Why was Generation X like this? What was their problem?
Posted by the_gang_1@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 529 comments
I mean. Kinda?
Posted by the_gang_1@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 529 comments
I mean. Kinda?
Addamall@reddit
Hating a cubicle job was legit in the 90s; now we are so abused as workers, even getting an entry level engineering job is considered a winning lottery ticket.
German_Merman@reddit
Ok this is something I have a bit of perspective on, because I was doing IT stuff in offices as a high school job in the mid 90s. It's hard for people today to imagine how isolating office work was back then. Everybody's so connected all the time now, you've got social media and texts and calls at work. Back then there was none of that. You had a phone on your desk but outside of emergencies you couldn't use it for personal calls at all. The computer on your desk was not connected to the internet. For 8 hours a day you were totally cut off from your friends and family. Those annoying people in your office were the only social contact you got. Those annoying rules your boss comes up with, that was the fabric of your reality for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Outside of going to prison or joining the army, it's really hard for someone now to get an idea of how utterly suffocating those jobs could be.
FormidableMistress@reddit
I remember reading news articles about "cubical culture" and how isolating it was, even though you were surrounded by people. All the communication was from bosses that wanted more done or frustrated co workers. The fluorescent lights were draining. Health problems arose from sitting at a desk all day. People in these offices just received negative stimuli day in and day out.
It was a commentary on a time that no longer exists.
Coomstress@reddit
When I was in my late 20s/early 30s, I worked at a computer for so many hours a day that I developed upper back problems. I told my doctor I felt like an old lady. I still work pretty long hours, but I feel like it’s less typing in one place for endless hours. I have a lot of Zoom calls where I’m not hunched over a keyboard nowadays. So my back and neck feel better now than when I was a young woman.
Wandering_Texan80@reddit
See Joe vs the Volcano
PLATE_0F_SHRIMP@reddit
I’m not arguing that with you!
imbeingsirius@reddit
I know he can get the job!!!
PlausibleAuspice@reddit
But can he DO the job?!!
Spider_Dude@reddit
I didn't say that. If I had said that I would have been wrong.
zenerNoodle@reddit
Maybe, maybe.
sick_of-it-all@reddit
As soon as I read 'Those fluorescent lights were draining' I immediately started scrolling for a Joe vs. the Volcano comment Lol. But then again, I'm a bit of a flibberti-gibbet.
KerouacsGirlfriend@reddit
You’ve got a (vaguely gestures at head) brain cloud
Glittering-Rip6810@reddit
Fuck, I think I found my people 😂 I didn't think anyone else knew this movie let alone still remembered it in detail..this is awesome 😂
ZombeeSwarm@reddit
I LOVE THIS MOVIE!
rob132@reddit
" these lights just suck, suck, sucking the life out of me!"
on-oh-wanna-boogey@reddit
You've got a brain cloud.
thebarbalag@reddit
Maybe I should get a second opinion...
Deep_Downlow@reddit
Also Office Space. I worked in a call center in the early 00s as well as an office for The County and the annoyance of that "chipper bitch" (You have a case of the Mondays) I wanted to strangle them, and my mom was like "They're just trying to make due and liven up the dreary office" don't care choke on your candy dish.
xt0rt@reddit
I always think of this movie anytime I see or experience a dimly lit office environment with bad florescent lights.
worlds_okayest_skier@reddit
And the Matrix and Office Space
BOSBoatMan@reddit
These lights are sucking the juice out of my eyeballs!!!!
rinky79@reddit
Kids today wouldn't even appreciate Office Space.
iceskatinghedgehog@reddit
I have a project that has a subset of work specifically on "teachers, parents, and students." I refer to them as my TPS reports and literally NONE of my coworkers get it. They are either all too old or too young for the reference. I giggle every time I work on them though, so it's worth it.
Ok-Taste5881@reddit
Sounds like some one has a case of the mondays
jojocookiedough@reddit
Nothing some extra pieces of flair can't fix
bastrdsnbroknthings@reddit
I believe you’d get your ass kicked for saying somethin like that
Ok-Taste5881@reddit
Hey Peter, turn it on channel 9
Malaguy420@reddit
CreatrixAnima@reddit
They’ve been missing a lot of work recently.
temporary_bob@reddit
I wouldn't say they've been missing it 😂
Delic10u5Bra1n5@reddit
We used to do screenings of Office Space for our young Millennial colleagues back in the day.
bookofthoth_za@reddit
Yet open plan desk culture is demonstrably WORSE than cubicles ever were. No personal space, no lovely pictures of your family, no way to organise your physical space the way you want it, no sheltering from the blabbermouths in sales next to you, bosses knowing everything you do at a glance.
hearts_of_glass@reddit
Absolutely. Pair with that the floating desk situation where you don't have a static desk and you basically choose a place to sit everyday. This means you can't decorate your desk with things that you like and make it your own. It's depersonalizing, and quite frankly annoying to everyday go in pick a desk not occupied, fix the chair, fix the monitors.
Frys100thCupofCoffee@reddit
Ah the floating desk. No better way to be exposed to the hair, skin flakes, cough and sneeze droplets and whatever other disgusting things the person before you was doing in that space. There aren't enough bleach wipes in the world for me to ever do that again.
bookofthoth_za@reddit
Perfect for during a 3 year long pandemic!
Deep_Downlow@reddit
We had hot desks and this one lady had a 12x4 in board with Troll dolls and a couple tchosckies glued onto it that she would put on top the desktop box under her monitor.
We usually sat in the same neighborhood if not the same desk on day shift, but nightshift with seasonal temps and moonlighting part timers was chaos of take whatever open desk. I used to sign-in inside one of the classrooms then switch over to a floor seat during my first break and have to shoot an email to say I clocked out because I moved desks every day in the fall thru early winter.
BuffaloRedshark@reddit
thankfully we at least have an assigned desk, but it's barely wide enough for two monitors so it's cramped.
chronofluxtoaster@reddit
Yes, that was a solution after Covid and I remember management pushing this new app where you’d log in and it would help you find an open desk. You could mostly go back to the same desk every day and even reserve it if you wanted, but at that time so many people were still working remote so it might be a day you have only 3-4 people on the floor with you, all separated by their little partitions.
It was so eerily similar to the TV series Severance that it was um-bingeable; I could only watch one episode at a time without getting stress-PTSD trauma reactions. That show demonstrated that if CEOs could legally get away with rewiring employee brains to keep their “minds focused on their labor” they’d institute it in a heartbeat, along with the temple-like worship and the “Hall of Executives” experience.
itsmestanard@reddit
Hot desking was a thing waaaay before covid (unfortunately!)
midwesternmayhem@reddit
I would like to introduce you to the concept of the two person cubicle. I had one, briefly, at one of my first jobs in 1999.
irishgator2@reddit
That sounds like hell
Guitargirl81@reddit
Came here to say this. I mean, I would KILL for my own cubicle at my office.
Open floor seating with open desks is the worst.
worlds_okayest_skier@reddit
I had a nice setup one time that was a best of both worlds. It was a real office, but shared with 3 co workers.
chronofluxtoaster@reddit
My previous company had the 90s era cubicle format where you had some semblance of privacy, but then they dumped a few million into a remodel where you had these little clusters of 2x6 desks - barely wide enough for your client, keyboard and writing space - all separated by a plastic partition only 18” or so high. You could see into your neighbor’s desk space, there was no soundproofing and so every call you were on (and some days you’d sit there for 6-9 hours, simply logging into Zoom meeting after Zoom meeting with no breaks) would have crosstalk from your neighbors.
Everyone called them egg cartons. I called them Borg alcoves because they were literally that. You went from being cubicle mice to just another drone plugging into the Collective and having to pencil in your restroom breaks (we didn’t have enough privacy for piss bottles, and I do think management would have supported such a sociopathic practice).
This also happened about 2 years prior to Covid, so you could understand why no one supported the return-to-office initiatives.
autonimity@reddit
Unfortunately Shitty Fluorescent overhead lighting is still going strong in many older buildings.
And when they are finally replaced, the replacement is even more piercing shitty LED overhead lighting.
BraeCol@reddit
My coworkers and I referred to our office space as cubehell for a reason. Just as mentioned at the top of this thread, cubehell was an isolated, boring, non-interactive environment. For people like me, that was semi-OK, but also a bit disconnecting.
In the late 2000s, the open floor plan started to emerge and most of us hamsters had been on our wheel for so long that we forgot other hamsters existed. Many protested and dreaded the open cube plan. How would I play games on my PC, sleep, etc. at my desk if everyone could easily see me now? Nevermind the reason we were doing this in the first place was as coping measures for cubehell and lack of meaningful work and/or interaction.
Once finally implemented and executed, the more open-ended floor plan was much more interesting and more interactive with co-workers. Of course for some people this was off-putting as they did not want to interact with their co-workers. For our group it worked really well and allowed for cross communication that was easy and seamless. To put it one way it was a breath of fresh air and it really did breathe life back into our work day. The only downside for me was that we were a support department and, when we were all on the phone at the same time, it could be rather noisy without the walls keeping some of the other voices in check.
Those who lived through the cubehell era completely understand the culture that's represented in movies such as Fight Club. Tyler's minimalist concepts and quips struck true with many millennials as well:
"Goddammit, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables—slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man: No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war; our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off."
I think that quote really sums up the idea behind the OPs question.
URfwend@reddit
If only Tyler knew what was coming. It's like walking into an ER saying "it sure is quiet around here". That's a quick way of manifesting a 5 car pile up on the freeway.
We got our purpose. The game settings were changed to "madman"'. We're shopping for food we can barely afford and gas at levels that were dystopian in Fight Clubs 90s. Buying even more shit we don't need, quicker than ever before and poor quality. You can make a video and upload it to YouTube and get famous and be special. A million dollars isn't even a shocking number anymore. It's now the target amount for Joe Schmos retirement portfolio to live sort of comfortable. Any optimism has been slowly bled and squeezed out of us. But then AI arrives and as something that could decimate employment opportunities while billionaires build bunkers. Something that could enable true progress and remove humans from needing to work and focus on creating meaningful things like art and music, or hobbies. But instead it's replacing peoples jobs and used in wars and the surveillance state.
How naive you were Tyler...
Snoo14546@reddit
I was in a cubical
desertrose0@reddit
I mean, cubicles still exist.
Zealousideal_Golf101@reddit
Yeah, but with the open floor plan model. Back then, they had a lot of them closed off.
It wasn't until tech got big and everyone was trying to model the Google culture that you got the short walled cubes without doors.
Cooper_Sharpy@reddit
Peter in Office Space changed everything..
“Corporate accounts payable Nina speaking, just a moment…. Corporate accounts payable Nina speaking, just a moment…. “
msheehan418@reddit
Since I started working, everyday of my life has been worse than the one before it, so that means everyday you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life.
nerdkraftnomad@reddit
Weird. Every day is the BEST day of my life.
msheehan418@reddit
It’s a quote from office space
TruckFudeau22@reddit
So today is the worst day of your life?
msheehan418@reddit
Yes. Yes it is
TruckFudeau22@reddit
Wow. That’s messed up.
msheehan418@reddit
Is there anyway you could sort of just zonk me out so that, like I don’t know I’m at work here? Could I come home and think I’ve been fishing all day or something?
Character_Fuel5249@reddit
Are you absolutely sure you haven’t experienced anything worse? Losing someone close to you maybe? Being in an accident? Anything?? lol 🤣
msheehan418@reddit
It’s a quote
MillersMinion@reddit
I felt this so hard working phone tech support in my cube a block away from where they filmed Office Space.
desertrose0@reddit
Not all companies have open floor plans. My company has cubicles in the old style, just they don't have a door. I despise open floor plans.
elmoosh@reddit
I would kill for a cubicle. So sick of the noise, the random accidental eye contact, the forced small talk, the lack of privacy. I just want to do my work in peace and quiet and get the hell out of there.
desertrose0@reddit
I'm sorry. I despise the open floor plan model. My company still has the high walled ones. It's still awkward at times, as you can hear everything, but you're not staring down your coworkers.
CariniFluff@reddit
Yeah I would go back to a 4'-5' tall cubicle wall in a heartbeat over the "open office" design we all got in the mid 2010s. While it was no where near as private as having an actual office with a door, it's was a hundred times better than what we have now.
The worst is when someone comes in who usually works at home and isn't used to using their "inside voice" so the entire GD office can hear every phone call the dbag makes. And they're usually downtown that day because they have a bunch of client meetings, so they're on the phone constantly to confirm the meetings, making reservations for lunch/dinner, etc. Or even better, they'll waves over all the people who are so excited that they're in the office and are just dying to catch up, so half the day they're chit-chatting with co-workers 3 ft away from me instead of going to an entry phone call/meeting room.
Office Space really nailed the cubicle nightmare but they could have never predicted that it could possibly get much worse.
elmoosh@reddit
100%. And at my office, I somehow end up being the recipient of a shit ton of chit-chat in spite of me wearing big headphones and avoiding all eye contact. Almost NOBODY seems to understand the basics of office etiquette, much less common courtesy. I don’t know if they ever did, but we’re old enough by now to know it’s worse than it used to be, by far.
CariniFluff@reddit
Man you wouldn't believe it but at my first job out of college, after the 9 month training program at the HQ, I went to my home city office and had my own office with like a 400lb solid hardwood door. I had windows to look outside, my shared assistant was 10ft from my office door. It was amazing even if my local boss sucked.
After I left there I knew I wouldn't get another office but I did lunch out and get this corner cube where one side was a wall, being me was filing cabinets no one used and the door to the IT server room. My co-workers sat across and next to me but with solid 5' cube walls, no glass or plexiglass tops.
And then it was all down hill from there... They tore all of that out and I had a shared 2x3 setup and my back was to an open hallway so every person walking down the wall could see my screens and I'd constantly get interrupted. Next place (same company, different office), we had the same 2x3 setup but with no dividing walls at all. At least the previous one had like 1.5ftv solid wall and another 1ft frosted glass.
And is been variations of this shit ever since. The best part is that the executives were convinced to switch to this in order to "encourage teamwork" and "cross-functional opportunities". Except in my line of work, everyone works on their own account from start to finish. Occasionally we'll need to speak to the legal team or someone from a different product line for a quick referral, but I would never be working with my cubicle neighbors/teammate on a deal, again I handle it from start to finish.
The open Office setup I can see being useful if like 10 people are all working on the same client/account. Consulting firms would be a great beneficiary of this setup. Or perhaps some computer coding or graphic design for a client's marketing campaign. But it just makes no sense on my industry; in fact anyone interrupting me breaks my concentration and can take me a couple minutes to get back to where I was. And yet somehow the people that make 200x my salary don't understand the absolutely fundamental importance of focus and concentration when you're crunching numbers and looking for patterns in dense data.
That's why I get so much more work done at home, even though I prefer the office just to get out of the house. Itv sucks how much they've destroyed the positives of working in the office, and then wonder why there's so much resistance to going back you the office. Well that and The people making these decisions are only in an office 2 days a week because they're busy playing golf and when they are in the office they have an actual office with a door they can close. Fucking pricks, all of them.
Material-Imagination@reddit
Agreed! Just because they found a way to make it even worse doesn't mean it wasn't bad, I guess
lamancha@reddit
I can't imagine going back to these dumb open floor plans with no assigned desks. I used to decorate the walls of my cubicles with whatever random shit I could to feel less alienated and it worked, now you have to deal with everyone else staring at you at a place that absolutely doesn't feel like remotely yours. It's so uncomfortable.
drainbamage1011@reddit
Open floor plan looks more aesthetically pleasing than a maze of cubicles, but you trade it for no privacy.
GerkDentley@reddit
People ask for them over open concept offices
somekindofhat@reddit
Clockwatchers was a great movie about this.
German_Merman@reddit
I can also add that if you're a 15/16 year old looking to meet girls and make friends, spending your summers working in suburban offices full of middle-aged salesmen is an absolutely terrible idea. Just work in a supermarket or fast food joint like all your friends do, FFS.
chamrockblarneystone@reddit
I spent a lot of the 90’s working in bars, pubs, and clubs. I made decent money, could go to school, and had an A plus social life.
My friends with degrees that went straight to the cubicles were miserable. They were jealous of my dumb ass.
I became a teacher. I’m now happily retired. Those office friends made a lot more money than me, but many are still working.
TotallyNotRobotEvil@reddit
Yeah, I’m one of those people who went straight into office life. I was jealous of you lol, like by a lot. Pretty miserable getting up at 5:30am to get to work by 7:40am, and then sometimes work until 11pm (or later!). Most of my 20s and early 30s were spent grinding through multiple once in a life time recessions (dot com crash, Great Recession), and it does suck that I never just got to be a normal 20 something, just go out to clubs, festivals or whatever.
Only recently have I gotten to a level that my work life balance is pretty good. Retirement is still a bit ways off due to me living in a high COL area. But otherwise life is pretty good. Would I do it all over again? Man I am not sure I would.
DickWhittingtonsCat@reddit
I think it rather depends on the office and your position. You must have lived in a suburb back when “temp” summer jobs paid 10-15 an hour in late 1990s and aughts?
There were a lot of people my age at some of those gigs. Especially the ubiquitous projects to image and digitize paper files for pensions and shit.
But yes, if it was a more fulltime and permanent gig in place of college with older coworkers, your only recourse would be to smoke tons of cigarettes if you wanted to make friends.
Straight talk, I haven’t smoked in over a decade, but dive bars and social events in public have basically been just death marches of tedium for me since the escape valve of going outside to rip butts in the alley was taken away.
Even when you could smoke in bars, there was nothing better than smoking in the gutter and talking shit with strange women. The true pants shitting drunks usually didn’t make it that far.
Same goes with the smoking bench. I developed so much in terms of active listening, empathy and understanding how to be kinder person- and much more gossipy one with well timed and cutting insights- while tearing through parliaments in an office park.
sexual__velociraptor@reddit
Oddly enough I worked with animals as a job during the earliest of the 2000s... oh muh gawd peta type girls LOVED me. That being said peta type girls are a fickle beast and not meant for long term relationships.
KingdomOfFawg@reddit
Sure. But they also went home at 5 and didn’t have to take Teams calls at 8 pm. When they went on vacation, no one bothered them.
I mean, my dad was a boomer, but I remember going to his office and it seemed cool. People were bullshitting around, everyone dropped everything to say hi to my brother and I. My dad had work friends (one guy was at his memorial service despite it being 21 years after they stopped working together) People took long lunches, and all my pens, pencils, notebooks etc were purloined from the office.
FormidableMistress@reddit
It's definitely gone downhill. I guess we didn't realize we'd be living through a time that everything got so much worse.
KingdomOfFawg@reddit
I think drudgery may have been the exception. Back then, the economy was good enough that if you really hated your job, you could just get another one, or you stuck around because they paid well. If you look around, all the people who are really in charge of workplaces are older Gen X. They are tight with money and love to schedule Teams calls at 7:30 PM.
thebarbalag@reddit
That time no longer exists? You should see my office.
KDallas84@reddit
Wait, this changed?!?!?!
BuffaloRedshark@reddit
I'd go back to a cubicle farm in a second over this open floorplan BS that is all the rage now
bigdlink@reddit
Thus spawning the “Dilbert” comic strip which, to your last point, is largely no longer relevant.
WilsonTree2112@reddit
The further back time goes, the worse that working conditions were. OPs were a luxury compared to fifty years prior.
Unique-Arugula@reddit
My first real job was essentially being in solitary confinement for 4-6 hours per day, 5 days a week. My "office" was a little storage closet with very poor lighting. I did have a window - that I was not supposed to open the blinds ot bc the sunlight could damage some of the stored stuff that towers over me on two sides. I actually lost a little bit of mental stability because of it and quit without having anything else lined up yet bc I could feel myself getting more and more messed up in my thoughts and feelings.
TacosAreJustice@reddit
Oh man… this is an interesting point and I definitely agree…
We spend so much time bitching about always being online we forget what it was like before you could contact basically anyone at any time and anywhere…
Not texting your buddies during work, or screwing around on Reddit on breaks.
Just stuck in the office for 8 hours until you could leave and see what was actually going on.
Lemna24@reddit
If you worked in the financial sector, there would sometimes be a TV showing whatever cable network was showing financial news.
Source: I temped at Fidelity Investments for a few months in 2002-2003. I remember watching some breaking news about the run-up to the Iraq war with coworkers.
Of course my dumb 20-something ass thought it was a great idea. I've learned more critical thinking skills since then.
SimpleVegetable5715@reddit
There was likely a tv in the break room that played the news if something important was happening.
coachkler@reddit
I remember being called in to the break room because "some weird shit" was going on in New York. A plane crashed into a building or something? We were all standing around watching when the 2nd one hit....
hyperRed13@reddit
Oh wow, same here, except I was the one who saw the tv in the cafeteria, ran to call my coworkers to come see "a plane accidentally crashed into one of the world trade center buildings!" Like, I remember saying accident because no other possibility even occurred to me.
We got back just in time to see the second plane hit live and all simultaneously realize it wasn't an accident. I still get chills remembering that feeling.
ooomellieooo@reddit
Slightly off topic but do you remember the sound? Sort of like a hollow toy tube (like a vuvuzela) slicing through the air and then a bang? On YouTube tv during canned laughter, as it dies down, it sounds exactly like that plane that morning. Every few seconds for the entire show, every time the audience laughs. All these years later and it tortures me.
hyperRed13@reddit
I don't think the sound was up high enough to hear it that well, so I don't remember it, but I believe you. Canned laughter sucks in general, but this takes it over the top.
xt0rt@reddit
I had a very similar experience. I worked in IT at a hospital and a buddy and I went to the main building to the cafeteria for breakfast when we notice the same thing on TV. Also had the same thought; "how weird, a plane accidentally hit the world trade center". At the time we didn't even know what type of plane, I had figured it was something like a personal Cesna type, never would have imagined that it was a passenger plane. Then, while watching the smoke billowing out the the tower, boom! The second plane hit.
We made our way back over to the IT building, and I went to my cube in the helpdesk, and let everyone know what had happened. At that point no calls were coming in, and everyone was refreshing all the news sites. Not too much later my boss came in and shouting "another plane has hit the Pentagon!". We were all thoroughly freaked out and didn't know what to expect from there on out.
PIG20@reddit
Same
Ours was in a little office gym. Core memory I have is when all of us in the company (small business) huddled into the gym watching the events of 9/11 unfold.
I head the news break on the radio and then ran into the office to watch see it on TV. There were already about 10 people in there watching the smoke billow out of the first tower.
Then, all of a sudden, the second plane comes into the camera view and slams into the second tower.
I was 22 years old at the time and I think it's the first time I actually felt legitimate "panic".
I didn't live in New York but Im about 40 minutes from DC.
ooomellieooo@reddit
I was working as a visiting nurse and we were in a mansion on the Delaware River and when the jets started flying overhead (following the river), I panicked and said I had to leave. Went straight to my daycare, got my kid, and went home to think about what to do next.
xt0rt@reddit
Damn, it's wild just how similar your and my experience was! *Yours as well as quite a few other's in this thread/post.
PIG20@reddit
I remember in the days that followed, some of our customers had offices located in one of the towers. We started receiving all these returned UPS packages. Sounds morbid at the time but we would then search the name of the person on the package to see if they were on the missing persons list.
Sadly, many of them were.
xt0rt@reddit
Dang, that's rough.
PIG20@reddit
Ours was in a little office gym. Core memory I have is when all of us in the company (small business) huddled into the gym watching the events of 9/11 unfold.
I head the news break on the radio and then ran into the office to watch see it on TV. There were already about 10 people in there watching the smoke billow out of the first tower.
Then, all of a sudden, the second plane comes into the camera view and slams into the second tower.
I was 22 years old at the time and I think it's the first time I actually felt legitimate "panic".
I didn't live in New York but Im about 40 minutes from DC.
weregeek@reddit
And it probably wasn't Fox News,
footsnax@reddit
You get off work at McMinimumwage and want to hang out with your friend Frank that lives nearby, nobody's home so you just go home. Try to call an hour later and leave a message with his mom, but his mom has a thing to go to and they don't cross paths. Go out for a bike ride and bump into Steve and he said he just saw Frank at the Pizza Hut but he was about to leave. Go noodling over by the PH since you're out already and find him on his way home but then the streetlights come on so you both have to go home and he crashes his bike over a pothole so you spend the next half hour looking for someone that's home so you can call Frank's parents to come pick him up at the corner of Nowhere and Nothing but nobody's home so you just sit with him to the curb until he thinks he stopped bleeding enough to get back on the road.
This isn't even a uniquely specific story, names and places fake obviously but this kinda shit happened more than a once and I didn't even blink about it in the moment. I think I've forgotten more examples than I could recall, those kinda nights were any given Tuesday at their worst.
There's no explaining how natural this experience was to anyone that owned a cell phone before college. This was the way. Sleeping in your bed at night was a plan, not a goal, not a requirement.
ooomellieooo@reddit
We spent all day in the woods/creek or literally on the other side of town. You kinda just knew where to find your friends, starting with knocking on the nearest one's door and following the trail lol. Maybe there was a payphone somewhere on a main road where you could fake collect call your mother. Or maybe you just got home when you got home. As long as the school wasn't on the phone and the cops weren't at the door, your parents were like...ok, this is fine.
ElectricVibrance@reddit
Who screws around on Reddit during their breaks?
xt0rt@reddit
Right!? That's clearly and "on the clock" activity lol
If my boss finds this I'm joking obviously
Fappy_as_a_Clam@reddit
I screw around on reddit the entire day lol
projectkennedymonkey@reddit
Meeeee... Sometimes...
ZealousidealSea2034@reddit
Half my lunches were with people and many others were reading the newspaper or a local metro paper. Sometimes I do miss when everyone was unplugged.
drainbamage1011@reddit
Yeah, at my first office job, a handful of people would eat together in the breakroom every day. There was a tv, they'd put on the local news, see what was going on outside, talk shit about the annoying local commercials. Fridays we'd take a long lunch out someplace. Now everyone eats at their desk and either works through lunch or doomscrolls.
flavier2000@reddit
We used to play poker or sometimes craps at lunch. With dice. Real craps are for on-the-clock.
SmoothActuator8132@reddit
how... how does one play craps without dice?
Halleck23@reddit
It was a joke about shitting on company time. Craps with dice is played for fun at lunch. Craps with no dice (shitting) is for on-the-clock.
drainbamage1011@reddit
I think we had a deck of cards in the one cabinet, but no one actually touched them. The boomer bosses would've found that unprofessional on the clock.
Own_Experience_8229@reddit
So… progress for the corporate masters?
Chemical_Butterfly40@reddit
I had a job where lunchtime was at 1pm so people could watch One Life To Live
Fun-Grab-9337@reddit
There is a balance to be stuck somewhere. My brain definitely worked a lot better/I was sharper when I couldn't just offload a bunch of the thinking to the computer/internet.
ChiMara777@reddit
What years were these? It’s interesting how unique and specific the xennial experience was, but I feel like this is one thing I can’t relate to. I started my first office job in 2006. By then, texting was very common and we could also use our work computers to surf the web. They didn’t block certain websites or monitor usage, although a few years later they did start blocking all external websites for certain positions.
rex5k@reddit
At least they had Tetris
Assika126@reddit
People got fired all the time for doing non work things on work computers, it was nerve wracking
msheehan418@reddit
Not right now, I’m busy, In fact, I’m gonna have to ask you to go ahead and, come back another time, I have a meeting with the bobs.
Psycosteve10mm@reddit
Solitaire used to be installed on most Windows computers.
Mugenmonkey@reddit
Minesweeper for the win.
sacrelicio@reddit
Yup maybe you get to do the crossword in the breakroom before someone else. Maybe there's a radio. If you liked your coworkers maybe you goofed around with them occasionally. That was it. Lunch was cafeteria or brown bag.
CurrentHair6381@reddit
Yeah but still....money
FAHQRudy@reddit
Half of us were just temps. There wasn’t money.
FrankieTheAlchemist@reddit
My first “real job” out of college was writing software for high-speed printers on these weird Sun Microsystems boxes running an OS called Solaris. I literally worked in a windowless concrete bunker and during their winter there were a couple of weeks when I wouldn’t see sunlight Monday through Friday.
Ok_Habit6837@reddit
This is a great way to put it. I literally had windowless offices back then too, so it was very Severance like.
CoyoteDown@reddit
What you’re describing is in white collar settings. In other sectors it’s still as exactly as you mentioned.
deefunkt01@reddit
I landed my first office job in 1999 and it was still like this even then. Hell, I didn't even have a computer at my desk as first, everything was pen and paper if you can believe it. And when I did get a computer, it wasn't connected to the internet - this was still the time when dial-up was the predominant internet connectivity method.
toebob@reddit
Don’t forget about the commute and cost of working on site and adhering to dress code. The commute could be an hour each way on average, sometimes double that. So you’ve got 2 hours of commute time, 1 hour lunch, and 8 hours of work - that means if you leave home at 7am each day you get home at 6pm if everything goes well. You might catch a little prime time TV and a bite to eat and then it’s time to repeat the cycle.
oh_skycake@reddit
This was me in the 90s. I had data entry jobs that didnt pay enough for me to have hobbies, a gym membership or go out for dinners. So id commute 90 minutes to do data entry by myself for eight hours with no youtube, tv, radio, podcast etc and then come home, eat a Lean Cuisine (mom threw a fit if i bought real food at the grocery store bc its too “expensive”), watched terrible tv because there were very few good shows in the 90s, went to bed and repeat.
Blacksyte@reddit
“There were very few good shows in the 90s” what?!
oh_skycake@reddit
We didnt have cable. I didnt think there were any except i liked Star Trek TNG and Xena. What were yours?
CancelSalty4864@reddit
💯 the schedule of my parent’s routine. Come home at 6ish and later check our hw and be a parent while Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune are on. Yikes brutal life!
rebelangel@reddit
My mom usually got home between 3 and 4, and my dad didn’t usually get home till almost 6. My mom would have to come home from working 8 hrs to cook dinner for all of us. Then TV for a couple hours, then to bed. On weekends they were cleaning the house and working on the house or yard.
jphistory@reddit
Now you have a long commute to an open office and a half hour for lunch that gets interrupted with work questions and often stay late because the more things are automated for "efficiently" the more productivity is expected of you, the employee. For lower level drones, things have only gotten worse.
SteveEcks@reddit
On top of that, many people had sizeable commutes. Cheap houses didn't exist where the good jobs were.
Now cheap houses... Just don't exist.
rebelangel@reddit
I grew up in California and it was pretty common for people to have 30+ minute commutes to and from work.
lizziekap@reddit
I mean, I had one of those office jobs with no cell phone, and this is how all of life was. You found a couple people to chat with but otherwise you did your job and left, and didn’t see it or think about it again until the next day. Many of us still have 8-hour, 5-day jobs, only now we’re expected to do it at all hours, every day, and it invades your life at home. It was just a completely different world. Suffocating jobs are still with us, but at least it was compartmentalized.
NickU252@reddit
Oh no.... now imagine being in a cubicle, but it is actually an attic that is 160F and wiring up an hvac system. Then the people you work with are even more annoying because they are also hot and broke and the best way to cope is to fuck with each other.
I've done both. I'll take the A/C micromanaged cubicle. Office work is a joke.
lost_horizons@reddit
I work in HVAC. I'll stick to HVAC, no thanks for that office life.
NickU252@reddit
To each their own. To me office work is 100% easier. You are in AC, can stand up and stretch when you need to. It's not like you are actually chained to your desk. My back and knees don't hurt like when I was an electrician. So what if Rebecca in HR is taking shit. In the trades, all we do is talk shit.
lost_horizons@reddit
Yeah I guess. I do service calls so I'm on my own. In my truck AC often enough to stay sane, between calls, and the money is good. I like working with my hands and thinking through a diagnosis, and am transitioning into sales which is a new challenge and area of knowledge.
You're not wrong about it being hard on the body though. At 43 that's not a small thing. Still, just encouragement to live a healthier life overall, stay fit and eat well.
drainbamage1011@reddit
I still belong to an online hobby forum that also spends a lot of time bullshitting about our lives, and one of the running jokes is that the office drones feel their lives slowly draining away under fluorescent lights and office politics, and the blue-collar workers are tired of being out in the elements or feeling their bodies breaking down. The grass is always greener...
Assika126@reddit
The HVAC in my high rise downtown office building was broken for three weeks one August. We had both
SleepyDoozer2@reddit
Yep - there was no real way to slack. No phone to scroll, no internet, and even in-person interactions were discouraged. I worked next to someone for two years and never learned their name.
ConfidentHouse@reddit
I agree, I also think even with technology many are still in the same boat today, humans are meant to create and build, turns out when you stick them into a cage like a lab rat, people become numb, even if basic needs are meet, they’ll want a sense of fulfillment of some sort, anyways gotta get back to my cubicle nice taking to y’all
illini02@reddit
Yep. The summer before college, I had a job in the billing department of a hospital.
It was the most brutal shit ever. It was like 5 of us sitting in a room. A computer that basically ran one program. And I'd just basically do data entry for 8 hours.
The people barely spoke to each other, except for saying "good morning", "I'm going on my break now", "how was lunch", etc.
It truly made me miss working in retail, which I thought I hated.
I did that for like 2 months, and it was awful.
dweezilMcCheezil@reddit
8hrs? I wish
CokeBottleSpeakerPen@reddit
This comes off like trying to reason with people why you're an alcoholic. I worked in an office until a few years ago, and even with social media, this was my reality. It's not that hard to put up with. Poor Gen X. 😞
hearts_of_glass@reddit
I always think about Neo sitting at his desk in his gray environment and finally having some sort of connection to the broader world via the Internet making it so hard to sit there. I was exactly where he was in the year 2000. The internet and communication was so new and interesting and chaotic. I just wanted out of that grey cubicle and away from the boss who would visit to see how everything was going constantly.
No_Mud_5999@reddit
I had a job in 1994 that paid $20 an hour, which for me was amazing. I was contracted to operate a microfiche camera in the Library of Congress, transferring depression era photos of buildings to microfiche. The Library as cool, a lot of neat stuff to see, but I had no coworkers, just me and the microfiche camera. It was... a bit dull is an understatement.
I didn't last more than a summer.
Candid-Inspection-97@reddit
Exactly how I felt about school (plus the exhaustive cramming of information with very little time to process before testing and moving on to the next subject - just a blanket of anxiety to perform well or your future was fucked)
A call center job where everyone hates you on the phone, staff that are either the boss or schmoozing the boss and one wrong step gets you shittier hours. I fantasized often about jumping out the window or turning my car into oncoming traffic.
An office job was document prepping, so flipping through pages to remove staples, unbend corners, tape tears, at a desk in a shared office but everyone there is doing another task, no chatting, MAYBE a radio playing and the rhythmic sound of the machines.
When all your friends are on a different schedule so you fall out of contact because there was no "do not disturb" function, you could wake them up after a 12 hour shift or they could be waking you up, so you try to be considerate and then 5 years have gone by and you havent spoken to them.
Merusk@reddit
Your post made me realize that what used to be normal work culture is so different from today's experiences that it was able to be made into a popular a drama-horror.
If you've never experienced that sort of disconnected office lif, Severence must be a VERY different show. Yes, the separation of personalities is its own and unique horror, but some discussion has been about the office culture itself.
Seeing people talk about that 1960's-vibe office layout as its own terror just shows what a disconnect there is from the state of work you just mentioned.
tealraven915@reddit
https://i.redd.it/2lkfeyodug2h1.gif
feartheswans@reddit
I understand that completely. We are allowed our phones and music at my job. I would go insane if I didn't have at least the music to keep me going
gastropublican@reddit
Like the 1999 comedy movie Office Space:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
sweetassassin@reddit
You just described the show Severance.
Kalspiewak@reddit
Sounds great
Lensgoggler@reddit
You know, half of it actually sounds weirdly blissful now that we're too connected with everyone and everything. 😄 A break from reality and family members ' minutiae, in a cubicle with walls sounds nice from where I'm sitting. Maybe I could even get a stapler..
....
wooq@reddit
The movie "Office Space" is a good documentary about the soul-crushing despair of 90s cubicle farm work.
AnUdderDay@reddit
Did you ever remember to finally put the covers on those TPS reports?
Dorieon@reddit
This is a great description, but I want to add that it is even worse than sounds when you consider the freedom many of us "latchkey" kids had growing up.
Weekends, we left early, rarely checked in, and no one worried.
School days, we came home to empty houses either did our homework early or went to play and did it later. Yes, very few didn't do the homework.
Being confined in a cubicle after the freedom we grew up with was a culture shock.
Dorieon@reddit
Kids today can stare at a screen all day and be happy.
GenX had to adapt to being tied to the screen as a job. And there wasn't any browsing at work.
bankman99@reddit
Idk I think there was more leeway - now every action is tracked. They know what you’re doing, where you are, etc.
I used to smoke weed on the job all the time, and it was almost expected to sneak off as needed. Because who would ever know?
zepploon@reddit
BadMantaRay@reddit
Good reply!
punktualPorcupine@reddit
Yep. Take away peoples phones, turn off the internet and have them just sit for 8hrs, in complete isolation.
Most can’t go 10 min without checking their phone and would lose their minds after 1-2hrs let alone do that for years.
OkArmy7059@reddit
I remember having downtime, but being so bored out of my skull that after a few minutes I'd ask a supervisor what more I could. Definitely not a world I'm eager to return to!
mcvmccarty@reddit
Yep. I had a bit of flex with my job so I would come in at night and do all my stuff. I got sick of having to laugh at jokes from the morons I worked with who pissed away the first 3 hours of the day “socializing” with everyone, probably because they weren’t respected at home. My boss almost fired me because I was always coming in at noon or later until he realized I was more productive than everyone else because I gave myself a little bit of life in the morning outside of work. The internet was just starting up but not at all what it is now. The job felt like a yoke. Pay also wasn’t that great so…
nefarious_angel_666@reddit
I tried to work in an office once. Didn't stay long
forever-salty22@reddit
I worked as a lifeguard in my teens and it was so isolating that I became extremely depressed, especially when I worked at an indoor hotel pool with like 2 visitors per day
Curious-Basket-7934@reddit
And if you were a woman in these jobs, you dealt with lower pay and sexual harassment.
Both things still exist today, in fact women's pay has reversed for the first time in the past few years. (At the same time that a new slur applying to the majority of the population - white females - in the Karen Slur arose. Also at the same timeframe that Roe v Wade/bodily autonomy was reversed.)
So you were isolated, worked until MAY for free, because of the pay inequality, and dealt with all kinds of sexual harassment and harm. And retaliation if you didn't ar the least smile/fawn. Things like getting demoted, fired, not given references, etc.
Balthierlives@reddit
I think it also has to do with the times. It was the post Cold War we will have global peace forever coupled with an economy that was growing fast.
The value of just having a stable job any job, feels less important. There was so much talk about do ‘do we need economic growth anymore? Shouldn’t we consider the environment? Etc
We thought things would go on forever thst way. Sadly we’ve had the dot on bubble burst since then , then 9/11, and you know the rest.
Intenselydirect@reddit
💯
Timex_Dude755@reddit
Paradise.
SimpleVegetable5715@reddit
I always had a daydream about how I would decorate my cubicle in the 90’s. Including a few Treasure Trolls. Come on, it wasn’t that bad.
German_Merman@reddit
So many people got in trouble for putting up Dilbert strips in their cubicles that there's a Dilbert strip about it.
msheehan418@reddit
I need to see it!
MmmSteaky@reddit
You’re just describing a job. Even if you can be on the internet all day and making endless personal calls at work nowadays, you’re almost certainly not supposed to be doing that.
sacrelicio@reddit
I don't do anything endlessly but I mostly have control of my time, within reason, and I'll gladly take the podcasts and smart phones and etc as occasional distractions over the alternative.
lost_horizons@reddit
Right but that's sorta the point, we're taking a bit of our lives back by staying in touch during work. People had nothing like that kind of opportunity nor the power to do it. Things have shifted, in this case it's a small win for the worker (even as the basic labor situation is getting worse and worse). I do like to see Gen Z being a lot less down for all the work bullshit. More to life than following some petty tyrant's stupid rules.
And as for me, I work alone doing HVAC service calls. I do get to talk to customers and occasionally call the office for something, but I'm alone most of the day. Glad I can text some folks or check Reddit to feel more connected to the world and my life as a whole.
In my case, no one cares if I do that, unless I just sat there for an hour doing so, but even in some strict micromanaged sort of job, I say it's good people can text and all that. Even if they're sneaking it.
anarchikos@reddit
Exactly and they also can't imagine the boomers being ALL the people in the office in charge. Office culture itself was WAY different then.
Offices were ugly and depressing, at least in my experience, there weren't parties and snacks and free drinks or HYBRID WORK.
Most of the perks you have now that make work tolerable, not there.
anon-187101@reddit
so true
Spiritual-Handle7583@reddit
Now that makes the shit make sense! I imagine the way that Mr. Cornflower Blue Tie is characterized was on the more desirable end of the boss spectrum in reality.
dandelion_bandit@reddit
This is just the plot of office space
BlueProcess@reddit
And nobody was talking about certain problems. I clearly remember that in the late 90s you'd still have people actively white-knighting Karens. They would show their 🫏 to everyone, provoke a response, then play then victim and along would some Herb and defend her. The behavior was out of control.
Sufficient_Turn_9209@reddit
Omg yes! Having started in that culture, I never really broke out of the mindset that my career was soul sucking mundanity. By 2016 it was also such a pressure cooker that I left. I made a lot of sacrifices in the three years leading up to that so I could take a pay cut, and I left to become a mail carrier while going back to school for the degree I should have gotten in the first place. I honestly loved being outside carrying mail. My new career is still a 40/60 split, field work to lab work. I'm happy with that. I don't know wtf I was thinking with that first degree and career choice.
BadAtExisting@reddit
You forget getting into construction after your coworker burns the building down? Office Space was another classic, perfect example of this.
RowdyQuattro@reddit
Wow this is a great perspective on it actually. They literally were going crazy being in stimulated under fluorescents
86n96@reddit
It's been so long since I was in an office environment, that I guess I don't realize how different it is now. Those times were extremely different. Given the right situation, you could take control of your office. And me and my friends did. We drove it into the ground of course, but we had control. I would imagine it's way different these days with everybody being interconnected.
YVRkeeper@reddit
And you reach this point of “middle management” and get stuck there because the boomers above you have made their job their entire personality so they won’t retire. Despite being the last generation with pension plans, or retirement savings accounts providing very high returns. Propped up by an insane housing market they could easily cash in on to fund their retirement.
/rant
notneverman@reddit
testmonkeyalpha@reddit
This is just an example of other generations not knowing anything about Gen X.
People tend to forget Gen X started working during the recession of the early 90s because it was followed by the second biggest economic boom in history. All people remember is the economic boom. But the bleak onset of Gen X careers made the entire generation jaded about jobs and careers.
On top of that, when Gen X started working, the fluff stories on the news were about how Gen X would be the first generation in American history that's **less** successful than the previous one. And they just kept bringing that up for several years. I remember reading an article about it in Newsweek when I was in high school. Yeah, a real shocker that an entire generation would be jaded when the older ones keep saying you'll be a failure before you even get a chance to try.
Meanwhile millennials did the exact same thing. Recession during their first couple of years followed by an even bigger economic boom. But all the memes focus on the first couple of rough years. They get to be jaded about the much better working conditions they have compared to Gen X (whose jadedness directly led to the improved working conditions Millennials benefit from)
Coomstress@reddit
I entered corporate America in 2007. It was long-hours, cutthroat, top-down brutal management, and there were threats of layoffs just like today. Those weren’t “easy” or necessarily stable jobs.
Loyal-Opposition-USA@reddit
His job was pretty evil.
SciFi_Wasabi999@reddit
It's sad to me that what one generation found miserable (being a cog in a dehumanizing corporate machine) the current generation WISHES WAS AN OPTION. It's like being in a reality where you get stabbed in the gut and missing the days you could opt for a punch in the face instead. That doesn't mean either generation is wrong, it means things just continue to get worse.
The premise tries to pit Gen X against Gen Z/Alpha, when in reality it's the system that is completely fucked up.
adammonroemusic@reddit
Fight Club is still relevant; we are still living in a dystopian-corporate-consumerist hellscape where a lot of people lack a real community, human connections, or meaningful relationships beyond casual work acquaintances.
The only thing that's really changed is we've added smartphones and the insanity of social media.
The cherry on top, really.
AffectionateFig5864@reddit
“Sorry to Bother You” is the updated version.
chazysciota@reddit
It's a living!
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
Men arev still looking for a sense of meaning. Or as Fight Club put it, "Men raised by women."
PlumSome3101@reddit
Yes. But let's not leave out the very important detail about his doctor dismissed insomnia. Not sleeping for days will make anyone crazy.
chromix@reddit
Minimizing serious problems sounds genuinely Gen X to be.
Chivalry4Me@reddit
‼️
SimpleVegetable5715@reddit
The whole movie sometimes feels like staying awake after the Ambien has kicked in.
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
Exactly
skillzbot@reddit
ahh riding the walrus! good times
Southside_john@reddit
Yeah he just wanted a sleeping pill. Any doctor would have just tossed him some ambien and the movie would have been over
Workamania@reddit
I'm not sure about that one. Those cube farms still exist. If you are even unluckier, you have an open office with a bunch of loud mouth dorks. I'd rather have the cube than some kind of open plan. I need my privacy. Fluorescent lights still suck.
No_Bend_2902@reddit
I just wanted to be in a fight club
LetsGoToMichigan@reddit
The fundamental premise of this image is flawed. "High pay" was for doctors and lawyers. Things were more affordable at least so I suppose we can split the difference.
I worked in tech over the whole arc of the modern internet (dotcom through today) and clawed my way into a FAANG in 2018 that I still can't believe was dumb enough to hire me. Believe me when I say that tech jobs in the late 90s and early 2000s did not pay anything like what big tech companies pay today, and I suspect the party will be over soon as AI continues to evolve.
Away_Supermarket_995@reddit
As someone in the original comments said - Specifically his job was figuring out whether it would cost more money to deal with lawsuits or issue a recall if the parts in their cars broke and maimed or killed people. His whole job was to dehumanize himself and others.
spc67u@reddit
Yes exactly 🙌 I just commented too that this will break a person. I’ve had jobs where I’m supposed to dehumanize the client and possibly put them in medical danger. Not cool. Had to quit.
lost_horizons@reddit
Would love to hear the story on this. Change names and places as necessary to tell it.
ooomellieooo@reddit
I had a job like this, deciding claims. I lasted a week before my humanity won out and I left.
Every story is the same: each human has a value attached to it assigned by society and the company in question will compare that value to their bottom line every time.
KeepYaWhipTinted@reddit
And in office space his job was making minor changes to software in preparation for y2k. Pointless, dehumanising jobs with no creativity or soul.
xt0rt@reddit
Tbf changes preparing for y2k were not pointless.
BuffaloRedshark@reddit
yeah, everyone says y2k ended up being a nothingburger but that's due to all the work hours that were done ahead of time. The two digit year field on financial system was a legit issue that would have had major consequences if not fixed
CarbonInTheWind@reddit
I think Office Space would have been a better example
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
Maybe he should start a club, with fights, that way he and men like him could cope with the modern world.
forever-salty22@reddit
My family member did quality control for an automaker. I remember a very specific story where he reported something that made the vehicle loudly whistle when it got about 30 mph. He reported it everyday. Years later, he rented one of these vehicles on vacation and it was whistling the whole time 🤣
Sumeriandawn@reddit
Fight Club was partially based on the Ford Pinto Scandal
impercipient@reddit
gestures and looks around. Palahniuk seems pretty reasonable
Comprehensive_Tie431@reddit
Yup. Hard to blame Gen X when they never really had a voice behind the Boomers. Boomers were the main culprits behind corporate greed, see Gordon Gekko.
__Sentient_Fedora__@reddit
Boomers got into power. Stayed in power. And Enacted laws to protect themselves from everything they did.
amilo111@reddit
Yep. They didn’t die at 50 like they were supposed to. Fuckers.
A_Thorny_Petal@reddit
At 42 most Boomers where assuming high executive positions and given meaningful responsibilities and power to change things by their Greatest Generation parents and Bosses.
At 42 most GenX where realizing that they in fact where going to be stuck answering the same 15 tech questions for their boomer bosses forever until one of them died of a heart attack, and it was probably going to be them.
Gen X - spend your whole childhood being ignored, spend your entire adulthood being held down, spend your old age being told you're a boomer.
I am Jack's complete lack of ambition.
SatansFriendlyCat@reddit
*were x3
"Where" has to do with location
"Were" has to do with the past
A_Thorny_Petal@reddit
yeah I know but I have neurological damage so you get what you get
amilo111@reddit
Wow. Tens of millions of high executive positions. That’s amazing.
buppyjane_@reddit
Why is this guy being voted down? The idea that most boomers were ever in high executive positions is fucking stupid.
A_Thorny_Petal@reddit
its hyperbolic not literal and it's about being able to actually assume power in your middle age rather than being stymied and held back.
But your probably some kinda suburban neoliberal cunt that thinks this shithole country works.
MightyAl75@reddit
Boomers raised feral animals and then were surprised that they hated cages.
Sumeriandawn@reddit
Who do you think is going inherit the corporate jobs?🤔
RupeThereItIs@reddit
Gen X will NEVER really hold power.
We are outnumbered by the Boomers, and by the time they die off we will be outnumbered by Millennials.
We will NEVER be in charge.
You may find a few leaders in industry, but mark my words, there will never be a Gen X president. Gen X will always be under represented in congress.
We where the FIRST generation to get shit on by Boomer excess, we where the first to deal w/all this bullshit. We where impacted by the .com crash, 2008 financial crisis, but Millennial are claiming they are the first to feel all of this & that somehow X was part of the problem.
We're shit on from both sides & always will be.
SatansFriendlyCat@reddit
The condemnation of Gen X is already growing online, as the Boomers diminish in number and Gen Z and onwards are coming into their own. It's just a straight copy-and-paste of the boomer condemnation, which takes no account of the different situation.
(Also, for helpful communication purposes: quite by chance, the same number.)
Sumeriandawn@reddit
Over half of Fortune 500 CEOs are GenX
The average age of an incoming CEO is 54
In 2018 , GenX accounted for 51% of leadership roles globally
GenX is the most represented generation in the House of Representatives
Snuffleupagus27@reddit
Millennials because their 25 year old HR person refuses to believe that people older than they are have worth. Getting hired is impossible.
Sumeriandawn@reddit
Over half of Fortune 500 CEOs are GenX
Snuffleupagus27@reddit
They are the outliers. Over 50% will literally have enough savings to be able to retire.
amilo111@reddit
Really though it was the silent generation. Why were they so quiet? Clearly they were scheming. Their schemes put their children in power. They’re the real culprits here.
Dartagnan1083@reddit
The silent generation were a part of it and spoiled/enabled their kids, which is expected after surviving a World War and global depression. The problem is they never taught their kids how to accept/reconcile accountability or the concept of chaos.
amilo111@reddit
Very true. They did beat them though so at least you have that.
Jebgogh@reddit
And realize what voice we do have we used to warn you the boomers and corporations were pulling up the ladder after them. We actually were the last generation and really the only one to really care about selling out. Boomers laughed and said they wouldn’t but did (looking at you “The Who”). REM showed how to do it and not sell out. Hell the best endings have been from ‘Xers like breaking bad (Gilligan) and that was about the horrors of medical debt making a chemistry teacher turn to meth.
WannaHitHim@reddit
Yall just rolled over to the boomers and got stuck in your victimhood lol
amilo111@reddit
I’m with you. Everyone is just looking for someone to blame for their shit life. MAGA blames immigrants. Redditors blame boomers. There’s no difference between the two.
CliftonHangerBombs@reddit
I didn’t get stuck. I played by their rules and have done quite well for myself.
WannaHitHim@reddit
Exactly lol. Just nice little yes men with no impact
CliftonHangerBombs@reddit
I have absolutely zero interest in making an impact. I care about protecting my loved ones in a violent world. You can feel free to pretend that you can make a difference when all of human history tells you that humans are shit, but I’m not interested.
WannaHitHim@reddit
So edgy!
CliftonHangerBombs@reddit
So jelly.
Particular-Village91@reddit
This is a ridiculous thing to say unless you are, like, Greta Thunberg
WannaHitHim@reddit
How pathetic (and creepy) that your go to insult is a teenage girl who has had more meaning in her life than yall ever bothered to find.
bootyhole-romancer@reddit
Agreed 💯
They should complain to Greta herself the same way she advised Andrew Tate; email her at "smalldickenergy@getalife.com"
WannaHitHim@reddit
Got a personality in high school and just never moved on eh?
AlekThunder88@reddit
Name checks out
bootyhole-romancer@reddit
Every downvote is a butthurt Gen Xer who supposedly "doesn't care." Fuck you poseurs and your contrived apathy
holyravioli@reddit
“Gestures and looks around” is such a tired Reddit trope used by weaklings looking for any excuse to be miserable.
cjyoung92@reddit
Agreed!
impercipient@reddit
Lololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololololol.
Look, you cheered me up.
brittanytobiason@reddit
He was probably hallucinating that, too.
sdougshaw@reddit
We were latchkey kids raised by boomer parents, most of us had a free rein to roam free most of our youth...9-5 jobs felt like a cafe compared to our youth. Most generations after us had much more structured childhoods, so the 9-5 was not as shocking...
AgPatriotAg@reddit
Many Late Genx/Xennials were sort of a different generation. It was actually a bit harder to find a good job or find an apartment with a job at a young age. I've heard many boomers basically could work on the Sears sales floor and afford apartments and smaller homes.
1block@reddit
I don't really think we know that experience. Job market was better, I suppose. Getting drafted to go die in a jungle kinda would blow more than having a shitty job I bet. Plus a lot of those stable jobs were manufacturing, which most people think they're too good for today.
This crap reminds me of Gen Z telling me how lucky I was in the 2000s when I personally know I was making $400/week and living in a shitty duplex in a meat packing town with trains going through my back yard in the middle of the night.
Plus this pining for yesteryears only is better if you're a white, straight man. Anyone else isn't getting access to that superduper job market like they think they would.
Everyone cherry picks situations from the last that are only better if you ignore the shit from those years. Hell, even housing. You could afford houses in the 80s, but guess what? Homeownership rate was lower, because you couldn't even get a damned loan.
Let's just work on the shit that's wrong today without acting like everyone else had glorious lives of comfort and luxury.
ElCaminoLady@reddit
Per the difficulty of getting a house loan back then (late 70’s-early 80’s).. why I grew up in the middle of nowhere 50 miles outside of the city. (Folks couldn’t get a loan for a house anywhere near civilization) A friend of my dad’s had to resort to buying a crappy piece of ground with an old cemetery on it, and build a house on his own!
SearchCapital7719@reddit
If Gen Z was still living in the area I was living in when I got my first apartment in the 2000's, they could easily afford the same shitty apartment today. The problem is, no one wants to move back to those cities, then more employers move away/go out of business, then more people move away to find better work.
mottledmussel@reddit
Many boomers also came home from vietnam to the collapsing economy of the 1970s. The good jobs at steel mills, auto plants, mines, and factories that their parents promised and pressured them into were disappearing for good. The world they grew up with was disappearing. The factories and houses in their hometowns were being boarded up. It's why Born in the USA resonates so much with boomers and why they pushed their kids so hard towards college.
I know the feeling. When I got out of the Army, my first apartment was $400/month. And there were many reasons why it was so inexpensive. I wouldn't trade those years for anything but I'm glad I never burned to death in a fire or was murdered. Even people who grew up then seem to have no idea how run down and dangerous America was through the late 90s. Living in a big city for $400/month was great but there were definitely downsides.
AgPatriotAg@reddit
I'll tell you, you are not joking. Getting drafted would have stunk. That's fair. But I do remember some people who had a parent that sold typewriters for a living and still afforded a house. Different times. I know each gen had their issues and probs though. It wasn't a golden ticket by far. Just seemed crazy to know how they could afford stuff at seemingly entry level jobs.
1block@reddit
The expectations were that you took what job you could get and you lived with it. That job sounds mind-numbingly crap, and I don't think a Gen Z kid would be happy with that job even if housing prices were low.
Housing is an issue. We can work on that without hand-waving away the real problems other generations faced.
The domestic abuse, rape, poverty my parents had wasnt easy. Did a black Boomer make good money selling typewriters? Gay guy might if he could hide his entire identity. Is it possible we could raise families on one income because society was set up that way by keeping women in the kitchen? And once 2-income households became the norm and were bidding against each other for houses, the market adjusted to it in a boringly predictable way by shooting up? How does now (admittedly effed up) compare to the political turmoil and murders of young Boomers in the South just trying to register voters during the civil rights era?
I'm so sick of the pity Olympics garbage that reddit loves to promote.
One_Cryptographer940@reddit
This exactly. I was born in '76, and after graduating from college, it was really difficult to find a job decent enough to just cover my rent and bills. I was down to my last $10 oftentimes. The workplace was almost completely saturated with early Gen X and Boomers in the midst of their careers.
seymourscagnetti420@reddit
Yeah, when we Xennials hit working age, the baby boomers were still relatively young and in their prime earning years. There was little chance of any real advancement for most of us for many years.
protossaccount@reddit
Gen Z seeems to think that some money will make life all better. Gen Z is in their teens and 20’s, when your poor and think money will solve everything.
Fappy_as_a_Clam@reddit
I mean it does solve most things, so they aren't all that wrong
protossaccount@reddit
It solves some things and can make people terrible.
rdldr1@reddit
This was the entire late 90s. We lost all this because of 9/11.
CancelSalty4864@reddit
Growing up in the 90s was dope. When they canceled school, we would bike to rent horror movies and get pizza. Parents can only check on you by calling the house surprisingly lol
SojournerWeaver@reddit
humans complain, regardless of their situation. the matrix really got us right on that. the machines gave humanity a paradise and we rejected it, which is exactly what would happen in reality. we can't help but see problems, even in the best situations.
eyelinerqueen83@reddit
My mom worked in tech from the late 80s until she retired last year. She was floored at how accurate Office Space was to her experience. While she is a young boomer she related to the frustration of being told the same thing over and over by multiple bosses, lay offs, and annoying corporate culture
SilverAsparagus2985@reddit
Like…
Otto_Kermitten@reddit
Elder Gen X have had it 10% harder than Boomers and act like the biggest victims in the world. Even still to this day with Millennials and Gen Z clearly having it much worse than them they still act like the biggest victims.
TwpMun@reddit
The irony of this statement...
Dast_Kook@reddit
Boomers could spend their entire lives with a job that was just hole punching papers and putting them in a binder. They would eat the same half tuna sandwich everyday, drive the exact same route to and from work, grocrery shop for the same exact items every time, and complain that the cost of their diet Shasta root beer went up $0.03 per can. Gen X actually got displeased with the idea of living this same life and asked, "wtf are we even doing?"
huxgress@reddit
GenX here. "The monkey pushes the button. The monkey pushes the button. The monkey pushes the button." On an infinite loop. They told us if we keep pushing the button we will get a raise or promotion, so we kept pushing the button. There are stories that there are still some GenX somewhere pushing the button hoping for more.
ShogunFirebeard@reddit
Shit like this reaffirms that the majority of people that have seen Fight Club didn't understand what they were actually watching.
Coakis@reddit
Its explained in the movie, and the book. Same goes for Office space, the Matrix, any of the movies that touched on the materialism and spiritual dissatisfaction with reality in the prosperous 90's; it's explained, just watch the movie or in the case of Fight Club read the damn book.
Puzzleheaded_Bad6461@reddit
it'd be great satire of how dissatisfaction and alienation can be weaponized by authoritarians but I honestly think Palahniuk lacks the subtlety.
chazysciota@reddit
Given that people like Critical Drinker unironically present Tyler Durden as a model of masculinity, I wonder if he's too subtle. (Movie vs Book, i know, i know. still)
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
People forget Devil's Advocate ends up with this trope
Lafemmedelargent@reddit
Yeah... Corporations are arguably more evil now and that only makes movies like Fight Club more relevant.
End stage capitalism with a major helping of wtf toxic downfall of our republic is a particular flavor of post-apocalyptic hellscape I could do without.
Thanks, boomers.
MotorcicleMpTNess@reddit
Unlike today, you couldn't just zone out watching Netflix on your tablet / scrolling on your phone / listening to podcasts during your soul deadening job making spreadsheets nobody ever read. You really were basically stuck at your desk counting ceiling tiles if your job was boring, but your boss still wanted your butt in your cubicle.
Plus, there was a huge cultural thing about not selling out. It was considered a badge of honor to not work for the man. Most young, single people could live independently or at least with roommates somewhat comfortably doing some dumb retail or restaurant job.
Read Generation X or watch Reality Bites. Those pieces of media are somewhat idealized, but they aren't that far off from how a lot of more bohemian 20-somethings thought and lived at that time.
Okra-Tomatoes@reddit
Reality Bites is the one I struggle to relate to. She had a job working in her field, even if it was at the bottom and stressful. When you figure up what she was making in today's dollars it's more than most people make coming out of college now (who aren't engineers or in tech).
MotorcicleMpTNess@reddit
I love that movie, but it's just Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke making the worst possible decisions every chance they get.
I can't see either one of them being happy.
projectkennedymonkey@reddit
You could read books or magazines or newspapers if your job was boring. You weren't THAT much more limited than you are now with a phone. Any job where you couldn't get away with that then is most likely a job that doesn't let you be on your phone now (cashiers, customer service, etc.)
sacrelicio@reddit
People complained about dead end "McJobs" and the soul crushing office jobs back then. It wasn't any happier of a time.
Cailloutchouc@reddit
A gen x'er I knew used to work for a telecom company and used to brag about how much money they just threw at the employees for them to stay with the company and not go work for the competition. Paid off the mortgage for his condo while real young and never really had to pay much of a mortgage every time he moved to a larger dwelling.
dallasSportsFan85@reddit
Did anyone watch the fucking movie?
SearchCapital7719@reddit
Clearly not. Too bad, if the person making this meme understood the movie, they probably would have agreed with the point it was making.
One_Cryptographer940@reddit
Uuuuhhhh. Is this just ragebait? This is from Fight Club (I know you know, duh). But...do people know what Fight Club was about? What it was making a statement on? The tyranny of mindless corporate consumerism. The uniquely American mindset that you should work, work, work all the time, with negligible paid holidays or sick days just to line the pockets of upper management. It is really not that hard for Millennials or Gen Z to educate themselves so that they can absorb an artwork in the context in which it was made. I'm saying this as a late Gen X/early Xennial.
SearchCapital7719@reddit
I think the difference is that many people today don't see selling out to a job that is literally helping a company kill people (that's what he was doing in Fight Club) to make enough money for a nicer iPhone as a bad thing. There's way more of a "I got mine" culture and less of a "you're a corporate sellout" culture.
_OptimusRex_@reddit
4chan media literacy sharp as always I see. The movie screams at you it's a critique of rampant materialism and commercialism, that capitalism turns everyone into a commodity literally and figuratively, from the protagonist's job, to making soap from human fat. Fight club was a twisted way for these characters to reclaim their humanity in a world that treated them like a product.
SearchCapital7719@reddit
Yeah but consumerism is trendy now. Selling out to a job that hurts people to buy an induction range for your condo is no longer a bad thing.
Danthrax81@reddit
"We have no great war. Our war is a spiritual war. " - Tyler Durden
blues_and_ribs@reddit
Yes. Lots of movies of the era had the trope of “main character in a job that someone today would kill for but is deeply unhappy.”
It’s parallel is “main character is kind of a juvenile who wants to get with a girl who is currently with a guy whose only fault is that he’s an adult in a stable, decently-paying, white collar job.” This was like half the movies in the 90s.
desertrose0@reddit
Yeah I thought all of that was weird even at the time. Your biggest problem is that your job is boring? But switching careers isn't that hard? Ok, so why not just do that? Also, yes, boring office jobs have their issues, but a stable paycheck with good benefits is gold these days - even if you're bored.
sacrelicio@reddit
How good was the pay and benefits? A job that pays for Peter's lifestyle isn't actually that rare these days. The suburbs are full of people like that.
desertrose0@reddit
Benefits are always the thing, to me. Everywhere else I've seen they are worse than what I currently have, so that makes me hold on to them. Clearly a lot of others disagree.
newsflashjackass@reddit
Siddhartha Gautama was all "waah being royalty is too hard!" was he stupid?
DrJaneIPresume@reddit
I mean, that's literally the setup for The Matrix but nobody complains about that one.
CalmTheAngryVoice@reddit
Because it demonstrates that the alternative has major downsides.
PandaCasserole@reddit
Which is the basis of Capitalism eroding the masculinity of modern men.
lost_horizons@reddit
Huh, I never saw it from this frame. You mean Neo living his passive pathetic corporate life, but through his computer stuff on the side, he gets looped into a Greater Cause and becomes the Hero?
PandaCasserole@reddit
Yeah dude. Really need to look up the hero's Journey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey
lost_horizons@reddit
I know about it, I just never thought about it in terms of Capitalism and it's attack on masculinity as such.
8last@reddit
Because it wasnt air he was breathing.
send_in_the_clouds@reddit
Kill for his job?!? Half the comments on this make me wonder if anyone even paid attention to the movie at all.
The first 30 minutes of the film tries to describe to you how soul sucking his job is. Endless travel, alone in hotel rooms, boring grey office etc. You then see him desperately trying to fill that void by aimlessly consuming Ikea furniture and clothes.
This doesn’t even mention the worst part of the job, that he’s literally paid to investigate accidents and calculate whether their deaths hold enough liability to trigger a recall.
Imagine that, you know that the product is causing people to be killed but you are forced to recommend not issuing a recall because it’s cheaper to just pay out to the grieving families.
That is not any dream job that I would want!
SimpleVegetable5715@reddit
Like on Office Space. I’d even be happy to be the girl with the flair! At least her waitressing job paid for a cute apartment.
I watched Fight Club while I was coming down from anesthesia from getting my wisdom teeth pulled. It really didn’t make any sense.
zombietrooper@reddit
I've watched Fight Club half a dozen times, sober. Maybe it's because I'm neurodivergent, but that movie makes zero sense to me.
AlekThunder88@reddit
Because it really doesn‘t make sense to you or because you‘re edgy and find the movie to be overrated?
zombietrooper@reddit
Because it really doesn't make sense to me, honestly. I mean, parts of it make sense, but the whole meaning of it is lost on me. I don't think it's overrated or underrated. To me it's just...weird.
AlekThunder88@reddit
If you let me know what you found weird about it, I might be able to explain if you‘d like?
Inevitable-While-577@reddit
I understand you.
AlekThunder88@reddit
The film has lots of meanings and messages. There is no overarching meaning of the film or one particular message. There are lots of messages and learnings you can draw from it. Mostly about integrity, capitalism, rebellion, human nature and society.
MrCrash@reddit
Chuck palaniuk is an awesome author. I love Choke and Survivor.
Deep satire and deconstructing social monoliths is kind of his thing.
AlekThunder88@reddit
I only read Fight Club. But the fact that he wanted to cite recipes from the Anarchist cook book in fight club is enough for me to know that you‘re right!
(Un)fortunately they wouldn’t let him spill the tea about Guerilla Warfare Tactics though, so he had to write that mixing orange juice and saw dust creates Napalm instead of the original recipe. :D
Inevitable-While-577@reddit
Because neurodivergent people will never get the "oh no my life is so boring, gotta do something bad" trope. (Source: me)
AlekThunder88@reddit
I mean you technically can dumb down the plot of fight club to your trope but why would you, if you want to understand the film? The film explains it’s plot pretty well. Condensed, the plot of the film is basically: >!The Main Character is travelling a lot due to his job, and is under a lot of stress, since his sleep schedule is messed and all of this gets to him mentally and causes Schizophrenic episodes. So he creates this imaginative Figure Tyler Durden who leans strongly towards Anarchism and who basically makes him establish a terror Organisation. So it is rather the „I suffer from depression and subconscious self-loathing due to the way my life is going so my brain unknowingly creates an imaginary friend who is me as an evil badass anarchist to spice things up a little bit“-Trope.!<
I have no concept of your neurodivergence and I don‘t mean this in an offensive way, but what don‘t you understand about the film exactly? Maybe I can explain?
Notermlimits4GEQBuS@reddit
Joe VS the volcano was kind of peak
croissant_and_cafe@reddit
Reality bites
cidvard@reddit
American Beauty is a strange time capsule of a movie in many ways, but the lead character quitting his very stable and high-paying magazine job is probably the part of it I find the most lulz now, as somebody who did some years in journalism when it was starting on the downward slope in the late 00s.
jacksonmills@reddit
The opening scene of Fight Club is interesting - the best part is when Tyler talks to him on the plane about car recalls. That's kinda the crux of the movie, yeah he's bored with his life but he's also just like this whole damn thing is a sham (and then blows it all up).
I think the 90s were also an era of unsettling discovery and there's that theme too, but there are plenty of movies that are exactly as you describe.
GeorginaNada@reddit
A lot less jobs are high paying and/or stable.
SearchCapital7719@reddit
And there were movies about layoffs too, such as Falling Down
BadAtExisting@reddit
Fight Club is a dark, nihilistic satire. It’s criticizing consumerist culture. The “male loneliness crisis” isn’t new, and this was criticizing that by showing how men resort to extremist ideologies when feeling disillusioned and powerless. Sound familiar?
It wasn’t meant to be a true take on those views. It was a criticism of guys like Tyler Durden/Narrator. He wasn’t meant to be a character to aspire to. But alas
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
Gen X Falling Down
SearchCapital7719@reddit
A movie that begins with a guy losing his job...
nonexistentnight@reddit
I hate this post. It's exactly the kind of dumb shit I'd expect to find on 4chan. Like they never heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It feels like a psyop trying to convince the youth that if they're given the scraps of a stable existence they should feel fulfilled. Late 90s society still had all of the bullshit internal contradictions that would metastasize in the 2000s. It's like the same kind of mentality as people who think racism totally disappeared in the 90s. If boomers tried to pull this shit imagining the 1950s was a perfect world of happy nuclear families straight out of 50s sitcoms we'd pillory them for it.
This sub already has heavy nostalgia glasses for all things 90s. We shouldn't be indulging people who want to pretend it was some kind of socioeconomic paradise.
SearchCapital7719@reddit
There were tons of movies about job instability back in the day. For example, in Falling Down, he was laid off from his engineering job and driving around in his Chevette.
jessek@reddit
In Fight Club, his job was to determine if companies did recalls or if they just settled lawsuits when products were faulty
In Office Space, the workers were treated as disposable and were getting laid off.
I can’t remember what the deal was with the job in American Beauty but he was happier working fast food.
SearchCapital7719@reddit
The deal in American Beauty involved his wife being very, extremely, unpleasant to be around. The job was part of it but, I think most of the plot was about their relationship.
SimpleVegetable5715@reddit
He was an advertising executive.
LolaAucoin@reddit
He was low level, not an executive.
jessek@reddit
Sounds high paying and soul crushing.
mariana_kl@reddit
Fluorescent lighting did no one any favors
White_Buffalos@reddit
Just watch OFFICE SPACE. ("The Old World")
It's the prequel to SILICON VALLEY. ("The New World")
Which is the prequel to IDIOCRACY. ("Now")
All are outstanding documentaries of their times and culture. Sadly.
DRAW-GEARS@reddit
You talk about us like we're no longer here! Lol
voltron327@reddit
Would you feel the same if I told you Tyler Durden and Mr. Incredible worked for the same insurance company?
spderweb@reddit
They're so rusted in the back.
BritOnTheRocks@reddit
Gen X does not respond well to authority figures. Nobody wants to work for the man, mannnnn.
ahoypolloi_@reddit
This is my most Gen X trait.
You’re dad I’m Doug I’m outta heeeeeeere
xt0rt@reddit
You dad! And I'm doug! And I'm outta herrrrrrreee!
JustFun4Uss@reddit
https://i.redd.it/hfe90b38ge2h1.gif
Babymakerwannabe@reddit
Me too. Damn the man, save the empire!
bridymurphy@reddit
I’m splittin’
GlitteringCobbler987@reddit
I thought he was a claims adjuster who decided whether or not it was cost effective to correct deadly/defective car parts?
End stage capitalism is soul sucking is the point, right? Please correct me if I'm wrong
Interesting-Set-5993@reddit
yeah he talked about how morally corrupt the entire idea of the company was and how fucked up it is that everybody just walked around collecting their paychecks like there's nothing wrong with it. I feel like this movie has only gotten more true lol
andrewclarkson@reddit
Are movies like Office Space and Fight Club no longer relatable? I would think it would be even moreso now... but I ran from the corporate world into the sweet embrace of self employment like a decade ago so maybe I'm out of touch.
Enge712@reddit
Here is my problem with Office Space (although I love it overall). His solution is working construction. Working construction sucks different than an office job but it still kind of sucks
RL_Mutt@reddit
The real problem is that everything in life is as shitty as it is good. Construction work sucks, but not the way office work does.
Eventually you realize work boils down to how much shit you can stomach for X dollars a year.
kthejoker@reddit
Nah his solution is just not working in an office.
It did not matter what the job was.
DrJaneIPresume@reddit
It's a very Mike Judge center-right take that construction and manufacturing and industry are Real Jobs done by Real Men and the only ones that really count.
kthejoker@reddit
Bro. He just needed a change of scene.
It was not a commentary on Real Men.
Milton was a Real Man.
sacrelicio@reddit
Idk if that's really the point
MmmSteaky@reddit
You really think he believes that? You see what he does for a living, right?
DrJaneIPresume@reddit
Yes, it's really only popular among white-collar workers, because people who actually work those jobs know that (as the person I was building on said) working construction still sucks, just differently. There's nothing inherently more dignified and fulfilling about manual labor, but there's a lot of white-collar guys who think it is.
ThePlatypusOfDespair@reddit
I think part of it is that when your job is to create pointless reports that will be filed and immediately forgotten, the idea of actually creating something tangible and useful is really appealing.
MmmSteaky@reddit
I’m not convinced you understand your own argument.
bridymurphy@reddit
It is measures above sitting in a cubicle for 40 hours a week.
Sometimes when I am headed into work and I don’t want to work that day, I remind myself of my office job.
Local_Debate_8920@reddit
Used to work on a dairy. It was dirty work, but I felt great at the end of the day. After a 8h desk job and a shitty commute I'm completely exhausted. Not as bad now that I wfh, but would still prefer manual labor if it paid the same. We aren't made to sit at a desk all day.
projectkennedymonkey@reddit
I agree we aren't made to work in a cubicle but I prefer to think for a living then do for a living. I'm not saying one is better than the other at all, I'm just a thinker who wants to think. Forever grateful for the people that do the things I can and don't want to and the things I will never figure out. But yeah desks suck. I want to think on the couch.
andrewclarkson@reddit
I think most office workers would be surprised how much thinking/problem solving people in trades actually do.
What I've found is I like understanding the science behind things, why/how they work, and then putting that information into practical application and seeing the results.
Either way though different people are built different and one person's hell job is someone else's dream.
projectkennedymonkey@reddit
I don't doubt at all that trades problem solve every day. In fact one of my issues in my job is how creative at problem solving they are when the problem they're trying to solve is how to get out of complying with a regulation they didn't know about or thought they didn't have to comply with. All I'm saying is my output isn't something you can live in or hold or touch. It's ideas on a page. Or solving problems so that other people can build things.
CalmTheAngryVoice@reddit
Measures... Ha! Good one.
bridymurphy@reddit
I try to keep it ambiguous for the pedantic redditors
CalmTheAngryVoice@reddit
Ok yeah but measures... Construction... 👷🏻
Southside_john@reddit
To each their own. I’d rather be in the cubicle
ialsohaveadobro@reddit
You don't just work, you wear down your body.
zombietrooper@reddit
Yeah, and your boss isn't usually a passive aggressive douchebag, but a hyper aggressive sociopath.
bridymurphy@reddit
This is true and I work for myself. But I am also my biggest critic.
No employees. Just me… warts and all.
zombietrooper@reddit
Duct tape. Cut you off a little square, and place it over the wart. It'll be gone in a week. Duct tape suffocates the wart.
lost_horizons@reddit
You do that sitting in your chair all day, slowly getting an ulcer, eating all those office cupcakes and donuts.
mysticrudnin@reddit
everything sucks but you find the thing you can tolerate
also, maybe he moves back to the office after a year, who knows
he answered what was crushing him at the time
MrLinderman@reddit
I think that’s the point. Something that sucks differently than what you are experiencing can seem practically perfect from a distance.
A buddy of mine is a VP in a huge finance firm and he told me the other day he sometimes dreams of quitting and becoming a carpenter.
NickU252@reddit
When rich people say that, they mean it as a hobby. That guy would last 3 hours on an actual jobsite.
bridymurphy@reddit
I’d call them furniture builders if they were worth their way in salt for their work.
After_Preference_885@reddit
I quit tech to cuddle with cats 10/10 recommend
Enge712@reddit
I’m a psychologist and on a camping trip with a childhood friend started thinking how nice it must be to be a pharmacist like him. The whole trip he’s talking bout he thinks the other guy had the best job as an electrician. Grass isn’t always greener.
Assika126@reddit
Sometimes a change is as good as a rest or something like that
Bulky_Pop_8104@reddit
I’m pretty high up in the tech industry, but going through high school and university I worked both as a mechanic and a landscaper - I know I’m never going to, but I have lots of days where I miss just doing manual labour all day and punching out at 4:30. I currently get 100s of emails a day that I need to deal with.
It’s obviously an apples to oranges comparison, but I miss having a job that I can just leave at the door
Psycosteve10mm@reddit
I went from doing IT work to property preservation, and there is something appealing to physical work that just makes you feel better at the end of the day.
BadAtExisting@reddit
I can tolerate the suck being outside, up working with my hands, on my feet, on ladders, in lifts, what have you much better than the suck of being stuck in a chair staring at a computer monitor all day. I would go insane. One sucks way less for me than the other. YMMV
andrewclarkson@reddit
All work sucks otherwise they wouldn't have to pay us to do it. That said, I think there's something about being a cog in an office machine that's deeply unsatisfying for some people. When I was a programmer I got to a point where I just couldn't do it anymore. It wasn't burnout/fatigue... I was decently compensated with reasonable hours. But between the sedentary lifestyle making me feel twice my age and how meaningless my actual work felt I just couldn't stand it anymore.
Construction wrecks your body but there's something about making stuff that's far more satisfying and doesn't crush your soul.
Carrie_8638@reddit
I don’t even know what people in the comments are talking about. Things are just as bad, in addition you are supposed to work longer hours for lower pay and it’s much harder to get a new job. And you no longer have midsized companies that have more or less humane management, it’s either startups where you are expected to give your all or huge corporations where employees are just discardable cogs on the machine
barryvon@reddit
zoomers complain about those type of jobs to this day. this meme is just ragebait.
Bulky_Pop_8104@reddit
I think office space will always just be a funny comedy, but I thought Fight Club was honestly pretty dumb on a recent rewatch
GMHGeorge@reddit
Dress code is better and butt in seat time isn’t as closely monitored as it was before covid. But same corporate politics bullshit exists and jobs are being outsourced for white collar workers at a quicker pace.
ejnantz@reddit
Coworkers and bosses weren’t as nice back then, everyone only had 1-2 weeks vacation,
zarakh07@reddit
We were not. We did the same thing most do: over time we lost the propaganda garbage and saw that what we thought was enough money never would be without MASSIVE changes to what a ‘good life’ was to us. So we worked and got sadder, and well now we are here so….yay?
ButterMyPancakesPlz@reddit
This was late stage capitalism now we're just in late late stage where everyone sees the previous generation as having it better.
Golden5StarMan@reddit
As some in the tech sector for 25 years my experience is Younger people don’t want stable “boring” jobs. They want to have a job where they still get high paying salaries but want to treat it like a part time hobby.
meltintothesea@reddit
Gen X raged against and with the machine.
Cptawesome23@reddit
This was one guy. One guy felt this way. The rest of the dudes in the movie/book are just regular dudes. Dumb as fuck and fighting amongst each other.
Responsible-View-804@reddit
There was a trend in that era of movies about how young men had to reject their jobs yes. Fight club, American psycho, office space, old school. Those are four movies where that’s a major theme or message of the film anyway.
Fight club is the most direct one in that message, and they out and out claim it’s because the office is not the natural place “men” are supposed to exist, and we should be out fighting wars instead, and that women are to blame. … but also to be clear, in fight club at least, it’s the bad guy saying that and you the viewer aren’t supposed to agree
Drew_of_all_trades@reddit
We were spoiled by having high expectations from our leaders. Likewise there’s a lot of great movies from the 90s that were initially panned because we were only comparing them to the movies that came before, not the ones that came after
CaptianBrasiliano@reddit
I never really vibed with them. They were like the older kids.
Oh, you get good grades? Lame. You suck. You get bad grades? Fuckin' looser. You suck. What band do you like? They're lame. You suck. You like the band I like? Name every song from every album? Fuckin' Poser. You suck.
By the time I got a little older I figured out maybe it was them who actually sucked.
Fappy_as_a_Clam@reddit
Aare you my brother?? Because that's the treatment I got the entire 90s from my older brother lol
ayjaytay22@reddit
People talk a lot about the free range childhood of the 70s and 80s. I wonder if it has something to do with experiencing all that wonderful freedom, nobody watching us or keeping tabs, through college really. And then suddenly we enter the working world and we’re sardined into these terrible offices doing menial tasks all day. Thinking, how did life become this?
p4rc0pr3s1s@reddit
Because Gen X realized we're all tax and interest slaves to the government, banks and corporations. No one listened and now it's worse than ever. Freedom is an illusion that they've been marketing for over 100 years. The decline has been just gradual enough that we haven't burned it all down and started over.
JohninMichigan55@reddit
Nah Gen X was not like that at all. Gen X was more like , "What a stupid question this is. It's a stupid movie." If you want to know about the generations that are older than you, go and actually talk to them. Don't listen to reddit, TV, or anyone else who tries to tell you that ANY generation is a monolith . Go talk to People. Learn something.
cjasonc@reddit
I was a manager in the late 90's early 00s for a financial internet company. I worked 50+ hour weeks for years and used all my PTO up (not even two weeks) to spend time with our newborn. A few weeks later newborn was sick so I had to take some extra days off. I got written up and almost demoted because I needed to take a few extra days exceeding my PTO. I had went to hell and back for that company. Last time I worked in corporate USA.
Fickle_Wrangler_7439@reddit
Man, I worked an office job in the 2010 for a little bit and I thought I was dying.
I don't know how anyone deals with corporate office jobs. They suck the life out of you.
sevenselevens@reddit
Haven’t you heard? We’re slackers ;)
pm_op_prolapsed_anus@reddit
Bro, his job was literally going out and investigating deadly car wrecks to help the company decide if it was more viable to pay the settlements or fix the cars.
Oh shit... Did I just talk about fight club? I think I remember there being a rule about that
Purplealegria@reddit
That tyoe of soulless, boring, lifeless cubical work was soul sucking.
GM_Nate@reddit
Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The issue was ennui, at the top of the pyramid.
sneakyDoings@reddit
Boredom is it's own kind of stress
maneki_neko89@reddit
If you’re at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you’re doing very well for yourself and are one of the rare people who can say they’ve climbed that “mountain”
this_knee@reddit
Couldn’t get … ennui-ough money.
Sorry. Sorry. I’m terrible. I admit it. Readily! Alright, I’ll see myself out.
LolaAucoin@reddit
I honestly have zero emotions about your comment.
Ltimbo@reddit
The ‘90s were so good that being depressed was a fashion statement.
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
The late part, yes.
Verbull710@reddit
No God, no meaning in life
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
Clear_Tangerine5110@reddit
With all due respect. Fuck your God.
Verbull710@reddit
Yours, as well 👍
Clear_Tangerine5110@reddit
My what?
BritOnTheRocks@reddit
LordRuby@reddit
The movie starts with him looking at melted human remains as part of his job. His job that will cause it to happen to more people
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
At least he channeled that hobby into making soap
Acerbic_Wench@reddit
For reference, I started working in an office in a technical position in 1996.
I often didn't get much training or documentation and was expected to figure many things out on my own.
I didn't have the internet for entertainment or to help with tasks. If I didn't know how to do something, I couldn't just Google it to find answers. I had to either figure out how to things by myself, or ask someone for help. If I asked for help it was likely that they would tell the entire office that I was a dumbass who didn't know how to do a thing.
I was often hit on and sexually harassed while getting paid less than the men doing the same job. I saw people get bullied for simply being people of color or homosexual. Slurs of all kinds were used in the office.
Accommodations weren't made for most health or physical disabilities and nobody I knew ever got support for psychological issues or neurodivergence.
Nothing was ergonomic and people got carpel tunnel, tendonitis, and trigger finger as a result. If your hands or wrists hurt you were told to deal with it.
Dress codes were stricter and clothes were stiffer and more uncomfortable.
Long commutes were typical because most offices were far away from affordable housing.
Those are just the first few things that come to mind.
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
This is an excellent description of the 90s that never makes nostalgia memes.
absentlyric@reddit
"We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression."
I'd say that quote from the movie sums up Gen X pretty well.
Stalkz518@reddit
Millenials grew up into a system that was collapsing and that they'd never fully have access to and instead realized that the world and life they were sold was a lie.
Gen X grew up into a system in its last days, on its last leg, and realized while inside of it that they were sold a lie.
Same same, but different.
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
Good way of putting it
black_flag_4ever@reddit
The age of the main character is ambiguous but Pahlahniuk published this in 1996 and the main character has a career, so maybe he isn’t Gen X but instead Generation Jones like Palahniuk (1962). After all, he was inspired to write it after getting in a random fight.
The critique here misses the point of narrator’s struggle in that he’s got a job but nothing else which leads to insomnia and his mental stability deteriorates rapidly. There’s no real backstory to the character. He’s got no friends, no family, no neighbors. He is completely disconnected and left on his own. This is someone struggling with a mental illness that accidentally starts a terrorist organization instead of getting therapy. We never learn why he’s like this or if he developed schizophrenia in his mid 20s and just lived with it because there’s no one in his life that notices. We don’t even know if he really has a job or is just a crazy squatter because he’s an unreliable narrator.
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
If you look at their IDs both the main character and Tyler Durden are indeed boomers.
FoppyRETURNS@reddit
In the late 90s, yes. It felt too easy and they went through so much when they were younger. I became a huge grifter when it finally became easy.
Cigarrauuul@reddit
We knew what was coming.
There was a generation that had hope for a better world during flower power, then came rebellion and with us it was just fatigue.
There is a reason grunge was big at the time. World is fucked and there is nothing you can do about it.
ezralite@reddit
I mean...it was capitalism back then as well, so...🤷♀️
elgigantedelsur@reddit
It’s called ennui motherfucker read about it
anthonysny@reddit
I don’t get it. Up through the mid 2010s, working in tech was glorious.
Categorically_@reddit
All of this existential dread about boring but safe life ended after 9/11.
skillzbot@reddit
replaced with real dread?
pavilionaire2022@reddit
It's not unique to capitalism that when you get what you want, you realize it's not what you needed, but capitalism does have the quality that when you win, the lack of meaningful purpose is laid bare.
Alienation from purpose. Disconnection from humanity. It all looks pretty cushy looking backwards from dystopia, but looking forward, it didn't look like it was going anywhere, either.
zenprime-morpheus@reddit
Don't forget "Selling Out"
External_Muffin2039@reddit
You can have essential needs met and still feel like your soul is being crushed.
Diddydawg@reddit
Yes. I had a quarter life crisis at 30 because life was going to well. Not kidding. Now 20 years later my life has turned to shit and I am much calmer.
Yndrid@reddit
My dad worked as a bike repair guy until I was 10 or so before getting a standard cubicle office job, I don’t even remember doing what. He was there for about six months before he developed a panic disorder that he has to this day. He quit within a year. And honestly I don’t remember us having that much more money while he worked there, either. After that he became a mobile hvac tech and I think that suited him much more. I just think that cubical culture is awful tbh
Glass_Donut9391@reddit
After I graduated high school, I worked for an office that thankfully was in a downtown area where I go and get lunch outside and it was painful having to go back inside to work, thankfully it was temporary and I worked retail after that which had its own problems but not as bad as the office job.
amindfulloffire@reddit
Has the person who wrote this never been in a job that paid good but that they absolutely hated? Lucky them.
jaywinner@reddit
The thing is many people are in jobs that pay shit and they absolutely hate. So these high paying jobs would be a step up.
MaestroLogical@reddit
Just watch Office Space, where he first gets to work, and imagine that you are stuck there with no internet/texting/way to communicate with the outside world.
So for the next 8+ hours your world is non stop "Thank you for calling" in the background, while bosses continually stop you from working to remind you to work and other co-workers you'd never associate with outside of work pester you. 100% cut-off from the outside world.
You know what, don't even bother with that. You want to know what it was like, just leave your phone at home for a week while you go to your job.
Oomlotte99@reddit
I think everyone faces that “this isn’t what I thought it would be” thought… I just think for Gen X that was their crisis…. For millennials it was “my life is so hard to figure out, I’ll never grow up, I can’t seem to find my footing” because of how the financial crisis impacted so many in their early career years.
Thick_Aside_4740@reddit
The call is coming from inside the house…..
Breklin76@reddit
We thrived on chaos. I still do as much as I want the quiet life now. Home was chaos. School was chaos. Divorced parents were chaos. Raising ourselves was chaos.
Chaos ebbs and flows right under “stability” - a false sense of security. I think we were the generation with one foot in the ooze; the other looking for footing to climb the “ladder” of bullshit expectations.
I get bored when life is too smooth.
Puzzleheaded_Bad6461@reddit
it's because gen x has such pathological aversion to self-examination that they're blind to the extent of their pitying self-obsession
our generation is, in a nutshell, this:
Any_Conflict_5092@reddit
The meds back then were shit, and office jobs started at 8am, no delayed start, no core hours, no casual days. It was buttoned up corpo wear, no colored hair, piercings, or casual dress days. We were expected to be tiny boomers, and that was the only option, if you wanted a job with benefits.
If you had ADHD, nobody knew there might be a delayed circadian rhythm-perk, so they loaded you up with benzos, exceedingly shit antidepressants, super dodgy sleep aids, or anti-psychotics that crushed your fucking soul. All do you could sleep and not come unglued from anxiety caused by the taper-off of your short-release stimulant meds.
Also - they didn't believe women could have ADHD, and autism was barely understood - so good luck getting those diagnosed and treated appropriately.
And, as genX myself, having endured a lifetime of bullshit, all I have to say is this - every other generation that feels it necessary to condemn us, or call us our for not being good enough - can fuck right off. No disrespect intended, but I have lived through some heinous shit, and will not be judged for having survived it in mostly one piece.
We grew up with people who thought belittling us, ignoring us, or beating us was good parenting because we were fed and had clothes. They have zero shits about our hopes or dreams, BECAUSE CHILDREN SHOULD BE SILENT.
The only people who ever gave us anything were our peers, friends and siblings, and they weren't wiser than we were - so it was really hard to figure out how to find happiness or succeed, without ending up accidental alcoholics or on dope.
NOSTALGIA IS ALWAYS A LIE AND A TRAP.
Thinking anyone else had it better because you weren't there to see how much is sucked, is a fucking mistake, and leads to lots of misunderstanding the complexities of the past.
Impossible_Taro_3655@reddit
Gen X was the first generation to achieve the classic "American Dream," only to realize: "Is this really all there is?"
This sentence perfectly captures the cynical vibe of Gen X in the late '90s. Before the dot-com bubble burst, the world felt so hyper-optimized, secure, and predictable to many young professionals that it became almost suffocating. Movies like Fight Club or The Matrix captured this exact feeling: an intense urge to break out of a perfectly functioning but soul-crushing system. 🖖
terminally_irish@reddit
The movie literally tells you. This is post Vietnam, post 80’d excess and following recession; but pre 9/11, GWOT, and hyper connectivity.
GenX is the middle children of history. We had no Great War. No Great Depression. No epic event that tied us all together in a common cause.
Then 9/11 happened while we were young adults. That united us for a few months. Then epic polarization set in. Out Great War isn’t against a foreign adversary - it’s against ourselves.
truthrises@reddit
It seems like you didn't watch the movie.
The point is that to make a comfortable living you have to do terrible, exploitative things.
If that seems fine to you and you could sleep at night doing the same, well, this story is AT you.
vistas308@reddit
Because fuck you, that's why
KentStater@reddit
They obviously missed the entire point of the movie.
Puzzleheaded_Bad6461@reddit
That the frustrated envy of the comfortable but resentful can be weaponized by a cult leader?
tres-vip@reddit
They obviously didn't watch the movie.
spc67u@reddit
Exactly
AncientHorror3034@reddit
Please watch the opening of “Joe Vs The Volcano”
S1ayer@reddit
Jobs were still soul-sucking back then, just pay was better.
potatopigflop@reddit
The bar has been dropping every generation. Now early 30s looking for jobs ANYWHERE- even bagging groceries because a degree means next to nothing now.
Skipper0463@reddit
In my opinion, it was about achieving everything you were told would make you happy and still feeling miserable. It was about being in a world that is fake and hollow. The world that was promised to you doesn’t exist, or at least not in the way they made it seem. You work your whole life for a job that doesn’t actually contribute to the world in any meaningful way and then you get replaced the moment you die. It’s hard to wake up to the fact that you’re middle aged, depressed, out of shape, and no closer to being happy than when you started, only now your 20+ years past your prime and so enmeshed in this fake world there’s no reasonable way to escape.
MrCrash@reddit
You'll act like you never seen Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Once your belly is full and you have a clean safe place to sleep, you need self actualization and other high-order things.
Just because a lot of people are stuck at hungry and homeless doesn't mean that it's bullshit to want to feel like your life has meaning.
Jack's problem was a symptom of the same disease, late stage capitalism has commodified every aspect of the human experience, turning things that used to be joyful like art, food, companionship and comraderie into marketable products that feel hollow.
It's the same corporate bullshit that is keeping people poor and hungry, but even if you manage to escape there's just another layer to the trap. It's like neo getting out of The matrix and then he finds out that the "real world" is just another matrix.
rythmyouth@reddit
I just left a stable high paying job because it was dehumanizing and wasn’t how I wanted to spend my remaining years working. I took a very large pay cut and am working for a smaller shop. I was surprised at how much I was smiling at work since I joined the new place. Worth it, even if I cant save much.
Pineapple_Towel@reddit
We were motivated by sex and adventure, not job stability and remote work.
RadTimeWizard@reddit
What is this stable and high paying job you speak of?
turrboenvy@reddit
During stable times, office work is boring. Today, in these "unprecedented times," stable office work is a dream.
Snuffleupagus27@reddit
Because we were told that if we dreamed it, we could be it. And to do what you love and the money will come. This is why most of us are poor and will be working until we die.
Kalorama_Master@reddit
This was me.
I had a fancy degree and beat hundreds of my peers and got the fancy job at an elite firm in NYC. The hours were crazy. No social media. Was on the road 4/5 days. My apartment was being filled by crap from the sharper image, Crate and Barrel, and it all felt very cookie cutter and part of a formula. My destination appeared to be marrying a model, join a hedge fund, get divorced, my kids in boarding school, and generally being financially successful but not really doing anything worthwhile.
Around that time, I said fuck it and spend a year backpacking throughout South America keeping a journal, trying to find something real. It felt Ike I wasn’t alone as The Beach came out.
AlekThunder88@reddit
Wow. The amount of people who didn‘t understand the message of the film/the book is concerning. But if I look at people these days, their Instagram Accounts and TikTok trends they indulge in, I am not surprised that people aren‘t able to read between the lines anymore. Humanity is doomed.
AwarenessOpen4042@reddit
His job was protecting billionaires from being accountable for killing people with the products they sold. Weird that he wasn’t satisfied with the stability and having a dental plan.
Stikeman@reddit
GenX came of age in the 1990’s, which was a very difficult job market. Worse than today. And like today young people thought they’d be worse off than their parents. Didn’t work out that way for most. I hope it’s the same for this generation.
realmattiep@reddit
Rule #1: we don’t talk about it
kaest@reddit
We weren't, that's a meme.
bobrosserman@reddit
Because office work is deeply soul crushing. We were never meant to spend 1/2 our waking hours doing meaningless work.
GlueGuns--Cool@reddit
Yeah this was a very late 90s thing. For a large part of the (white) population, things genuinely good and stable, but people felt like drones. People were bored. It's kinda the entire point of fight club.
Pre 9/11 America was a different place
Sumeriandawn@reddit
A large part of the population?
Living paycheck to paycheck doesn't sound stable
Polkawillneverdie17@reddit
He literally worked for an evil insurance company in a position that made the world a terrible place. He had no family, loved ones, or connections. His life was so messed up he developed chronic insomnia and had a literal psychotic break with reality.
Did any of these hipster dorks actually watch the movie??????
Sumeriandawn@reddit
A lot of people have poor media literacy
General-Reserve9349@reddit
I burned out in the office. That, office space, most depictions of work being fucking terrible even you get paid are accurate. It’s a horrible way to live.
BadAtExisting@reddit
Fuck an a man
_kurt_propane_@reddit
Was?! Still is my man. Still is.
XxTreeFiddyxX@reddit
Those of us alive during those times saw them lay the foundation of greed, power and control that has steeped us in some bullshit
dewihafta@reddit
Gen x? No no no.
Baby boomers laid down that foundation. They destroyed the planet so much that we had to invent earth day, for crying out loud. They were extremely comfortable, given everything, and maxxed the processes of obtaining more. All the hippies became yuppies, and then worked long hours so that their kids were always home alone, being brought up by tv shows that were actually referred to as “program length commercials.”
Gen xers were jaded from birth by the utter hypocrisy of it all.
Psycosteve10mm@reddit
Most of Gen X never really had any kind of stability growing up, so we don't know how to handle it. There were never times of peace, but lulls between the chaos. In a sick way, the chaos and problems became so normal that it is the only time we actually feel normal. Peace becomes oppressive when all you have ever done is fight. When you witness 2 space ship disasters live on TV, live through the threat of nuclear annihilation, Y2k, 9/11, the crack epidemic, the AIDS epidemic, and COVID-19. The idea of burning it all down to the ground and rebuilding from the ashes does have its appeal.
squarebodynewb@reddit
No. None of their jobs are high paying and stable.
Listen or read "generation of sociopaths".
RootHouston@reddit
I always felt it was a bit of a humble brag. A Gen X-style humble brag.
LaziestManinLACounty@reddit
Doesn’t mean it wasn’t soul sucking
DetroitsGoingToWin@reddit
Watch office space
icybowler3442@reddit
I feel like this is a good example of what I’ve been saying since the millennials got loud with their “you have to pay us well” thing - the money isn’t the only thing that matters when it comes to an employer. The idea that his job was to decide whether it was worth letting people die in car accidents because it didn’t happen often enough to justify the cost of a recall is something often overlooked by people.
Miserable-Okra-8787@reddit
They still are
farquin_helle@reddit
Im gen x and in one now…
small___potatoes@reddit
Conformity, lack of free will, boredom
86n96@reddit
Because we knew what was coming, and the way things are, aren't sustainable.
dezisauruswrex@reddit
For every guy like this, there were 100 people like me, taking 2 buses to work at a job where I made $7.25 ($2.00 over minimum wage!) ans getting 20 cent an hour raises
Rhapsodyingloom@reddit
Is no one really watching Fight Club anymore???
purplecrayonadventur@reddit
I saw this in the theater a couple months ago for the 25th(?!) anniversary.
Maybe a dozen or so there and all seemed about my age or older. Oh, and they were all men and myself, the lone Marla.
Rhapsodyingloom@reddit
I am Jill’s complete lack of surprise. Here- 🚬☕️
Allenrw81@reddit
\^\^YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT IT
Rhapsodyingloom@reddit
🤐
FractalGeometric356@reddit
Because recognizing that your work furthers the aid and comfort of villains, and makes people who can’t afford to fight them worse off . . . makes you feel bad?
JungLeo143@reddit
Boomers.
bowleggedgrump@reddit
The only people posting this shit are wildly immature. EVERY new batch of 20 something’s CANNOT HELP and mock other generations
We all did it insufferably and it’s happening to us now
spc67u@reddit
If I remember correctly the character in the movie was adjusting/denying auto crash claims was deeply unhappy because his company was screwing over the clients. To the point that the clients were dying and he was that hatchet man. Repeated exposure to going against your morals is what I thought made him break/hate his job. So in this case hating his job is absolutely justified. I’ve worked in jobs that screw people over. It’s awful. Had to quit.
z0mb0rg@reddit
Remember all the Gen X media is actually made by Boomers. All of our stuff was made by early Gen X. Etc
MegaRadCoolDad@reddit
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise
LQNova@reddit
You think you're the only people who feel trapped and unappreciated in their jobs and don't have time to just be happy?
jericho74@reddit
We still have these movies, they’re just called “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and are about the nihilism of one’s “true” self being contained within a construct insistently telling you every sacrifice has been made that you have infinite choice and opportunity to individuate, yet the individuation happens to be quite limited by social sanction, overwhelming one toward a radicalism that is a false response.
The difference is the 90’s film put the postmodern twist at the end- reality is a subjective and false frame, but now films are metamodern and right out the gate presume reality is multiversal and can be hopped around at whim.
DJWGibson@reddit
Yup.
Rent and Reality Bites and The Matrix and the above.
Selling out was a thing people worried about.
RailroadAllStar@reddit
Well, life was different, right? The cost of living wasn’t as crazy so supporting yourself wasn’t as big of a concern. The struggle for many in that position is mundane soul sucking work. See office space too. There were other problems for sure, but you could typically find a decent job and support yourself, even if you hated it.
VectorJones@reddit
Because they still had a theoretical social ladder then that could feasibly be climbed by those with sufficient knowledge and drive. Not like today, where people spend their whole life hanging off a ruinous cliff by their fingertips.
SignoreBanana@reddit
Palahniuk always had a penchant for writing whiny over privileged white men.
_ism_@reddit
I think this is what makes me of this generation more than them even though I straddle both. I never could relate to characters like these
Much_Zucchini8826@reddit
It sure didn't feel that way at the time. We never thought it would get the level of horrible it is now
Same-Manufacturer773@reddit
If you don’t find the whimsy, the dark whimsy will find you.
Warrior-Cook@reddit
I can't pretend that I haven't seen this very meme before, and I can't pretend the movie was just a surface level reaction to work.
putapadrino@reddit
Haha *cries in teacher
anythingspossible45@reddit
I have this same issue, haven’t come up with a imaginary cool friend yet though
BrooklynRobot@reddit
Lead Poisoning
Blackbird136@reddit
My best friend is solidly Gen X (1975). We work in the same field but not at the same company, and she’s been at it a lot longer, whereas I’ve had a couple of career changes.
I don’t LOVE my job, but she is absolutely miserable despite making nearly twice what I do, and being hybrid, three days in office and two WFH. Meanwhile I’m in the office six days most weeks, Mon-Sat. Plus she’s been there so long that she has 5 weeks vacation a year, compared to my 2 weeks.
I know the grass isn’t always as green as it seems, but my gosh I do find it hard to have sympathy when she complains about it.
Full-March-4700@reddit
It was probably worse
LingonberryOdd768@reddit
Problem?
JaketheSnake319@reddit
I feel like this now