Antiwork

A lot of times we post here out of anger (more often justified than not) or we are looking for confirmation and validation for the frustration that we feel ourselves. I wanted to post part of my own experience that has given me a small glimmer of hope for my career and future outlook. I recently applied to a job that is a little out of my comfort zone, however have a good idea of the work entailed due to knowing others that have worked for the company. I had no direct experience with the patient population and was up front with this in my application and interview. I put forward salary requirements which I felt were reasonable given my lack of experience in this field directly. I was eventually offered the position, and received a counteroffer at 20% over asking. I have accepted the offer given the fact that…

I have become a very important member of the team at my job, I have the most seniority in my position and do a lot of the training (obviously without additional pay). My boss has come to depend on my for a lot of things. Recently I got accepted into a program and will be going back to school full time. I am so excited to quit so that my boss realizes he should’ve either treated me better or hired a trainer. I am counting down the days.

Most of us don’t start off jaded. Most of us go into the workforce with optimism and enthusiasm. What was your tipping point? Mine was about 15 years ago. I went on a requirements gathering trip with my boss, one of the company owners. This may come across as small potatoes vs other professions’ demands but this did it for me. It was a short flight from London to Antwerp. My first time on a small propeller plane as opposed to a jet. I had journeyed to London and arrived at my hotel just after midnight, I got up at 5am to catch the flight in the morning. Once in Antwerp, we never left the airport. It was an intense 12 hours of requirements gathering and analysis across a heap of meetings. My head was pounding as we took off for (the now defunct) London airport. It was made worse…

Generations of my family born in poverty, admittedly because we live in Canada now we are significantly more privileged and wealthy than ever before, but still living beneath the poverty line. I'm grateful for the things I do have, but damn it's still incredibly hard, especially with lifelong mental health issues. Is there a point to trying to improve my life? I'm physically weak and have chronic pain, so difficult physical work that still pays decently is already beyond my capabilities at 30. I've always worked in food service but now I only work part time, and standing for 8 hours a day for three shifts still seems to burn me out and leave me debilated after. I've been trying to learn how to code on a professional level but I don't own a computer and it's been very slow going. I've always had severe depression, pretty much as soon…

We're all aware of the good ole avocado toast argument, but what's actually wrong with wanting to enjoy life? Why do boomers always say we're entitled for buying anything that isn't the bare necessities? Are we supposed to be content with bread, water, and overpriced shelter while the rich live lavishly while doing little to no work? You bet your ass if I'm dedicating 8 hours a day to work I expect to be rewarded in some way more than just surviving, don't let them trick you into thinking livable wages are the goal.

I’m so tired. I’ve had mandatory overtime for the last two weeks with no end in sight. I work in a distribution warehouse. I’m not one of the warehouse pickers – I’m the one putting all the orders into system. I know damn well that we’re not making much progress. It’s just the way of things; we get a lot of orders in daily, this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. And yet, we just got the second Saturday in a row mandated. What right do companies have to take time away from our lives because they can’t hire more people to balance the workload? Sorry. Just ranting.

We all have the same job title, job description, and duties – all with varying levels of experience in different aspects of the job. A little backstory: I was hired in September of 2021 for this job and during the interview process I was asked my salary expectations, but was refused any kind of pay range on their end. My job is pretty niche and doesn’t have a lot of salary information online, so I gave him what I thought seemed fair based on similar jobs in the area. Since beginning the job in October, it became very clear the manager who hired me didn’t like me and eventually I reported him for harassment and retaliation, which led to me being transferred to a different location in the same area. Last night I was looking through my employee profile and saw that the pay for my position is listed as…

Firstly, I was very unlucky. For some reason the universe willed it that I had to deal with a young resident that had died from a suspected morphine overdose in my final week for a company I had been with for four and a half years. He looked very dead despite never having seen a dead body before and I was still instructed by the emergency dispatcher to conduct CPR on him. I'd known him for a year and a half running up to that point. There were multiple red flags running up to his death including him being offered an ambulance the night before by a colleague because of his intoxicated state. My friend/colleague is devastated with the guilt. They were very little safeguards to prevent the flow of drugs into the residential building where I worked. He was caught by night staff the morning before with two 500ml…

I lied that there was a family emergency. In reality, I had a breakdown because so many things happened at once today and I broke down. It wasn't even that much but all of the negative feelings built up I guess and it exploded. I just don't want to work after. Thing is, a break down won't be recognized to get a day off. The people will see you as weak so I had to lie that there was an emergency to get a rest. …and that's why society is messed up.

I've come to the realization that you shouldn't kid yourself. Most companies have literally zero loyalty to you these days. Especially mega-wealthy international companies. Their only loyalty is quarterly earnings, profits, and shareholder value. So they should not expect loyalty from you either. Do your job, do it well, do your job with pride and strive to move up and make more money. But do realize that the moment it becomes financially reasonable for a company to get rid of you, they will. Or they'll replace you with someone else that they'll pay less for. So have loyalty for your family, have loyalty for your good friends, and have loyalty to yourself to fight for your personal time to spend with them away from the job that will not give that back in return. Fighting for your personal time may be looking for a different job, switching careers, creating a…