Anon is exploited

Real and straight. This is all of us.

We should rise up, and unionize.

Ok but I don't want to have to eat any rich people. Frankly that sounds disgusting.
- Okay you can feed them to your pet, but cook them thoroughly first, you ~~don't know~~ suspect where they've been.
- I don’t really even care how gross it is at this point, I want my bite.
I dont have the time for that, I keep scrolling trough the news and attending work meetings.

"And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death"

-Pink Floyd

This exact line brought a chill down my spine back in high school that got me really depressed about my life.
- That whole album deserves the recognition it gets.
  And if you want even more existential dread and less metaphysical understanding, The Division Bell does it.

I have strictly limited overtime with high bonuses and mandatory rest days, afternoon/night shift bonuses, 20 days minimum fully paid vacation, fully paid maternity leave, fully paid sick leave, healthcare paid through taxes, all written into law. Feels nice to live in a place where workers have rights. Sometimes I don't even know what to do with all this legally mandated freedom. Anyway, how's that deregulation going, America?

The post still applies to you in its entirety except for the 1h unpaid overtime. And yes, socialist ideas are good, that's the entire point of the post.
- The traffic and living situations in socialist countries are also not as bad as in USA due to better public transport and denser housing near work, so remove an extra hour of commuting as well.
If you're unsure what to do with your copious freetime, I recommend some political activism to make sure that your rights don't backslide. Fascism is on the rise practically everywhere in the west.
It's going bad. Real bad.

One hour commute each way 💀 Bruh that is brutal, waste of life. My commute takes 15 mins

Out here in Maine it's pretty common to have to travel for work. All of the jobs are in or around Portland, but you can't fucking afford to live where you work so many people have to live further north and travel south for work everyday. It's the ideal environment for remote work, but fucking boomers run everything so they expect you in the office everyday.
- Work from home is the best. Apparently the office that I used to work in has been closed down and I'm not actually sure where in the town the new one is, so I couldn't go into the office even if I wanted to.
Yet another reason to decry our automobile based society. Working or schooling at anything more than a mile out is a ridiculous notion.
- This has less to do with the admittedly awful automobile-based society and more to do with the allocation of housing. High prices and low availability lead to people generally living randomly far away from their workplace. Soviet Union citizens for example accessed housing mostly through their labor union, and were allocated housing near their workplace so they could easily go walking or with public transit. It made cities very efficient with regards to commute, together with the division of urban areas into so-called "mikroraion" units, which established the concept of 15-minute neighborhoods already 70 years ago.
that's 1 hr back and forth. if so 30 mins each is better than what most people deal with.
- Mine's ~50 minutes each way, at least it's on a bus so I can read or watch videos. Still sucks

My version:

24 hours in a day
12 hour shift
1 hour commute each way, so 2 hours
1 hour cooking/eating/cleaning
1 hour showering, getting dressed, getting ready for the next day.
Uh oh, bedtime if I want to have a chance at 8 hours of sleep.
1 hour walking the dog and playing with her. 7 hours of sleep possible.
Fuck it, I'll get groceries next week I guess.
Trouble sleeping due to the anxiety of not getting enough sleep.
Cry.
Sleep 5 hours.

um uh buy less avocado toast
- Yeah and I'll skip the lattes too. That'll reclaim an hour every day.
Have you tried not eating and drinking yourself to sleep yet?
- I save that for when I have 24 hours off to flip from day shift to night shift or vice versa. Oh yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that the 12 hour shifts frequently rotate. Fuck me, right?
How many days do you work a week?
- It varies. Usually 3-4 unless somebody takes PTO, but a few times per year there's like a month of 6-7.

I think people are confused by seeing influencers and/or rich people and thinking what they have is normal.

In the 1500s it was sun-up to sun-down, 6 days a week for the work outdoors. Once the sun set, nothing could really be done. If you were a typical peasant you couldn't even afford to keep a candle lit. So, people went back to their one-room huts with their livestock in the same room and slept and/or waited for morning. They didn't have to work Sundays, but they were absolutely required to attend church on Sundays, so it wasn't a free day. There were other days off, but many of them were days where you had to do a certain prescribed activity.

In the early 1800s it was 12 hours of work, 6 days a week. Industrial era lighting technology meant that work could continue after the sun had set, so there were no winter days where you only worked 8 hours. Also, because this was the era of the factory, people had to commute to the factory and back, so if you were lucky you had a full 10 or 11 hours when you weren't working or commuting. If you wanted to sleep for 8 hours, you'd have 2-3 hours to do your cooking, eating, cleaning, bathing, mending, socializing, etc.

Thanks to tireless and bloody protesting by labour unions, 6 days of 12 hours each was shortened to 5 days of 8 hours each. It started in Chicago. The "Haymarket Affair" was a protest that led to a riot which led to public hangings. But, eventually, as a result of that, the work day was shortened to only 8 hours. Then, in the years that followed, a 2 day weekend became standard.

It might not feel like it, but your ancestors would be jealous about how much free time you have these days. Your distant, peasant ancestors might actually have had fewer work hours. But, they only stopped working when it was too dark to do anything, and then they basically sat or slept in a tiny, drafty, stuffy, one-room hut along with their livestock until the sun came up.

If we kill and eat the rich and use their bones as decorations, it would be possible to keep a bit more of the value of our labour. But, we're nowhere near a situation where we can all live like the rich. Someone does still need to plant the food, harvest the food, pump the oil, cast the iron, smelt the aluminum, keep track of the shipping, etc. Life is hard, and has always been hard.

I think it's more likely that people saw their parents or grandparents living on a single income, so between two people there was a lot more "free" time. When one adult is managing the home, and the other is making money, both get to be more off duty after work. The grocery shopping, meal prepping, social calendar finagling, and cleaning were happening simultaneously with the money making job.
Managing a household is a whole ass job and a lot of people are expected to do it on top of their day job and that's why we feel like we have no time. I don't think we're comparing ourselves to celebrities, just our own family members.
- I think it's more likely that people saw their parents or grandparents living on a single income
  If their parents were white and American and this was just after WWII, that's possible.
  Just after WWII the US was basically the only advanced economy in the world that hadn't been flattened by war. While European and Asian states had had all their factories and cities bombed, the only attack on the US was an attack on strictly military targets in a far-off place that wasn't even a state yet. In addition, during the Great Depression FDR put into place all kinds of New Deal policies that blunted the power of the ultra rich and strengthened the power of workers. So, when WWII ended a lot of workers benefited from strong unions and weak rich people. In addition, there were now modern grocery stores, running water, electrical appliances, etc. so a housewife had a much easier time of it than her great-grandmother might have in the early 1900s.
  That period wasn't typical though. It definitely wasn't like that in the Gilded Age, the 1920s. The 1930s had the Great Depression. The 1940s of course had WWII. Before that, in the 1800s and early 1900s it was often common for a woman to stay home while her husband worked. But, she had a pretty gruelling job. She had to get groceries (or garden (which was closer to farming than the hobby people have today)) and cook, but without any modern appliances, including a refrigerator. That also meant creating a lot of preserves or canning. She had to do laundry with a washboard and soap. Cleaning meant a broom, mop and bucket. Cleaning also meant making your own cleaning supplies from scratch. Clothes were expensive, so a lot of time was spent either sewing new clothes at home, or mending old ones. So, even though it was 1 income for 2 adults, both adults were doing a really gruelling day of work, not like the nicer version of that from the 1950s.
  So, while it's true that some women today "manage a household" on top of a 9-5 job, modern appliances and stores mean that they do a fraction of the work that their great-great-great-grandmothers did.
Someone does still need to plant the food, harvest the food, pump the oil, cast the iron, smelt the aluminum, keep track of the shipping, etc. Life is hard
This is only true because capitalism is limiting technology to the point where all these mundane tasks can't be automated or improved with tech so that it can be possible for all to self-maintain. Yes, not that simple and yeah someone would need to program things and maintain things, but there's no way in hell I'm going to believe that humanity can waste so much time and money on something as unethical as AI but somehow can't come up with technology to let people maintain crops without having every piece of the puzzle we have now.
They can do it. Everybody talks about how crazy it is about how in such a short time span we've gone from flying planes to landing on the moon and it is ridiculous. It's not that inconceivable to believe that we can come up with tech to better maintain society beyond what we have now. People want to keep the status quo because they limit their minds to what has been.
Capitalism dictates that profit means everything. We don't need pot holes to be filled every other year just because people get a job. People shouldn't be dependent on such a system to survive. Pot holes can be filled with a solution that will not dissipate over time but capitalism doesn't want that. It wants to make sure there's a demand to pay someone despite the penalty of the many.
- This is only true because capitalism is limiting technology
  Capitalism is trying as hard as possible to replace people with machines, but there are a lot of jobs that machines simply can't do.
  to landing on the moon
  Hundreds of millions of people paid the equivalent of thousands of dollars each for a dozen men to be able to walk on the moon. "Walking on the moon" isn't some activity that anybody can do now. It was effectively a stunt to show that it could be done
  Capitalism dictates that profit means everything.
  Only in the eyes of communists.
Do we actually archaeologically/anthropologically know that this is the amount of time that people spent working in those different periods?? Would love to see sources because I always think this is one of the most valuable things those fields can bring to us, but I've had trouble finding clear answers.
- There's a lot of evidence of what life was like for peasants back in the Medieval period. But, it's hard to be exact because there were a lot of things that were taken for granted so nobody bothered to write them down and clarify.
  Here's an article about it:
  https://www.yeoldetymenews.com/p/do-you-work-more-than-a-medieval
  What's well known, for example, is how many sundays and feast days there were. What's less known is what actually happened on those days. For example, the Monday and Tuesday after easter were ale-drinking feasts. What was a feast though? In some cases it was a "party" where attendance was mandatory and you had to pay a fee. Yes, there was drinking, but was it a party, or was it one of those "work parties" where you had to go, had to be on your best behaviour, etc.?
  Because it varied a lot century-to-century and also varied location-to-location, it's hard to pin down what it was like unless you're looking at a specific location at a specific time, and it's a location and time where there's good data. What is pretty well known is that nights were really dark. Even candles were expensive for a peasant. So, when the sun set, work more or less stopped
  https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/the-price-of-lighting-has-dropped-over-999-since-1700
- Yay! A chance for me to link to my favorite blog: https://acoup.blog/2025/09/12/collections-life-work-death-and-the-peasant-part-ivc-rent-and-extraction/ (may require reading part IV.a and IV.b first).
  A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry is right now doing a series on how peasants lived. Arable land is limited, people really don't want to watch their family members starve, and the entire economic system is maybe kind of reliant on squeezing peasants to do the things necessary for society to function, so there's strong incentives of all kinds to work a lot
Interestingly, the one glaring exception to this is hunter-gatherer lifestyles. They had to work less hours than modern day workers. Hunter gathered groups tended to evolve cultural practices that lead to constant population. When you're living off the land, the land only gives what it gives. When your area is already near its population carrying capacity, there isn't a ton to gain from putting in extra work. You go and gather what you need for the day, and that's it. Getting extra will just mean more food that is rapidly spoiling, leaving less for tomorrow. Better to just sit in camp, sit around the fire, sing some songs, and conserve some calories.
Someone does still need to plant the food, harvest the food, pump the oil, cast the iron, smelt the aluminum, keep track of the shipping, etc.
and herein lies the paradoxy. how is that compatible with there being an unemployment crisis at the same time?
- Because illegal immigrants were willing to work under conditions and for pay that American citizens would never put up with.
- "someone" doesn't mean "everyone".
Back in the 50s they thought people in the year 2000 would only work 20 hours a week and the biggest problem would be too much free time.
If we don’t make permanent retirement for all of humanity a goal we won’t get there. But the unifying factor for every political party is MOAR JOBZ. Hell, even the ancoms think people should work.
And we basically did that with agriculture already. In industrialized nations less than 10% when just a couple hundred years ago it was over 90%.
- Back in the 50s they thought people in the year 2000 would only work 20 hours a week and the biggest problem would be too much free time.
  Back in the 50s they had strong unions and great New Deal laws that helped workers out. But, they didn't put two and two together. They didn't understand why things were great. They didn't realize that by the 70s politicians would already be rolling back all those protections, and that people wouldn't object. In addition, the people in the 50s just assumed that black people would continue to be an underclass who could be exploited. So, a white person could do less while a black person picked up the slack.
But, they only stopped working when it was too dark to do anything, and then they basically sat or slept in a tiny, drafty, stuffy, one-room hut along with their livestock until the sun came up.
This is not entirely true though; people have lived up in the north for ages, and they certainly did not just sleep up to 24h per day for several months. "Just sitting" isn't how I'd describe it either, since those were the times for handcrafts, storytelling... etc. Expensive candles were were not the only source of light, for example around here people used specific wood chips they burned to get some light - obviously it's nothing like modern day lighting, but it wasn't just total darkness either.
In the 1500s
(I assume amerikkka)
AND with no supplemental information offered... Off to the races!
love me some internet.
*sources plz don't apply

WFH has been a blessing.

You easily eliminate almost 2h from there, no commute, and some workdays no showerp/getting ready to go out. Even when I shower I try my damnest to do it between meetings in company time.

I also do zero overtime, you'd be surprised that there are actually decent consultancy companies in that regard.

This is why I demand work from home.
I hate commuting.
As soon as I got a taste of working from home back in 2020, I knew I was never going back to the office. I bought a nice chair and built a good computer, and now I just hang out every day while working when I feel like it. I've come up with enough shortcuts and workarounds that I can do my job over twice as fast as my coworkers, though I'll never tell my boss that. I do have OT sometimes, but I get paid well for it, and still rarely have to put in a full 8 hours of actual work in a day, even when getting an extra several hours of time and a half. People look down on hourly pay, but it's way better than salary for times like those.
- You two have hit the jackpot apparently.
- Lol are you me?

In Asia it's even worse. Standard work day in China for example is 9-9-6 which 9am to 9pm six days a week - remember that next time you see China living in 2070 propaganda. Six days a week is still de facto standard in most Asian countries.

The best part is that the actual work output is actually worse than five day 9-5 but I guess you have to keep the masses too busy for self awareness even if it costs economically. I'd remote contract with many teams in Shenzen, Tokyo and Hochiminh city and its incredibly how little actual work they get done with these crazy hours and its not due to lack of employee skill. It's stupid.

The 996 in China is far from standard, it's prominent mainly in the informatics/electronics sector, and it doesn't exist in the public sector as it's technically illegal afaik, just not prosecuted. Also, there's increasing pushback in China against it, and it's diminishing in scope.
- You're right and I've edited that my pov is from tech side after posting but for some reason edit didn't confirm. Can't really comment on areas as I work in software but it's technically illegal everywhere including less developed asian countries but no one is actually enforcing this unfortunately.
Bruh, I worked in Taiwan for a while. Those hours are insane but most of the time you're just sitting around or doing busy work. Tasks that I would do in a day would take me about a week in Taiwan because of all the meetings and dinners that got shoved in between. If you work in Asia I hope you like your colleagues because they're basically your family and friends.

And they wonder why no one wants to have children anymore. Between not having enough money and not having enough free time, how the fuck do they expect all that? The rich really are a parasite and capitalism is a cancer.

#meirl

It should be illegal to call it 9-5 when employers don't pay you for your lunch break. It's like when Subway got caught with their not that long foot longs. It's BS. They have the nerve to expect us to be honest when they can't even be honest about how they're going to shill us out of work-life balance. Capitalism is just modern slavery y'all. It's time for this charade to end.

monkey's paw:
you get paid for lunch break but in return, your hourly wage diminishes by 12%, sothat your total salary stays the same.
- Speaking as an American, we'd totally fall for it, too
- Ok how about you're free to eat the weak and old employees (if you take on their work load) plus during lunch breaks you get to hunt for food in surrounding offices.
That's what my gig is, but that's also cuz I'm salary and just work through the lunch hour so I can sign off early to 'go home'.
Remote work has a lot of benefits.
- I'm sorry you have to work through your lunch. When the revolution kicks in, we should group up and kick your CEO down a trench.

I guess anon is too tired to do maths correctly. That sums to 21 hours, so only 3 left instead of 4.

Thanks for making it worse.

Find a job closer to home

Move closer to work -> rent goes up by hundreds of dollars bc closer to city
Find work closer to current place -> pay goes down like 30% or your job field doesn't even have openings there
Tbh there's not much winning right now
OH SO EASY WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT YOU ARE SO SMART
Or you have at least 3 locations you want to be close to because youre in a family and everyone needs a school or job.
There are exaxtly 2 businesses that do what i do in the whole country. Being 40 minutes away so my wife can be 20 minutes away so my kids can be close to school and we are all close to my parents so they can help is the only option

I can recommend being self-employed if you like super long hours for the peanuts. But hey, at least I don't want to kill myself every work day.

Shit try running a business. In the words of Admiral Akbar, it's a trap!

Yes, furthering capitalism doesn't solve the problems of capitalism, it only makes them run deeper. We should socialize companies through a mixture of state ownership and unions.

From 2020 to 2025 I worked maybe two hours a day while remote. Made millions for my company but I didn’t have to work continuously through out the day. It was a nice existence. Went through two layoffs in that time but I finally had to take a job in an actual work environment.

🎵 Fitter. Happier. More Productive!

Comfortable. Not drinking too much.

I feel crazy because when I was younger I would say this stuff to friends and family like I really felt this struggle and realization of how much time we dedicated to work. It wasn't just 9-5. It was all these extra bits including resting just so we could recharge for the next work day. Nobody understood it. They just didn't think this way. Now I see so many people online with this mentality and it's becoming more main stream. It feels good to have that validated like I'm not crazy.

Fitter, healthier and more productive
\ A pig
\ In a cage
\ On antibiotics

I have an official 8 hour day and only work 4, the rest I'm slacking off. I am a dev in home office. Even tough I have way less workload and stress I don't get anything done in my life. :(

6 hour work days with higher pay would be pretty dope ngl.

Have kids, a dog, a house, two cars, and a white picket fence.

What are, "things that have been stolen from us by the ultra rich"?
Except maybe for dog?

And then people are like... Parents need to parent their kids... for every kid related problem or issue, but look at how hard it is to find any time to do anything! It's so hard... Keeping up with all the kids admin, school homework, developing bodies, relationships, future planning... And then having to learn about every new platform and emoji and movie so you know if it's appropriate and how to handle it... It's impossible! Parents need to parent their kids is such a cop out for a society.

I feel like you're mad at the wrong side. Parents do need to parent their kids but obviously they need to be given time to do so. I don't feel it's a cop out I think it's a muti-step solution.
- Time & resources would be good but I also think we as a society shouldn't leave it all up to 2 random individuals who happened to have a child to ensure the healthy survival of humanity. You know what I mean? We all live together here, noone is an island, noone can do it all.
- I think they mean it's a cop out for people to say "parents need to parent" as a solution. The solution is "society needs to provide more support to parents." Parenting your kids was a lot more possible when one income covered the fiscal needs of the household.

Weekends?

One day is spent doing chores, leaving you one day to do any sort of hobby. "Weekends" is a piss poor argument since most adults need to adult during that time.
- Hybrid work has been great for this. I can step away from my desk for 5 minutes to toss in laundry or vacuum etc. Dust or unload the dishwasher while on a call. I no longer have to spend half of my Saturday cleaning because my house is just always clean.
- It wasn't an argument. It was a missing piece of the logic.
  The analysis looked at a single day, but not every day looks like that.

Suicide seems better and better everyday