A record 4.5M workers quit their jobs in November

Kinda seems to me like profit being at the center of everything is the problem

Power of analytics optimizing for the metrics.

The way forward is to hire more people, pay people more, and give them more time off.

As someone who does know how to feel about those types, let me make a suggestion: Don't. That is to say, why does it matter to you?

Is it because you need their labor for your happiness ("who will make my fries/clothes/things I'm incapable of making myself")? Then it's not their fault you feel that way, and they don't owe that to you.

Is it because "work = a moral good"? Then you're wrong work is a thing people do because they have to in order to be able to acquire currency for the things they actually want to do. It has no inherent morality.

Is it because "Mindless consumption is a moral bad"? Of course, but only because there's no ethical consumption under capitalism.

The long and short of it is you don't lose much by people opting out of working. By that I mean the type of person who was going to put in the years of work dedicated to trying to cure cancer (or advance society in whatever way you personally feel would be the most valuable) is very unlikely to also be the type of person who is only interested in doing it because they "needed a job".

TL-dr: Hang the jerk who invented work on the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

(Edited for formatting/grammar)

Fairness itself has nothing to do with it.

It has everything to do with avoiding employees getting mad when they here the new guy makes significantly more, which leads to conflict, which leads to unhappy employees, which leads to poor productivity.

Perhaps "fairness" is the wrong thing to call it. More like "do things to retain good employees". Usually "being fair" falls into the "do things to retain good employees" category.

The explosion in VC capital has been primarily driven by a reach for yield among institutions, endowments, pensions and sovereign wealth funds. All of this money is extremely sticky, and once allocated will take 10+ years to de-allocate. So really the only way we see private equity funding collapse is if public equities quickly crater, forcing endowments to rebalance to stay in their allocation mandate.

And that could possibly happen, given how rich public equity valuations are. But the reality is the modern Fed is never again in our lifetime going to let nominal stock prices fall by 35% or more like they did in 2008. The traumas from the GFC are simply too ingrained in the current generation of central bankers and policy makers.

If push comes to shove and equities hit a bear market (20% drawdown), the Fed is going to turn the liquidity faucet to max. The forever war against Covid gives them a convenient excuse. In the scenario, you'll probably just see the Fed let inflation run hot at 10%+ for a few years. Again the Covid transitory narrative gives the cover.

Speaking for myself, grinding leetcode in 2021 was very difficult because I was close to burning-out (very little outdoor recreation, blurred lines between work hours and non-work hours which resulted in me frequently working 9-11 hours per day (with breaks). I think it would have been easier pre-covid.

With in-person schools and daycares closed and the kids at home, there was no "downtime within working hours" - cue the working late at night after kids had gone to bed to make up for it (and the subsequent near-burnout experience).

Also, my recruiter told me they were seeing record-high post-screen interview cancellations by interviewees during COVID times - but perhaps their numbers were not representative. My suspicion is that there was a massive mental health disaster that was mostly hidden from view[1], and software engineers were not spared.

1. I wasn't even aware of my mental state until I started grinding leetcode and recognized the tell-tale signs of burnout as I had experienced full-blown burnout before (my self-motivation was reduced, but not yet gone)

The main reason I stay in my job is that our department is pro WFH.

2. It could lead to companies re-evaluating whether all their projects are worth it. Anecdotally, I have heard of some automation projects being cancelled as manual workers in other countries are cheaper.

If you look at the job market as a commodity where companies are on the buy side and workers are on the sell side you could say that the price of the commodity spiked suddenly. Whenever that happens I'm usually wary of the corrections that surely follow.

That could mean mass layoffs in the future when companies realize the commodity isn't worth that much. It could mean business closings due to lack of purchase power to compete. It could mean inflation to adjust the purchase power.

Again it's all speculation. And it's derived from risk tolerance. If you like risky investments it makes sense to try to capitalize and sell your labor for the most you can. I can't blame you.

I think actions such as politely voicing displeasure at the policy to the worker so they understand that many people think the policy is dumb, asking to speak to the manager or owner, and leaving so the restaurant doesn't get your business are the right thing to do in this case.

I understand that there's some people who are thriving and happy wearing masks, but that's certainly not everybody. As for many people like me, they are not worth wearing. Masks are psychologically damaging and dehumanizing in many ways. Already imperfect human communication is further harmed with masks. They are unnatural and damaging. And outside of wearing an N95 perfectly in one room for one task, I believe that the way they're used in practice is harmful to health (people are constantly adjusting and touching them, not washing them for ages between uses, etc)

> Maybe. If the tables are spaced far apart and preferably outside. Packed in an enclosed space? No.

If we can acknowledge that a rule doesn't make sense for health and safety in a certain context, then why follow it?

> Don't like the rules, go somewhere else.

There are plenty of people who would gladly do this but cannot when the rule is in place by Government edict.

> Similarly, businesses can refuse service.

I'm all for property owners deciding the rules on their property, but that's not exactly the system that's been built up and that authoritarians advocate for.

> We are not toddlers. Not supposed to be, anyway.

Toddlers don't have the capacity to fully understand their world and make rational risk-management decisions.

Toddlers are the ones who are expected to comply with what they're told.

I'd say that people who are using their own judgement are the opposite of toddlers here.

It also makes harder jobs easier and in some cases allows someone unskilled to perform a job that a only a more highly skilled person could do. Thus someone is easier to replace and thus cheaper.

> If you don't understand the economics or incentive of the situation, there's no reasoning you out of a box you didn't reason yourself into.

I understand it fine. Technological advances is a double edged sword with regards to Labour. It may create whole new industries while destroying old ones.