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Antiwork

Likely unpopular opinion about this type of post: I have a [masters][phd] and [bad thing happened]

Caveat – I think it's abhorrent when ANY person (irrespective of education level) can't afford food, shelter, and medical services. I also hate how poorly educators, people in child services, important areas of research and other truly essential functions are paid in the US. It's a joke. However, there are certain posts in this forum that are irritating and detract from other serious antiwork issues that need more discussion. One is where the degree, masters or PhD in question has an historically crap salary outlook and people are still surprised when they get exactly that. It's like they expect the US government or private industry to all of a sudden make them 'whole' for how much education they got. This is a capitalistic country and there are no safety nets. It's a sad reality but it is the reality. What you can get out of a degree versus what an…


Caveat – I think it's abhorrent when ANY person (irrespective of education level) can't afford food, shelter, and medical services. I also hate how poorly educators, people in child services, important areas of research and other truly essential functions are paid in the US. It's a joke.

However, there are certain posts in this forum that are irritating and detract from other serious antiwork issues that need more discussion.

One is where the degree, masters or PhD in question has an historically crap salary outlook and people are still surprised when they get exactly that. It's like they expect the US government or private industry to all of a sudden make them 'whole' for how much education they got. This is a capitalistic country and there are no safety nets. It's a sad reality but it is the reality. What you can get out of a degree versus what an industry will give you for that degree are two different things and the trade-offs need to be understood. I wanted to be a biologist but I went into business because I didn't have much money growing up and I wanted my future family to not stress about every electricity bill.

It's also annoying when an OP doesn't talk about how good they are at their job, but complains about things related to it completely out of context. ''My manager didn't promote me and I have a PhD!” – so what. Education level is zero indication of how good you are at a job. I've worked with Ivy Leaguers, MBAs and PhDs who were simply bad at their jobs and had a net negative effect on everything. They also complained when they didn't get promotions, never reflecting or taking feedback, and usually moved on. 'Everyone else' is always the idiot. Of course I've also worked with excellent folks that are more educated than myself, who did great work, and didn't get promoted for various reasons. Their education level wouldn't have been a good reason for the promotion in any case.

Make sure you do your research and have open eyes going into your chosen field. When you're in your field, don't rely on your education level to get you anything above what value you're able to create.

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