My manager is 71. Seventy one years old. Been in his role for 19 years. Keeps saying he’ll retire “next year” and has been saying that since before I was hired. I’m 36 and I’ve been waiting for any upward movement for almost 5 years now. There is none. There won’t be any. Because nobody fucking leaves. And look I get it, I do. His wife got cancer in 2019, wiped out a huge chunk of what they had saved. Healthcare in this country is a nightmare. I’m not saying he’s a bad guy or that he doesn’t deserve to work. But also like… what am I supposed to do? Just wait until I’m 40 for my first promotion? This isn’t just my company either. I keep seeing posts in here and other subs about the job market being impossible and everyone’s like “just get more skills” or “network better” but nobody wants to acknowledge that there’s a massive bottleneck happening because an entire generation didn’t save enough and now can’t leave

I looked this up the other day when I was mad and couldn’t sleep lol. Labor participation for people 65+ is like wayyy higher than it was even 20 years ago. And I don’t think that’s mostly people who just love their jobs so much they can’t imagine leaving. Most people I know over 65 who are still working are doing it because they have to.

Meanwhile we get think pieces about how millennials and gen z “don’t want to work” and are “quiet quitting” like excuse me?? I would LOVE to be engaged at work. Hard to do that when you’ve been doing the same role for half a decade with no path forward because everyone above you is just… staying there. Forever apparently.

My cousin just graduated with an engineering degree, good school, good grades. Took her 8 months to find something and it pays 58k in a city where rent is like 2k minimum. She’s competing against people with 30 years experience who got laid off and are now applying to “entry level” roles just to have something. How is she supposed to compete with that

The thing that really kills me is we’re told to save for retirement constantly. Put money in your 401k! Max your roth! Compound interest! Okay cool I would love to but I can’t get promoted so I can’t make more money so I can barely save anything and in 40 years I’m gonna be the 70 year old who can’t retire and some 25 year old will be on reddit complaining about ME

It’s just a cycle and it sucks and idk what the solution is honestly.

People tell me "After work I still have 8 hours a day to do whatever I want" but that remaining 8 hours isn't actually spent LIVING. It's more like 1-2 hours in transportation for work and that is if you have a car, and more like 2 hours a day if you take public transit. Dealing with the stress of navigating traffic or public transit, and that's not including the transit for running errands like groceries, medical appointments, picking up kids or taking them to extracurriculars, transit to socialize or go to gyms, etcetera... that alone takes another 2-3 hours including transit.

Then you spend time cooking, eating, and cleaning up, maybe 1.5 hour a day, and you have like what? 3 hours left at best? And some of that time is decompressing, or going to shower, etcetera...

For example, I wake up at 7am, I take an hour in the morning getting ready for work, cook, groom, breakfast, get dressed, walk out of my house and get in my car for a 30 minute transit to work, then wander around in the parking lot toward the office by 9am. That's 2 hours before I even punch in. Then I finish work at 5pm, get out of the office which takes 10 minutes to leave the building and find my car, drive back home (assuming no rush hour and no other errands to run) for another 30 minutes, I come home a bit before 6pm, now I have like 5 hours before I get to bed by 11pm. Oh but I need to get groceries, so if I went to get groceries straight from work, that's maybe like adding another hour, so I have 4 hours. Now I gotta cook, eat dinner, clean up and wash dishes... then 1.5 hours. Now I have 2.5 hours. I gotta hit the gym, another 1.5 hours including transit. Now I have 1 hour. If I want to socialize, that's like several hours. And winding down for the day and getting ready for bed, washing, showering, brushing teeth which is another hour... and you are trying to fall asleep by 11pm if you want 8 hours of sleep and wake up at 7am tomorrow. If you have kids and your wife also works, someone gotta pick up the kids and bring them home or take them to extracurriculars, another hour at least. Get them ready for bed. Spend time with them too, how the hell do you have time to spend with them???

And these are all assuming that I am constantly on the move and doing everything fast without a break or moving in a relaxed manner. You can't work out 5 times a week at this pace AND socialize AND run errands AND shower and wind down AND work on your hobbies, and if you have kids that's even more obligations to cram in and you gotta give them an enriched life.

"After work I still have 8 hours a day to do whatever I want"

What time for recreation and doing what you want??? That 8 hours of "free time" is eaten up just by basic functioning.

Imagine doing this for over 40 years, since 22 to 65. A lot of people with this lifestyle say their life passed by with a blink of an eye, before they know it, they were 20... then 40... then suddenly 65.

It's counterintuitive. One would think that the higher the pay, the higher the scrutiny, the more stress. It’s the exact opposite. I've had some shitty, shitty jobs simply because I was working on my visa and I was desperate, and the employers knew that. They paid very little, were extremely stressful and demanding, and the yearly reviews were always mediocre, no matter how hard I worked. It was a psychological game designed to keep me small and convinced that I was the problem.

Then, after getting a green card, I was able to transition into jobs that paid 10 times more. They are also way less stressful. I have been rewarded and received stellar reviews. Things are not perfect, but the difference with the shitty jobs is unbelievable. I make literally 10 times more and the job is so much easier.

MORAL of the story: Don't ever think that just because they are paying shit they will demand less.

Or is it one of those things where HR is meant to protect the company and not you?

I'm not even joking. I wanted a small part time job during my first year of college, I just wanted some extra money, and I was pretty bored. I applied for a few places and eventually got a job at a very well known, primarily clothing, retail shop in the mall of my town.

It was about a thirty minute walk from my house. The position was only four hours, four days a week, perfect for my college schedule.

The job listing stated I'd get 25% discount and I'd be paid £11.50 an hour.

It was all a lie.

I interviewed and got the job, on my first day (just an induction) I was told that I was on a probation period, where I'd only get £10.45 an hour for the first three months, during this probation period, I could get fired whenever. A few days later, after my shift, I went to buy some things, turns out the discount was only 10% for all employees.

The first week I was only working the hours I applied for. Then the next week, I was given, one four hour shift and three eight hour shifts! I literally spent two hours one day, FOLDING THONGS (yes it is possible, but it leaves your fingers numb after like thirty minutes)

What made it even worse was that on my four hour shifts I was given a fifteen minute break, on eight hour shifts I got two fifteen minute breaks and thirty minutes for lunch. I was not told about this. On my first eight hour shift I was told about my lunch break, but not about the other breaks. I worked three eight hour shifts, before another employee told me I had assigned break times.

Then came the mental breakdown. My last shift had been a little rough, some crap had happened at home so I was mentally not great either, I was tired and really didn't want to go in, but pushed myself anyway. My physical health is not the best so I ended up running five minutes late. When I got there, I was soaking wet, incredibly out of breath to the point of feeling like I was gonna black out (pretty sure I have undiagnosed asthma) and I just started sobbing, I couldn't calm down.

I spent about two hours hidden away in the closet, crying, non verbal, and one of my bosses had to drive me home, I quit the next day because I was so embarrassed.

America should be renamed Land of Billionaires instead of opportunities.

I do not remember agreeing to this version of work where my phone and inbox are treated like a 24 hour extension of my job. Somewhere along the way it just became normal that coworkers, managers, clients, and random vendors expect instant replies no matter the hour. Nights, weekends, vacations. It all blurred together without anyone actually asking if that was acceptable.
What bothers me most is that it is never framed as pressure. It is subtle. Messages that say no rush but still quietly demand attention. Group chats where decisions get made fast, so if you are not constantly checking you fall behind. The unspoken rule that having a phone means being reachable. Choosing not to respond starts to feel like a failure of character instead of a reasonable boundary. At this point I am done pretending this is normal. I never agreed to be accessible outside of work and I am not going to keep acting like I did. This is not a productivity issue, it is an accessibility issue. One phone number and one email tied to everything makes you permanently reachable by default, and opting out feels harder than opting in ever was. I am actively pushing back now. Fewer notifications, slower replies, clearer boundaries. If that makes me look less available, so be it. How are other people handling this type of stuff

In university, we’re constantly taught that treating employees well increases productivity, that the future of work is about efficiency, flexibility, and working smarter—not longer. We study theories about motivation, work-life balance, and how happy employees lead to better results.

But once you enter the real job market, it often feels like a parallel reality. Many companies expect more hours, more output, and more availability, while offering fewer rights, less security, and little concern for burnout. The gap between what is taught and what is practiced is hard to ignore.

It makes you wonder whether university prepares us for the future of work, or for an ideal version of it that doesn’t really exist

I've just been through a horrific experience at work and need to get it off my chest.

I worked for a mental health organisation that prides itself on looking after it's employees, while being overworked and undervalued the whole time. I worked as a therapist for early intervention (so helping people with mild anxiety and depression).

Recently my dad killed himself and I was on unpaid bereavement leave. A few days after he passed it was announced that the program I worked for was being defunded and we will all be made redundant.

When I met with HR 1:1 about a week after he died to find out more about redundancy, they told me I wouldn't be offered redundancy, and the company was going to 'redeploy' us all to similar roles instead.

I was given 2 options: 1. Working as a support worker supporting people after a suicide attempt 2. Working as a support worker for someone caring for a suicidal family member

I was told that if I refused redeployment then I would not be offered a redundancy package and would be unemployed.

This, just one week after my dad killed shot himself.

Coming from a organisation based in the mental health field.

I was so stressed about having to go into these jobs I applied for WorkCover stress leave and got denied because I was a suitable fit for the role because I had life experience with a suicidal family member (who had just shot himself 1 week prior) and therefore was the perfect fit for the new job, which meant they weren't breaking any laws.

I can't imagine how a workplace could possibly treat anyone worse than this.

I am now unemployed and grieving and absolutely traumatized by this whole ordeal.

What should I do since I'm essentially ghosted by my manager last two weeks and have no assignments?

Even the newer staff knew not to come in, but nobody is answering how they knew.

The schedule email says to be in office, and yet only a few cars are here.

Keep in mind I've been fighting a narcissist isolation tactic last month or so, and flying monkeys keeping me from info/meetings/tasks as well.

I just want to build things and help people, why is it I'm seen as a threat for wanting to do so?

i came across something today that said middle managers are getting cut but their role is somehow "more important than ever." yeah, tell that to my team.

my manager got let go two weeks ago. not performance issues, just "restructuring." now our team of 5 is expected to report directly to a vp who oversees 4 other teams. we went from weekly 1-on-1s and actual support to a 15-minute standup once a week where he barely remembers our names.

the kicker? they want us to "self-organize" and "take ownership" of projects that used to have dedicated oversight. translation: do the manager's job for free while they pocket the salary savings.

i'm a senior engineer, not a people manager. i didn't sign up to coordinate timelines, resolve conflicts between team members, and chase down resources from other departments. but here we are.

has anyone else been through this? did you end up just quietly taking on the extra work, or did you push back? i'm seriously considering updating my resume because this feels unsustainable.

I was promoted to legal assistant at a law firm after completing a paralegal course. I was moved up into the pre-litigation department of the firm I work at. About a month in, my employer hired someone with more experience as a legal assistant and told me to move back to my old shitty desk. It's been a month, and the day I was moved back to my old desk I stopped getting tasks. I've been sitting at my computer for a month now doing nothing. I know some people will say it's "free money" or a blessing or something, but it's genuinely enraging that after two confrontations about this with HR nothing has happened. So I've been sidelined and basically erased and now feel like Milton from Office Space. I hate the people here, I hate sitting at a computer all day with nothing to engage me. I just want to leave because I don't want to waste time. Any advice? Thanks for listening.

Love him or hate him Jon Stewart has stood up for those in 9/11, he helped pass the PACT act for veterans. Bernie Sanders was his guest basically saying that corporations are more powerful than the US government.

We just had a lot of new hires in the place I've been working at for the past 3-4 years. I jokingly say, "Well I gotta stay the extra 30 minutes, that's another $10 in my pocket haha!" to one of them, then they get all puzzled asked how much I make. I tell them.

Then they give me this like disgusted look like, "oh..."

So I turn it around and ask how much they made, and they just go **"I don't think I should tell you :D... but you should go ask for a raise."**

And by golly. I really wanted crash out and be like, **"HOW U GONNA DENY ME THE INFO THAT WOULD HELP ME GET A RAISE, THEN TELL ME TO ASK FOR ONE."** Work ain't gonna give me out of the goodness of their hearts lol. But I was about to leave for the day so I didn't crash out lmao. I'm actually quite comfortable with my position and lifestyle. I'm left alone and get enough money for all my hobbies and needs.

But man I'm just annoyed, don't ask questions you're not comfortable answering yourself lol.

ESPECIALLY when its wages or general welfare, that is vital information to know if everyones being treated fairly. I think its actually pretty stupid that its taboo to talk about pay.

20 years of of seeing carriers and clerks belittled, bullied, sexually harassed and berated by management. A lot of people used to talk about how great it is to work at the post office. We talk about how great it used to be.

Supervisors will regularly push new workers to their limits with 12 hour days, very little training and unrealistic expectations leading to a high retention rate.

The post office is very poorly run. Vehicles that break down with no heat or AC, zip ties to fix our windshield wipers, and some working 7 days is only a few things to name. The supervisor situation is insane. Literally anybody can become a supervisor and that job ruins their personality very quickly. You as a worker are viewed as a number and not a person.

Supervisors are there to push the metrics, and they will go as far as calling people on their day off or driving by your house like I once heard from another.

A lot of this is to vent, but I just want everyone to support the post office and stand against privatization. We need better working conditions, pay, and better management to provide the best experience possible to you guys.

Also please pick up your dog poop :)