When people say flexible job I imagine they mean 0 hour contract with randomised shift work run by literal Satan as a shift manager and never being able to plan for anything ever because your life doesn't coincide with anyone elses but also not flexible because you can't ever reasonably take time off and whatever time you do take will earn you a last minute shift change or getting fired. Or the opposite, anxiously waiting to be alloted work that never comes and wondering how you'll afford rent.
So yeah a 9-5 is probably better than a "flexible" job. The bar is low for better.
true. I forget that type of shit exists in office work honestly. It's less common where I'm at (outside of like, food service ig), despite the fact that as far as I know, most jobs are effectively zero-hours because we have no labor rights here.
The way the article is phrased/framed I assumed they meant flexible as in work from home or the office as you choose but I wouldn't put a little dishonest framing past Business Insider
I think the term for home/office is called hybrid rather than flexible. At least thats what they are calling it where I am.
The terms are stupid because they don't reflect what they are.
Hybrid = wasting 12 hours a day to sit in the disease nexus and listen to asshat scream down the phone
Flexible work = we own every second of your life without pay and you will beg us for work
Yeah, I went from shift work on tips to a 9-5 and it's nice. The political bullshit you have to deal with from owners and higher ups sucks, but overall it's not that bad where I'm at compared to other horror stories I've heard.
I'll take a 60 year old former JP Morgan employee that's on the spectrum as a boss on a guaranteed 40 hours over some angry cokehead shift lead on a 0 hour any day.
If you want true hell, try working a factory job, which is what I do.
8 hours a night, on 3rd shift, at least 5 days a week, because half way through the week JIT logistics could just decide you need to work a 6th and 7th day.
Yeah, spent so long working in catering and shit that finally having a normal schedule feels like I'm living a dream. I only miss weird days and 2nd shift when I need to hit the bank out of nowhere.
Hi I’m three commercial real estate investors crammed into a trench coat here is why working from home is bad for gen z’ers like me all of whom I speak for
let's dig into this...
I just started to feel demoralized about all of the flexibility in my life and I wanted consistency so that I was waking up for something everyday.
who would even get out of bed if they didn't have a boss to report to! CRISIS!
here's the buried lede:
I ended up leaving the agency to join Flashfood because I wanted the structure of a 9-to-5 and the benefits it offered. For example,** I really wanted to start therapy for the first time and I couldn't afford to do it unless I was getting health benefits. **
It's easier for me to schedule my personal life into my week rather than with a flexible job.
there it is. the "flexible" job didn't actually compensate the worker for their time. it also sounds all ad hoc and on-call whatever. like not so much flexible to the employee, but flexible to the employer. maybe this person is more normal than i thought....
I don't really have an interest in owning a home, period. I'm much more interested in the idea of renting an apartment, being able to move, changing my lifestyle over and over, and traveling all over the world wherever my job takes me. That's a fun adventure to me.
enjoy the Motel 6 in Winnipeg in January, adventurer. it may not be Bali, but there is probably a medicine ball in the basement gym.
I love stalking people's career paths, especially on LinkedIn, because I admire the people who are working on top of me.
jesus christ. come on!
My boss, our chief brand officer is a girl named Jordan Schenck — I just think she's the coolest. She has such a cool repertoire and a very cool résumé. I feel really excited about working in a job that could land me in Jordan's seat one day. It gives me something to base all of my efforts and aspirations on.
oh come on, get the eff out of my face.
Several paragraphs just to get the name of the real author lol
I will say that going from a part-timer who had to balance their schedule and was completely at the whim of my managers as to when I could try to have a good life to just being an office drone was an improvement
But that's like saying going from actively bleeding to death to just in severe pain is an improvement
"I hate flexibility, i wish it was legal for me to
bechain myself to my desk so I could focus better."-Jon Realmann
It makes me laugh and cry when people think that society forcing them to have "structure" in their life is somehow a good thing.
The imposition is bad, but I very much believe a lot of people benefit from structure.
I don't disagree, but it should be a structure of our own choosing, not a structure society forces upon them.
They don't want "structure", getting your ass busted on being at the beck and call of your bossmaster 24/7 is also a structure.
They want safety, but the exploitation merry go round hustle they internalised since they don't know anything else don't allow them to know a difference.
To be fair, unless you lived in a rich or very dense area, us zoomers didn’t have anything to do besides going to school and the mall because everything is so far away, so we’re not used to creating our our routine and structures
Sure, I've been there, I am there honestly, though I'm not a zoomer and wasn't a full-on suburb/exurb kid, but I still wouldn't take a job where I had to drive to an office every day. No fucking shot. Not for a 10% raise, certainly not just for "structure"
If the rest of society wasn't so fucked up, like if my commute was a walk or bike or reasonable transit trip, and my workplace was a co-op, or even just not as miserably capitalist/hierarchical, then sure, it might be nice to have some structure, but this shit is a psyop to salvage the commercial real estate market or something, almost nobody I know who has WFH or flexible home/in office arrangements wants to be in the office every single day
The average commute to work in the US is 27.6 minutes based on the most recent census. That's roughly 260 hours per year spent going back and forth or ~3% of the entire year. When you're young, that time loss might not matter as much, but when you have adult shit to do, an extra hour a day is crucial.
not really "having adult shit to do" so much as just "having too much on your plate and having to bust ass to make ends meet/fulfill your obligations" which definitely applies to some young people too. 33.
But like I said, if that time was at least not an active stressor, or ideally was actively enriching, "wasting" 3% of the year on it might be fine. But 95% of the US population doesn't live in that reality
flexible job and it was frustrating and demoralizing
In this imaginary scenario definitely written by a zoomer, their complaint is that when their job allowed them to not go to the office, they chose the thing they disliked instead of choosing the thing they claim to like
What is it with boomers and trying to speak on younger people's behalf? Like seriously, no one was fooled when "millennials" were allegedly saying that renting forever was great and that the high rents were worth every penny.
My immediate response to this shit? Call me back in 20 years. I'll be waiting.
