People stopped wanting to work hard in 2019 or so

People stopped wanting to work in 2019 BCE, or earlier. What's happening now, is that more people are talking about it again but the actual desire to work is a mutable semi-constant fact of life.

So to be less facetious, why do you think this is really a modern phenomenon? I think its been a thing for a long, long time. Across industrial sectors, and social constructs.

If you really want to leave this in the domain of IT, sure. In recent times, people were more willing to work obscene hours, for illusory vesting options they saw precursor people get, ignoring the long history (or urban myth) of Microsoft early employees who walked around the campus with "Fuck you I'm fully vested" tee shirts. Lets be clear, the current state of pay in FAANG is not what it was. It may not come back. Don't build your hopes on somebody else's prior achievement in work/life balance.

People's sense of values were out of whack. A younger cohort is living through the kind of disruptive cost of living inflation which some of us saw in the 1970s oil shock, and wondering if it's all worth it.

"They shoot horses, don't they" is about the 1935 dance marathon thing. "Death of a Salesman" is from 1949. The 1943 zoot suit riots in LA are written down to racism and youth disaffection but it too has a dimension which plays to "what are we working for, anyway"

Sorry, I know its a bit of a put down to focus on "what, you think this is new?" but really: why do you think this is new?

In far too many cases, hard work only gets you --- more hard work.

Here is your 2% raise --- now get back to working hard. Or --- you've been promoted! You get a 10% raise but now you'll be on call 24/7. Congratulations, you winner you!

I tell people I am a corporate America dropout. I came to the conclusion that hard work only made sense if I was working for myself.

Hard work is a means to an end. People want to work hard when their efforts are likely to have some meaningful result—higher pay or a promotion, if talking about a job; a good grade or admission to some institution or program, if talking about education; having a positive impact on someone else's life. Judging by the tweet author's bio, I assume he's focusing on employees and jobs.

Despite what founders and CEOs might think, most employees have no interest in working towards their "vision", particularly if that requires a large sacrifice of personal time and energy in exchange for barely enough money to survive and nothing else of any importance. Probably an unpopular opinion to express on this site, but it is what it is.

Don't expect people to "work hard" for you, especially if you're not going the extra mile yourself to compensate and acknowledge said hard work.

We can quibble about dates, but look at a graph of "real" (inflation-adjusted) wages and it seems kind of insane for people to be willing to work very hard.

I think for many people, there's an increasing disconnect between their goals and how working hard might get them there. When there's so much separation between risk and reward, the risk is less palatable.

Maybe they dream of a new home or a bigger house or holidays or something else. Housing is expensive; building/renovating is more expensive and facing more challenges (availability of services); travel is also more expensive and leave is harder to take. A friend in a very decent professional role recently faked surgery to get enough leave to return home to see family over xmas!

As of 2023, I've worked for myself for 25 years so I'm quite interested in small business and side hustles. The number of friends and acquaintances who talk dreamily about quitting and starting their own thing was noticeable before 2019 but definitely seemed to ramp up since. I suspect constant exposure through social media to how peers are using leisure time could be part of it. If you are remotely social, at almost every time during the year, someone you know will be off gallivanting around putting up photos of better weather or more adventurous pursuits while you sit in the office. (And I say this as someone who spends a lot of time gallivanting.) 20+ years ago, you heard about a trip when the friend returned home, rarely in detail and certainly not for each day during.

Why should they? There’s no hope for even a half decent retirement for most people any longer.

It seems like companies are trying to combine multiple positions into one position. They're surprised they can't find that one person to do all these jobs at the same time. Invent new tech on a deadline while maintaining a legacy full stack and remotely mentoring a team around the world.

Oh yes, working on one ticket a week, changing 2 lines. That's it.

Preventing your coworkers to do meaningful work. Being extremely bureaucratic.

More and more I'm thinking about leaving this tech world.

It is called working half-assed and it is nothing new.