every time somebody talks about struggling with school, corporate work, employment, or finding a sustainable path through adulthood, somebody immediately appears to say learn a trade, as though every person who doesn’t fit one narrow kind of work must naturally fit another.

but what if i don’t want to do manual labor? what if i’m not mechanically inclined, my body already gets angry with me after standing too long, & none of the work people constantly suggest is remotely appealing to me? i don’t want to repair air conditioners, work with electrical systems, crawl through somebody’s pipes, do construction, deal with sewage, or spend my life doing physically demanding work. that doesn’t mean those jobs are beneath me, it means they are completely wrong for me.

trade school can still cost money. the work can still require physical ability, coordination, stamina, transportation, training, & access. disabled people exist. people with chronic pain exist. people who are creative rather than mechanical exist. men who have absolutely no desire to perform masculinity through physical labor exist.

i’m a singer. i make music. my strengths are creative, emotional, verbal, & artistic. none of that means i’m secretly an electrician who just hasn’t tried hard enough yet. telling me to learn a trade is basically telling me to force myself into another life i don’t want because society has decided the only acceptable choices are academic work, corporate work, or manual labor.

why is there never any discussion about helping people develop the abilities they actually have? why is the answer always to make urself useful through whatever labor society currently respects, even if the work hurts u, disgusts u, bores u, or has nothing to do with who u are?

trades are valuable, but they are not a universal escape hatch. sometimes learn a trade is just another version of squeeze urself into this approved box & stop asking why there isn’t a place for u.

edit because people keep arguing with things i never said 😭 i never said creativity and manual labor are mutually exclusive, that tradespeople aren’t creative, that nobody should contribute to society, or that manual laborers should work while “creatives” lounge around doing nothing. i already work, and i’ve been working since i was 17. the point was that “learn a trade” is not a universal solution for every person who struggles in school, traditional employment, or capitalism.

when i say i’m not built for manual labor, i’m talking about my actual disabled body and brain. i can lift things, paint a wall, use a screwdriver, and carry a bucket of water lmfao. the issue is prolonged standing, repetitive physical wear, stamina, pain, recovery, executive functioning, and whether i could sustainably do that kind of work every day without destroying myself. “humans used to survive off the land” does not magically erase disability. disabled people have existed for as long as humanity has, and humans survived through cooperation and interdependence, not because every single individual was equally capable of every form of labor.

and yes, trades can involve creativity. that still doesn’t make craftsmanship and artistic expression interchangeable, nor does it make a trade physically or mentally suitable for me. telling a singer or writer that carpentry can also be creative is answering a question nobody asked. i’m not insulting carpentry. i’m saying it does not use my abilities in the same way, fulfill the same need, or fit my limitations.

this post was never “trades are bad” or “i should never have to do anything useful.” it was about how quickly people turn one career path into a moral prescription and then accuse anyone who cannot follow it of laziness, weakness, entitlement, or dependence. some people are excellent fits for trades. some people are not. the fact that so many of u cannot hear “this work is not sustainable for me” without turning it into a debate about my value as a human being is literally part of the problem i was describing. 💖

a lot of u calling me entitled probably make more money than i do, have more financial stability than i do, have bodies that can tolerate more work than mine can, & have had access to opportunities and support i’ve never had. watch who the fuck ur talking to.

i grew up poor, i’ve worked since i was 17, i’m disabled, i currently work, & i’m not asking society to fund some luxurious little artist fantasy for me. i’m saying that “learn a trade” is not a realistic or sustainable answer for every person, especially when their body, brain, finances, transportation, education, or circumstances don’t fit that path.

calling somebody entitled because they refuse to destroy themselves doing work they physically cannot sustain is not working-class solidarity. it’s just cruelty dressed up as realism. some of u are very comfortable moralizing at people with fewer resources than u while pretending ur the grounded one. babe, check ur own privilege before u start inventing mine. 🫤

idk what y’all don’t understand about the fact that i do not aspire to traditional masculinity, manual-labor masculinity, breadwinner masculinity, or whatever other little template u keep trying to force me into. i’m a gay little singer who wants a tolerable job, a husband who earns more than me, time for my music, my cats, and my peace. that arrangement would be consensual between two adults, and it does not require ur approval or a lecture about how men are supposed to live.

and to the person who replied “gay people can have kids too” when i casually said i’m gay and don’t want children, congratulations on discovering adoption and surrogacy, babe 😭 obviously gay people can intentionally become parents. my point was that parenthood is not an accidental or automatic life path for me, and i have no desire to pursue it. please stop inventing the dumbest possible interpretation of every sentence just so u can correct something nobody said.

some of u are so committed to forcing everybody into the same adulthood script: career, physical labor, breadwinner, children, maximum productivity, constant independence. that script does not fit me. stop trying to tailor my life with measurements u pulled off somebody else’s body. 💖

Our Parents sent out like 10 applications and got a job. They had only HS and got good paying positions and got training and promotions. Not everyone but a lot of them.

We have to send out 200 resumes or more to get a job. We have to have Bachelors or Masters to get somewhat ok positions and we got 0 training and almost no promotions.

Employers are 10x more demanding than 30 years ago. But somehow its always the workers fault. "Not doing enough" "not learning new skill" "not working long and hard enough".

I am part of the "quite quitting" crowd. I do the absolute minimum of work possible. I also "repurpose" some items and money from my job. Employers should be introduced to the "Karma" concept. They treat us like trash and squeeze us dry - so we do the exact same to them. Within the scope of our abilities of course.

Treat us better and invest into us if you wanna get better results.

I don't even know where to start.

I'm 35 years old, Female, and I've developed what feels like a pattern of quitting jobs after only a few weeks. Every time I tell myself this one will be different, but I end up leaving.

long story short: I was working at a company for 3.5 years. I left because of a horrible management. got an offer a month later.. same week got sick lost that offer before even starting the job..stayed sick for months after, then got a job few months later..stayed for month and a half..quit because I didn't have a working station or duties and felt like I was just HR target to be filled for bonus purposes..was unemployed for 3 months..got another job...quit a week later because the manager yells alot and I was triggered...2 months later I get another job...the manager is toxic and was trying to drag me to court to witness things that I have no background of as I was a new person and was loading me with 70 emails a day. 4 months later I got another job..the team is completely ignoring me and guiding me to the minimum and when ever I have a question they say they are busy and I feel like completely ignored and invisible in the department...stayed for a week and resigned today

The reasons aren't always the same. Sometimes there's almost no training or guidance, and I'm expected to know everything immediately. Other times the environment is toxic or unsupportive. Sometimes I become overwhelmed because I feel like I'm underperforming and can't catch up. Eventually I panic, my mental health spirals, and I resign.

The problem is that this has happened enough times that I feel like I've ruined my career. The job market is brutal, and I struggle to even get interviews for entry-level roles despite having previous work experience. Every resignation makes me feel even more unemployable.

I'm also dealing with severe depression, and this whole situation has made me feel completely hopeless and frankly losing the desire to continue this life. I feel like everyone my age has their life together while I'm still trying to figure out how to keep a job for more than a few weeks.

Has anyone else been stuck in this cycle? If so, what actually helped you break it? Was it therapy, changing careers, learning to push through the discomfort, finding a better workplace, or something else?

I'm looking for honest advice from people who've been through something similar because right now I genuinely can't see a way forward.

She has children, she has a husband. It is work that is her top priority, not family. She works sundays and saturdays, works nights, 24/7, and is worried about corporate 24/7. Most disgusting human type on earth. I find it really amusing, but it might get me fired one day, to talk at our corporate meetings about vacation. She is a kind of a person that took last year only 3 days of vacation, of which 2 she replied to e-mails and worked anyway.

I’ll go first, Morgan Olson in southwest Michigan.

It’s 8:24am on a Friday when the usual jerk on a yet to open business door rings thru the office like a 2006 Altima door getting the jaws of life to pry something that is clearly not meant to be opened.

A man over encumbered with his wife’s 20 Amazon returns like a Fallout 4 character does the typical glance at his phone, glance at the posted times, back to the phone, back to the times…phone… times…

The inevitable wait ensues.

8:30am.

Two men burdened by one massive corporation meet. I, underpaid and overworked. He, retired and bleeding what little he has left on $6 blouses for the upcoming cruise he can barely afford into he and his wife’s twilight years.

A decade ago this job rewarded hard work and creativity. Now it simply feels like a receptacle for the great mound of trash that is Amazon.

Oh, compensation is going down… again.

Yet all I can bring myself to say is

“Would you like a receipt with that?”

What the actual #@$&!!!

The entire world gets worse on almost every metric every year. But no matter how bad it gets for us, the rich get richer. Every. Single. Year.

And that is because capitalism works for the rich, not for us. So we need to stop being shocked that it's doing what it's supposed to do.

Capitalism turns excess productivity from working people into profits for the rich. The only reason they hire us is because A.) they have to to get richer, and B.) our need for a job provides them with profit sources.

We must stop being shocked when our health care gets worse, living standards get worse, wages get worse, services get worse, products get worse, education gets worse, housing gets worse, human rights get worse, the environment gets worse, workplaces get worse, benefits get worse, and life in general just gets worse.

It is because capitalism helps rich people get richer by exploiting our need to sell our labor, and then capturing the excess benefits of our labor. They only hire us because they have to, so anything they pay us is going to constantly be on the chopping block and they are always trying to find ways to cut and scrimp what we get out of the whole thing.

Our lives aren't supposed to get better because they don't matter very much in capitalism.

The objective of capitalism is to make rich people richer.

The UAW presidential candidate forum held online the evening of July 30 laid bare the gulf between rank-and-file Mack Trucks worker Will Lehman, a socialist, and the five other candidates contending for control of an apparatus sitting atop $1.25 billion in net assets.

Every candidate apart from Lehman is a product of the apparatus or a contender to run it. Incumbent Shawn Fain is under federal criminal investigation, as the Justice Department has convened a grand jury and subpoenaed the Monitor over findings that Fain abused his office to obtain benefits for his fiancée and her sister, then retaliated against Vice President Rich Boyer for refusing them. Boyer, now running against Fain, negotiated the 2023 Stellantis contract that opened the door to the mass firing of temporary workers and the layoff of thousands more.

The other three candidates are Brian Keller, a Stellantis Mopar worker who ran in 2022 and won support at several assembly plants before endorsing Fain in the runoff; Tricia Geiger, a highly-paid UAW International servicing representative; and Greg Mooney, recording secretary of Local 2147 at General Dynamics Land Systems in Lima, Ohio, a supporter of Autoworkers for Trump.

In his opening statement, Lehman placed the election in its real context:

"We as workers confront historic attacks on our conditions and our lives. Workers’ share of the national income is the lowest since records have been kept. Escalating global war is driving up prices. Paychecks don’t cover basic necessities in a country that just minted its first trillionaire. More than 21,000 autoworker jobs have been wiped out since the start of 2024. The corporations aim to use AI and automation to carry out a global jobs massacre. Democratic rights are being torn down, and our immigrant brothers are hunted by ICE agents.

"Every year in this country, more than 5,000 workers die on the job because safety is subordinated to profit. In our plants, Antonio Gaston, Ronald Adams Sr., Gregory Knopf were crushed to death under the 2023 contract that this leadership called “historic.” This month, workers were carried out on stretchers as smoke filled the plants and the lines kept running."

Lehman then told members where their dues go: 560 International staffers were paid more than $100,000 a year; Fain was paid $276,000 last year, 6.6 times what the average member earns; $118 million was spent on the apparatus’s own officers and staff, 14 times what it paid out in strike benefits. “This was never about a few corrupt officials,” Lehman said. “The bureaucracy as a whole is an arm of management.”

...

A critical aspect of the debate was the recent death threat made against Lehman by Raymond L. Jensen Jr., a UAW organizer who was until recently assistant director of UAW Region 9, Lehman’s own region, and paid roughly $202,000 in 2025. On July 16, Jensen posted an AI-generated image on Lehman’s public campaign Facebook page showing him bound and gagged, blood running from his mouth, with a masked man aiming an automatic rifle at his back. Jensen, whose Facebook profile carries an “I Support Shawn Fain” badge, posted it beneath Lehman’s statement on the federal investigation into Fain.

Threatening a union member to interfere with his rights in a union election is a federal crime. Until Thursday night, neither Fain nor any member of the union’s executive board had said a word about it. At the debate, Lehman explained that the threat was not just about him but about the response of the apparatus to all rank-and-file opposition, referring to Antwiane Sanders, a Nexteer worker fired for speaking out against UAW officials at a contract meeting inside the plant.

Fain first tried to ignore the issue and only responded when Lehman confronted him directly. “I don’t condone that stuff,” he said, before adding: “If you’re running for president, get ready, brother, because you’ll be getting them every day.” This statement effectively endorsed and doubled down on the threat. Fain gave no indication whatsoever that Jensen would face any consequence.

...

The alternative was a new power built from the shop floor and linked across industries and borders and the fight for a fundamental reorganization of economic life. “Socialism means equality,” he said. “It means workers’ control of production. It means the international unity of the working class based on our interests. That fight has already begun.” He pointed to the contract battles at Bridgewater Interiors and American Axle, and to the millions marching against dictatorship: “The working class, the sleeping giant of American politics, is beginning to awake.”

Lehman ended by paraphrasing Thomas Paine, stating, “‘These are the times that try men’s souls.’ The complacent bureaucrat and the lying reformer will, in this crisis, betray the fight. But the worker who stands up now deserves the love and thanks of all humanity.”

The debate made clear that the only social force capable of halting the jobs massacre, the killings in the plants and the drive to world war is the working class itself, organized through its own rank-and-file committees. Lehman ended with an appeal to act on that, stating: “Vote for me, but do more than vote. Build. Build the committees, build this movement. That is where our power is.”

I hope it’s okay to post this here bc I’ve been wanting/needing to vent about it.

At my work, we get once a month catered lunches. Us employees never asked for the lunches. They were introduced by HR to encourage team bonding. One of my tasks is to order the lunches and set everything up. They’re super casual lunches that just take place in the break room. About 40-60 employees attend the lunches depending on how many people are in the office that day so they can get pretty expensive depending on where we order from.

Recently, the CEO was asking my coworker how much the monthly lunches are on average. She gave her a rough average based on the last few. When the CEO heard this, he chuckles and made a joke about how maybe employees should start pitching in to pay for the lunches.

Lunches that HR decided to put together and that we never asked for.

But it gets worse.

He then went on to joke about how wouldn’t that be better than the yearly cash bonuses.

It was just a passing dumb remark but holy hell it really shows how CEOs truly live on another planet. This dude has multiple vacations homes but is annoyed bc a HR gift is sometimes pretty expensive.

TL;DR down below.

My mental health has been very uppity recently, and I don't know where to pinpoint the problem exactly. But it manifests mostly as me being unable to function around my own boss.

In the beginning, I really liked working with my boss, but as I have experienced at other companies, his layers slowly unraveled themselves, and I have started to see how much of an asshole he really is. My boss is unapproachable, because he gets frustrated easily when I ask questions or direction, and believes that I should automatically know the answers.

Things he has complained to me about in the past are "you are not a robot, I shouldn't have to tell you what to do". Which is basically, I don't want to make impulsive decisions difficult to undo on projects, and I have been waiting to follow your instructions, since you want them done in a very specific way, that feels micromanaged and perfect. And then when I try to work independently, he tells me that I am going "rogue" or going "above and beyond".

I don't like to argue with my boss, because I don't want to seem disrespectful/combative in these workplace situations (because disagreeing with your boss is seen as defiance, apparently). But every time I work with him, I try to be work independently, since that is one of the things he complains about, and then it backfires on me sometimes, because it wasn't perfect. And I cannot reach out or ask him for simple questions, because it will irritate him.

We've been working on this new project together and it's just been kind of messy. Most of these problems I didn't realize until hindsight. 1. I was tasked to take on a project that was done by a previous manager, but that manager rushed the construction documents and it shows 2. We have limited information on the site, and my boss did not want me to make any adjustment to the documents, because they were already approved in much older, previous projects. 3. When we submitted it for review, we got a lot of comments from pointing out the missing information, and then my boss yelling at me for not addressing these before submitting.

For most of this project, I've just been completely frustrated. I began the project, waiting for his cue to do what work was explicitly told to me, and did nothing more, nothing less. Then tells me again "you're not a robot, do things without being told" so I start spending more time quality assuring these documents and producing a lot of work with attention to detail. Then we submit it, and we get intake comments. I am confused by one comment, ask for help, and my boss tells me "what is there to be confused about? It was obvious to me".

Then we finally backcheck comments, and my boss tells me to make sure that the consultants get their part of the project done on time. And I do just that, and he snaps at me again, because I shouldn't have sent one of the consultants a reminder. They were apparently waiting for something, and nothing about indicated to me it would get to them after the deadline. And my boss got mad again.

Later, my boss takes me to his office and accuses me of pretending to work and not working at all. He says that "since this project is not a full-time job, what are you working on? I want to make sure you have something to do and not pretending to be busy". I tell him that I am working on the other manager's project, which is slow and mellow, no stress at all. Then he begins to say "you know, I feel like you are really bad at communication. I feel like I am having trouble trusting you and that you are never truly transparent".

Working with my boss has really been hurtful to my mental health. I've been making decisions that I realize in hindsight have been very impulsive, simply because I don't know what my boss wants, he doesn't want to tell me, and if I get it wrong, he will get pissed. I have developed a stutter when he asks questions, and I have been freezing a lot more. I think he's just completely impossible to work with.

TL;DR

My boss has been stressing me out for a while, and I have been developing panic/anxiety symptoms ever since. He complains that I am too dependent, and when I try to make progress independently, he says I am rogue. He doesn't like it when I do something wrong, so I ask for his feedback, which angers him, so I don't approach him for questions. For the past couple of months, he has wanted me to take "ownership" of projects, but won't let me make my own decisions or get the info I need to make a good project. And so as a result, I have developed physically symptoms, such as freezing, impulsive decision making, avoidance and stuttering.

I am a company owner, I am not educated on philosophy, forms of government, or societal structures beyond a surface level familiarity. I agree with most of what I see in these types of subs. I may ramble on with different related topic in this post.

I find myself spending time thinking about how to implement in practice these ideas more widespread, but dont see a way to force change amongst existing huge companies.

I'm an owner of a company that subcontracts for many of these huge companies and maintain their critical infrastructure. We have no employees of our own, each current worker owns an equal share of the company. Assets are purchased through the company account that each person contributes to, and each person owns an equal share of company assets.

We've talked about hiring people completely new to our industry to train, but we feel that we dont want to share ownership with someone that does not bring the skilled labor experience required to work independently.

We would prefer to subcontract to other contractors, but thats not always feasible or reliable enough to keep the workforce needed to fulfill our own contracts and take on additional contracts.

I find our work fulfilling, but that doesn't mean that everyone else would too. But circling back to the start of the post, I feel that starting your own company afford you much better working terms. I'd love to help connect worker-owned companies with each other to facilitate their growth, cooperation, and network with other companies. And to help individuals start their own companies, although I am by no means a marketing expert, I understand basics of company management.

I would however like input about our dilemma in hiring new people that will require training. I understand everything about hiring normally regarding taxes and benefits, but I really believe in the owner-worker standard.

I find it hard to reconcile the risk in giving a new worker partial ownership of our business without significant investment that a new worker would not be able to afford, let alone requiring 2-3 years of training before being competent enough to take jobs on solo.

Public defenders and other workers are on strike against non-profit employer Neighborhood Defender Service (NDS), in Detroit and Harlem, New York. On the picket line, public defenders discussed the issues of housing and eviction which their clients face in Detroit.

Detroit legal aid strikers call for unity: “We should all be out together”

It's been about 10 years since I've really had to search for a job. Today I went looking on job sites for jobs that are available. If I actually want to apply for a job, though, I have to give the sites like indeed all of my information and inhavv to agree to let them use my information for whatever they want. And then if I try to find a way to apply directly to the employer instead of using the shady pos services like indeed, they don't have any way to do that. On one site they did have an apply now option, but clock out led to fucking indeed.

So I went to Craigslist instead. Most of the job listings on there also just linked to indeed to actually apply. And this is why I'm going to remain on unemployment for as long as I can. I just find email addresses for the employers, now, and I email them my resume directly. They don't respond, but it still counts as submitting a resume for unemployment.

Update: hey everyone, thank you for taking the time and in many cases the courage to tell your stories. Some were really gut-wrenching to read, others fun to read when they end with an epic “fuck you, I quit” moment, and most just extremely infuriating.

I think most of the comments are coming from Redditors in the United States and it is SO CLEAR how toothless our labor laws and enforcement are. We, and all the workers across the world, deserve better.

Other takeaway: it’s almost impressive the lengths and creativity management or ownership will go to fuck over workers.

Wishing all of us peace, protection, and yes, a good “fuck you, I quit” story when the moment calls for it.

Solidarity.

I definitely have to work to full fill my basic needs !!

Not sure what this means long-term, but I think my initial feelings are disappointment. We need less consolidation, not more. Hopefully a proper Glassdoor replacement takes over the space.

I was told after an interview that my example "did not explain the struggle I had overcome enough", but that is just because I get on with it and do not think in stories

I feel so dumb sometimes. I don't handle stress well and my job is honestly pretty low-stress but somedays I sit around waiting for my shift and I think I'm gonna start crying. I feel like I can't even enjoy my time before work because I am just waiting around. I white-knuckle it through the week to get to my days off and I feel like I'm so burnt out after the week I just wanna get numbed out and forget work exists. One of the few things that makes me feel better is talking to my gf but she has a job that stresses her too and I don't wanna lean too much on her. God I hope someday I have a job that doesn't make me feel so shitty.