Quit Your Job Today, Seriously!

You should quit your shitty job today! Or at least, start looking for a new one. Right now is historically the best time ever to find a new job that will pay you more money, with better benefits, and better working conditions.

Last year a record number of Americans voluntarily quit their jobs, 47.4 million people - that’s 1 in 4 woring age adults! And in doing so, the power balance in the labor market has shifted dramatically back towards workers, which hasn’t really been the case since Ronald Reagan crushed labor rights in the 1980s.

Thanks to the Great Resignation, companies have been desperate to find employees as their workers abandon ship for bigger and better opportunities, which has directly led to increased wages among lower and middle income jobs. The rhetoric we saw at the start of the Great Resignation about there being some kind of labor shortage has been proven completely false - in reality, there is a wage shortage!

And as inflation causes prices to skyrocket, while wages stagnate, and business owners pocket the difference, there is literally no incentive to stay in a job that isn’t paying you enough, or isn’t making you happy. In fact, a study just published this week by the University of Michigan found that during the pandemic, people who lost their jobs didn’t immediately rush to find a new one while prioritizing financial security above everything else, Instead, they focused on finding work that was meaningful and fulfilling to them. 

Among college educated workers, 46% rated passion as their number one priority, and only 13% rated job security. We’ve known this for decades but it’s finally coming to fruition: enriching the ultra-wealthy by overworking Americans for a fraction of what they deserve, has killed the American Dream. And the absurd idea that being unable to start a family, or buy a house, or pursue your passions, or afford retirement is actually due to a series of moral failures rather than being due to outright wage theft and exploitation by the ultra-wealthy, is finally falling apart.

Nobody seriously believes that anymore when in just the last year, billionaires added $1.3 trillion dollars to their net worths while workers lost $1.3 trillion dollars in income. The truth is that, for most people, staying in one job for more than a few years is a guarantee that you’re making less than you deserve. Even now, during the Great Resignation employers are offering 3%-4% in raises, when just last year, inflation went up by 7% - which means that even at the high end of a raise, you’re still making less than you did before the pandemic.

And frankly, many jobs, especially lower income ones, don’t bother giving out cost-of-living adjustments at all, so by staying at any one company, you are actively losing money, while gaining experience. If you’re not making enough, and don’t like your job, there is almost no reason not to start looking for a new one right now, and when you find it, abandon ship.

And by the way, fuck a two-weeks notice, how did we get indoctrinated into this idea that companies owe us nothing and can fire us on the spot, but we owe them the courtesy of two weeks of mandatory labor. A two-weeks notice should be a personal choice based on how much you care about the people you work with - not an expected obligation that you can be punished for by a company that in most cases, has exploited you so severely that you’re willing to risk economic uncertainty by leaving it. A mandatory two weeks notice is the ultimate sign of a labor market that thrives via exploitation.

The business model that corporate America has been operating under for decades assumes that people are so desperate for work at the risk of financial ruin that they will enthusiastically take any amount of money that an ultra-wealthy business owner is willing to bestow upon them, and whatever is left over in profit is free money for them to spend on stock buybacks and vacation homes. But the pandemic blew that business model out of the water, and now those ultra-wealthy owners are facing the reality that as corporate profits hit a record high, if they want to continue seeing any profits, they need to allocate a LOT more of it towards keeping the people generating that profit for them.

If your company can only exist by maximally exploiting and stealing from your workers, then you have a failed business model and shouldn’t be running a business. All that to say, if you don’t like your job, your chances of getting a new one that you do like, are better than ever, so we highly recommend that you fire up that resume, embellish it as much as you legally can, and look for a new opportunity that will make you wealthier and happier - right now is the time to do it.