Today the Wall Street Journal asks, "Why Is Everyone So Unhappy at Work Right Now?"
An excellent question! But only if people are, in fact, really unhappy at work right now. But they aren't:
This is not "data" from some outfit like Qualtrics or BambooHR, it's from the GSS, which has been asking exactly the same question for 50 years. All it shows is a small decrease in job satisfaction at the peak of the pandemic which rebounded by the next year.
Amusingly, the article links to another Journal article from May—that's six months ago—headlined "Workers Are Happier Than They’ve Been in Decades." That's based on survey data from the Conference Board, which has also been in the survey biz for many years.
Anyway, come on folks. I know the meme pipeline needs to be refilled constantly with hot takes, but can't you at least take a quick look at reliable, long-term data from Gallup, GSS, or the Conference Board before you write the latest idiot headline about some fake trend in the workplace?
".. but can't you at least take a quick look at reliable .."
Why should they?
What are they going to gain from looking at reliable data?
Working online for a time, you may earn at least $928 every day. My best friend's $29,000 story helped me make a decision. But I don't believe it's worth it because it's so true to my ts12 current situation.
A look at it------------------------------------->>> https://paymoney33.blogspot.com/
How does this comment system not have some way to alert about spam like that or otherwise unacceptable comments, or I guess any moderation of comments either?
I've long wondered why various commenting systems don't have some auto screening for stuff like the spam comment above. They usually follow about the same format with about the same claims. I could write a pretty good screening program in Fortran IV in a couple hours.
The profiles of the authors of the WSJ piece include email addresses. Have you availed yourself of the opportunity to provide them with feedback?
Workers are happy they don't need to make the commute to work every day. WFH-Hybrid is popular with everyone.
Was that from the news side or the editorial side? Because I have been repeated assured for decades now that while the editorial side will lie without shame or remorse, the news side is rock solidly reliable.
People at the Wall Street Journal seem massively unhappy all the time about anything at all they happen to think about.
Maybe it's time for some kind of general intervention. There must be something that can be done when a corporate culture devolves into such a hotbed despair and malaise and dismodia that everyone there seems at risk of self-harm.
It's like a suicide cult, if only they could work up the collective rationale, --and that's what Trump can do for them, --suicide where they get to live to see everyone else suffer for it. The perfect suicide.
Gotta fill the empty spaces with something. Just wait until AI
This is the WSJ. They're reporting on their peers.
Who are deeply sad that workers are feeling a little bit hopeful, after investing years on crushing worker optimism.
I don’t know about any of you, but I heard some pretty dismal reporting over the thanksgiving weekend. One radio segment was all about how much people are suffering and cutting back this year. Why? High inflation, of course! That narrative is so firmly set in stone that I’m seriously beginning to doubt there’s any chance it’ll fade by the election next year.
So the news segment in question proceeded to interview maybe 3-4 “regular people” who all moaned and wailed about the sticker shock they suffered when trying to buy thanksgiving necessities, the strategies they adopted to cope during these these times of supposedly unique economic hardship, and the overall indignity they had to bear by putting up with it all. Apparently, we’re all living through a Dickens novel this holiday season.
There was no mention that I can recall of inflation basically being under control. No context pointing out that the USA has had a better pandemic recovery than just about anywhere else. No mention of low unemployment numbers. The whole point was obviously just to follow the well-established narrative of high inflation.
And, by the way, I heard this segment on an NPR (Nothing but Progressive Religion) station. So, if that’s what NPR reports, then how bad is it on Faux News? And if this is how NPR reports on a good economy, what on Earth will they sound like if there’s an actual downturn?
Anyway, the point is that so much of our news is narrative. And my own anecdotal perception is that the prevalence of narrative over any other type of factual or analytic content has only grown over time.
"And if this is how NPR reports on a good economy, what on Earth will they sound like if there’s an actual downturn?"
There is no good economy to report on if you believe pretty much every news organization. Following the bad news travels notion, there's no incentive to talk about good news. That's for sissies. If seems Trumps MO that everything is bad has become gospel.
How inflation works to the average consumer:
If the price of (large, grade A) eggs is above $2 a dozen (in the contiguous states), or if the cost of gasoline is not the same as it was 5 years ago, inflation is high; if both are true, inflation is out of control.
There were similar claims of higher food and other costs around Thanksgiving. Many were tweeted by Republican politicians besides probably being repeated all over Fox News etc. Actual stats were of course the opposite with costs of typical Thanksgiving meal components being 5 or 10 percent lower than last year. At least on Xitter there are community corrections and comments, not that this stops them.
WNYC (NYC NPR station) likes to get a recording of an opinion about some news item by some clearly ignorant and uninformed person (usually including multiple grammatical mistakes) which they then repeat on their hourly news for a day or so.
Maybe it is only WSJ workers who are unhappy. I would be if I worked for Murdoch.
Ask different questions and you get different answers.
I believe the GSS asks about 'the work you are doing'.
'The work you are doing' is not the same as 'your job' or 'your employer' or 'your work life' or 'your career', etc....
Obviously you can be satisfied with 'the work you are doing' and be unsatisfied with all of the other items.
Deciding that only one of these questions is the only real, honest, reliable question is not a valuable take. Ignoring these different facets makes this post very deceptive.....or misleading.