Wage Slavery / Anti-Work

I'm not even necessarily totally anti-work, I just don't want to spend 5 damn days a week and 8 hours a day doing it. More like 11 hours a day factoring in morning routine and commuting, leaving only 5 hours a day to yourself, assuming you want 8 hours of sleep. I mean what the fuck? How many decades has this style of work week been the norm for now? You'd think there would be some fucking progress, there were calls for a 4 hour work day in the 1930s for fucks sake. Is no one else utterly bewildered this is the norm? I mean, among non-leftists who aren't so aware, how do people just go about life like this like it's normal? Why is no one fucking angry that most of their life is taken away form them? Fuck.

Can we have an anti-work thread, I need to vent.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=FVSJpiNU44g
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_pilots
youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

You know, I always feel shitty about my job until I talk to my coworkers. Most of them are old, single mothers, divorced and they work 60+ hours (I'm a maintenance guy at a disabled care facility). I mean I can't imagine living that kind of life at all.

I feel like shit on days when there isn't much to be done because here I am lazing around and getting paid more than all those ladies who really need it. It's honestly the only motivation I have, to make their lives easy as possible. And the residents too of course but as fucked up as it sounds I care more about the plight of my coworkers than people who have like 0-20 Autism Level

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I am attempting to start a worm farm where I sell their castings. Pretty low maintenance and allows me to help the environment. Hopefully I can cut through all this red tape.

just f my shit up fam

What was it? How did you get it? I keep staving off getting a job and I'll probably have to sooner or later and I dread the inevitable;
"So what have you been doing all these years?"
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"Jacking off to cartoons, sir"

General Laborer via craiglist, it wasnt bad but hearing i was gonna get fired for making a one mistake bothered me. So I essentially fired myself

Bro…they weren't actually going to fire you after one fuckup. Training and finding people who will actually show up to work and do the shit they are told isn't easy, and they wouldn't mind if you dropped a fragile box or something. They'll have insurance to cover those mishaps anyways

I was a wagecuck until three years ago. I guess my job wasn't so bad (boss easy to manipulate and mostly absent, little work, etc.), but I absolutely hated it anyway. Life was really depressing. Waking up at 7 every morning, taking the bus for 45 minutes and being locked in this grey office for 8 hours with all these normies when I could be doing dozens of thrilling things outside, then coming back to my pathetic little room to eat like a pig and stay in front of my computer until it's time to sleep (because I had no willpower left after 10 hours of silent suffering).
I did that shit for almost five years with several long periods of unemployment (that I enjoyed, but not so much because of guilt). Each time, an employer did me the honor of allowing me in his team, I had to move to a new city faraway where I knew noone and that the countryboy I am couldn't stand anyway.

After I quit this last job, I didn't make any intent to find a new one, I became quite depressed and lived the hikikomori lifestyle for six months. Then, I said fuck it and left for Asia where I had a good time (no, not banging the locals) and worked several stupid jobs.

During that trip I met some people who gave me good ideas and now I'm self-employment. For now, I can barely get the minimum wage and I know I'm playing the individualist card, but at least I'm out of this hell for good.

I think it's strange that this kind of thread doesn't appear more often over here. This horrendous work culture is one of the main motivator for "leftism", isn't it?

The modern man "suicides" everyday at his desk

He asphyxiates: by the compression of his lungs, the respiratory amplitude diminishes and bad ventilation. Results: Auto-intoxication, polluted air at the base of the lungs, impoverishment of blood level, defective elimination, etc…

He tires: nervously, by strenuous intellectual work compared to his physical inactivate: with more emotions? from the telephone, meetings, noise, etc…

He rust: The immobilization forced by intellectual work diminishes the normal flexibility of articulations, favorises obesity and atrophies muscle mass.

He deforms: by the torsion of his Vertebral column. Results: cyphose, scoliose, lordose (+ points of pain because of the compression of his nerves at the point of his congestion holes)

He ages: the compression of vascular and muscular (crossed legs, belt, collar and tie, etc…) slows down return circulation (blood vessels) Results: circulatory problems, localized stases? phenomena, varicose veins?, Ischemia?, intoxication, etc…

He intoxicates: by inflation and relaxation of the Abdominal strap and collapse?/sinkage? of the digestive organs. Results: Slow digestion, bloating, drowsiness, heaviness, constipation etc… (+ diseases of the liver, kidneys, hernias, etc…)

Bon, bah j'imagine que j'aurai pas à le faire.

How do people cope with work? I can't believe that they don't feel the same helplessness that I do when they think about the future and see nothing else but decades of the same tiring, soul killing routine of wage labour.

Work is what makes the world goes round.
It's however vital that we automates as much of it as possible and make it as painless as possible.

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You could probably improve the translation, theres a lot of things i wasn't sure about since i'm not a doctor.

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Where did you get this profile of me?
Although it honestly amazes me how almost everyone does this and doesn't get pissed off at the system. It has to be one of the most depressing things. Wake up, do the same routine, get on a bus where everyone stares silently out the window into the grey world. Then you get into the city where every available space is either a shop to sell you something or an advert for one of these shops. Then you go in a grey office to do pointless work with people you don't like for 8+ hours then repeat indefinitely until you're allowed to stop or you die. There is actually no way that I'm going to be able to continue this for the rest of my life.

all those people just tell me "If you weren't ready for this why did you ask God to come here?" or they say shit like "If you can't deal then just hang yourself"

Damn can't believe leftypol is so entitled and lazy, you guys need to take the SWEAT pledge

most people drink and smoke themselves into a complete stupor, buy everything they can see, and hardly get sleep anyways. Why do you think so many accidents happen? Why else do you think everyone always gets the wrong product shipped to them, or stores shelves are empty? Shit is always being repaired from some sleepy asshole bumping into something.

this guy is one of those faggots that would charge his kid rent

I wouldn't even go that far.

I spend a couple of hours every day bitching about management and how fucking retarded everything we do is.

Does posting on Holla Forums during work hours count as good praxis?

Reading socialist literature during work is good praxis. I recomend it.

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Only if you're not shilling for capitalism with red flags.

I would do this but I have to stop every now and then so I can't really get into it. That and I'm shit at reading off computer screens for long periods. I keep on meaning to try and do it more but I'm a lazy fucker.

I would never do such a thing.

Good to know my friend, the marksucc cancer must not spread.

What's wrong with market socialism with an Universal Basic Income?
If you don't want to work, you have the UBI.
If you want to work, you join a coop.

It's capitalism with red flags.

You did not explain what was wrong.

If there was a person who embodied the melancholy and ennui of modernity, it's him. If he had been born in Russia, he would have quit city life and indulged in a heretical messiah complex, surrounded by peasant rubes. And probably gulagged, to be honest.

Having a side project and a much larger goal helped me a lot. Work was just a phase before I could've get myself laid off in a way that wouldn't affect welfare and focus on what I actually wanted to do with life. Also socializing of course. Generally I dislike talking to people and rarely meet anyone on same wavelength but getting along with the other slaves, no matter how different they are and trying to have a good time makes it more bearable. Ah and of course thinking about some shit you'd buy and/or help other people with the money you're making.

Maybe this isn't the best thread for it but I'm very sure the main reason so many people play games about working (from stuff like Truck Simulator to Minecraft) is because a major late-capitalist escapist fantasy is to be able to do un-alienated labor.

Capitalism is wrong.

I think this kind of modern stoicism needs more discussion on /leftypol. We are not vegetable who can survive via photosynthesis so just rallying for vague antiwork will not amount to anything substantial(b4 full automation becomes thing of its own and we can demand basic income). As job market is imploding from mass immigration and general over-qualification via accessible education, more and more people of our generation will end up with disparity between their ideal and reality of workspace.

Sure 'modern men' of prior generations went through similar steps but we will be more conscious of the disparity between childhood dreams and real jobs. My conjecture is that we will be radicalized not by the unfair exploiting nature of capitalism mode of production but by realizing how it has been oppressing human's expression of ego and greater stories.

Flooding indie vidya game developers and music composers/publishers with other (mostly low paying) source of income might be considered as good symptom of this. I am not sure if we will be able to decouple ourselves from capitalism's visible effort to contain this uprising with their tools (like paradoxically gofundyourself) but if we can see through the root of the problem, achieving non-violent radicalization might be possible.

Please stop being sectarian because there's markets instead of planification, if I follow your logic, mutualists and ansyns are ancaps.

On, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on.

How can anyone look at this and think it's okay?

The best part was the message board the other day at work. I had never felt insulted by those messages until today. It's a glowing red sign that scrolls hand selected quotes and notices for meaningless bullshit around the workplace that half the people here can't read since a majority don't even know english and the rest speak it in such a broken manner that I've never lost a finger because they don't know that "DON'T TURN THE MACHINE ON!" means not to hit the giant green button that does exactly that.

The quote was some shit about how we ought to view friday as more than a paycheck, that we ought to view it was a week of work well done. How fucking insulting. I made that cunt in the officer and his whore wife how much money this week? I'll fucking hang him one day, the absolute cunt.

Honestly, I love work, purely because my personal life is so empty and worrying. When I clock off I immediately think, 'what the fuck am I going to do until bedtime?' I need to find some way of making money in my free time.

Capitalism is not merely class. It's also the cycle of capital. Who runs production is just part of the system. Mutualists and ansyns are different from ancaps but not actually socialist. You don't need specifically central planning to be socialist either. But if you have a market deciding what production succeeds or fails, then market forces are in control. Markets will select for structures that are good at using markets to expand and you will end up with a lopsided distribution of resources which takes you straight back to class. Marksucc could maybe work within a transition period but it's not an end goal because there's still a conflict between people's needs and the limitations of a market.

In socialism you can just go do work, but in market "socialism" you would only do work if there's someone who will pay you for it. Toppling capitalism as it is and replacing it with mutualism would not make poor people disappear over night. How are poor communities going to deal with their problems without the resources and now without a government subsidizing them? In a market you need to have money to make money. In a planned economy (from the most centrally planned down to one where each individual can make plans) you just go work because it needs doing and the value of work isn't abstracted to a symbol that gatekeeps who does and doesn't get to produce.

Palestine

Palestine

You guys aren't complaining about the lack of benefits or quality of life, you're complaining about the most basic aspects of work that are required in any economic system. Even if you had all the best benefits imaginable right now for a shitty job, you'd still have to show for 8 hours 4-5 days a week.

I mean what do you guys expect work to be like in a socialist society?

Mostly it's the amount of work that's a problem here. The industrial revolution and tech revolution since then have been all about increasing efficiency of production, yet people still have to work 8 hours a day for the economy to meet people's needs? That fuckin math don't add up.

well if we suppose that work isn't a means to the end of maximum surplus, work opens itself up to all sorts of possibilities.

basically, work would be 'eventful' in the sense that all sorts of phenomena could intervene there other than surplus-value extraction. work as the production of use-value instead of exchange-value negates work as a separate sphere of life.

Through the automation of the 21st century, and beyond, the workload of the common laborer could be cut down to such a substantial degree that the needed commodity production of any given nation could be fulfilled with shorter hours and fewer days. One of the major issues people here, like myself, complain about, is the systemic need to produce commodities, not for the sake of fulfillment of needs, but for the profits of bourgeoisie. Because of this need to produce for profits the worker is forced to labor of unneeded amounts of time to produce commodities that cannot even be bought; the automotive industry is the best example of this where we are currently producing more cars than can even be bought. Why? Because the bourgeois capitalists cannot BEGIN to understand the contradictions in their own methods.

You should listen to this when you get the chance, it's pretty good. youtube.com/watch?v=FVSJpiNU44g

Not him but I am curious if you really think such transitional period will ever end. Sure markets can be stupid sometimes but models of both "planned economy capitalism that happens in board room of moder American mega corporations" and communist vanguard can be stupid and fail all the time. If we are going through war planned economy will have better chance of success and if we are going through peaceful time where there exist room for inventions and entreprenurialism (for the sake of improving life of general population NOT profit of one), market might be more efficient than most kind of bureaucracy. Whenever I read writings of 'market socialists' I see the dynamic oscillation not capitalism with fewer steps. Am I missing something?

I don't mind working 12+ hours per day if I am allowed to work on the project that satisfy my autism. Hopefully my commune will allocate labor power for feeding the needs of its people not profit of 'selected few' and that won't require current state of working hours.

Well and 8 hour work-day is already an improvement over the 12-16 hour workdays of pre/early-industrialization. I think people here would complain even if they only worked 5 hours a day 5 days a week with every holiday off and 4 weeks paid vacation.

Doing work, is tiring even if your work is what you really want to be doing. And realistically there are always going to be shitty jobs, not every is especially talented so that they can do their dream jobs.

Okay but we still aren't at the robots doing everything phase yet. If socialism was universally implemented tomorrow there still would be people who have to do shitty jobs.

Okay but what if you're farming, or your job is to drive a bus, or to pick up litter/be a janitor? It'd still be an annoying job that isn't fun and also isn't done for the purpose of producing profits. But someone would have to do those jobs.

While funding scientists to build robots for shitty jobs maybe we can have mandatory rotations for emptying garbage can. Hopefully most of those 'shitty jobs' won't require any kind of high skill training to be done.

Your point completely moves away from what I said. "Shitty jobs"? People would have to pick up trash and clean up after themselves, yeah. Do you honestly believe that people love living in filth? While certain types may enjoy such things since they have something wrong with them (horders, people will fucked up fetishes) it's completely unreasonable to believe that, with the abolition of private property and adoption of socially owned property, that everything would turn into a pigsty. People will clean up, you can go into the streets TODAY and see people volunteering to clean up their own streets, people going out of their way to clean things. Of course, this is not as commonplace as many would want. Why? Why ought a person who's sole reason for existing under a capitalist structure wish to clean up other people's mess? Beyond a paycheck there is no reason, why janitorial work is now a paid for function. In a Socialist society these things would not even be issues, not even be up for questioning, a new reality for ferment due to the freedom one would have.

You're stuck on the one-track mindset of a Capitalist who views everything through the lens of people doing things for the sole purpose of profit whereas when no profit is too be had and a new order of society has been established the rules are completely changed, completely different.

hoarders*

Yeah, no, fuck any system like that. Besides, there is no reason for 8h workdays and 5 days week given unemployment either way with the current system.

Automation yo. Most jobs are pretty useless too and can be easy replaced by robots, so people will do only the work they choose for as long as they choose.

When I manage to get out of jobs, I work on my personal project 12-16h a day, every day and love every second of it. I doubt most people would want to do nothing for long. Just it should be voluntary.

We kinda are. Not everything but about 50% of low skilled jobs could be replaced by robots at this point, it's just cheaper to use wage slaves. For the unskilled work left, much shorter workdays and work weeks would be a start. Also "shitty jobs" are pretty vague, some people love doing the shit you hate to do and with lesser time wasted on it and more valuation by society (people who do important but low paid job are treated like shit) it won't be an issue.

The funny thing that even when thinking about pure profit, improving working condition and making sure work is truly voluntary would be a benefit. Demotivated workers cost money.

That's why the UBI is for.

Okay but there are still jobs that will be required to be done which would continue without profit. Like driving a bus for people, picking crops to feed the masses, etc. Those jobs require people to show up for hours and do them. Even if you don't depend on them for a livelihood. And people itt are complaining about the act of working rather than exploitation.

So what you're saying is that the entire theory of socialism was entirely worthless and completely incapable of being implemented until the last 10 years?

Depending on what you want to achieve. One could've still improve the work times and conditions and ensure that people wouldn't be so disconnected from their jobs. It'd be an improvement on what we have now, just not as massive as it's possible these days. Capitalism is a decent driver for innovation after all.

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Depends on the implementation, but it would have to end. If it wasn't used to transition effectively, it would just take us back to a class society because some people would figure out how to game the market and eventually start hoarding resources. That's probably close to how we transitioned from primitive communism to early class societies. There was originally just people producing for the community, but then someone leveraged the system. Markets imply private ownership. If it's possible to accrue more wealth than others, it's a matter of time before someone hatches a plan to get rich and then starts buying MoP. Remember that in straight competition within a market that a capitalist company has a huge advantage over a "socialist" company. Specifically, a socialist company is bound to the interests of its workers in that context while a capitalist company can sacrifice anything for the sake of profit i.e. growth i.e. market share.

in market "socialism" you would only do work if there's someone who will pay you for it
In a market you need to have money to make money
Except giving everyone X money will do zero to change an unequal distribution of money.

In market socialism every worker is a shareholder.

That doesn't mean they're equal shares.

Alternatively, we could decrease the work day and eliminate unemployment.

If muh initiative was the main reason, the job market would look completely different. Why study to be a doctor or a teacher if you could've make much more with much lesser effort doing some business/CS shit?

How's that even supposed to work? If the cost of the labor was more than the value it generated then it's not worth it to the capitalist.

Not limiting it to four fucking hours, nothing would get done on a reasonable time. maybe getting it down to six, but theirs still a lot of shit that takes a lot of time to get knocked out. Ever find yourself surfacing a bucket on a backhoe? it takes way more than six hours and I doubt you will want to had that shit off to someone else mid job.

That would be some kind of independent non-governmental organization.

Sorry about that, yes I meant that we'd all be board members of course.

And so those jobs must have a bigger reward through a bigger share.

Intangible shit has value, and keeping people answering phones requires a far amount of incentive especially for customer service calls. Do you even work?

Unemployedfag here. Here's what happens when you stop working:

I did a lot of research.

People take smartphones/tablets/Nintendoshit to bed. Light which the brain into thinking it's daytime; hence, you don't sleep. They'd rather stay up than face the day. Nothing to look forward to. Maybe you're stuck, but make plans to get out by whatever means necessary. This turns dread into excitement.

There are 12 fast food places between me and YMCA. The more you eat shit the worse you'll feel. Starving is just as bad, tbh. Save binging for weekends. I've been obese most my life. Take care of your body, and your body will take care of you.

The idea here is using drugs to take the edge off and enter a pleasant state.

- Opiates make you feel warm.
- Booze makes you meaner/dumber.
- Cocaine/caffeine/stims makes you think good and boosts your ego.

Use any drug you please, but many of them won't let you go, so they don't make your situation better. Your brain is already washing itself in chemicals; you're already on drugs. Use drugs as TOOLS, not crutches.

One of the joys of civilization. It makes you angry at people because they're "invading your space". You can't go offroad because you're not insane, or driving a monster truck. I always had an alternate route. It might be slower, but better than waiting. No matter how civilized it is, there's always an underground.

Anything you repress causes stress. What are you repressing? Why? Are you afraid? What are you afraid of? Emotions are survival instincts. Stress is an indicator SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DEALT WITH.

You can keep your eyes open. "Stuck" is a frame of mind. If you HATE your job, DO something, and that may mean ripping off a bandaid and facing a fear. You'll thank yourself.

Csikszentmihalyi wrote Flow in the 90s. It's a means to create fun. If a job is boring–use the pic related chart. If you're BORED, increase the challenge, if you want to relax, LOWER the challenge, if you find yourself anxious, git gud, et cetera.

You do routines all the time, you just don't notice. Smoking cannabis: 1) Acquire cannabis, 2) roll, 3) Monty Python on, 4) tendies, 5) sit on couch, 6) inhale, 7) hold it, 8) exhale. You have standards for this experience. If there were no limits, how would you schedule your day?

Humans WEAR OUT from inactivity. If you're just playing vidya, set a challenging goal, and accomplish it. This'll fix your sleep because if you'll want to sleep to take a break.

Sorting things out will give you control, and you won't worry about it…even if budgeting just proves you're fucked. You have to play the capitalism, which is won by: collect assets, strangle liabilities. Does it GIVE me money, or TAKE money away?

People are stupid sheep. If you blow their mind, they'll settle back into their comfort zone. These people are fucked, but that doesn't mean they have nothing to offer.

It isn't the mark of a shitty person to have persona. You do it because THEY'RE shitty. You have to TRICK people into acknowledging reality. If you're honest, they think you're playing some game. The easiest way to manipulate someone is mirroring their tone and body language. Only 7% of communication is words.

Your dark side is trying to tell you something. WEAPONIZE your dark side to cause justice. I'm not saying you should do anything illegal, but tit for tat doesn't hurt anyone.

Good luck.

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It's not like people have a shit job on purpose.

Does anyone have any tips/guides for young people who are about to become homeless? I have about £3,000 saved up btw.

Shit jobs are irrelevant when talking about initiative. Nobody picks garbage because they love the pay, they are simply out of options if they don't want to starve.

Initiative needs to give a choice, whether you take it or not, like it's with degrees, unless your abilities are limited, which is why I pointed traditionally tricky typical degrees. Yet people choose them, despite worse pay and higher difficulty.

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Sorry I fucked up my reply, I wanted to answer
You're not wrong, though.

The best jobs are solitary, safe, repetitive, mind-numbing, and let you listen to audiobooks, daydream, or reflect on things. Just good honest labor where no one bothers you.

Wish I had that really. I need to change jobs asap,
Sit in a room with 5 people
I have this one
Seemingly random tasks from my boss that change all the time
Have to think to actually figure out what these idiots want
For some reason they expect you not to even though it wouldn't effect shit.

This is kind of my perspective on things as well, I'd honestly be content with washing dishes or stacking shelves if it meant I could listen to music or something. I could get through like 8-10 albums a day, which is what'd I'd be doing at home anyway, except I'd be shitposting instead of working

I don't have any remaining energy left for my own projects after work.

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Hi Holla Forums you shilling again?

Same, dude…

I wake up a little before 6am, shower, dress, breakfast, makeup/hair, out the door, work from 8:30-5, get home, make dinner, try to go for a walk/bike ride (I'd skip this if I could by my wife likes to get exercise after dinner so I go because she does), and by the time all that's done it's past 7, I'm emotionally and physically drained, and there's nothing to do but browse the internet listlessly and watching dumb shit on netflix until 11pm or so when we go to bed - and then the cycle repeats. Day after fucking day.

So yeah, that four hours max of 'free-time' I get per day doesn't really lend itself well to projects, hobbies, or maintaining my sanity.

I wish I didn't have to work… I don't even have a bad job all things considered, but I have no time/energy for my own interests. I just watch myself decompose as the years crawl by.

are you an anfem?