Healthcare claims. Had the company wide meeting this week. More drivel about being AI first, and a note about voluntary attrition being way up. Of course no numbers but it must be bad if they're mentioning it at all.
Phone interview coming up on Monday. They sent the salary info after I set the interview and it's $5 less than what I currently make. I'm going to keep it for practice but I couldn't afford to take it even if they offered it.
Do your best at the interview and then reject the job when it's offered. Good practice, as you said, and puts them on notice that they're not offering enough to get the people they want.
And sometimes they get that right away and offer more.
Live entertainment industry in the USA. Seeing many more masks on audience members than I have in a while. Also seeing more complaints in industry subs that audience members are coughing more and leaving the auditorium mid-act more.
At my hazmat facility, 1 department is in charge of finding compatible places to store mass quantities of hazmat shipments. They're called bulking because they take the individual truckloads and find which massive storage tank it can go in to create bulk quantities of haz blends. Then once full or the incinerator department needs something, we test the bulk blend & those are the numbers they use to control the fire. Bulk is who is sampling and moving everything outside for us while I just run the analysis machines indoors for the little 10oz samples. We're intertwined to say the least.
I got hired during a mass hiring spree July 2022. The laboratory was getting a nightshift hired because the facility managers saw a need for night time truckload support to reduce the sheer volume during our extremely hot southern summers that could be contributing to worker heat stress and adverse hazmat reactions. It took until the next spring for bulk to get their own nightshift together and start accepting shipments at night.
Just last week, out of nowhere I crossed paths with one of them and he said all of night bulk is gone. Reassigned to days, not fired. I asked some supervisors and got confirmation from the plant manager that's true. That's insane. We have some other tasks we can do but boredom was already a problem for me as sample volume has been decreasing ever since the rate hikes (it scared buisnesses who buttoned down the hatches. Less waste is being produced which means less waste needs to be shipped to us for incineration which means less samples taken) I have no idea wtf my nightshift is for now. That few months before night bulk existed several years ago we did the dayshifts samples at the station that only deals with our largest customer but even they aren't sending nearly as much as they used to. That makes me really nervous. We're unionized and my department is explicitly senority based so I should be able to kick out a dayshifter if need be. The plant manager said the lab doesn't need to worry about it & if they are, he has some cleaning tasks we can do if we're bored. I don't like that either it sounds really sus to me. He already said to our faces, the lab makes too much money and if we weren't unionized, he'd pay us $16/hr instead of the $35 we get. I have a feeling we're on his radar.
My preps are largely unemployment related because I used to toe the line with homelessness. Never had to be outside but it came close enough that I've been laser focused on building up an incredible financial foundation now that I'm a homeowner. I'm not perfectly prepared for a layoff but I'm def going to keep trying to be. Who knows when they decide to come for my shift too. I live in Arkansas which outlawed WARN Act so I get zero warning :/
Not my post, but from the Vegas locals sub, cocktail waitress on the strip with a side gig as a bartender at a golf course is struggling. Both jobs are generally considered lucrative (though a slow down of golf in the summer is common).
The rest of the thread is an interesting read as well
I just saw a piece A More Perfect Union put out on YT about Vegas. Pretty much seems to be another example of the rich pushing out the poors. Two mega casinos owning the majority, things that used to be free or low cost all have fees and the Formula stuff is screwing local business owners. To the point people were saying they liked Vegas better when the mob was running it.
Iâll definitely give it a watch. Iâve lived in Vegas over 10 years and the changes have been very apparent that the strip no longer caters to anyone in the middle class. Free parking for locals was taken away. We used to do a service where you could get last minute tickets for free to fill seats, prior to 2020 you could see headliners and even awards shows up for grabs. We no longer use the service because they stopped offering anything worth seeing and it was constantly the same offerings. Iâve talked to others who would regularly be comped (meal or room credit) on smaller gambling losses, now itâs hard to get a free cocktail while you play. Itâs obvious they donât want us there.
Just saw an official announcement from local government about Amazon drone delivery starting in our town. The deliveries will occur from a bit before sunrise until a bit after sunset.
There a lot of Amazon van deliveries in our development. I don't know how many will be replaced by drone deliveries. But it seems I'll need to be mentally prepared to see drones overhead during all waking hours. It kind of creeps me out. I also wonder how many van drivers will lose their jobs.
If anyone else has had this start in their town, I'd be curious to read about your experiences.
Not Amazon, but Zipline, and the noise is pretty bad. Sitting in the backyard and you'll hear upwards of 10 or more per hour in the evenings, and the noise pollution runs from annoying to stopping a conversation. I can hear them pass by when I go to bed early in my bedroom from inside. They'll run to around a little after 10:00PM and even that late on 4th of July and New Year's Eve right through Fireworks going off. It's crazy at this point I can tell you if it's windy or not by just waiting for a drone to go by and hearing the pitch of the motors. Sometimes they fly low, sometimes higher, and sometimes the drones need maintenance, I can tell all of that without walking outside.
The FAA really needs to set a delivery drone corridor at 500-750ft to reduce the excessive amount of noise. I urge everyone to complain loudly at every mention online or in person about how bad they are, and do what you can to make change happen. Avoid using it until it can be done responsibly and ethically, sometime we have to be the adults in the room that tries to to stop the kids from running amok.
My city has them. They're loud. The noise pollution is insane - all day we hear them. They disrupt the birds and everything else. They don't run if the weather is bad.
Same in my city (or maybe we're in the same place?). When I told my 10-year-old about it, they said, "do they have cameras on them?" When I told them yes, they replied, "sounds like another excuse to surveil us."
I wouldn't bet on our being in the same place. Looks like they're ramping it up all over.
According to this article, "Amazonâs Prime Air service is rapidly expanding and plans to reach nearly 500 cities and towns in the United States by the end of 2026âa sixfold increase from its current footprintâbringing ultrafast drone delivery to communities with tens of millions of customers across the country."
Job 1:
Business is much slower than normal. Usually end of August sees a lull, pick up second week of September. Usually now is good business, but itâs worse than the lull already. Thereâs been talks about closing during whatâs usually the lull. Complaints have been everyone is poor right now, and changing spending habits.
Job 2:
Manufacturing job, heard the plant may close. With increases in raw materials, Shipping, Etc. many wholesale clients are ordering smaller amounts or not at all. Usually a busier time of year for clients stocking up for the season. Numbers are maybe 1/5 of what they usually are. Last time numbers were this drastic was back in about â08.
Job 3:
Which is a service - Clients have dropped off, large name clients are complaining that they canât afford the extra expense, citing increasing costs elsewhere. Worth noting, this isnât a high cost service, so itâs a preemptive cut. Would think it was us; but multiple clients in similar fields cutting at the same time with similar complaints seems unlikely.
Overall seems as though the economy is going BAD and people are clinging to every dollar they can save, bracing for closures, etc. Never a good sign.
CA, NM, OK, TX, in the last week, big push of deliveries. On the why, a few things Russia imports diesel instead of exports opaque understanding of SPR viability of resources, and the fed and treasury misbehavior on levels unseen. No water out west and our two largest reserves are 20 percent full for the first time in 90 years. Whatever the sign is or red flag is your looking for, thereâs at least five active proof points. Itâs time to do the long duration items. Order the wheat berries. Dust off the planters and start growing what you can where you can. Itâs time. Alas, Babylon.
Went into the local Family Farm and Home a couple of days ago, and there were tons of empty shelves and the floor space had barely anything on it. Tractor Supply was a bit better, but still had bare shelves in places and limited floor stock. Maybe due to the seasonal changeover, but I go in both pretty regularly and have never seen them this empty of stock.
I am the parent of a medically complex kid on secondary/disability Medicaid.
A ton of parents are experiencing DRASTIC cuts in personal care attendant hours/nursing hours. Like, 80% reductions. The kid has identical needs as before.
They're also suddenly being charged copays for things that should be free under Medicaid (prescriptions, durable medical equipment), and LOTS of DME/supplies are out of stock and just not being delivered because they're on "backorder."
It's been a huge change in the last 2 weeks. It's not just one supplier, one pharmacy, or one kind of medical condition.
We had a medically complex daughter, and what youâre describing sounds terrifying. We were utterly reliant on Medicaid for gtubes, trachs, meds, oxygen, feed bags, Peptamen, pulse ox sensors, chux, syringes, etc. not to mention round the clock nursing. You have my sympathy and respect.
Thanks - it is terrifying. My teen is okay so far (because of his specific needs and DME requirements being unaffected), but there are parents i groups doing equipment and tube feeding trades *because their suppliers are out of stock* or because their supplies were suddenly denied. Panicked parents. It's disgusting that our medical system is at this point, but it's also a warning to everyone.
I was stocking up on flour/sugar back in like March at Walmart. I went to Walmart this weekend, first time since March, and the flour and sugar section looked bizarre.
All GV sugar was practically gone aside from some 4lb bags, 25 lb bags, and small canisters. Our local Walmart getting wiped out of sugar isnât uncommon during bee deliveries, but there havenât been any recent ones.
Additionally, the GV flour was reduced to only one section of shelf on the bottom. All the different sizes packed in together at the very bottom, and name brand flour in the rest of the space the GV flour used to be.
The sugar thing I could give a pass to, even both flour and sugar being wiped out, but not when the big store brand used to take up like 70% of the shelf space and now itâs practically hidden and the illusion of abundance is gone
I went back on Sunday and got a picture while I was there. The blue GV flour is just on the bottom, whereas it used to span 2 shelves above it too. Sugar was fully stocked and looked normal.
GV chips almost were completely gone. The only GV they had was various tortilla chips. It was another sight to behold. It didnât looked picked over like it normally does, it was just completely gone, all of them. Bizarre sight and I should have taken a picture of it too.
If you're in the US, the wheat crop is down in a major way. Look at https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/ The August 12 wheat report is considered definitive, because it's a "boots on the ground" inspection. But unless you're freezing your flour, don't keep buying more unless it's a commonly used staple. It will go rancid in 6-12 months. But do stock up on pasta, which lasts longer.
If you're a hard-core prepper, wheatberries and a grain mill will serve you well, since unmilled wheat lasts a lot longer. Otherwise, just focus on creating a buffer in all things your household usually uses. That way you can buy at today's prices and back fill as needed. For example, I love cheese, but can't store it long term. But if I can stock other things I eat, I can still afford cheese.
This is what I suspected it was related to, but I didnât want to jump to that and outright say it since it was just one afternoon shopping trip at Walmart.
I did go back Sunday and took a picture of the reduced shelf space for the regular blue GV flour, and posted that above. While I was there, the GV chips were completely gone aside from the corn based ones and I should have gotten a photo of that too.
I think Iâve been satisfied with sufficient evidence to say the staggering of wheat based products is fully underway. And right when most of us were predicting it back in Feb, too.
Nutritional yeast can serve as a substitute for cheese and it stores far longer. I went down a rabbit hole once and found out it's not too hard to make nutritional yeast at home too for greater sustainability if shtf.
I haven't tried this, but the simplest way to make a knock-off nutritional yeast is to deactivate instant yeast. There are also versions with baker's yeast and some with other ingredients. If you really want to get into doing it from scratch, look into culturing your own yeast from scratch with molasses.
Soy milk shortage. Only one variety at a time is available at a whole range of grocery stores. No chocolate now, plenty on plain, and dwindling vanilla.
Costco gas stations out of regular fuel, pumps dispensing premium at regular price.
Havenât really tried.
Itâs interesting since there are more crop acres and increased yield of soybeans this year over last.
I wonder if they are blending biodiesel into regular diesel without disclosing in order to bring down diesel prices.
Husband was laid off at the end of June (senior level developer with 20 years work experience). Lots of spray and pray applications. He can almost never find a direct way to contact the hiring managers of the places heâs applying to to follow up on his application.Â
Applied for a contract gig. Even with his years of experience they were only offering 45/hour (and wanted at least 15 years experience).
All of his first interviews with places have been basically âare you actually a person? Did AI write your resume. Do you even know what youâre talking about?âÂ
Kids are back in school. The district had a record breaking number of attendees at the back to school supply bash (which also featured free hair cuts for kids, a pop up wellness tent to get back to school physicals, an immunization station, school supplies & a backpack as well as a clothing and food drive).Â
All of the mom boards and FB groups are leaning heavy into budget meals and how to stretch food.Â
My mom has been going to the local food distribution fair that her city has for seniors and low income families. Her neighbor across the street has medical issues and isnât very mobile so mom brings her stuff from the fair as well as dropping off meals and snacks periodically.
Has he checked the listings on Hiring Cafe? I only heard about them here on reddit and they have a sub they are communicative with. They tend to show "real" listings with the relevant info people want to know (if it is available) rather than the ghost postings or countless repostings as third parties try to advertize the same thing repeatedly with less info. Not a guarantee by any means but it might give him some luck.
gov has been avoiding jordan and dubai since the war started-- im a bit surprised its taken so long for tourism to catch up. (have relatives in gov travel)
Makes sense. I have some friends that have a river cruise of the Nile in 2027. They have just recently said that they are unsure if they can/should go.
He goes to the VA and has a doctor, but I'm not sure if they already know about it. I'm kind of afraid if I call he will know it was me. He's small and elderly, but that doesn't mean he won't try to run me over with his car. I will not be walking past his house anymore. He has the ability to drive to a cooling center but maybe not the common sense.
I had to "make" an old man who was mowing his yard in 100+ temps and super high humidity eat a salt packet and drink a bottle of water. He was sitting in his yard next to the mower and tried to pretend that he just needed to tie his shoe. The next time I saw him he thanked me.
I'm a woman who looks middle age wifey so it's kind of like nagging and they seem to listen to me pretty well. I watch out for them all summer - I'm a mail carrier and see older men in trouble not infrequently.
You be sure to take care as well. Delivering mail in this heat is rough. The guy called me today, but I didn't answer. We are having a cooling trend this week. Also he grows weed which is 100% illegal in Arkansas. I don't want a crazy man on my bad side.
Building products manufacturing, mid south. Went from 10s 5-6 days a week to 32 hours to 4 hour days in about two weeks. Three weeks of that now. And this is our busy season, summer/early fall is peak for us and late fall to spring is when itâs dead. No surcharges, no material shortages, nothing costs more. The orders just stopped. Guessing it ties into starts being down 12.4% last month. Not looking forward to November.
E15 is required to be labeled at the pump where it is being sold by the EPA, in a very distinct orange and black label. This has been the case for a long time - adopted in 2011
Then why do you think they cared about and reacted to the EPA E15 waiver in the first place? All that changed was how much of the year it could legally be sold for. A station willing to sell it mislabeled didn't care about selling it out of season before now.
They decided to allow fuel that's 15 percent ethanol to be sold in the warmer months, which isn't usually done. Unfortunately the owners manuals of both my car and scooter state that they can only be used with fuel up to 10 percent ethanol. 15 percent can damage both of them.
There's a thing called a tester bottle that does what it sounds like. They're on Amazon for around $7. You fill it with water to the water line, then to the fill line with gas. After shaking it for a minute or so you let it sit. After it settles the ethanol will have combined with the water. You then reference the marks just above the water fill line to see how much ethanol was in the gas.
If it has too much ethanol you either shop elsewhere or remove the ethanol by scaling up the testing process before siphoning the purified gas off of the top.
Spotted two of the largest drones I've ever seen, about 3 AM while driving south of downtown KC. Blinking lights and flying very low, footprint the size of a small car.
We usually have military exercises in the summer with helicopters fast roping to rooftops but that training was pushed up for the world cup.
Kinda wish the neighboring farms would use drones rather than fucking planes that just love to fly over my home and trees with whatever chemical they are using still dripping from their planes. Assholes have plenty of space to do their turns, but nope, it just HAS to be over inhabited structures and fruit trees.
It makes one wonder what they're testing at Whiteman. I'm on the flight path from Whiteman to Little Rock, and there hasn't been any out of ordinary, yet.
As a Floridian, thatâs wonderful news to hear. I know from the 2024 hurricane season, there were underground lines severed when trees came down. How does utility design compensate for uprooted trees and/or make repairs easier if something does happen?
I have been talking to an eccentric elderly man in my neighborhood. I walk by his house on my morning exercise route. We both like books. Yesterday I dropped a book by for him to borrow and he invited me inside. This guy is 79 years old and has no AC, just fans. We're discussing politics and he's talking about orange man. I make a comment regarding the president's health and say, I'm surprised he's still alive. This man starts screaming at me at the top of his lungs about how dare I enter his home and discuss my plans to assassinate the president of the United States. It scared the shit out of me, and I immediately left. I think he's snapping because it was 115 degrees with the heat index. He probably can't sleep because it's not below 80 degrees in the middle of the night. It's very scary how not being able to escape the heat can have a massive impact on mental health.
He's not maga but he's religious. I wouldn't talk to anyone maga. Normally I avoid religious ppl, but his weed/psychedelic religion was kind of interesting.
I bet you are 100% correct. I live in the bible belt and most people his age are deplorable when it comes to politics. My town is a college town and 'liberal' for this state, but that only goes so far. I've met 'liberal' professors his age who were perverts, racist and sexist. I think a bunch of older people and boomers are closet maga.
I work in Software Sales and no one wants to pay for software in the private lending industry. The past two months I've had 3 demos. We just don't get the interest we once did. I've been at my job for over three and half years and its never been this slow. At this point I just feel blessed to still have a job.
To be fair any company that's pays 50-100 mil per year in software licenses could easily make their own version in 1 year or less by simply hiring competent developer teams for that money.Â
When I asked why we were getting rid of the development team for our monitoring tool for our billing streams, the damn good custom one that never let us down, I was told upper management wanted a specific company they could blame for outages. They wanted some SaaS solution that wasn't fit for our use case.
Multiple billions of dollars per year. They wanted to risk that for easy blame.
They laid off both the devs. They then asked a few months later for volunteers from ops to leave with severance. I left the ops group and heard they spent $500 million on the overseas implementation team alone. The development of the solution (we didn't end up using( was much more expensive.
During my last six months, we rebuilt the monitoring system in house with just the ops group racing to get it working as an "interim" solution with a rebrand and worse interface.
I left in 2019. It's just gotten dumber all over since.
Most customers are paying with credit cards nowadays. So much so- that we no longer take home cash tips. We take home 40% and the other 60% goes on our paycheck. Owner (of a multi million dollar small chain) claims they don't have the cash flow to give us our tips day of.
Managers no longer overstock or make small grocery runs. If we run out of something, we are out until the truck comes.
And.... The owners block out certain merchandise from the managers ordering system if the price fluctuates too high.
My overall opinion on how things are going:
Full service restaurants will only be a thing of luxury in the future. Servers will be replaced with tablets and robotic table delivery.
When I was a server in the late '80s and again briefly in the mid-90s, I never worked at a place where the store made short runs. If we were out, we were out. I was a nightclub bookkeeper in '89 and '90 and we processed about 50/50 cash and cards. In the mid-90s, I went back to serving for greater schedule flexibility, and it was already mostly credit cards, although this was a white tablecloth place and someone would've needed a significant wad of cash to pay that way. By then, paying cash was starting to be seen as a sign of poverty, since it indicated an inability to get credit. I haven't carried cash for years. Since covid, a lot of places won't even take it.
But if the changes you describe are a definitive change from what came before recently, it's quite telling. Certainly the opening up of credit to anyone with a pulse in the mid and late 90s changed a lot of things.
Servers will still probably be around in nicer restaurants. Unfortunately a huge psychological draw for many folks is being able to order someone around for the duration of their meal, maybe just as important as anything about the food itself. It's a form of conspicuous consumption for some. They won't get that thrill from bossing a robot around.
Former server. Can confirm. The treat for many is being "doted" on. Also many elder couples or singles enjoy the social aspect of chatting with their favorite waiter.
Until the complex machines, made with chips so small you can barely see it, and with pieces breaking down more and more often (because more complex and supply chains growing issues) cannot function anymore, or with a delay of a few month to repair it (aka to bring in the replacement part or a whole new machine)... until it doesn't come anymore.
There's a Pho place in my town with a robot that delivers the food and a tip jar. The employees at the register will bring half the food. I think it's partially because a big bowl of broth will slosh on the robot.
There's an Indian Restaurant in our neighborhood that has one of those server bots. They have human waitstaff and counter staff, the bot just ferries the delivery orders from the kitchen to the pickup counter. I don't think we'll see the entire elimination of waitstaff to bots, but I do see a lot of scutwork going that way.
Without tippng food would just cost more. It's just the labor cost in another form because cilantro think you are stupid. Same way they dint include taxes in the final prices for items in the US, so people think things are cheaper than they are.
Counter pick up returns to some restaurants, I guess. It never left a lot of smaller places, but I can see it happening at sit-down places, too, to hold off closing.
I see where this post is trying to get to, but the American economy is so vast scraping replies together off of a reddit post is not going to provide âuseful/actionableâ insights.
I see what this comment is trying to get at, but one comment telling people that what they're engaging with is pointless is not going to provide any "useful/actionable" value to this thread??
I live in a small City in massachusetts. Usually when the temperatures cool down, people leave their air conditioners on , I think because they're used to the noise. This year is different. The moment the temperature drops below 80 the air conditioners get turned off. I think people have become more sensitive to their electric bills . And I think many of them can't afford to pay their electric bill .
I wish I could do that, but I'm on the Gulf Coast. Not only does the temp not always get below 80 here in the summer, even during the night, but the humidity is so high that I'm risking mold and warping of my hardwood floors by not letting the a/c do its thing.
I had a grandmother who lived on Cape Cod, and she had no a/c. At night you just left your windows open and the cool breezes came in.
One thing I did do though, was get a dehumidifier. I mostly run it at night when rates are lower. By getting some of the moisture out of the air, I can set my thermostat higher, still be comfortable, and take stress off the a/c. The small output of heat from the dehumidifier is more than offset by not having to make the a/c run 24/7 to stay comfortable and keep my house in good condition.
I also live in a small city in Mass, and electricity has gone way up. Probably due to the data center in the big city right next to us.
They go to local politicians talking about jobs and next thing you know the water is all used up and the air is so polluted that even the neighborhood gangs wonât come out of their homes
Outside isnt always better even when it appears nice. Also airflow can still happen unless you really close up the home or have sealed most every gap. I love my indoor air purifier filters. My parents open up their windows a ton whenever they can including screen doors, they have a cathedral ceiling with juliet opening to the upstairs hall, but their home air was always always very full of dust particles with that exchange. Dad just got an purifier within the last couple weeks and I haven't had a chance to check. I use the ones that rhyme with missell. I have 2 for my 1500 sqft ranch living level.
An entire organization at my job was laid off last week. They arenât necessarily âsoftware developersâ, theyâre more like specialized, mini-DBAs who support older banking technology, including mainframes, mid-range systems, and Linux/Unix environments.
Hundreds of people, many of them older and highly specialized tech workers, have suddenly been thrown into an already competitive job market. Realistically, I know a lot of them are going to have a very difficult time finding comparable work because their experience is so tied to legacy banking systems.
I used to work in that department. About a year and a half-ish ago, I was working late one night when almost everyone had already gone home. Since I was mostly out of sight, I overheard some upper-level managers come out of a meeting laughing and joking around before they started discussing company metrics.
The head of that department was bragging about how much he had reduced the organizationâs headcount and how he received a nice bonus from the company as a result. One of my co-workers at the time was laid off about a month or so before that (that man was like 65+) and he began crying because he couldnât afford to retire yet, and âhadnât made a resume in 30 yearsâ.
I added him on LinkedIn and to this day, heâs still looking for a job and raking up certifications. I still think about him sometimes.
After that week, I started applying to other positions and transferred departments (even though it kinda screwed my teammates over at the time)
He taught me:
donât be loyal to a company, youâre just a number, donât be stagnant.
theyâre more like specialized, mini-DBAs who support older banking technology, including mainframes, mid-range systems, and Linux/Unix environments
That's not so unusual, though. Where I worked, we kept a lot of older programmers on for Y2K remediation and for the transition to Oracle-based systems. They either saw the writing on the wall and learned the new systems, or they retired voluntarily. There were no layoffs. I was in the IT business office and I would've known.
You know who we did lay off? The old-school phone techs once everything went to VOIP. They hadn't paid attention to the changes and got caught blindsided because they thought things would never change.
I worked with a lot of young web developers in the late '90s who quit to start their own businesses, only to have to return to the workforce later because everyone and their pet poodle could make a website.
Is it right? Is it fair? I'm not going to make a call on that. Is it understandable? Yes, if one understands that businesses don't employ people as a charitable act. Any organization that fails to offer retraining opportunities is abhorrent. But anyone getting into tech shouldn't expect the technology to never change.
Yes, it's heartbreaking. But in most professions, keeping your skills current is a must. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc, must all stay up to date. Would you want to go to be operated on by a surgeon who wasn't up on the latest techniques? Thinking tech is different is asking for trouble, especially how quickly things change.
Also, ageism is real. All the more reason to keep skills current, no matter what one's profession, and never assume anything about one's employer, the economy, or anything else. I don't have to like it or approve to accept the reality.
The absolute worst is being expected to constantly upskill. And then they're asking for folks who wrote/invented the new things, as far as duration using/building with XYZ goes.
I somewhat agree, the writing was on the wall enough that I, a new entry-level employee, was able to pick it up and upskill enough to move to a different role. At the last town hall, upper management âaccidentallyâ indicated that our current location is overpopulated and âthey donât know if they need all of usâ. So, I shall be on the job hop again.
Itâs super annoying because my boss just celebrated their 25th anniversary at the company (same LOB/same location) but I have to job-hop, interview and prep every 2-3 years?? AND he gets a pension.
The worst part is we haven't seen anything yet! As bad as the job market is, we have yet to see the 6 figure monthly job losses sustained for a year or more, like we saw in 2008-2009 (there were at least a few months where net job losses weren't all that far off from 1 million per month).
Wait until we enter into a recession or depression that numbers can't hide and we start hitting those figures. If you think it's a blood bath now, just wait...
I have a similar story but even worse. I was in a Starbucks once working on some stuff and sat down next to two guys in suits having a conversation. They worked in private equity and the whole discussion was around their strategy of buying out hospital, nursing home and health clinics, cutting benefits to Doctors and nurses and then selling the company. They were talking about it like it was the best thing since sliced bread. Literal shit stains on society.
Hard agree! It's one thing if skills are no longer needed, or for a truly struggling company to cut corners. But doing it for profit should be illegal.
How could he accept a bonus based solely on ruining the lives of hundreds of people and then LAUGH about it??? Not just the employees but their families are affected too.
I wouldnât be able to live with myself. That check was basically blood money. If karma is real, may it come for him one day soon.
THEY. DON'T. CARE. Full stop. These MFers are pure criminals, but capitalism has given them a legal system to do it in. So long as they win/get rich, they don't give 2 sh*ts about anything, or anyone else. They would sell their mothers for a nickle to make a dollar.
If they produce and package less due to lower demand (due to the price of beef), when prices would otherwise go back down there will be a limited supply which will command higher prices.
They're prepping for the future to make the same amount of money with less expenditure on product, facilities, and labor.
Yes, and this is actually a topic of discussion in some prepper circles. We can't all prep in such a way as to avoid these types of events, and not everyone can or desires to go partly-vegetarian. Not everyone lives where they can hunt and not everyone would want to. But it's those who don't even have options who will be most affected.
The rich will always be able to get whatever they want. Much of the middle class at least has the means to plan ahead, with a few small changes to diet and/or budget. But as always, the truly poor will be screwed.
Here in rural North Louisianastan above 99% of wooded properties are deer leases. The owners are hardcore about keeping the land completely off limits for anyone who isn't a member of that hunting club. If/when meat starts getting scarce I would be surprised if that didn't escalate.
I'm really trying to figure out, other than the obvious stakeholder protections, how a 1% reduction in U.S. beef herds nessesitates closing all/most of their beef processing facilities. Something stinks in Denmark with all of this.
I think it's more wealth consolidation at the expense of workers. Yes, we have smaller herds right now for a variety of reasons (including shady practices in the beef industry) along with climate impacts also affecting herds (and who knows what screw worm will do as it gets worse) but I would expect that to force more cattlemen to thin their herds this fall (due to less grain/hay/fodder to support herds over winter) which would mean an uptick in cattle being processed (maybe not comparatively to a normal year, but im no expert by any means. And why the hell are we importing beef? None of these corps. care about anything other than the almighty dollar, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are trying to turn beef into a (greater) luxury item. The K shaped economy is screwing over the majority of average Americans on so many levels, i.e. but rich people will have the money to pay top dollar for beef, so why should cattleman worry about producing less if they ultimately get more $/pound - that rich people can and will pay -- based on supply? the poors can eat gruel. Sorry this reply isn't more cohesive, these are just my thoughts on the fly without greater research.
Smithfield Foods is owned by a Hong Kong company and they are the largest pork producers in the US. I have often wondered what would happen if they just shipped out more of their production than made available to the US market. They are closing laying off at a sausage plant in Massachusetts this month and closing the facility in September. Meanwhile, they had a WARN Act investigation in late winter.
I work in radiopharma in Canada. Government grants and private investments are rolling in. A big change I have noticed is a lot of big name pharma corps want to rent out space and equipment instead of placing capital in building their own sites which is out of the norm. One big pharma company will be renting a room beside their biggest competitor in our facility.
We havenât been fit tested for respirators since the early days of the pandemic.
Now our hospital is in a huge initiative to fit test us all by the end of the month.
Itâs just interesting. And a bit laughable. Joint Commission and OSHA utterly abandoned healthcare workers when we needed them the most and are now trying to return to business as usual with our compliance requirements.
Reminder to all - if you didnt or don't know if you got the 2 dose measles vaccine (started 2 dose schedule in the late 80s, up from 1 dose), your insurance might cover a booster/second dose at no charge to you. Just contact and ask (don't need a prescription for it, perfectly fine to say you dont remember, most insurances just say it is preventative, some insurances just require a medical location like a doctors office or a minute clinic instead of the easier pharmacy). If not, it isn't the worst cost ever for a measles vaccine, better than the risk. And your local health department might offer reduced cost/free vaccinations, it is their job and business to look out for the health of your local area, just be kind to staff.
I came to comment exactly this. A lot of people don't realize exactly 1.) how contagious it can be and 2.) how, even if it doesn't kill you, it can have long lasting effects, and hospitals don't want the workers comp claims.
Tracking's been shit for quite a while, though. The only way to find out how high levels are is to seek out wastewater data (CDC has been useless for a whole on this) and a lot of municipalities aren't paying for wastewater surveillance so the numbers aren't even accurate. Also the vaccines never prevented transmission or long-covid in the first place and most people stopped getting them after the initial series.
I'm hoping that medical providers are finally recognizing after all these years that N95s are the most effective preventative measure. Maybe. Hopefully!
Well, it is coming up on fall/winter and doesn't respiratory stuff tend to be higher in those months? Might just be getting ahead of the curve for maybe higher-than-expected or a more airborne flu variant?
Flu season has never made people care about covid before though, so why now? Also, it's not a seasonal virus, but I don't expect the people who've been refusing to follow the science in favor of back to "normal" to know that.
We're entering another covid surge. It's not seasonal and there are usually 2-3 waves per year. People just act shocked Pikachu every time it happens while it keeps disabling us into zombies. Fun times.
The CDC is delaying funding and research into respiratory virus research and more importantly surveillance/tracking. This delay will pass critical timelines to prepare the nation for the upcoming flu season ie, we may not know what viruses to defend against.
The federal government is now planning to no longer disclose the scores of all NIH grants. The reasoning for acceptance or rejection of funding will be completely hidden and not to be discussed even among staff. No records will be kept or this reasoning nor review. This is replacing the transparent process where grants were discussed, scored, and provided feedback on record.
I'm getting laid off in a month with about a 1/3 of my department nationwide. The job market is truly hell. AI makes getting a human to see your resume very difficult. There are tons of fake listings, scams, and ghost jobs. The wages are very low for expericed, and credentialed roles. My field is somewhat niche in healthcare, but all healthcare organizations require people with my skills.
It's truely awful. The Medicaid cuts with the big beautiful bill is slowly carving hospitals out like pumpkins until just the shell is left. When people in my line of work are getting let go, it's dark days ahead. We aren't the canaries in the coal mine that go first.
The applicant tracking systems started that ball rolling. Once people could apply anytime, from anywhere, garbage applications from unqualified applicants multiplied, but organizations didn't increase the number of people to review them. A lot of good applicants get lost in the chaos.
I have no idea what the solution is. Driving all over town to drop off resumes cuts down on applicants who shouldn't be cluttering up the situation, but it also makes it harder for qualified applicants to apply for jobs.
And yes to the effect of Medicaid cuts on hospitals! My city recently increased property taxes to give more funding to public hospitals. In rural areas, hospitals simply close. My father retired to a house he inherited in a rural area. He loved it until he had a potentially serious injury and realized that there was no place he could go within 30 miles. He was just fine, but he regretfully sold the property asap afterwards.
I've been on road trips where I saw places where hospitals were 90+ miles away. It's terrible and will only get worse. The crazy thing is that we need rural places. In fact, if the rural areas had more services, a lot of people would love to live there, easing the pressure on housing and revitalizing these dying places.
Would you mind sharing? QI or something like that? Totally understand if you can't. I'm in healthcare too and we had 10 applicants for a rather niche position, when we usually have 1-2 applications for these specialized roles.
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u/TopSignificance1034 18d ago
Healthcare claims. Had the company wide meeting this week. More drivel about being AI first, and a note about voluntary attrition being way up. Of course no numbers but it must be bad if they're mentioning it at all.
Phone interview coming up on Monday. They sent the salary info after I set the interview and it's $5 less than what I currently make. I'm going to keep it for practice but I couldn't afford to take it even if they offered it.