Hello. I'm LC, from England. I read this really depressing article about how Americans feel about their work place.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...an-office-hell

I was surprised to see the link with health insurance, and that this is limiting entrepreneurs, who (they say) tend to come from rich families. The NHS is free in the UK.

Do you agree? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

[Yzen]

I think the writer was purposely trying to put a negative slant on the American work place...not that it doesn't deserve it. I have experienced hostility on the job and unhealthy demands on my personal time in past jobs. My current job is flexible and less demanding, but I still have some demands on my personal time that bother me.

The health insurance situation does appear to be a mess here. It needs major improvement.

I am surprised by the statement that entrepreneurship is near a 40-year-low and entrepreneurs tend to come from wealthy families. I know a few successful entrepreneurs that have not come from wealth. I do believe if you do have wealth, you have the resources to start a business and might be more likely to us that wealth to work for yourself. Perhaps, that is why most entrepreneurs in their research are from wealthy families.

[reb569]

I think the author has some good points. Salaried individuals in the company I work for tend to come in early and leave late (there have been exceptions where they did the opposite, but they don't usually last long) and work from home at night and on the weekends. Hourly people, such as myself, of course would get overtime, but for the most part that is not approved in my company. As a side note, one of my brothers, who works for a very large nationwide company in a leadership role, works 50 to 60 hours a week.

We definitely have the technology to allow people to work remotely at times, but for the most part that is limited to managers or people in specific positions. I was able to get remote access approved finally after over a year of trying so that I could sign in from home to make updates to our website when necessary. Prior to that, I had to walk people through the process of updates over the phone, or the updates had to wait.

Even though the company I work for tends to be quite diverse, the leadership is male heavy.

Health Insurance is definitely an issue. I have pretty good insurance through work. I have a High Deductible Health Insurance Plan attached to an HSA account. The premiums aren't too bad, but the insurance company doesn't pay out anything until I've paid out $3000. My max out of pocket is $7000 a year. I can't take the chance of loosing that insurance so looking for another job is out of the question. I feel lucky compared to others.

Entrepreneurship? Not sure about that one. I think there are a lot of very hard working entrepreneurs that are running businesses that may have not been noticed by the author and I know several, just in my rural area that are not rich in any way.

Just my thoughts.

[Crypts_Of_The_Mind]

I haven't worked in several years due to being on disability, but even back when I was working, many of those things were true. When I talk to people who do work now, they complain of the abuse n violence n poor wages n costly insurance or bad n sometimes no insurance, even more than I did back then. I was lucky and was able to control my schedule for the last 5 yrs of my working time, but the majority of it was spent as the author indicates - at the mercy of the employer, as it is for a large percentage of people.

Yes, people do ask "what do you do?" almost right after asking "what is your name?" and yes, judgement is passed based upon that answer.

I agree with the author.

I can't agree nor disagree with the entrepreneur information, but I wouldn't be shocked if it too is accurate.

Work here is not done because it is comfortable or enjoyable (at least not in a large percentage), but rather simply out of necessity - and it tends to have a huge impact on your status in society.

[BrokeTech]

Well, most articles that focus on how Americans feel about their workplace are not specifically about "hostile" or "threatening" work environments, but pretty much all of them find that the majority of Americans are unhappy with their jobs. I wish the article had done more than mentioned "sexual harassment and verbal bullying," because saying a lot of us face hostile/threatening work environments and leaving it at basically that really isn't saying much. And the survey is too long to dive into to figure out what that really means.

Now, have I worked in environments where I got bullied? Yes. I just feel like the most common problems with our workplaces are 1) we don't like our boss--we either tend to feel like they're unreasonable/unrealistic about the work they give us and expect us to complete in the time frame they expect it, or we feel like they're idiots who don't deserve to be the boss, or both...or they treat different workers differently, and it's not necessarily based on who does the best work; 2) we don't like some of our co-workers; 3) we don't like our job duties; 4) we don't like the hours we work. That's pretty much why the majority of us don't like our jobs/workplaces, and it's either some of those issues or all of them, for most of us who don't like our jobs.

I currently like my job; I just simply am not a fan of working--particularly, as the article mentions, being tied to certain days and certain hours every single Monday-Friday vs having more flexibility or the ability to work from home.

The "systemic" issue--some of those things, such as diversity, are a result of larger societal issues we have in this country. You can't resolve the diversity issue, really, without fixing that overall issue in our society, which is never going to happen. And the workplace in the US really has gotten worse over the last 15 years, particularly as it relates to the 4 reasons I mentioned above that are generally why we are unhappy at work--so it's not totally systemic. A lot of it is just about the people who are put in charge at workplaces and the CEOs and the way they think, and you can change that. As it stands, they seem to think that everyone needs a job so bad that they can be as unrealistic/unreasonable as they want, they don't want to train anyone anymore, they want to pay you less to do more, they've started placing too much emphasis on the "like who you work with" line of thinking in hiring and work environments, i.e. social aspects, vs focusing on who is actually qualified, who is educated and who actually is a good employee, etc. These things have made American workplaces so much worse than they used to be, and they have also made it so much harder to even just get a job...which results in more people working jobs they don't want to work just to make a living, i.e. more people who hate their jobs.

While it wasn’t covered in the research study, it’s my theory that the crippling cost of health insurance in America plays a large role in workplace unhappiness.

I don't generally agree with this. And the reason why is...one of the things that has changed for the worse in the last 15 years in American workplaces is the benefits employers offer. More and more employers offer fewer and fewer benefits, and many offer none. I have worked for many employers who don't offer health insurance at all, to the point where I don't expect it or any other benefits when I go out for a new job. My current employer does not offer health insurance. Employers will do anything to get around offering it, from calling you a "contractor" to making sure you don't work full time to making sure they have very few employees. And I would never stay with a job just for health insurance.

My main problem with entrepreneurship, if you want to start a business, is more so how much it can cost and all the tax stuff you have to make sure you get right if you don't want to end up in trouble with the government. And if people are not starting businesses as much as they used to...well, Americans have more expenses now than they used to. Everything costs more, more of us are in debt than ever before (a lot of that is thanks to college costs), a lot of Americans have started having kids without being married and without having enough resources to care for kids, and we're just not making more money than we used to (you have some outliers--obviously, software engineers and such--but you have a lot of "underemployed" people here whose hourly wages and salaries just don't work for the expenses and/or debts they have).

I’m youngish and healthy, with no pre-existing conditions, and yet I can barely afford health insurance as a freelancer. I pay about $425 a month for the lowest tier of Oscar health insurance, which has a $7,500 deductible

This author is paying too much for health insurance, unless she has kids who are on her coverage, so don't get the wrong idea from this. My health insurance, as a single, not-that-healthy poor person in her 30s, is about $112/month. She needs to get on Obamacare and keep it moving.

[Crypts_Of_The_Mind]

Not all states offer ObamaCare. There are differing eligibility requirements for each state that does. The cost of ObamaCare depends on your income.

ObamaCare for her may actually be more expensive depending on where she lives and how much she makes.

[Crypts_Of_The_Mind]

Here is information on ObamaCare (nationwide). If you click on the link provided in the article about why it is losing ground, you may be surprised on what you learn too.

This Chart Shows How Many States Lost Obamacare Insurers. The Number Won't Stun You. | Daily Wire

Originally Posted by Little Cat

Hello. I'm LC, from England. I read this really depressing article about how Americans feel about their work place.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...an-office-hell

I was surprised to see the link with health insurance, and that this is limiting entrepreneurs, who (they say) tend to come from rich families. The NHS is free in the UK.

Do you agree? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

I disagree with the part about entrepreneurs because we have actually had a surge of startups in America; particularly in STEM fields. Additionally, being an entrepreneur is cheaper than it's ever been thanks to the internet, technology, and crowdfunding.

Everything else is spot on. Many jobs here are little more than modernized slavery. Employers expect you to revolve your life around them and their needs and work long hours doing jobs that most people wouldn't want to do all while getting underpaid and having a terrible work-life balance.

It is this reason why I would choose death over working a regular job my entire life and why I am so obsessed with entrepreneurship and freelance work. I can't be happy working a regular job because of how bad many jobs are here.

I hope that automation takes over most lower pay jobs and some type of basic income is implemented for those who don't want to deal with the corporate rat race or can't deal with it due to illnesses or other problems. That is the only viable solution I can think of at this point.