The unseen struggle: Job dissatisfaction and minimal effort among young professionals

All the people at the top now either started rich or started in a time where companies still had a lady going around offices bringing people coffee.

I'm surprised cubicles have not been traded in for a treadmill to generate power yet.

Meh. At least online there is a doomer mentality which turns into anger when you point out that a homes and a decent life are actually obtainable, followed by countless bootlicker comments.

The sad thing to me is that they've created six hours a day of time to do something constructive, and they use it to watch movies. That's the real tragedy of our current society, in my opinion. People want their own time to do something "meaningful," but very often they don't honestly know what that is, and instead they just burn their life away being fed the dopamine-hitting, passive consumption that characterizes modern life. I worry the younger generations of millennials and z (of which I'm part) are going to have a serious, wide-spread, paralyzing existential crisis that makes the current malaise and apathy look like the "good times." People are going to look up from their phones when they turn 50 and realize they spent their whole life waiting for their "real life" to begin.

Reminds me of The Bell Jar:

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet, and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.

I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

I take issue with these: administrative assistants, public relations specialists, airline desk staff who calm passengers with lost luggage, middle management, leadership professionals.

These all exist because humans aren’t perfect. I haven’t read the book but it’s hard to believe the author knows anything about how businesses operate if he thinks a healthy one can be successful without those positions.

Ex. I work for a startup that is growing rapidly and doesn’t have administrative assistants for higher levels. For the most part it’s a disaster leading to a lot of wasted time without them being as productive as they could be. AAs have skills that the regional leaders do not. It’s a symbiotic relationship.

I recommend this book constantly. It's relatable to basically everyone except the 1%.

I hate this. When I was first hired, I really poured in a lot of effort. I took on extra projects, did extra work, trying to get ahead. But every extra project I completed would get sent to a supervisor and manager, they would absolutely wreck it asking for changes that made little to no difference, but took a lot of time to implement. And then they would just.. keep requesting additional changes. for months. back and forth and back and forth.

I got so sick of it, I don't volunteer for fucking anything anymore. Oh, you want my input on this document you've changed as it affects how I do my job? Like I give a shit. Whatever I say will just get garbled and edited and ultimately you'll just do whatever the fuck you want anyway so.... No. I won't suggest any edits or redline your document. I don't care anymore. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it till my shift ends.

Just a bunch of middle managers who all want to look at fancy spreadsheets so they can appear to know what's happening on the manufacturing floor instead of, ya know, actually going down to the floor. Then they all can pretend to know what's going on to their higher up, who is in turn using that to pretend to know what's going on to their higher up, each one knowing less and less, until you get to the CEO or Site head that knows absolutely fuck all about what's going on, with even less of a clue on how to influence it, all because they don't want to actually visit the floor or talk to the poors running their machines.

I went from running my own business to this garbage, and although the steady middle class paycheck is nice, I regret it every day.

I’ve seen this happen. They think they need a designer and then can’t actually find work for them or don’t really know what work they want. Then it becomes a suffer fest for the poor designer.

Bold of you to assume "starve" instead of "mass murder" to slow the depletion of Earth's finite resources.

For the equivalent of $402 a month plus having no input into what is the dream job can leave you feeling empty for sure.

I agree sounds awesome until you realize you are at a bullshit job and are not even making headway or money doing what you trained for.

Because some people's job helps others? Like a nurse does what they do to help save lives, not because they enjoy the workload.

Hmm, I always give my best effort, because that's how I learn the most and sharpen my own skills. Job skills are like any other, they atrophy if you don't stretch them, and they don't grow if you don't push their limits.

Give your effort for your own benefit, not because you expect a reward from your current employer. When you outgrow that relationship, and your employer doesn't value your contributions, then move on.

You are always working for yourself, even if you're getting a paycheck from someone else.

I don’t like my job at all but that doesn’t stop me from putting in maximum effort. I do it to steal skills and knowledge from them and take them to a new job.

You want to get more from your life and more from your employer? If you spend your entire workday doing the bare minimum, then you have to spend your free time building skills to get that. Fuck that, do it on their time.

I like my job. They pay me fairly for 100% effort, so I give 100% effort. It's the only place in my career where I feel like that's the case though, so you're mostly right. But there are exceptions.