Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wasn't All, and I'm Tracy Halloway. Tracy, we've
Speaker 1: obviously done a number of episodes about the so called
Speaker 1: labor shortage, but as you know, we kind of expressed
Speaker 1: and it's sort of the case that we almost always
Speaker 1: hear about this story from the perspective of a frustrated
Speaker 1: employer having trouble or you know, finding solutions to hiring people.
Speaker 1: But usually like we don't get the other side, which
Speaker 1: is the perspective of frustrated workers and why workers may
Speaker 1: not be wanting to take jobs that they might have
Speaker 1: taken pre pandemic. That's right, So we hear a lot
Speaker 1: from companies or businesses that are saying, you know, all
Speaker 1: our workers are resigning and we can't figure out why,
Speaker 1: and we're giving them higher wages, and we're offering to
Speaker 1: pay or college tuition, and we're providing flexible working arrangements,
Speaker 1: and still no one wants to come work for us.
Speaker 1: And I think in one of our recent episodes you
Speaker 1: were talking about starting a beige book for the labor market,
Speaker 1: which might be able to get at some of this
Speaker 1: because in some respects. It almost doesn't feel like an
Speaker 1: economic shift. It kind of feels like a cultural one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. Like everyone sort of poked around for
Speaker 1: different theories, and I think they all hold like some validity.
Speaker 1: You know, there's probably an element of still very significantly
Speaker 1: the pandemic itself, whether that's affecting childcare arrangement or the
Speaker 1: desire to go to a work site. I think it's
Speaker 1: real early retirements maybe due to the wealth effect, could
Speaker 1: be a thing, some changing of perspectives. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people are burnt out over the last two years,
Speaker 1: or realizing that they were burnt out previously, and that
Speaker 1: could be shifting things. So, you know, lots of theories,
Speaker 1: some supported by data, some supported by anecdotes, but you know,
Speaker 1: there's not like one, from what I can tell, like
Speaker 1: one answer to why this is. And I don't think
Speaker 1: we're ever going to get one answer. No, I think
Speaker 1: that's right. But you mentioned anecdotes, and there's one place
Speaker 1: that has become sort of the go to place to
Speaker 1: get those anecdotes about the great resignation and about people quitting,
Speaker 1: and it is of course the sub bredit, the anti
Speaker 1: work subredit. And if anyone's ever seen those screenshots of
Speaker 1: people quitting in a really satisfying way. I have to say,
Speaker 1: you know, responding to bosses who are just being completely jerks.
Speaker 1: That's where a lot of those get posted. Tracy, you
Speaker 1: can I tell you something. Yeah, I want to quitted
Speaker 1: job in a really satisfying way. Did No? I didn't.
Speaker 1: What did you do? I was working at a deli
Speaker 1: making sandwiches and I don't know, my boss annoyed me
Speaker 1: and I totally overreacted and I just like, that's it.
Speaker 1: I quit and I threw down my apron and I
Speaker 1: walked out and it felt really good. And then ten
Speaker 1: seconds later I was like, oh, I got I just
Speaker 1: quit my job. I don't have any money, but it
Speaker 1: did feel really good. Anyway, I'll tell you the longer
Speaker 1: story sometime, but anyway, yes, let's get to the point
Speaker 1: at hand. As you mentioned, the subredit are anti work
Speaker 1: has been exploding. I think it was a pretty small
Speaker 1: one at the beginning of the year. Now over a
Speaker 1: million members, I believe, absolutely surging, sort of capturing this
Speaker 1: zeitgeist that gets beyond economics of frustration with the labor
Speaker 1: market from the from the perspective of employers or employees
Speaker 1: or would be employees. So I'm very excited we're going
Speaker 1: to be speaking to Dorene Ford when either original moderators
Speaker 1: at our anti work Dorene also goes by the pseudonym
Speaker 1: Dorene Claire online and she was the founder of abolished
Speaker 1: work dot com. And so I'm very excited about this.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be learning about what the anti work movement
Speaker 1: is all about and what brings people to the anti
Speaker 1: work subredit. Drene, thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, absolutely, man,
Speaker 1: I I really would have loved to see you throw
Speaker 1: your apron down on the floor. That that's like out
Speaker 1: of a like a Hallmark film or something like that.
Speaker 1: It was really it was really satisfying. It was like
Speaker 1: I was overreacting a little bit, but I was annoyed.
Speaker 1: And my boss said something about how you messed something up,
Speaker 1: and I felt like I was you know, I was
Speaker 1: a pretty good employer, and it was like I've had
Speaker 1: enough of this. Yeah I've had enough of this. Yeah, shocker,
Speaker 1: I've I've had I've had really frustrating bosses. Never quit though.
Speaker 1: Surprisingly I'm pretty I'm pretty stubborn, so yeah, no, then,
Speaker 1: you know, I had to quit anyway, I think I
Speaker 1: had known that it was. It was a bunch of
Speaker 1: stuff getting going on anyway, during Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: You're subreddit and you're one of the earlier you were
Speaker 1: one of the founders of it, but an early moderator.
Speaker 1: Why do you just sort of like give us the
Speaker 1: basic gist. How small was it at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the year, how active is it now? And sort of
Speaker 1: like what is what is it stand for? What does
Speaker 1: the anti work movement mean? Yeah? So, I mean you
Speaker 1: say we were small last year, but honestly, I don't know.
Speaker 1: A hundred eighty thousand isn't too small, I guess not.
Speaker 1: We are around a hundred eighty thousand in October or
Speaker 1: November of last year, but that is incredibly small compared
Speaker 1: to where we are, which is about one point three million.
Speaker 1: We call them idlers, but you know, you could say subscribers, followers, users,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to do. Yeah, I mean it's exploded.
Speaker 1: We were just featured on the reddit recap of one red.
Speaker 1: The reddit st stats are apparently that we blew up
Speaker 1: please pause for effect, two hundred and seventy from where
Speaker 1: we were last year. I don't think I've ever seen
Speaker 1: that statistic in my life. And I'm a big nerd
Speaker 1: and I've read a lot of political statistics and economic statistics,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm not like super big into numbers,
Speaker 1: but I don't think I've ever literally ever heard anything
Speaker 1: blow up to two D plus what it was the
Speaker 1: year before. Um, so yeah, I mean we're big now.
Speaker 1: We had nine D ninety thousand users who were active yesterday,
Speaker 1: probably because of the Kellogg strikes now that I think
Speaker 1: about it, But yeah, what we stand for so anti
Speaker 1: work and my abolish work dot com are are overlapping
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. My Abolish Work is my
Speaker 1: personal website, so you know, a lot of that stuff
Speaker 1: there is gonna represent my personal opinion, not necessarily the
Speaker 1: opinion of the entire movement, while the anti work subreddit
Speaker 1: is more about the movement at large. We're a pretty
Speaker 1: big tent movement. We have leftists of various kinds, anarchists, communist,
Speaker 1: social democrats, et cetera. You know, people who are curious,
Speaker 1: people who are just liberals. Pretty much, anyone's welcome as
Speaker 1: long as you don't use the rules, abuse the rules.
Speaker 1: And you know, obviously we're not super friendly towards conservatives
Speaker 1: or you know, anybody further than that, of course. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what we stand for is is ideally a reduction of
Speaker 1: work as much as possible. And what we mean by
Speaker 1: work is not effort right. We're not against people going
Speaker 1: in the backyard breaking up some leaves, putting in bags, whatever.
Speaker 1: What we're against is this coursive element of work that
Speaker 1: makes people have to work long chips for jobs they
Speaker 1: don't like, for that are not paying them enough, and
Speaker 1: as we've already learned, under jobs that under bosses that
Speaker 1: don't respect them or annoy them, or whatever may be
Speaker 1: the case. So that's that's a lot of of the
Speaker 1: philosophy is reducing the amount of jobs that just have
Speaker 1: no use for society, the amount of jobs that don't
Speaker 1: give respect to their employees. It's not necessarily anti job,
Speaker 1: because I don't think even in the anti work society,
Speaker 1: I think people will still have jobs. I just think
Speaker 1: that they will have jobs that don't have that course
Speaker 1: of element. You won't necessarily be worried about oh I
Speaker 1: can't look, I can't not work, or I can't you know,
Speaker 1: because I'm disabled, or because I have to take care
Speaker 1: of my family, or I have to do this or
Speaker 1: that because you know, I might lose the house, or
Speaker 1: I might not be able to pay rent, or I
Speaker 1: might not be able to pay bills. So this is
Speaker 1: this economic course of element that we're trying to eliminate.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of people just think like we're lazy,
Speaker 1: slackers or something like that, And like, I think laziness
Speaker 1: and slacking off is actually a good thing, especially in
Speaker 1: an economy where you're asked to work so often and
Speaker 1: so consistently, especially in jobs that burn you out, even
Speaker 1: when you do something you love. I work with dogs,
Speaker 1: and it's so easy to get burnt out on something
Speaker 1: that you love when you do it too often. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a bit of what we're about. I don't
Speaker 1: want to go out for too long. So the subpred
Speaker 1: it itself has been around for a while, I think
Speaker 1: since early but clearly, as you were laying out, the
Speaker 1: membership has a number of idlers has absolutely surged. What
Speaker 1: is it about the past year and a half or
Speaker 1: so that that you think has made the message of
Speaker 1: anti work really resonate with a lot more people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think part of it is obviously COVID.
Speaker 1: It's realizing that your boss was lying to you, that
Speaker 1: you didn't need to come up for the show, up
Speaker 1: for that meeting, that the commute wasn't that that one
Speaker 1: hour commute there and back wasn't necessary for the job,
Speaker 1: and that you've been wasting hours of your life listening
Speaker 1: to podcasts that you're not even sure you wanted to
Speaker 1: listen to. And I say that as a podcaster, by
Speaker 1: the way, I think will realize that, yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't have to do a lot of this stuff.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm pissed because my employers are taking advantage
Speaker 1: of me. And it's pretty clear now that they don't
Speaker 1: care about my health. They care about the wages that
Speaker 1: i'm that they have to pay me. They're worried about
Speaker 1: their profits, they're worried about their stockholders. They're not worried
Speaker 1: about me as an individual. They're worried about me as
Speaker 1: an individual unit of economy. Because of the pandemic, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people woke up to that. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm big into video games. There has been a big
Speaker 1: shift in the video game industry for remote work, and
Speaker 1: even some companies instigating or implementing excuse me, four day
Speaker 1: weeks and stuff like that, or at least talking about it.
Speaker 1: So I think this has been a seismic shift and
Speaker 1: how people look at work. The other reason, the second reason,
Speaker 1: I don't have a ton of things to say about this,
Speaker 1: but people are really going on about the great Resignation.
Speaker 1: I'm not an economist, and despite what I said earlier,
Speaker 1: I'm not a statistician. So I don't know how true
Speaker 1: it is that people are quitting in droves, but that
Speaker 1: seems to be the perception at least, and perception few
Speaker 1: was reality. So a lot of people, you know, are
Speaker 1: reevaluating their relationships to work. That doesn't mean everyone's quitting,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people, but at least some people
Speaker 1: are quitting, I guess, And so that's fueling other people's
Speaker 1: reactions to like, okay, like this is how I see
Speaker 1: myself related to work, and that's also fueling membership. We also,
Speaker 1: of course blew up because this is the third and
Speaker 1: final reason probably we had this. We were talking about
Speaker 1: screenshots earlier. There was a tech based screenshot with a
Speaker 1: person who told the brass off. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they threw an apron, but they told the boss off,
Speaker 1: and they basically blew up. They got to the front
Speaker 1: page of Reddit, which means we got to the front
Speaker 1: page of Reddit. And I mean we were already blowing up,
Speaker 1: you know, to be honest, at that point, we were
Speaker 1: getting a lot of really popular posts. There was thousands
Speaker 1: of people on at a time. But I mean that
Speaker 1: really took us into the stratosphere. And then of course
Speaker 1: the media attention started. I mean, we've been we've been covered.
Speaker 1: I guess this is the fourth reason, but it's really
Speaker 1: related to the third. We've been covered in Vice like
Speaker 1: three or four times at this point, the New York Times.
Speaker 1: We have been asked to be interviewed by German, Scandinavian
Speaker 1: and uh a Dutch news outlet. You know, we've been
Speaker 1: featured on Today, dot Com, Refinery twenty nine, Forbes. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we we've been all over at this point. Uh And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I think all that, all that stuff has contributed,
Speaker 1: and now even the Odd Lots podcast. I want to
Speaker 1: ask you, so everyone experienced some or not everyone, but
Speaker 1: a lot of people from a range of sort of
Speaker 1: socio economic positions experienced some major change to their lifestyle
Speaker 1: over the last two years. And some people it just meant,
Speaker 1: you know, their normal job day to day that they
Speaker 1: did in office and working from home. But there were
Speaker 1: obviously a number of people for the first time in
Speaker 1: those early months especially, we're freed from the connection between
Speaker 1: having to work and having to sustain themselves, which is
Speaker 1: pretty big. And these checks that went out that did
Speaker 1: a decent job for a lot of uh work, So
Speaker 1: we got laid off of almost fully replacing their income,
Speaker 1: and that lasted for several months at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the pandemic. These checks expanded unemployment insurance. How formative in
Speaker 1: your view were those months in this sort of like
Speaker 1: the experience of can separating income and being able to
Speaker 1: self sustain from having to go into work In terms
Speaker 1: of just getting people to sort of like reevaluate their
Speaker 1: existence and their relationship to employment, I think it was
Speaker 1: really impactful. I mean, again, I can't track aftery one's
Speaker 1: individual motives for joining the subreddit or for giving my
Speaker 1: site traffic. There's been It's quite a sort of a
Speaker 1: down a downflow trickle down theory, if you will, of
Speaker 1: the subreddit getting a ton of attention and therefore my
Speaker 1: website getting like a modicum of that. I think I
Speaker 1: get a couple of hundred views if I'm lucky per day,
Speaker 1: which is great because honestly, I don't really write for
Speaker 1: it anymore. Moderating has become kind of like what I
Speaker 1: used to do in terms of writing, and I'm happy
Speaker 1: for that, honestly, because is all I wanted to do
Speaker 1: with the site is have the movement. I'd be like this, So,
Speaker 1: I mean, in my mind, I've succeeded. The website doesn't
Speaker 1: really need to even exist, but I just keep it
Speaker 1: up because you know, some people have told me that
Speaker 1: their writings have inspired them or or influenced them, uh
Speaker 1: and and change their mind about things, which is super
Speaker 1: flattering and deeply honored about that. But yeah, to get
Speaker 1: back to your question, Yeah, I mean I can't I
Speaker 1: can't know everyone's individual motives, but I'd have to say
Speaker 1: that that would absolutely be something that would that would
Speaker 1: fetch a lot of people for us, is that they're
Speaker 1: reevaluating their positions to their income, to their bosses, to
Speaker 1: their work. Um, I hope that answers that. So just
Speaker 1: on that note, I mean, one of the things, well,
Speaker 1: tell me if you disagree with this, but one of
Speaker 1: the things that stands out to me from a lot
Speaker 1: of the screenshots and the conversations with bosses um and
Speaker 1: those sorts of stories of quitting that end up on
Speaker 1: the subreddit. It's it mostly seems to be about people
Speaker 1: getting really really angry at the situation and at their
Speaker 1: bosses in particular. And I don't know, you don't see
Speaker 1: that many complaints about things like wages or long working hours.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's mostly it seems to be service people
Speaker 1: who are getting really mad because their boss has asked
Speaker 1: them to go on a shift that they hadn't agreed to,
Speaker 1: and it's just assuming that they can kind of control
Speaker 1: their employees live. So I don't know, I'm curious if
Speaker 1: that's your impression and how you sort of weigh those
Speaker 1: different factors when it comes to this trend of people quitting.
Speaker 1: There there's a lot of stuff in the background, right
Speaker 1: that we just don't see and we can never know,
Speaker 1: like a screenshot can only and I mean this literally figuratively.
Speaker 1: A screenshot can only capture so much about a given
Speaker 1: context that people are coming from, and so we don't
Speaker 1: know what led up to this moment. We don't know
Speaker 1: if if wages were a thing beforehand, or if their
Speaker 1: boss has always been a jerk to them as especially
Speaker 1: you know, women have to deal with sexual harassment in
Speaker 1: the workplace and stuff like that. We just don't know
Speaker 1: if people what their context is. We just know what
Speaker 1: conversation led to them finally quitting, and so it's a
Speaker 1: death by a thousand cuts kind of thing, right, It's there.
Speaker 1: There might have been a million different indignities before that,
Speaker 1: but that was the final straw. But on the other hand, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not wrong that a lot of those
Speaker 1: texts screenshots aren't talking about wages or they aren't talking
Speaker 1: about better working conditions. They're talking about, hey, I don't
Speaker 1: want to come in for the shift, or hey I've
Speaker 1: had enough with this job. You know, they say I've
Speaker 1: had enough, they haven't said like specifically what. But like
Speaker 1: in casual conversation, you're not gonna necessarily get into that
Speaker 1: because you're kind of You're the whole point is that
Speaker 1: you're kind of done and you don't want to waste
Speaker 1: your time on your boss. So it lends itself to
Speaker 1: a kind of casual conversation that unfortunately doesn't give us
Speaker 1: a lot of data on why people are quitting or
Speaker 1: telling their boss to shove it. But I do think
Speaker 1: that a lot of those things don't help, for sure,
Speaker 1: people getting underpaid or people getting overworked. Um, I know
Speaker 1: when I used to work and a dog, it's not
Speaker 1: really a kennel, but it was like a doggy daycare.
Speaker 1: I was overworked the heck it was, you know, and
Speaker 1: I didn't it wasn't feeling like I got paid well
Speaker 1: enough for ten bucks an hour and I was doing
Speaker 1: the job of probably two people. You know, there's just
Speaker 1: all these little indignities that I think don't get brought
Speaker 1: into the context because people, when people have had enough,
Speaker 1: they're not going to start eloquently going on on about
Speaker 1: their wages or or anything else like that, because I
Speaker 1: think they're done. But I still think it's a great
Speaker 1: I still think it's a great point, um that we
Speaker 1: largely don't see that. You're right, this is a really
Speaker 1: interesting thing. You described the feeling of the stress of
Speaker 1: having to work two jobs. And we actually we did
Speaker 1: an episode recently with Stinson Dean and he owned a
Speaker 1: fleet of one of his businesses involved in logistics, and
Speaker 1: one of he one of the things that he said
Speaker 1: that made hiring easier was purposely over hiring so that
Speaker 1: nobody feels like, oh, they can't take a day off,
Speaker 1: or they're like, you know, having to pull extra shift
Speaker 1: because that's at stress. But it seems like then there's
Speaker 1: this compounding effect where okay, we think of labor the
Speaker 1: frustration with the labor market is okay, employers, workers quit,
Speaker 1: and then bosses are frustrated, and that's probably true, but
Speaker 1: then that also must must place a lot of extra
Speaker 1: strain on the workers who are still there, and to
Speaker 1: the extent that bosses don't recognize that extra strain or
Speaker 1: don't appreciate the extra lift that those remaining employees are
Speaker 1: engaging in, and then that further makes the job undesirable,
Speaker 1: and that that further probably increases the impulse to quit.
Speaker 1: I think that there's a large scale pattern of employers
Speaker 1: under hiring and making sure that their workers feel overwhelmed
Speaker 1: and stressed. I know that sounds conspiratorial. I'm not the
Speaker 1: conspiracy type of person, but like I I've seen like
Speaker 1: lots of people talking about this, lots of of patterns
Speaker 1: of abuse of employers just under hiring so that their
Speaker 1: workers always feel stressed, never feel like they can take
Speaker 1: a day off, just have to work, work, work, and
Speaker 1: they do this just because like it's just easier than
Speaker 1: over hiring. It just makes more logistical sense to them.
Speaker 1: I guess to just under higher than over higher. That
Speaker 1: way they don't spread out, you know. That way, they
Speaker 1: don't have to pay more people. That way, they don't
Speaker 1: have to train more people. But there's some logical sense
Speaker 1: to this, it's just a very twisted logic in my eye. Um,
Speaker 1: And I think over hiring is a better practice. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I think you would have a less stressed out workplace.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, abolished work. The the anti work movement,
Speaker 1: I should say, is not just for this sort of
Speaker 1: long term goal of having an anti work society and
Speaker 1: and undermining capitalism and replacing with something else. You know,
Speaker 1: those are great goals. Those are our long term, I think,
Speaker 1: core goals. But I don't think we're against shorter term
Speaker 1: progress either necessarily. Um. I think it would be great
Speaker 1: if this practice of under hiring employees would be would
Speaker 1: be cut out. I think that would save a lot
Speaker 1: of people a lot of straps, especially around the holiday times.
Speaker 1: It would give a lot of people more piece of mind. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't think on the job that I talked about,
Speaker 1: I almost never took a day off unless I was
Speaker 1: incredibly sick, or unless I I just couldn't make it,
Speaker 1: or yeah, I mean that was it. I don't think
Speaker 1: I ever took a day off, and I ended up
Speaker 1: getting fired from that job because I basically like slacked
Speaker 1: off too much. Like, of course, I slacked off too much.
Speaker 1: I was incredibly overwhelmed, Like I had to clean room
Speaker 1: after room and after room, day after day after day,
Speaker 1: and I had almost no one to back me up.
Speaker 1: And I had been there at the longest anybody. I
Speaker 1: think I had even been longer there than the owner.
Speaker 1: And how is that possible, Well, because they had switched
Speaker 1: owners in the two years I was there. That's how
Speaker 1: bad the business was. They were still doing this practice
Speaker 1: of like under hiring, and people were burning out. I
Speaker 1: would see new faces almost every month, if not less.
Speaker 1: It was terrible. The problem in the pet industry really
Speaker 1: for me and my experiences that they care way more
Speaker 1: about the animals than they care about the people to
Speaker 1: such a degree that I mean, it's just it's just
Speaker 1: raises your eyebrow, I am. I want to go back
Speaker 1: to UM some specifics about the COVID situation, and one
Speaker 1: of the unusual things about and the way the government
Speaker 1: actually responded to this health crisis and also economic crisis
Speaker 1: was that they gave out extra unemployment checks, so people
Speaker 1: got more money if they lost their jobs. And I'm
Speaker 1: just curious what your impression is of the role of those,
Speaker 1: you know, additional unemployment checks or stimulus payments. Was it
Speaker 1: you know, people got more money from the government, so
Speaker 1: they just didn't want to go to work at all
Speaker 1: and they didn't have to. Or was it more that
Speaker 1: people got money and they had a sort of bridge
Speaker 1: that they could build between jobs that they couldn't do before.
Speaker 1: I think the governant like stimulus packages were like putting
Speaker 1: a band aid on an open wound kind of the
Speaker 1: or like a gaping hole, you know. I I think
Speaker 1: it was a It helped a lot of people. Don't
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, it helped me. Um, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not very rich myself, so it's certainly seeing that six hundred,
Speaker 1: eight hundred whatever that a few times was great. Uh,
Speaker 1: it was a bit of a shot in the arm
Speaker 1: to my wallet. But I mean, ultimately it's just not enough.
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of poor people, being poor
Speaker 1: is really expensive. The economy is tailored in such a
Speaker 1: way to make being poor very expensive, whether you're buying
Speaker 1: take out, whether you're buying snack food, whether you're trying
Speaker 1: to engage in some entertainment outside like movie theaters. A
Speaker 1: lot of things are just really expensive if you're poor.
Speaker 1: And so unfortunately, although that that was a nice gesture
Speaker 1: and it helped some people, I just don't think it's
Speaker 1: enough to say that it was a bridge. I think uh,
Speaker 1: And I think it was certainly helpful for people who
Speaker 1: didn't want to work, and of course, why wouldn't they
Speaker 1: why would they want to work, and we were in
Speaker 1: the middle of a pandemic. I could from experience that
Speaker 1: it didn't really help me too much in the long term.
Speaker 1: Basically when I tried to file for unemployment because I
Speaker 1: had been fired. And this is the only time, by
Speaker 1: the way, in my life of almost ten years working
Speaker 1: or so, that I had ever been fired, So it's
Speaker 1: not like I had a history or anything like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I filed for it, I said, well, my my
Speaker 1: roommate is immuno compromise, so I don't think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: work anytime soon. And they're like, okay, well then you're
Speaker 1: not getting unemployment. I like but I don't want to
Speaker 1: kill my like like you know. Things That was still
Speaker 1: when the pandemic was fairly new. We weren't sure about
Speaker 1: how viral the infection was. I knew to wear a
Speaker 1: mask and stuff like that, but the vaccines hadn't anywhere
Speaker 1: come anywhere, weren't anywhere close to being come being out
Speaker 1: at that point. And so in my experience, you know,
Speaker 1: what really helped me was the college I I went to,
Speaker 1: because they dispersed some excess funds that I hadn't used
Speaker 1: for my loans and they gave that back to me.
Speaker 1: And that is really what coasted me along for the
Speaker 1: rest of the year. Uh was I was able to
Speaker 1: not have a job for most of and of course,
Speaker 1: again my my roommate was immuno compromise. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to have a job anyway because I didn't want to
Speaker 1: risk killing her. And of course now we have vaccines,
Speaker 1: we have the booster shots, we know proper mass protocol.
Speaker 1: Things are a lot different. Um and I have have
Speaker 1: a couple of part time jobs and at work and
Speaker 1: I'm at school full time. I don't really think it
Speaker 1: helps people. Uh in my experience, of course, I can
Speaker 1: only speak for myself, not for all of America, but
Speaker 1: my general impression is that, yeah, like I said at
Speaker 1: the beginning, it was like putting a band aid on
Speaker 1: a gaping hole, like it's a it's a nice gesture,
Speaker 1: but it's not much more. I'm curious you mentioned to
Speaker 1: kill Ogg strike as being a very, uh, sort of
Speaker 1: big moment in terms of bringing a lot of attention
Speaker 1: back to your site. I talk to us a little
Speaker 1: bit about how you see the labor movement and strikes,
Speaker 1: and we have seen a lot of strikes in more
Speaker 1: this year than recently. We have seen a seemingly pick
Speaker 1: up an interest in the idea of unionization. What's what's
Speaker 1: the relationship sort of in your mind between sort of
Speaker 1: your broader goals, the abolished work goals, and what the
Speaker 1: labor movement unionization can do for workers into here and now. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: Um again, Uh, that's a great question, and I again
Speaker 1: want to reiterate that the the anti work movement is
Speaker 1: absolutely for short term benefits for the workers and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. You know, I would be I would be
Speaker 1: happy if better wages, better working conditions, less boss interference,
Speaker 1: and workers you know, more cooperatives, worker cooperatives that is
Speaker 1: were formed. Yeah, I'm a big proponent of unions. I
Speaker 1: think they're great. We did a Reddit talk. Unfortunately we
Speaker 1: couldn't record it because Reddit doesn't have that kind of
Speaker 1: functionality yet, but it will very soon, so when we
Speaker 1: do the next one, uh it'll have we'll be able
Speaker 1: to record it. But we had a Reddit talk, which
Speaker 1: is basically like a live podcast, and a lot of
Speaker 1: the moderators came on to answer the community's questions. And
Speaker 1: in the second hour we had a couple of people
Speaker 1: come on, and we had a user come on who
Speaker 1: was a union member and talked about out just very
Speaker 1: passionately for about fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. We probably let
Speaker 1: him go on a little too long, but we were
Speaker 1: we were new to the whole thing, but very passionately
Speaker 1: about how unions have helped him, how they helped his wages,
Speaker 1: how they gave him more benefits. Just a very basic union.
Speaker 1: It's not like, you know, a radical union like Industrial
Speaker 1: Workers of the World or i w W. It's not like,
Speaker 1: you know, he's looking for like completely radical things like
Speaker 1: the abolition of capitalism or something. Yeah, I think labor
Speaker 1: strikes and unions both have very much to do with
Speaker 1: the anti work movement. I think strikes and unions and
Speaker 1: direct action, which is basically like protests or you know,
Speaker 1: activism that doesn't require like a leader or doesn't require
Speaker 1: a central head of authority to uh instigate. So I'm
Speaker 1: not really talking about like voting or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but direct action in general, I think is the way
Speaker 1: to go. I think direct action gets the goods, as
Speaker 1: the I w W used to say and still do say.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I think strikes and unions have a
Speaker 1: very big place. Yesterday I was in a convenience store
Speaker 1: and I was getting some cereal. I looked around and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, Like almost everything is Kellogg's.
Speaker 1: I bought like a different brand, but like it was
Speaker 1: like one of the few brands that was in Kellogg's.
Speaker 1: Like the monopoly they have on cereal is wild. It's
Speaker 1: so imperceptible because we're just so used to it. But
Speaker 1: I think if you really like look and like be
Speaker 1: mindful of it, look, I think you'll you'll notice, like
Speaker 1: how much of a monopoly they have on Siria's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: So yeah, all my best to the workers who are striking.
Speaker 1: We are considering pinning a thread or two about the strike.
Speaker 1: We just haven't come to a consensus on what yet,
Speaker 1: but definitely we support all the workers. Yeah. So you
Speaker 1: have been influential when it comes to supporting some of
Speaker 1: these movements and one of the ones that you were
Speaker 1: supporting was the blackout Black Friday initiative. How did that go? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that was a bit of a mixed affair. I
Speaker 1: think we really jumped the gun on that. We wanted
Speaker 1: to make a big impression. We wanted to do a
Speaker 1: big action, but unfortunately it kind of we kind of
Speaker 1: pinned the user's idea that was talking about a ten
Speaker 1: day strike, and that was not our original proposition. It
Speaker 1: was about a one day or three day strike at most.
Speaker 1: And someone started talking about ten day strikes. Someone's like,
Speaker 1: you know, let's strike year round, etcetera, etcetera. You know,
Speaker 1: we're a big movement, but we are not big in
Speaker 1: the way that people think we are. We have one
Speaker 1: point three million people, but it's not like we all
Speaker 1: live in Arkansas. It's not like we all live in
Speaker 1: one given state. I just picked Arkansas, Rana, by the way.
Speaker 1: It's not like we all live in one state, one country,
Speaker 1: one city. You know, it's we're all dispersed across the world,
Speaker 1: so that one point three million, it's smaller than you think.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not like diminishing the the achievments that
Speaker 1: we've we've reached, but I also want us to be
Speaker 1: careful about not getting ahead of ourselves, because one point
Speaker 1: three million is awesome, it's terrific, but it's spread out
Speaker 1: across the globe. And yes, most of our audience, if
Speaker 1: you've seen a recent survey we did, is from the
Speaker 1: United States by and large. But even among the United States,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure as everyone here knows, pretty big
Speaker 1: country and and there's a lot of farmland and country
Speaker 1: land that's not even being used on top of that.
Speaker 1: So we're a big movement, but we're also an online movement,
Speaker 1: and I think we kind of forgot about that and
Speaker 1: got carried away and wanted to, like, like I said,
Speaker 1: make a big impression. So what we did instead was
Speaker 1: we lad we lend ourselves to the make Amazon Pay
Speaker 1: campaign over the over the Friday Black Friday weekend, and
Speaker 1: basically it was just boycotting Amazon, pretty mild action, honestly,
Speaker 1: boycotting you know, their services and stuff as much as possible. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's very difficult. Amazon's very entrenched in the whole Internet
Speaker 1: superstructure as it is because they use this they use
Speaker 1: this like framework called AWS or something like that. It's
Speaker 1: basically based in everything. So it's very difficult to get
Speaker 1: away from Amazon. But we did the best we could
Speaker 1: with what we had, so we had to back off
Speaker 1: from the blackout, and I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: were upset about that. They felt we were going back
Speaker 1: on the movement. So many people call this corporate chills
Speaker 1: or that we were selling out the movement. But I
Speaker 1: think and that's the that that's the rest of you
Speaker 1: run in a radical leftist movement, right, is that anybody
Speaker 1: who doesn't agree with you can sometimes be labeled, uh
Speaker 1: you know such. I mean, I don't think it's like
Speaker 1: super widespread, but the Internet definitely brings out that corner
Speaker 1: of like your your movement that's going to do that.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question if you don't mind,
Speaker 1: I'm curious. You know, like when people think historically about
Speaker 1: labor activism or unions, I think, you know, people have
Speaker 1: this idea of people in hard hats holding their fist
Speaker 1: of the air, standing in a picket line outside of
Speaker 1: a plant or a factory with signs, etcetera. And of
Speaker 1: course that's still a very real phenomenon those images that
Speaker 1: people historically have of unions. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: your movement and a lot of what sort of like
Speaker 1: the interest in labor market activism strikes me as being
Speaker 1: a little more decentralized, a little more um, you know,
Speaker 1: as you put it, you're not you're it's an online movement,
Speaker 1: a little more ad hoc maybe direct actions that protests
Speaker 1: that aren't a result of like some union vote with
Speaker 1: a local union leader, etcetera. And I'm curious whether you
Speaker 1: think like ultimately, uh, you know, people you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just sort of in your crystal ball. Do people like
Speaker 1: and they and they fantasize or they hope for a
Speaker 1: resurgence of a labor movement or union movement in this country.
Speaker 1: Is it going to look different in your view than
Speaker 1: what it historically has or could it be this sort
Speaker 1: of like big on the ground, uh, centralized unions, Like
Speaker 1: what's the future in your view? What does it look like?
Speaker 1: More like what you do are more like what they do.
Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be I'm gonna be boring here,
Speaker 1: and I said, and I think it's gonna be a mix.
Speaker 1: The look the genies out of the bottle. We can't
Speaker 1: put the Internet back, God help us. I kind of
Speaker 1: wish we could sometimes, but like, we can't put the
Speaker 1: Internet back. We can't put technology back where it was,
Speaker 1: you know, really messed up. Stuff would have to happen
Speaker 1: for that to happen, and I don't want it to happen.
Speaker 1: I like a lot of things about the Internet, even
Speaker 1: though I don't like a lot of things about the
Speaker 1: indreet To my boring answer is, I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a mixed I think there's gonna be the the
Speaker 1: on the ground, boots on the ground kind of kind
Speaker 1: of union organizing, holding the line, picket picket lines, protesting
Speaker 1: outside given workshop, where places, factories, whatever. But I also think, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of quote unquote sell activism.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be a lot of online organizing organizing. There's
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of like like mutual aid from
Speaker 1: online sources, you know, using go fund means or using
Speaker 1: India go go or whatever. There's there's gonna be all
Speaker 1: of these online ways that we've developed over the past
Speaker 1: twenty years, you know, Twitter and Facebook and all the
Speaker 1: social media to organize that. I just don't think it's
Speaker 1: ever gonna go away. And and if you look at it, honestly,
Speaker 1: all of that union organizing that we're talking about, the
Speaker 1: boots on the ground, the Kellogg stuff, the John Deer stuff,
Speaker 1: I mean, like you said, there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: strikes this year, all that stuff has used online organizing
Speaker 1: as well. It hasn't just been boots on the ground,
Speaker 1: it's also been online. So I really think that speaks
Speaker 1: to my point about it being both. I think the
Speaker 1: future of union organizing is on the ground, but I
Speaker 1: also think it's up in the air. It's up in
Speaker 1: the air, it's it's online. Mike crystal Ball is is
Speaker 1: on the fritz right now. But if I could give
Speaker 1: my best guests, I mean, that's that's what I think.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to continue to see more decentralized,
Speaker 1: affiliating unions, which is kind of what I want to see,
Speaker 1: you know, I want more and more unions. I want
Speaker 1: unionization to come back. Um, it's so rare in the
Speaker 1: private sector and it's only barely a thing in the
Speaker 1: in the public sector, and even in the public sector.
Speaker 1: There are some aspects of it that are not good.
Speaker 1: There's you know, I'm not uncritically pro union. There are
Speaker 1: some bad unions out there that have union leaders that
Speaker 1: are not good or that just protect people that shouldn't
Speaker 1: be protected. I'm not gonna get the specifics, but I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of the listeners can think about who
Speaker 1: I'm talking about here, Like I said, Crystal Hall in
Speaker 1: the Fritz, but I think it's going to be a
Speaker 1: mixed So you brought up pros and cons of the Internet,
Speaker 1: and I wondered if I could maybe ask you a
Speaker 1: personal question related to that. But I imagine being moderator
Speaker 1: of an enormously successful sub breddit takes up a lot
Speaker 1: of your time, and I guess they're some irony there
Speaker 1: in the sense that you are providing a very valuable
Speaker 1: service and presumably doing a lot of work and not
Speaker 1: necessarily getting paid or compensated for it in a traditional way.
Speaker 1: How do you how do you sort of think about
Speaker 1: that and how you divide up and dedicate your own
Speaker 1: time to these different causes. So my my answer to
Speaker 1: that is partly what I said the beginning, right, anti
Speaker 1: work is not anti effort. I I'm totally fine with
Speaker 1: putting a lot of effort into things that I care about,
Speaker 1: and I happen to care about the movement, So there's
Speaker 1: no contradiction. There A lot of people seem to think
Speaker 1: there is, but there isn't. Please please please go tell
Speaker 1: everyone that I'm not getting paid for this, because some
Speaker 1: people are definitely under the misapprehension that I get paid
Speaker 1: for this, and I assure you I do not. I don't.
Speaker 1: I have like a perfect answer like no, it's not
Speaker 1: stressful at all, and it never gets all my nerves
Speaker 1: and I'm all but happy to submit my time to
Speaker 1: the movement. No, it sucks sometimes, you know. Some people
Speaker 1: are jerks. Some people troll us, some people flame us.
Speaker 1: Some people aid us, basically coming in from one subred
Speaker 1: to another where they shouldn't be and like spamming us.
Speaker 1: I help run the discord and I help run the subredit,
Speaker 1: so I don't just run the subreddit, you know, not
Speaker 1: not to correct you, but just as specify you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's time consuming, but that's why it's a collective effort.
Speaker 1: That's why it's not just me, it's it's a whole
Speaker 1: team of moderators on the subreddit. We're looking to expand
Speaker 1: even more moderators, five to ten more moderators. And it's
Speaker 1: not just me, it's a whole host of people who
Speaker 1: are really good at this, who invest a lot of
Speaker 1: their time so that this community community can thrive, so
Speaker 1: people can feel safe, so people can feel comfortable. Is
Speaker 1: that unpaid? Yeah? But is it meaningful? Like, yeah, of
Speaker 1: course it is. I think also part of this, one
Speaker 1: of my fellow moderators pointed out, is people proving you
Speaker 1: don't need the profit motive to do things that are
Speaker 1: that are worthwhile, that are valuable to other people. Like
Speaker 1: you said, we're providing a service to other people by
Speaker 1: giving them this platform to talk about their problems with work.
Speaker 1: You know. Is there some superficial, surface level irony. Of
Speaker 1: course there is, But we've got to work within the
Speaker 1: context of capitalism. It's it's like Nom Chomsky said, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to complain when my book is put
Speaker 1: in Barnes and Noble. I gotta work with what I got.
Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing, obviously he said it much better than that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we've got to work with what we have,
Speaker 1: and what we have is unfortunately an incredibly flawed and
Speaker 1: broken system, or maybe it's working exactly how it's supposed to,
Speaker 1: but either way, it's not good. So we but we've
Speaker 1: got to work with it because we don't have the
Speaker 1: alternative in place yet. But I'm hoping down the line
Speaker 1: we will, and I'm hoping that the subreddit and the
Speaker 1: discord and anything else is a good platform for people
Speaker 1: to organize uh and to subvert capitalism and to basically
Speaker 1: like find a different way, find a better way out
Speaker 1: of this life that demands us to subvert all of
Speaker 1: our needs to work. Let me ask you another question,
Speaker 1: and this is about sort of the difference between sort
Speaker 1: of personal activism and personal behavioral changes versus policy changes.
Speaker 1: So boycotting Kellogg is a personal choice, or not buying
Speaker 1: anything on Black Friday as a personal choice, or simply
Speaker 1: refusing to show up and doing whatever possible to not
Speaker 1: work is like a personal choice. Then there's like policy choices.
Speaker 1: There could be a change to rules around minimum wages
Speaker 1: and so forth, And we see this dichotomy play out.
Speaker 1: We see it in, for example, um the debate about
Speaker 1: climate change, how much climate change people should make personal choices,
Speaker 1: say not eating meat versus how much the pursuit should
Speaker 1: be on the policy front, whether it's a hard cap
Speaker 1: on carbon emissions or some sort of policies that reduce
Speaker 1: funding for major emitters, stuff like that. And so I'm
Speaker 1: curious like your view, like, how do you think about
Speaker 1: the two and which do you think is more powerful?
Speaker 1: Is it the organic? Like we're just gonna keep growing
Speaker 1: the subreddit and growing the awareness about what you see
Speaker 1: is the unfairness of capitalism or are there like policy
Speaker 1: changes that you would hope to see eventually put into
Speaker 1: place they would meaningfully change how the economy is structure. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: great questions. So first off, I think when it comes
Speaker 1: to any kind of major issue, collective collective action is
Speaker 1: the thing we need to do. My individual protesting Kelloggs
Speaker 1: yesterday by not buying apple jacks, I really wanted those
Speaker 1: apple jacks. It's not gonna affect Kellogg's. No uh, employees
Speaker 1: gonna get a better wage, No stockholder is gonna sweat,
Speaker 1: no boss is going to you know, chatter their teeth like,
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna care that. I didn't decide to do it.
Speaker 1: So that is really a personal choice, and I don't
Speaker 1: think it has a big effect on on the collective economy.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm talking about the entire United States,
Speaker 1: and honestly, Kelloggs is a as a multinational corporation, so
Speaker 1: I'm not even talking about the United States. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think collective action is where it's at, unionizing, striking, protesting,
Speaker 1: cards on the table. I'm an anarchist. I don't really
Speaker 1: think voting works. I only speak for myself. Not everyone
Speaker 1: in the anti work movement is an anarchist. Not everyone
Speaker 1: agrees with me on that. There's been plenty of debate
Speaker 1: about how impactful voting is and how much we should
Speaker 1: vote for policies or politicians. Is the minimum wage and
Speaker 1: animating issue for you? I wouldn't say it's an animating issue,
Speaker 1: but I I certainly, like I said earlier, would welcome
Speaker 1: workers getting better wages. It's not a crucial focus point
Speaker 1: for me, but absolutely I care about what workers are making.
Speaker 1: But honestly, the minimum wage, being what often people are
Speaker 1: fighting for is fifteen dollars is not even enough if
Speaker 1: you followed inflation over the years, at least from what
Speaker 1: I've heard. Again, non economists, not a statician, but from
Speaker 1: what I've heard, it seems like it would be much
Speaker 1: closer to twenty or twenty five an hour, which is
Speaker 1: wild to think about, but if you follow in inflation
Speaker 1: because wages have stagnated over the years, that's where it
Speaker 1: would be. So yeah, I would I welcome better wages,
Speaker 1: of course I would. I'm not against that and I
Speaker 1: wouldn't fight against it. But I also don't think it's
Speaker 1: the anti works main drive. We're not just the reformist
Speaker 1: liberal movement that is trying to vaguely make capitalism nicer, right.
Speaker 1: I think I think it's great to make economic systems
Speaker 1: work for the people who structurally uphold it, like workers do.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that's the main point of our movement.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you know, speaking just again, I gotta I
Speaker 1: have to emphasize because I don't want people to think, oh,
Speaker 1: well everyone's pie in the sky and they don't care
Speaker 1: about politicians or whatever. Like No, that's not the point.
Speaker 1: Like again, we have We're a big tent movement. We
Speaker 1: have people who are democratic socialists who really like Bernie
Speaker 1: or AOC. We have communists who think to some extent
Speaker 1: that voting might be useful. We even have some anarchists
Speaker 1: who think that some some policies are better. I even
Speaker 1: just said the minimum wage would be at least be
Speaker 1: some kind of improvement and could be a short term
Speaker 1: gain for workers. Um But ultimately I think what we
Speaker 1: need to do is undermine and subvert capitalism by creating
Speaker 1: alternative economies, by creating all current alternative structures, by subverting
Speaker 1: the current structures that are in place, through unionizing, education, organizing, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And that's that's really where I am. I I do
Speaker 1: think collective effort matters, but I just I think that
Speaker 1: it comes in the form of direct action. I don't
Speaker 1: think it comes in the form of policymaking or voting
Speaker 1: for politicians. But again that's that's me. So speaking of
Speaker 1: capitalism and alternative economies, I wanted to ask you about
Speaker 1: another sub credit, which in some respects kind of mirrors
Speaker 1: the the action or the development that we've seen in
Speaker 1: the anti work subredit. But this is of course Wall
Speaker 1: Street Bets, which has absolutely exploded over the past year
Speaker 1: and a half. Lots of people stuck at home given
Speaker 1: the COVID situation, and lots of people decided to take
Speaker 1: up trading and you know, yolo their money on GameStop
Speaker 1: options or whatever, and Joe and I have been kind
Speaker 1: of curious about whether or not this is creating a
Speaker 1: wealth effect, So people might be making more money from
Speaker 1: trading crypto or meme stocks or whatever, and whether or
Speaker 1: not that's a factor in people quitting as well. Is
Speaker 1: that something that you've observed or do you think there's
Speaker 1: much overlap between anti work and Wall Street Bets. There's
Speaker 1: some minor overlap, but I don't want to overstate it.
Speaker 1: Wall Street Bets is as a sub credit that is
Speaker 1: trying to have its members get rich off of capitalism.
Speaker 1: We are trying to fundamentally undermine and subvert capitalism. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that there's some minor overlap. And it's not
Speaker 1: like people from Wall Street Bets are not uh not welcome,
Speaker 1: but I think we have very different goals in mind. Now,
Speaker 1: some people who want to get rich off capitalism through
Speaker 1: stocks and trade and stuff like that might be anti
Speaker 1: work or might want to be lazy with their money,
Speaker 1: but I don't really think that's the way to be
Speaker 1: anti work. Anti work is a collective, solidarity based community
Speaker 1: where you know, we share the wealth, we share with
Speaker 1: each other. We you know, if I if I ever
Speaker 1: got rich, and I hope I don't ever because I
Speaker 1: don't really want that. But if I ever got rich rich,
Speaker 1: I would like to get to the point where I
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about money. But I don't want
Speaker 1: to be like rich, you know what I mean. If
Speaker 1: I ever got to that point, like that money is
Speaker 1: probably not going to me. It's probably going to other people,
Speaker 1: or it's going to organization, or it's going to charity,
Speaker 1: or it's going to somewhere besides me, because no, thank you.
Speaker 1: But you know a lot of the people in Wall
Speaker 1: Street Pats are there for themselves, you know. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying like, oh, I'm a perfect angel, or I've
Speaker 1: never made a mistake, or I've never or I would
Speaker 1: never I've never been selfish before, right, But I genuinely
Speaker 1: think that a lot of that movement is to just
Speaker 1: benefit individuals. It's not to it's not to create a
Speaker 1: better world, it's not to undermine capitalism, and it's not
Speaker 1: to propagate an anti work ethos. Well, you know, it's
Speaker 1: funny when Tracy said, oh, I want to ask you
Speaker 1: about another subredit, I actually thought she was going to
Speaker 1: go to somewhere else that we've talked about and that
Speaker 1: is like the Fire movement and the idea of like
Speaker 1: retiring early, and that's obviously very different too, because those
Speaker 1: are people like I'm gonna try to make like two
Speaker 1: million dollars by the time I made thirty and then
Speaker 1: if I spend those those people I'm sorry to interrupt you.
Speaker 1: Those people want to work themselves to death and then
Speaker 1: get out of their jobs. And I just yeah, I
Speaker 1: I just want to say, We've been dealing with the
Speaker 1: Fire movement for years, uh, and they and people have
Speaker 1: always been like, oh, this seems like the perfect place
Speaker 1: for fire, and I'm like, no, it's it's really not,
Speaker 1: because like we have very different goals. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: basically what I figured. But one thing though, I'm curious,
Speaker 1: Like in the movement, I mean like they're all about
Speaker 1: like sharing strategies so that like once they quit working,
Speaker 1: they can live as long as possible with you know,
Speaker 1: how to how to stretch their dollars as long as possible.
Speaker 1: Is there a sort of like self help or like
Speaker 1: collective tips in your world that's sort of like how
Speaker 1: do basically how to outwork that you got like sharing
Speaker 1: strategies of work avoidance? Yeah, I used to do that. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then I'm sure it happens on anti work every day,
Speaker 1: people sharing strategies and tips. I will also say that
Speaker 1: if people want to book that I absolutely officially endorsed
Speaker 1: or whatever not as not speaking for the sub right,
Speaker 1: just from myself. But it's been prominently featured before and
Speaker 1: people have loved it. But it's called Laziness Does Not Exist.
Speaker 1: It's a great book. I recommend you have the author
Speaker 1: on if you ever want. But they are an awesome,
Speaker 1: awesome writer. They have a lot of tips about how
Speaker 1: to take care of your mental health, about how to
Speaker 1: respect yourself and and and basically like make sure that
Speaker 1: you're not working as much. Talks about the myth of laziness.
Speaker 1: I really recommend that book I have. I've done an
Speaker 1: audio reading of the article version on medium dot com
Speaker 1: on my YouTube channel. It's a great book, it's a
Speaker 1: great article. It's called Laziness Does Not Exist. I think
Speaker 1: that's a great place to go for sharing tips. But
Speaker 1: it just casually happens every day, you know. I I
Speaker 1: don't really keep track of it because most of the
Speaker 1: things I do is moderating, is keeping track of the
Speaker 1: people who are not doing that who are being jerks,
Speaker 1: who are being trolls. So I can't, like, on hand,
Speaker 1: off hand, tell you that, but I can tell you
Speaker 1: more more so on the discord that plenty of people
Speaker 1: like are sharing resources with each other all the time.
Speaker 1: We have a support channel. We have heavier support channel
Speaker 1: for like you know, bigger topics and stuff, personal stuff.
Speaker 1: We have an ideology channel. We have a lot of
Speaker 1: channels on that discord that are about people supporting each other.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it absolutely happens every single day. Maybe, UM,
Speaker 1: to sum up a lot of the issues that were
Speaker 1: brought up in this conversation, could you give us your
Speaker 1: impression of what you think workers and employers actually owe
Speaker 1: each other in terms of the worker employee relationship. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm tempted to go all anarchists or anarchost cynicalists here
Speaker 1: and say the workers, oh, the boss is nothing. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm very moved by Buddhist philosophy these days, and I
Speaker 1: think that at the end of the day, we're all
Speaker 1: human beings, you know, even even even even the boss,
Speaker 1: even the boss, even the boss. I'm saying it's more
Speaker 1: from like an anarchist perspective, because this is hard for
Speaker 1: some anarchists to hear, but even even bosses, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, are people, and they have incentives
Speaker 1: from capitalism that I think are very distorted and very
Speaker 1: misaligned with being good and compassionate towards other people. And
Speaker 1: I think we have to be respectful and mindful of that.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that we have to respect it, or
Speaker 1: that we have to go along with it, or that
Speaker 1: we can't subvert it, but I think it helps to
Speaker 1: understand it. You know, I've been friends with a manager before.
Speaker 1: You know, one of my best friends a few years
Speaker 1: ago Wasn't was my manager, and I had a very
Speaker 1: kind of strained friendship in some ways ideologically because I
Speaker 1: didn't agree with she was. She was my coworker previously,
Speaker 1: so she had gotten promoted. I had kind of like
Speaker 1: an inside look at like the kind of distorted conflicts
Speaker 1: that she had about like, oh, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to say this to you, but I have to
Speaker 1: because it's coming from the higher up. And you know,
Speaker 1: if I could get in trouble, or I could lose
Speaker 1: my job, or you know, you could get in trouble,
Speaker 1: and I don't want that to happen. On some level,
Speaker 1: I get it, you know. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: it's a messed up system, and I don't although no
Speaker 1: one part is and truly and crucially responsible for the
Speaker 1: harm that comes out of it, workers have to rebel
Speaker 1: against it regardless. And unfortunately that is going to disrupt
Speaker 1: people's wages, that is going to disrupt boss operations, that
Speaker 1: is going to disrupt corporations. But I think that has
Speaker 1: that's the way it has to be. Um. I think
Speaker 1: it is an oppositional relationship, and I think that employers
Speaker 1: own employees a lot more than the other way around.
Speaker 1: I think in the economy we have, it's often seen
Speaker 1: as the other way around, that employees should fel thankful
Speaker 1: to employers, but really employees are the ones who are
Speaker 1: holding up the system, and employers are the ones who
Speaker 1: should feel grateful that workers are still going to work,
Speaker 1: especially during a pandemic, especially during uh stagnating wages, especially
Speaker 1: during a very hamstrong economy that just went through a
Speaker 1: recession ten years ago and probably still hasn't fully recovered.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I really want to emphasize here that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I I think at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: everyone's a human being and they were deserved respect but
Speaker 1: at the also at the end of the day, capitalism
Speaker 1: is a very disrespectful system, does not treat people with compassion, uh,
Speaker 1: and we need to rebel against it. So there needs
Speaker 1: to be some balancing of like, my boss is human being,
Speaker 1: but also this system is inhumane and I need to
Speaker 1: figure away in my personal life to balance that. And
Speaker 1: that's really important. I mean, I think that's a that
Speaker 1: itself is a very good encapsulation of what you've been saying.
Speaker 1: But you know, look, if you if you talk to
Speaker 1: managers and bosses or business owners, and we've certainly talked
Speaker 1: to a lot on the on the podcast, you know
Speaker 1: they're talking about like, oh, we're raising wages and in
Speaker 1: many cases we're lowering hours, and we're giving signing bonuses,
Speaker 1: or we're offering free training, free education, free college. We
Speaker 1: hear that from big companies in particular, but not just
Speaker 1: big companies, all kinds of things, and you know, trying
Speaker 1: to come up with ways to make the work site
Speaker 1: a more appealing place for workers because they feel this frustration.
Speaker 1: What don't they get What is it that you know?
Speaker 1: And I've seen some of this on on the subredit,
Speaker 1: which is that you know something is like, oh, there's
Speaker 1: an offer of a signing bone this, but then you
Speaker 1: know it's still like the devils in the details, or
Speaker 1: maybe it's hard to get or it screws over existing
Speaker 1: workers who don't get it. What do you think companies
Speaker 1: are still missing right now in terms of what it
Speaker 1: is that makes it hard for them to hire and
Speaker 1: why people are sort of like frustrated and don't find
Speaker 1: many of these offers appealing. So, yeah, this kind of
Speaker 1: goes back to what we were talking about earlier. I
Speaker 1: think kind of what you were saying there speaks to
Speaker 1: what they're missing. Capitalism is the systemic inequality between capitalists
Speaker 1: and and employees, I mean, the bosses and workers. I
Speaker 1: think the hint is in the name right capitalism. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a system that centrally values employers over employees all
Speaker 1: the time. Systematically, that's the whole point of capitalism, and
Speaker 1: they just don't get that. Small little fixes like signing bonuses,
Speaker 1: which as you point out, sometimes screwed over other workers,
Speaker 1: you know, are just not enough. It's not enough to
Speaker 1: undo all of the systemic inequality that is built up
Speaker 1: over the past hundred year. That's why we've seen all
Speaker 1: the union organizing in the thirties and forties. That's why
Speaker 1: we saw Occupy Wall Street. That's why we're seeing in
Speaker 1: the growth of the anti work movement. That's why you know,
Speaker 1: so many, so many strikes have been happening. That's why
Speaker 1: all this is happening because capitalism is systemically opposed to
Speaker 1: workers getting their fair share, to getting their fair to
Speaker 1: when it comes to work, you know, And ultimately I
Speaker 1: do want to abolish work, but I want work to
Speaker 1: be replaced by effort that's actually rewarded cooperatively collectively. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, again, I'm an anarchist, so I'm speaking for
Speaker 1: myself here, but you know, without bosses, without corporations, without
Speaker 1: even the government, and so you know, worker cooperatives and
Speaker 1: worker collectives are the mainstay of that kind of economy.
Speaker 1: And people working for themselves too is something I'm not
Speaker 1: opposed to. I think bosses just missed the fact. And
Speaker 1: even if you're not an anarchist, I think that what
Speaker 1: the bosses are missing there is if this is not
Speaker 1: a problem that could be taped up. You can't put
Speaker 1: bandages on on a gaping hole. You've got to like
Speaker 1: see like what is causing that? Again? Going back to Buddhism,
Speaker 1: like you've out of look at the causes and originations
Speaker 1: of like what's going on here? Like you can't just
Speaker 1: like mindlessly apply band aid after band aid, Like that's
Speaker 1: just not going to work. Uh, the signing bonuses are
Speaker 1: just not enough. What you really need to do is
Speaker 1: what I think ideally should happen. Of course, I don't
Speaker 1: think any boss will ever do this, because capitalism doesn't
Speaker 1: give them incentives. But step away is let the workers
Speaker 1: do it, because the workers are the ones who have
Speaker 1: the decentralized knowledge. Funnily enough, Friedrich Kayak, who is a
Speaker 1: fairly conservative economist on some levels, has a great theory
Speaker 1: about like why workers are the best suited to do that,
Speaker 1: Like they have the best decentralized knowledge to make decisions
Speaker 1: on the floor. You know, I spent I spent almost
Speaker 1: ten years in retail, and almost always the workers knew
Speaker 1: what was going on more than the bosses did. There
Speaker 1: were some points when that wasn't true, but usually that
Speaker 1: was just stuff that was coming from up top, or hey,
Speaker 1: the boss of my boss is going to be here today,
Speaker 1: or some some background stuff that doesn't really matter to
Speaker 1: the customer or doesn't really matter to the community member
Speaker 1: or the worker. I really think that they miss out
Speaker 1: that the systemic issue, and you're not going to solve
Speaker 1: it with buying bonuses. So I just want to ask
Speaker 1: you one more question. And I feel like i'd kind
Speaker 1: of be remiss not to ask it. But you said
Speaker 1: you worked, or you said you work part time jobs.
Speaker 1: You have to support yourself in some way. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's someone who's listening to this and they're thinking
Speaker 1: to themselves, how does she support herself. Does she's some
Speaker 1: kind of trust fund person or something, And how do
Speaker 1: you fit working and the need to support yourself to
Speaker 1: need to gain income with your anti work ideology. Funnily enough,
Speaker 1: I have to support myself under capitalism, So I do
Speaker 1: part time work. I work with dogs. Um So, first off,
Speaker 1: it's a lot better than most of my previous jobs.
Speaker 1: I'm a dog walker by trade, question mark, if that's
Speaker 1: the right expression there. I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: on my feet, a lot of time walking, but it's
Speaker 1: one of the best jobs I've ever had. It's pretty easy.
Speaker 1: I get to don't tell my bosses, but I get
Speaker 1: to listen to a lot of podcasts, you know, I
Speaker 1: I love dogs, love taking care of them. So this
Speaker 1: job is a bit of a passion job for me. Now,
Speaker 1: I still feel burnt out. Sometimes there are times where
Speaker 1: the dogs want to play with each other and I'm
Speaker 1: just like, oh my god, it can't be bothered. This
Speaker 1: is just so much effort just to get you guys outside,
Speaker 1: let alone, like stop you from playing once you're on
Speaker 1: a walk. But um, I love what I do a
Speaker 1: lot more than what I did previously. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: I don't have bad days. That doesn't mean that I
Speaker 1: love my boss or or the owner or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but like it's much better than what I used to
Speaker 1: have now. Of course, does that make me some hypocrite
Speaker 1: on some way? Sure, whatever, I don't think hypocrisy if
Speaker 1: that is that interesting of an ideological conundrum. We're all
Speaker 1: hypocrites under capitalism, right, we all have to buy products
Speaker 1: we don't fully support. We all have to give our
Speaker 1: tax money to a government that is still waging war
Speaker 1: all across the world. I mean, that's what Henry David
Speaker 1: Throau went to jail for, right, So yeah, I I
Speaker 1: we're all hypocrites on some level. I don't really think
Speaker 1: that's an interesting observation about me, you know. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm also a student, you know, a full time student,
Speaker 1: um in Boston. I'm I'm studying so that I could
Speaker 1: become a professor. That's a lot of effort too, But again,
Speaker 1: you know, third time, not against effort and not against jobs.
Speaker 1: So I don't it's not really for me anyway. It's
Speaker 1: not hypocrisy on a big level. But yeah, sure, it's
Speaker 1: definitely hypocrisy on some level. I'm not working for myself
Speaker 1: for the most part, I do I I do have.
Speaker 1: I am a pet sitter as well, so I also
Speaker 1: do some work for myself that is not done through
Speaker 1: a company or a boss, I should say, but it
Speaker 1: is still done through a company, is still done through
Speaker 1: a corporation based out like Seattle or whatever. You know.
Speaker 1: I have to meet too with what I got. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I support myself by basically two part time jobs and
Speaker 1: then sometimes school gives me some kickbacks if my loans
Speaker 1: are overpaid or something, and that's about it. Then I
Speaker 1: also I also live with my partner, and so she
Speaker 1: and I will sometimes, um you know what will we
Speaker 1: usually split like food and rent and stuff like that, utilities,
Speaker 1: uh and bills and stuff so that makes it a
Speaker 1: lot easier to because living in Boston is not easy.
Speaker 1: Well that was great during Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming out. Yeah, absolutely, I love doing these. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1: Orn Tracy. I thought that was really interesting. I mean
Speaker 1: I think, like, you know, obviously, there's like a lot there.
Speaker 1: There's sort of there's the anarchist philosophy, there's the feelings
Speaker 1: of frustration that people are just realizing, even if they're
Speaker 1: not anarchists, with the way work works right now. And
Speaker 1: I think like this sort of idea of like digital
Speaker 1: organizing and sort of like luciffiliated online communities that push
Speaker 1: for some goal or that push for some impulse is
Speaker 1: just getting out more and more important, and we're going
Speaker 1: to be more and more powerful. Yeah, I think that's right.
Speaker 1: And also I thought what Dorene was saying about treating
Speaker 1: each other like humans seems to be an overriding theme
Speaker 1: and a lot of these discussions and a lot of
Speaker 1: the posts um on the actual sub credit. So again
Speaker 1: to the question that I asked, like, often people don't
Speaker 1: seem to be complaining that much about specific work hours
Speaker 1: or specific wages, specific grievances, but it's usually you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of argument with their boss where the boss
Speaker 1: just assumes that these people are you know, able to
Speaker 1: work at at their back and call. Basically that kind
Speaker 1: of is the tipping point for someone quitting. And I wonder,
Speaker 1: I sometimes wonder how much of the tension between workers
Speaker 1: and employers could be alleviated if people like were a
Speaker 1: just nicer and be if they were able to set
Speaker 1: expectations and actually stick to them. Yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: is that's a really good point, and that's really good question.
Speaker 1: And this idea that like bosses don't have a sort
Speaker 1: of restraint about these assumptions. And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of like what gets called a labor shortage
Speaker 1: really is a labor shortage at the standards that people
Speaker 1: were expecting two years ago. And the problem with that is,
Speaker 1: like why is that the standard? Like that there was
Speaker 1: a set of economic conditions that existed in twenty nine,
Speaker 1: but that was a set of conditions that it was
Speaker 1: different than two thousand nine and nine. And there's this
Speaker 1: sort of like at any given moment, okay, certain economic
Speaker 1: conditions could support X or y, but the idea that
Speaker 1: things aren't normal or that there is a shortage just
Speaker 1: because oh, companies can't hire the way they did at
Speaker 1: a certain time is like this, like very weird like
Speaker 1: framing that I think is unjustified. Absolutely. Um. Now, speaking
Speaker 1: of anti work, it is eleven p m in Hong Kong.
Speaker 1: So shall we leave it there? Yeah, let's leave it there.
Speaker 1: All right, let's create some boundaries. Okay, this has been
Speaker 1: another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Twitter at Tracy Alloway and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wi isn't Thal You can follow me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at the Stalwart and check out dury And She
Speaker 1: is a moderator or one of the moderators of the
Speaker 1: anti work subreddit go check it out extremely interesting and
Speaker 1: the founder of the abolished work dot com website. Follow
Speaker 1: our producer Laura Carlson. She's at Laura M. Carlson. Follow
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg head of podcast, Francesco Levi at Francesca Today,
Speaker 1: and check out all of our podcasts on Twitter unto
Speaker 1: the handle at podcasts. Thanks for listening. Year