I've worked retail, general labor, shop, sales, service, and kitchen. I'm a survivor of childhood abuse and suicidal depression.
First things first. The only reason to work hard is to get better pay. The only reason. In order to get better pay, you have to compete with and fuck over other employees by proving you're the one that's worth the company promoting or paying better. In my past, I went from a floor bitch, so a supervisor, and finally to a department manager. I was expected to give up my life for that position, do three times the work with less staff with expectations constantly on the rise, and basically give up my soul to maintain that position I “earned.” And for what? For seventy cents extra over minimum wage.
UnSkilLED LabOUr is DUmB, Go tO a TraADE. Okay! I was a first year apprentice in an automotive shop. Again, earned, because I worked my ass off to please the foreman enough for consideration. The red seals stole all the high paying work and left scraps for the apprentices. I did *oil changes* for my 80% on the job training. I was a joke, constantly demeaned, and expected to pick everything up in school. Maybe your shit was positive, mine wasn't. Fuck all of you arrogant pricks stepping on people trying to work up to your pay grade and fighting to gain experience so we can actually afford to live. Hey, guess what else? A major economic crash happened and I was sent home every other day because the company couldn't afford to pay me. Like fuck I was going to indenture myself to that place by having them pay for school I couldn't afford. In any case, I have the satisfaction of knowing that you guys with thousands of dollars of expendable income have pissed it all away on toys, booze, drugs, and your multi-story houses to keep your trophy wives and kids you do fuck all with. Most senior tradespeople I've encountered are loveless, stupid, unhappy people without any passion or soul. I wonder whyyyyyyy.
Service? Complete fucking shit field. Waitresses and cooks are treated like shit on every front. There's nothing to say that isn't obvious to anybody with half a brain.
So, sales, then! Sell stuff and get your fat sales commission. If you're particularly charismatic and able to lie through your teeth without a conscience to worry about, you'll do well. If you can force extended warranties onto people who can barely afford it (that have a bunch of fine print enabling the provider to weasel out of spending money on service and repair work or paying you out for a quarter of what you paid) and get those numbers, you'll be fine. Again, fucking over every other person you work with for your own self-interest.
Or maybe you should go work for a Canadian labor union, where the quality of your work is disregarded by senior staff because of how low you rank in the hierarchy of join dates.
So, basically, my point is that no sane person should ever want to waste their time at work. But my secondary point is that you guys don't have an actual fucking answer. If you want to effect change, start hurting the bottom line. Walk the fuck out. Quit. Don't go back and don't support this bullshit system. Don't buy a house, don't pay the banks with the interest from your mortgage, don't buy consumer goods that support companies that make billions a year. You can't, can you, because you need those pieces of paper that were loaned to your government at debt to do literally any fucking thing in this revolting diseased society.
Yeah, work is a problem. It's also not a solution. Set your sights higher on the real problem.