Yes. Everything is monitored, and it sucks. We've internalized it even, you can't so much as have a hobby without dumping money into it to signal you take it seriously

My regular job schedule is rotating 12 hour shifts. We work 3 or 4 days/nights in a row, either 0400 to 1600 or 1600 to 0400, and then get a few days off to flip sleep schedule to do it again on the opposite shift. The benefit to this schedule is that every 4th week, we're scheduled 7 days off in a row. But because of vacations and callouts, it's pretty common to have to come in on days off to cover.

We also have two times per year for about 3-8 weeks where everybody would 6 or 7 day weeks. That's 72 or 84 hours in a week. And because we're hourly, that's very good money, but because the cost of living is so high in the area most of us are commuting about an hour each way. So every 12 hour day is roughly 14 hours away from home. So those times of year are really 84 or 98 hours per week away from home, and a week only has 168 hours.

The work itself is also fairly demanding. We don't just sit at a desk. We are climbing ladders, carrying heavy shit around, shoveling, turning valves, running to respond to alarms, etc. A light day is still a day at the gym.

Despite this, there is an absurd amount of pressure to come in a significant amount more for training or you'll never get a promotion. And a lot of my coworkers seem to be happy to do that.

Idk what they're doing with their time outside of work, but it seems like they can't possibly have time for anything meaningful. I don't understand the point of chasing money that hard if you don't give yourself any time to spend it. I keep talking myself out of spending on things I want because I know I won't actually spend any time enjoying those things, so I'm just sitting on a useless pile of money and working at a place that's trying to push me into trading even more of my time for even more useless money. And nobody seems to see the problem. I'm glad that my bills are paid and everything, but how the fuck is this different from being a slave that's housed and fed?

All I do is work and sleep, and I'm expected to work even more, and I'm surrounded by people who think I'm crazy for not pulling 60+ hours every week. That sort of schedule is what somebody who hates their family does, and I happen to like my wife.

As a boomer, I learned to believe in slow, steady and hard work. Combined with saving. Get-rich-quick never works & greed is despicable.

While it‘s obvious that one income alone won‘t feed a family anymore, our culture pushed multiple-job-holding even further by normalizing several income streams and especially gig-work. A gym nearby now advertises „earn 1€ per workout“, which is effectively just a discount, but gives you the feeling of actual profit

there are a lot of youtubers and tiktokers that dont do it for the money

i learned how to code from a pretty young age
Every time i particupated in a game jam or made a game or any other coding related project, i was asked by my parents if i made money from it
I was like 12 years old; i hated that

Yeah kinda. But people value different things. I value time so work less hours at work and take an easy stress free job. I could earn double if not more working elsewhere but at what cost.

If I’m housed, watered, and fed then the next thing I want is time. I love my job and still hate going to work and I work from home. I hate the idea of giving so much of myself away for Monopoly money.

Depends on who you follow, specially on YouTube. There are lots of small channels that just make videos about how they feel and how to improve yourself, for example.

I subscribe to all of those small channels with an interest that i share. Then youtube feels like when it started. Just ordinary people talking and not acting in front of camera.

This really just goes to show how strapped everyone is. If all you ever think about is needing to make more money, you’re struggling.

Well in this case it probably isn't money he is after, but attention and fame. That said, just tell him you had a past "incident" you don't like to talk about, but that your image shouldn't be on anything that might give away your current location. Lol.

Yes. And, I hate that everyone feels like they have to do this shit to pay for their lives. We cant just enjoy things anymore, it’s all monetized.

You're in luck, for the modest sum of 19.99 I will answer your post!

No. I hate the fact that the world has forced people to need to do so.

Commodity Fetishization

And if I complain too much about being included in their grift everyone will shit on me for being a karen or for not helping him with it.

I don't think this is true at all, most people absolutely feel the same.

If I understand properly I think this is called commodity fetishism and yeah it’s so gross. To repeat what everyone else here is saying I hate when I show people stuff I make out of love and the first reaction is “omg you have to sell these you could make so much money”.

Funny part is, if we only bought necessities we wouldn't encourage this behavior

I guess I'm lucky almost no one I know is trying to side hustle slop their way into money. I don't think I would put up with that happily.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/37/c3/48/37c3486fb4ffbd0bdbd9fe29a16d02ea.jpg