Feels like 3 things in our current discourse:
- No feeling of making a difference with your work (pointlessness)
- Disingenuous workplace cultures (wE’Re a fAmiLy)
- Extremely long work hours (WFH is great but “always connected” means you’re always working)
for 3: Please don’t mix up WFH and always connected! I work from home but after my hours my work phone stays at the work desk and that’s it, I’m seeing mails and calls on the next day, that’s soon enough
Not an argument for returning to office but rather pointing out the lack of boundaries that can come with it
To your last point, I have been WFH since 2020 and am now leaving because my company is doing RTO. For many, WFH is a huge benefit.
Yeah totally agree and I also work from home and won’t go back.
It’s just that the other side of the coin for me has been a lack of boundaries when for all intents and purposes we should all be working less.
RTO? Why the acronyms
Return to office
Corporate jargon has infected my brain
I’m really not sure how to solve for 1. So much of modern white collar work is patently pointless (or counterproductive). Definitely hard to stay engaged, especially when few of the benefits of increased productivity actually accrue to the folks doing the work. The disingenuous messaging of bullet 2 often highlights the difference in priorities between those who benefit from from increased productivity and those who just, you know, end up having to work more.
Kinda hard not to be when most people never expect anything good to ever happen again.
No shit…
This seems like the most obvious headline ever. I have my first retirement coming up in 3.5 years, and I’m holding on by the skin of my teeth. And I’m one of the lucky ones with a job that offers a flat pension at 20 years regardless of age.
Pension after 20 years of work?! That sounds soon and great! Could you maybe explain that a little more?
Join the military! Pay ain’t great, quality of life is sketchy at best, and you’ll retire with plenty of physical and mental health issues, but you’ll be retired at 20 years with the government paying you to go to school for 3 years so that you can start a second career. I guess it’s a mixed bag.
but that’s not “never too work again” retirement, not what I would aim for
Depending on how far you get, it can be. My retirement without disability will be approximately 50k a year. That, plus disability in a LCOL area is enough. Retirees also get COL adjustments annually.
Current plan for me is to retire, attend law school, and work as a public defender to put my money where my mouth is as a filthy lefty, but the work is because I want to, not because I have to based on where I’m planning on retiring.
Wait, you’re saying that in the USA you can make a 4 year tour and get 50k per year afterwards for the rest of your life? Or how long do you need to be in the military for that? Is this for all or just for special groups (like pilots)?
At 20 years, every active duty service member can retire with 50% of their highest three years of pay for the rest of their life. They also get evaluated for disability, and get that for the rest of their life. After 20 years, each year served adds 2.5% to their pension, so at 30 years, they would get 75%.
How much that pension adds up to depends on how high you moved up in the ranks. A 20 year enlisted servicemember will make a lot less that an officer. More senior enlisted will make a fair amount more than more junior enlisted.
Disability pay is based on how big of a mess you are physically and mentally, each disability pay band is the same, regardless of rank.
Probably wouldn’t be the case if people could actually afford anything with the meager wages allotted.
Yeah, purchasing power is smaller every decade + clickbaity surroundings that make our lifestyle also kind of clickbaity, disengagement from labor fruits, and many more.
