I was waiting for my father in the hospital, waiting room right near the registration desk when I overheard this conversation.

” I used to feel bad calling in when I got paid to be here, but now that I just volunteer it doesn’t bother me at all to call in”

It didn’t even hit me right then, it took till I got home and thought about it for a minute and then I was infuriated. This lady had a job that afforded her the opportunity to retire and then got bored at home and chose to go back and fill her old position for free.

So the same career that she occupied and gave her the opportunity to provide a comfortable life and retirement for herself she is now going to block from being filled by a new deserving younger individual looking to achieve the same thing she had. An adequately compensated job capable of providing what is so fleeting in the job market to the younger generations. A career with the possibility to provide the means to approach (the old idea of) the American dream.

She at her house, that she no doubt owns, got bored and took away from the younger generation the career path that allowed her to own a house. Meanwhile so many people that grew up seeing the baby boomers live the American dream and thought it was a possibility for their future are left wanting. Left occupying undesirable, dead end, poorly compensated, no 401(k) , no/bad benefits, no PTO jobs, that bear no resemblance to anything enjoyed by the greatest generations entitled children.

I understand that what she’s doing in her heart and mind is very SELFLESS, but in my reality, I can only see it as SELFISH. She through the goodness of her heart Is denying someone else the opportunity afforded to her, to live a happy, self-reliant life, where maybe they stand a chance of not having to take out a 50 year mortgage at the age of 40 or maybe even possibly going on a vacation once.

I don’t have a problem with retirees or volunteers, just the obvious inequality of available opportunity, and disparity between what was and what is.

Young generations were promised nothing, and that’s exactly what we’re getting.

Hey everyone,

I see posts on here all the time breaking down salaries, comp packages, and hourly rates—which is great, we definitely need that transparency. But it got me thinking about the bigger picture while I was staring at my coffee this morning, and I wanted to drop a little existential dread into your day.

To answer the prompt: I make $32/hr at the LCBO. But looking past the paycheck itself, let's talk about the absolute masterpiece of engineering that is our current setup.

Think about it: We’re the only animals on the entire planet that actually have to pay to live here.Every other creature just exists, but we’ve somehow built a system where you need a VIP ticket just to occupy space.

Whether we realize it or not, most of us are willingly signing up to work for the next 40 years of our lives until we're old and creaky. Why? Because we need a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. Simple as that.

Honestly, you have to hand it to the controlling class—capitalism is so good at what it does. It doesn't just force you to work; it makes you want to work. It convinces you that grinding away for decades is just a normal part of the human experience.

And the best (read: most terrifying) part? It successfully ropes us all into contributing to the destruction of the planet. We all know the Earth is actively dying and we’re burning through resources via this massive extractive machine... yet here we are, clocking in on Monday morning to keep the gears turning so we can afford groceries.

Just to be clear: I’m not anti-work, and for the record, I’m definitely not saying communism is the way to go either. I don't mind putting in effort. I just think the current setup isn't going to end well for the majority of us (or, you know, the planet).

So, genuine question for the sub: How much are you making, and how do you reconcile the whole "spending 40 years fueling an extractive system that's killing the planet just to pay rent" thing? What do we even do about it?

My office will let everyone work from home the second it’s convenient for them. A burst pipe, no AC, a snowstorm, whatever. That day, nobody worries about accountability. Nobody says we need you in person for culture. You’re just trusted to do your job from your kitchen table like an adult.

But ask for that same flexibility for your own life. A doctor’s appointment, picking up a sick kid, whatever it is. Suddenly remote work is a liability. Now it’s about visibility. Now it’s about whether you can really be trusted off-site.

Here’s the part that gives it away. If remote work actually hurt output or collaboration, it would hurt it during the emergency too. It doesn’t. So this was never about where work gets done best. It’s about who holds the discretion, and it’s never the employee.

The emergency cases are also less predictable, not more. A pipe bursting gives zero notice. A doctor’s appointment or a school pickup can be planned weeks out. My kind of flexibility is objectively easier to accommodate. It’s just treated like a favor instead of a baseline accommodation for having a life.

And I don’t think the fix is hybrid. Two days home, three in office, some arbitrary split handed down company-wide. That’s still the company holding all the discretion, just with a number attached to it. The real fix is flexibility negotiated between an employee and their actual supervisor. Different people need different things. What works for a parent doesn’t look like what works for someone with a disability, and doesn’t look like what works for someone neurodivergent, and none of that looks like what a healthy 25 year old with no dependents needs.

The pandemic proved this almost by accident. For a while, people who’d spent years jumping through hoops just to get basic accommodations suddenly had access by default. No medical paperwork, no HR gauntlet, no justifying yourself. Turns out a lot of people can thrive when the environment isn’t actively working against them.

Yes, some people took advantage of it. That’s real. But that’s not an argument for stripping flexibility from everyone. It’s an argument that work culture, management, and how we measure output all need to catch up. People don’t hate working. They want their work to fit around their actual lives, not the other way around. That’s not a radical ask. It’s a compromise, and most workplaces haven’t even tried to have that conversation.

https://www.lendingtree.com/debt-consolidation/shoplifting-survey/#everyday-essentials-remain-the-most-commonly-stolen-items

Abdul El-Sayed crossed the border to discuss universal healthcare - a beast so complex that only 32 of the world’s 33 developed nations have been able to make it work

I feel like corporations have had the most power they have ever had. Gone are the days of good customer service. If you need to contact any company after you have bought something, or any service you are using, good luck to you. You may get lucky, most times you will have to jump through hoops to even find an actual person.

But that's not the rant. The rant is these massive corporations that sell us food, gas, energy, entertainment or internet (probably a lot I am leaving out here) are out of control with price hikes. They have figured out that not only do they not need to provide you excellent service, they don't need to even need to provide you a competitive price or a good value.

They know we are all going to buy it anyways, at any cost.

The middle class has become the poors. The poors have become the peasants and the rich are sucking every cent from any class below them.