←back to thread

Americans Lose Faith That Hard Work Leads to Economic Gains, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds

(www.wsj.com)
191 points impish9208 | 3 comments | 02 Sep 25 15:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.831s | source
Show context
orochimaaru ◴[02 Sep 25 15:41 UTC] No.45104568[source]▶
Isn’t this a bit obvious? I mean I’ve known this since I started working in 1997. The first job you have generally shatters this illusion that job security and economic gains are tied to “hard work”.

In the sense hard work is needed but only if you see if adding to what you consider a quality of life (which could be economic gain, generational wealth, bragging rights to a promotion, etc.). Each person has their criteria.

If you work in corporate America, hard work isn’t going to save you from layoffs or get you a bigger bonus unless that work is tied to making someone high up in your reporting chain look really good.

replies(5): >>45104793 #>>45104799 #>>45104961 #>>45104979 #>>45105748 #
fragmede ◴[02 Sep 25 16:07 UTC] No.45104961[source]▶
Where in corporate America have you worked? At my previous place, there was a well defined career ladder, and what work was necessary to climb it as an individual contributor (vs a manager). Putting in more work meant climbing that ladder, which lead to pay increases and bonuses, and there was a formula somewhere on Confluence as to how those were calculated.
replies(1): >>45105108 #
1. orochimaaru ◴[02 Sep 25 16:17 UTC] No.45105108[source]▶
Where in corporate America are you working where "hard work" and not "sucking up" is translating to climbing said ladder?
replies(1): >>45105279 #
2. joquarky ◴[02 Sep 25 22:24 UTC] No.45109903[source]▶
Comments like this are why I stopped going on reddit.
replies(1): >>45130088 #
3. fragmede ◴[04 Sep 25 17:51 UTC] No.45130088{3}[source]▶
You're in a meeting. A task comes up. Do you volunteer to do it? Taking on the task is additional work. It is also "sucking up". If you don't want to do something, and then make fun of the people that actually want to get things done and call them names, instead of, y'know, choosing to take on additional work, it's easy to believe that hard work doesn't get you anywhere, because you've chosen to divide things to do at work into "real" work, and "sucking up". There's not really a difference, but in one scenario you think you're better than the other person.

People like it when you do things for them. If you suck up all the work you can do at your job, in my version of corporate America I've experienced, you get promoted.