7 ms·

Boomers, Gen X Are Also Fed Up with Their Employers

29 points by Multicomp 3y ago

Multicomp 3y ago
I'd love to hear from the Boomers and Gen Xers around here if you agree? "Cynical millenial" is a common image and persona, but I'm curious for other perspectives, maybe find some hope beyond my own sense of precarity I get from reading this article. I don't think we're going to have another great resignation, not with all of these tech layoffs...right? At some point something has got to give.
- thegrim33 3y ago
  You're going to actually adjust your opinion on the issue off of what a single digit number of (supposedly real) people reply to you in response to your question? That's the data you're going to use to inform your opinion on an insanely large and complex and murky topic?
  - effingwewt 3y ago
    This happens with any discussion. Are you implying no one should ever ask for or consider other people's opinions? On top of which following your line of reasoning he should ignore anything you say as well. Either way your comment is 100% pointless.
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
> Someone else wrote, more gently, "While I feel you're spot on with most of your facts you've got gen x all wrong." They added: "My generation leads in workplace dissatisfaction and realized 2 decades ago that there was no more corporate loyalty." this was exactly my thought as I was reading through the article. Every generation has complaints about the next generation, one of the "faults" for my generation (Gen-X) was no workplace loyalty. But my generation watched what loyalty got our parents. If companies want loyalty they need to be loyal. > We're used to hearing 20-somethings complain about the state of corporate America today. But I didn't expect to receive such an outpouring of dismay and disillusionment from seasoned workplace veterans. I'd written the story for young people, as a defense of their decision to rebel against the notion that we owe our employers a debt of gratitude. The author is seriously missing a lot of historical context. the younger generations have moved even further in this regard, but this isn't an age-based phenomenon, it's a reaction to how businesses have acted. Used to someone would work for 40 years for the same company and retire with a pension. Nowadays you're more likely to be fired a year or two before your pension, if you're offered one at all.
addicted 3y ago
Is there anything Americans are not mad about? The rest of the world is not like this. Europeans are not any more mad about their employers than they already were. Asians are not any more mad at their employers than they already were (small exception might be the lying down movement in China, but I’m not sure how widespread that is, and for the most part Chinese dissent appears to have come from a radical retraction in economic prospects rather than being mad at employers). If there is something unique about employers that has changed why isn’t this extreme anger not being reflected elsewhere? Especially now since most of these companies are multinational and many probably employ more people in Europe and Asia and follow similar policies there than they do in the U.S. Americans are mad about everything. They’re mad about their commutes. They’re mad about their jobs. They’re mad about their neighbors. They’re mad about politics. They’re mad about homeless people. I think it’s actually time to consider that there’s something else that’s driving general dissatisfaction in the U.S. (maybe social media?) to try and understand whether this general dissatisfaction actually exists, and if so, which issues are attributable to this and which are issues Americans are mad about in of themselves.
- hasty_pudding 3y ago
  Americans have zero social safety net. A job is our shelter, out healthcare, our food, our everything. If you lose your job youre on the streets. So shit hits a lot harder here.
  - thegrim33 3y ago
    In 2022 the US spent 1.2 trillion dollars, or 19% of the US budget, on our safety net, spent on: EITC and child credits for people without income, SNAP (food subsidies), housing subsidies, SSI (subsidies for disabled/seniors), grants (subsidies for education), TANF (subsidies to transition people into a job), child nutrition programs, head start (preschool subsidies), job training, WIC (food subsidies), child care subsidies, lifeline (utility subsidies), phone subsidies, and medicaid (health care). Literally one fifth of our entire federal budget goes to providing safety nets. This doesn't include state-specific programs and charity. "A job is our shelter, out healthcare, our food, our everything." - The programs listed above cover every single one of these categories. If you can not pay for these things the government will give you money for them. https://federalsafetynet.com/welfare-budget/#:~:text=The%20welfare%20budget%20of%20the,a%20combined%20federal%20welfare%20budget https://federalsafetynet.com/welfare-budget/#:~:text=The%20w....
mgh2 3y ago
Hypothesis: degradation of human values https://trendguardian.medium.com/why-we-are-dispensable-7a577eba4f3e https://trendguardian.medium.com/why-we-are-dispensable-7a57...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
black_13 3y ago
[dead]
LennyHenrysNuts 3y ago
Gen X here, can confirm.
rsynnott 3y ago
Every generation makes basically the same complaints about the one before and the one after, and presumably has since the invention of complaining (we have written evidence of this going back a bit over two millennia, anyway). The idea that being discontent with your job was a specifically millennial issue was always absurd, and informed largely by the "moaning about other generations" phenomenon.

29 points by Multicomp 3y ago

I'd love to hear from the Boomers and Gen Xers around here if you agree? "Cynical millenial" is a common image and persona, but I'm curious for other perspectives, maybe find some hope beyond my own sense of precarity I get from reading this article. I don't think we're going to have another great resignation, not with all of these tech layoffs...right? At some point something has got to give.

thegrim33 3y ago
You're going to actually adjust your opinion on the issue off of what a single digit number of (supposedly real) people reply to you in response to your question? That's the data you're going to use to inform your opinion on an insanely large and complex and murky topic?
- effingwewt 3y ago
  This happens with any discussion. Are you implying no one should ever ask for or consider other people's opinions? On top of which following your line of reasoning he should ignore anything you say as well. Either way your comment is 100% pointless.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

> Someone else wrote, more gently, "While I feel you're spot on with most of your facts you've got gen x all wrong." They added: "My generation leads in workplace dissatisfaction and realized 2 decades ago that there was no more corporate loyalty." this was exactly my thought as I was reading through the article. Every generation has complaints about the next generation, one of the "faults" for my generation (Gen-X) was no workplace loyalty. But my generation watched what loyalty got our parents. If companies want loyalty they need to be loyal. > We're used to hearing 20-somethings complain about the state of corporate America today. But I didn't expect to receive such an outpouring of dismay and disillusionment from seasoned workplace veterans. I'd written the story for young people, as a defense of their decision to rebel against the notion that we owe our employers a debt of gratitude. The author is seriously missing a lot of historical context. the younger generations have moved even further in this regard, but this isn't an age-based phenomenon, it's a reaction to how businesses have acted. Used to someone would work for 40 years for the same company and retire with a pension. Nowadays you're more likely to be fired a year or two before your pension, if you're offered one at all.

addicted 3y ago

Is there anything Americans are not mad about? The rest of the world is not like this. Europeans are not any more mad about their employers than they already were. Asians are not any more mad at their employers than they already were (small exception might be the lying down movement in China, but I’m not sure how widespread that is, and for the most part Chinese dissent appears to have come from a radical retraction in economic prospects rather than being mad at employers). If there is something unique about employers that has changed why isn’t this extreme anger not being reflected elsewhere? Especially now since most of these companies are multinational and many probably employ more people in Europe and Asia and follow similar policies there than they do in the U.S. Americans are mad about everything. They’re mad about their commutes. They’re mad about their jobs. They’re mad about their neighbors. They’re mad about politics. They’re mad about homeless people. I think it’s actually time to consider that there’s something else that’s driving general dissatisfaction in the U.S. (maybe social media?) to try and understand whether this general dissatisfaction actually exists, and if so, which issues are attributable to this and which are issues Americans are mad about in of themselves.

hasty_pudding 3y ago
Americans have zero social safety net. A job is our shelter, out healthcare, our food, our everything. If you lose your job youre on the streets. So shit hits a lot harder here.
- thegrim33 3y ago
  In 2022 the US spent 1.2 trillion dollars, or 19% of the US budget, on our safety net, spent on: EITC and child credits for people without income, SNAP (food subsidies), housing subsidies, SSI (subsidies for disabled/seniors), grants (subsidies for education), TANF (subsidies to transition people into a job), child nutrition programs, head start (preschool subsidies), job training, WIC (food subsidies), child care subsidies, lifeline (utility subsidies), phone subsidies, and medicaid (health care). Literally one fifth of our entire federal budget goes to providing safety nets. This doesn't include state-specific programs and charity. "A job is our shelter, out healthcare, our food, our everything." - The programs listed above cover every single one of these categories. If you can not pay for these things the government will give you money for them. https://federalsafetynet.com/welfare-budget/#:~:text=The%20welfare%20budget%20of%20the,a%20combined%20federal%20welfare%20budget https://federalsafetynet.com/welfare-budget/#:~:text=The%20w....

mgh2 3y ago

Hypothesis: degradation of human values https://trendguardian.medium.com/why-we-are-dispensable-7a577eba4f3e https://trendguardian.medium.com/why-we-are-dispensable-7a57...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

black_13 3y ago

[dead]

LennyHenrysNuts 3y ago

Gen X here, can confirm.

rsynnott 3y ago

Every generation makes basically the same complaints about the one before and the one after, and presumably has since the invention of complaining (we have written evidence of this going back a bit over two millennia, anyway). The idea that being discontent with your job was a specifically millennial issue was always absurd, and informed largely by the "moaning about other generations" phenomenon.