In my late 30s, still doing it. I don’t expect to be rewarded though, I just want to toil away without being a dick to people around me.
Thank you
In my late 30s I realized I could work a little less hard, ask for support, and ask for what I wanted without expectations. It’s an improvement so far.
In my early 30s and after the constant flow of assholes fail upwards and get promoted ahead of me, I decided to set fire to the world and did a Office Space.
That constant directness led me to run a department.
This guy’s management material.
Thankfully, around 7-8th grade. The English and History teachers worked in tandem to impose a critical thinking background to their lessons. Of course, it made me and others cynical as shit, but we were at least less surprised when life decided to go in dry.
Trust me, if you’re thrust in unprepared and need to learn the lessons for yourself you will turn out more cynical in the long run.
I used to be so Idealistic…
Can I just respond to this with the entire lyrics for The Logical Song by Supertramp?
I miss MadTV… Great reference.
I teach for a living, yet I never learn.
FWIW, I had educators who were quite direct about their opinion of the job.
Oh I love the teaching, it’s the crap around it that bugs me. The hard work is all the paperwork that no-one ever reads - “write only documents” as my father used to call them.
At 15, on my first job. There were 3 others in the same position. I finished first, perfectly, while they goofed off. Told the manager, all excited. She had me clean out a closet while I waited for the others to catch up. It was a real defining moment.
The best thing is that this is true in every job. Your reward for being 15% more productive than everyone else is an extra 5% in wages. Sometimes not even that.
It’s really, really going to depend on your work environment. In some cases, being the person who is 15% more productive buys you some leverage and slack that others don’t have. Was that guy in some roles - there was definitely shit I was able to get away with that would’ve ended in disciplinary conversations for others.
The trick, though, is being to suss out when that’s actually the case, when you’re just deluding yourself , and when that might’ve been the case once but for whatever reason isn’t anymore. That’s tougher.
Yeah, in my environment I find that people tend to remember who they can trust with a task and who’s going to fuck it up. And that’s often the basis for networking.
Your reward for being 15% more productive than everyone else is 25% extra work
Fixed.
Also this.
This is only true in the kind of jobs where you’re just a pair of hands.
In most jobs the more “productive” you are, the more you learn, and the quicker you progress to the next level.
While you’re making money for your boss you can be learning how to make money for yourself.
On second thought, perhaps what you said is true, but that 15% premium compounds over the years.
Ok but if I’m even slightly mean to someone they try to screw me over for the rest of my life. Meanwhile, I see people getting away with it. I need a tutorial on being an asshole that people tolerate.
You have to make sure you’re only being an asshole to people who’re seen as beneath you. If someone above you both likes that person better than you’re going to get fucked. They on the other hand can be an asshole to you with impunity.
Kiss up, kick down. That’s how it’s always worked.
I don’t condone it, because we should be kissing down and kicking up, but the rich people don’t want it that way.
30s. Earning well, no issues yet.
Being good to the people around me and those in my community isn’t an act. It’s just how I feel I should be.
I now work on projects I’m passionate about, and spent years prior swinging a tool.
Everyone’s path is different. I was lucky, but I didn’t act a certain way because I was trying to put up an act. It’s just how I conduct myself.
Lucky af here too. None of the “work sucks” stuff ever realllly resonates with me. But I sympathize all the same. Just happened to get super lucky in most every way. We need to do better for the majority, but even an evil system ends up working well for some folks (perhaps only a privileged few). So, caution people on blanket “absolutely everything sucks, trust no one!” kinda thinking.
Let you know when it happens.
For the most part the more active and nicer you are the happier you will be. Yeah yeah you get taken advantage of, you know the same result if you are a lazy asshole.
Your insurance company is going to deny your claim, your stuff is going to break down, you will be ripped off, you will be injured, you will be robbied, and eventually you will die. All of this stuff will happen in your existence and there is fuck all you can do about it.
What you can do is stay active and stay giving. You can surround yourself with people who very much want you to be happy in life and your happiness almost completely depends on it.
So go ahead and make your decision. Do you want to pass judgement on a world that doesn’t care what you think about it and rot with whatever pathetic little you have or do you want deep connections and a lifetime of achievement.
This is good stuff! I love me some positivity
While I don’t fully disagree with this, I do disagree with the happiness being dependent on this, as that is highly subjective and is not true unanimously.
Why tell me? Tell all those shrinks and psychology professors who have been doing endless studies on this for a century.
Turns out Aristotle was right all along. Took us like 25 centuries to relearn it.
I tell you because you are the one that actively brought this point to a place of discussion.
Fine. I would start reading with the PERMA+ model
I’m aware of it. Although I am starting to lose belief that positivity is how you operate, strictly judging from your responses. Nonetheless, have a nice day.
Don’t think I made any claims about myself
Your statements in your original post are enough to go on, I’m not here to insult, just an observation.
Way, way later than I should have. Or wish I had.
I am constantly reminded that knowledge isn’t free. We live in a world where everything could be so so so much better if information were shared, instead it is locked up and sold as a product. So to answer the question, every single day, I’m still hopeful that a positive change could happen.
25; I’m still waiting on a title change and raise I was promised in October. Turns out doing system administration work, software deployment, RMM management, and CADD support all while being payed as a support tech isn’t such a great idea. Oh well, at least my resume is stacked for when I leave.
As someone who has done that, it is an uphill battle to get recognized for that work without the proper title. It’s mostly recruiters who want easy commissions who won’t advocate for you and quite a few HR people will screen you out even if you seem to have the skills just because you don’t have that title. I hope you have a better job search than I did after doing that for a company.
Yeah, I’ve seen a bit of that. We’ll see here in a couple months when I get to actively job searching. Luckily I’m in such a niche skill base that I think I’ll be okay, but you never know. Thanks for the heads up!
Sorry you had to go through it; it’s very exhausting and miserable, as you probably know.
You’ll be okay, regardless. You have the skills and can prove it, if given the chance. It is just frustrating trying to get to that point sometimes. Just keep your head up and reiterate the specifics of your skills to recruiters and during phone screens. Once you get to those first actual interviews, it gets a lot easier since so many people have this shared experience. I had so many interviewers ask the same question I felt like I was reciting a monologue from a movie after a while. :D
Jokes on you, i never had a plan
23 - no one liked me…
Did you still act like you were in freshman year?
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Still trying to fully realise this.
Hard to be surrounded by the horrors of the world and not want to try and make things better.
Harder still to find any kind of institution or group that’s got the finances and expertise to make effective changes, but which hasn’t been hijacked and looted by corporate raiders.
Feels like I’m living in Mad Max world and I’m trying to decide which insane biker cult to join if I want to make the world a brighter friendlier place.
I was about 25. I did actually work my way up through sheer knowledge base within the first 6 years at the company. But after several years of going for a more technical position the boss slept with a new hire who was new to the industry and gave them the position.
I promptly left the company and heard that the person who gain the position through I’ll gotten means not only messed up a lot but also injured themselves doing stupid shit anyone who’s been in the industry would not do.
the boss slept with a new hire who was new to the industry and gave them the position
Wow, talk about whoring.
Yeah, he was a total piece of work, married and his wife was pretty ill too
That hasn’t changed much. In my area, women are sleeping with men to get minimum wage and work twice as hard as men who don’t sleep with the same men (I guess) to not work hard and make 2-3 times as much. Let’s just say I’ve learned I can do without a whole lot of stuff I didn’t think I could before. For years.
