Warning: Read this before leaving a job these days

It's funny how all it takes to get people from one group start believing a narrative (no matter how inaccurate) about another group, is hearing enough biased opinions about the latter being passed off as fact from others in the former. It generally seems to be backed up by little more than anecdotes and junk science in the best of cases, and outright lies in the worst. This is a historically repeating trend, with the tradition proudly being carried on through clickbait and social media today.

I think the reality is that side-hustles define a vastly greater percentage than #vanlife or sabbaticals ever will, and even that is probably overstated.

My "big" firm's business model is to get the most out of everyone for the least money. There is no guaranteed "annual raise" and if you get laid off you don't get severance, you get your dick in your hand and that's about it. Accrued vacation time and thanks very much. It is what it is.

Happened last week to about 100 of 1,600 so I'm certainly sympathetic to Gameboy. Keep the resume up to date (at all times) and the personal network close. You never know. 

In reply to RevRico :

RevRico said: 

I think what you meant to type out is that the market is flooded with millennials in white collar jobs with useless degrees, because all their growing up life it was beat into their head that they had to go to college 

Except there was never, and will never be, a need for an entire generation of white collar workers. 

I'd go even farther and say that white collar workers WILL be replaced by AI and computers in general if they haven't already long before retirement age, and we're going to see a huge influx in 35-50 year old trade trainees because of it. 

That's a really interesting take. I've never heard it put quite that way before. 

My opinion on vacation time is based on my own observations among people who are roughly my age, or coworkers who are younger, say 25-40. 

Many people I meet are surprised that I've been with the same employer for 10 years. When I ask folks who have job hopped frequently what they were searching for it was either "more money" or "needed a break". Then they mention that during one of those "breaks" they traveled extensively. These are folks who were single for most of their 20s and/or 30's, so I'm sure that plays into it. 

Alternatively, some of my younger coworkers can't imagine spending that kind of money because they simply dont have it - between student loans and rising rents, they aren't financially stable enough to not work for long periods of time, but, crucially...

I think a lot of Millennials are smart enough to realize that it'll be far easier to job hop and travel before owning a home or having kids, so they do that before they settle down. Like me, however, I think a lot of people either have time or money, and rarely both. 

I also don't know anyone with a full-time job who has a side-hustle, and if they do its because they work remote and their employer doesn't seem to notice (or care about) them working part-time. My BIL has a "full-time" sales job but also manages and rehabs multiple rentals. I'm not sure he'd be able to do that if he were required in an office 40 hours a week. 

Every company survey I get.. I beg them to stand out in this industry by offering a four day work week. (4x10)

A three day weekend is just so much better than the current "norm".  

I emphasize the talent we could attract by doing this but I know it won't happen because we already work 10-11 hours per day and it's more profitable to let people eat that..

I also believe the suggestion that skilled trades will benefit greatly by AI taking white collar jobs. 

OHSCrifle said:

Every company survey I get.. I beg them to stand out in this industry by offering a four day work week. (4x10)

A three day weekend is just so much better than the current "norm". 

I've worked the 4x10-hour schedule before.

It's not better.  At least it wasn't for me.

The reality is that you spend that "extra" day off catching up on all the miscellaneous crap that you couldn't get done during the weekday evenings.

OHSCrifle said:

I also believe the suggestion that skilled trades will benefit greatly by AI taking white collar jobs. 

If so, I'd argue it would only be until the scales of supply vs demand for any given skilled trade tilt the other direction. When a glut of white collar workers retrain into skilled trades, then it will be back to the employers who benefit.

The more interesting studies these days are looking into maintaining productivity with 4x8's.

As someone who works in the business, AI is not going to be the end-all-be-all that everyone thinks it is. In fact, I'd wager it's a bubble that's about to pop.

The advancements are largely stagnating and the costs behind it are astronomical (it requires a staggering amount of energy to run at scale). The only reason access to it is so widespread right now is because the providers are trying to get organizations "hooked" before they jack the price up to cover their costs; it's yet another innovation largely funded by speculation and wheelbarrows full of venture capital money as opposed to actual profitability, and we all know how that goes (Segway, crypto, NFTs, etc).

The canary in the coal mine just squeaked, as a matter of fact...the first big institutional investor has come out to posture that the juice isn't justified by the squeeze.

https://www.goldmansachs.com/intelligence/pages/gen-ai-too-much-spend-too-little-benefit.html

In reply to pointofdeparture :

A friend that has long been in tech and I were just discussing similar thoughts last weekend. AI seems like the new blockchain. It has the potential to do some really revolutionary things, including in technical fields, but the cost/benefit is still going to be difficult to realistically justify implementing on a widespread basis.

It also creates an investment bubble around it that sucks up a lot of the funding needed to advance, well, pretty much everything else... Including it's own supporting technologies, in addition to other less 'sexy' technologies that have an even more imminent need. And if you can't develop those supporting (and resource managing) technologies faster than the main one, you'll outpace your ability to grow and it will ultimately collapse before it has the chance to reach the potential that it's proponents envisioned.

In reply to pointofdeparture :

Ol' what's his nuts  wants to suck Memphis dry.

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/government/city/2024/07/09/elon-musk-xai-memphis-electricity-water-mlgw/74331544007/

I've been working 4 day weeks for about 7 years. Works great for me!  I've got 1 day to run errands and still have a full weekend. 
 

If I was starting a company right now I'd try a blend. 4 days a week of 9 hour days (for a full 40 hour salary).  I'm convinced I could make up the loss of 4 production hours with the increase in productivity.  My selling point to employees would be "3 day weekends every week without impacting vacation time"

In reply to pointofdeparture :

I don't think AI is what will cause the shift from white collar to trades. It's simple supply and demand. There are WAAY too many people right now who want to sit in an air conditioned office in front of a computer, and way too few willing to work in the trades. AI has nothing to do with it. Desperation to find people willing to work with their hands will drive the shift.

I don't know of any decent tradespeople anywhere in this country who can't find work. I get 30-40 headhunters approach me every single month. There is a massive shortage right now, which is only getting worse. 
 

I hire a guy pretty regularly who is a drug addict. He's absolutely unreliable and a complete loose cannon, but his skills are good, and he's all I can find. I put up with his E36 M3. 

4 Day work weeks seem tricky for a lot of industries.  I'd love to do one, but I can understand why it would be difficult for my employer.  Our customers and vendors do not operate on a 4 day work week so it would increase the difficulty of doing business with them.  Similarly if only certain people are doing 4 days a week its going to make their engagement with others more strained.

A place I used to work allowed their shop employees to do 4 days and they did M-Th one week and Tu-Fri the next so they had alternating 4 days weekends.  They had 2 teams doing this that had opposite schedules so even on M and F there was always coverage.

That said, that was 10 hour days which I am 0% interested in.  I want 4 8 hr days (or less).

In reply to SV reX :

That's a whole different discussion I'm not going to wade into and your points are valid, I just wanted to make clear that I'm pretty close to the technology and I think that AI's capability to replace a lot of human white collar workers is vastly overhyped. Even for those that it can theoretically replace, the cost-benefit is only working out right now because the AI service providers aren't trying to make any profit on it (which isn't a sustainable business).

In reply to pointofdeparture :

I'm actually kinda glad to hear that, but also a bit scared. 
 

I find it refreshing to hear from within that AI is overhyped.  I also dread the moment when the prices skyrocket to try to recoup the enormous investment. 
 

Im honestly not sure if that is good news or bad news (for either employees or employers)

Im still glad I'm not job hunting. 

prodarwin said:

A place I used to work allowed their shop employees to do 4 days and they did M-Th one week and Tu-Fri the next so they had alternating 4 days weekends.  They had 2 teams doing this that had opposite schedules so even on M and F there was always coverage.

That sound great, but in reality for someone in a technical field like R&D or product development, there's some logistical challenges.

If the whole project team was on the same rotating schedule then it could work, otherwise the 2 day backlog of emails every other week would suck. 

In reply to pointofdeparture :

I've been in construction long enough to remember some similar shifts...

I remember when carpenters didn't use nail guns. I was one of them. The manufacturers would GIVE the guns away for FREE. All they cared about was that they could then sell you nails. (I've still got a couple of those old Senco SN4s).  Now that they've become mainstream, both the guns AND the nails are obscenely priced. 
 

I also remember when trusses were significantly cheaper than the framing materials to stick frame a roof.  That lasted a long time.  Now that very few carpenters remain who understand how to properly layout and cut a stick framed roof, it's the exact opposite. Trusses are several thousand dollars more than stick framing on every single house (and most are still truss framed in spite of it)

No Time said:

prodarwin said:

A place I used to work allowed their shop employees to do 4 days and they did M-Th one week and Tu-Fri the next so they had alternating 4 days weekends.  They had 2 teams doing this that had opposite schedules so even on M and F there was always coverage.

That sound great, but in reality for someone in a technical field like R&D or product development, there's some logistical challenges.

If the whole project team was on the same rotating schedule then it could work, otherwise the 2 day backlog of emails every other week would suck. 

Yeah I work in R&D / Product development, which is why I suggested it would be difficult.

When I worked at the place that did 4 day shifts, that was for shop employees.  As an engineer, I was still M-F 9-5

In reply to SV reX :

No matter how much things change...right?

I don't think AI is going to amount to nothing, but every compelling new technology follows a predictable arc, and right now AI is at the "Peak of Inflated Expectations." There are valid use cases that will be worth the money when it actually has to be paid for by someone. But it's certainly not going to transform the fabric of reality in the way that the speculators hoping to hit it big want you to believe...

In reply to pointofdeparture :

...nor be as bad as doomsayers saying that the end of existence is near.

As much as my current job is stressing the berk out of me, I have zero desire to go job hunting.   My goal now is to train my replacement when I hope to retire in 6.5 years.  Not that I'm counting down or anything... 

We are still having trouble finding electrical engineers with a working knowledge of building system design.  Not even considering the somewhat specific design aspects related to pharma manufacturing.   

I've been at my job for over 23 years.  At my previous job I was there for almost 5 years. One benefit of that is I've maxed out at 5 weeks of PTO (vacation and sick time combined) per year.  However, scheduling time off has been a challenge.   More than halfway through the year and I haven't used a full week yet.  And every day it looks more likely I'll be back in NH for some length of time...  

I don't really subscribe to the generational fighting thing.  At least not in my industry.  I've dealt with hard workers and lazy berks from all generations. 

These threads move quickly.

Regarding job hopping, I can see that being necessary in some occupations and areas. Some occupations are just more competitive than others.

I'm one who likes the familiarity, and stability of staying in one place, and in the first 34 years of my career only had two jobs. I've now had two more in the last 5 years. The funny thing that happened in my trade was that companies started offering market adjustment increases to both attract new hires, and retain current ones. I'm not sure how they thought they could do both, but I was happy to take their money - four times in five years. But what it really did was prompt more companies to do the same, and try to outdo each other. Which meant people were quitting good paying jobs to go to even better paying jobs.

And lastly, shifts. I worked 8hr shifts my whole life until i left for that high paying factory job, and started there working 12hr nights. five years in, and on 12hr days, our department switched to 8hr shifts. I liked the 12's so much that I applied for an opening on nights, and gave up straight 8hr days for 12hr nights. Same company 15 years later, everybody back on 12's, new owners put the entire plant on 8hr shifts. Within a month they lost over 50% of the maintenance department, me included. There are a lot of benefits to only working 14 days a month, and being on 12's  allowed me to run a part time business on my off days for over 20 years.

I just had this conversation with a buddy yesterday. He's a fire fighter, and said he can't imagine working 5 days a week ever again. I'm the same, and told my current employer, if you ever try to put me on 8's, I'm gone. I would consider 4, 10's, but my preference will always be 12hr shifts

I'm always shocked that  the jobs threads go on for pages with no mention of personal finance. 

I spent 7 years (2011-2018, late 20's to mid 30's) living on half of my household income and investing the rest-it was something my wife and I learned from our depression-era grandparents. 

If you can do the same then all this job stuff just doesn't matter as much and isn't a source of stress. It also allows you to actually build a life around your values, instead of what a potential employer values.

In reply to CrustyRedXpress :

That's because anytime personal finances come up, all of the excuses of why someone can't do it start showing up, even though there are posts of people actually doing it. 
 

People don't like hearing about those doing it vs making excuses and feelings get hurt

In reply to CrustyRedXpress :

It's also because saving, or otherwise not quickly spending, half of your household income is not simply a personal choice anyone can decide to make, it requires a high level of income to start with, and it's a level many people never achieve. For anyone making anywhere near minimum wage and paying for housing, meaningful savings is a total fantasy, and in my recent job searching I've seen alarming numbers of jobs out there with this kind of pay. Any kind of basic manual labor, everyone who touches food but isn't in charge of how it goes together and the people who supervise them, everyone in a retail environment for things that are commonly purchased without some sort of loan, sometimes even jobs as skill-heavy as electronics repair technicians and CNC operators...these amount to a huge fraction of the population. There's a reason why the average first-world worker can't afford a $1k emergency expense, and it's not that most of us spend like drunken sailors.