I’ve worked 2nd (afternoon), swing (evening), and 3rd (overnight) shifts for the majority of my life. I recently moved into a training position where I’m Monday through Friday, 8am to ~5:30pm (I get OT while I’m cleaning up and writing reports).
As much as the 2nd/swing/3rd shifts screw with your life in other ways, the difficulty in scheduling any kind of life services outside of working hours is maddening. Doctor’s appointment? Nope. DMV? Maybe Saturday, if you’re lucky. Chaperone your kids field trip? Hahahhah no.
I don’t want to burn sick time for a doctor’s appointment (I need to save those for when my kid is actually sick), and I sure as hell don’t want to use up a “vacation” day for it. How tf are you supposed to get anything done?
Scrolling down to this actually made me burst out with a laugh. Well done.
It’s so fucn true though haha
You’re not supposed to do anything other than generate value. Society doesn’t care about your DMV needs. Just work and consume.
I guess reproduction didn’t make the cut, hence the crashing birth rates.
This. If I take another 1st shift job, I will make sure it’s 10hr shifts with the same week day off weekly.
4-day work weeks are great, especially if you have a significant commute, because you’re cutting 20% of that right out. the adding 2 hours to every work day, not so much; but the longer hours can mean that traffic is a bit lighter. the guaranteed week day off is huge when you have ‘stuff’ to do.
I absolutely hate commuting. If there’s one thing I learned in the spring/summer of 2020, it’s that not driving to work is awesome.
The people who still had to commute places during that time also learned commuting is not stressful at all when theres barely any people commuting
Almost like theres just too many people expected to commute to work, all at the same damn times
Almost like if there was someway to offset start times and keep as many people WFH as possible, our lives would be 20x better
But no. Fuck you. You show up at the same time as the rest of the city, and you make profits for the overlords just like everyone else, fuck your life and happiness
Truth
worst time to commute is 7-9am, and 5pmish.
Oh I know all too well
However, lately in Toronto those times barely matter anymore and you get traffic from 6am or earlier until 730pm
A few months ago there was a major leadership change at my job. The guy who was 50% of the interviewers who recommended hiring me is now second from the top and my direct manager (I’m not third from the top, my company’s hierarchy is confusing).
Suddenly, after most of a decade of it never once being a problem, I have been forced from my 4x10 schedule into a standard 5x8. I fucking hate it.
I thought you were saying that the other way around, and was hoping to hear why you like 5x8 more
because yeah, I like 4x10 more. actually, I like having the flexibility to do either one based on how I feel that week and the needs of the company. I like knowing that I can get my 40 hours in and fuck off whenever I want Thursday afternoon for a 3-day weekend, or I can bleed into Friday as much as I want if there are meetings that need to have happen or other work I want to get done by end of week.
I get that some people would prefer 5x8 because they have before or after work obligations, but that’s not me so I would rather have a proper weekend.
I feel for you. That sucks to have your life thrown into chaos for a decimal number on the balance sheet.
… generate
valuewealth for the filthy richFTFY
That’s the neat part. You don’t.
Okay but really, you have to take time off.
Also depends on the country you’re in. In my case “sick leave” doesn’t have a limit. If you’re sick or you need to take care of someone who is, you just don’t work. There’s no day limit.
Also, if you need to go to a bank appointment or something like that, most places will either not even ask you to “recover” those hours or (at worst) you’ll just work an extra hour a few days.
In addition to what you’ve mentioned, in my country if you have a government job doctor appointments count as work. And works days are 7.75 hours a day in winter and 7 in summer, including lunch.
The concept of burning vacation / sick time for a doctor’s appointment is weird to me (canada). I just say “hey boss, doc appointment this day” and he says “okay”.
I feel like it depends on the company here, but I don’t think I’d stay long if they made me use my time off for that.
Same thing here in Europe. You can then get a special permit from the doctor to show your employer that you were actually at a medical appointment and not smoking weed
This feels personal… I’ll have you know I can smoke weed AND go to the doctor.
In United States of Shit, you can get a doctor’s note to show employers. Most times I’ll make an appointment and get the date on a doctors card and show my manager. All unpaid of course
Ey! My GP’s notes don’t mention I wasn’t smoking weed. I’ll have to ask them to include it next time.
The concept of burning vacation / sick time for a doctor’s appointment is weird to me (canada). I just say “hey boss, doc appointment this day” and he says “okay”.
Look, I get that you live in a civilized country, but stop gloating.
that’s the point. the capitalists want every minute of your life they can get to work for them, then make you scramble to fit the rest of your life in the gaps. they make more profit and you have less time and energy to educate yourself, think, and organize
A tired worker is an obedient one
Especially if you have kids. Who’s going to pay for daycare, insurance, day-to-day needs? You basically become a slave to the company cause you don’t have the choice to quit in order to support family
That’s why we need strong communities, solidarity and mutual aid. Get the burden off of individual shoulders and make space to organize.
It’s as easy as asking your neighbours if you wanna take turns cooking dinner for each other or something like that so you have an hour to spare.
We don’t. We just exist. And then we die. It’s monstrous.
We don’t. We come home around 7 and start doing the bare minimum to keep up the household letting daycares and schools raise our kids.
We clean and cook and pay our bills then we go to sleep irritated and tired and sick of the rat race.
We have sex once or twice a month and go to fucking florida once a year. That’s it.
I see you, stranger. I hope you can find some flavor in the shit that life has become.
I had a boss tell us we should forget about work-life balance.
That’s a weird way to pronounce “we’re an abusive workplace and I advise you to form a union.”
The correct way is to say that the company is like family.
Lol fuck that. It was either a really shit pahing job or a really high paying job. If it was inbetween tat company fuck can jump off a cliff.
I work 6 to 2. If I need to take a couple hours for a medical, family issue or car appointment, then I let my boss know and he says it’s okay. I’m usually able to schedule things so that I put appointments and so on when I don’t have big meetings. So long as the work gets done it’s cool.
If I’m feeling rotten, I phone in and say I’m either too sick to work or that I’ll WFH that day.
Of course, if I have a big vacation planned then I will put in for leave. I get 25 days off a year.
25 a year sounds like a dream
I communicated with my manager and came in late or left early. I’d usually do dental and medical appointments in the morning, and governmental stuff in the afternoon, but whatever I could schedule.
It helped that I was salaried, so the missing hours didn’t affect my take-home pay. But also, I could make up the hours by staying late, if needed.
I know this won’t work for everyone, and it would be good to change the system to work for more people.
I have to beg to be allowed to come in late, just to treat serious health issues. I guess the people with an actual life, are the ones that are born wealthy, or studied to do an easy-going job.
I don’t think you are meant to escape with enough hard work, it is punishment for not being a good student in childhood: You get worked like a slave, your entire life, dreams, passions, dignity, all that you are, is pushed aside, as your health is slowly chipped down, until you drop dead in your 40’s-50’s, no retirement for you.
Then you get some bs eulogy about how you were a good, hardworking man. One of the few times ever that people will even pretend to appreciate you.
I guess the people with an actual life, are the ones that are born wealthy, or studied to do an easy-going job […] it is punishment for not being a good student in childhood
Yup, this is me. Both my parents were software engineers, I grew up top 1% wealth in Canada. Went to a decent university (covered by my parents), job hopped a few times, salary kept going up and the work kept going easier.
I still grinded my ass off along the way (first job took me 700 applications, I spent nights and weekends studying for my next interviews instead of going out with friends), but I still wouldn’t be here without nepotism and family wealth that they used to support me.
While there is some guilt that other people who worked harder couldn’t get to where I am, that doesn’t mean I’m going to waste the opportunity.
Jobs paid enough so one person could stay home is how it worked. Growing up, dad made all the money and mom stayed home to do chores and whatnot. It’s just how things worked. These days mom’s living off of dad’s retirement fund since he died early and she’s always surprised when I have to ask her for money even though its her generation that made the world what it is. Even when I am able to find work my wife and I are check to check. It’s stupid.
Jobs paid enough so one person could stay home is how it worked
That’s a fantasy. In the 1800s and before there was so much at-home work to be done that it was a full time job for someone (virtually always the wife). She had to do the baking, cooking, mending clothes, cleaning, etc. all without any electrical appliances. That included no refrigerator or freezer, so shopping had to be done a lot more often. There were also no cars, so people either had to walk to do their shopping, or they used a horse. But, if they used a horse, then there was extra work related to keeping the horse alive and in good shape. Clothes were also a lot more expensive, so a lot more time was spent either making clothes at home and mending clothes that had holes, worn spots, etc. It wasn’t “to do chores and whatnot”, it was a full-time job involving more work than a typical a typical job from modern days.
Then there was WWI, then the “roaring 20s”, which is when electrical appliances first started appearing, and then the stock market crashed and the great depression hit. During the great depression, if either the wife or the husband could find work, they were lucky, and probably had to support the whole family. During the great depression, a lot of worker protections were put in place through the New Deal. But, the jobs weren’t there.
Then WWII hit, and for a while the US was manufacturing things for the rest of the world without being in the war itself. That helped the economy get going again. When the US joined the war, the economy was really going, but there was rationing in place so the workers who were earning money weren’t able to spend it. When the war ended, the US was in an incredibly strong position. Workers had savings to spend once rationing was removed. Every other country had had its industrial base smashed by the war. As a result, the US manufacturing was in high demand all over the world. For contrast, even though the UK was also one of the “winners” of WWII, rationing was in place until 1954.
So, high demand for industrial workers, worker protections left over from the New Deal era, labour-saving electrical appliances being available for the first time, cars everywhere… it was a unique set of circumstances that meant for maybe the first time in history a man could work a blue collar job and have a wife who stayed at home and just did “chores and whatnot”. That lasted a few decades. People blame Reagan for a lot of it, but really by the time he was elected that golden period for blue collar workers was already ending.
Also, keep in mind that strong protections for workers didn’t just happen. The government didn’t just decide that it would be nice to workers. Workers had to fight hard for those rights. The 8 hour day is the result of fights that were very violent. Bombs were thrown at cops. Supposed ringleaders were hanged by the government after show trials. FDR pushed for laws to protect workers because the alternative was rioting. If today’s workers want to share in the wealth, they need to riot, they need to be prepared to die. Nothing’s going to change if it’s just complaining that “this isn’t how it should be”.
Yep we could have kept taxing the wealthy like we did pre Regan and things would have been good still but both parties became neoliberal shit
Eh, except that was only ever true above a certain income level. There has always been a portion of the working class excluded from those perks.
I think the point is that the income level that could afford a stay at home parent used to be way lower than it is today. My parents bought a house in the hood in the 90s for around $100k in their 20s, got by with 3 kids on a single blue collar salary of less than $40k in the 2000s (like ~$70k today), and are doing great financially today. The oldest of us with no kids struggled to buy any home on a double income in specialized skills with degrees. We grew up qualifying for state benefits and pell grants and somehow us kids who are technically “middle class” are doing so much more for less.
I worked in a callcentre for many years and had changing shifts every two weeks. Having to come in at 6am and then getting that switched to 4pm wreaked havoc on my body and after doing this for quite a while, I just crashed and got burnout.
Recovery took me two years, where I basically just slept. Five days a week are just too much, it’s a system designed to squeeze the last bit of labor value out of you and I fucking hated it. Nowadays, I’m not able to physically work for more than four days, or else I’ll crash again.
I had a lot of luck, so I can now work entirely from home. No commute, Fridays are off. Sounds super cozy and amazing, but the thing is: I need that Friday for myself. A lot of times I’ll just sleep so I can have some energy on the actual weekend.
When it comes to doctor’s appointments, I just tell my boss I have one and that’s it. As it should be. We are humans, not machines.
Until recently, I had a job where I could leave whenever I wanted so long as there was nothing urgent in motion and I didn’t have anything due/overdue.
My office was closed because the CEO thinks that my office’s workload can be handled by a team in Philippines using AI translation tools.
