Author Topic: The Great Resignation  (Read 20643 times)

4tify

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The Great Resignation
« on: June 14, 2021, 09:20:58 AM »
This is pretty hilarious and awesome. I take all these people quitting their jobs as a testament to the time the pandemic gave then to consider what’s truly valuable, which is what we here at FI HQ have been doing all along.

https://www.axios.com/resignations-companies-e279fcfc-c8e7-4955-8a9b-47562490ee55.html

I’m very curious to see what kind of lasting impact this will have on our views on work generally.

Paul der Krake

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #1 on: June 14, 2021, 09:27:36 AM »
I don't really see the news here. People cycle through jobs all the time. When there is great uncertainty, the churn slows down. When the uncertainty lifts, the churn resumes and has to play catchup for a while.

Then people try to paint this as grander narrative than it really is. If you believe work from home is great, of course you see this as a rebellion of the cubicle dwellers. If you believe COVID aid was too generous, of course you see this as a result of work disincentives.

Give researchers a year or two to sort this out before drawing any conclusions.

Dicey

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #2 on: June 14, 2021, 10:08:13 AM »
This quote:

"Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs"

Aren't "upwards of 40% of workers" always "thinking about quitting their jobs"?

JLee

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #3 on: June 14, 2021, 10:12:21 AM »
This quote:

"Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs"

Aren't "upwards of 40% of workers" always "thinking about quitting their jobs"?

I don't think so.  Many of my coworkers were largely happy two years ago and we are not now.

rmorris50

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #4 on: June 14, 2021, 10:16:27 AM »
This quote:

"Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs"

Aren't "upwards of 40% of workers" always "thinking about quitting their jobs"?
From that perspective I think 40 percent is low!!


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Villanelle

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #5 on: June 14, 2021, 11:47:20 AM »
This quote:

"Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs"

Aren't "upwards of 40% of workers" always "thinking about quitting their jobs"?

Right?

Even when I had a job that I generally liked and coworkers who, in some cases, because very close friends, I still thought about quitting my job, in some sense and on some days.  PI being difficult?  Man, it would be great to bail and never deal with Professor Clueless anymore.  Lottery at $500m?  If I bought a ticket and won, I'd never have to deal with getting up to an alarm again unless I wanted to! Staff meetings are so tedious and I always return to my desk to a backlog of work that built up with we were wasting our time on the "don't overuse energy drinks" PSA at our meeting.  It would be so great not to have my time wasted on pointless meetings anymore.  Friend just got a job making 10% more for basically the same work?  It would be a longer commute but that money sure sounds nice; I wonder if they are applying.

It surprised me that only >40% of people think those thoughts, and again, that's at a job I overall didn't dislike. 

Dave1442397

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #6 on: June 14, 2021, 11:57:19 AM »
I have two co-workers who are ready and able (financially) to walk out the door if they are forced to go back to the office. I'm sure there are more who aren't saying anything publicly.

We have a small group working on a large and specialized financial application, so every time someone leaves we lose a lot of core knowledge. We have four people retiring in the next two months.

We know the higher-ups don't care, as long as the work is getting done, but at some point it should be worrying that we're processing three trillion dollars a day through a system that's becoming more of a black box every day (ie, we send in transactions, and they get processed. Yay! How does it do it? Well...).


joe189man

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #7 on: June 14, 2021, 12:29:38 PM »
DW's firm lost ~10 out of 30 in her group so far from april to current and almost lost 2 others if not for $20k spot bonuses and big raises

JLee

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #8 on: June 14, 2021, 01:38:49 PM »
This quote:

"Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs"

Aren't "upwards of 40% of workers" always "thinking about quitting their jobs"?

Right?

Even when I had a job that I generally liked and coworkers who, in some cases, because very close friends, I still thought about quitting my job, in some sense and on some days.  PI being difficult?  Man, it would be great to bail and never deal with Professor Clueless anymore.  Lottery at $500m?  If I bought a ticket and won, I'd never have to deal with getting up to an alarm again unless I wanted to! Staff meetings are so tedious and I always return to my desk to a backlog of work that built up with we were wasting our time on the "don't overuse energy drinks" PSA at our meeting.  It would be so great not to have my time wasted on pointless meetings anymore.  Friend just got a job making 10% more for basically the same work?  It would be a longer commute but that money sure sounds nice; I wonder if they are applying.

It surprised me that only >40% of people think those thoughts, and again, that's at a job I overall didn't dislike.

I suspect we're talking about different levels of "thinking about leaving their job."  Idly daydreaming is different than actively interviewing.

Plina

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #9 on: June 14, 2021, 01:51:31 PM »
I have two co-workers who are ready and able (financially) to walk out the door if they are forced to go back to the office. I'm sure there are more who aren't saying anything publicly.

We have a small group working on a large and specialized financial application, so every time someone leaves we lose a lot of core knowledge. We have four people retiring in the next two months.

We know the higher-ups don't care, as long as the work is getting done, but at some point it should be worrying that we're processing three trillion dollars a day through a system that's becoming more of a black box every day (ie, we send in transactions, and they get processed. Yay! How does it do it? Well...).

I moved the office within a walk of 45 minutes from home and I can choose freely the 2-3 days that I go there but it stills sucks as it eats 1,5 hour of my day and demands planning. As I am the only one I plan next year to ask a transfer of the office to another smaller city near family. We just signed an one year lease for the office. I can do my work from anywhere with a laptop and a phone so it should not be a problem and if it is it might turn into a recruitment problem for my employer.

FireDAD

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #10 on: June 14, 2021, 02:07:27 PM »
I'm in this exact boat.
I still have 3 years left until I reach my FI/RE goal, but I'm making plans to quit as soon as possible to try and do anything else. The 50+ hour weeks, not getting my paternity leave, having to work multiple days on every vacation have made me dread even the 3 year time frame and I'm going to take advantage of the boom times to get out quick.

40% seems about right honestly from friends I've spoken with.

dougules

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #11 on: June 14, 2021, 02:09:53 PM »
Assuming this is a change since 2019, what are the implications for the economy as a whole?

Cranky

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #12 on: June 14, 2021, 02:24:06 PM »
I wonder what percentage of teachers have left the field this year? It seems like a lot, from the people I’ve talked to.

Mr. Green

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #13 on: June 14, 2021, 03:36:26 PM »
This quote:

"Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs"

Aren't "upwards of 40% of workers" always "thinking about quitting their jobs"?
Lol. I was always thinking about quitting my job. For 12 years, until I actually did.

JLee

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #14 on: June 14, 2021, 03:42:20 PM »
This quote:

"Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs"

Aren't "upwards of 40% of workers" always "thinking about quitting their jobs"?
Lol. I was always thinking about quitting my job. For 12 years, until I actually did.

This isn't people just thinking about quitting and not working anymore. It's people thinking about quitting to do something else, work somewhere else, etc.

I'm a little surprised how many people haven't picked up on that and just think "well yeah people think about quitting all the time."

YttriumNitrate

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #15 on: June 14, 2021, 03:47:38 PM »
This quote:
"Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs"
Aren't "upwards of 40% of workers" always "thinking about quitting their jobs"?
Yep, August 2019 CNBC put the number at 47%:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/27/47percent-of-workers-are-considering-quitting-their-jobs-right-now.html

Sibley

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #16 on: June 14, 2021, 03:56:57 PM »
What should scare you more is the medical professionals leaving medicine.

My primary care doctor is leaving. Not just to change practices, but leaving medicine completely. He is an excellent doctor - listens, believes you, able to communicate clearly and well and with empathy. I'm sure he's burnt out and dissolutioned by the past year and a bit. I don't blame him one bit. But losing him as a doctor is a huge hit. If all the good doctors change careers, that will have a negative impact on people's health.

Villanelle

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #17 on: June 14, 2021, 05:24:29 PM »
This quote:

"Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs"

Aren't "upwards of 40% of workers" always "thinking about quitting their jobs"?
Lol. I was always thinking about quitting my job. For 12 years, until I actually did.

This isn't people just thinking about quitting and not working anymore. It's people thinking about quitting to do something else, work somewhere else, etc.

I'm a little surprised how many people haven't picked up on that and just think "well yeah people think about quitting all the time."

Assuming the reporting accurately reflects the wording of the survey question, that's not what was asked at all.  All that was asked is "thinking about quitting", which is actually even less restrictive than "thinking about quitting and not working anymore".  The rest of the story may have been about people considering doing something else somewhere else, but the surveys, as presented, weren't about that at all, which I think is what many of us were responding to.

JLee

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #18 on: June 14, 2021, 09:52:16 PM »
This quote:

"Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs"

Aren't "upwards of 40% of workers" always "thinking about quitting their jobs"?
Lol. I was always thinking about quitting my job. For 12 years, until I actually did.

This isn't people just thinking about quitting and not working anymore. It's people thinking about quitting to do something else, work somewhere else, etc.

I'm a little surprised how many people haven't picked up on that and just think "well yeah people think about quitting all the time."

Assuming the reporting accurately reflects the wording of the survey question, that's not what was asked at all.  All that was asked is "thinking about quitting", which is actually even less restrictive than "thinking about quitting and not working anymore".  The rest of the story may have been about people considering doing something else somewhere else, but the surveys, as presented, weren't about that at all, which I think is what many of us were responding to.

I suppose my confirmation bias from my workplace and my significant other’s workplace (both of which are new feelings since COVID) has influenced my interpretation.

ender

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #19 on: June 15, 2021, 06:31:07 AM »
This is yet another article that takes a statistic (40% of workers thinking of quitting) and throws it out like a matter of fact truth, while not providing any evidence at all for where that stat comes from or how to determine that it's a real statistic.

Then again, in this day, you don't have to actually write news articles that are factual to be popular, just ones that reinforce people's preconceived notions of what they want to read.

Which this article 100% does.

wageslave23

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #20 on: June 15, 2021, 07:18:55 AM »
Yeah this article means nothing other than telling us people are feeling optimistic about the job market.  Whenever the job market is tight, people quit their jobs at a higher rate.  This is well established.

Plina

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #21 on: June 15, 2021, 08:54:59 AM »
What should scare you more is the medical professionals leaving medicine.

My primary care doctor is leaving. Not just to change practices, but leaving medicine completely. He is an excellent doctor - listens, believes you, able to communicate clearly and well and with empathy. I'm sure he's burnt out and dissolutioned by the past year and a bit. I don't blame him one bit. But losing him as a doctor is a huge hit. If all the good doctors change careers, that will have a negative impact on people's health.

Here intensive care nurses are quitting in large numbers because it is the only way to get your four weeks of summer vacation. They didn’t get it last year due to covid and there is a lack of personell this summer again. I read that the staffing for the summer in the maternity ward is missing a third of the midwifes needed. It is a problem every summer but for the intensive care personnell you can also add a crappy year to that.

havregryn

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #22 on: June 15, 2021, 08:55:37 AM »
I don't know, looking around me  there is definitely a massive change going on. My husband used to be one of those corporate junkies, he totally loved having an office job and climbing the corporate ladder and all the crap and whenever I suggested he tries to get a more work-from-home friendly job so that we would have greater quality of life and flexibility he was always dismissive of this idea, claiming that work from home jobs aren't real jobs.
Then comes covid and now he would totally quit if asked to come back to the office full time.
And he's definitely not the only one.

a LOT of people who used to be convinced that work from home is just a different word for doing some weird stuff online for 10$ an hour saw the light when they had to try it.

Psychstache

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #23 on: June 15, 2021, 10:51:28 AM »
This is yet another article that takes a statistic (40% of workers thinking of quitting) and throws it out like a matter of fact truth, while not providing any evidence at all for where that stat comes from or how to determine that it's a real statistic.

Then again, in this day, you don't have to actually write news articles that are factual to be popular, just ones that reinforce people's preconceived notions of what they want to read.

Which this article 100% does.

But 85% of your posts have turned out to be inaccurate, so why should we trust you now?

If you want the real truth on the economy, ignore ender and subscribe to my upcoming newsletter.

=P

exterous

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #24 on: June 15, 2021, 10:53:54 AM »
I wonder what percentage of teachers have left the field this year? It seems like a lot, from the people I’ve talked to.

Enough that, around here, public schools have greatly changed their pay structure for new-to-the-district teachers. Pay is generally based on 'steps' or number of years in the district. Historically when you changed districts you would be started at a much lower step than where you were currently. For example someone with 20 years of experience at one district might start at 5 years of experience on the new schools pay scale. Under 10 years experience was frequently treated the same or nearly the same as a fresh out of school grad if you moved to a new district. Now more and more schools are offering matching existing steps to entice teachers. This is a huge change to an entrenched and wide-spread behavior

Cranky

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #25 on: June 15, 2021, 06:39:33 PM »
I wonder what percentage of teachers have left the field this year? It seems like a lot, from the people I’ve talked to.

Enough that, around here, public schools have greatly changed their pay structure for new-to-the-district teachers. Pay is generally based on 'steps' or number of years in the district. Historically when you changed districts you would be started at a much lower step than where you were currently. For example someone with 20 years of experience at one district might start at 5 years of experience on the new schools pay scale. Under 10 years experience was frequently treated the same or nearly the same as a fresh out of school grad if you moved to a new district. Now more and more schools are offering matching existing steps to entice teachers. This is a huge change to an entrenched and wide-spread behavior

I know multiple people who quit in December, and I never knew anyone to do that previously. It was just an awful year.

Cool Friend

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #26 on: June 16, 2021, 08:31:05 AM »
We just got an email this morning that our office--which nobody has returned to yet--is moving to a shittier location in two fucking days and if we could pack up all our personal things that would be great. Please note this is a busy work week and there is not going to be time to pack up anything. Meanwhile, I've been stationed at a nearby studio apartment for the past month to do work that I can much more easily do at home. Completely fucking arbitrary and pointless. I am very close to rage quitting and going back to temping or some bullshit.

FireDAD

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #27 on: June 16, 2021, 11:50:07 AM »
I am going down the path to be one of the 40%. I have a very high paying job that I only really needed to do for 3-5 more years to be totally FatFire. Turns out there is no way I'll make it.
COVID made me reconsider a lot of things and I'm currently working on a succession plan to leave in 10 months or less.

That's one of the best things about FIRE. Our savings gives us the flexibility to quit and take significant time off to focus on the things that really matter, not just endless, pointless meetings.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #28 on: June 16, 2021, 12:00:42 PM »
I hope to quit by the end of the year, if not sooner. I'm under contract to purchase a business and if everything goes as planned I'll be leaving my full-time job shortly after. I work with a lot of contractors at my full-time job and a new contract starts in a few months. I've not optimistic that they'll do any better than the last one. That was reinforced on an intro phone call on Monday when I found out they're re-hiring basically everyone from the old contract, including the overall manager that set the tone for a toxic "us vs. them" relationship. If he's still in charge I have zero confidence that anything will really change.

roomtempmayo

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #29 on: June 18, 2021, 01:20:54 PM »
This quote:
"Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs"
Aren't "upwards of 40% of workers" always "thinking about quitting their jobs"?
Yep, August 2019 CNBC put the number at 47%:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/27/47percent-of-workers-are-considering-quitting-their-jobs-right-now.html

Ha!  Having to actually substantiate claims about some big post-pandemic trend is awfully inconvenient for the clicks.

Here's Kevin Rosse's half@ssed argument in the NYT back in April that something big was happening: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/technology/welcome-to-the-yolo-economy.html

Quote
I started hearing these stories this year when several acquaintances announced that they were quitting prestigious and high-paying jobs to pursue risky passion projects. Since then, a trickle of LinkedIn updates has turned into a torrent. I tweeted about it, and dozens of stories poured into my inboxes, all variations on the same basic theme: The pandemic changed my priorities, and I realized I didn’t have to live like this.

Hot take: A thirtyish year old Brown grad in the Bay Area knows people who are quitting their jobs to do something else.

So, on that evidence, there's a trend!

Quote
Something strange is happening to the exhausted, type-A millennial workers of America. After a year spent hunched over their MacBooks, enduring back-to-back Zooms in between sourdough loaves and Peloton rides, they are flipping the carefully arranged chessboards of their lives and deciding to risk it all.

People in their 30s with skills and resources have been telling the man to shove it, striking out on their own, moving away from the city for a long time.  It's not new.  And just because it's happening in some columnist's social group doesn't mean it's a story, much less a trend.

mm1970

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #30 on: June 18, 2021, 03:53:32 PM »
I wonder what percentage of teachers have left the field this year? It seems like a lot, from the people I’ve talked to.
Our elementary lost 2 to retirement.  10%

mm1970

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #31 on: June 18, 2021, 03:56:30 PM »
I don't know, looking around me  there is definitely a massive change going on. My husband used to be one of those corporate junkies, he totally loved having an office job and climbing the corporate ladder and all the crap and whenever I suggested he tries to get a more work-from-home friendly job so that we would have greater quality of life and flexibility he was always dismissive of this idea, claiming that work from home jobs aren't real jobs.
Then comes covid and now he would totally quit if asked to come back to the office full time.
And he's definitely not the only one.

a LOT of people who used to be convinced that work from home is just a different word for doing some weird stuff online for 10$ an hour saw the light when they had to try it.
Yeah, my husband is NOT a corporate climber, but he's really good at his job and keeps getting raises and promotions.  Even a couple of years ago we were talking about the problem with being good at work is getting...more work.  We had kids "later" than many, and in our early 50s our kids are a teen and an 8 yo.  We like spending time with them.

So COVID, yeah, lots of time with our kids, and now going back to the office?  Meh, he's okay with some of it because the boys prefer him, so he's interrupted a lot. At the office, he gets more done.  BUT he doesn't miss the commute.

friedmmj

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #32 on: June 18, 2021, 06:21:01 PM »
Before Covid, I had already planned to retire in early 2022.  It's looking like my job will be reopening the office after Labor Day, so I will apparently have a last Swan Song of 6 months in the office before calling it quits.  I suppose if I wanted to, I could frame my quitting as a reluctance to return to an office job and possibly avoid being in the office for some or all of that last six months.  Or, maybe even open a negotiation around a severance, but I don't intend to.

friedmmj

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #33 on: June 18, 2021, 06:24:11 PM »
We just got an email this morning that our office--which nobody has returned to yet--is moving to a shittier location in two fucking days and if we could pack up all our personal things that would be great. Please note this is a busy work week and there is not going to be time to pack up anything. Meanwhile, I've been stationed at a nearby studio apartment for the past month to do work that I can much more easily do at home. Completely fucking arbitrary and pointless. I am very close to rage quitting and going back to temping or some bullshit.

Wait, they are paying you to work from a studio apartment close to the office that you're not even going to?  That's truly bizarre.

teen persuasion

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #34 on: June 18, 2021, 08:13:08 PM »
I wonder what percentage of teachers have left the field this year? It seems like a lot, from the people I’ve talked to.

Local news had a story last night about teacher turnover.  Normal year, 1 in 6.  Now 1 in 4.

DH was ready to quit last year when school went virtual, out of frustration (administration took WAY too long to ok him using some platform because they were afraid of privacy issues).  I told him he could quit anytime (especially after the market rebounded), but he decided to stick it out one more academic year, mostly for the sake of the kids - everything was already so screwed up that leaving his agency short one more teacher felt crappy. 

He has one more week of teaching, and designated his last day as just before summer school kicks in.

When he announced that he was not returning next year, he had lots of other, younger teachers asking how he can walk away at 54 (no pension, they work for an agency not a school district).  They want to do it, too, and want a roadmap.

chasesfish

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #35 on: June 20, 2021, 09:45:44 AM »
My limited sample set agrees with the article.

Friends at my old employer were all looking, but unwilling to make the move until this year.  Too much uncertainty before combined with too much "you should be grateful to have a job" culture in 2020 from their current employer

Cool Friend

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #36 on: June 20, 2021, 09:48:38 AM »
We just got an email this morning that our office--which nobody has returned to yet--is moving to a shittier location in two fucking days and if we could pack up all our personal things that would be great. Please note this is a busy work week and there is not going to be time to pack up anything. Meanwhile, I've been stationed at a nearby studio apartment for the past month to do work that I can much more easily do at home. Completely fucking arbitrary and pointless. I am very close to rage quitting and going back to temping or some bullshit.

Wait, they are paying you to work from a studio apartment close to the office that you're not even going to?  That's truly bizarre.

Yeah, it's so my boss can get around the closed office policy. It's a completely pointless waste of money, but he's a petty tyrant, so...

WhiteTrashCash

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #37 on: June 20, 2021, 09:58:49 AM »
After forcing everyone to unnecessarily work in person while unvaccinated during the pandemic, we lost a lot of our staff at my job to retirement and resignations. Pretty much anyone who had the ability to leave did. This pandemic showed people their value both to themselves and their employers and a lot of people learned what they could do without.

Villanelle

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #38 on: June 20, 2021, 12:14:49 PM »
Since we are throwing out anecdata, I have a friend who has started an aggressive job search after her workplace has announced it will be months before everyone returns to work.  She wants to be back in the office and if she can't do that with her current employer, she's going to find one that where she can.

My larger point being, people have switched jobs and even left the workforce for many reasons, for nearly all of modern history.  I'm not seeing any more or less of that right now among my circle than I always have.  Sure, for some people right now the reasons seem to be pandemic-related, but I'm unconvinced that--other than within a few specific industries perhaps--there is an overall increase in churn. 

Chrissy

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #39 on: June 20, 2021, 01:14:34 PM »
My company shut down for over a year.  At least 30% of my team of retrained or pivoted to jobs in other industries.  Could be more than 30% because there's a few people I haven't heard from/about.  Now, we're trying to restaff and I'm not sure who's coming back.  The company is offering us less work and lower pay.

And, I've just received an email that a couple higher-ups are retiring.

Psychstache

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #40 on: June 20, 2021, 03:39:59 PM »
I wonder what percentage of teachers have left the field this year? It seems like a lot, from the people I’ve talked to.
Our elementary lost 2 to retirement.  10%

Having lots of contact with a variety of school districts, my non-rigorously collected data tells me that the largest chunk of retirees were people who have been eligible for their state pension for a while now, and COVID simply was the straw that pushed them over the edge (love me some mixed metaphors). Given that, retirements from this group might see a drop in the next few years to even this stat out.

The 2nd largest group I saw were people who had been teaching for less than 5 years, which is a demographic that we lose about 50% of anyways (it's closer to 80% in special education, where I do most of my work).

Overall, I don't think it is appreciably different from the already existing issue of teacher attrition going on.

mathlete

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #41 on: June 20, 2021, 08:33:28 PM »
Just heard this term the other day. I'm also on some industry newsletters that brought up the idea that people are planning to shake up their careers post-COVID. Annecdotally, we've had one person in our department do just that.

Personally, I have no plans to resign, but I hope to do some really cool stuff with my newfound flexibility. Is "workcation" a word yet? I'm sure it is. I would love to spend a week working in a new city (at an AirBnB with good internet obviously). The workday would be the same, but at night I could explore the city.

JLee

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #42 on: June 21, 2021, 09:46:41 AM »
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/workers-quitting-jobs-record-rate/

Quote
Nearly 4 million Americans left their jobs in April, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics — an unprecedented number in the two decades the government has been tracking this data, pushing the quits rate 24% higher than it was before the pandemic. (Layoffs, which peaked at 13 million in March 2020, have come down to more typical monthly levels of under 2 million.)

trollwithamustache

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #43 on: June 21, 2021, 10:01:01 AM »

Office work has changed. Well, not really right? all the tools where there before, but the change got forced down everyones throats, and some of it worked really well and some of it didn't.

The great resignation seems a bit melodramatic, since likely the company loosing people is loosing them to another company that is struggling just as much with the transition. Not everyone works in software and can do their job from anywhere.  Not everyone can afford a large enough home to have a good dedicated home office space.

Sibley

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #44 on: June 21, 2021, 11:26:18 AM »
I wonder what percentage of teachers have left the field this year? It seems like a lot, from the people I’ve talked to.
Our elementary lost 2 to retirement.  10%

Having lots of contact with a variety of school districts, my non-rigorously collected data tells me that the largest chunk of retirees were people who have been eligible for their state pension for a while now, and COVID simply was the straw that pushed them over the edge (love me some mixed metaphors). Given that, retirements from this group might see a drop in the next few years to even this stat out.

The 2nd largest group I saw were people who had been teaching for less than 5 years, which is a demographic that we lose about 50% of anyways (it's closer to 80% in special education, where I do most of my work).

Overall, I don't think it is appreciably different from the already existing issue of teacher attrition going on.

Not a teacher, but I have teacher friends. I think there might be some variability based on the district too. Some districts/principles did better than others with COVID. If there's districts that did better in the region, teachers might try to switch to those.

crazy jane

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #45 on: June 21, 2021, 12:47:50 PM »
Teacher here. My last day was June 7. I had planned to retire in 2023 and had given notice, but decided to go two years early. I have been financially independent for a while and was really working for the insurance. This year did me in. I gave it my all and can't imagine working ever again.

CoffeeR

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #46 on: June 21, 2021, 04:52:43 PM »
Another data point:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/21/retail-workers-quitting-jobs/

Washington Post article: "Retail workers are quitting at record rates for higher-paying work: ‘My life isn’t worth a dead-end job’"

redbird

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #47 on: June 21, 2021, 05:31:01 PM »
I've absolutely heard stories of people feeling terrible going back to work. They could do all of their work from home, no commute. But now suddenly they are expected to go back to the office, commute, maybe suddenly pay for childcare when they could get away with not doing so, and they have to be at the office more hours for the same amount of work than they spent doing it at home, because they are forced to either be there for 40+ hours and/or in-person meetings and such wasting their time.

When I worked still I didn't have 40 hours' worth of work. I tried repeatedly to address this with management, but whenever I did they made up busy work for me. It was not legitimate work that needed to be done for the office, but now suddenly I was expected to do it just because I complained. It made me stop talking to management about it and I would just pretend to be busy whenever I got my actual legitimate work done for the day or week. It was INCREDIBLY frustrating and soul draining. That contributed a lot to me wanting to FIRE. Why should I waste 40 hours a week plus 5-6 hours a week combined commuting time of my life for something that takes me only a smaller percentage of those hours to do? I feel like working at home has exposed more people to the realities of similar situations and it is also frustrating them.

rantk81

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #48 on: June 22, 2021, 07:22:38 AM »
I've absolutely heard stories of people feeling terrible going back to work. They could do all of their work from home, no commute. But now suddenly they are expected to go back to the office, commute, maybe suddenly pay for childcare when they could get away with not doing so, and they have to be at the office more hours for the same amount of work than they spent doing it at home, because they are forced to either be there for 40+ hours and/or in-person meetings and such wasting their time.

When I worked still I didn't have 40 hours' worth of work. I tried repeatedly to address this with management, but whenever I did they made up busy work for me. It was not legitimate work that needed to be done for the office, but now suddenly I was expected to do it just because I complained. It made me stop talking to management about it and I would just pretend to be busy whenever I got my actual legitimate work done for the day or week. It was INCREDIBLY frustrating and soul draining. That contributed a lot to me wanting to FIRE. Why should I waste 40 hours a week plus 5-6 hours a week combined commuting time of my life for something that takes me only a smaller percentage of those hours to do? I feel like working at home has exposed more people to the realities of similar situations and it is also frustrating them.

When I had a job similar to the one you describe, I handled it by bringing my own laptop into work every day, with my own hotspot internet connection (away from the spying eyes of the employer's computer network), and I would just do whatever I wanted online.  Mostly researching investments, learning new skills, etc.  I internally justified it to myself as, I was learning new skills that might be useful in my career some day.

It really depends on how closely you are monitored at work by your peers and supervisor(s), so the degree to which you can get-away with this might vary.  In my situation, most of my co-workers didn't know it was my personal laptop -- they thought it was a company laptop and that I was actually doing work.  My direct boss rarely ever came by where I sat.  It was pretty nice, although I sometimes had thoughts about being "found out".  In the end, it didn't matter, because I fulfilled the requirements of the job, apparently, since they never laid me off.

I ended up leaving that job, for a different one -- that pays a bit better, but has very different expectations about how much stuff I need to do to fulfill the requirements of my job.  I now work a legitimately full schedule, and then some.

Both extremes have their plusses and minuses.  I'm already at FIRE-level-assets, so I can walk away whenever I want, if things become intolerable.

zolotiyeruki

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Re: The Great Resignation
« Reply #49 on: June 22, 2021, 08:37:49 AM »
I've absolutely heard stories of people feeling terrible going back to work. They could do all of their work from home, no commute. But now suddenly they are expected to go back to the office, commute, maybe suddenly pay for childcare when they could get away with not doing so, and they have to be at the office more hours for the same amount of work than they spent doing it at home, because they are forced to either be there for 40+ hours and/or in-person meetings and such wasting their time.

When I worked still I didn't have 40 hours' worth of work. I tried repeatedly to address this with management, but whenever I did they made up busy work for me. It was not legitimate work that needed to be done for the office, but now suddenly I was expected to do it just because I complained. It made me stop talking to management about it and I would just pretend to be busy whenever I got my actual legitimate work done for the day or week. It was INCREDIBLY frustrating and soul draining. That contributed a lot to me wanting to FIRE. Why should I waste 40 hours a week plus 5-6 hours a week combined commuting time of my life for something that takes me only a smaller percentage of those hours to do? I feel like working at home has exposed more people to the realities of similar situations and it is also frustrating them.

When I had a job similar to the one you describe, I handled it by bringing my own laptop into work every day, with my own hotspot internet connection (away from the spying eyes of the employer's computer network), and I would just do whatever I wanted online.  Mostly researching investments, learning new skills, etc.  I internally justified it to myself as, I was learning new skills that might be useful in my career some day.
Ugh, my last job was very similar--my actual productive work was done in about 25% of my time, and I was idle the rest.  I wasted a lot of that time, but then later refreshed/learned new skills.  About five years after leaving that soul-sucking job, those skills came in handy when my new employer wanted to pursue a new venture, and it's proving to be very profitable.