Dwain Northey (Gen X)

When did this become a thing? I totally get if a company has extra work, and they ask if any employees would like to work extra hours but to make it mandatory.

Every company preaches work life balance, but it is just something that they say, or it is only for the higher ups in the company. Large employees like Amazon, especially around the holidays, demand that their full-time employees’ work 45 to 50 hours a week during peak times. So, if you have a schedule that is 4 ten-hour days a week during peak times your schedule is 5 ten-hour days and as an employee you have no say in it.

I talked to one of those workers earlier today and they said they have no option but to work or they will be let go. I can’t wrap my head around that policy, if an employee has children and they have arranged childcare for 40 hours a week and the company inform them that they have to work another day that doesn’t stop them from having to provide care for those kids. The incentive is time and a half for those extra hours but arranging care for children could potentially absorb all of that. I know couples with children that work opposing shifts in order to save money for childcare what happens in those situations. The company really doesn’t care because they will replace you before you can hang up the phone.

Everything has become a race to the bottom, rent is more expensive, but wages don’t increase to compensate, overtime is mandatory so now you can afford higher rent, but you are always at work. The promise of work/life balance in the United States is a false promise that workers are not entitled to. It is no wonder that Millennials are not having families, no time, no money, and increasing cost have made the American dream a relic of the past. The promise that technology would increase productivity and people would work less for money reward has only worked on one front, from 1979 to 2020, net productivity rose 61.8%, while the hourly pay of typical workers grew far slower increasing only 17.5% over four decades (after adjusting for inflation). The profits of productivity have only benefited the corporations and the workers have been relegated to indentured servitude.

Thanks for suffering through another rant. Feel free to agree, disagree, tell me I am making mountains out of mole hills.  Aways open for comments.