Great Resignation (Big Quit) 2021-2022

Started by Dry Brett Kavanaugh, October 10, 2021, 07:41:16 AM

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Dry Brett Kavanaugh

A record number of people in developed countries are quitting their jobs. There seem to be several factors/reasons. Currently there are better jobs for some workers. Secondly, some workers like working at their homes, and they do not want to go back to their workplaces. Thirdly, in this tumultuous time, many people have realized that how awful their work environments are.
I am thinking about quitting job myself.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/10/07/top-reasons-great-resignation-workers-quitting/

Mirror Image

I've been reading a good bit about this myself and I can certainly sympathize with a lot of people who are quitting their jobs. Up until 2020, people have slogged away at the time clocks only to realize that ultimately they're incredibly unhappy with their jobs as they feel they're just slaving away with no real purpose. Since I've gone back to work in December of last year, I have cut back on my hours considerably. I only work four days a week and I work an easy 1pm to 10pm schedule. The only way I'd go back to 40 hrs. again is if I had no choice.

Brahmsian

I love working from home and it has honestly saved me, without a word of exaggeration.

I will fight tooth and nail to continue working from home, since I can do my job 100% without any hitch.  We are having a "plan to return to office" meeting.  If I cannot continue to work from home in my current job, I will simply find another job that will allow me to do so 100%.

DavidW

I think a lot of that is happening in the service industry.  They took the time to train to find a better job during covid times and they're not coming back.  It is rightfully forcing employers to offer a living wage and benefits for a change.  But once that starts all of a sudden people in all sorts of professions start re-evaluating their career goals.

As for me, I like my job and I'm staying put.

Szykneij

I worked from home for a while after covid hit and have now retired without regret, but I do miss my coworkers and the social and collegial atmosphere of the workplace. The world is becoming an ever increasing place of personal isolation. You can't beat the commute of woking at home, but human interacation can't be overrated.



Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

Don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines. ~ Satchel Paige

Brahmsian

#5
I can't say that I miss the socializing aspect of the workplace at all. I'm an extremely introverted person whose energy levels get sapped being in an office environment with any kind of noise level and being amongst many people. Then add to that the stress of commuting, another energy sapper, essentially I don't have anything left in the tank as far as energy levels and being present with my partner when I get home. That is just not a life worth living for me, at the end of the day.

Working from home, for an introvert like me, has been a life saver, literally speaking.

We are all built differently, but the traditional office environment and the big rat race daily grind was made for social butterflies and extroverts.

We all have different needs and I think it is important for each and every one of us to recognize what are personal needs are and what mechanisms work best for us as individuals.

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

I won't miss my workplace. I can occasionally meet some of my coworkers at a restaurant or cafe.

T. D.

I'm about to turn 64, and expect to totally retire shortly after reaching 66 (about to sign on for a final 2-year term). I work from home as much as possible.
I envy the younger people who can work from home. When I was in 20s through 40s, being in the office and interacting with others was essential to promotion and advancing one's career. I'm amazed that remote work can offer the same career advancement, but more power to those who can do it.

Jo498

When I read the title I thought it would be about the Austrian chancellor Kurz stepping down after a financial scandal but I apparently overestimated the importance of Austria in world politics. ;)
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

vers la flamme

I work in the medical field so I never got to experience the "work from home" thing. Covid did not change my work life terribly much beyond the increased sanitation measures in the workplace. It is interesting seeing people leaving their jobs, especially in the service sector. There's a labor shortage across the board. Can't think of another time in my short life that this has happened before.

Mandryka

#10
In the UK there's a really big drive right now from the Government to stop people working from home, I think because it has serious negative consequences for the value of commercial property -- property developers fund the political parties. The press are beating the drum in support of this: I posted in the COVID thread this extraordinary headline from a popular paper today



What's ironic is that younger people want to work from home, but older people, boomers, are driving them back to the workplace.



https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1446131978772770820

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Herman

Quote from: Szykneij on October 10, 2021, 09:12:38 AM
I worked from home for a while after covid hit and have now retired without regret, but I do miss my coworkers and the social and collegial atmosphere of the workplace. The world is becoming an ever increasing place of personal isolation. You can't beat the commute of working at home, but human interaction can't be overrated.

Humans are social animals. We like to watch other people, we like to compare. We like to talk and joke.
If you only have your spouse (or whatever he or she is called) to talk to, there's a risk you become a burden to each other.

I say this as a person who has never worked in an office, always at home, 35 years now.
You have to be that kind of person, and still, the isolation of the pandemic has been hard.

DavidW

Quote from: Herman on October 11, 2021, 12:53:52 AM
You have to be that kind of person, and still, the isolation of the pandemic has been hard.

Yes unlike Ray quarantine work was very hard on me.  Getting back into the classroom and seeing my colleagues in real life was very necessary.

foxandpeng

#13
I don't usually contribute to threads outside the music discussion here, as some of the content of the political threads particularly leave me astounded and dismayed (or they would if I drilled into them beyond what I occasionally see through gateway links), and others don't often interest me.

However. Speaking as a civil servant (one of those that the Daily Mail - usually a UK news outlet I am happy to read - characterises as overpaid and a drain on all that is good in society, despite working in an essential area that ensures that the poorest and least privileged in society have their most basic of needs met, and aside from some annual leave, having never missed a single day at work through the whole pandemic), I have been significantly more productive and more able to manage a better work-life balance since the world changed.

I appreciate that some can't WFH. You can't interview every single person that needs a face to face interview, via MS Teams or Skype. You can't serve people coffee or food via a digital connection in all circumstances. You can't drive your bus or your train from your home office. You can't do factory line work from your home. You can't excise tumours from your bedroom via reactive AI, at least not yet.

However, some people can work predominantly or entirely from home. Smarter working and a greater emphasis on flexible working was already coming, and supports inclusion and more effective working patterns in ways that the traditional trudge to the train never did. Technology is coming into its own. Travel that seemed essential, simply isn't. Paying taxpayers' money to send countless commuters to London at inflated rail prices and hotel costs, has proved less essential than previously thought. Meetings that were routinely centralised and attended by large groups of tired and harassed workers hundreds of miles from home, no longer take place as a default. The loss of a personal four hour commuter round trip every day means longer sleep, better focus, greater trust and autonomy, and actually, longer hours of productivity. Do I need to attend the office sometimes? Of course. Do I miss the water cooler conversations and office banter? Sometimes. Is it harder to support and train new colleagues? Yes, sometimes. Does it mean that the economy will have to change and some sectors will bite the dust? No doubt. Just like they did during the industrial and digital revolutions. It doesn't mean that doing things in the same old way for the sake of doing them in the same old way, is the only recourse.

My current role means that my teams of direct reports are scattered from Scotland, Northern Ireland, the South East, and Wales.

There is absolutely no way I am routinely dragging my butt to one of the major cities just to sit in an office where none of my teams work, and where my functional day would be identical in tasks, scope and productivity to working from my home office, while adding to my costs, time and loss of goodwill and engagement, just because of a wider political agenda that fails to account for modern working practices.

They can bite me.
"A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people ... then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbour — such is my idea of happiness"

Tolstoy

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

As for the USA, a majority of workers think that they will look for a new job this and next year.
The pandemic made us reassess our relationship with work.
This is a good thing.

https://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/job-seekers-survey-august-2021/

Brian

My day job is becoming increasingly stupid, stressful, and demeaning. 4 of 6 people in my group have joined the "Great Resignation" so far, along with probably 25% of the people in the rest of our department. I definitely would love to find another job and rub it in all their faces, it's just very time-consuming to search, and I don't have a ton of free time. We'll see!

Spotted Horses

Quote from: Dry Brett Kavanaugh on October 12, 2021, 06:17:58 AM
As for the USA, a majority of workers think that they will look for a new job this and next year.
The pandemic made us reassess our relationship with work.
This is a good thing.

https://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/job-seekers-survey-august-2021/

There is a big gulf between saying you want to find a new job and actually doing it.
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. - Duke Ellington

Spotted Horses

My job involves bringing my technical expertise to a new field, and it would be a great help to be able to interact with my more experienced colleagues in person, to brainstorm, have an informal chat at the whiteboard, just see what they are doing. Dominantly remote work has been a big minus in that respect. Beyond that, my home "office" is not at all conducive to concentrated work, which leads me to working late at night or in the very early morning, which is a miserable experience. I would love to be able to work in an office.
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. - Duke Ellington

DaveF

Reading all the posts above makes me realise just how fortunate I am.  Don't want to sound smug, and I have worked hard earlier in life to get to the position I am in, but I really enjoy my work and definitely won't be joining the Big Quit.  (I work, part-time, as a librarian in my local public library, with special responsibility for performing arts.)  Back in the first lockdown, my colleagues and I were reassigned to other duties that involved working from home - I hated it and couldn't wait to be back serving "my public" in person.  Commuting involves a 15-minute drive, or 50-minute cycle, down deserted country lanes towards the splendid sight of the Abergavenny hills.  So... I'm aware that this post reads a bit like those where someone asks for recommendations for a Brahms symphony cycle, and someone else comes along and says "I can't stand Brahms and never listen to him".  But there we go.
"All the world is birthday cake" - George Harrison

DavidW

Quote from: Brian on October 12, 2021, 06:52:09 AM
My day job is becoming increasingly stupid, stressful, and demeaning. 4 of 6 people in my group have joined the "Great Resignation" so far, along with probably 25% of the people in the rest of our department. I definitely would love to find another job and rub it in all their faces, it's just very time-consuming to search, and I don't have a ton of free time. We'll see!

I thought you were a food critic for a major newspaper? ???