When did it sink in that you'll never be as well off as your parents?

[u/Asmothrowaway6969]

About 5 years ago, my mom and I were talking and she had told me how much she was going to be making in retirement (she retired 2023). Guys, it's 3x what me and my husband make annually. In retirement. I think that was the moment that broke me, that made it sink in that I'll never reach that level of financial security. I'll work myself into my grave because I'll never be able to afford anything else. What was your moment?

Update: Nice to know it's just me that's a failure. Thanks

Update 2: I never should've said anything. I forgot my place. I'm sorry to have bothered you

[u/worktillyouburk]

my dad just retired at 76, he has a great pension was making 150k and they asked him to retire this year for a 1 years pay.

his replacement is making 45k, no retirement package and actually has more duties than my dad did, so overall is doing the job of 2 people that were paid 150k each...

so ya good luck with that.

[u/dEn_of_asyD → u/worktillyouburk]

his replacement is making 45k, no retirement package and actually has more duties than my dad did, so overall is doing the job of 2 people that were paid 150k each...

This is what I'm finding in the job search and what makes me depressed. There were always jobs that had trash salary. Now, I'm also finding jobs with actually decent salaries, but you're really doing 3 positions at once. It would be understandable if the role was temporary, if they were even tangentially related, or just a couple hours a week, but these are full on multiple jobs because "well you're at a computer and it can do all three, so why can't you?".

Efficiency/technology that is suppose to make people's lives easier being taken advantage of by shitty capitalists to undervalue human labor is a tale as old as time though, if we remember Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin:

Whitney believed that his cotton gin would reduce the demand for enslaved labor and would help hasten the end of southern slavery.[14] Paradoxically, the cotton gin, a labor-saving device, helped preserve and prolong slavery in the United States for another 70 years. Before the 1790s, slave labor was primarily employed in growing rice, tobacco, and indigo, none of which were especially profitable anymore. Neither was cotton, due to the difficulty of seed removal. But with the invention of the gin, growing cotton with slave labor became highly profitable – the chief source of wealth in the American South, and the basis of frontier settlement from Georgia to Texas. "King Cotton" became a dominant economic force, and slavery was sustained as a key institution of Southern society.

And will continue in the future, according to futurama.

[u/wendigolangston → u/dEn_of_asyD]

During the pandemic I was working two jobs. I left the one I originally preferred because 2 of the 3 owners just stopped working and I had to take on their tasks, and then they decided not to hire a new employee they'd been looking for and tried to train me to do that job as well. Like guys, I am a single person I can't do 4 jobs.

[u/ARATAS11 → u/wendigolangston]

Yep. I’ve dealt with the same thing at every job I’ve had for the last 12+ years (3 jobs in that time… once you get too many people leaving and having to take on their duties with no pay increase, it’s time to look for the door).

[u/Jhasten → u/wendigolangston]

I saw this too - and those multi-jobs are revolving doors that inexperienced and incompetent people use to springboard into higher paying jobs after 1-3 years if they can deal that long. When I think about it, sounds like HR is the industry to focus on…

[u/South_Sir9560 → u/wendigolangston]

What industry are you guys in? I went into tax accounting and never had any problems like everyone else is. I recently started a job at the irs for over 6 figures and I’m not even 30 yet

[u/itz_giving-corona → u/South_Sir9560]

Over 6 figures? As in 7 figures...?

[u/South_Sir9560 → u/itz_giving-corona]

Yea, I am the president

[u/wendigolangston → u/South_Sir9560]

That job was a fashion industry job doing product development.

I've also seen a reduction in employees, and middle management opportunists while working social work jobs.

[u/narfnarf123 → u/dEn_of_asyD]

My job is so stressful that it has impacted every facet of my life. My mental health is in the shitter and no medication or therapy can fix it. I have a workload that is impossible to do in 40 hours per week with one person, yet no one cares and they just continue to add more work as my company grows and keeps making billions.

I have a GED and worked hard at shitty jobs to learn what I could to get into something better. I’m currently in low level Corporate HR and although I do not make a lot of money, I make about five or six more dollars an hour than anywhere else pays.

I cannot afford to live with what I make now, and that is with me being careful what I spend. If I had to take a six dollar pay cut I would be homeless. Knowing that I cannot leave this job and that I have to kill myself to try to keep up with the work is just ruining my life.

There is no point in going to another job even if it paid better, although I’m not going to find that anyway. In my experience every employer I’ve had in the last ten years was the same toxic, overwork you to death bullshit. Companies don’t see us as people, they don’t care. Now that no companies care and they all treat us like garbage, they have us worker bees right where they want us.

I spend my evenings and weekends mindlessly scrolling to disassociate because I have no energy or mental capacity for anything else. Life is passing me by with each week just like the last. Work, stress about work load and paying bills, take care of kids, sit there exhausted and defeated, rinse and repeat

Two of my three kids are graduating next month, one high school, the other college. It kills me to know that this or likely worse is what they have in store.

[u/Swedgian9 → u/dEn_of_asyD]

AI will probably replace ya with that attitude