Death Cults up to no good again: repurposing their factories to make facemasks and other protective gear.

 

 

 

 

Man, you're really running with that phrase, huh? I mean, the expression was about how our culture, or society in general, romanticizes working yourself to death (it was not about employers per se), but if you want to apply it to employers and cherry pick some examples of businesses doing good deeds in order to completely misrepresent a point that I made about how the wider populace talks about professional life, go ahead.

7 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

Man, you're really running with that phrase, huh? I mean, the expression was about how our culture, or society in general, romanticizes working yourself to death (it was not about employers per se), but if you want to apply it to employers and cherry pick some examples of businesses doing good deeds in order to completely misrepresent a point that I made about how the wider populace talks about professional life, go ahead.

They're jokes man (and posting pics in the pics thread).

Meanwhile you've posted nonsense and drivel and keep moving the goal posts, changing the argument or throwing out childish straw men like this.

34 minutes ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

I mean, if you guys want to refuse to believe that we're a nation in socioeconomic decline, well, go ahead and keep living that delusion if that's what helps you sleep at night.

USA #1 bestest country ever! We have the best economy! We can do no better and should never try to imagine a better way! Love it or leave it! 'MURICA!

There, do we all feel warm and fuzzy now?

 

To be fair, he said "our professional culture is a death cult."  He didn't say all corporations are evil.  There's a huge difference between the two.  Saying that the American mindset glorifies working yourself to death isn't wrong.  Not sure why everyone's so offended by that sentiment.

2 minutes ago, VanHammersly said:

To be fair, he said "our professional culture is a death cult."  He didn't say all corporations are evil.  There's a huge difference between the two.  Saying that the American mindset glorifies working yourself to death isn't wrong.  Not sure why everyone's so offended by that sentiment.

Because it perfectly encapsulates the entire reason for our country’s decline. Hard work and success used to be things people aspired to - now they are derided as a "sickness.”

1 minute ago, vikas83 said:

Because it perfectly encapsulates the entire reason for our country’s decline. Hard work and success used to be things people aspired to - now they are derided as a "sickness.”

By and large, people have always been as lazy as they can possibly be.  And people have always complained about their job.  Everyone just has a microphone now.

Just now, VanHammersly said:

By and large, people have always been as lazy as they can possibly be.  And people have always complained about their job.  Everyone just has a microphone now.

It is significantly worse with this generation. I see it all the time, even among high ambition types. The analyst classes in investment banking are terrible now - constant whining about hours, job satisfaction and work/life balance. Then why the hell did you go into investment banking?

1 minute ago, vikas83 said:

It is significantly worse with this generation. I see it all the time, even among high ambition types. The analyst classes in investment banking are terrible now - constant whining about hours, job satisfaction and work/life balance. Then why the hell did you go into investment banking?

I don't see it, but I'm in a different sort of field.  People in creative fields tend to work their azzes off because they're doing what they're passionate about.

10 minutes ago, VanHammersly said:

To be fair, he said "our professional culture is a death cult."  He didn't say all corporations are evil.  There's a huge difference between the two.  Saying that the American mindset glorifies working yourself to death isn't wrong.  Not sure why everyone's so offended by that sentiment.

And we talked about that, and his own chart showed many industrialized in "the rest of the world" work more hours than the US.  So yeah, we moved on.  I poked fun at the "death cult" phrase to get us back on pics.  

I work with some of the younger millennials as well as a plenty of older gen X'ers and even boomers, and I don't know that I see much of a correlation between age and work ethic. There are plenty of old farts who don't work an hour after 40 or sit around all day yapping about god knows what, and then there are younger kids who are always staying late to ask questions, offering to help when they have spare time, trying to sponge up as much knowledge as they can, etc. In all honesty, as long as it doesn't reflect on me or affect my job directly, I don't care if someone wants to work less and doesn't put in as much effort to meet their deliverables. They make the rest of us look good by comparison.

4 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

It is significantly worse with this generation. I see it all the time, even among high ambition types. The analyst classes in investment banking are terrible now - constant whining about hours, job satisfaction and work/life balance. Then why the hell did you go into investment banking?

I obviously have a different outlook and lifestyle than you, but this I agree with 100 percent. If you choose a certain career, you lose the right to complain over what that career may demand of you.

 

Oh and:

 

 

Just now, VanHammersly said:

I don't see it, but I'm in a different sort of field.  People in creative fields tend to work their azzes off because they're doing what they're passionate about.

Remember the girl who worked at Yelp who posted an "open letter" to her CEO on Twitter?  She was getting free breakfast and lunch, coffee, smoothies, snacks, etc.  Her complaint was that they wouldn't let her take bags of food home to have for dinners and weekends.  Of course not all younger workers are that entitled, but it went viral and put a face to that type of entitled worker.

My friend at Amazon talks about all the free things they give their workers, even part-time and temp staff.  Free t-shirts and other swag, free snacks and drinks, they get food catered for them all the time.  They did a Thanksgiving dinner with a huge buffet.  he says a lot of the employees complain anyway, they get picky about the candy bar choices and stuff like that. 

There are real complaints to be made about working conditions and all that, but you're also not forced to work anywhere you can leave and go to another job.  Like I said before, we can delve into specifics and real issues, but to broadly suggest that "Americans" are working 3 jobs, are depressed and hate life vs other countries that are so happy and wonderful is just silly.

4 minutes ago, NOTW said:

Remember the girl who worked at Yelp who posted an "open letter" to her CEO on Twitter?  She was getting free breakfast and lunch, coffee, smoothies, snacks, etc.  Her complaint was that they wouldn't let her take bags of food home to have for dinners and weekends.  Of course not all younger workers are that entitled, but it went viral and put a face to that type of entitled worker.

My friend at Amazon talks about all the free things they give their workers, even part-time and temp staff.  Free t-shirts and other swag, free snacks and drinks, they get food catered for them all the time.  They did a Thanksgiving dinner with a huge buffet.  he says a lot of the employees complain anyway, they get picky about the candy bar choices and stuff like that. 

There are real complaints to be made about working conditions and all that, but you're also not forced to work anywhere you can leave and go to another job.  Like I said before, we can delve into specifics and real issues, but to broadly suggest that "Americans" are working 3 jobs, are depressed and hate life vs other countries that are so happy and wonderful is just silly.

My company does really nice things like that. Even with Covid they will send us all door dash gift cards to order ourselves lunch and things like that. They will also send us amazon gift cards to say thanks for our work. We were talking about the importance of exercise in the other thread. The thing they sent out yesterday I think is brilliant. You can sign up to get a free apple watch up front, but there's payments. If you hit your exercise goal for the month, they make the payment for you. If you don't you pay. Very cool idea. Since I am enjoying getting out and exercising everyday I think I should have no problem hitting my goals.

11 minutes ago, NOTW said:

Remember the girl who worked at Yelp who posted an "open letter" to her CEO on Twitter?  She was getting free breakfast and lunch, coffee, smoothies, snacks, etc.  Her complaint was that they wouldn't let her take bags of food home to have for dinners and weekends.  Of course not all younger workers are that entitled, but it went viral and put a face to that type of entitled worker.

My friend at Amazon talks about all the free things they give their workers, even part-time and temp staff.  Free t-shirts and other swag, free snacks and drinks, they get food catered for them all the time.  They did a Thanksgiving dinner with a huge buffet.  he says a lot of the employees complain anyway, they get picky about the candy bar choices and stuff like that. 

There are real complaints to be made about working conditions and all that, but you're also not forced to work anywhere you can leave and go to another job.  Like I said before, we can delve into specifics and real issues, but to broadly suggest that "Americans" are working 3 jobs, are depressed and hate life vs other countries that are so happy and wonderful is just silly.

I work for a large consumer products company in a chemical plant and we get all kinds of swag. I could probably never buy clothes if I didn't mind only wearing things with the company logo on it. Tons of product too, I have not bought laundry detergent, deodorant, toothpaste and that kind of stuff in 20 years.

 

Also little things like masks and stuff, they give us as much as we need for us and the family. And 2 bonus checks during covid as well. Not bad.

14 minutes ago, Gannan said:

My company does really nice things like that. Even with Covid they will send us all door dash gift cards to order ourselves lunch and things like that. They will also send us amazon gift cards to say thanks for our work. We were talking about the importance of exercise in the other thread. The thing they sent out yesterday I think is brilliant. You can sign up to get a free apple watch up front, but there's payments. If you hit your exercise goal for the month, they make the payment for you. If you don't you pay. Very cool idea. Since I am enjoying getting out and exercising everyday I think I should have no problem hitting my goals.

We have something similar. And I can neither confirm nor deny having hacked together a way to trick the accelerometer into counting steps I wasn't actually taking.  

1 minute ago, we_gotta_believe said:

We have something similar. And I can neither confirm nor deny having hacked together a way to trick the accelerometer into counting steps I wasn't actually taking.  

I wonder if people do the thing in the commercial and put it on their dog 

Just now, Gannan said:

I wonder if people do the thing in the commercial and put it on their dog 

That would probably work too. They're easier to spoof than people think.

21 minutes ago, NOTW said:

Remember the girl who worked at Yelp who posted an "open letter" to her CEO on Twitter?  She was getting free breakfast and lunch, coffee, smoothies, snacks, etc.  Her complaint was that they wouldn't let her take bags of food home to have for dinners and weekends.  Of course not all younger workers are that entitled, but it went viral and put a face to that type of entitled worker.

My friend at Amazon talks about all the free things they give their workers, even part-time and temp staff.  Free t-shirts and other swag, free snacks and drinks, they get food catered for them all the time.  They did a Thanksgiving dinner with a huge buffet.  he says a lot of the employees complain anyway, they get picky about the candy bar choices and stuff like that. 

There are real complaints to be made about working conditions and all that, but you're also not forced to work anywhere you can leave and go to another job.  Like I said before, we can delve into specifics and real issues, but to broadly suggest that "Americans" are working 3 jobs, are depressed and hate life vs other countries that are so happy and wonderful is just silly.

I didn't say any of that.  I just agree with him that our culture prioritizes working yourself to the bone to achieve a certain level of success that most people won't ever achieve.  You can come at it from a philosophical position that working like a dog to accumulate stuff is a pretty hollow existence in the spiritual sense, or you can come at it from a more practical position that you've got it better than people in the past so you can't complain.  For me personally, I'm fine with working all the time and work far more than I need to to achieve financial stability because I love what I do.  But most people don't.

3 hours ago, DaEagles4Life said:

This sums it up perfectly

Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.

It’s on an 80 year cycle... 

1943 - WW2

1863 - Civil war

1783 - Revolutionary war 

 

1 hour ago, EaglesRocker97 said:

Um, yeah, guys I never said "working hard" was a bad thing. The point is that Americans tend to work harder for less, working more than their counterparts to eek out basic subsistence while others put in less time but have better standards of living. It isn't about fairness; it's about getting a reasonable return for how much time and energy you devote to professional pursuits, but if you want to twist things, I guess this is the place.

You get what you agree to. Feel like it’s not enough find a different career. 

40 minutes ago, Gannan said:

My company does really nice things like that. Even with Covid they will send us all door dash gift cards to order ourselves lunch and things like that. They will also send us amazon gift cards to say thanks for our work. We were talking about the importance of exercise in the other thread. The thing they sent out yesterday I think is brilliant. You can sign up to get a free apple watch up front, but there's payments. If you hit your exercise goal for the month, they make the payment for you. If you don't you pay. Very cool idea. Since I am enjoying getting out and exercising everyday I think I should have no problem hitting my goals.

that's cool.  My company is in health care (I work in systems myself) and the company gave bonuses to all the nurses working on the front lines.  On my current software project I've received gifts from the vendor as well as my boss giving extra Amazon gift cards and stuff like that.  When we were still in the office we had once a month gatherings for parties, happy hours, stuff like that.  Our CEO is a bit of a mixologist and likes to make drinks for everyone.  Much better than my last company which didn't make you feel at home, you were more a cog in the wheel and didn't seem valued.  I decided to leave for something better.  Much better pay and much better people to work for and better teammates.  

27 minutes ago, VanHammersly said:

I didn't say any of that.  I just agree with him that our culture prioritizes working yourself to the bone to achieve a certain level of success that most people won't ever achieve.  You can come at it from a philosophical position that working like a dog to accumulate stuff is a pretty hollow existence in the spiritual sense, or you can come at it from a more practical position that you've got it better than people in the past so you can't complain.  For me personally, I'm fine with working all the time and work far more than I need to to achieve financial stability because I love what I do.  But most people don't.

I know you didn't.  You were defending his statement, and I explained what we were all replying to.  It's about choices.  I hear how vikas works and I would never want to do that many hours and inflexible job.  But I would know that's not a field I want to be in.  I work from home 3 days a week even before COVID.  I take off whenever I want to attend my son's school events, leave early for appointments or just take off early.  Sometimes I work longer nights when certain projects or busy times of year require more hours.  My boss and company are great about work/life balance.  Not every job allows that kind of flexibility and people make choices about the industry they go into or the company they work for. 

Some of it is also cultural.  I found that in Southern California it was more about work and achieving.  Here in the South (You're in GA it might be similar) it's professional but I feel like more work/life balance and focus on family is more common and accepted. 

2 hours ago, NOTW said:

They're jokes man (and posting pics in the pics thread).

Meanwhile you've posted nonsense and drivel and keep moving the goal posts, changing the argument or throwing out childish straw men like this.

Obviously, the sarcasm is lost on you. Anytime someone comes here with tepid criticism of American culture, you guys turn into attack dogs who must defend the honor of the USA as the unquestioned greatest country of all time. I never moved the goalposts. You either ignored, misunderstood, or misrepresented the main point of the post and instead seized on a factoid in order to distract from the basic logic of the post and turn things into an technical argument.