r/antiwork

I work as an HVAC technician, so my workplace is other people’s houses or sometimes businesses. I was at some big fancy house doing a regular maintenance on their three HVAC systems. Pretty much the entire time I was there until I was leaving, only his wife was home, very sweet woman, gave me a bottle of cold water.

I was just writing up my notes in my truck when up the driveway comes the husband. He has his window down like he wanted to say something to me so I roll mine down; and in the shittiest tone possible, he asks me, “I’m just trying to figure out what caused you to park where you did.”

It’s true, I had parked in his large driveway in a kind of awkward spot, under the only tree around, so my truck wouldn’t be 1000° when I got back into it after working out in the heat. It’s pretty damn hot outside here in Texas right now. So naturally, I simply answered, “well it was in the shade.”

He kind of just looks forward, completely at a loss for words, then starts ranting about how he built this big driveway with all the space over there so one wouldn’t block the garage. “Now where are you going to go so I can get in my garage?!”

Without another word I just turned my head, put the truck in gear and accelerated down the driveway. Finished the invoice. Quoted him high for the several needed repairs and left.

I kind of regret not saying something satisfying to him, but you have your hands tied at work. Rich guy with a fancy gold membership. Feel like more and more I’m only ever serving rich Boomers in their overly large houses. I just want to help regular people but less and less get to.

Also kind of annoyed with myself that I’m still holding onto this. That guy really got under my skin.

Unions work.

That's the lesson in this article. Unions work.

The American Medical Association (AMA) works hard to create an artificially low supply of doctors. They'll frame it differently, but they act like a union. And there's nothing wrong with that. We all need to celebrate that success and replicate it.

The only non-doctor role: airline pilots. Again, HUGE pay increases because of their unions.

Unions (and union-link organizations) work. And with the advances of technology, being a doctor is easier than ever. Plenty of people spend years and years studying and going hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to learn how to use a technology and interpret results.

And without unions (or the AMA), that effort is for naught and capital will capture all of the value.

The AMA has always feared one thing: educating too many people to become doctors. Not because of the quality of human potential, but because of the supply of educated talent. No matter how difficult the skill to acquire or the value it provides, if more people do it, it has less monetary value. More care can be provided but at the cost of lower wages for doctors and the association? For the AMA, that scenario must be avoided at all costs.

That is the irony. The AMA is more concerned about the wages of their association than the aggregate care and well being of a nation. And that's fine. It's America and we all want to be rich.

But let's call an apple an apple. The AMA is the largest antagonist for single payer healthcare. They fight affordable healthcare and equitable access because they care more for the dollars their members capture than the people they purportedly serve. At every single turn, the AMA and their members fight for the status quo.

And there's nothing wrong with that. We can't fear or feel ashamed for being selfish ourselves. It's the American Way. Take and take and let a little value trickle down.

We just need to do a better job of framing it like doctors and billionaires. And be less afraid to fight and take what is ours. In fact, we should run up the score and see just how much we are capable of taking.

We are the essential workers. We build America. We keep the lights on. We pave the roads. And we need to be as selfish in our compensation demands as doctors and billionaires are in theirs.

I'm in my 30's and have been working since I was in my teens, and I've never been written up or fired from a job.... until recently. I started a job a few months ago and due to state law(California) I have to take my 30 minute meal break before a certain time or the company has to pay me for an additional hour of work so if you don't go on break on time you get written up. Well I'm pretty much the only person that shows up to work on time most of my coworkers are regularly 10+ minutes late and some of them insist on taking their lunch first despite being late. Well in addition to being late most of them take 45+ minute lunch breaks meaning that by the time they get back from break I'm going on break late and getting written up (for some reason there's no write ups for being late or taking a long break and management leaves early afternoon so there's no management to regulate breaks....). It happened again the other day and I got written up and told my next write up will mean termination from the job. I explained to my boss that I can't go on break until the next person comes back unless they want me to leave the store unattended until someone decides to come back and he told me that doesn't make sense? I explained to him if only two people are working and one of them goes on lunch break the other one can't go on break until someone relieves them or the store will have no employees in it to help customers (not sure why this had to be explained...) he said he would talk to people about making sure they are going to break on time and coming back on time (never happened). I am looking for employment elsewhere for obvious reasons (there's a lot more like the air conditioner not working,constant drama/retaliation, management sleeping with employees, ect.. over all a bad work environment) but I am not finding a new opportunity and am afraid I will be fired before I can find a new job. Is there anything I can do to keep my job??? I tried taking things into my own hands and gently explaining to my coworkers I keep getting written up because they are keeping me from going on my lunch on time by taking an extended lunch after showing up late and as expected no one gives a fuck.

My friend of 10 years died yesterday and I’m struggling heavily with grief I called out of work and my boss is pissed at me for it.

I was just watching a Youtube video. It was about this game that the developers basically abandoned. But the community of it saw the potential. And so modders really improved it a lot. And then the Youtuber talked to the host of a server for the game. And he talked about how he had a disability, and how this kind of stuff was some of the main stuff he spent his time on.

And it just made me think about something.

Politicians, let's be real especially right-wing ones, often talk about "the unemployed" and "the disabled" as if they're some drain on society. Leeches, lazy, all that stuff. And this is just one of those things that completely blows that narrative to bits.

So many people who don't officially have a job and who don't "make money" still add much to the world. That can be as small as someone who's just always there for their friends when they're having a hard time, or can be a father who stays at home and takes care of their disabled child full time, or it can be making mods that are free for thousands of people to enjoy, or hosting services, or creating free apps that people can use, or volunteer work, so many different things. Hundreds and hundreds of possibilities. Ways that people put in effort, hours and hours of effort and skill, into making things that others can enjoy.

And yet because that doesn't come with payment, somehow that's worth less?

So let's say you have Person A. And Person A is a video game developer. And they spend, idk, 100 hours creating a survival mechanic for the game their studio is working on. They get paid 10 dollars an hour, let's say. And they do that to help contribute to a product that will then later be sold for 70 dollars to other people.

But then you have Person B. Person B does not currently have a job. But they spend about 100 hours creating a survival mechanic for a game. They don't get paid anything, save maybe the odd donation, but they then put that mod up for free. And anyone can download it for 0 dollars.

So we have a situation where the same value is created by both people (a survival mechanic), the same effort is put in (both 100 hours) and yet because Person B's version is free for everyone to use if they want, but Person A's version is locked behind a paywall, Person A is a contributing member of society and Person B is a lazy leech?

I'm not throwing shade at Person A here, btw. If someone gets to be a video game developer, that's great. I'm making a comment at the bizarre way that society values things. Where free labor is somehow less of a contribution than paid labor.

That's like saying that if I give you something I made that's worth less than if I charge you 10 bucks for that same thing.

It doesn't actually make any real sense. But, of course, it's clear why this stigma continues. Because if Person B makes something for free, there are no CEOs and no stockholders who can grab a percentage of that. You can't take a percentage of people's enjoyment. But you can take a percentage of the sales price of a game.

So who are the real leeches here?

Maybe society should re-evaluate that label a bit. That's just my opinion.

I am so incredibly tired of every single tech company forcing useless "AI assistants" into apps that don't need them. Nobody wants an AI to write a poem about their grocery list, and nobody asked for an AI search engine that hallucinates fake recipes. ​It feels like tech founders are just building tools for other tech founders or venture capitalists, completely ignoring actual, regular human beings. ​I’m a software engineer and I finally have some free time between contracts. I want to build an AI tool or simple software app that actually helps people deal with the mundane, deeply annoying parts of daily life—not another corporate SaaS gimmick. ​What is a tedious, repetitive, or frustrating task you have to do in your normal life that makes you think, "why hasn't someone automated this yet?" ​Give me your worst daily bottlenecks and I'll see if I can build an open-source tool to fix it.

I'm seeing more and more job postings for contract/temp jobs asking people to travel. Doesn't this seem really crazy?

You don't get paid for spending nights in some crappy hotel right? Do you get paid for driving an hour to the airport and then sitting on a 4 hour flight? You're giving up so much of your personal time and you don't even get paid for that loss of time.

To preface this interaction I had this evening, I'm a male in my 20s. I work as a host/cashier/team member at a restaurant that isn't fancy.

Tonight I was sweeping the front of the store, as it's one of my closing tasks. One of the guests being served on our patio meandered inside to find his server. As I was sweeping, he said something to me that pissed me off beyond words. "You're doing a fine, mediocre job. You should smile more."

I just hit him with the gen z stare for about 10 seconds before saying "maybe when I can afford to move out, because this job sure ain't doing it". He halfheartedly agreed and said "one day, buddy". I don't care if I'm in the south. I'm definitely not your buddy, bitch tits.

This realm of phrasing is so condescending. All of the worst managers and customers I've encountered in the service industry have this type of attitude towards younger people trying to make a living.

When I was gossiping with the crew about it, his server said that he was treating his wife terribly (in a similar manner). Surprise surprise. This industry makes me want to become a hermit and avoid everyone.

/rant over

The death toll from the current US heat wave has not yet been fully established, and official figures often lag behind the reality by weeks or months. But the danger is clear. In Europe, Reuters reported Friday that at least 3,700 excess deaths were recorded during the recent heat wave in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, including 2,025 in France alone. Health authorities warned that the toll may rise as more complete data becomes available.

Reports from workers show that dangerous conditions are widespread across industries. “I can’t take the heat like I used to,” a CSX railroad worker told the WSWS. “The young guys can withstand it better. The company used to get us electrolyte drinks, and when it would get like tomorrow the manager would sometimes bring out fruit midday. All that is no more.”

He said management has recently complained about workers leaving trucks idling because of high fuel prices. “We don’t care,” he said. “We told them we’re not shutting them off. There needs to be a place for guys to escape the heat. The last thing you want to do with someone overheated is put them in a hot truck and wait for the air conditioner to cool off. They need to get in a cool area immediately.”

The same worker contrasted these conditions with the treatment of railroad executives. “Yesterday they brought out the fancy business train and had the CEO of CSX and the Secretary of Transportation get on it at Alexandria station [in the Washington, DC area],” he said.

A factory worker at a Missouri product manufacturing plant described regular heat-related collapses near a boiling-water pressure test area. “People drop and get put in ambulances on the daily,” the worker said. “Specifically around the water bath, where they do a pressure test with boiling water on the cans. Around summer time, you will see ambulances there. They mostly put women around there. At least in the hot times. Any other time it’s just a boring job that is hot. A can that fails, you put on a thick glove and fish it out. But combined with this oppressive heat, the humidity and heat drops people regularly.”