I don’t need to know exact companies, no need to unnecessarily expose yourself or anything, but as we are a workers rights instance of Lemmy, I safely assume we are all proletarians. I for example work at a unionized grocery and I work outside. I have many complaints but I try my best to work as little as possible while getting my paycheck. Customers are usually fine but occasionally just dumb af to the point where it’s annoying(I have millions of stories) managers are very kind, only ones who were dicks left(unfortunately they probably got promoted if I remember correctly) and my coworkers are eh. Some are great to confide in and joke with, while others are rude or annoying, some are very nice but have garbage politics (libertarians who don’t understand their benefits from being in a union/don’t care enough about the differences to advocate for it). I plan on becoming a firefighter, not only for the pay, job security and union benefits, but it’s also an essential job that doesn’t exist just to create capital (no judgement to those who work in corporate environments, I’ve never done it and can’t judge it). I like my job overall but Goddamn the weather. Edit: Kinda cool to see so many people who are in tech.
I can't even really describe my current responsibilities succinctly. I'm basically trying to automate and integrate business processes. Some of that is centered around ERP, some web apps (off the shelf and custom), and a bit of the usual Microsoft office spyware suite. It's super interesting and I like solving these types of problems to help people work on what people should actually be using their brains for (ie not menial repetitive stuff). Yet it's very frustrating since the everyone else (workers, management, owners) basically doesn't "believe" in digitalization nor industry best practices.
I really want to start a union drive, but due to some, let's say familial connections within the company, I've been more or less convinced that it's in my personal interests not to be the spark in this case.
QA engineer. Used to work mainly for front-end of various trade-related websites, currently working with more hardware oriented things. Still essentially trying to break the nice, pretty code of my developers. All in all, not a bad job, pay is decent (something like twice the average for my city), don't have to break my back in manual or deal with customers.
Funnily enough, it was this occupation that had kept me from embracing Marxism for a long time, as I didn't consider myself "proper" proletariat. Proletariat, I thought, were people breaking their backs in factories, construction, etc. I was just a prissy white collar, and any socialist revolution would sweep me away alongside the oligarchs, except they have better chances of escaping justice. It took a good friend to sit down and explain to me the actual definitions of proletariat and bourgeoisie, as well as class interests.
I can't have a job. I'm a programmer, and I had no problems working when a friend and me had a startup that did not earn any money. But then, when we were getting paid for work (for another company), I couldn't take it and quit after a week. I can't handle the having to work a certain amount of hours per week, when there is no work. What should I do, just sit there? Never, that's useless. Also the thing to work on was clearly useless. Everything I could get paid for is useless websites for useless companies.
We live in a capitalistic society. I'm a programmer myself, and the way I see it, if we can game the system as workers, we should. The bosses do it. The investors do it. Why shouldn't we?
My family own a farm land that we work on. It's not that big of income but ok to fulfill our basic needs and some times little bit more. I am learning programing mainly webdev and looking for work. I hope I would be able to earn more comfortably (compared to hard farm labour) once/if I start getting clients but that's the hard part. I keep practicing and developing new skills in by working on hobby projects as a showcase for clients/employer's one day.
Interesting background, I can safely say we don’t have many agricultural workers and the work that you are educating yourself in is also pretty interesting, all the best to you comrade
I have friends who work in Fintech, at least one of whom considers themselves socialist. It's been hard for me to reserve judgement of them considering a choice to work in a sector which I view to be on par with CIA etc in terms of producing bad social outcomes, with the presumption that they also understand the role of finance in capitalism.
Comrade, I come only with curiosity, no judgement, and honestly, I ask the following question only to better understand some people I know IRL; Would you be willing to describe your ideological relationship to your industry and your job? How do you reconcile the contradiction of directly developing the economic base of capitalism while presumably being a communist?
Thank you, and I understand if you choose not to respond.
Would you be willing to describe your ideological relationship to your industry and your job?
Completely mercenary. I started working there before I was class conscious, and pretty much the only thing keeping me from changing jobs sooner is because I'm also doing a masters degree on the side and I don't want an unexpected change in workload to completely drown me.
How do you reconcile the contradiction of directly developing the economic base of capitalism while presumably being a communist?
By using up as much as my employer's resources for as little work as possible. If I play my cards right, I can work six hours or even less when eight hours is expected without management knowing or caring. It's not quite as absurd as those "day in the life of a tech worker" videos that were popular not long ago, but there is a kernel of truth in them. On a slow day, I might even sneak in work on something that isn't for my employer.
I think its also easier for me to justify because most of the stuff I've worked on there never reached production because upper management shit canned it several months into development.
Finally, I think the software my employer sells is more useless societally than outright harmful. It's wealth management software used by porkies and their financial advisors. Still not great, but at least it's not making drones better at killing or doing spooky behavior manipulation shit for a big tech company.
I guide people with their debt. It is an unending, frustrating job and it gives you a real look into how poverty and debt changes you as a person. Many people I come in contact with only think about money and what they need to pay. So much potential wasted because some instance needs money with their added fines as well. Though it must be said I also get quite a lot of people who are really bad at budgeting as well. I see 10+ cases on the daily that make enough money to be able to live comfortably, but somehow can't find a way to pay off 3k in debt. Also, multiple people who get in debt who recently bought a new Mercedes or BMW but can't pay off 700 euro. The vast majority is in poverty, though.
I wanted to switch so I applied to a job at the Union. After two interviews I made it to the final round but it will take place somewhere in the next week or two.
Debt is such a crazy thing in capitalist society. The fact that debt isn’t inherently visible (you can actively see a person experiencing life without a home, struggling through life without food), you can’t see how much someone is struggling financially and scraping to survive, I feel that it warps our idea of how other people get by. The answer is that they kind of don’t in a lot of scenarios, plenty of people die in debt.
1 in 5 Belgian people is in active debt and 1 in 6 Belgian people says they would be in major trouble were they to miss one paycheck.
1 in every 5 people I see in the street is having some form of financial problems. No one openly talks about their debt, payment plans or how many agencies are after their ass. It's like a silent epidemic in this country. I sometimes wonder what would happen if everyone just stopped acting as if they are fine and have everyone showing how problematic this situation is.
Chemistry and physics teachers concern me somewhat, it always felt like you guys were all one bad admin meeting away from becoming Walter White or the Unabomber. Sometimes the “calculate the velocity of a car hitting a wall” problems seemed a bit more then just hypothetical problems…
Still some of my favorite subjects though, physics and chemistry teachers are amazing.
Lmao, true, society needs to keep the science teachers happy or else😈 lol jokes aside, most of my favorite and most respected teachers I’ve had were science teachers
Currently work retail. My exact job is meat clerk, which means I'm in charge of serving meat from the case and keeping the cooler wall full, then cleaning the backroom after the butchers are done.
Strawpolling indicates a 9-1 lead in favour of unionizing after they've learned what exactly it is (which was needed in 7/10 cases). Planning to put up a bunch of posters to raise awareness, but can't find any good ones (and I'm not really a graphic designer, although I might have to pretend).
I understand talking to coworkers, but does putting up posters not endanger your job? Surely they'll be able to find out who did it and fire you for "unrelated" reasons. That being said I'm totally for it, good for you man.
They might. I have been rather active about talking about it, after all. But the posters are not going to be personalized (the email on them is one I created just for this purpose). And besides, this is Canada - we don't often fire people for unionizing.
Awesome! I also work retail and I’m unionized, all the best to you and your coworkers in your effort to unionize! And good work on planning to put up posters, I think it will make a difference!
Graphic designer. I've worked on marketing teams most of career but after I lost my last job I tried freelancing. That was shortly before the pandemic started so that plan ended up fizzling out. I've been living on whatever few contracts I can land and gig work ever since.
I’m a red seal carpenter. Mostly concrete and framing. I work away two weeks on one week off right now for a “union” or what passes for a union around here.
I am lucky to work at public university in Poland as teacher an researcher, mostly work with automation, control and computer modeling. Money are not so well (I am afraid that liberal fucks want to sink the whole public sector to privatize it). I work also in side project (also publicly funded) to feed my family, since wife takes care about our small child, so I constantly feel overworked. But I think the job is interesting, and I think teaching is very valuable. Sadly, most students are not so interested in intellectual pursuits, they want to just get a job (they are forced by high life cost) and they finish their higher education earlier and earlier (few are taking effort to make MSc).
That’s extremely interesting! It is sad how academics and creative functions are forced to the side by threat of homelessness and poverty so “finding a job” as soon as humanely possible becomes the main priority. It’s difficult because I see myself slipping into that sometimes, but you can’t really do much or you’ll go insane from being trapped in the system and being unable to find a way out. Especially if you aren’t privileged enough to have financial support for your studies.
Postal workers are usually based and very present in the unions. It seems to be one of the few jobs in which people are still actively class conscious.
Student, the specific field is a bit embarrassing though so I’m unsure about sharing it. It feels extremely counterintuitive and a bit weird, but I enjoy a lot of it (minus some ethically and morally corrupt aspects that I plan to avoid at all costs).
I am a programmer. Started out as a machine learning scientist, but now I do more Git Ops stuff. But now I am trying to work as little as possible and focus more on FOSS projects that I can actually get passionate about.
At the moment, white collar, mainly reading and writing and there's a lot of answering emails. Long may it last. Unfortunately, I've been stung before. Multiple times. So while almost everyone around me seems to think we're in a 'job for life' type of job, I'm not holding my breath.
I've done a bit of everything, more-or-less. I've been employed, self-employed, and a student, doing 'gig' work before there was a gig economy. Blue collar, white collar. Cleaning, cooking, construction, care (well, pastoral, but what's a little accuracy for some alliteration?), waiting (tables and for jobs to come up).
I've been around a lot of menial work. Trolley pusher, warehouse work, pizza delivery - right now I'm settled into a very cozy corporate gig doing health insurance. It's remote work and incredibly easy so I'm sticking with it.
Just like you I do have aspirations of getting into a job that feels more meaningful and is actually essential for my community. The one constant through all of my jobs, no matter how hard or easy they are, is that they feel pointless. I'm just a cog in the machine and don't get to see or enjoy the output of my labor. No matter how good a job is, I just can't be happy in the long term like that.
The one constant through all of my jobs, no matter how hard or easy they are, is that they feel pointless. I’m just a cog in the machine and don’t get to see or enjoy the output of my labor.
I cant really give too much detail into what my job actually involves but the simple version is I'm a tech writer for a pharmaceutical company but the kind of writing I do isn't super transferable to a lot of other areas, even within the pharma industry. Which had made job hunting a removed. I am kind of out in a rural area so remote working really opened me up to a lot of new possibilities and way better pay ranges compared to local. Now that remote work is dwindling though all those possibilities are crumbling away and I can't find shit local. I don't want to have to move for a job. It fucking sucks. All because some rich fucks need to boost their investments into corporate real estate by forcing people back into offices.