The work shy and bone idle....

[Jacksgranda]

15 hours ago, johnnydun said:

Hard work never killed anyone.

  Hide contents

It certainly won't get me!

 

But why risk being the first.

[TheScarf]

16 hours ago, Pato said:

I deal with a lot of this and I don't recommend it.

Management: "We've slashed your budget by at least 5% a year for a decade and we need you to do more with this smaller amount of money"

Me: Well, I can do this or I can do this, but for that money if you want me to do both of those things they will both fail.

Management: "Efficiency Synergy More With Less Work Smarter Not Harder Think Out The Box Success"

Me: No, this costs this much. That's what it costs. If you don't have this much money, it cannot be done.

repeat x ∞

I’ve been in that scenario before. Management tell you that you can only spend so much on materials to do the job and I reply saying I won’t be doing the job if I can’t get all the materials/kit I need to do it.

The supplier would laugh in my face if I turn up and say ‘My boss has only given me this much to spend can I have it for that?’

Why some people are like that is beyond me. Expect the same outcome with a lot less investment spent on getting to the outcome.

 

[Jambomo]

On 11/06/2021 at 08:29, Bairnardo said:

But why? "Work ethic" is a completely imagined character trait. The idea that fulfilling your contractual obligation to your employer is something you should be lauded for us mental to me. As is going over and above said obligations.

Making a virtue out of work has enabled the kind of bad behaviour in employers that people have been talking about on this thread.
 

I think that’s where it has come from. In the distant past, employers manipulated workers by saying hard work would bring reward, aligning it to things that employees in the past valued such as religion, escape from poverty, being a fundamentally good person etc. Using it to exploit them.

There is nothing virtuous in itself about working hard. Turning up, doing your work and getting paid as reward is just a transactional agreement, is just a thing we do. That’s all it should be seen as and should not be considered a virtue in its own right. 

 

[Bairnardo]

Making a virtue out of work has enabled the kind of bad behaviour in employers that people have been talking about on this thread.
 
I think that’s where it has come from. In the distant past, employers manipulated workers by saying hard work would bring reward, aligning it to things that employees in the past valued such as religion, escape from poverty, being a fundamentally good person etc. Using it to exploit them.
There is nothing virtuous in itself about working hard. Turning up, doing your work and getting paid as reward is just a transactional agreement, is just a thing we do. That’s all it should be seen as and should not be considered a virtue in its own right. 
 

Would be interested to know if its British thing, but something I have spoken about on here before that I find odd is like on gameshows etc... Presenter goes, whats your name, and what do you do for a living?

Who gives a f**k if you are an IT consultant, find something interesting about someone.

[Hedgecutter]

9 hours ago, 101 said:

I know someone who worked in the service industry in the States in the 80's and said that they had Bible verses and motivation posters up like the work houses from the 19th and 20th century. Crazy stuff.

I agree that it's a quick way for him to lose the plot

I very briefly worked at a place in the States where the manager would walk in and give motivational speeches all the time.  Not in a David Brent fashion, but more Wolf of Wall Street with less swearing and more "can I get a hell yeah!"s.  Crazy culture out there.

[Jambomo]

5 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Would be interested to know if its British thing, but something I have spoken about on here before that I find odd is like on gameshows etc... Presenter goes, whats your name, and what do you do for a living?

Who gives a f**k if you are an IT consultant, find something interesting about someone.
 

I don’t know if it’s just a British thing now. I think that question comes from us “assessing” a person when we first meet them, which is a very British trait in trying to work out what class a person might be  and whether their work was respectable or not. Certainly in the past (I mean Victorian kind of era) your work was much more of a statement about you as a person I.e your education, your class and your family.

I think a lot of of what we do around work is simply habitual more than anything else. Asking what we do is a nice and relatively safe question that means you can show interest in someone new without becoming intrusive because this is a question you almost expect to be asked these days.

[Crawford Bridge]

I moved from 5x8 hours to 3x12 hours and it's the best thing work wise I've ever done.

You get the best of both worlds. All your auld aunties and that are impressed you work 12 hour shifts when the truth is I'm a lazy shitehouse for four days of the week.

[Fullerene]

51 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Would be interested to know if its British thing, but something I have spoken about on here before that I find odd is like on gameshows etc... Presenter goes, whats your name, and what do you do for a living?

Who gives a f**k if you are an IT consultant, find something interesting about someone.
 

In all fairness, it must be a little bit scary for the contestant.  Ask a stock question, get a routine answer, that's it done.

By contrast imagine being asked to tell the audience something interesting about yourself. 

"Oh, I don't know.  I once went on an airplane."  Oh shit, why did I say that. 

People will be terrified that the most interesting thing about them is not really that interesting.

[Bairnardo]

5 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

In all fairness, it must be a little bit scary for the contestant.  Ask a stock question, get a routine answer, that's it done.

By contrast imagine being asked to tell the audience something interesting about yourself. 

"Oh, I don't know.  I once went on an airplane."  Oh shit, why did I say that. 

People will be terrified that the most interesting thing about them is not really that interesting.

Yeah I sort of get it, but these things are all rehearsed and prepped. Its a small thing, but it fits into the sort of point of the thread which was really this thing about having an opinion on other people based on work status or our interpretation of their work ethics.

[Jacksgranda]

I never really enjoyed my job, although there were aspects of it I really liked, I was delighted to get retired.

I found it high pressure, meeting increasingly shorter tender deadlines and trying to squeeze money out of jobs when the money wasn't there, and quite stressful. Conversely when I was on the other side of the fence I worried about over paying contractors/not paying them enough/missing things out of jobs before they went to tender.

The older I got the more stressful I found it, I think when I was younger I didn't realise how responsible the job was so didn't worry!

[diegomarahenry]

I have always worked for large companies, my last job involved a lot of travelling and I became obsessed with levels on loyalty programs, I was platinum with KLM and BA, the Marriot and the Hilton, I saw my boss about once a month when he signed my expenses and I was loving what I was doing, totally consumed in my work, on call 24/7 and doing 70-80 hour weeks. They still made me redundant. 

I started a new job closer to home, doing the same job but office based, for more money and better conditions than I had before but I absolutely hate it.

All my immediate management are between 30 and 40, They are obsessed with their personal brand. We have an internal social media that I have no interest in, some people have video introductions on their page, professionally produced. A cross between Linkedin and Facebook. My review last year, my manager made more of the fact my profile was blank than any of my actual work.

No one seems interested in work and things have gone backwards in the last few years. I stopped doing anything meaningful and no one seems to have noticed, I am on several projects that are going nowhere and no one seems to care about so my job is now about 6 hours of calls a week and the rest of the time I spend reading books and keeping my status active. 

I had a conversation with one of my mates a few weeks ago, he has made a fair amount from Bitcoin and retired himself at 40, he asked what I wanted to do, what my dream job would be? honestly, I've given up on work, you are just a number, if you dropped dead today, they wouldn't miss a beat and you would be forgotten in a month. They don't want to employ you as much as you don't want to be employed by them. They pay you money to do it because they have to and you do it because you need it. 

 

[Mark Connolly]

5 hours ago, Fullerene said:

In all fairness, it must be a little bit scary for the contestant.  Ask a stock question, get a routine answer, that's it done.

By contrast imagine being asked to tell the audience something interesting about yourself. 

"Oh, I don't know.  I once went on an airplane."  Oh shit, why did I say that. 

People will be terrified that the most interesting thing about them is not really that interesting.

"I once couldn't think of an answer when I was asked on a TV show to say something interesting about myself."

[Sergeant Wilson]

On 11/06/2021 at 23:11, 101 said:

Anyone encouraging their child to work themselves into the ground for a car 3 years before they can drive?

 

Yes, I needed a car.

[Binos]

17 hours ago, Mark Connolly said:

"I once couldn't think of an answer when I was asked on a TV show to say something interesting about myself."

You could've said

I've been on a TV show 

[hk blues]

On 12/06/2021 at 16:33, Bairnardo said:

Would be interested to know if its British thing, but something I have spoken about on here before that I find odd is like on gameshows etc... Presenter goes, whats your name, and what do you do for a living?

Who gives a f**k if you are an IT consultant, find something interesting about someone.
 

Definitely not a British thing.

Way worse where I am - no word of a lie but people actually use their job type as part of their name. Obviously, only if their job is what they consider 'respectable'. Example - Engineer Lenny; Teacher Joan etc. It's only a small percentage but...

Worst example was one of my son's classmate's mother. She prefixed her name with Engineer. I asked her about her job and she said "Oh no, I don't work as an Engineer, I'm a housewife and always have been but I majored in Engineering at University". It infuriated me more than it should have but what an absolute boot of a woman to do that.

I wish I was brave enough to call her Housewife Mary or whatever her name is. I'm actually getting angry typing this!

 

[Thorongil]

27 minutes ago, hk blues said:

Definitely not a British thing.

Way worse where I am - no word of a lie but people actually use their job type as part of their name. Obviously, only if their job is what they consider 'respectable'. Example - Engineer Lenny; Teacher Joan etc. It's only a small percentage but...

Worst example was one of my son's classmate's mother. She prefixed her name with Engineer. I asked her about her job and she said "Oh no, I don't work as an Engineer, I'm a housewife and always have been but I majored in Engineering at University". It infuriated me more than it should have but what an absolute boot of a woman to do that.

I wish I was brave enough to call her Housewife Mary or whatever her name is. I'm actually getting angry typing this!

 

In places like India, job and job title is a key component of social currency. 
 

ive known people who had their parents bursting with honour because their son has gone home and told them they are being sent on a training course by their employer. This is because apparently it means their employer values them and is investing in them.

Deranged.

[Moomintroll]

2 minutes ago, Thorongil said:

In places like India, job and job title is a key component of social currency. 
 

ive known people who had their parents bursting with honour because their son has gone home and told them they are being sent on a training course by their employer. This is because apparently it means their employer values them and is investing in them.

Deranged.

The caste system in India is truly mental & an echo of how the British Empire screwed an entire Subcontinent up. Looking at Cricketers Faroukh Engineer & Vijay Merchant are two examples of how a job title became more important than your actual identity & if you were not of a caste entitled to follow those careers then you are doomed to eternal impoverishment irrespective of your actual skills & capabilities.

[Thorongil]

Just now, Perkin Flump said:

The caste system in India is truly mental & an echo of how the British Empire screwed an entire Subcontinent up. Looking at Cricketers Faroukh Engineer & Vijay Merchant are two examples of how a job title became more important than your actual identity & if you were not of a caste entitled to follow those careers then you are doomed to eternal impoverishment irrespective of your actual skills & capabilities.

Indeed. India was the wealthiest and arguably among the most advanced societies on the planet when it was seized by the British. 250 years of British rule left it impoverished and socially destroyed. Well done Albion, great job again.  

[Fullerene]

5 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

So what are you actively trying to do to change your circumstances?

He's taking advice from D.A.F.C on what to do next.

[Sergeant Wilson]

8 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

So what are you actively trying to do to change your circumstances?

I advise him to mutter insults under his breath, roll his eyes and exhale loudly when colleagues speak.