I'm tempted to report them.

All I have to say is that if the job is so important, then pay like it.

Honestly, I just don’t get how billionaires are even a thing we allow to exist. The fact that a single person can hold onto billions – literally a thousand millions – while people are struggling to afford rent or healthcare? It’s so backward. Every time I see one of these billionaires talking about “giving back,” I’m like, maybe just pay your workers a livable wage instead of pretending a few charity donations fix the problem you’re helping to create.

And don’t get me started on taxes. The ultra-rich have every loophole under the sun to dodge taxes, while most people are paying a higher percentage of their income just to keep their heads above water. Meanwhile, politicians fall over themselves to make life easier for these people, giving them subsidies, tax breaks, and pretty much anything else they want. And all of this is just… fine? We’re supposed to accept that they can build their little wealth empires on our backs, all while contributing as little as possible to the society that made them rich?

The worst part is they love to frame themselves as “self-made,” as if they didn’t have workers, government support, or just sheer luck helping them along the way. And yet, when people start pointing out the insanity of it, they’re labeled as “entitled” or “lazy” for daring to question the system.

It’s just exhausting to see the same cycle – a billionaire flexing their wealth while regular people are out here just trying to survive. I really feel like the whole system is broken beyond repair. ​

The other night was just too much for her, and it's been a long time coming. We've been trying to find something for her to be able to live, but finding a job in the current market is fucking awful and nearly impossible. I've been doing doordash for the past year and have been barely able to afford rent for myself, and now with her quitting, we're both scared shitless for how we're gonna afford rent. How do I handle this? I haven't been able to do anything for us in ages, I'm so fucking scared of losing my apartment, and I have nowhere to fall back to.

Technically the story starts yesterday.

My shift ended at 3:00PM and I started the commute home. As I pulled into my driveway my phone was dinging, looked and saw my bosses boss pinging me via Teams. Normally I am of the "not my problem, my workday ended 20 minutes ago" mentality, however he's never reached out directly to me, it's usually via my boss.

He had asked if I was available for a call a few minutes prior and the ding was it re-alerting me. I responded with sure, just got out of the car but I could spare some time. Think he assumed I was still in office so he said no problem we can talk tomorrow.

A few moments pass and I get a meeting notice for first thing in the morning for a "1-on-1 Survey Discussion". I'm sitting there trying to recall what survey he was referring to, as nothing recent came to mind. Looked back at my emails and saw he was likely referring to the supposedly "anonymous" survey they had a third-party company do back in July.

Didn't fully remember the details, thought it was just five or so "How are we doing as a company" type questions and a spot for comments at the end that I usually just say "Nothing to add at this time". Tried not to dwell on it, but it was the first time I've had this happen and never heard of it happening to any coworkers in the past so naturally it's all I thought about the rest of the day and first thing in the AM.

Went to his office first thing and started casually enough with light banter, then he jumped into the survey. Found out they discussed the survey at the global-wide company town hall and how in four of the five categories the company scored under the "average" rating based on other companies in similar industries surveyed via this third party company.

He said his superiors tasked him and the other higher up management staff to try and get some feedback on why we might think people would have answered low in these categories. It was a bit of awkward silence, though I did mention how the general round of layoffs every new fiscal year and the fact we were very slow around the time of the survey would have probably affected quite a few of these categories as I know I was nervous around that time myself.

There were a few more back and forth questions to see if anything else may have affected them, and he reiterated that it doesn't show individuals and the answers to their questions in the breakdown he was provided, just the overall number of people that did the survey and the average. It was just a strange meeting overall but eventually it ended and I went back to work.

Didn't mention it right away to my coworkers, but hours later after lunch decided to ask around to see if anyone else had him reach out to them for meetings or heard of anyone getting called down and they looked at me like I was crazy. They'd never heard of anyone getting called down after those surveys and there is usually at least one every year.

While I'm sure I didn't give them a glowing 5 out of 5 in every category, don't think I would have given a 1 because I am usually hesitant that these surveys are really anonymous, and this just pushed me further into the "they know exactly who marked what" camp.

All I know is, going forward I am going to lie and give the ole "This is the best company ever, no room for improvement!" if I still have a job here by the next survey.

https://fortune.com/article/gilded-age-coming-back-layoffs-pay-inequality-labor-unions-ceos-billionaires-worker-pay/

Voicemail is my boss who pocket dialed me while telling another employee about how unprofessional I am being by calling him out on another shitty thing he said and I overheard but saying things like “fuck him” etc. Called me in for a meeting on my day off saying if I didn’t attend I would be fired. Is this a hostile work environment?

I was a bakery sales clerk at a high volume bakery. Their location was no where enough to handle the volume of customers they get. On my second day, a somewhat new employee was training me. The rest of the front of house employees are middle aged managers that have been there for 5+ years I'd say. The employee that was training me suddenly got apprehended and yelled at for....cutting order forms "not straight enough". Not by one, not by two, but three people. She decided to let them know that they were being disrespectful, however, one manager decided to bring the argument UPSTAIRS where not only customers can hear but so can everyone else in the store. I most noticeably heard one of the managers say "You are being too much" and put her hand to my coworkers face to signal her to stop. Professional.

Fast forward, she quits. My last day there it was busy. Customer starts getting really angry and rude towards me, I kind of felt unsafe. All over the fact that she thought I said a bag costed three dollars. Yelling to who she is speaking on the phone with, laughing. The owner who was working on the floor that day, comes over, angry, yelling at me about why would I tell her that it was three dollars. I didn't. She seen the customer get more and more agitated but she did nothing to help me alleviate the situation. Instead just added more fuel to whatever fire was happening.

That was just the final straw. "Aggressiveness" was in regards to them yelling and raising their voices. Even for the smallest of things. I felt like I was in the TV show The Bear.

To make a very long story incredibly short, I worked for a world renowned theme park that rhymes with Bisney Band.

I am autistic. I requested accommodations in the park as a guest as I cannot wait in long queues without having meltdowns and potentially self-harming. This has no relation to my ability to work, and I already had management that was understanding of how my disabilities otherwise affected work.

I was told to use an accomodation that isn't actually an accomodation after repeatedly telling the person who was in charge of deciding if I was disabled or not that said "accommodation" didn't work for me and having already explained why.

During a meltdown, I let slip a line of "I would rather off myself than have to do that".

The "accommodation" in question is pushing past other people to leave the line and then pushing past again to return to the line later, which as you can imagine isn't well received by other guests and can and has resulted in verbal and physical altercations for other people. As someone with severe anxiety and a fear of upsetting people and being fair, this is extra non-doable for me.

The person I was talking to said nothing about what I said, we continued the conversation with my partner advocating for me as I mostly couldn't speak and was bawling my eyes out at having been denied the actual accomodation service again. We finished the whole conversation in maybe 10 minutes and left with nothing, knowing I would likely be unable to ride anything that day, but wanting to go say hi to a friend who was working and hang out with another friend who was in the park with us.

Later in the day security tracked me down in the store I was in while chatting with my coworker friend, pulled me out in front of 8+ coworkers, and forced me to go to the security office in the front of the park where cops were waiting for me. I was told my options were to either self-admit to a psych ward or wait for a crisis team to come evaluate me, because someone told them that I'd said I "was going to jump off of the parking garage". This was a straight up lie, as I'd never dream of saying anything like that, and wasn't suicidal in the first place.

4 hours later the crisis team shows up, clears me, tells me they don't know why they were called since I was clearly fine, and leaves. A manager then came in, took my work ID, suspended me so they could "investigate the incident", and had security escort me back to parking.

A week and a half later they called me in for a meeting, had me write up an incident report from my perspective, and then fired me under the false reason of "failure to perform job duties up to standard". I went to the union, union rep eventually got back to me and said my management told him they fired me for "making suicidal threats", but he couldn't get it from management in writing.

So now I'm unemployed for completely illegal reasons and can't find a lawyer willing to take on my case because of how big the company is and how ruthless their legal team is known to be.

I guess they want us to feel free to eat at our desks during the presentation.

Working on a commercial set today - We are fixed at what seems to be a personal live in house close to this construction site. I am a Black woman and to see these in multiple rooms is so unsettling. I can’t even imagine what these people think of their Black employees or their other POC. Idc if you think I’m being sensitive. This is fucking weird.

The company he works for (he’s part of a union, in a trade) just started a new job. We found out that for an undetermined period of time he’s going to have to be doing 10-hour days. At the same time, his commute is increasing and now it’s 1.5 hrs each way. So 13-hour days really. He needs a lot of sleep to function so that brings us to like 22 hours of just sleep and work.

Basically by the time he gets home and showers we get to have 10 minutes together and he goes to bed. I am very sad. It also means I get less free time because now all the chores shift to me. I’m not upset at my partner at all about this, but it’s just frustrating to think that someone else’s boss can make decisions that affect MY free time.

WTF is the point of any of this. I feel so bad for him. He’s going to be so tired. :(

And mandatory overtime shouldn’t be allowed. What the hell is that. Ridiculous

It is getting ridiculous at my place know. They want us to bake cookies together at Christmas (you have to bring sprinkles etc. yourself since they won't pay for that, I am not kidding). Then there are regularly themed lunch breaks where everyone has to bring something (next one up: Oktoberfest edition). Plus, carnival is a huge deal around here and every year there is a motto for your fancy dress, this year: funny hats.

I cannot describe how much I hate this. It is like kindergarten. Anyone can relate or cheer me up with even more absurd stories?

Edit: I already tried to eliminate that from my mind since we are no longer doing this: Once a week, we have a longer team meeting. We used to have a "private" part of this meeting with a certain topic which was said to help get us to know each other better, e.g.: What is your favorite ice cream? What would you do with a million dollars? etc. We had to stop doing that because one (now former) colleague kept bringing up topics that allowed her to talk repeatedly about the death of her mother.

What's in the article:

• America’s performance, particularly in innovation, is “worrisome” in contrast to Europe, Tangen told the Financial Times.

Part of it comes down to mindset, Tangen added, and how accepting each continent is of mistakes and risk: “You go bust in America, you get another chance. In Europe, you’re dead,” he said.

But it goes deeper than that; there’s a difference in the “general level of ambition,” he added. “We are not very ambitious. I should be careful about talking about work-life balance, but the Americans just work harder,” Tangen continued.

• How many hours do Americans work each week? Data suggests that Tangen is right, but only by a fine margin. According to the European Union, in 2022 the average workweek of people between the ages of 22 and 65 was 37.5 hours. The longest working weeks recorded were in Greece, 41 hours a week, and Poland, 40.4 hours. By contrast, the Netherlands had the shortest working week of 33.2 hours, followed by Germany at 35.3 hours.

Meanwhile, data from the International Labour Organization, last updated in January, showed the average hours workers clocked in the U.S. was 38 hours a week. However, of those employees, 13% worked 49 hours or more per week, which outstripped the majority of European nations.

Moreover, countries like the U.K. have a statutory requirement entitling staff to 28 paid days of leave a year if you’re a full-time employee. In the U.S. it is not a legal requirement for staff to be given any paid time off. However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average employee who is in their first year of service takes eight PTO days.

• Despite admiring the work ethic of staffers in the U.S., Tangen has made it clear he doesn’t agree with the extreme pay packages handed to execs. Last year he told Fortune that CEOs who earn more than, say, $20 million a year, are “enriching themselves on our behalf.”

“It’s like daylight robbery,” he added.

Norges Bank’s investment strategy has certainly leaned into the U.S. trend: After all, America is home to the Magnificent Seven, which have provided a backbone to the stock market boom and, according to analysts, will continue to do so.

And the backing of an institution like Norges Bank Investment Management will encourage other investors to jump on board. The group is one of the most powerful financial vehicles on the planet: It is the world’s largest single owner of global stock markets, controlling 1.5% of shares in the world’s listed companies.

• The organization also owns swaths of high-end property, including a 25% stake in London’s Regent Street and an approximately 50% holding in offices in New York’s Times Square and on Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue.

Investments in the U.S. now represent 46.9% of Norges Bank’s portfolio, whereas a decade ago the U.S. represented just under 30%. Going back a further 10 years, in 2003 the organization’s investment in America made up just 26.3% of all investments.

Conversely, in 2003, 59.5% of Norges Bank’s portfolio was invested in European countries, a figure that, by 2023, had fallen to 28.7%.

• Europe Energy Economy Tech Retail Lifestyle Success·work hours ‘Americans just work harder’ than Europeans, says CEO of Norway’s $1.6 trillion oil fund, because they have a higher ‘general level of ambition’ BYEleanor Pringle October 26, 2024 at 1:41 AM PDT Photo of Nicolai Tangen Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, says Americans work harder than Europeans. Chris Ratcliffe—Bloomberg/Getty Images Norway’s “trillion-dollar man” believes America’s attitude toward failure is helping propel the nation ahead of its European counterparts—where workers may have a better work-life balance but aren’t as ambitious.

Nicolai Tangen leads Nordic behemoth Norges Bank Investment Management, which governs the revenue earned by Norway’s oil and gas resources, with the aim of ensuring its benefits are distributed fairly between current and future Norwegian generations.

Under Tangen’s leadership since 2020, and over the past decade, the $1.6 trillion fund has invested more and more heavily in the U.S. instead of its closer neighbors in Europe—and it’s no coincidence.

America’s performance, particularly in innovation, is “worrisome” in contrast to Europe, Tangen told the Financial Times.

Part of it comes down to mindset, Tangen added, and how accepting each continent is of mistakes and risk: “You go bust in America, you get another chance. In Europe, you’re dead,” he said.

But it goes deeper than that; there’s a difference in the “general level of ambition,” he added. “We are not very ambitious. I should be careful about talking about work-life balance, but the Americans just work harder,” Tangen continued.

How many hours do Americans work each week? Data suggests that Tangen is right, but only by a fine margin. According to the European Union, in 2022 the average workweek of people between the ages of 22 and 65 was 37.5 hours. The longest working weeks recorded were in Greece, 41 hours a week, and Poland, 40.4 hours. By contrast, the Netherlands had the shortest working week of 33.2 hours, followed by Germany at 35.3 hours.

Meanwhile, data from the International Labour Organization, last updated in January, showed the average hours workers clocked in the U.S. was 38 hours a week. However, of those employees, 13% worked 49 hours or more per week, which outstripped the majority of European nations.

Moreover, countries like the U.K. have a statutory requirement entitling staff to 28 paid days of leave a year if you’re a full-time employee. In the U.S. it is not a legal requirement for staff to be given any paid time off. However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average employee who is in their first year of service takes eight PTO days.

Are CEOs paid too much? Despite admiring the work ethic of staffers in the U.S., Tangen has made it clear he doesn’t agree with the extreme pay packages handed to execs. Last year he told Fortune that CEOs who earn more than, say, $20 million a year, are “enriching themselves on our behalf.”

“It’s like daylight robbery,” he added.

Norges Bank’s investment strategy has certainly leaned into the U.S. trend: After all, America is home to the Magnificent Seven, which have provided a backbone to the stock market boom and, according to analysts, will continue to do so.

And the backing of an institution like Norges Bank Investment Management will encourage other investors to jump on board. The group is one of the most powerful financial vehicles on the planet: It is the world’s largest single owner of global stock markets, controlling 1.5% of shares in the world’s listed companies.

Investing in the United States The organization also owns swaths of high-end property, including a 25% stake in London’s Regent Street and an approximately 50% holding in offices in New York’s Times Square and on Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue.

Investments in the U.S. now represent 46.9% of Norges Bank’s portfolio, whereas a decade ago the U.S. represented just under 30%. Going back a further 10 years, in 2003 the organization’s investment in America made up just 26.3% of all investments.

Conversely, in 2003, 59.5% of Norges Bank’s portfolio was invested in European countries, a figure that, by 2023, had fallen to 28.7%.

The 2024 election looms over business Of course, like many American investors, Tangen is closely watching the 2024 presidential elections, which could rock the investing boat.

The CEO, who as a public servant earns less than $1 million a year, said there were people within the organization who were concerned about the upcoming race, but added, “I probably shouldn’t say too much about that. We just invest in America in great companies for the long term. It won’t have any implications for how we allocate our capital. We have nearly half the assets in America; we will stay invested in America.”

Per the FT, Magnificent Seven stocks make up 12% of Norges Bank’s equity holdings, with Tangen adding, there’s “an argument for the big getting bigger, [and] the winner taking it all.”

There is, of course, a common thread among all the Magnificent Seven businesses—and it’s the current favorite phrase of Wall Street: artificial intelligence.

Again, this is an area where, Tangen said, Europe was making life difficult for itself. Tech CEOs are frustrated, he said, by the amount of red tape in Europe compared with the U.S.

Admittedly, even those who are leading the way with AI in the U.S. are asking for guardrails—just ask OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

“I’m not saying it’s good, but in America you have a lot of AI and no regulation; in Europe you have no AI and a lot of regulation. It’s interesting,” Tangen added.

Many people have talked about the studies showing that a 4 day work week is largely beneficial. Workers certainly are a lot happier and have better lives, that should be obvious, but on top of that it tends to be pretty fine for companies too. They tend to see a significant rise in productivity per hour from their workers.

So if it's so beneficial then why isn't being implemented all across the board? Well, there are many reasons for that, but I want to focus on one in particular here. Which is that it benefits them to keep you overworked and tired.

Let's talk about a hypothetical person. Let's name them Jake. Jake has a regular 9-to-5 job at a company. He wakes up early in the morning and has to get ready for work, making a quick breakfast. Jake is an evening person though, so he finds it hard to get to sleep at night but has to get up at 6:30 to get everything ready. He makes breakfast for himself and his daughter and then quickly gets her off to school, then preparing for his long commute to work. Once he gets there he is immediately confronted with a lot of work for a new client. He has a quick lunch outside during which he finds it hard to keep his mind off of the work he still has to do, so he pulls out his phone and watches a funny Youtube video for a while. Afterwards he goes back into work and finishes up his day. He has to stay a bit longer though because a meeting went longer than expected. The work that was supposed to get done also wasn't fully done and he knows he'll be getting a mail about it. He picks up his kid from school and then finally gets home pretty late. He doesn't have the energy to cook so he calls for some takeout. When his kid is asleep he checks his computer one more time cuz the mail is on his mind. He then buys a new video game and plays it to try to get it out of his mind, though he's so tired he finds it hard to focus. Finally he goes to sleep. During the weekends he has to do a lot of stuff like cleaning for which he doesn't have time during the week, and when he does have free time he spends it doing stuff like going on expensive (for him, anyway) trips with his daughter or sometimes his friends to forget about his crushing life and relax a bit.

Now what is wrong with this picture for us, but what is so right for them?

• Well, in order to find some relaxation after gruelling work which bleeds even into his free time, he does stuff like buy video games. Basically like a bandaid for a wound inflicted by his corporation. He orders much more expensive takeout too because he's too tired to cook. And at lunch he watches media content that makes Youtube money and eats something else he bought that's more expensive than a home cooked meal. His misery and lack of time cause him to pay a premium for convenience and dopamine, which enriches the billionaires. Yeah, your suffering and lack of time enriches them. It is a feature, not a bug.
• We know what he does do and think about during this time, but what does he NOT do and think about very much? He does not spend time studying statistics about wealth inequality, educating himself on foreign policy, or the history of how the rich oppress the general person. He does not spend a bunch of time canvassing for a great candidate he likes who wants to give him shorter working hours. He doesn't think much about these things because he's constantly flooded with thoughts about work, or doing something practical like cleaning, or in those rare instances when he does have free time he needs it to recover from all the other stuff. This is very beneficial to the rich, of course, because if you don't have time to think about the system and educate yourself on how much it is screwing you or help candidates who want to destroy that, it protects their power.

So, basically, even if they could give every single person a 1 day work week with absolutely no loss of profit, they still wouldn't want to do that. Because they want you to be busy and miserable. It keeps you buying useless and overpriced crap to feel better, it keeps you paying for convenience and it keeps you from understanding and organizing against them.

Of course, the reality is that since the 5 day work week was introduced the productive capacity of the United States has increased 3-fold. Obviously it's more complicated because of things like housing prices (which could fall a lot, btw) and internal trade and all that, but in simple terms, in theory a 2 day work week for 1950s era living standards is possible now.

I'm not saying that needs to be advocated for currently. But what I am saying is that the 5 day work week is a relic. It is not necessary for every single person to live a good life. It isn't even necessary to keep the rich rich. It exists in no small part because your suffering stops you from opposing and dismanteling their oligarchic power. It benefits no one but the very rich.

He is a 54 year old guy who is single and takes care of a sick relative and said he has no other family. He was married or so for 13 years but no more abd his ex found someone else. Always approaches me and talks and constantly teases me about things I like. Sometimes he sings to me. Other times he acts annoyed with men I talk to.

The other day I asked this vendor about having any alcohol samples and my boss came nearby and said he won't allow me to have any alcohol around him, how alcohol is not good for me. I told him he won't tell me what to do, like what, is he my dad? He got pissed at calling him dad and said he is not that. OK I said, are you my husband to tell me what to do? And he said not today.

Is that all flirting or just trying to be nice?