I was demoted 6 months ago. It was not for performance. Two levels above me simply didn’t like me.

Also, the assumption was that I would go back to my old job and work extra hard/produce like I used to produce, working extra hours for free like I used to, etc. None of that has happened.

For me to be made while, I calculated that I would work 170 hours less this year.

It has been great. I play dumb like I don’t know how to do things I used to do, but I do just enough above the average amount of work (and a step above my coworkers) so that they can’t say anything.

If anyone is wondering why I would do more than my coworkers, it’s because it’s a game: I used to be a workhorse and outperformed everyone by a mile. Now I do just enough to not be obvious. The best part? I’m good and efficient at my job. So I can get it done in 25 hours/week (max). I used to work 50 hours.

I work in Finance. Some back office bullshit. Today I just woke up feeling wrong.. I was staring at my screen like a zombie just clicking away when it hit me that I do not give a single fuck, and that I am quite literally wasting my life away. I walked into my boss’s office and quit and fuck it felt so good to walk out of that office knowing I won’t be here tomorrow. I would rather be poor, homeless, than do something that doesn’t matter, that makes me miserable, day in, day out. I might decide to just drive my car around the country until I run out of money, then cross that bridge.

Wish me luck and fuck corporate slavery.

We have this monthly safety incentive at the warehouse where everyone gets a $50 gift card if there are no reported injuries.

Last week a coworker cut his hand pretty badly on a damaged pallet. Our supervisor's first reaction wasn't asking if he was okay. He asked whether it really needed to go in the incident report because everyone would lose their bonus.

Coworkers are actually annoyed with the guy for reporting it. That pallet had been reported as damaged before and nobody did anything about it.

They've somehow managed to make workers blame each other for workplace injuries instead of fixing the actual problems.

I’m 29. “Your 20s is supposed to be your foundation” is a lie. I worked two jobs to pay off my debt(should’ve filed bankruptcy). I graduated college last year with a degree in computer engineering and I can’t find a job. I spent 5 years in school for this. I worked overnights at a warehouse and worked as a server to cater around my school schedule. I have nothing to show for it.

I have very little dating experience because most people socialize on the weekends and I was working. I missed out on a lot of social events. Now I work a job that doesn’t even require a degree. I have the same job prospects as an 18 year old with a H.S diploma.

I had an interview to work as a network engineer. Got into the final round(4 rounds of interviews), they chose another candidate. I don’t know I’m just speechless at this point. Unfortunately I see why younger GenZ would rather not try at all or they can just become streamers and try to generate some sort of income.

Our office introduced a new employee engagement system where managers track how much everyone contributes during meetings.

Apparently being quiet means you're not engaged enough, even if you have nothing relevant to add.

We had our weekly meeting today and it was ridiculous. People kept repeating what others had already said, asking questions they knew the answers to and adding random comments just to get noticed.

A meeting that normally takes 20 minutes lasted almost an hour.

My manager called it one of our most productive meetings yet. I genuinely don't know what these people are smoking.

I have what might be the longest break I've had in several years coming up, and I'm legit getting a little depressed about it because it's only a week and a half. I feel like I need at least 2 months off right now just to recuperate, but all I get is a week and a half. We needed a couple months off to recuperate when we were kids in school, but now that we're adults and work more and have less energy, we stop being able to do that?! What sense does that make? And it seems like that's normal. Like, nobody just takes a month or two off unless they're between jobs, from what I can tell. Like, what the actual fuck do you mean I have to do this almost every week until I retire, if I'm even able to do that?! How is that okay?! How does anybody do this?

So I'm wondering, how do you guys cope with that? How do you manage the burnout? Or do you find ways to take that time for yourselves anyway? Are there careers where taking a month or two off every year or two is normal? If so, what are they?

I'm just losing my mind over this, like what the fuck, this shouldn't be normal

I've been thinking about this lately and it's really took hold of my mindset and is preventing me from enjoying much, or focusing at work.

Life is this deep thing with infinite possibilities. There is so much to be deeply lived. Relationships, community, love, philosophy, adventure, spirituality - so many things to explore and experience. Real things.

Yet the marrow of our existence, the heart of the human experience, seems so absent in modern society. Somehow, for some reason, we've organized ourselves into a life involving 8+ hours of mundane, detached, and ontologically useless work that is a requirement for life. We all are equal on this Earth. Why must I earn my keep to buy back the life, buy back the fruits of the Earth, that I too deserve as much as anyone else?

I'm literally going to spend more time at some fundamentally useless job than I will with my children, spouse, friends. I will never be able to experience a connected, consistently fruitful life. Everything outside of work feels like an antipode to a void of meaning within, or a cure to a symptom - not an actual experience deeply lived. The only way I can get these feelings nowadays is through mindless internet consumption. The only way I can feel what it's like to have purpose and meaning is by reading a fucking book with a character that does. I can only feel what it's like to have frequent, fruitful social interaction by watching some fucking show or some shit.

I get that I can pick up a hobby or do this or do that, but that doesn't change the fundamental structure of this life. That's just a band aid fix. And somehow, knowing I have to go to work tomorrow, and knowing this will not change for 40+ years, prevents me from enjoying the moment. Someone will say that the fact these moments (ones enjoyed, a book in the park, a nice coffee, a nice conversation with a friend, a good bike ride) are few makes them special. I disagree. I like to take my time with life. I wish I could stay in those moments as long as I'd like, to really enjoy them. Knowing they'll end poisons my present experience.

And just, the infrequency of it all. There's no real life being lived anymore. No communities being built, no problems being solved, no existential work being done. I want to work to build a community. I want to work for the betterment of the people around me. And that's not work, that's just life.

I'm writing this as I'm in my second internship. I haven't even been working full time yet! Sure it's not long working, but if this is what adult life is like, fuck man. It just feels like there's no life to be lived, and if there is, it's so few and far between, and so impermanent, that I can't help but sour those moments with that knowledge. I want my days to actually contain my life. I don't want to have to read a book or watch a film to feel something. I want to live it.

I enjoyed playing some sports this Saturday. This Sunday I spent a few hours at the park reading, journaling, enjoying the weather. It was very nice. But are you seriously going to tell me I only get to experience that, real life, for a few hours a week? I don't want to live like this. Like fuck man, by the time I get home from work, work out, cook, eat, it's already pitch black outside.

So if anyone has struggled with similar thoughts and has made any conclusions please share.

People making $100k more than me boasting about how they use AI for every email so that they don’t sound rude—what happened to social skills? Using AI for employee rankings…where did any of us consent to that? “Just use AI” whenever there’s a complex issue to be discussed… why?

It’s so distracting and time consuming and I don’t get it whatsoever. It’s also insulting.

Also… how do they reconcile being so reliant* on AI for everything with the continued RTO mandates. Like, are we in the future or not? Clowns..

THAT'S IT. YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!!!! THANK YOU TO EVERYONE HERE WHO GAVE SOMEONE A THUMBS UP OR ANYTHING. WHEREVER YOU FROM, YOU ARE A PART OF THIS! THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!

God forbid someone is sitting around without work to do for a week or so. Every time I get a notification saying someone is ‘checking up’ on me I want to tell them to fuck off and let me try and enjoy the first bit of peace I’ve had in ages!

Why can’t we all get together and unite to fix this? I’m sure everyone is starting to understand this. We all are starting to realize the effects of a K shaped economy and unequal levels of standards. Even people in the upper middle class that I know of are struggling with everyday living.

I reported chronic migraines diagnosis last year, I find it harder to concentrate now but since then I have been pulled a few times about not doing enough work, yet they don't give me any actual metrics to go by?

This is so frustrating.

"Marx explained that social thinking changes under the impact of an objective crisis. And that's why many of you are in the room today." - from David North's lecture at Wayne State University on October 20.

I see a lot of my fellow millennials working themselves to death in hopes of promotions and appraisals. Some of them also try to have a successful "family", they also try to squeeze in gym time or other workouts.

So when do they sit down and think about the state of things? never!

This I feel was the design of end stage cataclysm, they didnt start out like this but they've slowly tightened the grip, especially tight in the past 1.5 decades.

This is especially true for women, they're expected to maintain a certain weight and body, as prescribed by beauty conglomerates, directly and indirectly. So they just eat very less and work themselves to death, with housework and workouts apart from the regular work that all genders have to do to sustain themselves.

Idk if there is a feasible solution to this problem or not but I personally opt out, I don't want a "family", if it means kids, I don't want a hot body etc., I just give up. Not ideal but this is my damage control.

I got hired at a retail job earlier this month to get back on my feet after a super rough stretch ever since a July car accident (someone ran into me) caused a HORRIBLE domino effect of being stuck at home ( I’m talking over 2 months stuck home) no income, super late bills, and more annoying stuff that will take to long to explain it all.

I completed most of the onboarding, but due to my situation, I didn't have a physical ID and at some point within the past year I had lost my Social Security card. I got a new ID on Tuesday the 20th and ordered a replacement Social Security card on Thursday the 22nd. Legally, employers are required to accept the official Social Security card receipt as a valid List C document for I-9 Documentation forthe first 90 days of employment. Not sometimes, not maybe, LEGALLY!

I waited all weekend for the store manager to return from vacation today so he could finish entering me into the system (my ID was entered before the weekend started). One weird thing he never gave me a schedule at any point he said I need to be fully in the system first to get a schedule. When I called him an hour ago to tell him I have my official social security card replacement “Reciept” he tells me, “We had to terminate you." He claimed it was due to federal law and a missed system deadline.

Shit is straight cap🧢so many red flags. The other employees and managers including the store manager himself made it seem like he was the only person who could enter me into the system, yet he was completely unreachable on vacation this weekend (not my problem) all the way until today. Also he left no other managers to atleast process my documents while he was gone. Also the email address he gave me on Thursday to send my receipt bounced back as a invalid email address💀basically while he was gone for “vacation” this weekend he let my onboarding profile time out while he was away. Then used some shit excuse like I took too long.

He told me I have to reapply…The absolute dumbest thing I’ve ever heard why the fuck would I reapply? Not to mention for a company this big across the U.S there’s an awful lot of red flags, the offer letter had no pay rate, no employment status or anything that normal offer letters should have. Also i actually had to ask him what the pay rate was because it was not listed on the indeed job posting and no pay rate listed in the offer letter or any of the onboarding emails, I needed money severely and desperately so I took the first job that wanted to hire me.

"Yes here you can apply online...but also show up with your Resume and then we MIGHT call you for an interview at a later date"

Lol what? I'm sorry but there's no way in hell I'm driving an hour just to hand over the same thing I just sent you when applying online unless it's an interview. Like, have you SEEN gas price? Absolutely not! 🤪

He is about to get a significant amount of money, I hate my office job in Ireland and we are thinking of just taking a year off to travel.

He is 42M I a 35F when will we ever get this opportunity again? The longest we get off together at a time is one week.

Fuck corporate life

There's no job description or actual work. Am I judging too soon?

I've been unemployed for a while and have attended numerous interviews, but nothing worked out until I finally received an offer.

For context, I previously worked for a company that negatively affected my health. Since then, I've been looking for a stable job with a healthy working environment, opportunities for growth, and a manageable workload.

The interview for my current position went well, and I was optimistic about joining. However, things changed once I started working.

It turns out there's no proper job description, no clearly defined responsibilities, and barely any work to do.

On my first day, the manager told me they hadn't decided where to place me or which responsibilities to assign me yet.

On my second day, he mentioned that 90% of employees who leave during their probation period do so because of the company rather than the employees. He also described how employees end up scrolling on their phones all day because they have nothing to do.

It's beeb iver 2 weeks, trying to find tasks wherever I can and make myself useful. However, the hours pass incredibly slowly, and I'm starting to question whether I made the right decision.

On one hand, I'm grateful to finally have a job after being unemployed for so long. Having an income at the end of the month is important to me.

On the other hand, I want to develop my skills, gain experience, and progress in my career. Sitting around without clear responsibilities or direction is not what I had in mind.

I understand that it might take time for a company to organise a new employee's responsibilities, particularly in a small business. However, the lack of structure and my manager's comments about previous employees leaving during probation are making me uneasy.

I don't want to leave another job prematurely, but I also don't want to ignore potential red flags and end up in another unhealthy work environment.

Just need do put billionaires on that sammich.

So lately I've been fed posts across many different subs by the algorithm that are all trying really hard to make the riots going on in multiple countries look evil. I've checked out the profiles posting these and they're obvious propoganda bots. I'm pretty sure a bunch of the commenters are too. They really don't want the americans to get any ideas it seems.

But what makes me post about this to this sub and not r/conspiracy is that when I commented on a post about employees defending what looked like a BestBuy a few people got on my case. I basically said that I'm only paid half the living wage and that if I were in their situation I'd go on break in a safe place. It seemed to bewilder some of the people in the sub that I wouldn't risk my life for my employers.

So I was wondering, am I the weird one? Would you risk your life to defend your place of work? I suspect I already know the answer considering the name of this sub. What would you do if your job was being looted?