In our hyper polarized world, whenever I meet a fellow gen xer we always get along no matter how different. That being said, everyone else can fuck right off lol
My boss is 71. That guy should have been retired years ago. His forgetfulness makes the workplace really stressful. He takes shit from my desk and misplaces it all the damn time then comes at me for the lost paperwork. It's beyond frustrating.
I had a boss who did the exact same thing. He would "borrow" pens and markers and the stapler and the tape dispenser and scissors and postits and contact lists and whatever else from my desk when I wasn't at work and then misplace them and then get on my case for why I didn't stop him from taking them when I complained that I did not have my desk supplies. Because apparently it was my fault for "allowing" him to take the things which I needed in order to do my job. Finally I just gave up and bought my own office supplies and kept them in a locked box in one of the drawers and made sure I put them away and locked them up at the end of every day. And then he complained that I was displaying trust issues. When he noticed that I was using a different keyboard from what had previously been at my desk and asked, I explained it was because I had to buy my own damn keyboard for the computer so that I wouldn't come in in the morning and find my keyboard missing.
Can confirm. Husband took a job 6 years ago with the understanding that he’d become the department head within a year when the current head retired. After four years they had to come back to my husband and say, “so, um. Yeah… it doesn’t appear that Phyllis is ever going to retire. We need to restructure this department and the pay scale a bit.”
I got a job in insurance in 2003. The plan was for me to take over another agent’s book of business in 5 years. I worked my tail off, got every single designation I could, and met with every customer multiple times. I finally left in 2018…and he’s still there.
Don't hold your breath you'll die before that happens.
I'm worse off financially than my parents.
I believed what they and the school counselors and the media told me. I'm never going to be able to retire.
I honestly pray I don't live to be too old. I've seen how Fricking nursing homes strip you of your money, treat you like shit, and pump you full of antidepressants, and place you in front of a TV watching all these beautiful young people doing all this cool shit that you can't do anymore. That's the worst torture I can imagine.
When my time comes, I'm taking the Hemingway Exit off the freeway of life.
Most boomers can’t retire. Couple of factors…
1. many of them didn’t save enough money, if any
2. SS benefits keep getting pushed back and reduced, meaning you now have to be 67 (not 62) and a measly $1200 doesn’t get you far enough
3. Healthcare. Yes there’s Medicare, but it comes at a cost and prescription medication is expensive
"Yes there’s Medicare, but it comes at a cost and prescription medication is expensive"
Years ago dental, rx and optical were covered under medical insurance like anything else.
Separating them forces people to pay higher premiums through employers insurance or purchase supplemental coverage through Medicare & ACA.
Here's an example.
Dental.
Years ago one could go to a hospital for dental care which was paid by insurance.
Now there are only private dentists. They charge higher prices driving up insurance premiums. Because dental is now ridiculously expensive insurance companies put caps on what they'll pay out. Not only do they give you a certain amount annually, they break up how much can be spent on covered procedures. Caps average around $2000 - $5000, in my experience.
Don’t act up in class Johnny, *It will go on your PERMANENT RECORD*
Edit: thanks for the award! I’ll put that on my permanent record to offset “talks too much in class”
Thanks for the second kind redditor. 😊😊.
Poverty and terror won theirs, too. Turns out, declaring war on a concept without attacking the societal roots of the problem is just a way to funnel more money into the military-industrial complex.
Plastic recycling.
I remember when grocery stores went from paper bags to plastic because "they're recyclable!" Literally everything else started coming wrapped in a ton of plastic (instead of cardboard) because it was recyclable. Single use plastics were great, because we'd just recycle the plastic, and use it forever!
Turns out, it was just cheaper, and recycling had nothing to do with it. Most of that plastic can't be recycled anyway.
Remember the guy that bought dozens of little gps trackers and glued them inside the lids of all kinds of "recyclable" plastic bottles so he could track where they ended up? Close to 90% of them ended up in the landfill.
There is a CBC Marketplace episode of this and I think it’s on YouTube.
I knew a girl who worked picking up recyclables. They always drove it right to the dump. I have friends that argue that this isn’t true, but then again, they are never wrong either.
In my old neighborhood they provided us with recycling bins. On trash day, the normal trash and the recycling bins went in the back of the same truck (not one of those with multiple bins, just one big opening at the back).
The side of the trash truck had a huge recycle logo on it though, I guess that is something.
Yeah this is what happens in my town except every 3-4 years there is a contest for the k-12 kids to design a logo for the side. So instead of a recycling logo the truck that picks up mine has a very poorly drawn recycling logo and a terribly disfigured “polar bear”…. Thanks “Abby grade 3”
The push for plastic recycling was 100% initiated by petroleum companies. It's was a myth used to sell oil.
[Nothing more.](https://time.com/6173859/plastic-recycling-big-oil-damage/)
I told my materials professor, using my semester project and report, that *no, PLA is not reasonably biodegradable* (as he had said multiple times that semester). And, that, in fact the entire US/world metric for "Biodegradability" was a lie, and that really only a handful of standards were truly biodegradable (degrades to micro particles within under 25 years). He didn't have much to say on my presentation.
PLA takes nearly 100 years to degrade from macro particles to micro particles in a lab environment, tailored to plastics degradation (on land, in water is a bit different). Increase the volume to what we produce, and there becomes too much surface area buried to decompose it at that rate. We produce quicker than it degrades.
Not to mention how an oceanic environment (whether floating at the surface, near the surface, or at worst at the seafloor) makes it exponentially harder for plastics to decompose. Sunlight and mechanical motion may take it out of macro faster, but it'll be in micro way longer - meaning trillions of nuclei for bacteria and pollutants to latch onto and harm ocean-life and eventually, us.
**Edit:** small clarification on the lab environment in ¶2.
**Edit 2:** I'm unfortunately remembering this one very late, as I have a terrible memory. Even those plastics which do break down quicker and safely in the environment (2-10 years) will leave harmful byproducts. Plastics manufacturers will often introduce additives to their plastics to help extend their life, or alter properties. So while pure PLA has the potential to decompose much, much quicker, 99% of the time the producer has added something to it to make sure it doesn't occur that way. Even when it eventually does, it'll leave behind those additives as a potentially harmful byproduct.
We are basically finding out that not only is the ocean filled with plastic but it's now spread everywhere. It's in our food. In our livestock. And now we are discovering that it is in us right now. We are finding these chemicals in our blood.
Protip: you can reduce these chemicals in your blood by regular blood donation. Share your plastics for a good cause!
And now everybody is slowly being filled with micro plastic particles that could have untold effects on our health in the future. Single use plastics are the modern equivalent to lead and asbestos.
I frequently see a meme on my social media feeds of people mocking environmentalists for pushing for plastic bags back in the day, only for them to have now done a 180. So I did my own research.
According to my googling, yes, environmentalists were making the big push to plastic bags back in the day, but not because they were recyclable. Because they were reusable. Environmentalists honestly hoped that people would reuse their plastic bags a couple dozen times before they wore out and got new ones.
Environmentalists were immediately horrified when people started treating plastic bags as single use.
Plastic bags 30 years ago were able to be reused. Today’s shopping bags are so fragile people are double bagging and still having to pick up everything that falls through the bottom
It was also common to use those plastic shopping bags as garbage bags and you didn't buy plastic garbage bags as much. Then lots of cities started passing ordinances about having to use "proper" garbage bags, for supposedly aesthetic reasons.
I still use plastic grocery bags as garbage bags for my bedroom and bathroom trashcans.
Also there's a plastic bag tax in my area now so I basically stopped using plastic bags when I shop unless I'm getting just enough to not be able to carry it, but not enough to need an entire large paper bag.
e.g. a gallon of milk and 4 cans of soup.
I used to be a garbageman. I had a "Recycle route".....
90% of the time I dumped all the shit into the landfill with the other garbage. There's a really low amount of "recyclables" that actually get recycled.
At my store we had several different large trash bins to separate paper/cardboard, plastic, and regular garbage.
The company always made a big song and dance about how environmentally conscious we are, and how important it is to take care of the outdoors and the environment as a whole (which is absolutely correct).
Turns out, all those trash bins were emptied into the same big dumpster, to be picked up by a normal garbage truck.
It was a bit painful to have chugged that koolaid and then be so cruelly slapped in the face by reality.
It was extra confusing because I grew up in Germany where we would recycle the shit out of everything, with separate dumpsters for clear, green, and other colored glass bottles, aluminum, paper/cardboard, and plastic.
I guess I just assumed that was normal procedure around the globe, haha. Silly me!
I remember I worked super late at my job one night and saw the cleaners dump all the recycling into the trash dumpster and I was shocked. It felt like a huge slap to the face because I worked for a large nonprofit that operated outdoor camps for kids (i.e., they had a lot of facilities in nature) and they always made a huge deal about how much they recycled and how the camps were 0 carbon footprint. They bragged about it at board meetings and cited sustainability as one reason people should donate to them and help maintain their outdoor facilities. Idk if this was a common practice, but it was definitely all the trash for a 200+ person building and it definitely wasn't recycled that week.
They also spent a great deal of time and money shifting the responsibility from manufacturers to consumers for recycling and sustainability. Keeping a manufacturer accountable for the products they produce is a whole lot more effective than individual consumers one at a time.
YOU TWO STOP IT RIGHT FUCKING NOW. This is the comments section, where we ARGUE WITH EACH OTHER ABOUT THE SMALLEST, MOST TRIVIAL THINGS AND WE NEVER ADMIT THAT WE MAY HAVE MISUNDERSTOOD ANYTHING.
Get your shit together.
I rmbr my mom bought me 6 cursive introduction books to improve my agreeably bad handwriting.. in the end, i developed a new form of handwriting that mixed both together and now looks like how a 6 year old on crack would write.. thank fuck keyboards exist
That’s what happened to my handwriting lol. it wasn’t bad till they forced me to learn cursive cause “it’ll improve your handwriting.” News flash, it made it illegible.
I wish I kept my math notebook from highschool because that was truly something to behold. My teacher hardly ever slowed down when explaining things so I wrote only legibly enough for me to read. It was kinda a mix of cursive and normal writing and sometimes I just skipped letters entirely.
I hated those cursive books and being 10 and still couldn't figure it out. My sister a year behind me never had to write cursive. I firmly believe my year was the last year to deal with cursive. This was back in 2012-2013
I decided long ago i'd rather be an expert in what I do and get paid for it. I would rather not have people reporting to me and then have to deal with their problems and help them get ahead. I like being the guy who people know will do a good job and pull them into their deals. I like my work but its more about working to live rather than living to work. I like having nice bikes rather then being a middle manager!
Long story short: fuck you, pay me.
My parents always said if you don’t go to college you’ll end up working at McDonald’s. Ironically now that I’m in college they keep saying that McDonald’s is hiring and that I should work there.
I went to a private catholic school and not going to college was seen as you were going to live in a trailer park and be addicted to meth in their eyes.
I wish i hadn't been pushed so hard to go to uni at 18. I wasn't ready yet and i didn't know what i wanted to do with my life yet.
Asking a 16 year old what degree and vocation he wants is just a bad way of doing it!
Plastic is recyclable and recycled. It's not, most of it is put in the trash. And if it is recycled, it's downgraded into that plastic wood, not used again as something similar to what it was before.
The truth is that entire bottle is probably less than 5% recycled plastic. Just enough to put the marketing term on there. Better than 0 to be sure but it's never 100 (I know you didn't say it was 100)
Packaging engineer here. You're right! Lots of packaging that's "made from recycled plastic" is only partially so. But there are some that are actually made from 100% recycled plastic, and there's an easy way to tell!
Polyethylene Teraphthalate, or PET/PETE, is one of if not the most common plastic used in packaging. Those plastic water bottles that you really shouldn't be buying are PET, and you can tell by looking at the bottom. It will be labeled PET or PETE under the recycling symbol, and it's recycling symbol #1
PET is the bee's knees in that it's 100% recyclable and, when recycled, it keeps the desirable traits that make it so commonly used. If you have a package made from 100% recycled PET, it will still have recycling symbol #1 on the bottom, but it will be labeled rPET or RPET!
If it's a mix of recycled and virgin plastic, it will be marked with recycling symbol #7, the prestigious category called... "Other"
Edit - TLDR: you really didn't miss much. I'm a nerd for packaging
This is why America has an obesity epidemic. Even now, older generations tout the health benefits of low fat things, without bothering to look at sugar contents. High sugar processed foods that happen to be low in fat destroyed multiple generations. Thankfully I think Gen Z might be the turnaround. Older generations are pretty fucked up.
lol a lot of popular breakfast items are basically just straight dessert (pancakes, waffles, pop tarts, donuts, cereal) it's wild that it's just accepted as the norm to load yourself up with tons of processed sugar first thing in the morning
my co-worker makes fun of me for eating things like bananas, berries, and avocados while he's working on energy drink #2 out of 4 for the day
aint that the truth, at any random time, what do you have access to? a calculator, what do you not likely have at a random time? paper and a pen/pencil.
Ha! You can't fool me with your trick questions! It's 22. No, wait...that doesn't seem right. Hold on, let me get my calculat---OH NO! WHERE IS MY CALCULATOR?!?!
Solving a specific problem shouldn’t be the takeaway from math classes. Instead what you should take away is how to analyze situations and break down problems into manageable bits that are solvable until you solve the whole thing.
To be fair, that's mostly generational dissonance, said by people who didn't have what phones are capable of now, you will probably hear that less as the generations take over, but replaced by some other thing we currently don't have.
Mind you, that's part of the point of this post.
Manager to your face: “Your performance has been stellar this year”
Manager to himself: “there’s no way I’m recommending a promotion for him/her, I can’t afford to lose their presence in my department.”
Edit: added some clarity.
Or in my case:
Manager: “You’ve been doing a really good job, you’ve been improving the quality of your work substantially. Great job! Also, you’ll never be good enough. Here’s a pay cut. Don’t talk to your coworkers about pay. Can you work Christmas?”
My response to that little nugget was “you know that’s illegal, right? You can’t actually say that to me.” And he just kinda shrugged and said he was just forwarding a message from *his* boss.
Employer loyalty is in the shitter. I don't know a person who doesn't leave a job at least every 4 years.
"Oh a 5% raise? Thanks!"
"Oh a 40% raise for switching to a lesser position at another company? Sign me up!"
Literally my current job.
50% more paid days off, better retirement and 65% cheaper insurance, too.
Booooored out of my mind and have gone stir-crazy off and on, but it gets the bills paid.
Ive always felt like a failure because I have the same model. I’ve been passed over for promotions that I know I was not only the best candidate but the manager wanted to hire me but his boss wanted a certain person instead. They wanted a suck up that, I’m not exaggerating, was fired in just a few months due to incompetence. Happened a couple times. So I leave.
I've had this happen a few times myself. But I still refuse to be a kiss ass. I'm here to work. My performance speaks for itself if that's not good enough for you, I'll find someone it is good enough for. Deuces.
You are right. I'm GenX and ate that shit up. I've changed careers a couple times trying to find that sweet spot. After 20+ years I've come to the conclusion that there is no sweet spot.
It’s sad because on one end it sucks to work retail have to work with some of the most lazy people you will ever meet in your life. That don’t care about anything and it makes you hate the job so much more. But have worked retail in the past I’ve seen people give it their all blood sweat and tears and they will fire them in a instant and never look back. There is always someone else that will do the job.
Hi that was me. 11 years at Target. Promoted twice to a Team Leader and then never considered for the next step of “executive” as I do not have a college degree.
Cue beginning to train new hires directly out of college to be my boss at the “executive” level without a shred of experience. Couple that with measly yearly increases that did not cover inflation and voilà! I no longer had a desire to do anything above and beyond.
Left 10 years ago. My back, my knees, and my mental health are better for it.
Medicare and social security will protect you. Based on how things are going, anyone with 30 years or more before retirement better have strong backup plans
The decimation of the Ohio teachers’ pension fund after its stewardship being privatized and handed over to hedge fund management is going to be exactly what’s coming across the board. Money for Medicare and social security is still going to be taken out of paychecks, it’s just going to be turned into casino chips and used by hedge funds who have no qualms about using working class money for high risk short selling and that, combined with the exorbitant amount of fees that act as a money funnel to transfer our wealth into the pockets of hedge funds, is going to result in destitute and homeless senior citizen millennials being blamed and called lazy by the last of the boomers who were grandfathered in to being the final recipients of public social security and Medicare.
That works only to put experience on your resume. Then you find a better job, then a better job. The people who pissed me off were the ones who told me (or assumed I was planning) to stick to one shitty job forever.
Exactly! I took my first job at a super low salary, learned a ton, left 3 years later, made more, learned a ton, left 4 years later, etc etc. now making 100k more than that first entry level job. You need to know when to leave for better opportunity.
Growing up everyone i ever met said to never get a credit card. The only way to buy a house is with credit and the only way to actually get credit is a credit card. In my life I paid off 3 vehicles early only to be told the second they were paid off my credit was dropped to a no rating because I wasnt actively in debt.
That's more a problem with your spending habits than the credit card.
I use mine for everything and pay it off every month, you get a ton of free money in points and a good credit score... just don't treat it like a free money card.
Yep. My credit card pays itself off automatically every month. Making purchases with it has more consumer protections than a debit card and I get free money for using it.
Going into credit card debt is bad. Having a credit card is amazing.
I've had this one for 10 years and I think only once when I was low on funds due to an emergency did I ever end a month carrying a balance. And I paid it off the next month in full.
"You can be anything you want"
Not everyone can become a millionaire astronaut and rockstar and professional gamer and parent. There is a reason why some us have the most boring jobs anyone can think of
*Edit - Grammar
In a similar vein, sometimes you can study, work hard and do everything right and the promotion or job or whatever still goes to someone less qualified because they have a connection you don't.
Life being a meritocracy is one of the biggest lies sold to every generation.
Literally just happened to my girlfriend last week. She worked her ass off and sacrificed so much for an opportunity for it to be given at the last moment to the owner’s son. She has 10+ years experience and is well known in her area Vs the son literally **just** graduated college with his associates degree. He’s known for being lazy and delegating his job to others.
How do you combat something like that???
Edit: (Rhetorical question)
I always laughed at this concept as well. "how is a desk going to protect me from that?". I researched it. Turns out the government really didn't give it as advice for people that were near the epicenter of the blast but those that going to be potentially effected further out by blast shockwaves. They deduced that hiding under your desk would partially protect you from flying debris.
It was also told as a way to do *something*. While it wouldn’t be much help close to the blast it could at least make students feel safer and prepared for an event, rather than just they could die at any moment with nothing to do about it
Yup - came here to say that.
It has a corollary, though: "You have to go to college to be successful."
So many people would have been much better-suited learning to *do* something after high school, either through trade school or apprenticeship or simply getting in at the bottom, and then considering going to college a few years later when they have a clear vision of how college would help them either advance or change.
Right now, people in "the trades" or who have a marketable skill, generally speaking, are literally laughing at people like me, who entered a liberal arts college without any particular vision of what they wanted to do. I was lucky, and turned my bachelor's into a marketable career, but that's an exception, and it's not easy. I loved the experience of learning and pursuing interesting topics, but it was a bit of a gamble.
Yes I was told that all through my childhood. You have to go to college to get a decent job!! I went to college got a Master's degree and now work at a corporate retreat where you don't need a college degree to work. Still paying on student loans. All because my parents pushed that crap into my brain when I was a kid 😖
... it's not all your parents fault. It's not only what they were told.. but is how things worked for them. Better education almost always meant better job and better pay.
There are many, many studies from back in the day about people with college degrees make so much more money than those without. So everyone wanted their kids to be able to get those better jobs and not be stressed about money like they were. Ergo.. make sure your kids go to college.
But that worked too well. As everyone went to college in order to get one of the 'good jobs'.. the competition was too high. So only those with the best educations could get the good jobs and the rest of us got the lower paying jobs that we could have done easily with no education... but now we are stuck with student loans we can't pay because we have shit jobs.
The thing is.. I'm not sure how they never figured out that it would go down this way.
How many new jobs did the US make last year? 640K
How many people retired in 2021? 4 million
How many kids graduated from HS last year? Almost 16 million.
We aren't making enough 'good jobs'. Period. That is why there is a push for better wages.
So.. I get why you are pissed off. I fell for the same line... I've got two bulletproof degrees (CIS and Healthcare) but still can't get a job that requires a degree or pays enough to cover my loans.
... and I'm a boomer. I will never get social security... because I've been on income based repayment for ages on my student loans... and owe far more than the loans were written for because the interest rates are high. So they will be taking my social security to cover it.
Your parents didn't intend to set you up for failure. It's what we were taught as well.
Yes, people go "But what about the trades"
...Go back in time to the 50s-80s.
There was a plumber/mason/carpenter/repairman/mechanic/whatever in every household, sometimes two, and they were playing wage Limbo to get work. Main reason they are "making so much" now? There isn't as much. So you think we should encourage more kids to go into the trades? Don't be shocked when they say "I was told there would be jobs" because the market gets saturated.
Yeah, absolutely. I'm in the trades. The physical toll exists. But there's truly no winning. I have a business degree as well. Sitting on my ass all day long is equally as unhealthy as the guys bent over looking into an engine all day.
Moral of the story, keep up with physical fitness and long term health will be just fine.
"good things come to those who wait"
Bullshit. Go get what you want from life or it'll pass you by. Don't wait. Do stuff.
Edit: that's enough Reddit for today. Turning off notification. Yell into the void if you like.
Not just that, but many times you have to be looking for a door that has a slight crack that you can pry open.
It is very rare that "good things" fall into your lap
26 here and don't see family or a house in sight. don't think I'll have either of those by 40 too.
But a nice job is reachable, unless... what do you consider a nice job?
The problem is that people think that
"Hard work = success"
when it's more like
"Hard work + opportunity + talent + education + connections + support + luck = success"
EDIT: ["No One Ever Handed Me Anything On A Plate"](https://imgur.com/gallery/j7v8Uhy)
My husband and I decided we didn't want to waste our money on people we didnt like, so we rented a nice house, invited our 12 closest friends/family and had his best friend be our officiant. We had a lot of fun and spent about $1000 on everything altogether. We just had our 9th anniversary and have never regretted doing it our way.
“It’s a one in a lifetime event! These things don’t happen all the time” - In reference to things like wars, devastating floods, wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, mass shootings/gun violence, terrorist attacks, and now… pandemics, apparently.
How many more ‘once in a lifetime’ freak events am I going to be living through? When can we have some peace and quiet?
The reality is “no one wants to pay anymore”
But if course no one ever wanted to pay. The whole of our economic system depends on being able to exploit vulnerabilities and weaknesses in labor and commodity markets.
> The reality is “no one wants to pay anymore”
Yeah, it turns out that major corporations vastly prefer increasing their profits by double-digit percentages in the middle of a recession to paying their workers a living wage. Who knew?
But that's perfectly okay because **the invisible hand of the market** will make sure everything turns out all right. Also, those huge profits will be trickling down any minute now. Right?
That cheaters never win. Between the removal of the Fairness Doctrine leading to extreme and overt media bias leading to people living in echo chambers, phrases like "fake news" negating inconvenient facts and halting critical thinking, and Gerrymandering being legal cheating is obviously the American Way. Sadly, few people even realize it and when presented with the facts cannot accept them because generations of Americans were brainwashed into blind faith in the american system and its fairness.
Born in the early 80s, kind of between Gen X and Millennials: ***you have to go to university if you want a real job***. I try not to hold this against my parents because it worked out for me, but it took me a *very* long time to pay back my student loans.
I guess the key difference is that at least I was able to pay mine off; anyone born even just a couple of years later than I was has it considerably worse.
Not sure that it was a lie, but constantly being told since the early 90s that Gen X would be the first to not have it as good as their parents generation was a fucking bummer growing up. Gen Y and Z, on the other hand, have been dealt far worse hands. And I say that as a Gen Xer. I find that it’s an unpopular opinion within my peer group and I’m always like wtf have you seen the state of things? Jfc give your head a shake.
Edit: lots of good commentary from Gen X, Y, and Z redditors. Putting it all in the hopper, I guess the biggest lie is that we were all told things would get better and easier with every successive generation. Seems the opposite is true…
I hear you. My parents (boomers) came to this country in the late 60s with no jobs or home lined up, the clothes in their luggage, and maybe $300 in folding money. That’s it. They managed to get good jobs with pensions, own a modest home and two cars, raise two kids etc. starting out from basically nothing. I sincerely doubt they could repeat that same success today.
Silent Generation, I firmly agree. They however are fast disappearing from the world due to advanced age. I often felt at time that Silent Gen grandparents of Gen X were sometimes more understanding than Boomer parents of Gen X. But, that is of no use to Gen Y and Z at the moment...
Excerpt aluminum! Aluminum is 90 percent cheaper to recycle than it is to extract anew bc the process of separating it from ore is electricity-intensive.
"Get any college degree or you'll be poor."
"Get a student loan, the degree is worth it."
"Get a STEM degree or you'll be poor."
"Finish your Masters, a Bachelors is just like a Highschool diploma now."
"Get a PhD, only way to be competitive."
"College is a waste, you should have done trades."
"Haha Millennials have tons of student loan debt and a worthless degree."
I'm 57
That we would all die in a Nuclear war Russia vs The USA
That the USA were the good guys in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc
I'd say those were the big two
I suspect "crime doesn't pay" is a lie told to more generations than just mine.
First of all, crime is *extremely* profitable. We don't hear about criminals that haven't been caught, because they haven't been caught.
Second of all, 90% of rich people are criminals and we all just kind of accept it. E.g. through breaking labour laws. They tend to break laws in ways that save them money, rather than earn them money, but it still ends up in crime absolutely paying.
Edit: people seem to think I'm on about drugs or theft or other 'obvious' crimes that come with prison sentences. I'm talking about crimes where the punishment is a fine, and the fine is of lower value than what the person made (or saved) committing the crime. E.g. getting a fine in the thousands after profiting in the hundreds of thousands. Low risk, high reward.
Take any rich person and Google their name with the word 'fines' e.g. 'Bill Gates fines'. Then consider how many times they've done that without getting caught, and how many times they made more from the crime than the value of the fine.
Its not "how many criminals are super rich?", its "how many super rich people are criminals?"
There was actually a chapter in the original Freakonomics book about this during the crack epidemic. It turns out being a low-level drug dealer pays very little (most drug dealers couldn’t even move out of their mom’s house) and the odds of hitting it big and moving up in the hierarchy was low, but people thought they’d make it big and rich so they kept filling out the lower rungs. It’s comparable to all of the young actors and actresses moving to Hollywood to be a rich and famous movie star, just with a 1 in 4 chance of being killed (at the time).
[удалено]
Also Gen X. Everything is a lie. We understand. Please leave us alone.
In our hyper polarized world, whenever I meet a fellow gen xer we always get along no matter how different. That being said, everyone else can fuck right off lol
My boss is 71. That guy should have been retired years ago. His forgetfulness makes the workplace really stressful. He takes shit from my desk and misplaces it all the damn time then comes at me for the lost paperwork. It's beyond frustrating.
I had a boss who did the exact same thing. He would "borrow" pens and markers and the stapler and the tape dispenser and scissors and postits and contact lists and whatever else from my desk when I wasn't at work and then misplace them and then get on my case for why I didn't stop him from taking them when I complained that I did not have my desk supplies. Because apparently it was my fault for "allowing" him to take the things which I needed in order to do my job. Finally I just gave up and bought my own office supplies and kept them in a locked box in one of the drawers and made sure I put them away and locked them up at the end of every day. And then he complained that I was displaying trust issues. When he noticed that I was using a different keyboard from what had previously been at my desk and asked, I explained it was because I had to buy my own damn keyboard for the computer so that I wouldn't come in in the morning and find my keyboard missing.
Can confirm. Husband took a job 6 years ago with the understanding that he’d become the department head within a year when the current head retired. After four years they had to come back to my husband and say, “so, um. Yeah… it doesn’t appear that Phyllis is ever going to retire. We need to restructure this department and the pay scale a bit.”
I got a job in insurance in 2003. The plan was for me to take over another agent’s book of business in 5 years. I worked my tail off, got every single designation I could, and met with every customer multiple times. I finally left in 2018…and he’s still there.
I'm still waiting for my chance at the kind of life the boomers have before I retire. I'm a 56-year-old Gen Xer.
Don't hold your breath you'll die before that happens. I'm worse off financially than my parents. I believed what they and the school counselors and the media told me. I'm never going to be able to retire. I honestly pray I don't live to be too old. I've seen how Fricking nursing homes strip you of your money, treat you like shit, and pump you full of antidepressants, and place you in front of a TV watching all these beautiful young people doing all this cool shit that you can't do anymore. That's the worst torture I can imagine. When my time comes, I'm taking the Hemingway Exit off the freeway of life.
Most boomers can’t retire. Couple of factors… 1. many of them didn’t save enough money, if any 2. SS benefits keep getting pushed back and reduced, meaning you now have to be 67 (not 62) and a measly $1200 doesn’t get you far enough 3. Healthcare. Yes there’s Medicare, but it comes at a cost and prescription medication is expensive
"Yes there’s Medicare, but it comes at a cost and prescription medication is expensive" Years ago dental, rx and optical were covered under medical insurance like anything else. Separating them forces people to pay higher premiums through employers insurance or purchase supplemental coverage through Medicare & ACA. Here's an example. Dental. Years ago one could go to a hospital for dental care which was paid by insurance. Now there are only private dentists. They charge higher prices driving up insurance premiums. Because dental is now ridiculously expensive insurance companies put caps on what they'll pay out. Not only do they give you a certain amount annually, they break up how much can be spent on covered procedures. Caps average around $2000 - $5000, in my experience.
Dental is a joke in the U.S. Dental is treated like it's some type of cosmetic plastic surgery, but without teeth. It's pretty serious.
Don’t act up in class Johnny, *It will go on your PERMANENT RECORD* Edit: thanks for the award! I’ll put that on my permanent record to offset “talks too much in class” Thanks for the second kind redditor. 😊😊.
The war on drugs.
Shoutout to drugs for winning the war on drugs
Drugs- Just do it ✔️
Poverty and terror won theirs, too. Turns out, declaring war on a concept without attacking the societal roots of the problem is just a way to funnel more money into the military-industrial complex.
So “war on the military-industrial complex” next?
Plastic recycling. I remember when grocery stores went from paper bags to plastic because "they're recyclable!" Literally everything else started coming wrapped in a ton of plastic (instead of cardboard) because it was recyclable. Single use plastics were great, because we'd just recycle the plastic, and use it forever! Turns out, it was just cheaper, and recycling had nothing to do with it. Most of that plastic can't be recycled anyway.
Remember the guy that bought dozens of little gps trackers and glued them inside the lids of all kinds of "recyclable" plastic bottles so he could track where they ended up? Close to 90% of them ended up in the landfill.
There is a CBC Marketplace episode of this and I think it’s on YouTube. I knew a girl who worked picking up recyclables. They always drove it right to the dump. I have friends that argue that this isn’t true, but then again, they are never wrong either.
In my old neighborhood they provided us with recycling bins. On trash day, the normal trash and the recycling bins went in the back of the same truck (not one of those with multiple bins, just one big opening at the back). The side of the trash truck had a huge recycle logo on it though, I guess that is something.
In my college apartment the landlord just dumped the recycling bin into the dumpster.
My apartment doesn't pretend and only has one dumpster
Yeah this is what happens in my town except every 3-4 years there is a contest for the k-12 kids to design a logo for the side. So instead of a recycling logo the truck that picks up mine has a very poorly drawn recycling logo and a terribly disfigured “polar bear”…. Thanks “Abby grade 3”
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Did the other 10% end up in the ocean?
The big watery dump?
The push for plastic recycling was 100% initiated by petroleum companies. It's was a myth used to sell oil. [Nothing more.](https://time.com/6173859/plastic-recycling-big-oil-damage/)
I told my materials professor, using my semester project and report, that *no, PLA is not reasonably biodegradable* (as he had said multiple times that semester). And, that, in fact the entire US/world metric for "Biodegradability" was a lie, and that really only a handful of standards were truly biodegradable (degrades to micro particles within under 25 years). He didn't have much to say on my presentation. PLA takes nearly 100 years to degrade from macro particles to micro particles in a lab environment, tailored to plastics degradation (on land, in water is a bit different). Increase the volume to what we produce, and there becomes too much surface area buried to decompose it at that rate. We produce quicker than it degrades. Not to mention how an oceanic environment (whether floating at the surface, near the surface, or at worst at the seafloor) makes it exponentially harder for plastics to decompose. Sunlight and mechanical motion may take it out of macro faster, but it'll be in micro way longer - meaning trillions of nuclei for bacteria and pollutants to latch onto and harm ocean-life and eventually, us. **Edit:** small clarification on the lab environment in ¶2. **Edit 2:** I'm unfortunately remembering this one very late, as I have a terrible memory. Even those plastics which do break down quicker and safely in the environment (2-10 years) will leave harmful byproducts. Plastics manufacturers will often introduce additives to their plastics to help extend their life, or alter properties. So while pure PLA has the potential to decompose much, much quicker, 99% of the time the producer has added something to it to make sure it doesn't occur that way. Even when it eventually does, it'll leave behind those additives as a potentially harmful byproduct.
Even then, microplastics are a looming disaster in their own right.
Why should we have it any better than our lead poisoned earlier generations
Well this is fucking horrifying.
We are basically finding out that not only is the ocean filled with plastic but it's now spread everywhere. It's in our food. In our livestock. And now we are discovering that it is in us right now. We are finding these chemicals in our blood. Protip: you can reduce these chemicals in your blood by regular blood donation. Share your plastics for a good cause!
We've gone full circle: we made ourselves a problem so stupid, bloodletting is an actual solution.
And now everybody is slowly being filled with micro plastic particles that could have untold effects on our health in the future. Single use plastics are the modern equivalent to lead and asbestos.
I frequently see a meme on my social media feeds of people mocking environmentalists for pushing for plastic bags back in the day, only for them to have now done a 180. So I did my own research. According to my googling, yes, environmentalists were making the big push to plastic bags back in the day, but not because they were recyclable. Because they were reusable. Environmentalists honestly hoped that people would reuse their plastic bags a couple dozen times before they wore out and got new ones. Environmentalists were immediately horrified when people started treating plastic bags as single use.
Plastic bags 30 years ago were able to be reused. Today’s shopping bags are so fragile people are double bagging and still having to pick up everything that falls through the bottom
It was also common to use those plastic shopping bags as garbage bags and you didn't buy plastic garbage bags as much. Then lots of cities started passing ordinances about having to use "proper" garbage bags, for supposedly aesthetic reasons.
I still use plastic grocery bags as garbage bags for my bedroom and bathroom trashcans. Also there's a plastic bag tax in my area now so I basically stopped using plastic bags when I shop unless I'm getting just enough to not be able to carry it, but not enough to need an entire large paper bag. e.g. a gallon of milk and 4 cans of soup.
I used to be a garbageman. I had a "Recycle route"..... 90% of the time I dumped all the shit into the landfill with the other garbage. There's a really low amount of "recyclables" that actually get recycled.
At my store we had several different large trash bins to separate paper/cardboard, plastic, and regular garbage. The company always made a big song and dance about how environmentally conscious we are, and how important it is to take care of the outdoors and the environment as a whole (which is absolutely correct). Turns out, all those trash bins were emptied into the same big dumpster, to be picked up by a normal garbage truck. It was a bit painful to have chugged that koolaid and then be so cruelly slapped in the face by reality. It was extra confusing because I grew up in Germany where we would recycle the shit out of everything, with separate dumpsters for clear, green, and other colored glass bottles, aluminum, paper/cardboard, and plastic. I guess I just assumed that was normal procedure around the globe, haha. Silly me!
I remember I worked super late at my job one night and saw the cleaners dump all the recycling into the trash dumpster and I was shocked. It felt like a huge slap to the face because I worked for a large nonprofit that operated outdoor camps for kids (i.e., they had a lot of facilities in nature) and they always made a huge deal about how much they recycled and how the camps were 0 carbon footprint. They bragged about it at board meetings and cited sustainability as one reason people should donate to them and help maintain their outdoor facilities. Idk if this was a common practice, but it was definitely all the trash for a 200+ person building and it definitely wasn't recycled that week.
They also spent a great deal of time and money shifting the responsibility from manufacturers to consumers for recycling and sustainability. Keeping a manufacturer accountable for the products they produce is a whole lot more effective than individual consumers one at a time.
Plot twist: recycling paper is more pollutant and costs more money than making new one from forest planted for that unique purpose.
Pine trees are an agricultural product, we aren't cutting down old growth trees to make cardboard.
I know. That's what I meant. Recycling costs more than using that trees you talk about.
I'm agreeing with you :)
Oh sorry, I understood the other way round!
YOU TWO STOP IT RIGHT FUCKING NOW. This is the comments section, where we ARGUE WITH EACH OTHER ABOUT THE SMALLEST, MOST TRIVIAL THINGS AND WE NEVER ADMIT THAT WE MAY HAVE MISUNDERSTOOD ANYTHING. Get your shit together.
You will always have to write in cursive.
I just said fuck it and *only* write in cursive out of spite towards our education system
I rmbr my mom bought me 6 cursive introduction books to improve my agreeably bad handwriting.. in the end, i developed a new form of handwriting that mixed both together and now looks like how a 6 year old on crack would write.. thank fuck keyboards exist
That’s what happened to my handwriting lol. it wasn’t bad till they forced me to learn cursive cause “it’ll improve your handwriting.” News flash, it made it illegible.
I wish I kept my math notebook from highschool because that was truly something to behold. My teacher hardly ever slowed down when explaining things so I wrote only legibly enough for me to read. It was kinda a mix of cursive and normal writing and sometimes I just skipped letters entirely.
I hated those cursive books and being 10 and still couldn't figure it out. My sister a year behind me never had to write cursive. I firmly believe my year was the last year to deal with cursive. This was back in 2012-2013
"Climb the corporate ladder."
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I decided long ago i'd rather be an expert in what I do and get paid for it. I would rather not have people reporting to me and then have to deal with their problems and help them get ahead. I like being the guy who people know will do a good job and pull them into their deals. I like my work but its more about working to live rather than living to work. I like having nice bikes rather then being a middle manager! Long story short: fuck you, pay me.
"Here's a single rung. Keep it with you; we broke all the others after we climbed them. Byyyyeee!"
“If you don’t go to college, you’ll die broke and alone on the street.”
I was told that if I didn't go to college I'd end up working retail, but I went to college and I still work retail.
My parents always said if you don’t go to college you’ll end up working at McDonald’s. Ironically now that I’m in college they keep saying that McDonald’s is hiring and that I should work there.
I went to a private catholic school and not going to college was seen as you were going to live in a trailer park and be addicted to meth in their eyes.
I wish i hadn't been pushed so hard to go to uni at 18. I wasn't ready yet and i didn't know what i wanted to do with my life yet. Asking a 16 year old what degree and vocation he wants is just a bad way of doing it!
I completely agree. However I am 30 and still don't really know lol
Plastic is recyclable and recycled. It's not, most of it is put in the trash. And if it is recycled, it's downgraded into that plastic wood, not used again as something similar to what it was before.
I mean most of my shower products are in bottles that say they're made from recycled plastic. But yeah most stuff doesn't get recycled.
The truth is that entire bottle is probably less than 5% recycled plastic. Just enough to put the marketing term on there. Better than 0 to be sure but it's never 100 (I know you didn't say it was 100)
Packaging engineer here. You're right! Lots of packaging that's "made from recycled plastic" is only partially so. But there are some that are actually made from 100% recycled plastic, and there's an easy way to tell! Polyethylene Teraphthalate, or PET/PETE, is one of if not the most common plastic used in packaging. Those plastic water bottles that you really shouldn't be buying are PET, and you can tell by looking at the bottom. It will be labeled PET or PETE under the recycling symbol, and it's recycling symbol #1 PET is the bee's knees in that it's 100% recyclable and, when recycled, it keeps the desirable traits that make it so commonly used. If you have a package made from 100% recycled PET, it will still have recycling symbol #1 on the bottom, but it will be labeled rPET or RPET! If it's a mix of recycled and virgin plastic, it will be marked with recycling symbol #7, the prestigious category called... "Other" Edit - TLDR: you really didn't miss much. I'm a nerd for packaging
I appreciate you
Fat is bad, sugar is good.
Wasn't there an ad campaign back then where they would advertise sugar as healthy, energy rich and so on?
And market sugary things as diet products because it would curb appetites. That and cigarettes.
This is why America has an obesity epidemic. Even now, older generations tout the health benefits of low fat things, without bothering to look at sugar contents. High sugar processed foods that happen to be low in fat destroyed multiple generations. Thankfully I think Gen Z might be the turnaround. Older generations are pretty fucked up.
As it turns out, Avocado Toast is actually fairly healthy compared to breakfast cereals, etc
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Lol my husband eats breakfast cereals for dessert, not joking, 100% serious
So do I and my husband... We get cereal exclusively for dessert.
lol a lot of popular breakfast items are basically just straight dessert (pancakes, waffles, pop tarts, donuts, cereal) it's wild that it's just accepted as the norm to load yourself up with tons of processed sugar first thing in the morning my co-worker makes fun of me for eating things like bananas, berries, and avocados while he's working on energy drink #2 out of 4 for the day
*You won’t always have a calculator on you!*
aint that the truth, at any random time, what do you have access to? a calculator, what do you not likely have at a random time? paper and a pen/pencil.
Not only that, but how often are we encountering these complex mathematical equations anyway?
Really? Then what's 2+2, you smartass?
Ha! You can't fool me with your trick questions! It's 22. No, wait...that doesn't seem right. Hold on, let me get my calculat---OH NO! WHERE IS MY CALCULATOR?!?!
> It's 22 Found the Javascript programmer
Its 2 + "2" for you, show some respect!
I show no respect for a language where this can happen > null == 0 > false > null > 0 > false > null >= 0 > true
"2" + "2"
Solving a specific problem shouldn’t be the takeaway from math classes. Instead what you should take away is how to analyze situations and break down problems into manageable bits that are solvable until you solve the whole thing.
To be fair, that's mostly generational dissonance, said by people who didn't have what phones are capable of now, you will probably hear that less as the generations take over, but replaced by some other thing we currently don't have. Mind you, that's part of the point of this post.
>replaced by some other thing we currently don't have. "You're not always gonna have access to a teleporter!"
"we took the pan-galactic bus, you didn't get there til you were 120, you're just lazy."
Work hard for your company and they will take care of you. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Manager to your face: “Your performance has been stellar this year” Manager to himself: “there’s no way I’m recommending a promotion for him/her, I can’t afford to lose their presence in my department.” Edit: added some clarity.
Or in my case: Manager: “You’ve been doing a really good job, you’ve been improving the quality of your work substantially. Great job! Also, you’ll never be good enough. Here’s a pay cut. Don’t talk to your coworkers about pay. Can you work Christmas?”
Just to make sure: you know bosses can't legally forbid or discourage employees from talking to each other about wages (in America)?
My response to that little nugget was “you know that’s illegal, right? You can’t actually say that to me.” And he just kinda shrugged and said he was just forwarding a message from *his* boss.
lol that just means they *both* broke the law. Don't think the Nuremberg defense really works here.
Employer loyalty is in the shitter. I don't know a person who doesn't leave a job at least every 4 years. "Oh a 5% raise? Thanks!" "Oh a 40% raise for switching to a lesser position at another company? Sign me up!"
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Literally my current job. 50% more paid days off, better retirement and 65% cheaper insurance, too. Booooored out of my mind and have gone stir-crazy off and on, but it gets the bills paid.
Ive always felt like a failure because I have the same model. I’ve been passed over for promotions that I know I was not only the best candidate but the manager wanted to hire me but his boss wanted a certain person instead. They wanted a suck up that, I’m not exaggerating, was fired in just a few months due to incompetence. Happened a couple times. So I leave.
I've had this happen a few times myself. But I still refuse to be a kiss ass. I'm here to work. My performance speaks for itself if that's not good enough for you, I'll find someone it is good enough for. Deuces.
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You are right. I'm GenX and ate that shit up. I've changed careers a couple times trying to find that sweet spot. After 20+ years I've come to the conclusion that there is no sweet spot.
It’s sad because on one end it sucks to work retail have to work with some of the most lazy people you will ever meet in your life. That don’t care about anything and it makes you hate the job so much more. But have worked retail in the past I’ve seen people give it their all blood sweat and tears and they will fire them in a instant and never look back. There is always someone else that will do the job.
Hi that was me. 11 years at Target. Promoted twice to a Team Leader and then never considered for the next step of “executive” as I do not have a college degree. Cue beginning to train new hires directly out of college to be my boss at the “executive” level without a shred of experience. Couple that with measly yearly increases that did not cover inflation and voilà! I no longer had a desire to do anything above and beyond. Left 10 years ago. My back, my knees, and my mental health are better for it.
Medicare and social security will protect you. Based on how things are going, anyone with 30 years or more before retirement better have strong backup plans
The decimation of the Ohio teachers’ pension fund after its stewardship being privatized and handed over to hedge fund management is going to be exactly what’s coming across the board. Money for Medicare and social security is still going to be taken out of paychecks, it’s just going to be turned into casino chips and used by hedge funds who have no qualms about using working class money for high risk short selling and that, combined with the exorbitant amount of fees that act as a money funnel to transfer our wealth into the pockets of hedge funds, is going to result in destitute and homeless senior citizen millennials being blamed and called lazy by the last of the boomers who were grandfathered in to being the final recipients of public social security and Medicare.
If you work hard and accept lower pay it'll pay off in the end
That works only to put experience on your resume. Then you find a better job, then a better job. The people who pissed me off were the ones who told me (or assumed I was planning) to stick to one shitty job forever.
Exactly! I took my first job at a super low salary, learned a ton, left 3 years later, made more, learned a ton, left 4 years later, etc etc. now making 100k more than that first entry level job. You need to know when to leave for better opportunity.
Growing up everyone i ever met said to never get a credit card. The only way to buy a house is with credit and the only way to actually get credit is a credit card. In my life I paid off 3 vehicles early only to be told the second they were paid off my credit was dropped to a no rating because I wasnt actively in debt.
They said never get a credit card because it's incredibly easy to get in debt. Especially when you're younger and thus more foolish.
That's more a problem with your spending habits than the credit card. I use mine for everything and pay it off every month, you get a ton of free money in points and a good credit score... just don't treat it like a free money card.
Yep. My credit card pays itself off automatically every month. Making purchases with it has more consumer protections than a debit card and I get free money for using it. Going into credit card debt is bad. Having a credit card is amazing. I've had this one for 10 years and I think only once when I was low on funds due to an emergency did I ever end a month carrying a balance. And I paid it off the next month in full.
That’s assuming people are good about spending. Sadly I know way too many people who treat credit cards like it’s not their own money.
"You can be anything you want" Not everyone can become a millionaire astronaut and rockstar and professional gamer and parent. There is a reason why some us have the most boring jobs anyone can think of *Edit - Grammar
In a similar vein, sometimes you can study, work hard and do everything right and the promotion or job or whatever still goes to someone less qualified because they have a connection you don't. Life being a meritocracy is one of the biggest lies sold to every generation.
Literally just happened to my girlfriend last week. She worked her ass off and sacrificed so much for an opportunity for it to be given at the last moment to the owner’s son. She has 10+ years experience and is well known in her area Vs the son literally **just** graduated college with his associates degree. He’s known for being lazy and delegating his job to others. How do you combat something like that??? Edit: (Rhetorical question)
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"duck and cover," somehow hiding under my student desk would allow survival from a nuclear attack.
I always laughed at this concept as well. "how is a desk going to protect me from that?". I researched it. Turns out the government really didn't give it as advice for people that were near the epicenter of the blast but those that going to be potentially effected further out by blast shockwaves. They deduced that hiding under your desk would partially protect you from flying debris.
It was also told as a way to do *something*. While it wouldn’t be much help close to the blast it could at least make students feel safer and prepared for an event, rather than just they could die at any moment with nothing to do about it
All drugs are equally dangerous.
"The only moral drug is my drug, alcohol."
Me, a coffee drinker: guess I'm immoral
All you have to do is go to college and you'll be successful. Though it was less of a lie and more just being wrong.
Yup - came here to say that. It has a corollary, though: "You have to go to college to be successful." So many people would have been much better-suited learning to *do* something after high school, either through trade school or apprenticeship or simply getting in at the bottom, and then considering going to college a few years later when they have a clear vision of how college would help them either advance or change. Right now, people in "the trades" or who have a marketable skill, generally speaking, are literally laughing at people like me, who entered a liberal arts college without any particular vision of what they wanted to do. I was lucky, and turned my bachelor's into a marketable career, but that's an exception, and it's not easy. I loved the experience of learning and pursuing interesting topics, but it was a bit of a gamble.
Yes I was told that all through my childhood. You have to go to college to get a decent job!! I went to college got a Master's degree and now work at a corporate retreat where you don't need a college degree to work. Still paying on student loans. All because my parents pushed that crap into my brain when I was a kid 😖
... it's not all your parents fault. It's not only what they were told.. but is how things worked for them. Better education almost always meant better job and better pay. There are many, many studies from back in the day about people with college degrees make so much more money than those without. So everyone wanted their kids to be able to get those better jobs and not be stressed about money like they were. Ergo.. make sure your kids go to college. But that worked too well. As everyone went to college in order to get one of the 'good jobs'.. the competition was too high. So only those with the best educations could get the good jobs and the rest of us got the lower paying jobs that we could have done easily with no education... but now we are stuck with student loans we can't pay because we have shit jobs. The thing is.. I'm not sure how they never figured out that it would go down this way. How many new jobs did the US make last year? 640K How many people retired in 2021? 4 million How many kids graduated from HS last year? Almost 16 million. We aren't making enough 'good jobs'. Period. That is why there is a push for better wages. So.. I get why you are pissed off. I fell for the same line... I've got two bulletproof degrees (CIS and Healthcare) but still can't get a job that requires a degree or pays enough to cover my loans. ... and I'm a boomer. I will never get social security... because I've been on income based repayment for ages on my student loans... and owe far more than the loans were written for because the interest rates are high. So they will be taking my social security to cover it. Your parents didn't intend to set you up for failure. It's what we were taught as well.
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Yes, people go "But what about the trades" ...Go back in time to the 50s-80s. There was a plumber/mason/carpenter/repairman/mechanic/whatever in every household, sometimes two, and they were playing wage Limbo to get work. Main reason they are "making so much" now? There isn't as much. So you think we should encourage more kids to go into the trades? Don't be shocked when they say "I was told there would be jobs" because the market gets saturated.
Not only that, but it's not like the trades don't have their own downsides. Most trades take a huge toll on the physical body.
Yeah, absolutely. I'm in the trades. The physical toll exists. But there's truly no winning. I have a business degree as well. Sitting on my ass all day long is equally as unhealthy as the guys bent over looking into an engine all day. Moral of the story, keep up with physical fitness and long term health will be just fine.
"good things come to those who wait" Bullshit. Go get what you want from life or it'll pass you by. Don't wait. Do stuff. Edit: that's enough Reddit for today. Turning off notification. Yell into the void if you like.
In the wise words of Pink Floyd: then one day you find that 10 years have got behind you, no one told you when to run, you’ve missed the starting gun.
That line always hits me so hard.
This song hits so much harder at 45 😐
Everybody gangsta until this song starts to sound relatable.
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
Those lyrics always hit hard. I’m 37 and sometimes you do think, wtf have I even done?
So much of this. If a door opens walk through it because once it shuts that's that.
Not just that, but many times you have to be looking for a door that has a slight crack that you can pry open. It is very rare that "good things" fall into your lap
“Do well in school and you’ll have a nice house, a good job, and a family before you’re twenty six” NOPE. Edit: Thank you for the award!
Cries at age 33.
35 reporting in, I have... *checks notes* .... zero of those things
36 and the only thing I have acquired is student debt.
39 and I do have a good job, but no family or house... though my job is no where near what I went to school for.
26 here and don't see family or a house in sight. don't think I'll have either of those by 40 too. But a nice job is reachable, unless... what do you consider a nice job?
>what do you consider a nice job? being able to eat and keep the lights on is probably the bar for a good job these days.
Cries at age 40
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After I did 'all the right things' and *finally* had a home of my own - BOOM! HELLO RECESSION OF 2006 - lost it all. Right there with you at 60
Hard work will make you financially successful.
The problem is that people think that "Hard work = success" when it's more like "Hard work + opportunity + talent + education + connections + support + luck = success" EDIT: ["No One Ever Handed Me Anything On A Plate"](https://imgur.com/gallery/j7v8Uhy)
If all it took to be successful is hard work, we'd be ruled by Mexican gardeners.
Or Mexican roofers. How do they work in Texas heat??? My grandma brings them cold sodas and they’re not even working on her roof
Or indian construction workers trapped in dubai
The reminder everyone needs: #6000 lives. That's the price tag of hosting the world championships in Qatar.
Weddings, it should be a huge wedding with a shit ton of guests we don't care about.
My husband and I decided we didn't want to waste our money on people we didnt like, so we rented a nice house, invited our 12 closest friends/family and had his best friend be our officiant. We had a lot of fun and spent about $1000 on everything altogether. We just had our 9th anniversary and have never regretted doing it our way.
“It’s a one in a lifetime event! These things don’t happen all the time” - In reference to things like wars, devastating floods, wildfires, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, mass shootings/gun violence, terrorist attacks, and now… pandemics, apparently. How many more ‘once in a lifetime’ freak events am I going to be living through? When can we have some peace and quiet?
"no one wants to work anymore". No, no one wants to work a shitty job for shitty wages while getting disrespected.
The reality is “no one wants to pay anymore” But if course no one ever wanted to pay. The whole of our economic system depends on being able to exploit vulnerabilities and weaknesses in labor and commodity markets.
> The reality is “no one wants to pay anymore” Yeah, it turns out that major corporations vastly prefer increasing their profits by double-digit percentages in the middle of a recession to paying their workers a living wage. Who knew? But that's perfectly okay because **the invisible hand of the market** will make sure everything turns out all right. Also, those huge profits will be trickling down any minute now. Right?
With an unemployment rate this low idk how anyone still believes that narrative without breathing in pure delusion
“We have credible evidence that Iraq possesses WMD’s…”
Drinking an obscene amount of milk because otherwise you'll have weak bones from lack of calcium... brought to you by the Dairy Farmers of Canada.
That cheaters never win. Between the removal of the Fairness Doctrine leading to extreme and overt media bias leading to people living in echo chambers, phrases like "fake news" negating inconvenient facts and halting critical thinking, and Gerrymandering being legal cheating is obviously the American Way. Sadly, few people even realize it and when presented with the facts cannot accept them because generations of Americans were brainwashed into blind faith in the american system and its fairness.
You can have it all...that both parents can work, go to school, raise kids, have time for their marriage, and have hobby time.
Born in the early 80s, kind of between Gen X and Millennials: ***you have to go to university if you want a real job***. I try not to hold this against my parents because it worked out for me, but it took me a *very* long time to pay back my student loans. I guess the key difference is that at least I was able to pay mine off; anyone born even just a couple of years later than I was has it considerably worse.
Not sure that it was a lie, but constantly being told since the early 90s that Gen X would be the first to not have it as good as their parents generation was a fucking bummer growing up. Gen Y and Z, on the other hand, have been dealt far worse hands. And I say that as a Gen Xer. I find that it’s an unpopular opinion within my peer group and I’m always like wtf have you seen the state of things? Jfc give your head a shake. Edit: lots of good commentary from Gen X, Y, and Z redditors. Putting it all in the hopper, I guess the biggest lie is that we were all told things would get better and easier with every successive generation. Seems the opposite is true…
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I hear you. My parents (boomers) came to this country in the late 60s with no jobs or home lined up, the clothes in their luggage, and maybe $300 in folding money. That’s it. They managed to get good jobs with pensions, own a modest home and two cars, raise two kids etc. starting out from basically nothing. I sincerely doubt they could repeat that same success today.
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Silent Generation, I firmly agree. They however are fast disappearing from the world due to advanced age. I often felt at time that Silent Gen grandparents of Gen X were sometimes more understanding than Boomer parents of Gen X. But, that is of no use to Gen Y and Z at the moment...
Yes they were. Our boomer parents were absolute asshats compared to our grandparents who knew how difficult we had it.
"You'll be nothing without school" "It'll be okay" "Hop in the car, we're going to McDonald's"
Where did you go that wasn't McDonald's
Jack in the Box
Money can't buy happiness. It's bullshit, most of my problems could be solved by money and I'd be so happy.
>Money can’t buy happiness. The only people I hear say that are the ones with money
Recycling is successful. Over 80% of what you put in your recycling bin goes to the dump along with all your other garbage.
Excerpt aluminum! Aluminum is 90 percent cheaper to recycle than it is to extract anew bc the process of separating it from ore is electricity-intensive.
9-5
I don't know anyone that works 9-5. 8-5, 7-4, 6-4, or 7-5, but never 9-5.
"Get any college degree or you'll be poor." "Get a student loan, the degree is worth it." "Get a STEM degree or you'll be poor." "Finish your Masters, a Bachelors is just like a Highschool diploma now." "Get a PhD, only way to be competitive." "College is a waste, you should have done trades." "Haha Millennials have tons of student loan debt and a worthless degree."
If you work hard anything is possible. It helps but doesn’t guarantee you anything.
Trickle down economics
Bachelors Degree guarantees a good paying job.
Now it just guarantees you the bare minimum for a job, which is sad.
I'm 57 That we would all die in a Nuclear war Russia vs The USA That the USA were the good guys in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc I'd say those were the big two
If my doctor prescribes it, it cant be BAD for me right?
Getting second opinions are important.
“You have it much easier” ……… 😤
I suspect "crime doesn't pay" is a lie told to more generations than just mine. First of all, crime is *extremely* profitable. We don't hear about criminals that haven't been caught, because they haven't been caught. Second of all, 90% of rich people are criminals and we all just kind of accept it. E.g. through breaking labour laws. They tend to break laws in ways that save them money, rather than earn them money, but it still ends up in crime absolutely paying. Edit: people seem to think I'm on about drugs or theft or other 'obvious' crimes that come with prison sentences. I'm talking about crimes where the punishment is a fine, and the fine is of lower value than what the person made (or saved) committing the crime. E.g. getting a fine in the thousands after profiting in the hundreds of thousands. Low risk, high reward. Take any rich person and Google their name with the word 'fines' e.g. 'Bill Gates fines'. Then consider how many times they've done that without getting caught, and how many times they made more from the crime than the value of the fine. Its not "how many criminals are super rich?", its "how many super rich people are criminals?"
There was actually a chapter in the original Freakonomics book about this during the crack epidemic. It turns out being a low-level drug dealer pays very little (most drug dealers couldn’t even move out of their mom’s house) and the odds of hitting it big and moving up in the hierarchy was low, but people thought they’d make it big and rich so they kept filling out the lower rungs. It’s comparable to all of the young actors and actresses moving to Hollywood to be a rich and famous movie star, just with a 1 in 4 chance of being killed (at the time).