My dad (silent generation): Back in my day, a guy could get a job at a gas station and be able to own a house and support a stay-at-home wife and kids. I dunno how you kids make it.
Me (gen X): Back in my day, a guy could get a job at a gas station and afford rent and food. I dunno how you kids make it.
I'm not sure when the guy in the comic was born. Medieval times maybe? Because economic conditions for working class folks have been getting steadily worse for the entire lifespan of everyone alive today, at least in the US.
My mom, older genX, was a stay at home mom with a very part time job my whole childhood. She always complained that my dad didn't do enough to get us more money, but refused to work because she was the woman.
She also complained to me after I got married that she thought my husband and I would be fun loving people who did fun things, but apparently we had given up just like all the young people. She said it seemed no one young wanted to do anything with our lives anymore, we just worked and stayed at home and were boring people wasting our lives. She said she thought we'd be better but she guessed she was wrong. At the time there were 3 days total a month where my husband and I both had off work, every other day one or both of us were working. We literally didn't have time to go on vacation or go out to do fun things, we were always working or trying to catch up on errands. Bitch, I have rent to pay, unless you are going to chip in, fuck off, because if you think this is the life I chose think again.
Hell yes, I'm lazy. And proud of it. I went to school, I finished college, I tried to work hard and all I got in return was middling pay and more work. So of course I stopped working my ass off and started prioritizing my free time and well-being instead. In this day and age, laziness is a virtue.
At the same time, there are a lot of people, especially in my line of work as a mechanic, where they somehow expect to be able to sit around and not do much actual work and still collect a paycheck at double minimum wage.
Like yes, workers should be paid fairly for their time. But also, workers should be trying to do a good job. Employment is a give and take, and its really hard to find that balance. Working for yourself is a good solution, but you have to deal with a lot more such as taxes and marketing your business and such. Being hired at a bigger business takes all that pressure away to let you just focus on your job.
There is no perfect system, because it relies on both the employer and the employee to not be greedy.
One of those two people is already being greedy so yeah I'm not gonna say a fuckin word about that employee deciding they've had enough exploitation and choosing to do nothing.
This is coming from someone who's worked in food service his whole life. I've seen employees of literally all kinds. Yeah having people who want to work is great. Makes the day much smoother. But I'll never give someone shit for wanting to sit around or do the bare minimum because I would if I could.
Sounds like socialism will be a good solution for this since workers won't have to work so many hours to get their surplus value extracted to make a business profitable. Therefore, with socialism, people will be incentivized to work better since they will work fewer hours. 😊