this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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I did retirement home training and used to think it was a sweet job. Then I got in the business and underestimated how demoralizing it was as they give you the easy elders in training while the others make you, or at least me, really think of the fact the job just amounts to an unkarmic freebie.

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[–] [email protected] 137 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Private equity/venture capitalists - they acquire unique brands and then extract all the value and enshitify them into the ground

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 months ago

One of the reasons Boeing sucks is this. First reason is McDonnell Douglas bought Boeing with Boeings money, hallowed out the soul that built the world’s greatest aircraft, then sold what was left off to the big investment funds. Then the investment funds were like “look at all this money Boeing is spending on safety and suppliers” so they cut out the safety and bought out the suppliers. The horror stories of quality control at some of the suppliers is just as bad if not worse than some of the horror stories of quality control at Boeing. What if I told you Boeing fought to have ECS (environmental control systems) software that was written by third world “programmers” that didn’t speak English to remain on their aircraft illegally, claiming it didn’t pose a threat to safety, you know those systems that determine if there is enough oxygen to breath at altitude and whether the temperature inside the plane is survivable…

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

Vulture capitalists.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 2 months ago (12 children)

Ctrl + F Landlord

Yall disappoint me.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

Landlord isn't an occupation, any more than 'white collar criminal'

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Literally anyone who works in health insurance.

Currently work in biotech, and have worked in medtech; I have had to integrate systems with insurers (payors is the industry term). I know exactly how fucked it is on a statistical level.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (14 children)

I used to work for an insurer. Our entire health system is just a steaming pile of crap. Providers will double or triple bill. Hospitals raise their rates through the absolute roof so they have room for negotiations. The uninsured people more often than not get billed at the unnegotiated rate which is many times what it should be. If the insurers are short on money or profit margins are down and their stockholders are angry they end up turning down shitloads of procedures looking at the statistics for what's least likely to cause lawsuits and death. Medicare requires you to go and recertify every patient every year, Mr Johnson's an amputee, well you better get him back in to make sure he still is or you're not going to pay for DME. Half the big insurers are still running on Big iron of one form or another, FTP over SSL coming hot off of mainframe.

It's not a good look.

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 2 months ago (3 children)
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[–] riskable 65 points 2 months ago

Software Patent Attorney

[–] [email protected] 46 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Any sort of high pressure sales sucks.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

How much do you hate them?

Name a number!

How about if I drop that hatred by 22% with a 2.1% financing? And throw in a free coupon to Chili's if you verify within the next 45 minutes! Hurry act now we're running low on coupons. And you don't want to go home empty handed, do you?

[–] [email protected] 41 points 2 months ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago

This. "Marketing" is just a euphemism for "propaganda" -- it is inherently manipulative and therefore evil.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

That shit should be illegal, with, like, a living whitelist so you can still put out a sandwich board in front of your restaurant.

Yes, I know that will implode entire sectors. They deserve it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

There's a city in France - ~~Toulouse, IIRC~~ EDIT: Correction: it is Grenoble - where the mayor ran on a promise that "if you elect me, I'll remove all the billboards." Turns out that was really popular, so now that city does not have any billboards.

ETA: A video about it. (Dutch, but it has (auto-generated) English subtitles)

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Human Cannonball

Hear me out: Many circus performers are multi disciplined, or put on an incredible display of training and talent. The last big top I went to had a knife throwing couple who also did a fantastic roller skating routine, a few very talented clowns/jugglers, and a bike troupe in a ball of death. Just to name a few. These people have devoted days or years of their lives to their craft. Do you know how hard it is to ride a bicycle across a tight rope with someone on your shoulders?

The Human Cannonball? He got launched out of the cannon and did one flip before getting caught by the net. That's all he did that night, yet he came out and bowed with the rest of the performers like he was an equal contributor.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (4 children)

The Human Cannonball? He got launched out of the cannon and did one flip before getting caught by the net.

That's what it looks like to the untrained eye. But they're not really going to fire a person out of a cannon. That's not safe. So he just huddles in the cannon, they light a decoy fuse, it makes a bang (with no projectile), and he spring out and jumps that distance by himself. Requires a lot of core and leg strength.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

This is equal parts so silly and so possible that I have no idea if this comment is a joke (I've never been to a circus)

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 months ago (1 children)

private equity investment firms

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure I do, but one thing I haven't seen mentioned here yet is consumer psychologists. I once read an argument that they could be improving people's mental health, instead they are working on manipulating people into buying more.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago (6 children)

HR. Have never met anyone in HR who contributed to the good.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

HR only contributes to the good of the business, which is owned by the capitalist class. It’s a class war, and HR is not on the side of the working class. Which makes HR employees—witting or not—class traitors, something they have in common with cops.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

Somewhat agree. The good ones you'd never know exist until you need help. They are a god send. Fuck the rest of them

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 months ago

I'd say landlords but it doesn't count as an occupation

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Guidance counselors. One of them tried to convince my parents that I was on drugs...in 4th grade. Turned out that I had an undiagnosed mental disorder.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I had similar experiences. It's like there's a small but noticeable subset of the population that wants to pin "drug user" on any person they meet and think is weird. Meanwhile, actual drug users are everywhere and mostly manage to act normal.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Naturopaths.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's folks doing sane, evidence-based care in this area. But I've seen so much bullshit from practitioners, ranging from the grossly unethical to the blatantly dangerous, that I find them hard to trust about anything as a group.

Besides, we already have health professionals that can provide good, evidence-based care (issues like ego v. evidence/new findings to improve care notwithstanding - but there's crappy people in all fields) - we call them doctors and nurse practitioners. And we need more of those.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Gas-filler. There's a couple states in the US where you aren't allowed to pump your own gas, someone else has to do it for you, and you're expected to then tip them.

The job is essentially getting me to pay to be inconvenienced. I'd prefer to pay to let me pump my own gas.

[–] Dhs92 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oregon let's you pump your own gas now, so it's just New Jersey afaik

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The first time I crossed the border into Oregon years ago and started pumping my own gas, the attendant came out shouting "Hey! What are you doing?" As someone that had never heard of this law in either state, I was about as confused as you could possibly be, because this obviously seemed like a trick question.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago

Telemarketers

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago

Wall Street. Shorts, bulls, bears, options, it is all euphemisms for gambling and everyone else suffers for it.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago

Maybe not unique in my opposition…but…

CEOs. (Especially of large companies)

They rarely know what they’re doing, are guessing 90% of the time, bandwagon anything they think will make them more money or notoriety, and get paid exorbitant amounts of money doing nearly nothing to actually earn it.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago

Time share salesman

Cold callers for: Solar panel, and Business loans

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

Any sanitation worker, sewage diver, drain block remover, in most of the third-world countries.

We need city drainages to be repaired, cleaned, maintained, and managed with draconian safety, extremely well-compensated, hazardpay up the wazoo workers comp and complete-healthcare all covered for life. So many workers are just abused for the lifeline work that keep a city's arteries from getting clogged and flowing smoothly.

I saw how Korean drain-workers do it with high-pressure water jets and incredible efficiency and knowhow talent of their vital job. I wish we didnt have the corruption that prevents this type of training, trained worker, worker pride in the essential labour that they do.

Same goes for recycling and reducing waste. We humans don't do nearly enough and the Top-20 major corporations that cause 80% of worldwide pollutants go unchecked and unpunished.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you’re saying that you uniquely oppose the existence of elder care as an occupation, then that is a very strange, and frankly worrisome example. Am I misinterpreting what you meant? Also, I don’t know what to make of “unkarmic freebie.”

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (6 children)

Having known some people in elder care, the reality is that some old people are nasty, brutish, mean, racist, misogynist, creepy, violent, you fucking name it, there's some old person you're going to have to take care of who matches that horrible personality. You're paid the same whether you're helping someone you like or someone who is rude and assaults you every time you enter the room.

I agree with you, elder care should still exist, but I can see why some people get tired of taking care of terrible old people who were likely terrible people all their lives and who are just allowed abuse you. Why are they allowed to abuse you? Because most people who do elder care and underpaid, overworked, and don't have a lot of other options that pay nearly as well. Basically you're accepting middling but better than fast-food pay to have abuse dumped on you. I can see how someone feels like its a karmic freebie because there's no responsibility in any of it, generally management won't do anything about "problem elders." Get to be a fucking asshole your whole life and then get to be a fucking asshole to the person wiping your ass before you die.

I have a similar story from another friend who ended up at a mental health hospital in a violent youth ward. He was underpaid, overworked, and responsible for about 30 violent and dangerous kids with unstable mental health issues that made them difficult to approach. If he was busy helping one kid take their meds, and another kid on the ward was in the same moment trying to take their own life and succeeded, he would be the one responsible. He was not being paid enough or had enough support to justify taking full responsibility for things that are outside his control when he cannot magically manage 30 dangerous cases at once. He left the job after two months of assaults and scares. I don't blame him, and he doesn't blame himself, and we also understand that those 30 cases deserve better care than they're getting but it's not his responsibility as an individual to make up for the shortcomings of government funding for this.

Same with people who work elder care. It's not their individual responsibility to make up for the fact that these companies don't give a damn about the people they're caring for, and each elder is just an income stream in a database. The number of people I know in elder care who now have permanent back problems because they're being expected to lift 300lb old people off their beds and they're not being given proper equipment for it is too damn high. These people do not deserve to have their bodies broken and paid pennies on the dollar to be abused by the elders in their care, not given the right tools to do the job, with a prevailing attitude of "they're just old people, how bad can they hurt you really?" Pretty fucking bad, shockingly.

Elder care needs to exist. Does it need to exist as it exists now in the USA? Abso-fucking-lutely not.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (5 children)

All of them. Abolish occupations.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Whoever is in charge o blackrock

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

Off-topic: Lemmy really needs better crosspost functionality.

Lemmy is a small group of people, let's not divide it further by having the exact same conversation in two (or more) places.

edit: Fixed the link.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)
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