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Well, it is true. Most people don’t want to work. I certainly wouldn’t if I could help it.
Yeah. Me too. You would literally have to give me money, for me to sacrifice a part of my chilling out time.
hear me out… what about more money? that do anything for ya?
The notion that more is better than less has been a dominant paradigm in various fields of inquiry, from economics to psychology. However, this paradigm has been challenged by recent philosophical developments that question the validity and applicability of this assumption. I have examined the arguments for and against the traditional paradigm of more versus less, and explored some of the exceptional cases that defy this binary opposition. In order to reconcile these conflicting perspectives and provide a more nuanced understanding of the complex relationship between larger and smaller quantities, further research is still required.
The world may never know… Or, at least the wealthy won’t.
In Texas they’ve solved the problem by simply deciding that bigger is better and more is more. The rest of the world is still struggling with this conundrum, so the debate is far from over.
And by part you mean 12 out of 24h
Exactly. When I was a kid, my parents gave me a job at the family business. It was great, they said I could work half days. I could do whatever i wanted with the other 12 hours.
My current deal says 7.5 h and I’m quite happy with that. If I get a better offer, I may reconsider.
And that should be the goal of a society. Currently we work because as individuals we’re forced to. As humanity we’re already past the forced need. Enabling people to choose would be more beneficial and we have the innate quality of finding meaningful ways to spend our time.
The problem is that we suck at allocating productivity. For example, we produce enough food for everyone but don’t distribute it half as well as we should, so people still starve while food rots somewhere else. We waste resources propping up a whole host of parasites that add no value to society, such as famous-for-being-famous celebrities, advertisers, speculators and redundant managers, while underpaying the people who actually produce wealth. And we want a brand new iPhone every year, a brand new car every two years, etc, and by and large don’t recycle. We’re wasteful.
Most of the actually important and time-consuming work is automated already. If we were smart about what work we do, an 8-hour work week for everyone would be more than possible. But we are so inefficient with our productivity due to warped priorities that most of us barely scrape by as it is.
Our excessive lack of proper planning and foresight really gets accentuated when you evaluate how wasteful and inefficient any of our processes are. I’ve been listening to Walden on audiobook recently, it’s almost as if Thoreau really did transcend his time and saw that the future would be equally as futile as his present at properly providing for humanity in a meaningful way.
We would rather have luxuries and pleasures than fulfilling proper needs, work tends to take away from our needs in ways we overlook.
Can’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob!
I wouldn’t work if I could, but I’d end up doing the same shit all day anyway, but for fun.
This just in: humans do not enjoy any degree of enslavement.
Check back next year to see if we’ve managed to break the spirit of the human race.
In other news, water has been confirmed to be wet.
This is true. It’s because we evolved over many hundreds of thousands of years as egalitarian hunter-gatherers and only relatively recently invented things like agriculture, big stratified societies, the bulk accumulation of wealth and property and work.
This reminds me of a recent meme pushing back against the “greed is human nature” narrative. Was something like:
“If you see a bear riding a bicycle at the circus, do you assume it is the nature of bears to ride bicycles?”
no one has ever wanted to work, you’re supposed to pay them enough that they’re willing to work anyway
Treat then fair they’ll do you the same.
I think I found your s/
S for serious
Not perfect but set in the right direction
“Why do you want to work here?”
Uh, I don’t, but this stupid thing called not dying requires me to have money and you’re offering to pay me money for doing a job you need doing.
In case anyone is interested in the sauces https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobody-wants-to-work-anymore/
True hero right here
Was just about to go diving for them, thank you!
I absolutely love this: “The Miami Herald published an article in 1981 about an 89-year-old man named Sammy James. James had worked for decades as a crate nailer and said his fast moves earned him the nickname, “The Nailer.””
His job title was a crate nailer, but he got the nickname from his fast moves. That’s like being so good at operating the cash register you earn the nickname “The Cashier”
Here’s the thing - I want to work. I love it - I create solutions to problems. It’s who I am, and when I have nothing else to do I wander around turning scraps into something useful. I became a programmer because I could create without worries about wasting materials.
What I hate is being exploited like a resource - 40 hours a week is a lot. It’s enough I use every free moment just getting my energy back. I have no time to work on my own projects or properly socialize - I just get worn down until I burn out and can’t wake up in the morning.
I’m also very aware of the impact of my actions, and nearly every possible job involves draining the world of something to make money for someone who has plenty.
I don’t care if other people get to coast because of my work, I just want to solve hard problems in a way that adds to the world.
I do care when I’m used as a pawn in the game of capitalism - But meet my basic and I’d spend my time creating
Cause 40hrs a week is a schedule for workers on a production line with machine tools doing monotonous work. It’s hard, but it doesn’t require you to think much. Thinking, changing contexts is hard.
Ah, also you really are a resource, only your employer is a resource for you too, to get money which you then use for your own purposes. You are mutually resources for each other, that’s the point.
Well, also it seems that in the olden days, when we didn’t have internet etc, it was a bit more normal to do your own hobbies etc at work, unofficial tea breaks, and in general many things other than work. Though I’m from Russia, and the Soviet joke says “they imitate pay, we imitate work”.
Some IT companies also try to make sure you can work on your hobbies in free Time ( in my case it works like this. Here is a room with 3d printers raspberry pi etc. Have fun, Just make sure your work is done and clients dont complain )
Can’t speak about other people, but for me such things really improve efficiency. You should be able to relax when doing intellectual work.
Yeah like, in my current WFH implementation support position I’m able to work on school work and paint Warhammer minis if everything else is done. I’m gaining new skills which will benefit the company thanks to going to school, thanks to the hobbying I’m happier so my mental health is better so I’m able to have near perfect attendance, and still all my work scheduled is done every day. I really don’t see why this idea that ppl need to be working 100% of the workday every day persists. The situation I’m in is basically a win all around, but some suit with a spreadsheet still sees only the opportunity cost lost by <100% productivity which yields .1% lower profits or something
That suit is incompetent. He compares real metrics with imagined metrics, of course the latter are going to be better.
Ah, also you really are a resource, only your employer is a resource for you too
indeed. I think pretty much everyone agrees the problem is the distribution of those resources. Much is given by us for very little in return.
You give as little as you can give for as much as you can get. I’d rather say distribution of negotiating power. And the way to fix this is making it easier to do business in your sphere as much as possible at all costs. And I don’t mean making it more profitable for existing businesses, I mean there being as many businesses as possible and them being easy to start, so that the negotiating power would even out.
Which moves us to the IP, patent, copyright laws, which make it hard starting a business in many areas, and any kind of regulation and certification that makes it seriously hard to start a business really. Which is, BTW, the reason regulatory laws directed at fighting Apple, Meta etc are also killing many other things we don’t even see cause it happens in conceptual stage.
I’m an audio technician who works at a news studio and this statement resonates with me strongly. I’m trying to learn game audio so I can spend more time doing something that I personally feel is productive towards society, hopefully I can make a better living doing that then what I currently do for money.
There’s a reason why it’s called “work” and “free time.” Most prefer free time to do whatever they actually want to do.
Truly shocking
I do workforce planning/management. No one wants to work by default. It is up to the organisation to do enough for their employees to compensate their employees so that they don’t mind having to work. Whether culture, financial, work-life balance, etc.
Employers need workers but employees just need money. It is up to the employer to make a convincing argument that what they offer in exchange for finite portions of a person’s life is reasonable, especially if they want to reduce costs with retention.
I work in permitting and I get to see a lot of businesses in a lot of industry types. Everything from small mom and pop places to places that have hundreds of employees, small contract jobs shops all the way up to massive chemical manufacturers. One common question I ask is about staffing, typically if a business doesn’t have enough staff to run the business appropriately it’s a good indicator of whether they will be able to meet their permit requirements.
By and large the only businesses who say, “Nobody wants to work anymore,” are places that don’t pay enough. Every single time it’s a pay issue, maybe rarely it’s a personality problem. I had one new business (that’s particularly dirty and hard to hire for) come in and they wanted to start up fast, rather than hiring and training new employees they literally went to their 3 competitors in town and hired their staff directly. An extra $2.5 an hour, 17 people left which nearly crippled the competition, and they had fully trained staff that were more than happy to work in that type of business.
By and large the only businesses who say, “Nobody wants to work anymore,” are places that don’t pay enough.
Yep, pretty much. Funny, you don’t hear about this being a problem for jobs paying $100,000+. Weird, that.
My employer struggled to hire a meat guy for three years, as they only wanted to offer minimum wage without benefits. They’d score the occasional hire, but that hire would inevitably quit after a few weeks when they realized it wasn’t worth the pay. Both the store owner and the meat manager would continue to grumble about how “Nobody wants to work anymore”, rather than facing the reality that nobody wants to work for shit pay and no benefits, as evident by the multiple hires who said “Fuck this job” and took their services elsewhere. Eventually they coughed up more and wound up landing a certified meat cutter with experience. Crazy how nature do that.
I don’t know what the nobody wants to work crowd thinks the average non-contributer is doing to afford food and shelter. It’s as though they imagine these people just declare that they don’t want to work and receive government subsidies via the “I don’t want to work anymore” check-box.
As a previous boss of mine said, “The reason that I pay you is that otherwise nobody would want to be here”
According to a new survey … 1 in 5 executive leaders agree with this statement: “No one wants to work”.
So, 4 in 5 executive leaders DO NOT agree with this statement, yet the message in the media is that “dammit, no one wants to work!”.
Peak journalism.
Those people still working harder than executives ever will. Priviliged bs.
I wrote a blog article about this a while back with references to what this meme is actually quoting.
https://netmonkey.net/2023/06/03/nobody-wants-to-work-anymore/
Also, the point isn’t whether people want to work or not, but rather that the moral panic keeps coming up.
Edit: read the Snopes article and got my questions answered.
Would like to have known your questions, though. All I have is your edit.
Your blog entry seems singularly focused, which left me with questions. After having read the Snope article, which was more broad and informative, my questions were answered.
Honestly not trying to criticize your blog entry, but just stating that it didn’t seem as well written as a Snopes article to me.
LOL OK
You asked. .shrug
I fucking hate capitalists
Some people want to work. They usually have no hobbies, family, or interests.
Or they have a job they love. I have heard legends of such things existing.
I have a job I love 99% of the time. And I have hobbies. I worked really fucking hard to get to where I am. 80+ hour weeks for months at a time for years.
We also have other younger guys come in, and some of them want to learn, and they go right on up the chain. Then, we have people that want things handed to them, don’t wanna do anything, and wonder why they’re not getting promotions. I’ve even given them incentives, raises, and tried to coach them on what they should do to meet a goal we both set. Some just want to point fingers and blame everyone else, and never take responsibility for their actions
But we have more success stories than “failures.” It’s good company to work for.
80 hours weeks for months good company
/s…?
I’m guessing they get paid super well and actually love what they do, a rare thing indeed.
Could have been a startup
Definitely something white-collar in any case. Nobody is working 80 hours a week for months on end as a roofer or brick-layer. Even fishermen only work 16 hour days for 2 week stretches which are physically punishing enough. The average human body just isn’t up to months of 80 hours/week of manual labor.
I got close being a framer from 2012-2016. 6 12s in construction was pretty fulfilling and I really liked working with my hands even if the pay was crap. Now I’m an office drone and it’s just okay doing a regular 40 for waaay more pay and benefits. I keep doing it because now I have the space to do and buy the stuff I want and not feel economic pressures like I used to.
Sometimes I miss the blue collar job, though. I’m glad I did it but I’m even more glad I made the career change.
Well that’s precisely my point. You can do it, for awhile, when you’re young, and maybe you even like it; but there is no world in which one can work 80 hour weeks in construction indefinitely without wrecking your body and playing serious hell with your home life.
Ask me how I know.
It’s not white collar. It’s powerplants. I do work in management, but the deal when I moved up was that I still got to work in the field 50% of the time. I get burned out sitting in my office. And I definitely did not start in management, but at the very bottom
And as far as the hours… there’s only so many people you can put on some jobs, so hiring others will just have them standing around
Also, I’d say 90% of the people that work with me love their jobs. I’ve seen quite a few of them turn down better pay because we’re pretty chill and honest about work and expectations. We keep good people around as long as possible.
how does that make it okay?
Yea, it’s a good job. And it’s nothing about hiring more people. Some jobs can only be done by a few people, so we just go around the clock until it’s fixed and bring home big paychecks
I see you in the OP’s pic
Perhaps there’s a company out there where there’s an exception, but an 80+ hr work week means this company desperately needed to hire, or if you were salaried and especially not earning overtime, it was exploiting your value to get paid without sharing that compensation with you.
If it was under the promise of future compensation, then it’s a case of I’d gladly pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today–still scummy.
Internal promotion is pretty rare these days in my field. Usually, you have to jump ship and you learn quickly not to get too attached to a company.
It’s because you can only put a few people on these jobs at a time, and you want damn good workers that do quality work. You don’t want multiple crews messing with some things because it can cause confusion or things to be missed
And it wasn’t promised to me, but I did make it up the ladder some, and still have places I can go up to. It’s actually a really good job, pays damn good, but requires a person to put in some work.
But, it’s nothing to go work a month like this, pay all your bills and have $15k extra after it’s all done
This is also exactly my situation. I worked hard for my dream job and now it doesn’t feel like work but a fun game instead. I know that’s not the case for most, and I’m grateful for it.
I do hire people for my department, and want to give them the same opportunity to be happy. It’s really hard to find someone who is as excited as me for what I do. It’s not so much they don’t want to work, but they don’t want to work HERE.
Hoping to be a software dev or some other similar job someday. I’ve been writing code in some capacity ever since I could write (thanks to an uncle who got me into it and paid for all kinds of learning opportunities), some kind of job revolving around it has been my dream for most of my life. I’m 20 now, tried getting into college this year but life is good at turning your plans upside down. I’ve still got plenty of time to chase that dream job at least, I just gotta get the knowledge and the degree
I forgot about my comment and just tried out Sync, and saw the replies…
That’s great, though. This wasn’t my dream job, but I kind of fell into what I wanted to do along the way. It turns out that it’s very fulfilling and pays well. And I can’t think of anyone that is above me that I don’t like. No one has given me a reason to hate them, and I think they feel the same about me. The people that work for me like me, even though they’re constantly giving me shit
I do like how this site (pretty much Reddit) acts like every employer is out to fuck them, and everyone is as miserable as they are.
Programmer here. The hobby became my job and it’s pretty great when there isn’t a layer of corporate bullshit on top and I can just be creative to satisfy that itch.
Works out most of the time but I’m also able to contribute to open source when in at work so that helps.
I love my work. What I do for work is also one of my bigger hobbies. Software engineering is fun!
That’s me but they are underpaying me and are very nitpicky and pedantic in return and have no respect for the time I put into their stupid enterprise.
As a result the can soon do the shit themselves.
Their efforts of finding people with an iq over 100 have been mixed in the last few years. I am wishing them all the best.
If no one wants to work then who the fuck are all these people on the highway at rush hour?
Probably on their way to smoke reefer
Well they drive like they’re doing meth
I want to Do. I like Doing. I like getting good at Doing.
I don’t like work. I only work so I can Do what I want.
Amen
