Now do the same analysis for workplace romance. And work is, or was, where many people meet their mate. Is there any wonder fertility rates are plunging throughout the West?
the solution is for men to be hornier and braver ie "fuck that, I'll find a new job if I have to". of course, that's easy for me to say when *I*... work *remotely*.
Woke and MAGA are literally, 2 sides of the very same coin. In fact, MAGA is just “right”-side woke. I won’t lie and say MAGA is just “conservative” woke because by now, everyone should know that MAGA is no more conservative than Woke is liberal. Americans might not all be dumb, but the whole country is certainly upside down. And it’s so damn exhausting hearing such a wide cacophony of unexamined emotionalism raining down upon all of us like it were free cereal box trinkets.
>1c) Conversely, many entry level non-corporate staff seem to engage in lots more dangerous humor. That’s a rational response to having less to lose.
I think this is more that higher level staff are more likely to get in trouble over a joke, not that they have more to lose. People don't care much if a cashier makes an off colour joke in the break room. They care more if a manager does, and much more if a CEO does.
Also, while the wage of a CEO might be much higher than a cashier, that doesn't mean the CEO values his job less than a retail worker. They'd both have comparable amount of stress and difficulties finding a new job and adjusting their living standard lower than what they're used to in the meantime. The CEO would probably have a harder time, because being cancelled for an off colour joke would follow them much more than it would a working class worker.
Bingo, low level employees are fired at whim and often arbitrarily. What more goes unsaid here though is that low level employees tend to be normal, not woke, hence aren't the sort that get offended or, when they do, the sort that either goes to HR/EEOC or when they do, is supported in that (they usually just get fired on the spot for being a problem)
I would like to find a space where I can explore ideas without fear that someone will use something I say out of context to feed me to the woke wolfpack. Work was such a space until about ten years ago. Now it is not, and I have nowhere to go.
I still don’t understand why people work at large & boring corporations. I would not expect the pay to be better, nor their stability (though maybe?), and mostly it seems a matter of *signaling* stability, yet why do people care so much about *that*? Maybe, for men, to seem more marriageable, but then they should quit & find a smaller place to work after marriage.
Small startups are not just less stable, they are also a lot more work. That's why they tend to be staffed by true believers. But most people are not true believers. They want to do the work reasonably well, get along with others and be able to take the leave they are entitled to without being judged. You get to do this in large boring corporations. Part of this is a byproduct of the stability. Stability tends to generate regular schedules. Regular schedules means planned family holidays etc. New startups usually have terrible work life balance because you have smaller budgets, tighter margins and the company usually has a lot more debt and hence a lot less leeway.
Even not talking about startups, small to midsized companies often tend to pay less than larger companies and often tend to be worse places to work. Why? Because, most established small and medium companies will not ever get larger. This means that there is something wrong with the way they are doing things that prevents them from expanding. There is a good chance that this will be bad workplace culture. The causal arrows go in both directions here. Bad culture hurts productivity which hurts bottom lines which in turn causes management to take actions which hurt workplace culture either directly by coming down hard on breaks, micromanaging employees and other shenanigans that go on in small companies or indirectly by not being able to fire people who are bad for the company culture.
Imagine you are in a big company and one of your colleagues is a bit problematic. They are rude and do not work well with many others. If the company has a lot of employees, they can shuffle the bad one around to a place where they fit in better or fire them. Why? because they probably have lots of other people capable of doing the same job and some redundancy so that in case of sickness or family emergencies there are enough people to cover the gaps without forcing people to cancel their leave or sacrifice too much of their personal time. In a small company, there is nowhere else to shuffle the problem worker to. And in a smaller company, you probably need more workers, cannot afford to hire new ones, and also cannot afford to fire existing ones either.
Working at smaller companies usually is much more work for less pay. Plus, you're usually pressured into socializing with people you have little in common with. Big company remote job is the golden mode of existence - keep your head down, do your job, and live easily.
I earn 98th percentile for 5-10 hours a week of WFH that I dictate all the terms of.
In my interview I said my demand was that I have total control over everything I do and my boss not be able to tell me what to do, then demanded higher compensation when they gave me my first offer.
Bingo, I had a similar situation for years with even less work, I think since 2010 I generally worked maybe one hour a week which worked out to, in practice, about US$2400/hr. And then I got involuntarily early retired a couple years back so now I have a guaranteed US$50K/yr pension until death. Prior to all that I worked at startups and middle markets, all of which paid vastly less, no benefits, and whose severance was "we are downsizing / bankrupt, don't get in tomorrow or ever again, here's a $5 McDonald's gift card (not joking )for your years of dedication to us"
You get paid vastly more per hour is why, have better stability and benefits, room for promotion, easier to get fired, better locations, AND you forget in most in most case, they are the only game in town. The only job better than a big corp for most people is a government job.
If you can’t intuitively feel the difference between a “this will be funny” joke and “this will get me fired” joke, then comedy probably isn’t for you.
Now do the same analysis for workplace romance. And work is, or was, where many people meet their mate. Is there any wonder fertility rates are plunging throughout the West?
the solution is for men to be hornier and braver ie "fuck that, I'll find a new job if I have to". of course, that's easy for me to say when *I*... work *remotely*.
Woke and MAGA are literally, 2 sides of the very same coin. In fact, MAGA is just “right”-side woke. I won’t lie and say MAGA is just “conservative” woke because by now, everyone should know that MAGA is no more conservative than Woke is liberal. Americans might not all be dumb, but the whole country is certainly upside down. And it’s so damn exhausting hearing such a wide cacophony of unexamined emotionalism raining down upon all of us like it were free cereal box trinkets.
Is there any way we can fix this?
>1c) Conversely, many entry level non-corporate staff seem to engage in lots more dangerous humor. That’s a rational response to having less to lose.
I think this is more that higher level staff are more likely to get in trouble over a joke, not that they have more to lose. People don't care much if a cashier makes an off colour joke in the break room. They care more if a manager does, and much more if a CEO does.
Also, while the wage of a CEO might be much higher than a cashier, that doesn't mean the CEO values his job less than a retail worker. They'd both have comparable amount of stress and difficulties finding a new job and adjusting their living standard lower than what they're used to in the meantime. The CEO would probably have a harder time, because being cancelled for an off colour joke would follow them much more than it would a working class worker.
No, it's very easy for low level employees to get new equivalent jobs. People are always hiring and there is little to no background check.
Many corporate jobs you could never get a close equivalent if your deemed a bigot.
Bingo, low level employees are fired at whim and often arbitrarily. What more goes unsaid here though is that low level employees tend to be normal, not woke, hence aren't the sort that get offended or, when they do, the sort that either goes to HR/EEOC or when they do, is supported in that (they usually just get fired on the spot for being a problem)
That's what I said, although maybe I underestimated just how hard it is to get another corporate job.
I would like to find a space where I can explore ideas without fear that someone will use something I say out of context to feed me to the woke wolfpack. Work was such a space until about ten years ago. Now it is not, and I have nowhere to go.
Let me know if you find such a place!
I still don’t understand why people work at large & boring corporations. I would not expect the pay to be better, nor their stability (though maybe?), and mostly it seems a matter of *signaling* stability, yet why do people care so much about *that*? Maybe, for men, to seem more marriageable, but then they should quit & find a smaller place to work after marriage.
Small startups are not just less stable, they are also a lot more work. That's why they tend to be staffed by true believers. But most people are not true believers. They want to do the work reasonably well, get along with others and be able to take the leave they are entitled to without being judged. You get to do this in large boring corporations. Part of this is a byproduct of the stability. Stability tends to generate regular schedules. Regular schedules means planned family holidays etc. New startups usually have terrible work life balance because you have smaller budgets, tighter margins and the company usually has a lot more debt and hence a lot less leeway.
Even not talking about startups, small to midsized companies often tend to pay less than larger companies and often tend to be worse places to work. Why? Because, most established small and medium companies will not ever get larger. This means that there is something wrong with the way they are doing things that prevents them from expanding. There is a good chance that this will be bad workplace culture. The causal arrows go in both directions here. Bad culture hurts productivity which hurts bottom lines which in turn causes management to take actions which hurt workplace culture either directly by coming down hard on breaks, micromanaging employees and other shenanigans that go on in small companies or indirectly by not being able to fire people who are bad for the company culture.
Imagine you are in a big company and one of your colleagues is a bit problematic. They are rude and do not work well with many others. If the company has a lot of employees, they can shuffle the bad one around to a place where they fit in better or fire them. Why? because they probably have lots of other people capable of doing the same job and some redundancy so that in case of sickness or family emergencies there are enough people to cover the gaps without forcing people to cancel their leave or sacrifice too much of their personal time. In a small company, there is nowhere else to shuffle the problem worker to. And in a smaller company, you probably need more workers, cannot afford to hire new ones, and also cannot afford to fire existing ones either.
Working at smaller companies usually is much more work for less pay. Plus, you're usually pressured into socializing with people you have little in common with. Big company remote job is the golden mode of existence - keep your head down, do your job, and live easily.
I earn 98th percentile for 5-10 hours a week of WFH that I dictate all the terms of.
In my interview I said my demand was that I have total control over everything I do and my boss not be able to tell me what to do, then demanded higher compensation when they gave me my first offer.
BigCorp email jobs are sweet.
Bingo, I had a similar situation for years with even less work, I think since 2010 I generally worked maybe one hour a week which worked out to, in practice, about US$2400/hr. And then I got involuntarily early retired a couple years back so now I have a guaranteed US$50K/yr pension until death. Prior to all that I worked at startups and middle markets, all of which paid vastly less, no benefits, and whose severance was "we are downsizing / bankrupt, don't get in tomorrow or ever again, here's a $5 McDonald's gift card (not joking )for your years of dedication to us"
My friend got laid off from Amazon and took a 50% paycut and had to travel around the country >50% of the time (he has a family, that sucks bro).
Sure, he got some stock with a tiny chance of a big payout and a large chance of a 0% payout. Not worth much to a middle aged person with a family.
You get paid vastly more per hour is why, have better stability and benefits, room for promotion, easier to get fired, better locations, AND you forget in most in most case, they are the only game in town. The only job better than a big corp for most people is a government job.
Better to be funny then employed *laughs with my 2 digit bank account*
Whoa, look at Mr. Fancypants tenaire over here.
An excellent, but sad, commentary on the workplace status quo. The takeaway is keep your mouth shut at work because the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
If you’re thinking this hard about how people will react to your joke, odds are you aren’t funny.
No, you are just trying to not get fired
If you can’t intuitively feel the difference between a “this will be funny” joke and “this will get me fired” joke, then comedy probably isn’t for you.
An example of Robin Hanson's "automatic norms", where you should expect to be punished for not quickly intuiting the norm https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/automatic-norm-lessonshtml
Intuition is a good thing. Autism is a disability.