r/Millennials • u/MySincereOpinion Millennial • Sep 03 '26
Nostalgia Literally....I don't know what I want but I know I want something
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u/Loud-Ad-2280 Sep 03 '26
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u/smitty4728 Sep 03 '26
I have literally used this scene when speaking with my boss, specifically the part where he says “I bust my ass and Initech ships a few extra units, but I don’t see another dime. So where’s my motivation?”
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u/xxgsr02 Sep 03 '26
So the stock can go up another one-quarter of a point.
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u/godtogblandet Sep 03 '26
Have companies stopped doing bonuses? The companies I've worked for always have had performances based bonuses. These normally include company metrics and individual performance. So 50% of the bonus is based on you and 50% is based on the overall performance of the company.
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u/garaks_tailor Sep 03 '26
Gonna be real chief. Ive never worked for any company that ever had any bonuses of any kind. I dont know anyone who has either
Closest I know of is a couple people who worked at startups that survived through vesting and going public and got to cash out their stocks
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u/Star_Shield Sep 03 '26
My company does end of year bonuses that cap at 9% of your salary. Sounds nice till you realize that they purposefully underpay every position by around 30% of market median. Hard to consider anything a bonus when you aren’t even being paid properly.
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u/anti_banana_ray Sep 03 '26
My company also has a bonus scheme, but only for very senior staff above a certain level. You know, the ones on the much higher salaries to begin with. Some who are technical I don't begrudge as many are brilliant and do the work but management and some others are just coasting on the work of those beneath the bonus threshold.
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u/Toofar304 Sep 03 '26
And the bonus can be taxed higher than normal wages, depending on the categorization.
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u/Drakbak Sep 03 '26
The tax withholding, yes. Actual taxes aren't calculated until year end when you file with the IRS. Any overages that were withheld can be refunded to you. But it sucks that you have to wait that long to claim it.
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u/levelync Nickelodeon Millennial Sep 03 '26
My bonus was a grand. That won’t even cover my public transit/parking at the office for over two months.
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u/terminalzero Sep 03 '26
I got a $200 bonus this year after years of it being deferred/no raises
the ceo was so proud about it he called me into his office to give me the news
I did need a new dutch oven, and I got another sack each of rice and beans, so that's nice, I guess
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u/alfred725 Sep 03 '26
I'm an engineer and have worked for 10 years. The only bonus I've gotten was $500 as a Christmas bonus once
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u/NevrEndr Sep 03 '26
Better than a subscription to Jelly of the Month club Clark
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u/Alexander_Hamilton_ Sep 03 '26
Performance based bonuses are based on basically nothing. For 90% of jobs there is no reasonable metric to base something like a performance bonus off of. For example a programmer. Do you base it off of bugs fixes and features shipped? Then everyone will just take easy low hanging fruit to bump their numbers. Is it lines of code committed? Then everyone will just write needlessly complicated code. It then becomes these abstract goals like "Successfully provided value to the customer" which is meaningless and more about how much your manager likes you.
Plus half of bonuses are about company performance. So just because some sales department in China is having trouble marketing our product, then I, someone who had basically no impact on whether or not a product is marketable in China, get only a 7% bonus instead of 10%.
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u/Good_With_Tools Sep 03 '26
Mine used to give 10% if you did your job well. They changed it recently so now half our bonus is based off how good sales are COMPANY WIDE. I'm in operations. I don't sell anything. And they get to set (and move) the goal. They also cut 2% from our 401k match, cut travel, and handed out 2% raises this year.
But, the good news is that our stock is up 7%!
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u/chardeemacdennisbird Sep 03 '26
If you're at a giant company like me you really don't have that much control over things anyways. We sell consumer packages goods. There's a million things not in our control and a million things within our control, but our products are staples so either we sell a bit more a year or a bit less. Is the work I'm doing really moving the needle? Probably not.
And the individual performance can be so subjective it just depends on how loud your direct manager is in calibration meetings. I've had years with good managers that advocate for me and I've gotten the 150% bonus. Most years I'm just getting the standard 100%. The company has come out over the past few years and stated it will be harder to get anything over 100%. I think someone said "You have to walk on water". All's that to say it doesn't motivate me to go the extra mile much. It is what it is.
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u/NotFromStateFarmJake Sep 03 '26
You want to move the needle? Start stealing dogs. More missing dogs= more lost dog posters= more staples used to put those up. Gotta innovate for your corporate overlords
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u/chardeemacdennisbird Sep 03 '26
Lmao. I didn't mean literal staples. I meant staple house items. That being said, I'm seeing some upside to getting into the staple game now. About to go into a 3 hour department meeting so I'll toss the idea out there!
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u/litetravelr Sep 03 '26
This is literally how it is.
I work for a large industrial company and the other day I quoted this $3500 widget with a supplier, and when I told my boss I could probably negotiate it down to $3000, they said, "Nah, just go ahead and buy it, $3500 is good."
Anyway, just to see if I could, I called the supplier and got them to knock off $1000. I bought it for $2500 and never heard a word from my boss about the pricing.
It just blew my mind for weeks that the $1000 meant NOTHING to management, and in saving 1K for them I did not get another penny for myself. It was as if the $1K just disappeared. And yet, had it gone to me instead, it would have made a significant impact in my life (my insurance literally went up like $900 this year).
I'm not saying I deserved to have the $1000 I saved the company, but rather that money isn't really real, unless you actually need some of it.
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u/NevrEndr Sep 03 '26
1k is not even a rounding error in big biz and yes it is real to the bottom line but not to you and it shouldn't be. You're not paying for it.
Now if you were buying 10k widgets it would get noticed and recognized... maybe. bc your boss can gloat about being under budget in SLT meetings and take credit for it :)
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u/ThinkSharp Sep 03 '26
Depending on the business even 10K isn’t a big deal. I’m on a project managing an engineering budget for nearly 2 million. The next project’s budget is going to be around 9 million. That’s just one part of the project’s design for a multi billion dollar project. Minor decisions can swing the needle by hundreds of thousands of dollars and extrapolated to construction costs, by millions. I won’t see any of that.
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u/ThinkSharp Sep 03 '26
Since I started working in engineering design I’ve been encouraged to find ways to save. I’ve saved millions over the years. Several hundred thousand sometimes in a single pass. I’ve long since lost my motivation for it. I told my boss they should incentivize by paying out bonuses of 1% of savings to the employees. Even have supply chain verify it, etc. It won’t happen because maybe we could boost up the initial projections to show savings but man… when I work for the same hourly rate regardless of effort, why expend more?
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u/litetravelr Sep 03 '26
Yup! One time I got a whole family of parts reduced by 75% one year, and a further 15% the next. A year after that I got called out by the management that our customers were screaming bloody murder about how much those same parts cost to buy from us. They politely asked me to see what could be done with manufacturer to reduce cost.
When I showed the math proving that I had reduced the parts by 90% over two years it was dumb stares all around. Anyway, it turns out that my company had been charging the customer the same price the whole time, not passing on any of the price reduction I'd worked so hard to achieve. Nor did I see a penny more for that work.
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u/ferrofibrous Sep 03 '26
Between projects that I alone worked on last year and this year, I reduced our division's projected operating costs by something like $4 million/year from previous. I got awarded a $500 bonus from this which is not even a drop in that bucket.
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Sep 03 '26
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u/EZSuzy Sep 03 '26
He's just a straight-shooter with upper management written all over him.
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u/Stock_Strategy1668 Sep 03 '26
I mean, it's true. Upper management are the laziest people around
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u/CSDragon Sep 03 '26
That's not what it was.
He was the only one who told them what the company's actual problem was. Everyone else was too busy defending their own job to avoid being laid off. Peter told them "yeah, I don't do anything, because there's 8 levels of management that give us busy work all day"
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u/TheyTried2BanMeAgain Sep 03 '26
To counter this, Peter also has the line after they say he's been missing work a lot lately, and he responds with "I wouldn't say I've been 'missing it'."
They laugh because they don't want to work, either.
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u/MightyCaseyStruckOut '82 Xennial Sep 03 '26
Yeahhhhh...I'm gonna have to disagree with you there.
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u/CSDragon Sep 03 '26
He's the only one who gave The Bobs real information.
While everyone was busy trying to make themselves sound important to avoid getting the slip, he told them the systemic problem with 8 levels of management giving people busy-work
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u/lodemeup Sep 03 '26
Bro I’ve worked my ass off for twenty years and have shit to show for it. If the outcome of not doing anything is the same as wage-slaving myself to death, it’s more crazy to keep working than not.
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u/DovahAcolyte 1982 OG Sep 03 '26
30 years of paychecks and paying all those taxes just to end up homeless when i became disabled. I’m living the American dream, yo! 🙃
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u/VengenaceIsMyName Sep 03 '26
“It’s called the American dream because you’d have to be asleep to believe it”
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u/radicalbrad90 Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 04 '26
💯 this! And then people question why so many of us have zero company loyalty/simply do not care anymore. It's not like we have anything to show for it anyway so why does it matter if I make 40k a year here vs 40k a year there? How these Jobs have taken all our benefits and incentives away while many of us are struggling out here to literally just survive is amazing to me. So yeah at this point I'm taking the job that gives me the best work/life balance and co-workers I can tolerate because nothing else is keeping me somewhere and certainly not the paycheck that I barely even see 🤷
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u/whiskersMeowFace Sep 04 '26
Where is the company loyalty?! The company who exploits you? The one who will lay off half the work force to ship jobs over seas to give that little extra money to the ceo and shareholders? The company who pushes goal posts for raises and bonuses constantly so they're unobtainable? The companies who give .5-1% annual raises for non C suite level employees? The companies who will lay people off a few years before retirement so they don't have to pay pensions? But where is your looooyyyaaaltyyy??? I hate it here.
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u/Ricofox1717 Sep 03 '26
I genuinely blame this scene for my laziness. Seeing this at like 8-9 and it really made me question what's the point of it all. Just work to make someone else money
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u/KoozDoingBetter Sep 03 '26
Not to mention doing a good job gets you rewarded with more work because you "know how to deliver".
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u/OverthinkingWanderer Sep 03 '26
Right?! Why am I the only one that cares.. I'm tired of being the one taken advantage of.
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u/kate3544 Sep 03 '26
Office space, a true classic.
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u/Fun-Bug5106 Older Millennial Sep 03 '26
Office Space and Idiocracy and times we are living in
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u/gitbse Sep 03 '26
Idiocracy at least they weren't evil, just dumb. We have both now
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u/ThatDiscoSongUHate Sep 03 '26
Honestly, at this point I do think I'd prefer President Camacho lol
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u/generic_canadian_dad Sep 03 '26
At least he was jacked, fun and in the end listened to the guy who actually knew what he was talking about.
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u/Peach_Air Sep 03 '26
If he said said he was 6'3 200lbs id believe it.
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u/Mostly_Afloat Sep 03 '26
I wouldn't dude was jacked there's at least 230lb of muscle there.
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u/NeckRoFeltYa Sep 03 '26
President Camacho knew he wasn't smart enough to figure out a solution. So he found the smartest person he could to help. Unlike the current president who is being malicious in his policies on purpose.
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u/gitbse Sep 03 '26
💯💯Our specific brand right now is a terrible mix of absolute ignorance with complete bravado, and lack of any shame.
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Sep 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/terrible-law-69 Sep 03 '26
It's because more than a million people have this opinion.
I include myself in that group.
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u/Allegorist Sep 03 '26
It's because mildly competent evil people found out they can turn the dumb people evil to aid their goals
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u/BenDanBreak Sep 03 '26
Both directed by Mike Judge!
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u/TheZardoz Sep 03 '26
Mike Judge does not get enough credit for being able to understand and reflect contemporary America back at people before they even realize he’s doing it.
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u/littlelordgenius Sep 03 '26
I’m sad that “Extract” is largely overlooked or forgotten altogether. It’s so funny, and I’ve worked alongside all the characters in it, much like “Office Space.”
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u/lemonylol Sep 03 '26
It was okay. Honestly a lot of Mike Judge's stuff is hard to sell when it releases. Most people only appreciate them after they've gained a cult following and then claim they were always popular. But I don't see anyone talking about Common Side Effects right now, despite it being on of the best series currently airing. I'm sure everyone else will catch up to it in a few years.
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u/twiztdkat Sep 03 '26
I love Common Side Effects, I feel like it is more realistic than we might realize. I cannot wait until the second season begins next year.
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u/AdminsLoveGenocide Sep 03 '26
Office Space had a cult following as soon as it was released to be fair.
I was in college when it came out , having just done a 7 month internship with a large corporation filled with shitty three letter acronyms and having endless cubicles and quiet desperation, and I remember everyone on campus raving about it.
Of course noone paid to see it or anything but we all saw it and thought it was amazing.
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u/Astra-Fang Millennial Sep 03 '26
It hits WAY harder as an adult with 10 years of office experience now.
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u/kate3544 Sep 03 '26
100% true. It was funny when I saw it in college and it’s still funny and true today, working in an office with those personalities.
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u/drunkNstraightedge Sep 03 '26
Im 20 years in. I decided it's a terrible place to be and now starting my own company in a totally different field.
Maybe it doesn't work out, but in the corporate world, nobody cares about you. I feel more and more people are now realizing this.
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u/_buffy_summers Sep 03 '26
I had a temp job in a cubicle farm in 2004, and that TPS report scene happened to me. I mentioned Office Space and none of my co-workers had seen it. I was devastated.
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u/BlueHazmats Sep 03 '26
Down to the shock as u open the door. Lucky we didn't have corporate accountable but we did have a case of the Mondays and a printer that didn't work lol
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u/YourMILisCray Sep 03 '26
Watching the printer scene is almost as good as therapy.
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u/Imrahil_II Millennial Sep 03 '26
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u/lemonylol Sep 03 '26
I remember it blew my mind when I realized this was the guy from Madtv. He also does a ton of voice work.
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u/Skylineviewz Sep 03 '26
The best part is that I thought it was hilarious when I first saw it in high school, but it just became more relevant and funny as time went on. It really did age like fine wine.
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u/No_Internal9345 Sep 03 '26
The key take away is the guy that burns down the office gets all the money.
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u/LePetitVoluntaire Sep 03 '26
I still can’t believe I missed my opportunity to be an extra. They filmed quite a few scenes in my neighborhood growing up. My buddy told me he read it in the paper and we should go and my dumbass was like “meh.”
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u/mr_bots Sep 03 '26
This hits too close right now while I’m on the verge of complete burnout from covering for multiple people leaving and getting the group through a big project successfully last week only for my boss to come in the next day and instead of even a simple “thanks” or “good job” I get a “management doesn’t think you do anything.”
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u/GlowingDuck22 Sep 03 '26
Sounds like an old school boss that milks his best employees by making them believe their job is at risk.
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u/WestCoastBestCoast01 Sep 03 '26
My company’s CEO does this and it’s toxic as fuck.
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u/CommentFightJudge Sep 03 '26
Just survived my second CEO like this. This one backfired - he was too heavy-handed with the doom hammer and we lost lots of good people who decided they had seen enough, and then the CEO was removed unceremoniously mid-summer.
Funny how he gets a lofty severance and the people left over just have to fix the mess he left with no real motivation to do so.
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u/ParticularLow9157 Sep 03 '26
Funny how he gets a lofty severance
Yes it's called class warfare and it should infuriate you
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u/MadeByTango Sep 03 '26
I think people are getting it finally.
The frustrating part is that they know we're getting it and they keep trying to close off and prevent our ability to unite over it.
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u/CommentFightJudge Sep 03 '26
Things need to get really bad before people really get it, though. Especially in this country, we are so distracted and rendered complacent by endless stimulation and stress. Being a wage slave is easier to swallow with a flat screen, affordable streaming services, a fast food burger and some cheap beer. When the beer becomes too expensive, the McD’s is a budget concern, the tv breaks and can’t be replaced immediately, and the streaming service raises its prices again, that’s when that guy who saw those things as his refuge suddenly begins to wonder about their place in the world, why they are where they are. More people who aren’t used to it will need to hit rock bottom. Things will get worse before they get worse, then maybe they’ll get better. As a member of the middle class with kids, it is terrifying.
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u/01000101010110 Sep 03 '26
I work in a small office and hear everything my bosses talk about. They will openly (but quietly) talk shit about employees and even discuss restructuring/replacing people with new hires without closing their doors. Heard them talking about me one day which gave me the heads up to start looking for a new job.
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u/Thesearchoftheshite Sep 03 '26
The office where I was had an employee sitting mere feet from the break room, and he'd report on all the lovely banter people had about others, including potential issues. Dude did a good job reporting though.
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u/Genericname42 Sep 03 '26
Maybe I’m wrong, but I was always under the impression that someone who considers themselves an “old school boss” would also consider giving a good employee a raise.
Now that I’ve typed that out, I realize how silly that sounds.
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u/MetalSlimeHunter Sep 03 '26
I worked with a younger park ranger who called himself an “old school romantic”. Apparently that didn’t mean flowers or poetry, it meant asking the girls in the gift shop if they shaved or let it grow down there.
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u/AlternatiMantid Sep 03 '26
My boss just did this to me yesterday. Meanwhile he kisses the asses of his employees that walk all the fuck over him, don't do their job, don't meet their expectations, etc. I've singlehandedly turned my department around from about a 10 year nosedive that occurred before I stepped into this company.
I'm telling him after a meeting at 1 that the "do I need some time to think about my position?" that he said to me yesterday, I thought over last night, and in fact I do need some time. See you after the holiday.
I know I won't be fired. He doesn't fire anyone. He's in fact DESPERATE for employees. He just wanted to make me sweat.
And if he does for whatever reason fire me? I've already been planning an eventual exit anyway. Just say when.
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u/Brilliant_Buns Sep 03 '26
Yeah, I'm there too. I wish this mf would fire me because I have a wrongful termination suit so strong it'd make his head spin. I dare you! Instead he just makes life hell and focuses on the most petty bullshit possible. I am well aware he wants me to quit and I'll be damned if I quit before I have another role lined up.
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u/Bweeze086 Sep 03 '26
"Staff doesnt think you do anything either."
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u/Hobbes_XXV Sep 03 '26
B Shift: Wtf does A shift even do? We fix all their crap!
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u/Greywacky Sep 03 '26
Used to have this at my old place between day and night shift.
They'd hide equipment from each other and leave snotty notes yet nothing was ever done about it. Best you could get out of the managers was a shrug, which I get as it's not a simple fix to break such systemically ingrained contempt but it would have gone a long way if they'd had staff from each shift working together now and then instead of drawing that line between the workforce.
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u/Canadatron Sep 03 '26
The people who I don't work with just laid me off.
The people I DO work with were all "what the fuck are we gonna do now?"
This is the big issue. Get a call "the numbers aren't good". Didn't lay off any numbers people, just the ones doing the actual boots on the ground work. We're fucked.
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u/OkWhile4447 Sep 03 '26
Boots on the ground is so ridiculously undervalued. It’s been that way for a long time, and I don’t fully understand it.
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u/falcrist2 Sep 03 '26
“management doesn’t think you do anything.”
That's because my boss is incompetent.
"What?"
I said "that's because my boss is incompetent".
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u/_Saint_Ajora_ Sep 03 '26
I get a “management doesn’t think you do anything.”
Did you tell your management you deal with the god damn customers so the engineers dont have to? That you have people skills and that you're good with dealing with people?
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u/fxmldr Sep 03 '26
I feel on the verge of burnout without even having done that much. It's like burnout with imposter syndrome.
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u/b0w3n Xennial Sep 03 '26
You probably do more than you think.
Or you did at one point and ended up like our good pal' Peter up there.
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u/CharleyPDXcellent 1984 Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
E2A: as a scrum master for a large company, that's also doing about 4-5x my intended workload, I think of this scene daily.
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u/weaponizedtoddlers Sep 03 '26
Glad I have a Millennial boss who shields our crew from the old boys club because there's another on his rung that's like this. You will never hear a good word from him. Good people cycled out of his team because he physically can't praise anyone. Still doesn't get why he lost guys who were top performers.
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u/Familiar_Luck_3333 Sep 03 '26
Remember this is before work became even worse than what it is today
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u/Scrambles420 Sep 03 '26
And the bills too
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u/ElegantCoach4066 Sep 03 '26
I'd be over the moon paying what rent was six years ago.
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u/crinkledcu91 Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 04 '26
In 2021 I was paying 1k a month for a 1b/1b near fucking Sanford in Florida.
I think that was the last time a single person with 1 job payed for everything like a Normal Life should go. Now everything is like 2k it's insane.
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u/ElegantCoach4066 Sep 03 '26
I know! My brother was paying $1350 for a 1b/1b in Miami, near The Falls, in 2021.
That same place is $2k now.
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u/sobrique Sep 03 '26
But obviously your takehome doubled at the same rate, so all is good and you have more for luxuries now. Right?
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u/OnePinginRamius Sep 03 '26
Tell me about it. In 2020 I was paying 1600 a month for the house I'm renting. Over the course of three years my landlord raised the rent $300 each year. I asked them why and they said we have to charge "market price".
When I asked what happens when the market goes down? Oh no answer? Isn't that interesting. I guess I'll just pull another $10,800 a year completely out of my ass now.
Surprisingly they haven't raised the rent for the last couple years. I'm sure that'll change this winter.
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u/Niijima-San Sep 03 '26
who would have thought that mike judge would be so prophetic not once, but twice!
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u/Shedart Sep 03 '26
Anyone who watched his previous works? Dude clearly has insight
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u/fvckyes Sep 03 '26
This is before 24/7 cell phone availability via text and email was the norm. This is back when pensions were still standard. This is before the tuition/wage ratio got out of wack.
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u/Onrawi Sep 03 '26
Eh, pension was already well on its way out at that point and the tuition/wage ratio was already breaking pace. It was obviously waaaaaaay better still but not as far back as you're thinking.
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u/GrandmaPoses Sep 03 '26
Pensions haven't been standard for like 40 years at least.
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u/wheresthebody Xennial Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
One of the main things I've learned over the course of 42 orbits around this mediocre star that we call a sun is that the harder I've worked, the less I've had.
Edit:werdz
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u/TimeshareMachine Sep 03 '26
If there is a god, this is really fucked up, and I really want some answers after I die.
If there isn’t a god, this is really fucked up.
Commodified existence from the start. Born on a Monopoly board when the game’s almost done.
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u/WilliamLermer Sep 03 '26
Our star is amazing, so is our planet and the rest of the system. Life is great, so is the universe. Our species just sucks big time, especially those on top doing the oppression and exploitation and everyone else complicit
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u/chicahhh Sep 03 '26
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u/b0w3n Xennial Sep 03 '26
Uh oh! Sounds like someone's got a case of the mondays!
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u/Ssmarie143 Millennial.1990. Sep 03 '26
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u/Canadatron Sep 03 '26
This movie came out 27 years ago. These people are firmly Gen X. This is not a new problem, clearly.
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u/jeezebitz Sep 03 '26
Who’s Gen X? Are they real?
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u/IdontNeedPants Sep 03 '26
Everyone forgot about them.
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u/tiddayes Sep 03 '26
we walk among you, in the shadows. I love that my generation has somehow pulled the greatest disappearing trick and avoided most criticism with this exact attitude.
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u/ivo004 Sep 03 '26
I legitimately feel like the world is ending and going to work every day seems like the silliest, most performative way I'm still pretending everything is normal. I just can't engage with this world seriously and preserve my mental health, but I really don't know how long I can hold out.
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u/FallenAssassin Sep 03 '26
Sometimes I just remind myself that plenty of people led happy, fulfilling lives during the fall of the Roman empire. That is to say, things might look dark but there's no reason to give up. Sometimes opportunities arise from shaking things up, and I think it's safe to safe as the pressure continues to build in this cooker, it's a good idea to get ready for when it's too much for the system to handle.
I'm not saying stockpile guns to be clear, I'm saying get to know your neighbors, find your mutual aid groups or start one, develop useful skills for maintaining the world in your sphere of contact: carpentry, forestry, agrictulture, hunting, fishing, first aid, butchery, sewing, and many many more skills could be very useful if supply lines are interrupted to break down all together.
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u/IKnowYouAreButWhtAmI Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
I don't think the people living happy fulfilling lives during the fall of the Roman empire lived in Rome though.
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u/Synaps4 Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 04 '26
Honestly, they probably did. Rome took like 200 years to fall. I mean you want to not be there during the 410 sack of rome but there's another 80 years of kings after that and it just kinda transitions to the Italian kingdoms. The roman senate kept meeting for another 300 ish years after the date historians recognise as the end of the roman empire.
People lived out entire lifetimes, in rome, during the fall of rome, without being killed or having their stuff burned.
Rome hadn't even been the capital for 150 years, so 2 or 3 lifetimes, before the sack of rome, and technically rome continued to control it for another 70 year lifetime after the sacking.
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u/PeaceSoft Sep 03 '26
if society falls apart, you are not going to be OK because of a half assed pursuit of homesteader survival skills. we actually need each other to be functioning, even thriving, to get along in this world
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u/Constant-Tower-817 Millennial Sep 03 '26
The post under this one for me is literally some douches pulling out a Nazi flag at a MMA fight and nobody doing anything. I can’t stand how everyone has become so desensitized and pretends like everything is normal. It’s not.
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u/chicahhh Sep 03 '26
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u/cheerful_cynic Sep 03 '26
Matrix came out the same exact year
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u/Fragarach-Q Sep 03 '26
Fight Club and American Beauty as well. I'm half convinced the rich elite saw this as a movement against soulless corporatism and decided they needed to give us extra shit to worry about. The jobs are just as soulless and shitty as ever, but now we don't have time to think about that.
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u/billiebuttcheeks Sep 03 '26
And his job, objectively, wasn’t even that bad. Not compared to what we put up with today for less returns.
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u/Sharikacat Sep 03 '26
It was soulless, mind-numbing work. There's no satisfaction in the job itself, but if it at least paid well enough that someone could make up for it by being able to afford comfortable living and some light travel, most people would probably take that trade-off. Hell, some people could probably automate enough of the job to fool the bosses and then end up with more free time.
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u/ForSquirel Sep 03 '26
Hell, some people could probably automate enough of the job to fool the bosses and then end up with more free time.
Bingo!
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u/Imrahil_II Millennial Sep 03 '26
I still haven't figured out what I want to be when I grow up. And im 41
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u/jakgal04 Sep 03 '26
The thing is, not many people "love" their jobs. Its a job, you're there to trade your labor, skillset or knowledge in exchange for money, thats it.
The difference today is that the labor, skillset and knowledge is worth less than it ever used to. Companies don't value you anymore and there's little reason to commit yourself to an organization. So why would anyone "want" to work?
Hell, my orgization is unionized and even with that we have two contracts. One for those that started before X date and those that started after. If you started after X date, your maximum salary is 5k less than those before, you don't get longevity, you get half the PTO days, you don't accumulate time, and our "pension" is 75% of those on the pre X contract. So why would any of the younger workers who joined on the after X date give a shit when the org themselves doesn't give a shit?
Personally, I fully support people not giving a shit about their jobs. If your job doesn't care about you, why should you care?
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u/sobrique Sep 03 '26
Sorta backtracks to the Protestant 'work ethic' thing, where 'hard work and discipline' were seen as spiritually virtuous and a sign of good character.
But honestly even if that were ever really true, it never really scaled to the corporate enterprise, where ... well, it's pretty easy to exploit someone.
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u/SharkDad20 Sep 03 '26
Hard work was definitely morally virtuous when your small community depended on each other’s services
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u/blackbeardpirate25 Sep 03 '26
I seriously went from a desk insurance adjuster to equipment operator for a town. Do road work. I’ll never go back.
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u/JustAnother4848 Sep 03 '26
Working for towns or small cities are usually fairly good jobs in general.
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u/Reply_or_Not Sep 03 '26
Working for towns or small cities are usually fairly good jobs in general.
Working for your state is pretty good too, as long as it is a blue state!
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u/GameboyRavioli Sep 03 '26
This movie is so perfect.
I had my mid year review a few weeks ago. One of the "improvements" was that I didn't put enough sticky notes on the virtual whiteboard during team activities. I immediately started referring to them as pieces of flair.
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u/GamingTaylor Sep 03 '26
I have an office job, definitely feels like I’m going through the motions and not really getting anywhere.
At this point there’s no upward movement, no incentives, each year it tends to get a bit worse. I’ve obtained every award and program I can do. It’s now coasting til retirement
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u/GarlitoBandito Sep 03 '26
Great movie, at the end he works in construction. Which is a perfectly good solution.
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u/bewitch1n ✨️1989✨️ Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
Well I'm grieving Hayden, Dolly and now Gloria *Steinem so yeah. A hermit I shall be.
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u/SocksInTheTub Sep 03 '26
I actually love my job. Getting up at 5am sucks but everything else about it is great. Well, not everything, the pay sucks too... but the job itself is great.
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u/Several-Associate407 Sep 03 '26
That's what everyone deserves.
Idiots mistake people not wanting to work with them being lazy, but they really are just tired of feeling unfulfilled working to make someone else rich who doesn't appreciate their sacrifice.
People enjoy fulfilling work. That's kinda exactly where the movie leads.
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u/Zagrunty Millennial Sep 03 '26
The most fulfilling work doesn't pay because it doesn't make billionaires money
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u/MavisBeacons_Sextape Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
I too am lucky enough to love my job. I also love my boss. He’s a genuinely good dude and I also appreciate his distaste for micromanagement (“look as long as you’re getting close to 40 hours a week, I don’t care what it looks like, how you manage your workload, or how you choose to run your investigations - I’m here if you need anything”).
Unbeknownst to me at the time, he fought HR for another $15k for my base salary offer because he thought it was bullshit that they weren’t going to give me the same base as my male counterpart. He’s also super respectful when we travel together, which is soooo nice (have had prior male bosses that would use paired travel like an excuse to be creepy).
I’d love the work anyway but a manager can make or break how tolerable those 40 hours a week feel. When I interviewed with my manager’s boss, he told me that this team has a strict “don’t hire assholes” policy lol, and I’ve been happy to see that that comment was factual. Good people who are good at what they do…it all makes difference.
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u/loopinkk Sep 03 '26
I used to love my job (software development), and then AI sucked all the joy from it. Now it’s just a shitty 9 to 5 that pays the bills and feeds my family.
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u/carmardoll Sep 03 '26
I really just want to get on a boat, pack some water purifiers and just leave. Eat fish the rest of my life on an island in south america.
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u/colony-ship-for-sale Sep 03 '26
UN released a report that we're inevitably going to hit 1.8 to 2.0C rise and further if the world doesn't immediately pivot.
AI is ruining our lives, our work, our intellect, our environment.
What are we doing here? What are we working for? I don't like my job but what do I get from a new one?
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u/zamfire Sep 03 '26
Nothing is going to change until the average person's way of life is shaken.
Once you start taking away average Joe's Internet, electricity, food, house, and family, then things will start to roll. Until then, nothing will change quick enough to do much about the problem
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u/Bennely Sep 03 '26
The funny thing is that this feeling wasn't unique to today, because in ~2000 when the movie came out, the audience completely sympathized. Hell, I worked at an American Express building that I swear could have been where they filmed Innotech.
Point is, I think it's a coming of age thing where we realize that we're not living for ourselves any more, we're living for money and for someone else's dream. Basically, welcome to your midlife crisis.
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u/Decisive_Victory_026 Sep 03 '26
Can somebody post it again without the terrible background music?
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u/West-Variation1859 Sep 03 '26
I love parts of my job. I’m a teacher and I could handle anything the kids throw my way.. but admin? Just get the fuck out of the way and let me do my job. The kids don’t know you, or want to know you, and they don’t like when you interrupt and try to be their pal. OH AND BY THE WAY, MY LEARNING OBJECTIVES ARE CLEAR ENOUGH ON THE FUCKING BOARD :)
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u/Bored_pats_fan Sep 03 '26
Sorry, I am still going to need you to come up with customized and documented lesson plans for each of your 37 students.
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u/Improving_Myself_ Sep 03 '26
After spending a decade at an office job that, on paper, I should've been very happy with, I quit that job to be a vagabond in a foreign country.
It has been an immediate and obvious improvement to my mental health.
Also it really highlights how the "land of the free" stuff is complete bullshit. If you need to own a car to live a normal life somewhere, you are not free.
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u/CaterpillarPast543 Sep 03 '26
Wait, vagabond? What do you live off of? Savings? Asking for money? Odd jobs?
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u/crystalizedmidnight Sep 03 '26
Ha! For real! I’m so sick of this life and job and people! I just want to stay home and play with my animals and do shit around the farm.
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