How work kills us(economist.com) |
How work kills us(economist.com) |
I have spotted the problem.
As usual, America wins the absurdity trophy.
You have access to healthcare for small fees, and you'll generally get better care than in the private sector; you'll just have to wait longer if it's not urgent.
I know for a fact that in at least two EU capitals private hospitals often forward patients they are unable to handle (e.g. complicated births) to public hospitals, who are more skilled and experienced.
The point is that there are no contributions, well taxes, but that doesn't go towards the individual but the health services as a whole.
Stil, your employer can buy you "better" (or at least quicker) access to private alternatives, but I don't think that's what you meant.
Not just stress, I simply hate my job. I'm stuck here, for 12 years now.
"so get another job Ryan" bahahahaha you're funny.
I have no degree, in the past month I was flat out rejected within 24 hours of applying to two jobs for not having a 4 year degree in ANYTHING.
I have a personal bankruptcy which will prevent most employers from hiring me, in fact last year I took a remote job and a few days in discovered I couldn't log in... no one would return my emails... some time later I get an email saying if I don't return the laptop immediately I will be billed for it, I said fine send me a label 'we did to your email' the email address you blocked me from? 'oh'. Apparently my bankruptcy came up in the background they did AFTER hiring me, at no point did they ask me about my financial background, if I'd had a bankruptcy, or even if I had a criminal record... they waited until after training me and starting work, fortunately I hadn't quit my current job yet or I'd have been screwed.
Yesterday, after 3 video interviews spanning 21 days, I was rejected for entry-level customer service remote work and was told "keep honing your skills. Maybe find a relevant side project or a local company to dip your toes deeper into a technology company".
So I hate my job and no one else wants to even take a chance on me because I lack a degree, have a personal bankruptcy from 6 and a half years ago and have been in a niche job for 12 years.
I legitimately wake up some days thinking "shit, why didn't I die in my sleep" because I have no future, each year I'm at this job I hate my life more. I dread doing ANYTHING most days now because it's "I can't really afford this" or "I just want to vegetate" or "what the hell happens if I have an unplanned expense of more than a few hundred bucks" or "what if mom has more issues". I get even more pigeonholed into being stuck at this job because it doesn't translate to anything else. Add to that I have a disabled parent I help support and my whopping 32k gross income doesn't even allow me to save for retirement.
Awesome. SERENITY NOW!
THIS is how work is killing me. I'm sure that stress, dread and worry are doing wonders for my long-term health.
There may be many reasons why some employers don't hire you, but don't forget that there are many reasons why they will hire you. Rejection doesn't mean that you are not a great person, it means that you, the company and the role might not be a good fit for each other. And that is OK. It's more than OK because you don't want to work for a place that isn't a great fit anyway. You want to find a great fit and you might have to hear NO 100 times before you get to 1 Hell Yeah! Flip that "no" around and use it as a reward for working hard, collect them and don't be afraid of them.
I've worked with people with all types of backgrounds, including people who went to federal prison and people without degrees. It is not about IF it's about WHEN. My suggestion is to start by going for walks, investing in yourself and if you are having a bad day there is no shame in reaching out for support. Literally everyone needs support.
One of the better people giving quality free advice on the internet these days is Gary Vaynerchuk, born in Belarusian and basically gave his services away for free for 10 years. I know you have skills, but you might need to give them away to build up a network. If you are on HN then you must have internet superpowers that you don't know you have.
On a degree -- if you have skills and just need a piece of paper, maybe look at some gray area schools (especially non-US based) that will effectively sell you a cheap one. Those are complete scams in terms of acquiring skills, but if all you need is a piece of paper it might be an acceptable ROI.
If the challenge is that you do not have skills that are appreciated by employers, try switching fields completely. Are you handy? Folks who can do medium sized house jobs well (e.g., bathroom remodeling) are hunted by homeowners. I have seen groups of friends keeping such folks occupied full time for years. Asking if he could do a hardwood floor gets me a sharp "we got him busy for months from now; go away" from others. Surely there are other examples.
However, to do this career change you need to have energy. This is hard given your current work, but IMO there is no way around it. Looking friendly and energetic can get you through sketchy resume. Looking like a dead fish will kill your chances even with a stellar papers.
Sorry if this is completely off the mark. And best of luck!!
I might be recalling wrong, but you might like to look into credit history law -- events like this expire after 7 years and so you could be in for a change.
My bankruptcy also prevents me from ever having a security clearance again as I'm considered a security risk (blackmail, my mom worked at DoD before she had to retire via disability and one of her co-workers got fired when her debt shot up post divorce and it caused her clearance to get yanked).
Nolo has an ok article about it covering both the security clearance and the issue I had https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/will-bankruptcy-affe...
>Private employers, however, aren’t constrained by a similar rule, and some people find that having a bankruptcy in their past comes back to haunt them—mainly when applying for jobs that require them to deal with money (bookkeeping, accounting, payroll, and so on).
If you go look at a lot of traditional job applications when they are asking about prior military experience and criminal history they also usually ask something along the lines of "have you ever declared bankruptcy". A bankruptcy effectively makes you a 2nd class citizen in the eyes of many companies... which is funny because a quick google search shows me a little less than 1% of the US population files bankruptcy annually which means you have a statistically significant percentage of the population walking around with bankruptcies on their record, the only people that have it worse are those with criminal convictions (about 1 in 3 adults, shockingly) so I guess I'm somewhat lucky anyway.
Oddly enough, I later worked at a pharmacy chain for many years. They didn't care about your finances. For front store cashiers, there were no checks. Manager and above got criminal background checks and a single drug test, either when hired or when promoted. Pharmacy employees were the same.
Good luck, man.
In Finnish there is a idiom_ "People have died at home as well" that captures this idea that doing stuff away from home is not necessary less safe than being at home - you can die at home as well.
So the idea is that companies (and society) can actually make more money by doing things that are less impactful on employee health and that they should do them.
If you are out of job: - The goverment should pay your health insurance, or it should be free.
If you are in job: - You employer should pay your healh insurance (for GOVERMENT not for private indistry). The rate should be fixed or as fixed percentage of your income - the same no matter if you have any illness or not.
This system works in Europe flawlessly.
3 pillars of socialism:
- Free healthcare - Free education including university level education - Pension by goverment for ALL people who retire.
In communist countries we had it all since 1945...
Whats the point of goverment who is not giving you anything?
In communist countries millions of people were killed, so you probably should pick better examples.
https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2017/08/03/un...
Henry George and even Adam Smith identified the problems centuries ago and yet here we are.
I know/have known men who never really retired, they just scaled back operations bit by bit. Like my dentist now at 71 scaled back to 3 days/week. Why he does it? "Because I like it".
Or people who have shifted ownership of the business to their sons, but are still around some days of the week.
This was just before his book went to print, but it was the topic of conversation.
He makes some solid points.
It’s pretty shocking, but understandable, since the impact on individuals, groups, and society isn’t like a physical workplace injury that has cause/effect immediacy.
This quote is followed by percentages of jobs being at risk.
But I find it not convincing at all. There are measures society can take to care for the unemployed. And realistically speaking, I look forward to a future where AI and automation makes most of our manual labor jobs obsolete.
This made me laugh. Which liberals? Karl Marx?
William Lever, founder of Lever Brothers (now Unilever) famously created Port Sunlight village to house workers and ensure a healthy and happy workforce.
He personally led the planning and building of the village. Hundreds of houses (beautiful houses in a lovely setting, even today) were built. Along with those the village had a free hospital, schools, a concert hall, open air swimming pool, church, and an art gallery (and bought art to put in it). He also introduced welfare and free education for workers and their families.
There were many others. Modern day executives could learn a lot.
Only because there is no other reasonable option.
But if you travel a bit around the world, you will meet a lot of people who didn't have a proper job for a decade or more. Maybe 1 month work and 6 months travel. Or just decide to live like a hermit someplace out there, anywhere. You won't find them on instagram much, I mean the serious bunch who are honest about this, but they are out there, proving it can be done.
But it requires sacrifices in some aspects of life, which might be too much to give up for most. I know it would be too much to give up for me at this point in life.
In India, this happens simply because private hospitals don't want mortalities on their hands. Complicated cases often mean higher chances of things going wrong. Best let the public hospitals handle it.
For me the correct answer is "neither, and now let's talk about why someone would ask that".
What really surprises me is that politicians (Danish in my cases), refuse to discus the idea of reducing the length of the average work week (only one party suggested it, and was laughed of a being unrealistic). You could do a lot of good moving from a 37 hour work week to 30, but no, it's dismissed with no further debate. I really think that should be the discussion: How much do we need to work. Having it being black and white, job/no-job debate isn't particularly helpful.
I know that some would argue that people can just "choose" to work less, but that's rarely an option. Very few industries allow you to choose how much you work. In terms of compensation I could be happy, financially, working only 75% of my current hours, while receiving an similar reduction in pay, but that's not something most companies find attractive.
I think everyone should see where their bar is in needs vs free time and manage that. I'd love to drop 30% of my working hours and income accordingly as you said as well :) Hope this will be an option in our future.
I mean it's easy to categorize it this way but I think you're ignoring the actual risks for the company. Yes, bankruptcy is a completely legal and typically very useful legal mechanism for restructuring. There's nothing ethically or morally wrong with bankruptcy or even having multiple ones in your history depending on the circumstances.
But more often than not, it shows an inability to manage ones finances and staying within a reasonable band of spending. With few exceptions, bankruptcies are typically avoidable. To quote the word risk in the manner you did diminishes the real fact that you had a finance job and had recently shown that you unable to control your personal finances.
With the litigious nature of the US, especially within the confines of employment law, it's safer for a company in that sector to outright ban employees with major financial issues than to investigate the root causes and make case-by-case judgments on whether a given bankruptcy was "okay."
> My bankruptcy also prevents me from ever having a security clearance again as I'm considered a security risk (blackmail...
This is an accurate and very reasonable concern. It's the whole reason why applicants for every sensitive job from local part-time police officer to CIA agent have their personal finances investigated. If someone has 1.5x their yearly salary in high interest debt it's going to be much easier for a malicious actor to control them.
In a world^w country where being sick can put you in complete and utter financial ruin, or where buying a house you can make payments on but whose value drops precipitously resulting in a seizure of the house, I call bullshit.
There's many, many reasons in our world today that you might need to declare bankruptcy, and being unable to manage your finances is only one.
You know what home economics taught me in high school? How to sew a tennis racket cover and how to make a beaded lizard keychain/zipper pull.
You know what it didn't teach? Balancing a check book, taxes, 19%+ interest rates on credit, emergency fund savings, how to deal with sudden unemployment, how to deal with sudden unexpected medical expenses.
I was paying my debts monthly, barely, that wasn't good enough for one of the lenders and they sued me in small claims. I never got the summons (apparently quite common) and they were awarded default judgement of 35% of my gross income and had my waged garnished which forced me to file.
> I was paying my debts monthly, barely, that wasn't good enough for one of the lenders and they sued me in small claims.
I'm sorry but there is definitely information missing here. If you were making the full minimum payment you wouldn't be sued, ever. If you were paying less than the minimum then you weren't actually "paying your debts monthly."
> I never got the summons (apparently quite common)
I can't speak to how common something like this is but you do typically need to be served with the summons, or the plaintiff needs to show some sort of proof that you received the notice (e.g. a certified mail receipt or statement from a process server that you were indeed served). But I can say it's not the first time I've heard of someone being unaware of a court date so who knows.
I can understand not wanting to hire you as a CFO or investment advisor, but that's about it.
Here's just one site with many threads
https://www.google.com/search?q=sued+in+small+claims+court+n...
In my case I found out I'd been sued after the wage garnishment, oddly enough my check was 666$ that pay period which was considerably less than it should have been, I immediately told my manager, she told HR, HR pulled me into their office and informed me my wages were garnished. I then had to search the state court records to find that Capital One had sued me 3x via "bowman & heintz" and a quick google query shows it's quite common for people to have been sued, and never received a summons, by that shady 'law firm' with an alarming number of default judgements awarded because the person never knew.
If I pull up the court records for the cases they do not even state when I was served, or if I was served. Just that a hearing was scheduled, a bench trial was commenced and default judgement awarded as I failed to appear.
Welcome to life for many people.
Edit: And this is a point that you've ignored in this entire thread, which leads me to believe you were paying below the minimum payment on a credit card. This is an excellent way to get an account sent to collections and not have liquid cash available to actually pay it off. The worst of both worlds.
I can, somewhat. I also had a similar situation (although much less serious) where I was supposedly "served" paperwork.
Basically process fraud is endemic in the debt collection "industry" - from the brief research I did years ago. I won my case mostly off this and the judge being sick of having to grant default judgement to these "pocket filers".
Some states are far worse than others due to laws such as pocket filing, etc.
The real problem is there is no real fear of punishment from a process server lying to the court. The worst I've seen happen is someone lose their job.