This malaise seems like the appropriate response to the corporate greed which has been trying to decimate the working class since the 80s. Big boys use their feduciary responsibility as justification for utterly wrecking middle class benefits. The pendulum is in full swing back toward a worker uprising. The fact is anybody who isn’t executive level is grossly underpaid and the powers at be will continue to siphon the wealth that was generated from the creation of the middle class in the early 20th c. until somebody notices. The ultra wealthy have learned this time around to stay secretive about their obscene wealth. If nobody knows about it how can anyone get angry and demand change? I fear that as a highly specialized professional I will be relegated to a lifestyle of mediocrity and it only worsens for those with less skill. I find it promising that workers with perfunctory jobs are realizing that they aren’t being adequately compensated for their time. I can only hope the rest of the work force follows suit.
Glad to see you’re also a hard working mofo and can guess all your readers are as well. Thank you for sharing. We, people like us have to put the nation on our backs to save it.
Work in sales, the amount of people that do little to zero prospecting is laughable. If you simply prospect everyday you’re pretty much guaranteed to be a top performer.
The pandemic changed a lot about work. I see the laziness in my daily life, but as a young father there is one silver lining: I can and am trusted to get my job done. I work generally in-office (as I said, young kids at home), but when I need to do something in my personal life (pick a kid up from camp, whatever) it’s not even a question if “I’m allowed”. I’m fortunate to have a great management team above me, but there’s an acceptability to one’s focus on their family that didn’t exist pre-pandemic. To dispute the Ann Rand quote you shared, I’d disagree: work is second only to the legacy you leave around you- whether through kids or bettering those and the community around you. That matters and counts for more than how much revenue or profit you generated for someone way wealthier than yourself. But working hard and displaying grit is itself an amazing legacy to leave for your kids. Let them see you grind and strive, and even fail. It will build them up for the real world.
Lol I think you missed the point of the quote - Unless you were born with a silver spoon, working is the way you leave a legacy. Through your actions is how you leave a legacy. Men should have a mission and that is most important thing in their life.
Nah dude, respectfully, I understood the quote as it was written then; my point is the world and family dynamics have changed. No one’s headstone says they were really good at meetings. It’s not an identity. Not a legacy. No one wishes on their deathbed they worked more, though I’m sure many wish they worked harder or more fruitfully.
Unless you’re a founder you’re a cog. I’m both a cog (day job) and a founder (2x over). There is no legacy in being a cog, even if you’re great at it. My legacy will have little to do with how much wealth I generate, I will view my own legacy on the type of men that my boys I’m raising will become.
In regards to the ‘no one wants to work’ section I think the cause/effect described is backwards. I would propose the laziness and mediocrity has started in the upper end of the economy - board rooms, corporate management, politicians, etc. and has trickled down. There’s a lot of great studies on this phenomenon with the Peter Principle, and books like Bullshit Jobs by Graeber provide fantastic analysis on this as well. Plus, we have an entire political elite whose entire careers are based on doing the bare minimum setting the standard for our society.
There is also the worker’s rights component that is left out of the analysis in the letter. Minimum wages have stagnated for decades despite rising costs of living, making these jobs less and less competitive. Plus, any of us working in corporate america know that 99% of hiring managers do not value blue collar work on a resume. They want to see corporate internships, certifications, desk work at daddy’s law firm, etc. A young person that is smart and driven would be laughed out of most corporate interviews if their resume consists of Dos Toros and lumber chopping - we all know that is the sad reality. The corporate management class is superficial and fails to recognize real work, and people have taken notice. My thought is that anyone with half a brain who is trying to build a career will avoid those jobs for the aforementioned reasons. If that is indeed true, we’d be left with a kind of ‘brain drain’ at the lower end of the job market where only the most incompetent, least interested, and least driven people will opt to work the dead end jobs. And of course that creates terrible work environments where people are surrounded by lazy morons, which will further push out anyone with an ounce of work ethic.
Edit; written by someone who worked as a janitor and waiter thru HS and college. Now at top consulting firm, previously in tech.
I am seeing a lot of applications come across my desk because we are hiring just like everyone else.
The majority of applicants have master's degrees, but the only work experience is retail, part time, babysitting, cashier, etc. We are not talking management either, straight up hourly pay. The resumes are full of typos, poor grammar, and wacky fonts. I just don't know what to make of it. I work in a specialized construction industry, its not brain surgery but there is math and some design creativity needed. I want to help out the next generation, but the applicants don't even have an internship in a related field. Very strange.
Nearing my 1 year of working since graduation, and its kind of shocking how many people are still "figuring it out". These are people with solid degrees, yet sit at home complaining why they can't afford to move out and expect to make bank doing nothing. The divide in my social circles has never been more obvious. Some of us have even gone as far to put in references for others, skip the resume line, and they still fumble the opportunity. After a certain point its better to just move on.
Andy, as an intern in a corporate company, I whole heartadly agree with you. I got my first job in high school stocking shelves and those people taught me the value of hard work. Not only did they bust their ass everyday, but it gave me the perspective to always work hard and never work in a groccery store again. Anyway, fast forward to my first internship in the city, and the corporate situation is exactly as u say. No accountability and a lot of people doing the bear minimum. Everything u say is spot on and my only response is god help us
This malaise seems like the appropriate response to the corporate greed which has been trying to decimate the working class since the 80s. Big boys use their feduciary responsibility as justification for utterly wrecking middle class benefits. The pendulum is in full swing back toward a worker uprising. The fact is anybody who isn’t executive level is grossly underpaid and the powers at be will continue to siphon the wealth that was generated from the creation of the middle class in the early 20th c. until somebody notices. The ultra wealthy have learned this time around to stay secretive about their obscene wealth. If nobody knows about it how can anyone get angry and demand change? I fear that as a highly specialized professional I will be relegated to a lifestyle of mediocrity and it only worsens for those with less skill. I find it promising that workers with perfunctory jobs are realizing that they aren’t being adequately compensated for their time. I can only hope the rest of the work force follows suit.
Glad to see you’re also a hard working mofo and can guess all your readers are as well. Thank you for sharing. We, people like us have to put the nation on our backs to save it.
Work in sales, the amount of people that do little to zero prospecting is laughable. If you simply prospect everyday you’re pretty much guaranteed to be a top performer.
The pandemic changed a lot about work. I see the laziness in my daily life, but as a young father there is one silver lining: I can and am trusted to get my job done. I work generally in-office (as I said, young kids at home), but when I need to do something in my personal life (pick a kid up from camp, whatever) it’s not even a question if “I’m allowed”. I’m fortunate to have a great management team above me, but there’s an acceptability to one’s focus on their family that didn’t exist pre-pandemic. To dispute the Ann Rand quote you shared, I’d disagree: work is second only to the legacy you leave around you- whether through kids or bettering those and the community around you. That matters and counts for more than how much revenue or profit you generated for someone way wealthier than yourself. But working hard and displaying grit is itself an amazing legacy to leave for your kids. Let them see you grind and strive, and even fail. It will build them up for the real world.
Lol I think you missed the point of the quote - Unless you were born with a silver spoon, working is the way you leave a legacy. Through your actions is how you leave a legacy. Men should have a mission and that is most important thing in their life.
Nah dude, respectfully, I understood the quote as it was written then; my point is the world and family dynamics have changed. No one’s headstone says they were really good at meetings. It’s not an identity. Not a legacy. No one wishes on their deathbed they worked more, though I’m sure many wish they worked harder or more fruitfully.
Unless you’re a founder you’re a cog. I’m both a cog (day job) and a founder (2x over). There is no legacy in being a cog, even if you’re great at it. My legacy will have little to do with how much wealth I generate, I will view my own legacy on the type of men that my boys I’m raising will become.
Agree with Dan. Our society has robbed us of opportunities to make impacts, create legacies. Majority of high paying corporate jobs are meaningless.
In regards to the ‘no one wants to work’ section I think the cause/effect described is backwards. I would propose the laziness and mediocrity has started in the upper end of the economy - board rooms, corporate management, politicians, etc. and has trickled down. There’s a lot of great studies on this phenomenon with the Peter Principle, and books like Bullshit Jobs by Graeber provide fantastic analysis on this as well. Plus, we have an entire political elite whose entire careers are based on doing the bare minimum setting the standard for our society.
There is also the worker’s rights component that is left out of the analysis in the letter. Minimum wages have stagnated for decades despite rising costs of living, making these jobs less and less competitive. Plus, any of us working in corporate america know that 99% of hiring managers do not value blue collar work on a resume. They want to see corporate internships, certifications, desk work at daddy’s law firm, etc. A young person that is smart and driven would be laughed out of most corporate interviews if their resume consists of Dos Toros and lumber chopping - we all know that is the sad reality. The corporate management class is superficial and fails to recognize real work, and people have taken notice. My thought is that anyone with half a brain who is trying to build a career will avoid those jobs for the aforementioned reasons. If that is indeed true, we’d be left with a kind of ‘brain drain’ at the lower end of the job market where only the most incompetent, least interested, and least driven people will opt to work the dead end jobs. And of course that creates terrible work environments where people are surrounded by lazy morons, which will further push out anyone with an ounce of work ethic.
Edit; written by someone who worked as a janitor and waiter thru HS and college. Now at top consulting firm, previously in tech.
Well said!
I am seeing a lot of applications come across my desk because we are hiring just like everyone else.
The majority of applicants have master's degrees, but the only work experience is retail, part time, babysitting, cashier, etc. We are not talking management either, straight up hourly pay. The resumes are full of typos, poor grammar, and wacky fonts. I just don't know what to make of it. I work in a specialized construction industry, its not brain surgery but there is math and some design creativity needed. I want to help out the next generation, but the applicants don't even have an internship in a related field. Very strange.
Nearing my 1 year of working since graduation, and its kind of shocking how many people are still "figuring it out". These are people with solid degrees, yet sit at home complaining why they can't afford to move out and expect to make bank doing nothing. The divide in my social circles has never been more obvious. Some of us have even gone as far to put in references for others, skip the resume line, and they still fumble the opportunity. After a certain point its better to just move on.
Andy, as an intern in a corporate company, I whole heartadly agree with you. I got my first job in high school stocking shelves and those people taught me the value of hard work. Not only did they bust their ass everyday, but it gave me the perspective to always work hard and never work in a groccery store again. Anyway, fast forward to my first internship in the city, and the corporate situation is exactly as u say. No accountability and a lot of people doing the bear minimum. Everything u say is spot on and my only response is god help us
Love the Lt. Spiers gif. His generation is a different breed that made sacrifices most people don’t appreciate or understand.
It’s a shame to see the dramatic changes in culture and values in less than a decade.