The Job is the Thing

[TV and credit cards]

Comparing today with yesteryear. You would have to agree some were better off and some were worse off then?

Not really. People in general are FAR better off today, and very few are worse off.

Back in the '60s, even the richest people in the world couldn't have had a cellphone, a home computer, a widescreen HD TV, or any number of things that working class people today take completely for granted.

Life is objectively better today than at any time in the past, and that's true to such a massive and undeniable degree that even the people at the very bottom of the heap are generally able to do things today that they couldn't have dreamed of in the 1960s.

Amazing what consumer debt has done for us.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Google the term "going postal".

A UAL gate agent at DIA threatened to have me arrested when I told him someone was going to go postal on them if they kept reneging on their obligations.
That was about 1998, before everything changed. If you told them that today they’d probably just shoot you. Assuming they were not too young to know what it means.

Saying that somebody is going to go postal on them is an implied threat that you might go postal on them.

 

[southernhybrid]

It is my opinion most people are able to do a whole lot more with their lives jobwise and position wise than they ever attain to. The reason for this is that there are not enough jobs to go around for everyone able to do one to have one. Same thing with owning a business. A whole lot of people could own and run one but the economy will only allow so many to exist at a given time.

Totally agree. IMO and for or better or worse, women entering the workforce did not help average jobs become more meaningful, enriched and/or satisfying either. Nor were demographics good for baby boomers (myself included) in a global economy where goods consumed were not required to be produced by babyboomers. All else equal, whenever there is an excess of anything (including labor) it becomes worth less to society. And that's not good for the worker or the small entrepreneur. It basically means a "shit" job for low wages.....just one ladder step up from the Apple workers in China.

So, is it your contention that it was the purpose and duty of women to help average jobs become more meaningful, enriched and/or satisfying?

Do you think that women were obligated to stay home and raise kids and keep house in order to help men feel more job satisfaction?
Do women's lives not have value other than how it benefits men's lives?

In many, many respects, as women of our generation (boomer here) entered the workforce in greater numbers and not merely to fill in for wartime labor shortages, standards of living increased as families could afford more consumer goods, at least by that measure. Women's lives also improved as they were more able to have real choices in their lives and not confined to marriages that they found unsatisfying or even abusive. Their lives had more value that was recognized by monetary benefits, not simply flowers on Mother's Day and if she was lucky, on her wedding anniversary.

In the above paragraph, you seem to regard workers as separate from women who work. Did I misunderstand that?

And while it is true that wages decreased is that not more a function of the decline of labor unions rather than the increase of women in the paid workforce?

Or are you blaming all of society's ills on women wanting to have jobs and careers? And if so, is it not really the fault of men for not being better husbands and fathers and providing enriched, fulfilling lives for women who made the men's careers and family lives possible by serving as uncompensated (and unrecognized) labor?

I'm not blaming women but I am claiming they were a huge economic driver that in fact caused a big reduction in wages and job enrichment for everyone in the labor market. And it had nothing to do with women except for the fact that their numbers increased the supply of labor which drove down what the labor market was worth to management.

As for the sad decline of unions today, I blame more on globalization then women because at least women were living in this country and were able to join the same unions as men did. Not the case for the workers in Asia competing with the west.

As for feminism, I would estimate that 25% of the workforce might be better off figuring that 1/2 were men and 1/2 of the other half were women who did not want families or anything other than singlehood. 99.9% of labor was much worse off because the only labor unaffected were the CEO's of large corporations. So would you say it was worth it to make 25% of the population better off so that 99.9% were much worse off? Personally, I would say not.

So, you are unable to see it as a good thing thst women might want a career and a family? It to conceive of the possibility that men , who are assumed to be able to handle both a career and a family ( thanks to women staying at home to raise children) might instead want to stay home to raise children? Or that workplaces could and probably should be much more family friendly?

It sounds as though you want a wholesale return to the 1950’s. Do we also need to bring back segregation by race? Jim Crow? Women being openly excluded from certain careers and openly being paid less than their male counterparts? Restricted neighborhoods and clubs?

You do know that Leave Or To Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days were all fiction, right? And also that June was smarter and better informed about the stock market than Ward?

Comparing today with yesteryear. You would have to agree some were better off and some were worse off then? The only claim I make is the number of people better off versus worse off today only with regards to the labor market. Discounting all the other social problems having both parents working instead of raising their own children.

And I'm making this claim without watching television because I actually grew up in the 1960's. A time when my dad easily supported a middle class lifestyle and I rode my bike or walked to school without any concern.

My mom worked starting in the 1950s and I loved having a working mom. She did bookkeeping, HR, and she once worked for an oral surgeon, all pretty much female dominated jobs. Nursing and teaching, especially back when we were children were almost all done by women. Who would have taken those jobs if not for women? Eventually, women were accepted into becoming physicians, lawyers, and IT professionals to a lesser extent than men, but it's pretty ignorant to think that all families were supported by a working father while the mother stayed home, looked after the kids, cooked, cleaned etc. I preferred to work outside the home. I enjoyed the satisfaction of bringing home hard earned money. Why would anyone think that women don't want to earn money. I do know at least one stay at home father in my neighborhood, but they are pretty rare. What works for some doesn't work for all.

I was so proud of my working mom. She would take us out on payday and let us pick out a little something. It allowed me to be very indenepent at an early age. I loved everything about having a working mom. I don't understand those who want to stay home with the kids, but to each their own. I did work part time about half of the time, but that was for a few different reasons, including the fact that my chosen career was an extremely stressful one and working part time made it much more enjoyable. It was also my reward for agreeing to relocate when my husband wanted to change jobs. There were times when I regretted that decision, but you can't look back and change things.. You can only learn from your mistakes.

 

[Elixir]

Google the term "going postal".

A UAL gate agent at DIA threatened to have me arrested when I told him someone was going to go postal on them if they kept reneging on their obligations.
That was about 1998, before everything changed. If you told them that today they’d probably just shoot you. Assuming they were not too young to know what it means.

Saying that somebody is going to go postal on them is an implied threat that you might go postal on them.

He certainly took it that way, but it was a stretch on his part. He just wanted to scare me with the awesome power of his vast authority. I was turning my back on him when he issued the threat. I just shook my head and kept walking away. If he felt threatened he surely would have had me detained - he was just reminding me of that.

 

[ZiprHead]

Google the term "going postal".

A UAL gate agent at DIA threatened to have me arrested when I told him someone was going to go postal on them if they kept reneging on their obligations.
That was about 1998, before everything changed. If you told them that today they’d probably just shoot you. Assuming they were not too young to know what it means.

Saying that somebody is going to go postal on them is an implied threat that you might go postal on them.

He certainly took it that way, but it was a stretch on his part. He just wanted to scare me with the awesome power of his vast authority. I was turning my back on him when he issued the threat. I just shook my head and kept walking away. If he felt threatened he surely would have had me detained - he was just reminding me of that.

I worked at an international airport for a few years. Got to know some of the security people. You got very lucky.