Your Job Feels Pointless? Workplace Democracy Could Fix That

I'm a teacher and lately my job feels meaningless because nobody cares about education, from the students to the authorities everyone is just playing along and pretending we have "education"...

"Supercapitalism -a system so much more capitalistic, that even workers get to sit on company boards" - I'm literally dying lmaoooo

I tend to compare IT supporting jobs to janitors. No one cares, when the work is done properly, but everyone notices, when the work is not done. So, I urge everyone, thank your IT support for every completed request, and thank your janitors for their work.

Bro advocated for the first steps of market socialism by calling it "super capitalism" amazing. I can now share this with my dad.

"Not my circus, not my monkeys." - average office worker

Honestly, one of my biggest life goals is to create a worker co-op in the media industry. There's so many ambitious people out there who get creatively drained by corporate structures...

In my first job out of school, I worked a lot, tirelessly, to make impossible deadlines given insufficient resources. At the end of the year I got a "good job" but no raise or bonus or anything because of "corporate goals". Then I did the same thing the next year and got a "good job" but no raise or bonus because of "market conditions". I then realized I was just fooled twice. Shame on me.

As someone who stumbled his way into a worker co-op, gotta say that work still sucks sometimes, but I feel like I'm actually part of a team rather than a cog in a machine

As another IT Support guy, this is far, far too relatable. I used to work retail before this, and I will say, this is still better. I get paid enough to live. I don't get screamed at or infantilized. I get to eat or use the bathroom whenever I want. But aside from that, I often just sit in my office, and wonder why I'm here. I live alone, so, instead of resting on the weekend, I do a bunch of chores, and then Sunday night comes, and I'm just filled with anxiety, b/c I didn't get the rest I needed, and it's about time to sit around for hours wondering what the point of it all is all over again. Honestly, this looks like a hopeful dream, and while it may be possible, I'm really just trying to fund my way into the career I actually wanted from the time I was a kid.

Even In a job at a small business where I know my work matters. I feel this so much

One potential reason why many people aren't abroad with the idea of worker coops could be that Hungary under the Rákosi and Kádár regime ruined their image, by nationalizing them and no longer running them like an actual worker coop. The most infamous case was the Agricultural Coop, which was originally a very well run coop (and started the trend of naming Hungarian coops after animals - Hangya Termelőszövetkezett, or Ant Agricultural Coop), but after that it was a coop in name only.

I recently quit my job of 15 years, and became a nurse assistant for a nurse bank. This means I have no contracted hours, and can choose to work as much or as little as I want. A 12 hour night shift will net me about £220, so 3 of those a week is about £660, with the rest of the week to do what I please. Very little training required, and most of the nurses and patients that I work with are really thankful for what I do. There is also no shortage of work, there will always be a shift for me. It can be a tough job, with high levels of patience and professionalism required, but I never go home feeling that my job is meaningless, because it's easy to see that it's not. And if a shift nearly finishes me off, then I just don't have to work the next day if I don't feel like it. Can recommend.

I actually once figured it out for myself, not only the whole meaning part but the fact that most of these office jobs are born from the simple human nature part of DISTRUST. I've worked (and still do) in compliance, finances, credit control, IT etc. All of these jobs would have never been a thing if it would've not be a billion rules and paperwork to ensure that your company is not fucked over by another company. Simple as that. And then they send us questionnaires asking us if our jobs are meaningful to us and what can they do to make it better. Nothing. The simple fact that these jobs exist - its a mistake in on itself. and p.s. - I also once was fired for simply improving the FAQ part on our website. Once it was up, the number of tickets halved. I was out the next week.

Because our jobs is not for changing a world but to profits of owner

A friend of mine had a very compelling theory: If you do not reap the fruits of your labour, then you do not care about your labour. When I work in an office, the fruits of my labor are condensed into some spreadsheet that someone somewhere will glance over and it means nothing to anyone.

Working for strangers made you depressed. Working for yourself and your loved ones gave you euphoria. I think we all know where this is heading.

I work in corporate compliance for a major finanical institution. My job is to create/present memos and surveys on things we shouldn't do cause they are illegal. While entire departments exist with mountains of funding to do those very things. My job is making and checking boxes our corporate overlords just ignore. Help me.

I went freelance photographer since 2017. Yeah the money isn't great at first, and there are plenty of insecurities, but overtime i got recurring clients, my portfolio getting better, i can charge more per work. Now I'm very happy with my work. Just doing everything alone sometimes can be lonely

Your office job story is very relatable to me. I used to work as a cyber security analist on my last job, and everything you said applies to it... We worked like 4 hours and procastinated after, since we had nothing to do, but, i was a idiot and tryed my best to do as much as i could, sometimes even working alone in a team of 6 since i was the only one trying to actually make a difference. One guy literally did not work a single day since he got hired, he'd just do his college works and watch youtube... now, after that context just take a guess who got fired after making some suggestions... not him, i did. Thats the pure meritocracy working i guess

This summer I had a summer job in a tool company. If I did my job slower but 100% correct, my bonus was cut. If I sped up and did poorly, but did more faster, unless the customers didn’t complain too much, it was fine. I felt terribly and against my own will to treat customers less than desirable but I had to, because that’s what the company wanted. After I was done with the work, I really couldn’t care less about the workplace