Go back to work please.

[Alleycat72]

I managed to work 175 hours in overtime in March. I'll get about 70 in April because I took a week of vacation. I've watched 21-25 year old kids quit after a month in other departments because they "worked so much". The guys were making really good money. I just don't get it.

 

Edited April 25, 2022 by Alleycat72

[BJB]

I dont know how people are surviving. Is it possible they are still getting government money

 

 

[gary_boom]

Only the smart ones

[10-Ring]

There is more to life than 80 hour weeks.  Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.  And at some points in my life I had nothing better to do than work long weeks and save money.  I have zero desire to put in more than 50 hours a week again, ever. 

All that said, here's what I can't figure out.  Everyone is drastically understaffed right now as evidence by higher pay for non skilled labor than had ever been seen.  Yet I know of no one who is not working now who was working 2-3 years ago, and haven't spoken with anyone who does.  Where did everyone go!

[Erik88]

19 minutes ago, 10-Ring said:

There is more to life than 80 hour weeks. 

Exactly what I was about to say. I'm fine working 50 hours a week but after that I start to question my choices. I doubt many people are on their death bed thinking "I sure am glad I worked all those extra hours"...

 

 

[Darrell]

7 minutes ago, Erik88 said:

I doubt many people are on their death bed thinking "I sure am glad I worked all those extra hours"...

I hope I'm a long way from my death bed, but I am glad I worked a lot of extra hours back when.  Working a lot of OT let me retire my mortgage early and build a pretty good nest egg. I was able to retire in my mid 50's while I was still young enough to enjoy it. I'm now debt-free and worry-free, well, mostly worry-free. The politicians keep me worrying a bit.

On the other hand, and to support your statement, I knew a lot of people who worked a lot of overtime and spent every penny. There were people I knew who HAD to have OT in order to meet the payment on their fancy truck or their big boat. I never understood that mentality, but hey, it was their time, their money, and their choices.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Darrell

[Alleycat72]

Interviews today through Thursday, so hopefully we get 5 more good guys. This will help some, but not my position. They did give me the ability to do most of my work from anywhere in the world internet is available. I'm not sure that's a good thing.  LOL. We do have a guy that i work with that moved to New Zealand. 

I have found myself interacting with my family through the security cameras at the house a bit more.

[deerslayer]

I have no interest in working more than the 50 or so I work now.  In my younger days, I worked all I could, but I was single and wasn’t raising a kid.  I’d rather watch her sports or help with homework or just be a father than work all night.  
 

On the other hand, I was recently talking to a captain at a security company that recently started paying guards more.  Several applicants have told her they can’t get paid that much because they will lose welfare benefits.  That is fundamentally wrong.  A doctor who works where my wife does recently quit her $165k/four 10 hour days job because 10 hours was just too much (not because of the money).  I guess I was an idiot for working five 12+ hr days for less than half that not too long ago.  I wouldn’t know how to act with a three day weekend every week. 

Edited April 25, 2022 by deerslayer

[gregintenn]

Chasing a green piece of paper with a pic of a dead president on it isn’t the most important thing in everyone’s life.

[Alleycat72]

5 minutes ago, deerslayer said:

I have no interest in working more than the 50 or so I work now.  In my younger days, I worked all I could, but I was single and wasn’t raising a kid.  I’d rather watch her sports or help with homework or just be a father than work all night.  
 

On the other hand, I was recently talking to a captain at a security company that recently started paying guards more.  Several applicants have told her they can’t get paid that much because they will lose welfare benefits.  That is fundamentally wrong.  A doctor who works where my wife does recently quit her $165k/four 10 hour days job because 10 hours was just too much (not because of the money).  I guess I was an idiot for working five 12+ hr days for less than half that not too long ago.  I wouldn’t know how to act with a three day weekend every week. 

I watched a guy quit a 125k a year job with 4 10s because he had to work overtime some. He was in his early 20s and less than 2 months in. 

[deerslayer]

1 minute ago, Alleycat72 said:

I watched a guy quit a 125k a year job with 4 10s because he had to work overtime some. He was in his early 20s and less than 2 months in. 

Wow.  What I would for 125/4 days with no work phone.  

Edited April 25, 2022 by deerslayer

[Alleycat72]

Just now, deerslayer said:

Wow.  

Im talking about a couple of hours, once or twice a week and still had Friday,Saturday, and Sunday off.

[deerslayer]

16 minutes ago, Alleycat72 said:

Im talking about a couple of hours, once or twice a week and still had Friday,Saturday, and Sunday off.

Ya’ll replace him yet lol?

[Alleycat72]

36 minutes ago, deerslayer said:

Ya’ll replace him yet lol?

They haven't. 2 of 4 guys quit. 1 guy transferred  to Chicago. 

[Ronald_55]

18 minutes ago, Alleycat72 said:

They haven't. 2 of 4 guys quit. 1 guy transferred  to Chicago. 

What kind of work do I have to learn to do? And when can I start?  Even if I commuted there I would do better. lol

[Ronald_55]

I have killed myself over my career doing OT and side jobs just to try to put money back. I have sold vaccums, cleaned flower beds, and unloaded trucks all on top of my IT job. I cannot even fathom where I would be if I had been pulling in that much since I was 25. Wife makes good because she got on with a good employer 23 years ago and has moved jobs around inside there. I have no had the same break. Seems like everywhere I work they want more of me for less and then find someway to close up shop leaving me in the cold. Some kids just do not know what it is to work. 

[Grayfox54]

Having a wife, a home and raising two sons, I used to work all the overtime I could get. Our shop was a Mon-Fri operation. But we were always short handed and behind. So it ended up that a few guys would work almost every Saturday. I always volunteered. It wasn't so much that I needed the money. I made a pretty good living. I did it mainly because I never wanted my family to want for anything. There's a difference between living and just getting by. I worked so many that it finally reached a point where the boss made me take a Saturday off now and then for my own good.  

Age has taught me that while money is a necessity, its not the most important thing in life, Don't chase after it to the point you don't have time to live. 

Besides, my wife and I had an agreement. As long as the bills were paid and there was food on the table, whatever overtime I made was mine to do with as I pleased. While much of it went to family, house, etc, that overtime is what built my gun collection. 

[Snaveba]

1 hour ago, Alleycat72 said:

They haven't. 2 of 4 guys quit. 1 guy transferred  to Chicago. 

What is it your team does?  And can a mechanically inclined geologist do the same job?

Edited April 25, 2022 by Snaveba

[OldIronFan]

Quit my six figure job that had me working 50+ hours a week with 75%+ travel. I was on the road 38 to 42 weeks of the year. Great corporate gig with good pay, great benefits, solid company with no signs of potential failure at the next economic down turn. 

It was still worth it for me to take a pay cut and a role with a smaller company that had less than stellar benefits. 
The pay has worked out fine since I have seen more in bonuses and perks than I did before. The benefits have not been an issue since my stress, blood pressure, and general health is much better these last couple years. 
There was certainly some risk involved in the change but my family is better off as a whole because of it. 

On the other side of that is my wife still works less hours in a week, works from home 100% of the time, and she makes twice as much as I do. She is certainly smart, experienced and hard working so she did not get the role just handed to her but I still look back and wonder how I managed to decide to get into engineering and manufacturing when I could be doing software development from my home office right  now. 
 

[gun sane]

There's a construction crew doing storm drainage work on my property and one of the workers says the pay is good but it's hard finding guys that will stick.  Frankly, I'm not so worried about their future as I am the potential for flooding if the work is shoddy.

[Erik88]

The thing that hasn't been mentioned is that many people don't get overtime. I've been in my field 11 years and have been salary 10 of those. There were many days I worked 12 hours and only got paid for 8. But you can bet your ass they bitched if I needed to take an hour off for a Dr appointment. 

I'm just now in my first hourly job and they complain if we work too much overtime. We only get 5 hours of OT per week. 

 

 

[Ronald_55]

1 hour ago, Erik88 said:

The thing that hasn't been mentioned is that many people don't get overtime. I've been in my field 11 years and have been salary 10 of those. There were many days I worked 12 hours and only got paid for 8. But you can bet your ass they bitched if I needed to take an hour off for a Dr appointment. 

I'm just now in my first hourly job and they complain if we work too much overtime. We only get 5 hours of OT per week. 

 

 

I was salary for 10 years at one place. Averaged 60-80 hours a week. Pretty much on call 24/7. They treated me like crap, but the economy was not giving me a lot of other choices. I consider those 10 wasted years. When kids ask me for job advice, I tell them to run from salary jobs. It is an immediate clue to the fact that they want you for a lot more than 40, but don't want to pay you. 

[btq96r]

Repeat after me: there is no such thing as a labor shortage in a free market.

Every job can be filled for the right price.  That may be more than acceptable profits for an employer would allow, and I get that means the cost of things go up to correct the margin.  But that's not the labor market's fault, that's a consumer issue.  If a service or product is too expensive to produce at a point where it can be tendered for a profit...it's either the financial model being unreasonable, or the service/product itself is the problem.  This is a healthy purging of inefficiencies in an unbalanced labor market.  It's messy now, but good for the long-term.

A lot of folks aren't leaving the workforce, they're just switching jobs because hiring is catering to what their current employer for some reason refuses to budge on some things.  Expectations are high on that list.  I'm seeing this a lot in my place of employment.

"Good pay" is subjective when people have finally woken up to realize just how tilted the system really is towards those with equity and their capital partners.  I'm still a capitalist despite what some probably think, but if we don't have vibrant jobs that provide an avenue for upward mobility for the middle class, it's Marx/Lenin time sooner rather than later.  Workers want more returns from their effort than they're getting.  Right now, there is so much competition that for the first time in a long time, they have options to seek that.  They're also seeing out other incentives than W2 comp.  A lot of folks will come back to the office kicking and screaming, and look for a job where that's not required.

I applaud those who put family and personal happiness over a false satisfaction they get from working themselves to the bone.  I'm not able to be among them yet, but that's a psychological flaw on me I hope to work out someday.  We let ourselves become our work before other things, and a sociological change was pretty much overdue.

[Erik88]

24 minutes ago, btq96r said:

Every job can be filled for the right price

I wonder if there is a point at which this isn't true? Meaning can we get to a point where there are more open job openings than qualified workers? We're back to unemployment numbers we saw before the pandemic(50 year lows). 

I have a theory on what might have to happen to fill the gaps but it would be extremely unpopular on TGO. 

Edited April 25, 2022 by Erik88

[btq96r]

6 minutes ago, Erik88 said:

I wonder if there is a point at which this isn't true? Meaning can we get to a point where there are more open job openings than qualified workers? We're back to unemployment numbers we saw before the pandemic(50 year lows). 

I have a theory on what might have to happen to fill the gaps but it would be extremely unpopular on TGO. 

We probably have that now.  Our system was not optimized to train well.  I suppose my prior comments should come with the disclaimer about that, but I was really talking about the labor market in a competitive sense.  When there's real competition for workers, companies can and should undercut each other to attract/retain talent.  We're seeing it in a lot of places...nursing is a great example of where a sub-service the whole enterprise can't do without needs to be funded at least a short-term loss to stay solvent.

And yeah...you're avoiding the "i word"...but as we reach the realistic work limits of our current population, we'll need more labor to keep things even, and certainly to grow.  It's just a question of if we're ready to have a work based system that's used to close gaps, because the primary purpose for the old one was to keep wages suppressed.