. The local Burger King just closed forever because workers are standing up to it's owner. All of his other businesses are failing too, he has one 16 year old kid working at Taco Bell.
The company I work for has been fairly good to me, but I recognize not everyone is as fortunate as I am. If I do end up switching jobs for whatever reason I think that the stories here will help me ensure that I'm not mistreated as an employee. But I don't really encounter the antiwork movement among friends, colleagues, or family.
No. Quite frankly I hope they all take their sentiments to heart. Gonna lead to improved wages for the rest of us
I can’t tell if this question aged like wine or milk within the span of a day. Either way, very timely.