From age 19 to 35, as the title states, I have worked 16 jobs and I have an opinion about the American workforce. I realize this sub is antiwork and I see most people giving day-to-day gripes so my post serves as more of a range of experiences that have shaped my viewpoint.
To get an idea of the types of jobs I’ve worked, here are a few of them: a merchandise receiving associate, a carpet cleaner, door-to-door salesman, customer service, troubleshooting at a call center, a machine specialist at a printing press, busboy, an installer, forklift operator, ASM at a grocery store, and a few other positions that I may mention indirectly in this post.
I’ll start with the obvious. Most people are dangerously underpaid. Especially when it comes to the lower middle class and below. I’ve found that it doesn’t matter whether they consider the job unskilled (operating a cash register) or skilled (operating machinery around individuals with potentially life-threatening ramifications), the pay is just embarrassing. Individuals are forced to work two jobs in order to sustain a life that keeps them on the brink of poverty and parents have to spend 9-16 hours a day working a job/s away from their children and families.
Hours to sustain these companies are bullshit. America needs to take a serious look at its’ 40-hour-a-week work model. Even start-up companies are adopting this model, I feel, in error. As we forge into modernity, I’m not sure that this faux pas blueprint for success can sustain itself. People are tired. Tooooo tired. America as a whole is suffering because of this. Culture, Art, Innovation, Naissance, Evolution. People are just too damned tired to want and at times do better for themselves.
Individuals are easy to complain about. I’ve had managers that’d go to the bar on break, come back and shit on employees while reeking of alcohol. Seen coworker affairs that led to murder. Drug fiends nodding off on the job(in the middle of the day). Incompetence all around. But that comes in all facets of life. Pay. Decent hours. Those are the two mainstays that I find just won’t go away until they’ve been addressed in the American workforce once and for all.
Feel free to check my post history. I do feel like literature aimed at poor practices within the labor force are important to shed light on these issues. And a sub dedicated to this seemed like a great space to share a small bit about my thoughts on the American workforce.
Enjoy your Sunday. Up and at em' tomorrow.