Antiwork

[Mazderati]

And more pissing in bottles.

[dunfree]

And people leave Amazon for fastfood


it’ll never crack me up that dumb fucks don’t understand eat shit cash checks ends with stop eating shit. Sure some of them get that, but most of the morons spewing that hustler dog shit just got handed a paycheck. If someone told you to your face it’s your problem californigrown look in the mirror


oh, and shove this “start as a construction schlub automatically end up a supervisor” dogshit up the prosperity gospel ass. The whole fucking reason for a MD is the floor is higher dumbfucks. If you can’t grasp that maybe supervising union douches in overbid contracts is where the money flows from

[oldnew_guy]

Interesting conversation.

I think there’s a lot of both sides of this coin going on and it just comes down to personal experience regarding which side may be perceived as more prevalent (the “hard worker” vs. “quiet quitting” is what I’m getting at here).

First of all, take the shitty employee out of the equation right off the bat. They were always a useless pile of shit before quiet quitting was a thing. We have a real problem with retaining talented employees because employers are not adjusting to the paradigm shift that’s happening right now wrt work life balance.

What I’ve noticed with the younger workforce is that they are much more easily discouraged than those more seasoned workers. To some extent maybe it’s impatience and wanting it all now, but more so it seems like they are reading a bit too deeply into what their future might look like if they hold course.

I’m a bit shy of the millennial midpoint and just dipping my toes into a management level position. I think when people make it to that 5-7 year mark while busting their ass they have essentially accepted it as the norm, which they may not love, but for better or worse is what they expect those below them to experience as well. I’ve personally had a lot more of those thoughts bouncing around my head lately even though I fundamentally disagree with them.

As several others here I work in the construction industry for one of those large corporate deals, and can pretty assertively say that the general industry work model is an unsustainable fucking nightmare. I’m talking entry level field engineer through project executive. Over the last couple projects our turnover rate for field engineers has got to be higher than 75%. I should really crunch the numbers sometime.

The main problem in my eyes is there’s just no light at the end of the tunnel. Work life balance didn’t leave the chat, because it was never in the chat to begin with. Why is some college educated kid going to be busting their ass 12 hours a day essentially making a day laborers rate but locked into 8hrs, with the promise of someday becoming a project manager? Sure you’ll be making some decent coin, but probably working more hours… That same kid can go to industry/job xyz and make way better money, immediately, and work less hours to boot. To me that’s not laziness at all, it’s the move I probably should have made 5 years ago.

Don’t even get me started on vacation accruals, which assume an 8hr day, that no one has ever worked ever in this industry. Yea, hard work and perseverance got me to where I’m at, but it doesn’t hide the jaded very well. And the juice definitely ain’t worth the squeeze long term.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

LOL. I did a year and a half of 6 am arrivals and 10-12 hour days as a entry level construction field engineer, then got moved to a project with a 430 am departure from my house and an up to 2.5 hour commute in traffic home. I made it about 3 months before I pulled the pin and put my degree to better use making more money, working less, better retirement, home for dinner, etc etc. Throw in occasionally taking shit from some high school educated equipment operator making 1.5x and it’s frankly amazing they can even convince a college grad to even work those jobs. My boss couldn’t figure out why I was bailing.

What sucked was that I really liked building stuff. It was my dream job. Big toys, hard problems, figuring stuff out in the field, learning something new everyday. Like being a kid all over again in some ways.

This was like 10 years ago and the industry conference I was sent to one year was lamenting the lack of fresh meat and how the “throw the new guys in the deep end of the pool” training model wasn’t working very well.

[grabtindy]

After almost 14 years with the same organization I volunteered to be laid off today.

I went through the full lifecycle: started off as a family run marketing agency, perennial “best place to work”, turned software co, then acquired by private equity. Stuck it out for 4 years under PE management, but I’m done with the penny pinching and mortgaging long term strategy for short term ebitda.

Not sure I’m “antiwork”, but I definitely saw the effort/reward ratio spike and I’m not inclined to put in 70 hour weeks so some fund manager can get his bonus. Hoping to take a year or so working in service while my noncompete runs out then build something fun again in the industry I know.

[schuss]

After almost 14 years with the same organization I volunteered to be laid off today.

I went through the full lifecycle: started off as a family run marketing agency, perennial “best place to work”, turned software co, then acquired by private equity. Stuck it out for 4 years under PE management, but I’m done with the penny pinching and mortgaging long term strategy for short term ebitda.

Not sure I’m “antiwork”, but I definitely saw the effort/reward ratio spike and I’m not inclined to put in 70 hour weeks so some fund manager can get his bonus. Hoping to take a year or so working in service while my noncompete runs out then build something fun again in the industry I know.

Ding ding ding. The PE folks just wreck shit with no appreciable return for the market, just a small group. It's pure cancer in most cases.

[californiagrown]

But in my analogy he wasn't. He was faced with a demand for increased productivity without a commensurate increase in compensation due to his low level position. He wasn't asking to pick the pocket of his immediate supervisor.

In Catch 22 the number of missions required keeps getting raised. The similarity is no accident.


aka divide and conquer.

I only said Bezos so I could say juice. And the fact that literally nothing could make him poor is the point.

Looking at Jassy, the CEO, he makes over 210 million. Median pay is 33k. So a multiple just shy of 6500. That's a lot of juice to spare.

Mildly off-topic, but it seems like the salary of the executives on the pointy end is pretty fair. Its the bonuses that have massivly ballooned, right? So is the income inequality a byproduct of the massive stockmarket boom of the last 50 years and the rush to take every company public to cash in?

[schuss]

Mildly off-topic, but it seems like the salary of the executives on the pointy end is pretty fair. Its the bonuses that have massivly ballooned, right? So is the income inequality a byproduct of the massive stockmarket boom of the last 50 years and the rush to take every company public to cash in?

Most exec compensation is technically in bonus form. That said, the bar for bonuses is typically low, so it's basically salary.

[TahoeJ]

The PE folks just wreck shit with no appreciable return for the market, just a small group. It's pure cancer in most cases.

Man I really hope they don't take over the ski industry. Oh wait...

[east or bust]

LOL. I did a year and a half of 6 am arrivals and 10-12 hour days as a entry level construction field engineer, then got moved to a project with a 430 am departure from my house and an up to 2.5 hour commute in traffic home. I made it about 3 months before I pulled the pin and put my degree to better use making more money, working less, better retirement, home for dinner, etc etc. Throw in occasionally taking shit from some high school educated equipment operator making 1.5x and it’s frankly amazing they can even convince a college grad to even work those jobs. My boss couldn’t figure out why I was bailing.

What sucked was that I really liked building stuff. It was my dream job. Big toys, hard problems, figuring stuff out in the field, learning something new everyday. Like being a kid all over again in some ways.

This was like 10 years ago and the industry conference I was sent to one year was lamenting the lack of fresh meat and how the “throw the new guys in the deep end of the pool” training model wasn’t working very well.

Yea, it sounds like you know exactly what I'm talking about. I love the work too, on the best days there's nothing I'd rather be doing. Just can't make the same shitty hours work for the rest of my life. Time is money, one's gotta give. Either make an offer that can't be refused or figure out a way to deal with the burnout. One's more sustainable than the other but it'll take active involvement from corporate level management to make it happen.

Another thought I forgot to mention last night was a lot of this work life balance mentality amongst the younger generation probably comes from the tech industry and the way social media factors into society. 30-40 years ago the guy/gal slaving away was somewhat isolated from knowing what kind opportunities existed outside of their day to day grind. Today, kids grow up knowing what a Google office looks like and to some extent [falsely] think it's all going to be like that.

[Supermoon]

^^ I think the Google campus shit is actually part of the problem, and workers are realizing it. No, I don’t want to eat all my meals at work, or get a haircut and do my laundry there. Everyone knows it’s a scam to get people in their desks more. Don’t give me pizza parties, give me reasonable hours, good pay, and PTO

[MagnificentUnicorn]

Sure, sure. And that isn’t the point anyways, I guess. The point is that we’ll be more productive if we aren’t just spinning time at work for 40+/week. Fair point that nobody in construction is fucking off for X hours/day.

Have you ever worked in construction? The amount of fucking off for x hours a day is pretty high and it’s always been that way.

[east or bust]

Yea that may have been a bad example.

I know of a few people my age in tech sales (company unknown) that work remote, don’t kill themselves on hours, and make 30-40k more than I do. That work isn’t at all interesting to me but when you’re right out of school and wanting to make money fast it’s hard to turn your head the other way (talking about some of our young engineers who hit the eject button after a year or two).


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[Mustonen]

Have you ever worked in construction? The amount of fucking off for x hours a day is pretty high and it’s always been that way.

That was my point. It was sarcasm.

I believe the research, generally, alleges that productivity increases if work/life balance is addressed through fewer “work” hours because of increased engagement and motivation. I don’t fully understand why it wouldn’t be possible in construction (or almost any industry).

Supermoon made a good point that overtime in construction == $$$, so maybe the scales get rebalanced a bit, though at the expense of what? Has anybody really tried running a high functioning crew at 35 hours/week and pay them the same as if they all got 20 hours overtime? One of you construction overlords should try it and report back.

[dunfree]

^^ I think the Google campus shit is actually part of the problem, and workers are realizing it. No, I don’t want to eat all my meals at work, or get a haircut and do my laundry there. Everyone knows it’s a scam to get people in their desks more. Don’t give me pizza parties, give me reasonable hours, good pay, and PTO

”we are paying you to go to college” can be an attractive lifestyle proposition for people though. The funny part is management being shocked they imported campus politics too

[MagnificentUnicorn]

should we care about quiet quitters? It would seem like the same people following this path would have been the quiet time-wasters anyways? Probably not too many rising stars employing this strategery?

You sound like an asshole, typical manager. You don’t get it. It’s your ego and ambition that are your greatest obstacles.

[doebedoe]

^^ I think the Google campus shit is actually part of the problem, and workers are realizing it. No, I don’t want to eat all my meals at work, or get a haircut and do my laundry there. Everyone knows it’s a scam to get people in their desks more. Don’t give me pizza parties, give me reasonable hours, good pay, and PTO

And everyone knowing it's a scam is why Google doesn't rely on the model anymore. Google offices are still nice -- good gyms/yoga, good food and drink, lots of onsite perks. But most of their tech talent is in the office 2 days a week. And those 2 days are more for folks to enjoy the perks, a bit of whiteboarding, some solo work, and plenty of socializing. They have set PTO (not some bullshit unlimited schema) and reasonable work hours.

[Not DJSapp]

Has anybody really tried running a high functioning crew at 35 hours/week and pay them the same as if they all got 20 hours overtime? One of you construction overlords should try it and report back.

You talking field crews, or office engineers/staff? I can tell you from experience how both go.

Money isn't the magical motivator people think it is. Once your folks are paid enough to not be living paycheck to paycheck, the game changes

[MagnificentUnicorn]

That was my point. It was sarcasm.

I believe the research, generally, alleges that productivity increases if work/life balance is addressed through fewer “work” hours because of increased engagement and motivation. I don’t fully understand why it wouldn’t be possible in construction (or almost any industry).

Supermoon made a good point that overtime in construction == $$$, so maybe the scales get rebalanced a bit, though at the expense of what? Has anybody really tried running a high functioning crew at 35 hours/week and pay them the same as if they all got 20 hours overtime? One of you construction overlords should try it and report back.

A smaller independent contractor can do the 30 hours a week and pay for 40. We used to do it. We’d have a goal for the week and an agreement that if that was accomplished no matter what day it was we were done for the week. If we framed a 2000’ rambler and finished by Wednesday or Thursday we’d take the rest of the week off.

If you add in multiple subs and labor contracts for large commercial contractors it gets more complicated. A union tradesman with a good contract with set working hours and great wage is only going to work so hard. The only incentive to do more is overtime.

[Mustonen]

You talking field crews, or office engineers/staff? I can tell you from experience how both go.

Money isn't the magical motivator people think it is. Once your folks are paid enough to not be living paycheck to paycheck, the game changes

Agreed on that.

My point was to avoid the implied punishment of ratcheting everybody below 40. If you take somebody who is used to getting 20 hours OT every week and pull that rug out from under them, they might not react super well and that would probably negatively impact their motivation and engagement. I know because I’ve done it, albeit for different reasons.

The question on the table is whether or not we can have a similar level of productivity between the two scenarios in construction in the field - not the office geeks. You say you’ve done it. How did it go?

[Not DJSapp]

First example is similar to Magnificent Unicorn, we set daily production targets. Hit them and we're done and you get paid 8. Crew got it down to where they were done in 6.5 (18% faster). Which was nice until we ran into some problems further down the pipeline and it's a one way street on paying the crew. I blew my labor budget by 15%, which was our margin. Would we have made budget if I worked the crew 8's every day? Possibly, but the crew would have been a bit more tired so maybe they wouldn't have put as much work in place every day. In all honestly, I think that crew would have been happier working 50 hour weeks and getting the OT.

Second example was the steak streak. Weekly $200 steak dinner gift card for each member of the crew for beating the previous 2 week's production. That worked well, but motivation fell off toward the end as they got to the most efficient the job could be reasonably done for.

All of these incentives and paying more for fewer hours always sounds great, until there is a problem to work through.

Engineers and staff, their work product can't truly be accelerated and condensed. They are coordinating, planning, and meeting. Many jobs when we're in the thick of it can have over 20 hours a week of scheduled meetings. Not counting travel time to said meetings. We still need time to do all those things we talked about in the meetings. My biggest frustration in summer interns that take their 'your salary is based on a 40 hour week' to the letter. We're often dealing with situations in the field well after the 8 hour day is over and we're ready to dish out tasks to the team and they're long gone. Sure, they're interns and the expectation is low, but being the supervision level your entire existence is to provide for the crew building the work. If you're not there prepping everything for the before they arrive and cleaning up issues after they're gone, how can you justify your position? Supervision must be onsite as long or longer than the crew.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

First example is similar to Magnificent Unicorn, we set daily production targets. Hit them and we're done and you get paid 8. Crew got it down to where they were done in 6.5 (18% faster). Which was nice until we ran into some problems further down the pipeline and it's a one way street on paying the crew. I blew my labor budget by 15%, which was our margin. Would we have made budget if I worked the crew 8's every day? Possibly, but the crew would have been a bit more tired so maybe they wouldn't have put as much work in place every day. In all honestly, I think that crew would have been happier working 50 hour weeks and getting the OT.

Second example was the steak streak. Weekly $200 steak dinner gift card for each member of the crew for beating the previous 2 week's production. That worked well, but motivation fell off toward the end as they got to the most efficient the job could be reasonably done for.

All of these incentives and paying more for fewer hours always sounds great, until there is a problem to work through.

Engineers and staff, their work product can't truly be accelerated and condensed. They are coordinating, planning, and meeting. Many jobs when we're in the thick of it can have over 20 hours a week of scheduled meetings. Not counting travel time to said meetings. We still need time to do all those things we talked about in the meetings. My biggest frustration in summer interns that take their 'your salary is based on a 40 hour week' to the letter. We're often dealing with situations in the field well after the 8 hour day is over and we're ready to dish out tasks to the team and they're long gone. Sure, they're interns and the expectation is low, but being the supervision level your entire existence is to provide for the crew building the work. If you're not there prepping everything for the before they arrive and cleaning up issues after they're gone, how can you justify your position? Supervision must be onsite as long or longer than the crew.

Your last sentence is the most pertinent. Having been a supervisor, manager and director, the thing I don’t understand about a lot (most?) management people is they don’t understand that to be an effective manager you need to work more than the staff. It’s harder but the potential reward is greater and you have the responsibility. Most managers that I encounter don’t understand the longer hours and are usually trying to shift the responsibility to someone underneath them. You can delegate authority but not responsibility.

[Toadman]

Interesting conversation.

I think there’s a lot of both sides of this coin going on and it just comes down to personal experience regarding which side may be perceived as more prevalent (the “hard worker” vs. “quiet quitting” is what I’m getting at here).

First of all, take the shitty employee out of the equation right off the bat. They were always a useless pile of shit before quiet quitting was a thing. We have a real problem with retaining talented employees because employers are not adjusting to the paradigm shift that’s happening right now wrt work life balance.

What I’ve noticed with the younger workforce is that they are much more easily discouraged than those more seasoned workers. To some extent maybe it’s impatience and wanting it all now, but more so it seems like they are reading a bit too deeply into what their future might look like if they hold course.

The main problem in my eyes is there’s just no light at the end of the tunnel. Work life balance didn’t leave the chat, because it was never in the chat to begin with. Why is some college educated kid going to be busting their ass 12 hours a day essentially making a day laborers rate but locked into 8hrs, with the promise of someday becoming a project manager? Sure you’ll be making some decent coin, but probably working more hours… That same kid can go to industry/job xyz and make way better money, immediately, and work less hours to boot. To me that’s not laziness at all, it’s the move I probably should have made 5 years ago.

Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

Pretty good summation of the situation. Need an updated movie, 'Office Space'. It will be empty office cubicles and people doing the WFH thing. The VP's and C-Suits will just be aimlessly wandering around the office, not having a clue what's going on with the rank and file WFH worker bees and what they are actually doing. You know, like mowing their lawns, doing grocery shopping and buying junk on Amazon while complaining that they deserve a raise and a promotion because of the long hours they are working as they complete their job functions with about 2-3 total hours of actual work.

[schuss]

Also, if you're truly going the ops target route with efficiency incentives, that has to run to the top so senior management has to eat shit bonus wise when they fuck up sourcing, schedule or other bullshit. Good luck getting large scale buy in to that.

[J. Barron DeJong]

First example is similar to Magnificent Unicorn, we set daily production targets. Hit them and we're done and you get paid 8. Crew got it down to where they were done in 6.5 (18% faster). Which was nice until we ran into some problems further down the pipeline and it's a one way street on paying the crew. I blew my labor budget by 15%, which was our margin. Would we have made budget if I worked the crew 8's every day? Possibly, but the crew would have been a bit more tired so maybe they wouldn't have put as much work in place every day. In all honestly, I think that crew would have been happier working 50 hour weeks and getting the OT.

Second example was the steak streak. Weekly $200 steak dinner gift card for each member of the crew for beating the previous 2 week's production. That worked well, but motivation fell off toward the end as they got to the most efficient the job could be reasonably done for.

All of these incentives and paying more for fewer hours always sounds great, until there is a problem to work through.

Engineers and staff, their work product can't truly be accelerated and condensed. They are coordinating, planning, and meeting. Many jobs when we're in the thick of it can have over 20 hours a week of scheduled meetings. Not counting travel time to said meetings. We still need time to do all those things we talked about in the meetings. My biggest frustration in summer interns that take their 'your salary is based on a 40 hour week' to the letter. We're often dealing with situations in the field well after the 8 hour day is over and we're ready to dish out tasks to the team and they're long gone. Sure, they're interns and the expectation is low, but being the supervision level your entire existence is to provide for the crew building the work. If you're not there prepping everything for the before they arrive and cleaning up issues after they're gone, how can you justify your position? Supervision must be onsite as long or longer than the crew.

You have interns doing supervisory work?

[Ted Striker]

Mildly off-topic, but it seems like the salary of the executives on the pointy end is pretty fair. Its the bonuses that have massivly ballooned, right? So is the income inequality a byproduct of the massive stockmarket boom of the last 50 years and the rush to take every company public to cash in?

Yeah, by design. If you had to write one hundred million on line 1 of a 1040, you'd pay at least 37% right off the top. So the ultra-wealthy have an army of accountants, lobbyists, and maybe a little dark money, to make damn sure the owner class has access to tax dodges the plebs will never see.

Plus the government that allows market erosion will generally be replaced by one that knows which side of the bread the butter goes on.

And if all else fails, corporations receive a heaping pile of socialism, whereas worker bees get the wrong end of capitalism.


Heh... I didn't mean to go on a Bernie/Benny rant there, but I'm obviously sympathetic to the antiwork movement (though not part of it). It's extremely hard to be motivated when you perceive the system to be so rigged against you.