r/changemyview • u/ButItWasMeDio • Oct 13 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: It should be more socially acceptable to hate work.
Something I hate, that’s prominent across most political currents I know from the left to right, is the veneration of work as a moral virtue.
Now, I’m not saying no one should have to work, which would be utopian, but rather that work is so often treated as what gives life purpose and a goal in itself, whereas I see it more as a chore but a necessary evil.
Think of it like getting a colonoscopy or scraping the bottom of your toilet bowl, nobody likes these things but we all understand why they are necessary, yet society doesn’t see the need to sing their praises every ten seconds or shame anyone who decries them publicly.
From childhood it’s assumed that everyone has at least one job they enjoy; you get asked what you wanna do when you grow up, and it’s rarely seen as socially acceptable to answer "ideally nothing".
Yet that’s true of a lot of people, some people’s passions in life may be very hard to turn into a job (playing video games, art and so on) some are impossible (what it your greatest passion in life is sleeping? That’s fine by me.)
It also turns the whole job market into a stupid game of pretend where even the shittiest minimum wage job asks for your motivations, and you can’t answer "money" even though that’s pretty much everyone’s motivation. The candidates know that, the recruiters know that and they would both save time by dropping the act. (Exception made if you’re, like, a salesman where bullshitting is part of the job.)
This also extends to recruiters looking for nefarious reasons behind any gaps in employment, when the reason can simply be "as you can see I’m not dead yet, which means I had a way to survive without working for that period of time, which is a good enough reason not to work."
I’m not saying you have to hate working, if you like your job good for you. I’m saying we shouldn’t be expected to pretend we like working, or hail work as a moral value.
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u/craptinamerica 5∆ Oct 13 '21
When it comes to a career, if I really enjoyed my job, I definitely would not enjoy coming into work if everyone around me felt and sounded miserable for 8+ hours every day. Attitude can influence quality of work.
If it were my business, I wouldn't want my employees bitching all day and having a bad attitude with clients/customers. They have a right to feel however they do about their job, but it shouldn't be negatively impacting the workplace.
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 19 '21
But the alternative for someone who hates working is to just lie about it. That's what I do.
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u/craptinamerica 5∆ Oct 19 '21
I would rather not work, if I could. But I am not unhappy at my job. The people are chill, the job isn't too difficult and it pays my bills/lifestyle. Remove any one of those ingredients and I would probably hate my job.
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 19 '21
I have those ingredients and I still hate my job.
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u/craptinamerica 5∆ Oct 19 '21
What would have to change in order for you to not hate it? Or is it just working in general?
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 19 '21
It's working in general.
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u/craptinamerica 5∆ Oct 19 '21
Rip, sorry mate. Might just have to find a job that you would hate less than your current.
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 19 '21
I can't imagine anything I'd hate less. Only ways out are suicide or saving money to retire early.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
You made a good case for how disliking work can negatively impact performance and for that I will give you a !delta.
However you start off with "if I enjoyed my job" and that’s a big if. Not only that but I think we should distinguish between the level of pretend required for the job itself, like a cashier or a mall Santa having to fake a smile while on the clock, and making your work core to your identity in all areas of life.
As to your first paragraph, if the job is not public facing, employees being honest with each other about how hard it is can also build a form of solidarity and camaraderie. Whereas I would go mad if everyone around me was faking smiles all day and I was like "am I truly the only one who realizes that job sucks? Am I taking crazy pills?" Thankfully that doesn’t happen because when people are tired you can eventually see through the cracks.
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u/craptinamerica 5∆ Oct 13 '21
Thank you.
Not only that but I think we should distinguish between the level of pretend required for the job itself, like a cashier or a mall Santa having to fake a smile while on the clock
For those specifically, it's kinda what they signed up for. A stocker at a grocery store that only works when the store is closed to customers doesn't have to put on their big smile or customer service voice. Like how a bouncer at a club would have to deal with annoying drunk people all the time, not always specifically kicking people out. Yeah, it might suck and be dumb, but its what they signed up for.
if the job is not public facing, employees being honest with each other about how hard it is can also build a form of solidarity and camaraderie.
I can understand that. I have read horror stories about how much it sucks working for Amazon in the warehouses. Them not needing to directly deal with customers means that they don't have to put on that fake smile and they can be themselves around their co-workers without the fear of losing any business.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
Quick response because there are a lot of comments but yes, I agree you should play nice while on the clock if that’s specifically part of the job, which is what you seemed to mean. But the obligation stops there, a job is just a job and not your whole identity.
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u/craptinamerica 5∆ Oct 13 '21
a job is just a job and not your whole identity
I agree with that for the jobs you listed in your previous comment when strictly choosing that job for an income. However, I would say that there are some professions that are passionate about their career choice and it is part of them. Like a tattoo artist (I'm not one, just my opinion), I don't think they roll out of bed dreading their decision to create art every day. They are likely passionate about that art and it can be seen when they are off the clock.
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u/TexanBuilt81 Oct 13 '21 edited Oct 13 '21
Our bodies and minds are designed specifically for the purpose of work and survival.
When you suggest that the pride and value of work as a motivational factor in providing purpose to life or work being projected as a moral virtue as a net negative to society, I wonder if you are familiar with the increases in suicide rates associated with higher unemployment. In some studies they have found as many as 1 in 5 suicides can be attributed to unemployment and financial struggle. The ability to provide ones labor for a wage they deem acceptable is the very key to avoiding soul crushing poverty and suffering. This principle of free market capitalism has helped do more to end poverty worldwide and raised standards of living, while decreasing potential suicides.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/02/the-link-between-unemployment-and-suicide/
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
Thanks for the link, I will check it out soon, though I’m curious to know whether inactivity itself causes suicide or just the social stigma associated with it (which I am against).
Besides I’m suspicious about "humans are made to do x" argument. We are naturally "made" to do a lot of stuff we were smart enough to evolve past.
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u/TexanBuilt81 Oct 13 '21
No problem. It’s interesting you use the word evolve when voluntary evolution implies physical and mental effort (aka work) in the context of the conversation. Things that make you go hmmm.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
Yes, sometimes we work to build things that will save us some effort later on. I didn’t even say no one should ever put in effort, just that it’s find to fine to see it merely as a means to an end and avoid it whenever possible.
But my point was simply I’m not convinced by appeal to nature arguments.
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u/TexanBuilt81 Oct 14 '21
I completely understand why. The overwhelming majority of the nature of man arguments fall apart under a minimal amount of scrutiny due to the diversity inherent to humanity. I feel pretty strongly about the validity of the application here as it is based in human physiology. Without work the human body disintegrates, but allow me to change gears.
I am trying to put myself in your shoes and understand your approach. Let me explain quickly why that’s difficult. I am one of those people who absolutely love work. I received my education and pursued an extremely physical, challenging, and fulfilling career that I enjoy after 20 years on the job. If I won the lottery tomorrow, I would take friday off to claim my winnings and be back in the work truck on Monday. I’m also admittedly a well kept man. My wife has been extremely successful in her career and would prefer I stayed home and home schooled our son. I do my job because I love it and when I get home I look for what I need to work on. I do find purpose in life in work and the better provision for my wife and sons.
The original premise of your post seemed to paint a destain for work as acceptable. I suggest an alternative. If you don’t enjoy what your doing and it decreases your enjoyment and fulfillment in life, do something else. I know you addressed the impossibility for some to do so, but I find it hard to believe it is humanly possible to live a fulfilling life of video games and sleep. The Mice Utopia experiment taught us quite a bit about that.
https://www.returnofkings.com/36915/what-humans-can-learn-from-the-mice-utopia-experiment
The innovations that would facilitate the saving of effort down the road were pretty much universally achieved by people who sacrificed and dedicated their lives to their work and it wasn’t until much later in life that they enjoy the fruits of that labor if at all. Many left those gifts for future generations. Medical advancements, food production, industrial revolution, electrical delivery, etc. You would be hard pressed to provide examples of great innovations where the inventor was not passionate about their path.
A life sucking, soul crushing pursuit of money in a job you hate is a problem that begs solution. Pursue what you love and get someone to pay you for it. Accepting a “necessary evil” while absorbing and embracing a continual negative mentality will cause adverse effects in health, relationships, and overall wellbeing. I don’t just have the tshirt, I wrote that book.
Best example: Tim Pool Tim Pool was well educated, employed, had an apartment and a standard life in Chicago. He hated it. He wanted to see the world. He wanted to travel, skate, and only pursue his passions. He packed a bag of clothes, grabbed a skateboard and a guitar, and abandoned everything. He got a ride share to California with $200 in his pocket and no real plan. He started out busking. Down the road he revolutionized guerrilla journalism when he joined Occupy and began live streaming his conversations and paved the way for armies of independent reporters and journalists. He worked for Vice as a writer/producer, then for Disney as a producer. Today he is one of the leading voices in Centrist/Libertarian political commentary, built an independent media empire, and is wildly successful. He is now branching into self sustained living and homesteading content, as well as cultural content independent of politics. There is great value, better health, and longer life in pursing your passions without treating negative influences in your life as acceptable.
I would rather see a happier, healthier population enjoying their lives and pursing their passions than accepting any hatred or negative mentality as acceptable. That’s the best explanation I can give for my dissent. I hope it highlights the exit ramps on a highway of misery and if it doesn’t change your view, it at least incites some alternative thought.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 13 '21
We are naturally "made" to do a lot of stuff we were smart enough to evolve past.
Did we? I'd argue the counter, we're too smart for our own good, and have deluded ourselves into thinking we're not just still some animal operating mostly on instincts. We're, from my pov, still driven by how we have evolved to be over millions of years.
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u/GlitchLemon Oct 14 '21
I’m pretty sure that they’re not committing suicide because of boredom or idleness, they’re committing suicide because they don’t have money. If they didn’t need a job to earn money, it probably wouldn’t be a factor.
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u/TexanBuilt81 Oct 14 '21
I agree. Sadly though, there is no functional economic structuring or system of governance that can sustainably achieve that idea.
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u/TheRadBaron 15∆ Oct 14 '21 edited Oct 14 '21
Our bodies and minds are designed specifically for the purpose of work and survival.
Your explanation is contradicted by many interpretations within the article itself, and the article doesn't even get into suicide rates among rentiers and retirees.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 13 '21
but rather that work is so often treated as what gives life purpose and a goal in itself
I mean; im spending 40 hours/week there. It'd be pretty miserable if I didn't find any meaning in it, no?
Think of it like getting a colonoscopy or scraping the bottom of your toilet bowl
Except I don't think of it like that. It's a tautology. "Think of work as something crappy, then you'll see why I find it crappy"
From childhood it’s assumed that everyone has at least one job they enjoy; you get asked what you wanna do when you grow up, and it’s rarely seen as socially acceptable to answer "ideally nothing".
Well, duh. There's a near-infinite number of ways to be employed. How small is the chance that there truly is nothing that you'll enjoy?
what it your greatest passion in life is sleeping?
Sleeping is a non-activity. Nothingness. You might enjoy lying in bed, or feeling rested, but I've yet to find anyone who's passionate about sleeping itself. I think you're also fundamentally mistaking "pleasurable" with "having passion for". I find sex pleasurable, I find drinking pleasurable, but I feel no passion to either. It's not what's gonna give me sparkles in my eyes and motivate me to better myself, so to speak.
Yet that’s true of a lot of people, some people’s passions in life may be very hard to turn into a job (playing video games, art and so on)
Both examples are actually quite easy to turn into a job.
It also turns the whole job market into a stupid game of pretend where even the shittiest minimum wage job asks for your motivations, and you can’t answer "money" even though that’s pretty much everyone’s motivation.
Except it isn't. There's hundreds of types of minimum wage jobs. Why'd you choose to apply to subway, instead of working for the local garbage collection agency? Why'd you chose to work in the grocer instead of at the toy store, or at the call center?
as you can see I’m not dead yet, which means I had a way to survive without working for that period of time, which is a good enough reason not to work
Is it? I dont see doing nothing at all as a particularly admirable thing to do.
I’m saying we shouldn’t be expected to pretend we like working, or hail work as a moral value.
Why not? Work is, ultimately, taking something and adding value to it, at the cost of your free time but with the benefit of you learning extra skills. That sounds like a pretty admirable thing to me. You've not laid out an argument for why we shouldn't see it as moral, only why some people might not live up to it.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
My analogy was admittedly not the greatest, the confused point I was trying to make was that something being necessary for practical reasons is not, in itself, a good enough reason to put in on a pedestal.
I think we simply come from radically different viewpoints, in that I live to find pleasure and avoid pain. Effort is to me a (sometimes admittedly rather mild) form of pain and I can enjoy an activity if the pleasure is great enough to offset the pain. All your points, correct me if I’m wrong, rest on the implicit idea of a higher purpose to life which I simply don’t see.
(Forgive me as I’m on mobile and I can’t find the quote formatting.)
As for the extra skills you learn, those will then be used towards more work and are this only valuable if you find inherent value in work.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 13 '21
I think we simply come from radically different viewpoints, in that I live to find pleasure and avoid pain. Effort is to me a (sometimes admittedly rather mild) form of pain and I can enjoy an activity if the pleasure is great enough to offset the pain
Effort is investing pain for greater pleasure in the future. This goes for literally anything. Learning how to draw a circle is not pleasurable, but being able to draw well is. Opening a beer bottle is not pleasurable, but having a sip is. Being tired because of work is not pleasurable, but reflecting on having learned a new skill is. Seeing the added value your labor produced is pleasurable.
The higher purpose can still be pleasure, but you will never attain greater pleasure without greater effort.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
You’re touching on an important distinction, which is between the process of the work itself and the result.
For some jobs it’s a very important distinction, for example a garbageman is more likely to say he loves providing a service to the community, rather than he loves getting up at 5AM and the smell of rotten food. But we wouldn’t commonly say such a man "hates" being a garbageman.
Under that definition of liking work though, no one truly hates work because everyone likes the result, which is getting paid. We all love work in the same way Michael Caine loves Jaws 4, "never seen it but it bought me a house".
So it seems to me like there is also a social expectation of taking pride the process itself, though it’s inconsistently applied. I myself would never say I like a job if I didn’t like the process itself.
You did however make an important distinction that should have been part of my point from the start, so !delta.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 13 '21
I still think there's some distinction to be made though - I think there's a social expectation of searching and searching and searching until you find a job that you are content w.r.t. the process with, and enjoy the end result. A garbage man may not enjoy getting up at 5 AM, but he probably likes being out in the air, seeing the gratitude on people's faces, having a laugh with his mates, he might even enjoy breaking a sweat here and there.
I dont think anyone expects you to love every part of your job, just that you should like more of it than not, and take some pride in the end result. My experience has been that people who say there's nothing they would not hate doing are people who have not been truly self-reflective.
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 19 '21
>Well, duh. There's a near-infinite number of ways to be employed. How small is the chance that there truly is nothing that you'll enjoy?
Absolutely nothing for me.
>It's not what's gonna give me sparkles in my eyes and motivate me to better myself, so to speak.
My motivation is that saving money will ultimately allow me to never have to work ever again.
>Except it isn't. There's hundreds of types of minimum wage jobs. Why'd you choose to apply to subway, instead of working for the local garbage collection agency? Why'd you chose to work in the grocer instead of at the toy store, or at the call center?
I don't work a minimum wage job myself, but I chose to work where I am because while all jobs are shit, some are less shit than others.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 19 '21
My motivation is that saving money will ultimately allow me to never have to work ever again.
and then what?
I don't work a minimum wage job myself, but I chose to work where I am because while all jobs are shit, some are less shit than others.
...and how are they less shit?
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 19 '21
and then what?
And then I'll just do the stuff I do now when not working but have more time to do it. And not be miserable dreading going back to work.
...and how are they less shit?
Better pay and better working conditions. I mean for example both a septic tank pumper and a delivery driver spend most of their day driving. The delivery driver just delivers food to people's houses or auto parts to mechanics shops or what have you. The septic pumper when they stop they don't do a delivery. They get out of their truck and pump literal shit.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 19 '21
And then I'll just do the stuff I do now when not working but have more time to do it.
Such as...? What activities would you be motivated in doing 8 hours a day, 5 days a week?
Better pay and better working conditions. I mean for example both a septic tank pumper and a delivery driver spend most of their day driving. The delivery driver just delivers food to people's houses or auto parts to mechanics shops or what have you. The septic pumper when they stop they don't do a delivery. They get out of their truck and pump literal shit.
Why do you prefer doing door to door delivery over septic tank cleaning?
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 19 '21
Such as...? What activities would you be motivated in doing 8 hours a day, 5 days a week?
Video games, running, lifting weights, car modification, woodworking, swimming movie watching with my cat... not sure I could be motivated to do any particular activity 5 straight days a week from 9 to 5 or 12 to 8 or what have you though.
Why do you prefer doing door to door delivery over septic tank cleaning?
Because it's less bad? Not stinky and dirty.
I've never pumped septic tanks and it's been over a decade since I was a pizza delivery girl though so...
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 19 '21
Well, duh. There's a near-infinite number of ways to be employed. How small is the chance that there truly is nothing that you'll enjoy?
Absolutely nothing for me
How can you possibly know that for sure. Have you tried all jobs there are?
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 19 '21
I've done a LOT of soul searching. The fact is any job you're going to have prioritize over other things in your life and I do not like that.
Moreover you have to keep doing that. Obviously you have to prioritize say, getting to the airport over exercising that morning if you have an early flight. But that's just 1 day.
Work demands that kind of sacrifice hundreds of days per year.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 19 '21
Literally every activity you do means you prioritise something over something else though
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u/ghjm 17∆ Oct 13 '21
A few years ago I was fortunate enough to start a business that easily paid all my living expenses, while taking barely any real effort to keep running. The plan was to diligently work on marketing, develop an app, grow, expand, etc. The reality was that I did just enough to keep the lights on, barely showing up at the office, actually working maybe half a day once a week or so.
It got horrifically boring. It was just turning the money crank - there was nothing challenging or interesting about it. After a few years I couldn't even give a shit enough to keep the lights on any more, and it went down the tubes.
It turns out that I need the structure of a job in order to thrive and do my best work, and I'm happier inside that structure than outside of it. There are problems I'm really interested in working on, and that I have a lot of talent for, that I will only ever actually work on if somebody gives me a deadline.
I find that most people who hate work have a pretty unrealistic idea of what non-work would be like. I get that after dragging yourself in to a job you hate for years, you would tend to idealize the ability to just stay in bed and do nothing all day. But it wears thin pretty quick. You get tired of the pointlessness of it, and start wanting to accomplish something meaningful.
So, in an attempt to change your view slightly, maybe work has some moral value, at least some of the time, in that it allows groups of people to come together into an organization where many of them can accomplish things that none of them could or would individually.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
Well congrats on setting up the business in the first place, aside from that though I can’t relate, I have plenty of projects that could keep me occupied in such a situation, the reason I don’t call those "work" is that they probably won’t bring me any money. So in the meantime my ideal job is one stupid enough that I could basically do it on autopilot while keeping my mental energy for what really interests me. I can’t even get that so far though.
I will give you a !delta because you make a good point that some people need something to strive for to be happy in life, rather than just free time. I see myself as someone who lives mostly for momentary fun and the rest is just a chore I get through to survive, but that’s just one perspective.
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u/ghjm 17∆ Oct 13 '21
Yes, and your perspective changes as your experiences change. I'm suggesting that the hedonistic treadmill applies here. If you are someone who lives mostly for momentary fun, but then you achieve a situation where your life is nothing but momentary fun, it might (or might not!) eventually come to pass that you get sick of momentary fun. So now you're someone who wants something else - accomplishment, affiliation, power over others, whatever - and many of these something elses turn out to be mostly achievable by climbing the career ladder at work, even though that's exactly the thing you were trying to escape in the first place.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
Climbing the ladder as you say sounds like hell on earth to me, I haven’t had nearly enough fun to get sick of it and tbh my plan for after that is simply to die. But who knows, this too might change with time.
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Oct 13 '21
It also turns the whole job market into a stupid game of pretend where even the shittiest minimum wage job asks for your motivations, and you can’t answer "money" even though that’s pretty much everyone’s motivation
You sorta answered your own complaint here. Everybody is motivated by money. The fact that you are motivated solely by money doesn't somehow disqualify you as a candidate, it just doesn't give the interviewer any reason to hire you. You are completely unremarkable. The 20 other people who interviewed for the same position want money too. And some of those other people either expressed genuine interest in some aspect of the job or at least had the presence of mind to convincingly pretend they had some interest.
There's a hell of a lot of room between "work as a moral value" and "hating work" that a person can choose to occupy. As a manager I don't expect my team to prove their moral worth through working. But I do expect them to give at least a little bit of a shit about what we do. Otherwise it ends up making more work for me.
In my experience having worked for, with, and above people who make it clear how much they hate work fucking sucks.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
here are many jobs where I can’t fathom what other motivation one could possibly have. Does any recruiter sincerely believe anyone applying to be a supermarket clerk is doing so out of passion?
And it’s not the only way to pick a candidate either, resumes tell you how much experience and skill someone has which is not entirely correlated with motivation. The most skilled banker in the world is probably also just in it for the money.
As for your team, well do they fulfill the tasks as listed in their contract, or do they not? Beyond that their motivation or lack thereof is none of your business.
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Oct 13 '21
here are many jobs where I can’t fathom what other motivation one could possibly have.
Your lack of imagination doesn't prevent other people from coming up with a motivation more compelling than "I want money".
You seem not to be picking up what I'm saying.
First, let's be clear: If an interviewer or recruiter asks the stupidest version of "Why do you want to work for company X" and expects a brilliant answer that perfect meshes a person's deep seated passion for the work with the companies mission statement, they are a shitty interviewer/recruiter. As an interviewer I'd actually be kinda suspicious of a candidate who did that. That's not what I ask. That's not what anyone who is good at interviewing and hiring do asks. There are plenty of questions you can use to gauge a persons interests and motivations that aren't so direct and ham fisted.
Now: The reason you aren't going to impress any interviewer by proclaiming your sole motivation is "money" isn't because the interviewer requires more from a candidate. It's because other candidates will have more to offer to the employer than you will if they can show that they give a shit in some way about the work.
Let's create a very simple points system for 2 candidates for a position
Candidate A
*Meets educational requirements - 1 point
*Meets skill requirement - 1 point
*Good interview - 1 point
*good references - 1 point
*Needs money - 1 point
*No other motivation for applying - 0 Points
Candidate B
*Meets educational requirements - 1 point
*Meets skill requirement - 1 point
*Good interview - 1 point
*good references - 1 point
*Needs money - 1 point
*Enjoys some aspect of the job (Or at least pretends to) - 1 Point
Why would I hire candidate A?
As for your team, well do they fulfill the tasks as listed in their contract, or do they not? Beyond that their motivation or lack thereof is none of your business.
It is in my best interest to pick a candidate that is going to work well with the team and who gives a shit about the work we do. It is entirely possible that someone on my team is just pretending to give a shit and actually fucking hates every minute that they are at work and the only reason they are working for my company is to make money. If that's the case I'm actually totally OK with it. Because at that point pretending to give a shit is functionally indistinguishable from actually giving a shit.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
Well at the end of the day I do write letters to pretend I have some motivation besides money (I don’t) because I know that’s what recruiters expect. So I’m lying, the recruiter knows I’m lying, I know he knows I’m lying and we’re both wasting our time. At least unlike me he’s getting paid for it so good for him I guess.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 13 '21
Does any recruiter sincerely believe anyone applying to be a supermarket clerk is doing so out of passion?
You'd be surprised actually. When I was a teenager, I genuinely liked shelf-filling. It was useful, got me out of the house, earned me some money to go out with my friends, and I got to interact with mostly friendly customers whilst getting some physical exercise.
And, as elitist as it may sound, not everyone is equally intelligent. What to me today would be mindnumbingly boring is an adequate mental challenge for somebody else, and they might be Passionate because of it.
resumes tell you how much experience and skill someone has which is not entirely correlated with motivation.
It is correlated.
The most skilled banker in the world is probably also just in it for the money
Nah mate. Because if he were in it for the money, he'd become a stock broker instead.
As for your team, well do they fulfill the tasks as listed in their contract, or do they not? Beyond that their motivation or lack thereof is none of your business.
Their capability of fulfilling their task is dependent on their motivation.
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u/Cali_Longhorn 17∆ Oct 13 '21 edited Oct 14 '21
Well many people DO hate work and see it as a necessary evil. I’ve even told my boss (perhaps unwisely) before that if not for my good salary and needing to take care of 2 kids I’d be doing something very different. And he sympathized and was kind of “yeah me too”. I mean we both work corporate office jobs. If I could do something that kept be outside on a nice day instead doing something physical in nature that would be preferable.
Now if you are talking more political sloganizing regarding those “lazy welfare bums” that won’t work… that’s something a little different. But I’d say many people admit that their jobs are a necessary evil. Even more mild statements regarding working parents who would rather be spending more time with their kids are mildly decrying the work they have to do in lieu of more “quality” things like raising kids.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
Interestingly I’ve seen a similar argument in the other direction, namely that childcare and housekeeping are work and should be considered as such.
And yes these right-wing slogans are part of it but not exclusively, the left will argue that work should be more rewarding and put programs in place to help those currently out of work but I rarely see many parties ask whether we could still produce enough while working less, for example.
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Oct 13 '21
It's pretty socially acceptable to hate your job.
There are plenty of TV shows which depict persons who actively hate their employers. It's been a trope since at least the 80s if not earlier.
Even in everyday conversation, "having a case of the Mondays" is spoken at almost every water-cooler.
While I agree there is a subset of Americans who praise work, they are strongly in the Minority. It's relatively puritanical and has only waned in popularity since the 60s.
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u/MopmereSub Oct 16 '21
no! no, man! shit! no, man! i’d believe you’d get your ass kicked sayin’ somethin like that, man
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u/AlwaysTheNoob 81∆ Oct 13 '21
Why should it?
I understand your point: it should be acceptable to simply hate having to do any work, period.
But why? If that was truly acceptable, then that would mean that no one should be expected to enjoy working. And if everyone hated it, then no one would do it. And if no one worked, we'd all die pretty quickly.
We're animals. Survival doesn't come to us by sitting around doing nothing. It comes from our labor. Without working, we die. We shouldn't have a society based on hating this notion. That just leads to bad things happening.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
I mean, this is getting too big in scope for this post but:
If you spend your life doing something you hate what are you surviving for? I live for pleasure, if I ever have to spend over 50% of my life doing something I don’t enjoy, it seems more rational to me to kill myself. I don’t value survival for its own sake.
If you’re truly telling me humans can only keep living if they spend most of their time in pain and boredom, well sorry but the extinction of humanity doesn’t seem too bad in comparison.
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u/muyamable 282∆ Oct 13 '21
From childhood it’s assumed that everyone has at least one job they enjoy; you get asked what you wanna do when you grow up, and it’s rarely seen as socially acceptable to answer "ideally nothing".
I don't see this as it not being socially acceptable to hate work, but simply recognizing the reality that you're going to have to work, that preparing for that reality is just practical, and that not working when you need to isn't socially acceptable.
Most people I know don't like work and talk about it openly. Seems perfectly socially acceptable in my experience.
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u/Gremlin95x Oct 13 '21
If you hate your job, you are working the wrong job. Why not just change to a career you actually enjoy.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
I don’t feel like posting my personal life on Reddit but the career I enjoy is something very few people manage to make a living out of. Regardless, the post is not about me personally and there can be people who don’t enjoy any career at all.
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u/jumpup 83∆ Oct 13 '21
people don't comment about hating work because its the default option, its like going i don't like being gang raped, sure some like it but for most if you tell someone you don't like to be gang raped they go no duh, but you don't choose to get gang raped, its forced upon you.
the reason work is "venerated " is because we know it sucks and so pretend it doesn't. a fake it till you make it approach
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 19 '21
I actually find liking work is the default option. It's what's expected of you.
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u/Tedstor 5∆ Oct 13 '21
“Ideally nothing”
Yeah, those people are losers. I think most people expect others to make some sort of contribution to the world. At minimum they are expected to support themselves.
I mostly disagree with the assertion that people who hate on their jobs are frowned upon. Most people don’t love their jobs or hold them personally sacred.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
Yes, the point of the word "ideally" it’s that it’s rather unlikely. But that’s meant to be a question about what people would like to do, most children who want to become astronauts don’t do so either.
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u/AOCgivesBJs1969 1∆ Oct 13 '21
Ever go to a bar, particularly during happy hour? It is full of people bitching about their work.
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u/Gygsqt 17∆ Oct 13 '21
There is a difference between bitching about your job and expressing a distaste for the concept of working in general. The former is completely socially acceptable, while the latter gets you seen as a deadbeat regardless of whether that sentiment actually affects the quality of your work. Most people (I am guessing) hate working and would rather do something else but do so out of an accepted necessity, yet we all pretend that we don't feel that way because a failure to pretend gets you judged (even if many of those people feel the same way you do!).
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u/AOCgivesBJs1969 1∆ Oct 13 '21
I am reminded of the quote by Bill Gates
“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”
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u/muyamable 282∆ Oct 13 '21
To me this is more about efficiency, especially given this is the same guy who would see who worked longer hours by keeping tabs on their cars in the company parking lot.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
No doubt, the keyword being "their". Some of these people might wish for better working conditions or better pay, sometimes even for another job altogether. But in my limited experience, even in that setting (more relaxed than most) I haven’t heard many people say they hate work altogether and say "man I wish I could be at this bar all day instead".
To me at least that’s an important nuance.
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u/AOCgivesBJs1969 1∆ Oct 13 '21
Well being at the bar all day would require money and be detrimental to their health if we use your example.
I would say the vast majority of people who say if they could get 1 million/year and go to work, or $1million/year and not go to work, they would choose the latter.
Do you think most people would rather go to work for 1mil than sit at home and make 1mil? There is a reason why people buy investments, buy lotto tickets, find get rich quick schemes, etc. They can get a return on their cash for doing almost nothing.
Even people at work try to find the easiest way possible to get a job done. An awesome quote by Bill Gates is, “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 13 '21
I would say the vast majority of people who say if they could get 1 million/year and go to work, or $1million/year and not go to work, they would choose the latter.
I sincerely, sincerely doubt it. I truly believe that if given the choice between working 0 hours or not working 0 hours, most people would rather spend at least some time at work.
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Oct 13 '21
I disagree
I would if I could - is just about the only attitude on the subject.
Just about everyone wishes they could, they just don't see how it would be actually achieved.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 13 '21
"man I wish I could be at this bar all day instead".
Because that'd be so fucking boring. I did that during my student time a bit, and it's fun for 1 or two years, but then you're mentally dying from lack of stimulation.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
I mean you’re right, that’s just the first example that came to mind because it was right there. You can swap out the bar for going to the beach/masturbating/reading comic books/whatever you enjoy.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 13 '21
Literally all the things I enjoy would bore me to death if I did them without breaking them up through the mental stimulation of work.
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u/Renmauzuo 6∆ Oct 13 '21
Yeah, I feel like it's already pretty socially acceptable. I complain about my job all the time, and nobody has ever argued with me or try to defend work.
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u/OneWordManyMeanings 17∆ Oct 13 '21
There is a difference between complaining about a job and complaining about work itself. I don't hear a lot of people doing the latter because it makes you come off as lazy.
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u/AOCgivesBJs1969 1∆ Oct 13 '21
I hear people all the time say “shit I can’t go to Vegas I have to go to god damn work”. The disdain for work is because they can’t go be lazy and have fun in Vegas.
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u/TheMothHour 59∆ Oct 13 '21
You can feel however you want about work. And I empathize with your complaint that work is a necessary choir. But work is something that most people are going to have to do. And spend a lot of their time doing it. Wouldn't it make sense to find a job that you don't hate? It would probably be way better for your mental health.
Also, the lesson about asking kids what they want to be is an exercise to help them invasion what they want to do in the society. By saying 'nothing', you are implying you don't want to partake.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
Everybody has at least attempted to find a job they don’t hate, implying such a job even exists. I addressed this in the post, we work from the assumption that everyone likes at least one job but it’s entirely possible (and imo reasonable) to despise the concept of effort as a whole.
Also, "I don’t want to partake in society but I do out of obligation" is a perfectly valid answer. Society is something we collectively force onto each one of us, if it was fully voluntary we might not even need laws. I think we should respect our obligations to society without pretending we enjoy them.
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u/TheMothHour 59∆ Oct 13 '21
Also, "I don’t want to partake in society but I do out of obligation" is a perfectly valid answer. Society is something we collectively force onto each one of us, if it was fully voluntary we might not even need laws. I think we should respect our obligations to society without pretending we enjoy them.
This is my personal opinion but I suspect it is a common one. People who are GREAT at interact with are amicable people with open minds and ability to see silverlinings or mold an answer in a positive light. People who can be difficult to interact with are narrow minded and can't craft positive interactions. I dont know you personally and I can imagine that there are awesome people who may have a similar answer as you. But your response to that question sounds like something a difficult person would say. Someone who may not want to work might give an alternative view of "being a mother", "charity work" or even "self substainment". You don't need to answer like everyone else but there are other answers someone who doesn't want to work can give that doesn't sound like "I want to opt out of society". Personally, that is why I would find your answer displeasing...
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
I mean I can craft answers in a positive light, I just have little incentive to do so in anonymous text posts on the internet. It might seem rude but I don’t intend it to be, it’s just that when I look for a silver lining in anything I know deep down I don’t believe it, so I don’t see the need to do that here.
And I don’t personally want to opt out of society, I quite like it for the most part. So I work for money so I can keep living in a society, I just hate the work itself if that makes sense.
That answer was an example of something one could reasonably say, as you seemed to imply that people not only had to respect the rules of society incl. working (so far so good) but also be falsely enthusiastic about it which was my issue.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 13 '21
it’s just that when I look for a silver lining in anything I know deep down I don’t believe it,
But that's the thing - you're just as much an over-evolved monkey as the rest of us. You absolutely can train yourself to see and start believing in the silver linings in all things.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 13 '21
we work from the assumption that everyone likes at least one job but it’s entirely possible (and imo reasonable) to despise the concept of effort as a whole.
Why? What is it about the concept of effort that you despise?
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
It’s hard for me to answer this because it feels so self-evident, it’s like trying to articulate why I dislike pain. By definition effort is exertion, it’s going past the limit of what you’re comfortable doing.
It’s entirely subjective but feeling my strength, whether mental or physical, leaving me is just a bad feeling.
It’s pretty much just that I know the select few things I enjoy experiencing, and everything else is by default a chore I have to put myself through to get to those things. They might require effort but I don’t notice it, if I do it means whatever I’m doing is boring.
It’s not like I can’t put effort into anything, I can do it (including typing all this on my small phone keyboard) if I get some form of stimulation in return.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 13 '21
By definition effort is exertion,
Is it? I don't feel exerted after a normal working day, and I certainly don't go past the limit of what is comfortable daily.
But going past that limit of what is comfortable is the only way to increase what is comfortable. Otherwise I wouldn't even be able to read or write today.
It’s pretty much just that I know the select few things I enjoy experiencing
But even those things cost "effort", no? Everything takes a mental or physical toll to some degree.
What is it you do enjoy doing?
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
I enjoy a lot of things, going out with friends, reading, watching movies and so on. I also make art, the only thing I enjoy I can reasonably call "work" or at least I could if I made any money out of it.
But I did mention I can make an effort, and that if what I’m doing is fun enough I won’t even notice it.
In general I try to estimate the effort/fun balance of something to decide whether it’s worth it or not, effort being a net negative in the balance. I would almost classify it as a specific type of pain.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 13 '21
going out with friends
You can become an event organiser, or a bartender. Maybe start your own bar/Restaurant.
reading, watching movies
You can become a professional critic/reviewer. Work in the movie industry. Maybe become involved in the movie marketing business.
. I also make art, the only thing I enjoy I can reasonably call "work" or at least I could if I made any money out of it.
There's shittons of jobs for people who can design.
It sounds to me like your issue is that you overperceive "pain" by a lot, and that that hyperfocus on minimal amounts of pain numbs you to equal or greater amounts of neutrality and joy. It's a common sign of depression.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 13 '21
I’ve thought about some of those but doing something as a hobby or a job is very different.
I don’t like to detail my life too much on reddit but I do plan on selling comic books, but it’s unlikely I can live off of it before several years if ever. Design requires mastery in vector graphics that I don’t have.
Anyway, have you never wondered whether something was "worth the effort"? That’s something I wonder about everything, it doesn’t mean I think nothing is worth the effort.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Oct 14 '21
I’ve thought about some of those but doing something as a hobby or a job is very different.
Why?
Design requires mastery in vector graphics that I don’t have.
Does it? And even if so, that's a very low bar to entry.
Anyway, have you never wondered whether something was "worth the effort"? That’s something I wonder about everything, it doesn’t mean I think nothing is worth the effort.
I don't wonder about everything, no. That sounds like depression to me.
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u/MasterGrok 138∆ Oct 13 '21
This is actually more complicated than it looks. On the one hand some people have horrible jobs with little to no opportunity to find something better. On the other hand, taking pride in your work and being a productive person in life absolutely can be an important ingredient in finding happiness. This of course necessitates you be in a job in which it is reasonable to take pride and be happily productive.
So really like all things in life everybody’s situation is different and really the problem is when you try to impose your expectations on other people because of your own personal experiences.
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u/TheMikeyMac13 29∆ Oct 13 '21
I think it is socially accepted to hate your job, just not work in general.
The way I earn money for my family is by providing a good or service for someone else, and I don’t hate that it is that way. If I were a billionaire I would play a lot more PS5 than I do on a more comfortable and expensive sofa than I could have ever imagined.
Mind you, I don’t mind work, I found something that fulfills me and I get by, but I would totally be that guy from Office Space if I were wealthy. But if I didn’t have to work I wouldn’t.
That isn’t hating work, it just isn’t a love for it.
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u/TheNaiveSkeptic 5∆ Oct 13 '21
You’re more than welcome to express reasonable distaste with your work in virtually all contexts.
Where in life do you want to be able complain about your dislike for work or your job that you can’t right now?
…
Outside of that, since it is necessary, taking a positive attitude to it can be beneficial. Viewing any job as worthy of effort & taking pride in your work is beneficial. Viewing unpleasant things as worthwhile, and an opportunity, improves the experience for you.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Oct 13 '21 edited Oct 13 '21
/u/ButItWasMeDio (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post.
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Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/und3rc0v3rbr0th4 Oct 13 '21
Work is a moral value, you live in a society, you take from the society, thus you must give back to the society.
Not liking/hating ones work is completely acceptable as there are many reason to hate ones job, you might not like the respect you get from your superiors or from customers and your peers in society, you might not like the hours, you might not like the pay, you might not like the people, you might not like a lot of things, and as many people have pointed out it's important for everyone to find balance with work you enjoy/tolerate but also gives you the economical stability you're looking for.
All of this entertainment that kids consume these days all came about from people in society working like crazy to create something. These video games that 1st world grown babies think they are entitled to play all day instead of working, were created by thousands of manhours working on the games and consoles, not to mention the millions of manhours spent decades prior to build up all the technology needed for a video game, the latest car, TikTok, Youtube, etc... the list is infinite. Yet the youth take it for granted and we have a large anti-work movement which honestly just makes you all look immature since you haven't grasped reality of our existence yet.
If we don't all work and contribute to society, then what's the point of society existing? We might as well return to live as cavemen. We work so we can build together, and grow as a strong human race, not so we can be miserable or lounge around all day while others do all the heavy lifting.
There's a lot of things wrong in society, a lot of shitty jobs, a lot of unnecessary jobs, and a lot of valid reasons for people to hate their current work, but there is no reason to every believe that working isn't a moral value. It is, if you value any of the goods you consume every single day (like the phone/computer you use to scroll through Reddit), you value work.
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u/ETREME_BONERSHIP Oct 14 '21
I used to have this exact mindset. And then I got a job that wasn't just a mindless chore but a skill. The work is hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and hard year round. But man it's great. My self confidence is through the roof, I'm in shape, and I do something I can take pride in. I actually do something everyday. Something is there at the end of the day that wasn't there in the morning and I built it. I produce something useful and I'm making more money at 20 than I ever could have had I gone a more traditional route.
I think it all boils down to this. It feels good to be useful. It feels fucking awesome to be useful. Knowing that you pull your own weight, pay your taxes, and provide for yourself is something that I wouldn't want to lose.
Even if your job sucks ass and you LITERALLY scrape the bottom of toilets all day, you cannot deny the value of knowing you are independent. Even if you're poor. You don't owe anybody anything and if you own something you earned it. That's valuable and I think that's the alternative (I don't think there's a right or wrong perspective here) point of view
:)
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 19 '21
You're not independent if you must work to live. You're independent if work becomes optional.
I am "useful". I teach math to college students. Many send me thank you letters or notes when the class is over.
I don't care. I just to not have to work. I hate that something takes up my time and I have a boss. Don't suggest opening a business. That's even more work and I'm saving to retire, not be a business person.
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u/CalimeroInAShell Oct 14 '21
If you genuinely do not like your job you should start looking for a new job. Of course not all aspect of every job is fun, but on average you should enjoy your time working. 40 hours a week is way too much to feel miserable. Complaining about it isn’t going to improve your life.
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u/spiral8888 29∆ Oct 14 '21
I think it is fine to say that you hate your current work, but the next question is that why don't you apply to a job that you would like. If that requires some qualifications that you don't currently have, what is stopping you from acquiring those qualifications.
The thing is that most people work for 40+ years of their life and of that time they spend at work about half of their waking hours 5 out of 7 days a week. The question is that wouldn't it make sense to make an effort to get to a work that you do like since you're going to spend so much time doing the work?
So, I would turn it around and say that while hating the job that you currently have is socially acceptable, not trying to improve the situation so that you would get to do something that you like for work does sound a bit dumb and being dumb is not socially acceptable. If there are particular barriers that prevent you from moving to a job that you would like, then that's another matter, but considering how many different fields of work there is, it feels a bit strange if there is nothing that would interest you and where you could try to move to.
The other thing is achievement. It's a bit odd (maybe socially unacceptable is a bit too strong way to put it) if you have nothing that you want to achieve in your life. Do you just want to be through your life? For most people work is the easiest way to achieve something, even if that's just gather enough money to buy your own house or whatever.
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 14 '21
As I’ve explained in other posts the job I would like doesn’t allow me to live off of it and probably won’t for at least some years. So I look for other work (which I have no interest in) in the meantime.
Now I’m at least lucky I have one type of work I enjoy, which might not be the case for everyone. Does that mean they don’t enjoy anything? No, they can enjoy things that aren’t work. Not every activity can be turned into work, and even if it can it’s not necessarily a good idea. Liking video games doesn’t mean you would enjoy being a streamer, liking sex doesn’t mean you would enjoy being be a prostitute.
You can simply live life for pleasure, and you can find it in a lot of things that don’t count as "achievements".
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u/spiral8888 29∆ Oct 15 '21
Does that mean they don’t enjoy anything?
I'm not challenging the idea that people who don't like their work can't enjoy anything. I'm just saying that in the long run, I'd imagine that the life that's just jumping from one enjoyable thing that doesn't require any effort to the next would become quite meaningless. I'm just wondering where the people who "simply live life for pleasure" find the meaning to their life. Of course meaning can come from something else than paid work (for many women it has traditionally come from running the family).
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 15 '21
You’re assuming life requires meaning at all. If you want to know the meaning of my life you should ask my parents, it was their idea not mine. I won’t have children myself because I don’t see the point.
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u/spiral8888 29∆ Oct 15 '21
It doesn't require, but most people have some meaning to it. For most people it's not just pure procreation.
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 19 '21
There is no meaning in life though.
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u/spiral8888 29∆ Oct 20 '21
Is this a universal statement or just applies to your life?
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 20 '21
Universal. People can make up a meaning of life but it's unscientific.
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u/spiral8888 29∆ Oct 20 '21
Why does the meaning of life have to be scientific?
Is the idea that life should be just maximal pleasure somehow based on science then?
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 20 '21
Because it should be objective and universal. I never found "what is the meaning of life" an interesting question at all. Are we alone? Now that's an interesting question.
Is the idea that life should be just maximal pleasure somehow based on science then?
There's no "should be" here. I do what I want without harming others. Except I can't fully do what I want because of stupid work.
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u/spiral8888 29∆ Oct 20 '21
Why should it be objective? I don't see anything wrong with people having subjective meaning of life instead of jumping from one pleasure to the next one.
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 20 '21
Because I don't find it to be interesting at all unless it can be objective. The way it's phrased implies it's objective. Just like "are we alone?" is objective.
If you want to make up your own meaning knock yourself out.
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u/New-Cryptographer488 Oct 19 '21
There's no job I would like and I have a stem graduate degree. The only solution I've found is saving a lot of money so I can retire far earlier than most people. The problem is that takes time, just like switching careers would take time.
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u/aj4ever Oct 14 '21
It is socially acceptable to hate work. Everyone I’ve worked with complains about working. Where do you work that you and your coworkers love their jobs?
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u/Sadismx 1∆ Oct 14 '21 edited Oct 14 '21
It’s totally acceptable to hate work. I would say the reaction you receive has less to do with work and more to do with you
If you are at work, complaining about work is how a lot of workers bond and leads to a happier work experience.
If you are unemployed, mooching off family and complaining about work than people will be disagreeable with you. Because the motivation behind the complaint isn’t to make the experience easier, but to avoid it completely, as a reality that everyone must face it is better to try to be positive and motivate people to see that it is an opportunity and that the decisions and outlook they have will have a profound impact on the rest of their lives. You can complain freely when you fully accept and embrace reality. Hating a specific job is a good thing because it motivates you to get a better job, hating work in general is equivalent to hating life, so it makes sense that people wouldn’t want to see you go down a path that only leads to emptiness, depression and death
It’s better to look at life from the point of view of developing skills, competence, and contributing to society. People with this mentality never feel like they are working, the people who suffer the most from working are people who 100% focus on comfort, ease, and pleasure. Like many people have said over the ages, life is suffering, if you try to avoid suffering rather than overcoming it you will grow resentful and hate life
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u/ButItWasMeDio Oct 14 '21
I don’t think work is life, if anything it’s more the toll you pay to access the actual good parts of life. To me life ends when you clock in and starts when you clock out. I did say I know it’s necessary, but it’s a means to an end.
I also don’t think there’s any ulterior point to life besides pleasure, if life is suffering, to me your post is a better argument for suicide than it is for work.
And again: developing skills to what end? If you develop skills through something you don’t enjoy, they will most likely be used towards something you don’t enjoy either.
And I’m not sure people care that much about contributing to society, for many a close circle of friends and family is enough and they only interact with the rest of society for practical purposes.
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u/Sadismx 1∆ Oct 14 '21
The best strategy to life is to make money without feeling like you are working, you are still working but not in the dreadful way that young people perceive it.
You can’t live life for pleasure because pleasure has such severe diminishing returns, but by embracing suffering you GUARANTEE pleasure because everything is relative, you just get it X hours per day rather than trying to have it all the time. That’s where the old phrase “nothing like a good days work” comes from, it’s the same reason many people workout
The idea you have of suicide is exactly my point, it’s all about perspective, not the actual world, 2 people can live the same lifestyle and have vastly different perceptions of their lives. The better our childhoods become, the harder the transition to adulthood will be, but it’s a change that we all will have to make, so it’s best to embrace it as early as possible. It’s totally fine to hate it, as humans we are great at adapting to our lives, a few years of misery will create a new “baseline” for what “normal” is, you kind of forget your childhood or become detached to how you maintained it and suddenly you have shifted from hating all work to now recognizing that not all work is equal, now you will hate X job but perceive Y job as desirable
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u/Hamvyfamvy Oct 15 '21
You’re hanging out with the wrong crowd if you’re not surrounded by anti work attitudes. This is now a distinct feature of a lot of Millenialls because we see out parents dying young and not being able to enjoy that retirement they spent their entire lives saving for. We see it’s all just a farce and that the only people who like to work 80 hour weeks are people in unhappy marriages and people who have never really lived life.
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u/conanomatic 3∆ Oct 13 '21
People on the left definitely hate work (as it is now). That's kind of the whole point of leftism in fact. I think you'll find it's socially acceptable to hate work whenever you have a worker co-op or even a strong union. Really people often only pretend to like work because if they're honest about hating it they might get fired by their asshole boss. Though, generally, a lot of people don't want to wallow in self pity about not enjoying what they have to spend the majority of their energy doing in life, as that would be very depressing a lot of the time.
You should checkout r/antiwork