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Antiwork

Here to give my two cents about “work” in general and some limited answers to the dilemma of having to work while not wanting to

1) This subreddit has more posts about bad experiences with particular jobs than with “work” in general, and some people seem to gradually transition from hating a job into hating working in general. ​ If you're the former, I'm glad you vented your fraustrations, but it's probably in your interest to continue working (be it with a new job or not) unless and until many situations change in some drastic ways. ​ If you're the latter, then there're some real problems you're facing, and I think these problems are more worthy of discussion than “oh I met another really unprofessional jerk boss.” However, do think about yourself, what do you want in life, and if you want certain things enough to keep working even if you don't like working. These things you might want may include: having access to various forms of comforts and supports (from entertainment to medical care),…


1) This subreddit has more posts about bad experiences with particular jobs than with “work” in general, and some people seem to gradually transition from hating a job into hating working in general.

If you're the former, I'm glad you vented your fraustrations, but it's probably in your interest to continue working (be it with a new job or not) unless and until many situations change in some drastic ways.

If you're the latter, then there're some real problems you're facing, and I think these problems are more worthy of discussion than “oh I met another really unprofessional jerk boss.” However, do think about yourself, what do you want in life, and if you want certain things enough to keep working even if you don't like working. These things you might want may include: having access to various forms of comforts and supports (from entertainment to medical care), having others approve or look up to you (if you want them, not saying you have to), forming certain social connections (hard to marry or have kids without certain investments), having certain feelings like self-worth or accomplishment (again, not saying that you have to work to feel those, but some people might)

If you're sure that you're fine with not having some of them, then you might want to consider the relatively new Chinese philosophy of “lying flat,” which is its own brand of anti-work movement that focuses on working as little as possible, just enough to enable an existence with the minimal amount of food and rent to lie flat on a bed most of the time. (Of course, literally lying flat all days is the most extreme version; a slightly more moderate version would be something like “I'll give up on dating, getting my house, or being respected by anyone. I'll rent the smallest and cheapest room I can find and work for 2 days a week while spending the rest eating instant ramen and playing video games.”) If you want anti-work in your time (rather than waiting for a major social change), this approach might be more practical.

2) If you do hate working in general, rather than just a specific job, there're still ways to make working better. For example, a secret some people aren't very aware of is that the lousy bosses that we complain about sometimes also hate their jobs. They have their own stresses and responsibilites , but they're often able to feel much better during their job due to their positions of relative authority, which allows them to better control the minor aspects of their work experiences (such as working environment, whether or not you can listen to music or when you can go have lunch…). Following this approach, if you can manage to reach a position of relative authority yourself, you may find working a lot less unbearable. Keep in mind that this authority is very relative: you don't have to become the manager, being the only security guard for a night shift (if you're not scared by that scenario) also gives you a lot of control over your work, more so if your employeers/managers trust you enough to not micromanage you.

Therefore, before quitting a job, maybe think about your future in this job. If you have reasons to think that things could get easier later, you might just need to survive it, while quitting this job to start a new one in the same profession might just be resetting your own sentence.

3) Moving to a cheaper place is really something you must consider if you're serious about anti-work. I'm not repeating the same useless suggestions about moving to a secluded area with no job where it's even harder to survive. I'm suggesting you to at least consider moving to a cheaper country, especially a non-English speaking one. Native English speakers (which most of you are if you're reading this post) all have some degrees of possibilities in teaching English. If you do it in a non-English speaking and relatively poorer country, not only can you often receive enough income to afford fairly comfortable living due to the lowered cost of living, the job is also frequently very enjoyable. Some cultures respect teachers quite a lot, such as many East Asian ones, so you will be treated with respect by most people you interact with, and if you're black or white, racism might work in your favor. Speaking from experience, I know this to be true in many if not all areas within China. As a result, even if you don't want to bother with teaching, there're some so-called “white monkey jobs” that you can find where people simply need a person with non-local appearance to do something, such as acting for a non-major character in a TV episode. Such jobs exist in quite a few Asian countries, and despite their racist-sounding names most of them are usually open to most non-Asian persons… which I guess is still racist against Asians… (Again, in most cases racism works in your favor. There are very few ways to even really racially insult a white person, while people who offer these jobs mostly have no idea the N-word even exists. Often times they just want you there to portray a scene involving international businesspersons or exchange students. At worst, you'll be portraying a European villian to help the local hero defeat you and express some anti-colonial, nationalistic sentiments.) There are certain companies that provide set, props, and temporary actors for a large vairety of TV shows, movies, and web series. If you can find one of those, it might be doable as a semi-reliable job.

While both jobs are still jobs, their location allows you to greatly reduce your cost of living, while the content of the jobs are about the easiest possible (literally, using your own native language, or just being a person from your native background).

At the end of the day, livable unemployment is still only available to the rich, while the rest of us have to work to survive. I admire those who wish to or are even trying to change that, but changing it will most likely take a lot more work than just being a regular working person. So, I think most people who are thinking about miniming the work they do in a practical context should try to reduce their need for money, such as through lying flat and reducing your needs or moving to cheaper countries, or try to find ways to make their works more bearable, such as by trying to reach a position with even a small amount of authority, or getting into an easier job such as teaching your own language.

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