I don’t think I have a link but I would say pretty much what @iualia said. Speak slowly and clearly, but not louder, and really watch your language for idioms and other casual expressions. The more common and colloquial it is, the more unlikely it is to be understood by someone who is not a native speaker.
But it’s not like talking to a child, either. The child might understand many of the “easier” words which could be confusing. Like if you tell a kid to “cut it out” that makes no sense in a linguistic way but they understand you because their parents have said that to them for years. So you want to be clear and simple but not necessarily dumbed-down. Sometimes the more scientific word will be better understood than the “easier” more common word. Like… accelerate rather than speed up. Irregular rather than wonky. That kind of thing.
As for how you feel about it, I guess just try for empathy? When parents of my students are not following the behavior I expect, I try to imagine myself suddenly living in China and trying to navigate their school system for my kids without knowing Chinese. That sounds so scary I immediately feel empathy and focus on how to better communicate our ways of doing school and support them rather than be frustrated that they’re not doing the “right” things.
If there is someone at work that you trust, sometimes open questions are good - like in some cultures they will say yes to everything and you may want to clarify if they mean yes. That is one that is always hard for me. But if you are working with clients from a bunch of places its even worse
Yes, you do. Every time fresh air gets in or out of the bag it takes some of your coffee goodness with it. I guess “need” is a strong word. Would be better to aliquot, but it depends on how picky you are about freshness.
My preground coffee is chilling in it’s open to the air packet on the counter. It is good but less intense than my usual blends. Also my first coffee in a year
Here’s a question for my two favorite economists @anomalily and @Economista (and any I’ve missed as well as armchair economists):
The fall in productivity is attributed to quiet quitting.
The quote I take issues with is
Productivity is the fuel of our economy, said Pollak, and if it continues to decline, the U.S. economy will shrink, quality of life will go down, opportunities will dry up, and innovation and ideas will go elsewhere.
I disagree with this. I think quality of life can go up for people who quietly quit (more time with family or other priorities, perhaps in time improving mental health which we sorely need). I think we’ve become too productive, and has had negative implications for everything from health (physical and mental), family and society breakdowns like the loneliness epidemic, gun violence, and so on. Human beings are not robots and bad things happen when they are treated like such.
I don’t think opportunities will dry up. In the US (maybe elsewhere), real wages have gone down big time since something like 1979 and CEO / executive pay has skyrocketed. But CEOs / executives still need people (shocker - they are not worth all that money by themselves) and people not working for (so close to) free may push wages up, which also improves quality of life and I’d argue makes for better opportunities for workers.
Also note, the young man in article didn’t stop working; he just stopped working for a corporation.
I don’t think ideas and innovation will go away, though I think the practice of all the spoils going to the corporation may need to change. I think there may be different ideas and innovation - such as the young man deciding it’s not such a good job to depend on someone else for a job. The ideas may even become better after people recover from burnout.
The economy may look different, but I don’t think quiet quitting will make it worse in the long run. I think it could change the power structure considerably which is long overdue.
Hmm, if productivity is calculated as the value of all goods and services produced - does inflation play into that value? Is the productivity drop even bigger?
Also, is it unfair to attribute all of that loss in productivity to quiet quitting? Supply issues have been severe this year. If you can’t get materials in, production is going to suffer, and you may decide not to let go of your workers when they are idle during some of those delays. Are workers being blamed for things they have no control over?
Exactly. Also when are the values from we’re freaking out about. If we’re still looking at pre pandemic versus a bunch of the economy trying to figure out how to make their laptops work at their kitchen tables, there’s some big factors at play there. But also YES to supply chain issues. Worker A isn’t “quiet quitting”, he’s waiting for the damn ship to unload. Also healthcare is a huge part of the economy and patients are higher acuity, necessitating lower staffing ratios (which we can’t accommodate, ahem) and there’s been all sorts of chain of service issues there (no nurse → no room-> patient sits in ER room → ER backs up → fewer patients seen overall, etc).
Warning - I’m sick. Hopefully this all makes sense. I tend to ramble because one thing makes me think of another. Hopefully you can follow it
Productivity is usually measured as GDP/hour worked. Plus GDP is quantified via the $-value, so inflation will make it look like productivity has gone up if you are using the raw numbers, but anyone who knows what they are doing will account for inflation and use inflation adjusted GDP when comparing between years.
I didn’t read the article, just the part you quoted. I think there are differences in how you and the author are defining “quality of life”. In general, economists tend to look at how much you can buy with a standard wage as your quality of life. I remember talking a lot in classes about how quality of life now is better than in the past because the average family can afford enough food, lots of clothing, tvs, indoor plumbing, etc. (Not saying things like happiness etc don’t lead to better quality of life, because I think they do, but economists tend to only measure money things). All of those things are affordable because since the industrial revolution the productivity in the US has risen, causing those things to become cheaper. If productivity declines then things become more expensive and we don’t have as much innovation.
However, I think you are correct that there would most likely just be a structural change to the economy, if this happened on a macro level. We see this all the time. When an industry becomes extinct, like carriage companies when the automobile started becoming affordable, yes there was the death of an industry, which sucked for the people in that industry at that time, but it was more like a shift in jobs instead of a death of jobs, if that makes sense. A structural change. I’m assuming a lot of this “quiet quitting” may lead to a structural change. I’ve seen some doom and gloom articles arguing that people are refusing to work anymore or do more than the bare minimum and how if everyone does that we won’t have anymore innovation. I think on a micro level there are people who might fall into that category, but there are others who will always be productive and strive for excellence and going above and beyond. I am one of those types of people- it’s just how I am. I could see this phenomenon causing a big problem if on the macro level a huge % of the workforce did it, but I just don’t see that happening.
Fwiw, I have a coworker who I think falls into this category. He drives me insane. His fallback is always “I don’t know hot to do that” or “I didn’t know I needed to do that”. Unfortunately a bunch of us have accepted that excuse too many times and now it’s obvious that 5 different peor have taught him how to do the sabe damn thing and he’s just choosing to lie. I think he’s going to lose his job soon and good riddance. He’s actively wasting tax payer dollars and making the rest of us less productive.
Thank you for your detailed response! I hope you no longer have to deal with your co-worker soon too.
I see what you mean about the definition being important.
Another one that probably matters is “in the past.” There were absolutely times “in the past” when the things you list were not easily affordable.
There was also a time “in the past” when those things were affordable for a family on a single income for most workers!
I think the economist’s definition misses that those standard wages today are often paying for things that they didn’t have to pay for in the past - student loans, higher health care costs, and recently higher housing costs. I think quality of life for the average worker, using the economist’s definition and factoring in all of reality, has gone down over the last few decades. Just my $0.02.
Can phone based blocker extensions block portions of sites or apps?
I’ve realized infinite scroll videos are really bad for me - so like Facebook/Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, and TikTok. I’ve blocked TikTok because it’s so obviously the cocaine of unproductive dopamine fountains for me. But Facebook and YouTube I use pretty responsibly aside from those parts of the apps. I actually can, I think, block them in the browser, but what about blocking that section of the app specifically on phone?
Oh, I forgot to respond to this, but you did an excellent job.
It’s also worth thinking about how much tech we now have, and how affordably compared to when they first came out, that wasn’t a standard part of the basket of goods a family was going to get. $1000 cell phones, two car families, personal computers, dishwashers, smart watches. The expansion of what is needed for a family to achieve a middle class standard of living is notable.
