A depressing realization about American work culture

[Anonymous]

When DH and I were young we worked 1 jobs. When we were first married we lived off one salary in a townhouse in a crappy area. Now we do fine and don’t work > 40 hours. But you do have to hustle for a few years to get started.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realized that American hustle + grind culture is inescapable.

American (US) work culture that requires usually way beyond the 40 hour work week, often calling for nights and weekends and limited ACTUAL vacation time - as in you don't take calls, don't bring your work computer etc - for anyone who actually wants to have the trappings of the American middle class lifestyle: A house, a couple of cars, a couple of kids etc. No longer can a conventional 9 to 5 pay for that. 9 to 5 is more 8 to 6 anyways, even for the normal office grunt jobs. Nowadays, if you stay in a normal, non-managerial position, your wages/salary will stagnate, won't keep up with inflation, and you'll struggle to even afford the tiny apartment or shared housing with roommates and budget/Walmart groceries you had in your 20s. If you want to have a single family home and afford children, you have to work longer hours and sacrifice work life balance. That's the reality.

This lack of work life balance creates a very unhealthy society, where people are incentivized to cut corners on their health - not finding time to exercise, eating processed convenience foods, being exhausted while mostly sedentary. We are a very unhappy and unhealthy society.

But if we took the work/life balance approach of the repeatedly happiest, healthiest, best work-life balanced country - Denmark, our entire economy would collapse.

Denmark has a 37 hour work week that pretty much holds true. They have a mandatory year (sometimes two years) of family (maternity and paternity) leave, and five weeks paid vacation. But if we were to be more like Denmark, it would require us to have an overall more modest and quiet life with less consumption. Smaller homes, fewer cars, fewer gadgets, less consumerism overall. People would have to (gasp) ride the train or (horror) the bus! This wouldn't look like Soviet socialism, but would be a drastically less consumptive lifestyle than most of us are used to. And could you imagine what would happen to the economy if we all collectively consumed 20-40% less? An ungodly recession. Job losses every which-way, except the same oligarchs would still secure their profits just passing all their losses onto us.

The American economy as we know it is fueled by consumer debt, hyper consumption, and overwork culture. There's nothing we can do about it.

Mmmmmk when was the last time Denmark invented something remarkable/changed life/society/the way we think about health/convenience/technology? Annnnnnnd now you know why.

DP but all of that is hype and overrated.
How many of the last 10-20 years worth of advances really helped the common man?
A lot more have harmed than helped.

You’re kidding right? Are you yourself ‘common?’ Do you use any of these?? Microsoft, apple iPhones and iPads, uber, Netflix, Amazon, Ring camera, Waze, Google Maps — are you on any maintenance meds? They were probably R&D’ed by American Pharma. Do you get them in the mail? Rx by mail was OG’ed here.

Only thing of value on this list is meds. Everything else we could have done without, for the better, our society is worse for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realized that American hustle + grind culture is inescapable.

American (US) work culture that requires usually way beyond the 40 hour work week, often calling for nights and weekends and limited ACTUAL vacation time - as in you don't take calls, don't bring your work computer etc - for anyone who actually wants to have the trappings of the American middle class lifestyle: A house, a couple of cars, a couple of kids etc. No longer can a conventional 9 to 5 pay for that. 9 to 5 is more 8 to 6 anyways, even for the normal office grunt jobs. Nowadays, if you stay in a normal, non-managerial position, your wages/salary will stagnate, won't keep up with inflation, and you'll struggle to even afford the tiny apartment or shared housing with roommates and budget/Walmart groceries you had in your 20s. If you want to have a single family home and afford children, you have to work longer hours and sacrifice work life balance. That's the reality.

This lack of work life balance creates a very unhealthy society, where people are incentivized to cut corners on their health - not finding time to exercise, eating processed convenience foods, being exhausted while mostly sedentary. We are a very unhappy and unhealthy society.

But if we took the work/life balance approach of the repeatedly happiest, healthiest, best work-life balanced country - Denmark, our entire economy would collapse.

Denmark has a 37 hour work week that pretty much holds true. They have a mandatory year (sometimes two years) of family (maternity and paternity) leave, and five weeks paid vacation. But if we were to be more like Denmark, it would require us to have an overall more modest and quiet life with less consumption. Smaller homes, fewer cars, fewer gadgets, less consumerism overall. People would have to (gasp) ride the train or (horror) the bus! This wouldn't look like Soviet socialism, but would be a drastically less consumptive lifestyle than most of us are used to. And could you imagine what would happen to the economy if we all collectively consumed 20-40% less? An ungodly recession. Job losses every which-way, except the same oligarchs would still secure their profits just passing all their losses onto us.

The American economy as we know it is fueled by consumer debt, hyper consumption, and overwork culture. There's nothing we can do about it.

Mmmmmk when was the last time Denmark invented something remarkable/changed life/society/the way we think about health/convenience/technology? Annnnnnnd now you know why.

DP but all of that is hype and overrated.
How many of the last 10-20 years worth of advances really helped the common man?
A lot more have harmed than helped.

You’re kidding right? Are you yourself ‘common?’ Do you use any of these?? Microsoft, apple iPhones and iPads, uber, Netflix, Amazon, Ring camera, Waze, Google Maps — are you on any maintenance meds? They were probably R&D’ed by American Pharma. Do you get them in the mail? Rx by mail was OG’ed here.

If people spent less time sitting on their butts scrolling and ordering Uber eats, they would not need the meds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At this point only major collective action will allow Americans to have a better quality of life and work life balance. Consumerism is a cultural choice.

Collective action is nearly impossible, as Mancur Olson famously enumerated.

[Anonymous]

Denmark is about the size of Maryland area-wise. It's difficult to build extensive public transportation networks/etc in a country the size of the US.

As for prosperity, the poorest US state (by GDP per capita), Mississippi, is about to surpass the richest large country in the EU (Germany). Think about that -- the poorest US state is going to be richer than the richest EU country.

https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/01/03/the-poorest-us-state-rivals-germany-gdp-per-capita-in-the-us-and-europe

[Anonymous]

This thread had so much potential from the original post, most of the rest is garbage :/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At this point only major collective action will allow Americans to have a better quality of life and work life balance. Consumerism is a cultural choice.

Why can't you just make different chouces for yourself?

There is no need for collective anything.

It is getting very hard to “opt out” of hustle culture, even if you are willing to accept living smaller. Even basic housing and healthcare are out of reach.

We have a labor supply issue. Now that we turned our friends back home to the south even less workers are building houses. Until the day both dems and magas start working in construction nothing will help this situation.

You are aware that there are plenty of union workers who are happy with their job fitting pipes, welding, drywalling, etc... ?
Paying a decent wage kind of helps with the willingness to do those categories of work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Denmark is about the size of Maryland area-wise. It's difficult to build extensive public transportation networks/etc in a country the size of the US.

As for prosperity, the poorest US state (by GDP per capita), Mississippi, is about to surpass the richest large country in the EU (Germany). Think about that -- the poorest US state is going to be richer than the richest EU country.

https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/01/03/the-poorest-us-state-rivals-germany-gdp-per-capita-in-the-us-and-europe

The UK has a fantastic train system. Japan does very well with the shinkansen.
Are you aware of the Belt and Road Initiative in Asia? And eurail is pretty comprehensive and amazing.
The US simply does not invest in transit. Everything is designed for the car industry, not people. There are almost no sidewalks constructed these days in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Denmark is about the size of Maryland area-wise. It's difficult to build extensive public transportation networks/etc in a country the size of the US.

As for prosperity, the poorest US state (by GDP per capita), Mississippi, is about to surpass the richest large country in the EU (Germany). Think about that -- the poorest US state is going to be richer than the richest EU country.

https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/01/03/the-poorest-us-state-rivals-germany-gdp-per-capita-in-the-us-and-europe

The UK has a fantastic train system. Japan does very well with the shinkansen.
Are you aware of the Belt and Road Initiative in Asia? And eurail is pretty comprehensive and amazing.
The US simply does not invest in transit. Everything is designed for the car industry, not people. There are almost no sidewalks constructed these days in the US.

The UK is tiny. Japan is about the size of California with 3x the population. Public transit is much more difficult in rural areas.

No one talks about how great the commuting trains are in Siberia either. Instead there is pretty much one crappy option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you watch Denmark movies or TV shows? They are openly racist, consistently. They don’t think of it as a problem either.

Do you mean Danish movies and TV shows?

DP but I don’t think Lars Van Trier is an example of progressivism, for example. I quit watching his films after he killed the donkey for shock value while filming. Disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I realized that American hustle + grind culture is inescapable.

American (US) work culture that requires usually way beyond the 40 hour work week, often calling for nights and weekends and limited ACTUAL vacation time - as in you don't take calls, don't bring your work computer etc - for anyone who actually wants to have the trappings of the American middle class lifestyle: A house, a couple of cars, a couple of kids etc. No longer can a conventional 9 to 5 pay for that. 9 to 5 is more 8 to 6 anyways, even for the normal office grunt jobs. Nowadays, if you stay in a normal, non-managerial position, your wages/salary will stagnate, won't keep up with inflation, and you'll struggle to even afford the tiny apartment or shared housing with roommates and budget/Walmart groceries you had in your 20s. If you want to have a single family home and afford children, you have to work longer hours and sacrifice work life balance. That's the reality.

This lack of work life balance creates a very unhealthy society, where people are incentivized to cut corners on their health - not finding time to exercise, eating processed convenience foods, being exhausted while mostly sedentary. We are a very unhappy and unhealthy society.

But if we took the work/life balance approach of the repeatedly happiest, healthiest, best work-life balanced country - Denmark, our entire economy would collapse.

Denmark has a 37 hour work week that pretty much holds true. They have a mandatory year (sometimes two years) of family (maternity and paternity) leave, and five weeks paid vacation. But if we were to be more like Denmark, it would require us to have an overall more modest and quiet life with less consumption. Smaller homes, fewer cars, fewer gadgets, less consumerism overall. People would have to (gasp) ride the train or (horror) the bus! This wouldn't look like Soviet socialism, but would be a drastically less consumptive lifestyle than most of us are used to. And could you imagine what would happen to the economy if we all collectively consumed 20-40% less? An ungodly recession. Job losses every which-way, except the same oligarchs would still secure their profits just passing all their losses onto us.

The American economy as we know it is fueled by consumer debt, hyper consumption, and overwork culture. There's nothing we can do about it.

Mmmmmk when was the last time Denmark invented something remarkable/changed life/society/the way we think about health/convenience/technology? Annnnnnnd now you know why.

DP but all of that is hype and overrated.
How many of the last 10-20 years worth of advances really helped the common man?
A lot more have harmed than helped.

You’re kidding right? Are you yourself ‘common?’ Do you use any of these?? Microsoft, apple iPhones and iPads, uber, Netflix, Amazon, Ring camera, Waze, Google Maps — are you on any maintenance meds? They were probably R&D’ed by American Pharma. Do you get them in the mail? Rx by mail was OG’ed here.

Only thing of value on this list is meds. Everything else we could have done without, for the better, our society is worse for them.

Please. If you really believed that you’d be living off grid in the mountains. But here you are.

[Anonymous]

You're either all-in on what you're trying to achieve in life or your not.

You'e never going to get anywhere capping your commitment to achieve at 37 hours per week.

Note that zero innovation comes from Europe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're either all-in on what you're trying to achieve in life or your not.

You'e never going to get anywhere capping your commitment to achieve at 37 hours per week.

Note that zero innovation comes from Europe.

You shouldn’t be lecturing people on work when you’re too lazy to even read the entire thread, which factually contradicts your statements about Europe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're either all-in on what you're trying to achieve in life or your not.

You'e never going to get anywhere capping your commitment to achieve at 37 hours per week.

Note that zero innovation comes from Europe.

You shouldn’t be lecturing people on work when you’re too lazy to even read the entire thread, which factually contradicts your statements about Europe.

Lol ok. Work 37 hours a week and see what that gets you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're either all-in on what you're trying to achieve in life or your not.

You'e never going to get anywhere capping your commitment to achieve at 37 hours per week.

Note that zero innovation comes from Europe.

You shouldn’t be lecturing people on work when you’re too lazy to even read the entire thread, which factually contradicts your statements about Europe.

Lol ok. Work 37 hours a week and see what that gets you.

I work less than that, remotely, and I make six figures.

So it’s gotten me what I want.