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I've answered this question so many times in so many ways, I thought I'd present some quotes instead of typing it all back in this time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
There's no doubt that jobs that require college degrees will pay more, but given the sharp decrease in the availability of such jobs which can be reasonably anticipated due to globalization, there could eventually come a point where that premium multiplied by the lower probability of being able to capitalize on your degree in your job, for much of your career, results in a situation where the expense of the degree cannot be justified. The forces intent on obliterating the value of work in order to foster profits that benefit the more affluent members of society have radically disrupted the balance of power in the labor marketplace, and if left unchecked will continue to further the imbalance in their favor.
September 2013
Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
I really feel sorry for the children of the current generation. They're facing an absolutely horrendous labor marketplace, as compared to that which folks of my generation encountered, with employers being given more and more leeway to exploit, resulting in a substantial reduction of the value of work. The skewing continues unabated, so I think it is safe to say it will be that much worse for the next generation.
April 2014
Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
Those jobs are no longer the stepping stones [that they used] to be. The nature of the labor marketplace has changed over a generation so that there are fewer living wage jobs than there are people.
May 2014
Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
Over the course of my career the decline in overall morale has pretty closely tracked the increasing divergence between productivity and wages:Why the Gap Between Worker Pay and Productivity Is So Problematic - The Atlantic I think there is a secondary effect beginning to have impact. Up until recently, automation generated as many new jobs in the labor marketplace as it subsumed. That's no longer true. I believe the increase in underemployment will compound (add to) the problem that has until now been related to the gap between wages and productivity.
November 2015
Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
It is about the institutionalization of economic injustice baked directly into the labor marketplace, resulting in inadequate alternatives. ... How much the work is worth is directly affected by the grievously inadequate availability of better opportunities and the shamefully high level of desperation to scrape up enough money to get by. Absence these corruptive factors, people would be paid more - it's basic Economics 101.
August 2016
Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
... the nature of work in the United States has radically changed over the years, with more and more effort placed on dividing work up into smaller bits so that lower- and lower-skilled workers can do that work. The way industry, collectively, is managing to increase profits and foster growth is by way of structural changes that devalue (human) work itself. ... when you eliminate or export skilled jobs that people are qualified to do, then those people - people who have to pay their own way, support their families, and secure their own futures - are forced to work lower-skilled jobs because that's all that's left in the labor marketplace that they are still qualified to do.
April 2018
Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
Previously, the counter-contention was that older employees benefit from the experience and expertise that they can offer. That's no longer the case. In my own department, it is noted how our staff have generally been in the department for such a relatively short period of time, but there is no consideration about the cost of continually churning through new employees, no consideration of the cost of lost institutional memory, no consideration of how maintaining a steady rate of inexperience means quality never improves. How could this be sustainable long-term, in light of all we learned (and some of us, taught) about quality for the last hundred years? The answer, of course, is that all the competitors are doing the same exact thing. We're no longer even pretending to compete on who provides the best quality but rather we are very blatantly competing solely on who can provide the lowest cost for what we offer. So letting experienced and more highly-qualified talent drift away isn't a concern. Prime talent ends up having to choose between staying, and being treated as badly as us new folks, or going to somewhere else where they are the new folks, offering too little to the enterprise to warrant much more than they've already been earning. The value of work, itself, discounted by this switch from a quality focus to a cost focus, across the entire labor marketplace.
When was working and employment some mystical garden full of fun and adventure?
Work is work. It's all been the same since I began working over 25 years.
What has changed are worker expectations. All of the "find your purpose at work" stuff has set up unrealistic expectations.
I think it's an honorable aspiration to find a job that you are content with. It took me 10 years, but I'm finally paid well to do something I enjoy doing, and with people I really enjoy working with. It's not always a walk in the park or a breeze, but it's far better than any job I've ever had.
I don't think anyone should ever expect to find a job that is full of fun and adventure. Even pro athletes who get paid millions of dollars to play games that we grew up playing as children have bad days on the job. But I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with seeking out a job and work environment that you are satisfied with and happy to go to most days. It may take several attempts, but I can honestly say from my own experience it is worth it.
Life is too short to spend significant amounts of time working at a job where you're paid too little and deal with clients/co-workers and/or a boss that treats you poorly.
I'll answer this one. It's because U.S. corporations are allowed to do whatever it is they want to employees. No one puts any kind of regulations on companies and you can get fired just for looking at someone the wrong way.
Employees have little recourse unless they can pony up the funds for a lawyer, and even then, that won't stop the corporation from doing it to someone else. Execs are paid even more now than ever and rule the roost by firing those they don't like. Micromanaging is back in full force and seems to be encouraged. Basically, managers are now sent to a-hole school and the more of a micromanaging a-hole they are, the more they are rewarded.
Come in, do hard work, never call in sick - doesn't matter if you are a target of the mean girls club.
If this is truly the environment you work in I feel sorry for you. But to be honest,what you described is what the U.S. workplace used to look like decades ago. Those days are long gone, and you can thank the Unions, OHSA,NLRB,EEOC, and a host of other regulatory agencies tasked with improving workplace conditions.
No U.S. corporations are permitted to operate in the manner you describe. It would be suicide for them if they even attempted it. Are there unscrupulous companies out there in spite of all of the rules and laws in place to protect workers? Absolutely there are! Just as there are unscrupulous employees out there not carrying their weight while on the job.
Just try firing someone today without a verifiable record of progressive discipline(egregious violations notwithstanding). You will have the EEOC breathing down your neck ASAP. All it takes is a phone call, and yes it actually does work.
Sounds like you should take a management position sometime and then come back and tells us about this a-hole training you received.
Employers are trying to punt more work into less workers with no matching increase in compensation.
Ding, Ding, we have a winner! Also continually increasing incomes for those at the highest levels (you know, the real "talent", and holding pay and benefits down on the workers on the "front lines".
Americans come off as more dissatisfied with everything, not just jobs. In the last two decades it's become a national disease.
I'd say it matches roughly the same timeframe when we passed that knee in the curve where it began taking more and more work just to keep the same standard of living as the previous generation. Sometime in the 70s/80s.
Many workers produce nothing. Information economy? So what? There is no feeling of "I helped build that." Instead, many sit in a cubicle with a computer, earphones and answer calls of some description. Imagine working for a cellphone provider where you really are not up front with people or you cannot solve their problem or whatever. Imagine working in a nursing home where everyone there is waiting to die and you are dealing with excrement routinely. And all you get is complaints from outsiders about poor care. How about a school teacher where students, or some of them, are out of control and perhaps even threaten you? How about prison employee dealing with society's worst? Perhaps working on an assembly line where day after day you are doing the same task then finding out a robot will be replacing you soon? But who says work is supposed to be fun and fulfilling. Like so many other things in life, psychologist and "great thought thinkers" make more of it than they ought to. It is just work. You get paid. Is it ever enough? No. Never will be. Unions can never solve the problem of boredom. Young people are not advised or warned about their education choices and if they are, do they listen? You work to sustain yourself and perhaps a family. Some jobs are more interesting and challenging. How often have pilots said, " I cannot believe I get paid to do this." So many other jobs the phrase is, "they don't pay me enough to do this." Pick your poison.
Americans come off as more dissatisfied with everything, not just jobs. In the last two decades it's become a national disease.
Another term for "dissatisfied" is "SJW". If a guy was working for a company then finds out his new boss is his mother-in-law, why shouldn't he feel upset?
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