I don’t need to know exact companies, no need to unnecessarily expose yourself or anything, but as we are a workers rights instance of Lemmy, I safely assume we are all proletarians. I for example work at a unionized grocery and I work outside. I have many complaints but I try my best to work as little as possible while getting my paycheck. Customers are usually fine but occasionally just dumb af to the point where it’s annoying(I have millions of stories) managers are very kind, only ones who were dicks left(unfortunately they probably got promoted if I remember correctly) and my coworkers are eh. Some are great to confide in and joke with, while others are rude or annoying, some are very nice but have garbage politics (libertarians who don’t understand their benefits from being in a union/don’t care enough about the differences to advocate for it). I plan on becoming a firefighter, not only for the pay, job security and union benefits, but it’s also an essential job that doesn’t exist just to create capital (no judgement to those who work in corporate environments, I’ve never done it and can’t judge it). I like my job overall but Goddamn the weather. Edit: Kinda cool to see so many people who are in tech.
I guide people with their debt. It is an unending, frustrating job and it gives you a real look into how poverty and debt changes you as a person. Many people I come in contact with only think about money and what they need to pay. So much potential wasted because some instance needs money with their added fines as well. Though it must be said I also get quite a lot of people who are really bad at budgeting as well. I see 10+ cases on the daily that make enough money to be able to live comfortably, but somehow can’t find a way to pay off 3k in debt. Also, multiple people who get in debt who recently bought a new Mercedes or BMW but can’t pay off 700 euro. The vast majority is in poverty, though.
I wanted to switch so I applied to a job at the Union. After two interviews I made it to the final round but it will take place somewhere in the next week or two.
Debt is such a crazy thing in capitalist society. The fact that debt isn’t inherently visible (you can actively see a person experiencing life without a home, struggling through life without food), you can’t see how much someone is struggling financially and scraping to survive, I feel that it warps our idea of how other people get by. The answer is that they kind of don’t in a lot of scenarios, plenty of people die in debt.
1 in 5 Belgian people is in active debt and 1 in 6 Belgian people says they would be in major trouble were they to miss one paycheck.
1 in every 5 people I see in the street is having some form of financial problems. No one openly talks about their debt, payment plans or how many agencies are after their ass. It’s like a silent epidemic in this country. I sometimes wonder what would happen if everyone just stopped acting as if they are fine and have everyone showing how problematic this situation is.
That’s extremely sad. Those numbers are already horrifying and it just gets worse and worse across the imperial core. That number sits at almost 77% of Americans being in active debt and 55-64% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck and unable to afford a 500 dollar emergency expense.
Only made worse by there being no financial literacy, no teaching of budgeting, what credit is, how to navigate loans and credit, how to save, how to open/find good bank accounts. It’s a purposeful trap.
Medical debt in the US is very sad, I don’t know how the US still operates like this, it’s probably the most backward part of daily US culture if you ask me
You are designed to sink.
They want you to have your insurance tied to employment, so that if you try to strike, bargain, or otherwise need to be removed, you will suffer, get trapped in debt, or die if you try to fight back against your employer or the machine.
Combine that with “at will employment” and your boss is able to fire you for any reason whatsoever whenever they want, and you have no recourse to fight back.
That’s a good insight, I never thought about it that way, that it is inherently designed to suppress strikes
It would be a different world for sure, part of so many people’s confidence in the west stems from individuality, unfortunately debt is also individual-based so plenty of people will self-identify with their watch, their jordans, their car, house, etc. bc it’s so visible, it’s like wearing something that says “I don’t have to worry, I’m double well” and obv it’s not always that, I have like 4 pairs of Jordans I barely wear, I worked hard for them and liked them. But debt doesn’t work that same way, we don’t see someone with a nice car with a bumper sticker showing how many thousands they still have to pay for that car. Houses don’t have nice little decor showing how far you are in debt. If people knew, it would probably shake faith in the system, just a little bit
Not only that but in order to advance in capitalist society you are required to risk taking on debt. Need a new car thats reliable and wont break down on the way to work? Sorry your credit score is terrible. You should have taken some debt and paid it off to prove that you can pay for things before we can let you buy this car. Need a degree to do the work you want to do? Well you gotta take out all this debt first. Your wages aren’t paying enough to live and your career isn’t advancing the traditional way? The only legal way to advance is to collect some debt, invest it, and hope it doesn’t backfire.
I think this is further evidence that we shouldn’t live in an individualistic society.