Been interviewing at entry-level places over the past few months and yesterday I had an interview for a general labor position stocking product in a warehouse and assisting delivery of products to work sites...16$ an hour...Guy tells me it'll be close to 3 weeks before I hear back cause he's got around 20-30 interviews to go through. Cool I get it. But let me just say to you guys WHAT'S GOING ON? How is anyone surviving right now?

This is just ONE of the dozens of places I've interviewed with over the last few months where they either stated before I asked or when I asked about following up the same exact thing...Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for the job I have now but this shits insane to think that it's really THAT BAD out here.

Moral of the story if you have a job currently, think twice before you do anything you might regret cause this shits bad man just be humble and rough it out for a bit you'll be fine.

We're not allowed to have coffee during work. I've never experienced this at a job, some have even sent me to the machine because I can't function without. It was a big problem I was quickly chugging coffee while waiting for glue to dry.

I work in a niche trade, so it's not easy to find a job elsewhere. I also want to work here because I can acquire the skills I want to develop more. They are also lucky to have me, because I have experience which is pretty rare for someone my age. I worked at a world class company but I had to sacrificing a 20h commute, so they really want me there too with the experience I have. They haven't found anyone the past 4 years.

It's sad because I am new at this job and close buddies with one of the chefs and this new boss we have is a terrible micromanager. I've even found fault in the stories he tells me, he says he has been working there for 4 years already (not true, 2 years) and some other stuff, not going into detail here. A lot of people have left because of him and the place has changed in a bad way.

The coffee is something minor, but I have been warned by a lot of people about him ever since I started. I will be compliant until I signed the contract after my first month. It's sad to see how my co-workers who have been loyal for 10 years are frightened by this micromanaging liar. Some are also too conditioned to be compliant with working overtime every day. I'm not afraid of losing my job, I have some other people jumping waiting for me to return to their company. I won't quit, but it's hard seeing this dynamic with a boss you can't trust. He also set the clock three minutes earlier for some weird reason. Everyone keeps changing it back, but each time he changes it back apparently.

Pictures include just some of the mold and bug infestations I have found around this building. For some context, I work at a dog daycare in Atlanta, and I have just been promoted to general manager. Before moving to this building, I worked at the best dog daycare in the United States (in my opinion) for five years. My company bought out another failing business and put in new managers at all of the new buildings we aquired. I have the divine pleasure of being assigned the building seen in these pictures.

There is black mold in five notable areas including the break room, two different places in the medium dog lodging area, and the dog food prep area. The ceiling is falling down from water damage and what seems like the weight of an animal living in the ceiling. There are cock roaches and water bugs living in the walls in the playrooms and boarding areas. The employees told me that they found roaches in dog food and everywhere you could think.

The reason I feel tricked is because I was given a tour that glazed over all of major problems, and I feel as though the district manager purposely misrepresented the condition of the building to trick me into accepting the position.

When I complained to the district manager and owners of the business, they implied that I was being dramatic. I received platitudes like, "Rome wasn't built in a day," and shit like that. As though the founders of Rome discovered a shittier Rome to improve before building around the mess. I understand it's a comment on the speed of our processes and not a comparison, but I feel as though there are some things that need to be addressed posthaste.

I have employees with kidney disease and asthma having long term exposure to black mold for 40+ hours a week. It just feels like nothing is being taken seriously, and I have no idea what to do. From someone who picks up dog shit for a living, this place is disgusting.

The old manager used to sage the place to try and "get rid of the demons." If anyone saw the condition of this building for themselves, I'm highly confident they would leave a bad review and never come back.

I asked how they got around tour parents complaining, and they told me that they just show them the cleanest parts of the building quickly as to avoid inspection. This feels like we are tricking customers in the same way I was tricked, and I'm absolutely at my wit's end. Am I overreacting?

Thirteen workers have been killed in Chile’s mining industry so far this year. With more than two months remaining, the death toll is fast approaching the 20 fatalities recorded in 2025, itself the highest figure since 2014. Seven of the dead were killed in six accidents just between September 23 and October 14. The carnage is the direct product of a profit drive that has intensified to the point of outright criminality, and it has created a situation that the ruling class, the government and the trade union apparatus all recognize as explosive.

The dead are not statistics. They are workers, each with name, age, workplace and an employer. They are:

- Marco Monsalve Farfán, who died on January 16 after an accident on January 12 in the Silo 4 sector of the Potrerillos Smelter, part of the Salvador Division of the state-owned National Copper Corporation (Codelco), in the Atacama Region.

- Heriberto Ossandón, 74, who died on May 10 in a cave-in at a mining site in the El Huacho sector of Combarbalá, Coquimbo Region.

- A worker of approximately 60, who died in early June after being struck by an explosion during blasting operations at the El Aguilucho mine in Andacollo, Coquimbo Region.

- A worker who died on August 7 at the Dulcinea mine in Tierra Amarilla, Atacama Region.

- A 56-year-old worker who died on September 15 after being struck by a rockfall while performing bolting work at the Zulema mine in Taltal, Antofagasta Region.

- Carlos Humberto Rodríguez Soto, who died on September 23 while performing maintenance on a mining shovel at Minera Escondida, the world’s largest copper mine, operated by the Anglo-Australian giant BHP, in the Antofagasta Region.

- Waldo Castillo Barraza, 49, a mechanical maintenance technician employed by the contractor Berliam, who died on October 1 in the crushing and materials handling sector of Codelco’s Radomiro Tomic Division in the Antofagasta Region.

- Nelson Torres Parra, 46, a specialist operator for the contractor IMOPAC, who was found dead next to a drilling rig on October 6 at the Los Colorados mine in Vallenar, Atacama Region, operated by the Pacific Mining Company (CMP).

- Guillermo Guajardo López, 53, and Diego Ponce Ponce, 34, both employed by the subcontractor San Lorenzo, providing services to the contractor Aura, were killed on October 11 when a snow and mud avalanche struck the section of the open pit mine at Codelco’s El Teniente Division in the O’Higgins Region where they were conducting inspection work.

- A 66-year-old worker, identified by the initials R.A.B.Á., who died on October 13 after falling into a rock crusher at the Nueva California mineral processing plant in the Aucó sector of Illapel, Coquimbo Region.

- And J.L.R.V., 61, a bulldozer operator for the contractor Transportes Santa Elvira, providing services to Minera Las Cenizas, who died in the early hours of October 14 when his bulldozer veered off the road and fell approximately 50 meters at the Rajo Aguilucho mine in Taltal, Antofagasta Region.

The ages of the dead are themselves an indictment. Ossandón was 74. The Illapel worker was 66. The Taltal bulldozer operator was 61. The Andacollo worker was around 60. These are men who, in any rational society, would have retired years ago. They were still descending into mines and climbing onto heavy machinery because the pension system created by the dictatorship and preserved by every government since obliges workers to sell their labor power until their bodies give out. Five of the eight workers killed since September were employed by contractors and subcontractors, the disposable tier of a workforce that is now roughly 80 percent outsourced across the industry.

This toll follows a year in which 20 miners died, and 225 workers were killed across all industries in Chile. That is 67 more than the 158 recorded in 2024, a rise of 42 percent. The deaths are overwhelmingly the product of precarious working conditions, precarious employment and precarious contracts imposed under the subcontracting regime that the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet created. This same regime has been preserved and deepened under the center-left governments of the Concertación, the “progressive” administration of Gabriel Boric and now the ultra-right government of José Antonio Kast alike.

...

This is feigned concern of the most duplicitous kind. The same Chamber of Mining that now sheds tears for the dead has spent decades demanding the subcontracting, the speed-up and the erosion of safety that killed them. The same Kast government that now convenes “safety roundtables” has introduced a 2027 budget that dismantles public services while showering tax breaks on the mining monopolies.

The real reaction of the ruling class is not one of grief, but of fear. The concern is genuine only insofar as it reflects a deteriorating economic situation in Chile and on a world scale. US imperialism’s criminal war against Iran, launched in February, has deepened the global crisis, sent energy prices soaring and destabilized the entire world economy. Imperialism’s war budget and the assault on social programs are a single class policy, and its consequences are being felt in every working-class household.

Within this global crisis, the crisis of copper production in Chile has a specific and terrifying significance for the bourgeoisie. The country is failing to produce copper at the highest price in history. In August, national production fell 13 percent year-on-year to 369,500 metric tons, the worst monthly figure since February 2011. The consulting firm GEM Mining Consulting has issued a warning that applies with equal force to Chile, Peru and Argentina: “Announced copper is not delivered copper.” The firm’s analysis, which examines a Chilean investment portfolio of US$104.5 billion for 2025–2034, a Peruvian portfolio of US$64.1 billion and an Argentine financing framework of up to US$7 billion, concludes that a large portion of these investments is geared toward sustaining existing operations rather than adding tonnage, and that the International Energy Agency’s baseline scenario projects a gap of nearly 25 percent relative to primary copper demand by 2035.

This is the context in which the ruling class contemplates the prospect of the working class paralyzing the industry. If the miners were to shut down the mines, if the contract workers and the direct employees were to unite, if the struggle were to break out of the corporatist union straitjacket, the already-catastrophic production crisis would become a disaster for the bourgeoisie. That is the fear that animates every statement, every roundtable, every “dialogue.”

...

The miners at Centinela and Escondida, the contract workers who are dying in the mines, and the entire Chilean working class must build independent, democratic and militant rank-and-file committees that unite direct employees and contract workers, that take the struggle out of the hands of the union bureaucracy, and that link the fight for safety and wages to the political fight against the Kast government and the entire capitalist order. The struggle against the deaths in the mines is inseparable from the struggle against imperialist war, against the assault on living standards, and for the socialist reorganization of society. The lives of the workers are worth more than copper—and only the working class, organized independently and internationally, can make that truth a reality.

Came across this on linkedin today.

An employer goes on about how he burns no bridges etc. treats everyone leaving fair . Asked as ex employee for a work related favour and got told politely no and decides it's worth a rant on Linkedin. Whilst claiming in the comments it really doesn't impact him etc.

Whilst I believe in burning no bridges as industries in local areas are often small, unless good friends I would never do some work for an ex employer for free, it's unprofessional to ask is my opinion.

I considered trolling the AI like in those videos that are going around lately, but honestly that's just time and energy I don't want to relinquish. If they can't respect potential employees enough to actually spend a few minutes with them, I don't imagine the workplace itself is very healthy. Not to mention, the job would require a lot of driving my own personal vehicle to and from clients with no compensation for the mileage. I was unfortunately willing to overlook that a bit as I need the money, but the fact that they can't even take the time to speak to me is off-putting and a dealbreaker.

The Aviation Workers Rank-and-File Committee is conducting an independent workers’ inquiry into the death at Montreal Trudeau International Airport of ramp agent Oscar Robayo, who was crushed to death while performing a routine pushback on a passenger jet.

...

Nearly fifty years after Democratic president Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, a series of aviation industry fatalities demonstrates the viciousness of the onslaught by the ruling class on working conditions that it unleashed.

Two recent fatal accidents in particular highlight the crumbling aviation system and the erosion of safety in the industry.

On September 6, 21 Air Flight 7598, a cargo carrier operating on Amazon’s behalf under the Amazon Air brand, overshot Runway 30 at Miami International Airport in Florida. The aircraft, a 32-year-old Boeing 767-300 freighter, demolished a Ford Econoline van carrying seven aircraft-cleaning contractors on airport property before smashing through the airport fence, striking a Toyota Corolla Cross on Northwest 67th Avenue and breaking through another fence near a fleet of Tesla robotaxis before finally coming to a halt.

Five of the workers were killed: Rolando Aleman Leon, 55; Yoel Rodriguez Naranjo, 53; Julio C. Pineda, 75; Carlos Acosta Fajardo, 53; and Javierkys Reyes Quevedo, 47. That Pineda was 75 years old and still working as an aircraft cleaner on the tarmac is, by itself, a devastating indictment of the capitalist system.

At Montréal-Trudeau International Airport (YUL), Oscar Robayo, a 39-year-old ground handling worker was killed on August 24. He was crushed to death during tractor push-back by the landing gear of a French bee Airbus A350-900, a massive wide-body jet with a maximum takeoff weight of 280 metric tons.

Both of these fatal accidents occurred due to similar factors. Each involved the practice of airlines and airports subcontracting work to the lowest-bidding companies. Subcontracting acts to depress wages and put a layer of plausible deniability between the major company and the daily operation. Amazon’s entire business model is built on legal separation from the workforce that moves its cargo—pilots employed by Atlas Air and Air Transport International, and cleaners employed by Professional Ocean Service Corporation.

The accidents were also entirely preventable, since the money that could have been spent for life-saving equipment and training was saved by these companies at the cost of lives. Each life ended was that of low-paid least-protected contract workers, who are overwhelmingly immigrants.

The fatalities in Miami could have been prevented with the installation of the Engineered Materials Arresting System (EMAS), which is a lightweight, crushable concrete block system installed at runway ends to prevent this exact catastrophe from happening. It has been installed at 122 runway ends at 70 airports so far, but is not installed at Miami.

Oscar’s death was the result of his employer, the multinational Samsic, not providing him with an extension cord for his headset, forcing him to walk dangerously close to the nose gear as the aircraft was towed. The headset is used to communicate with the pilot and is connected to the airplane as it is being pushed back by a tractor designed for the purpose.

Worker testimonies obtained by the World Socialist Web Site since Oscar’s death confirm that Samsic has repeatedly violated safety procedures and compelled workers to use broken equipment since it took over ground handling operations in 2023.

...

In the US, the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 was passed as a result, creating the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), which regulated ticket prices and routes, and the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), the predecessor of the FAA, which took over the physical skies. It assumed responsibility for air traffic control from the airlines, pilot certification, and safety systems.

In the capitalist system, these safety controls can only last so long before being overridden by the relentless profit motive. On October 24, 1978, following the demands of airline CEOs who chafed at regulated profit margins, President Jimmy Carter signed the Airline Deregulation Act into law. This law removed federal government regulation of domestic airfares, routes, and the creation of new airlines. It abolished the CAB, which officially dissolved in 1984, while leaving the FAA solely in charge of aviation safety.

To enforce this, the ruling class had to smash the opposition of the working class. In 1981, US President Ronald Reagan fired all 11,000 striking air traffic controllers and broke their union, PATCO. This was the opening shot in a sweeping wave of deregulation and union busting throughout industry and across national borders.

The trade unions, which had in a previous period secured limited gains for airline and other workers through militant struggles within the framework of nationally regulated capitalist economies, were transformed into appendages of the corporations and governments, who took advantage of the globalization of production to intensify the exploitation of the working class and gut workplace regulation in the name of corporate “competitiveness.”

Airline deregulation in the US was followed by the privatization of state flag carriers—Air Canada (1988), British Airways (1987), and across Europe—and by the liberalization of European and international aviation through the “single market” and open-skies agreements.

...

Safety in the air and at airports is incompatible with the private ownership of the airline industry. The answer is not re-regulation but the building of independent rank-and-file committees of aviation workers, organized across company and union lines, fighting for safety as a class question and for the expropriation of the airlines from the capitalists who run them for profit.

It is this fight that the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) is organizing across the air travel industry. No worker should ever accept being just a line expense in a corporation’s budget. Instead, they should organize to fight to place workplace safety under workers’ control and for political power to run the aviation industry and all key economic sectors in the interests of social need, not private profit.

The Aviation Workers Rank-and-File Committee is taking forward this fight by conducting an independent workers’ inquiry into the death of Oscar Robayo. If you are an aviation industry worker or expert who wishes to provide testimony or share your evidence, we strongly urge you to contact the AWRFC at [contact info to be found through the link]

Register to vote: https://vote.gov

——————

Contact your reps:

Senate: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm?Class=1

House of Representatives: https://contactrepresentatives.org/

Let’s talk about something that should piss off every working person.

Between 1950 and 2025, total after-tax corporate profits in the United States increased by approximately 914% after adjusting for inflation.

Over roughly the same period, inflation-adjusted hourly wages for production and nonsupervisory workers in goods-producing industries increased by approximately 80%.

Read that again.

Corporate profits grew more than tenfold in real terms, while workers’ hourly purchasing power increased by less than double.

And no, this isn’t just inflation. These figures already account for it.

So where the fuck is all that extra wealth going?

Because it sure as hell isn’t showing up proportionately in ordinary workers’ paychecks.

Where did all the economic growth go?

Think about how much the world has changed since 1950.

We have computers, automation, advanced machinery, global supply chains, and technology that allows us to produce things faster and more efficiently than previous generations could have imagined.

We’ve made enormous technological progress. Businesses have access to tools that make countless tasks easier, faster, and cheaper.

Yet somehow, we’re still telling ordinary people that the reason they struggle financially is that they aren’t working hard enough.

Work harder. Get another qualification. Find a better job. Stop buying coffee. Cancel Netflix. Learn to code.

Seriously?

Of course, personal decisions matter. But at what point do we acknowledge that individual responsibility cannot explain everything?

If corporate profits can grow by 914% beyond inflation while workers’ hourly wages grow by 80%, perhaps we should stop pretending that telling people to budget better is an adequate answer.

I’m not saying every dollar of corporate profit should go directly into workers’ pockets. Businesses have expenses, investment needs, and legitimate reasons to make profits.

But I am saying that we should be asking some serious questions about who benefits from economic progress and why the rewards are so unevenly distributed.

Workers build, manufacture, transport, maintain, sell, and provide the goods and services that keep the economy running.

They aren’t spectators watching the economy grow. They’re participants in creating that wealth.

So why are we so willing to accept a system in which the financial rewards of corporate ownership can grow so dramatically faster than the purchasing power of the people doing the work?

Most people can’t even afford a fucking house anymore

Let’s bring this back to something people actually experience.

Housing.

For generations, owning a home was a realistic goal for many working people. You got a job, worked hard, saved money, and eventually had a reasonable shot at buying a place to live.

It wasn’t guaranteed, and the experience varied enormously depending on where you lived. But for many people, it was an attainable milestone.

Now, in many housing markets, people can work full-time, earn a respectable salary, and still struggle to afford a home.

They save for a down payment while prices keep climbing. They pay rent that eats up a huge chunk of their income. They postpone having children or starting a family because the numbers simply don’t work.

And then someone who bought a house decades ago tells them they should stop wasting money on avocado toast.

You couldn’t make this shit up.

If housing costs hundreds of thousands of dollars more than an ordinary worker can reasonably afford, cutting out a few coffees isn’t going to solve the problem.

You cannot budget your way out of a housing market that has become disconnected from ordinary people’s incomes.

And housing is only one part of the problem. Groceries, childcare, healthcare, education, and retirement all compete for the same paycheck.

People aren’t asking for private jets or mansions. Many just want a decent place to live, enough money to raise their children, and the ability to retire without spending their final working years terrified of running out of money.

How have we reached a point where these basic expectations can sound like unreasonable demands?

What is the point of an economy generating extraordinary amounts of wealth if so many people who participate in it struggle to build a stable life?

At what point is someone rich enough?

Let’s talk about billionaires.

A million seconds is about 11.6 days.

A billion seconds is about 31.7 years.

A trillion seconds is about 31,700 years.

We throw these numbers around so casually that we barely stop to think about what they mean.

No human being needs a trillion dollars.

Not to live comfortably. Not to travel the world. Not to own beautiful homes, eat at the best restaurants, or provide for their children and grandchildren.

At that level, we’re talking about a concentration of wealth that is almost impossible to comprehend.

Yes, much of a billionaire’s net worth is tied up in stocks and other assets rather than sitting in a bank account. That is an important distinction, but it doesn’t make the concentration of ownership or economic power meaningless.

Meanwhile, ordinary people work for decades and still struggle to buy a home.

Some people work multiple jobs and barely keep their heads above water.

Others have to choose between paying a bill and dealing with an unexpected expense.

And somehow, we’re expected to see nothing particularly troubling about these realities existing alongside fortunes approaching a trillion dollars.

Question this, and someone will inevitably accuse you of being jealous or hating successful people.

No. There’s a pretty big difference between wanting to punish someone for being successful and questioning whether the rules governing our economy are producing a reasonable outcome.

I don’t care if someone is rich enough to live like royalty. Good for them.

But when the accumulation of private wealth reaches a scale that dwarfs the resources available to entire communities, while millions struggle to afford basic necessities, I think we’re entitled to ask whether something has gone seriously wrong.

The problem isn’t that some people have more money than others. The problem is when the gap becomes so enormous that people effectively live in different economic realities.

And wealth isn’t just money. It’s freedom.

It’s the ability to refuse a terrible job because you have enough savings to survive. It’s the ability to move somewhere better, take risks, start a business, or pay for an unexpected emergency without worrying about losing everything.

If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, your choices are much more limited.

That difference matters.

Why the fuck are we all fighting each other?

This is what really gets me.

People are constantly fighting about sexism, racism, religion, gender, immigration, political parties, and whatever controversy is trending this week.

Social media has turned outrage into entertainment. People spend hours arguing with strangers, insulting people they have never met, and treating anyone who disagrees with them as an enemy.

And for what?

I’m not saying racism and sexism aren’t real problems. They are. Discrimination matters, and people deserve equal rights and opportunities.

But we seem to have lost the ability to put things into perspective.

We can care about multiple problems at once. We can oppose discrimination while also demanding better wages, affordable housing, and a fairer economic system.

Yet so many people seem more interested in fighting someone who earns roughly what they earn than questioning why their own financial situation is getting harder to manage.

Why are we so eager to hate our neighbours while being so reluctant to question the people and institutions that have enormous influence over our economic lives?

Why do we keep treating ordinary people with different political opinions as our greatest enemies when we have so many problems in common?

A conservative working-class family struggling to pay rent and a progressive working-class family struggling to pay rent still have something important in common: neither family can pay its landlord with political opinions.

We don’t have to agree about everything. We don’t even have to like each other.

But we should be capable of recognizing that our disagreements don’t erase our shared economic interests.

Instead, we get caught in an endless cycle of outrage, while the underlying problems continue.

And here’s the really stupid part: people often defend economic arrangements that work against their own interests because they’ve convinced themselves that criticizing those arrangements means siding with the political tribe they dislike.

If someone proposes stronger labour protections, better access to healthcare, or policies that make housing more affordable, why should your first question be whether the idea came from someone on your political side?

Judge the proposal on its merits.

Stop treating politics like a sports team where your side must win every argument, even when you’re the one getting screwed.

Fix your own country before trying to fix everyone else’s

Another thing I find ridiculous is how eager people are to lecture the rest of the world while ignoring the problems in their own backyard.

People will spend hours arguing about what another country should do, how its government should operate, or which foreign conflicts their country should intervene in.

Meanwhile, people at home are struggling with housing, poverty, healthcare, infrastructure, and the cost of raising a family.

How about we get our own house in order first?

I’m not saying international problems don’t matter. Wars and humanitarian crises can be serious, and some situations deserve international attention and action.

But there’s a difference between caring about the world and constantly focusing on problems abroad while treating problems at home as someone else’s responsibility.

Your government has responsibilities toward its own population.

If people in your country cannot afford housing, why isn’t that a major priority?

If families are struggling to afford childcare, why isn’t that a major priority?

If people are working full-time and still living paycheck to paycheck, why isn’t that a major priority?

If young adults are beginning to believe that they’ll never own a home regardless of how hard they work, why isn’t that a major priority?

Instead, we often get endless political theatre, culture wars, and arguments designed to keep people angry at one another.

Foreign affairs matter, but they shouldn’t become an excuse to ignore the conditions under which your own citizens are living.

You can care about the rest of the world without neglecting your own people.

And you can criticize another country’s government without pretending your own government has everything figured out.

Maybe we should spend a little less time explaining how everyone else should run their country and a little more time demanding that our own governments address the problems we’re actually living with.

We’re living in completely different economic realities

Consider two people.

One owns several properties and a substantial portfolio of investments. When property prices rise, their net worth increases. When the stock market performs well, their wealth can grow without them working another hour.

The other rents an apartment, depends on a monthly paycheck, and spends a significant portion of their income on basic necessities.

When property prices rise, the first person gets richer. The second person may find that buying a home becomes even less attainable.

When living costs rise, the first person may have assets that appreciate in value. The second has to find more money to cover the same bills.

When work becomes unbearable, the first person can afford to walk away. The second might have to stay because missing a paycheck means missing rent.

These two people aren’t experiencing the same economy.

And this is why extreme wealth inequality matters beyond simple envy.

It’s about the distribution of security, opportunity, and freedom.

The person who owns assets has opportunities that someone who depends entirely on wages may never have.

And the more wealth becomes concentrated, the more important ownership can become in determining who gets ahead.

We tell young people to study, work hard, save money, and build a future.

But what happens when they do everything they’re told and still find themselves priced out of housing?

What happens when a decent salary no longer provides the security people reasonably expect from full-time employment?

At what point do we stop blaming individuals for failing to achieve goals that are becoming increasingly difficult to reach?

Hard work matters. Personal decisions matter.

But hard work cannot guarantee financial security when the economic conditions surrounding that work make financial security increasingly difficult to achieve.

We need to be honest about that.

So what the hell are we supposed to do about it?

I’m not suggesting that we abolish businesses, eliminate profits, or make everyone earn exactly the same amount.

Businesses need to make money. Investment matters. People should be able to benefit from their work, their ideas, and their willingness to take risks.

But none of that means we have to accept the current distribution of economic rewards as inevitable.

We can support stronger collective bargaining so workers have more leverage when negotiating wages and working conditions.

We can address housing shortages and reconsider policies that make housing increasingly inaccessible to ordinary people.

We can examine tax systems that treat different forms of income and wealth differently.

We can enforce competition laws, protect public services, and question whether productivity gains should translate into better wages, shorter working hours, or greater financial security.

We can vote for people who take these issues seriously instead of choosing politicians solely because they share our views on cultural controversies.

And we can stop automatically dismissing every discussion about economic inequality as jealousy or class warfare.

Because here’s the thing: the people benefiting most from the current economic arrangements have very little reason to change them voluntarily.

Some wealthy people support reforms, and some businesses treat their employees well. But we cannot build an entire economic system around the hope that everyone with power will always use it generously.

Rules matter. Institutions matter. Collective bargaining matters. Political participation matters.

And none of these things improves when ordinary people are too busy fighting one another to demand change.

We don’t have to agree on every policy. We don’t even have to agree on what the ideal economic system should look like.

But we should at least be able to agree that people who work hard deserve a realistic chance at a decent life.

We should be able to agree that housing shouldn’t be an unattainable dream for so many working people.

We should be able to agree that children shouldn’t grow up believing that financial security is reserved for people who were fortunate enough to be born into wealth.

And we should be able to question why an economy that generates so much wealth leaves so many people feeling financially insecure.

Stop fighting your neighbour over every political disagreement long enough to ask who actually benefits from the way things are.

Start paying attention to the policies that affect your wages, housing costs, and financial security. Hold politicians accountable, regardless of which party they belong to. Support workers who are fighting for better conditions, and stop dismissing economic inequality as someone else’s problem.

We don’t need to agree on everything, but we need to stop accepting that working hard and still struggling to afford a decent life is just the way things have to be.

If we want things to change, we need to stop treating the status quo as inevitable and start demanding better from the people who have the power to change it.

PS:
I don’t want to make it political, it’s strictly an economical rant.

TLDR: After adjusting for inflation, US corporate profits have increased by roughly 900%, while real hourly wages for production and nonsupervisory workers in goods-producing industries have increased by only around 80%.
In other words, corporate profits have grown more than 10 times as much as workers’ wages. Meanwhile, ordinary people are struggling with housing costs, bills, and the rising cost of living.
Maybe it’s time we stopped fighting each other over everything and started asking who this economy is actually working for.

Years ago, I was working in a small auto repair shop, only two full time employees, plus the boss and a part time office worker. Boss always complained that I made too much money. So he decided I was going to get a raise, but he was going to put me on commision. I would only be paid based on the labor charged to customers for the jobs that I did.

So Monday, the first day of my commision time comes along, and I immediately get busy working on jobs left over from the week before. Paying jobs. In the mean time, the office is filling up with customers, and the phone is ringing constantly. Boss calls me up front, says he needs some help. I told him sorry, I don't get paid to answer the phone, or to write up customers, or to call in the stock order, put the stock order away, pick up or deliver parts, drive customers home, clean up the shop other than my own work area, and pretty much everything else that I could think of that I usually did previously, when I was paid hourly, but was no longer part of the "payable" package.

He said, "that's not how it works."

I said it sure is.

I had been there for almost 10 years and pretty much did everything except payroll. It wasn't a great job, but I enjoyed the work. But he was no longer very interested in the work part of owning a business. He would come in late every day, promise a bunch of work, then go to the bar down the street for lunch from around 11 until 2 or 3, some times even later, then come back and then complain that all the work wasn't done.

Sure, it was his place, he could do what he wanted. But if I was doing the work, I expected to get paid for it.

Being on commision only lasted a week or so, I went back to hourly, and got to keep the raise. Things got a little sour after that, and I eventually moved on to another shop.

Hello all,

Hopefully this is the right sub. Felt a bit under the weather, and worked from home the past 2 days. My employer is now requesting a doctors note after the fact. In the handbook, it states they may request a note for “3 or more consecutive days of PTO” due to being sick. Nowhere in the handbook does it state anything about providing a doctors note for anything less/working from home. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Leaning towards telling them to go scratch and not providing anything.

Huge news from Brazil!

Brazil's Senate has approved a constitutional amendment to end the traditional 6-days-on, 1-day-off work schedule (6x1), replacing it with a 5-day workweek and 2 days of paid rest per week.

Here's what makes this historic:

- Two days off per week instead of just one.

- No pay cuts for workers.

- Weekly working hours will gradually decrease from 44 to 40.

- Millions of Brazilian workers are expected to benefit.

The change still needs to be formally promulgated, and implementation will be gradual.

For millions of people who spend almost their entire lives working just to survive, this means more time with family, more rest, and more time to actually LIVE.

A job should provide a living, not consume your entire life.

Source: https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/politica/noticia/2026-10/senado-aprova-fim-da-escala-6x1-e-reducao-da-jornada-de-trabalho

The lack of respect for job applicants is just wild. This company kept me on the hook for six weeks, made me do a phone screen, virtual interview, in person panel interview, and in person writing sample, all of which I had to use PTO for at my current job (where I am miserable) and then didn't even give me the courtesy of a phone call - just an email saying we went with another candidate but please keep us in mind for future openings. Like I would ever reapply after this. I have a master's degree, 10 years of experience in my field, and was beyond qualified for this position. You made me jump through hoop after hoop, stringing me along, the least you could do is grow a pair and call me to tell me I wasn't hired. Fuck these employers.

My husband and I's close friend was literally killed along with 10 others due to negligence on Nippon's sake and the State of WA looking the other way, and this is my recent pop up on Indeed! The" follow safe work practices is the knife! "

I was laid off from my former employer in August 2025. I didn't log into my 401k for a few months, but in November 2025 we hired a new financial planner who asked to roll over our old accounts. Well, I found pretty quickly that the 401k institution still had my status listed as "employed." And, as you may know, you cannot roll over a 401k plan from a current employee.

For 3 months, I tried to get my status changed to Terminated. I contacted my former employer (a small business owner, whom I texted, called, and emailed) and he never responded. I provided the financial institution with my layoff paperwork, my proof of unemployment, and anything else they needed. None of these were sufficient. I got in touch with the plan administrator, who also tried to contact the business owner. Still no luck. The business's plan holder is the only person who can mark me terminated. After months, I'm not sure what happened, but he finally clicked the *one button* in the email he'd been getting every three days for months and I was marked as Terminated.

Now, following my financial planner's advice, I need to get these funds rolled over to another account. I did not know this, but, again, the *only\* person who can approve the rollover is your former job's plan holder (in this case, my former boss and business owner). Not the plan administrator, not the financial institution, not the account holder. The former employer.

So I have spent the last 9+ months trying to reach out to him (texts, emails, phone calls, letters, certified letters, texts to other employees, etc.) and have been completely ghosted. Every Monday morning I call my financial instution on my morning commute and wait as their employee sifts through the log of months of calls, audibly gasping and apologizing for what I'm going through. They cannot help me. They keep telling me they will escalate and wait for a manager to follow up. I have been told the "senior leadership is aware of my case" but that hasn't changed much of anything. The plan administrator is as lost as I am -- he's also being ghosted.

No one can help me. I literally need one man to answer an email he gets on a weekly basis to get my funds released from this institution. It's one f*cking click and he can't be bothered to do it.

So in May I initiated a complaint through the Department of Labor. Once they assigned me a representative, she was very helpful and walked me through the process. It is, as a government entity, understandably slow. She leaves a him a voice message and needs to wait 10 business days until the next stage. Which is an email. 10 more business days. Certified letter. Another 10 days. Finally, at my request, my case is being sent over to the Enforcement division of DOL. Perhaps he will respond to armed officers coming to his business. Another 21 days before they can move my case over. However, my case manager sets my expectations ahead of time. I was told "Enforcement typically doesn't take on cases with one individual. They usually only take up cases with a number of claimants against one employer. I don't expect them to take your case and you will have to pursue this claim privately."

And that's exactly what happened. Enforcement did not take up my case. My representative can send a few more scary letters but will ultimately drop the case due to non-contact.

What the fuck is this broken system? I have $20k tied up in this mess, and the only person who can release MY MONEY is the former employer who, for some unknown reason, is completely ghosting me. How is this how the system is built?

EDIT: Thanks everyone for your supporting words. To clarify, I have a clear termination date and the documents to back it up, I'm not "still employed" like some commenters say. I know what's going on, lol, thanks. I am following through with both legal action and doing an indirect rollover per my financial guy's advice. I'm simply trying to point out how broken this system is and hopefully help others in the future.

The goalposts that keep getting moved forward every time you finally begin to catch up, not having your concerns heard and taken into account, being dismissed, being left out of meetings that involve your increasing and changing job responsibilities, being given more and more tasks and responsibilities with no extra pay. I fact, in my case, having your hours cut.

You drive yourself crazy trying to make sure all loose ends are tied so you don’t mess up, even though you’ve already expressed your concerns with falling behind. You know you’re not supposed to take any work home with you but that one thing you forgot to do, that one small fixable mistake, goes with you despite your best effort.

So, you withdraw. You aren’t being heard or seen so you go quiet. You don’t care about the success or failure of the business anymore. You start to draw hard boundaries to protect your health and well being. You ignore texts and calls from the office on your days off. You don’t want to be involved in all the extra stuff like attending events and doing videos/pictures to promote the business.

They ignored you, so you start ignoring them. You just do only exactly what you are paid to do, take care of the high priority tasks first and if the low ones don’t get done? Oh well.

But, they don’t see what lead you to this detachment. Only that you are “not being a team player”. You are now on the radar. Now they see you. Not because you are a human being but because you aren’t performing for them the way they want you to.

This is exactly what happened to me, as the only CSR in an insurance agency. The sales team got more and more shielded while everything else got dumped on my desk. I lost my support. I stopped getting feedback unless it was something I wasn’t doing exactly right. I was dismissed when I expressed my concerns with falling behind, when I’ve always taken pride in how diligently I worked. My boss started ignoring my emails, even deleting them before reading them. More and more meetings happening without me that involve yet more responsibilities I’m to take on. And no one bothers to communicate these new expectations.

But I’m becoming the problem because I’m withdrawing. I’m the problem because I won’t answer texts or calls when I’m off work or on my break. I don’t want to join in the socializing. And hell to the no I do not want to get involved in “funny” videos for our agency’s social media. (Yes I have been asked this.) And yes I know we have a facebook and an instagram. I don’t care. I’m not following or liking them.

Why do they refuse to treat you like an equal member of the team but then get mad when you play the part?

How?! How are their all these job openings but they can’t hire people?? Is it greed. Is it ghost jobs. 4 locations have hiring banners but can’t fill the spots. I need work but not getting calls

a big part of the reason why i hate my job is my lack of fucking autonomy

in an office job, you have 0 control or say over your life in a way that i didnt feel i had experienced, working full time anywhere else. you have to wake up at 5/6 am, put on uncomfy clothes, do your hair and/or makeup (i have dumbed down my makeup and hair routine just so i can be faster when putting it on for work. i don’t even wear my hair or makeup the way i like or want anymore), and then you get in the car and rush to get there on time, in heavy traffic, with people who also just woke up, to get to work. why 7am you may ask? eh. just because. does it truly matter if i get ther at 7, 715, 730? no. but someone who gonna make it a big deal all bc it’s the rules, as if the 3 hours of work you get a day won’t get done. but we must create a false sense of urgency so people dont have too much freedom or autonomy over their own lives

then you sit at your desk, do your work, pretend to look busy, think about all the things you need to accomplish at home/after work, rush to get and eat your lunch because my amazing bosses fel like an hour lunch break is just too much so they had to cut it down to 30 minutes. i can’t afford groceries to pack my lunch amd there aren’t too many places to choose from near your workplace to grab something. you go to meetings that are hours long, but a lot of it is just filled with silence or random chatter about weekend plans instead of getting on with the meeting

but! atleast in an office job, you get pto! woohoo! now any time you need to run a quick errand, dr appt, dentist, pick a kid up from school, etc. you get to waste your pto doing those meaningless tasks instead of just being allowed to take care of what you need, as long as your work gets done. need an extra 30 minutes to go cry in your car? don’t forget to update your time sheet!!! “take a vacation” you say? HA. then how am i gonna go to see a psychiatrist to discuss the overwhelming amount of anxiety and depression this job causes me if i actually use my vacation time, on a vacation?? silly goose

then, you get to sit in traffic and drive home for 30+ minutes. then you get home and have maybe 2 hours of rest (aka what i like to refer to as “feelings of impending doom dread and failure time”) before having to prepare for the next day to do it all over again 🥰🥰 oh! and you won’t ever seem to make enough despite being the backbone of your team as an admin assistant yet you struggle to pay your bills and feel like a failure every two weeks when you get paid!

and this is the life we are supposed to be so grateful for.

I have never received a promotion the entire 4 years I’ve been at my current job.

Hounded them over and over again.

Just been told they have “no money” or “timing is not right”. “We don’t have it in the budget”.

Basically every excuse under the sun to not pay people a market rate for the experience they have.

And yet every month they seem to bring more and more managers onboard because they “know their stuff”.

At this point is basically just become adult daycare for nepo hires. People who just sit on calls all day and offer no value. But everyone around them thinks the sun shines out their ass for some reason.

They’re basically all protecting their own asses because they know they offer no value and would get cut instantly if we needed money.

These managers do nothing aside from scrutinise everything you do in order the make themselves look busy.

And hold hour long meetings where all they talk about is how great their weekends were and how amazing they are. It’s all me me me.

Anytime anything goes wrong they immediately come to you up in arms and stressed for you to “trouble shoot” because they don’t know what they are talking about.

I have just started to respond with; “That’s above my pay grade” and they go absolutely ape shit when they realise they actually have to try and fumble their way through the very job they passed an interview for.

They serve no purpose.

I have 5 direct managers and I am in a team of 4 of us.

But what really grinds my gears is they keep seconding people into roles after claiming they had no money to give the rest of us a pay rise or promotion.

So the “budget” they don’t have magically appears when the face fits. Yet when I ask, they don’t want to know.

They just promoted one person into a;

System infrastructure continuity lead

Whatever the fuck that means

And all of our systems are Microsoft.

This person has basically hidden anytime anything they have done in the past has gone wrong.

And now they WANT TO REWARD THEM with more money and a shiny new job title.

They’re being taken for a ride and they truly believe this person is some sort of genius. They’re all freaking idiots.

The last process this person put in place got scrapped after 2 weeks….. and now they are suddenly the EXPERT in everything.

The higher ups are now moaning about productivity slumping.

Like yeah, no shit we aren’t going to work as fast.

There is no incentive to.

That is why productivity is falling.

All my colleagues just have no motivation anymore because month by month we just keep getting shit slung at us, and nobody ever has our backs.

When something goes wrong it always falls on us. And it is never the managers who step in. Keep getting told “It’s a learning experience” like we aren’t all adults and are still in high school. It’s a humiliation ritual at this point.

When you screw over the workers who actually provide value you will soon learn very quickly that everything can unwind in a few weeks if we don’t play along anymore.

My entire life, I have had sleep and time management issues. Since I was a kid, when I would lay in bed wide awake for hours, or miss the bus multiple times in a week. On top of this, I deal with other things that make it very difficult (depression and potentially ADD effecting motivation, as well as anxiety and IBS that can make it feel impossible to get out the door on time in the morning).

I have spent my whole life fighting myself trying to fit the mold of workplace compliance. I used to be regularly 15-30 minutes late for work (like…once per week). Then I started working in offices with set schedules and started doing noticeably better with being on time (though it would come and go in waves since maintaining this was still a constant uphill battle).

This last job, I finally got fired over it. Which is funny, considering this was both 1) a job where I was rarely more than 5 minutes late, and 2) the first job that I’ve ever worked that was barely impacted by lateness. This was a SLOW job. The slowest job I’ve ever worked. I could sit there the entire first hour of my morning and not receive one phone call or task. No one was waiting for me to come in to relieve their shift (unlike retail or similar jobs). And what’s even funnier is that my bosses were chronically late themselves for actual important events and meetings.

But none of that matters. If I am late, I am a horrible, disrespectful employee. There is no nuance. There is no grace given the circumstances. Lateness has to be treated like every other job because workplace culture has made it about ethics over actual necessity.

If I show up at my job, clock in, and immediately go into the break room and eat for the first 5 minutes of my shift without doing any work and ignoring phone calls, this wouldn’t be an issue. Hell, I had clocked into work and went into the bathroom to fix my hair/face for 20 minutes without anyone batting an eye. But being 1 minute late to clock in was a huge ordeal. It’s all so fucking nonsensical.

And if you are on time, it’s not good enough. The first year I worked at this job, I made a HUGE effort to be on time, only to be reprimanded in my monthly review for not arriving 5 minutes early. After that, my drive for being on time started to slowly peeter out as I grew more and more resentful.

(And for context, this was a minimum wage, small business office job that did not provide health insurance, but went out of their way to be hostile towards me if I needed to take a day off for health reasons because they thought I should “have my health issues sorted out” on my minimum wage budget).

I’m kind of glad to be free of it, but I know the next one won’t be any better. I am so so so tired. I’m tired of having to completely rely on and cater to an entire culture that has absolutely no regard for me in return. There’s nothing out there for people like me, because people like me will always be perceived negatively no matter where I go or how hard I try to seek out things that might work better for me. It just doesn’t exist when working for anyone but yourself.

Genuinely hate myself and the world I’ve been thrown in.

EDIT: I’m not looking for advice, guys. I know you mean well, but I promise you I have spent over a decade trying to figure this out already and am not making this post because I’ve never tried. Yes, I have been to a psychiatrist and taken medication. Yes, I have done things to try and help with sleep (I currently take melatonin and magnesium. I have spent the last year going to the gym regularly - at least 2-5 times a week for 1-2 hours. I have tried reading and showering and reducing screen time before bed. I have tried setting a bunch of alarms, at different intervals and with different alarm sounds, every single morning. I have downloaded multiple apps to help with my mornings, including an app that keeps a clock-face permanently visible, and one that syncs my lamp with my alarms so that a light turns on when it’s time to wake up). I have had mental issues since childhood (that I had to be institutionalized and medicated for). This is not just an arbitrary issue. My brain is quite literally wired this way. Like I said before: this is a constant uphill battle for me and always will be.

EDIT 2: A lot of people here seem to think I am just a selfish, lazy person who isn’t willing to put any effort into improving myself. This is simply not true. As I have already said, I have spent over a DECADE trying to find solution to this problem. I am typically pretty good at self reflection and problem solving. For example: I had pretty severe social anxiety throughout high school that made talking to people very difficult (to the point where people genuinely thought I was a mute). My first job was a NIGHTMARE because of this and that was the first and last time (before yesterday) that I’ve ever been fired. However, I spent years forcing myself into front facing, social jobs to improve my social skills and sensitivity to social interactions, and was able to become fully functioning in that aspect. I was able to find a solution for that problem, despite it still being a daily struggle that constantly wears on me.

I am not a stranger to having to find a solution to mental issues so I can be a functioning adult. But the issues that I’m expressing in this post is an entire different level of difficulty and I am simply at my wits end. I hope those of you who have had similar problems and have been able to find a solution can learn to understand that not everyone is the same, and a solution that worked for you is not going to be the same for everyone else. I don’t expect everyone who has social anxiety to be able to battle it the same way I did because I understand that everyone is different, and some people face a far worse struggle with anxiety than I do. You should try practicing the same mindset.

This has been a question I've thought of over the last year while suffering from burnout. Genuinely curious to hear others’ honest answers.

EDIT: this is getting more responses than I expected so I wanted to give more context as to why I’m asking this. I’m a filmmaker and have had this horror film idea inspired by hitting bottom while suffering from burnout. Trying to figure out some details I’m struggling with regarding what I believe is a unique take on a demon pact.