Recent college graduate enters workforce, gets a rude awakening

| October 25, 2023

A young woman, who recently graduated from college, took to TikTok to voice her frustrations. Based on her commentary, she is working a 40-hour work week that involves getting on the train at 7.30 a.m. and then arriving home at or after 6:15 p.m. She pondered how one could do activities like date or interact with friends. She complained that she did not have time to do anything. Some of the supportive comments on her channel argued in favor of an alternative to the “outdated” 40-hour work week.

From insider:

In the upload, Brielle explained it was her first job out of college and she worked from the office, which meant she had to commute into the city even though it took “forever” as there was “no way” she could afford to live in the city at the moment.

She said she gets on her train at 7:30 a.m. and doesn’t get home until “six-fifteen earliest” at which point she said she has no time or energy to cook dinner or work out, and she was “so upset,” not by her job specifically, but the nine-to-five schedule and the commute which wiped out her days.

At the start of the video, the TikToker said she was “probably just being so dramatic and annoying” and later in the upload acknowledged her situation could be worse and she could be working even longer hours, but questioned how people were supposed to make time for friends or to date.

“I don’t have time for anything and I’m like so stressed out,” she said towards the end of the video.

The upload appeared to resonate with many, as it received 1.2 million views and over 7,300 comments, many of which wrote they could relate to the situation, as they shared they too had limited time for their own lives after work, and found the repetitive routine difficult to deal with.

“The 40 hour work week is beyond outdated and your feelings are totally valid,” one viewer wrote in a popular comment.

Others echoed how hard it was to work a full-time job while staying on top of household tasks, let alone trying to maintain a personal life, and questioned how they were supposed to one day make time to raise kids as well, as they spent more time at work than they did with their family.

Insider has the rest of the story here.

Category: Society

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Harry

Waaaaaaa Waaaaaaa!

KoB

George Harrison made this comment…

UpNorth

OMG! Call the Waaambulance for this poor girl.

e.conboy

Break out the smelling salts!

STSC(SW/SS)

Welcome to the adult world missy.

Millions have come before you and managed to have a “life” and millions more will come after.

Slow Joe

Not that many millions, as so many in the younger generations are planning to never have kids. They see children as a hindrance to their lifestyle of Starbucks, clubs, and the hookup culture.

SFC D

It’s probably best that they don’t reproduce anyway. Their bloodline is weak and should be discontinued.

Anonymous

Gosh, what will they do in the old folks’ home eventually? [Rolls eyes at ’em.]

HT3

I went to college after the Navy. I worked FT and went to school PT at night and online when that became viable. It took 10 years to get my bachelors and masters. I used to laugh my ass off at kids in 6:30PM classes telling me “college was such bullshit…I can’t wait to get to the real world…not talking less the 6-figures/VP of Finance to start…” and other assorted bullshit. These kids were taking night classes designed for working people because they could not haul their sorry-asses out bed. They’d smoke weed and play CoD till dawn. Sleep all day and then roll out of the fart sack before the dinning hall closed at 6 before heading to class. I would have loved seen them at my work. Some kids were sharp, but many were soft and this 2006. I can’t imagine it got any better.

A Proud Infidel®™

Sounds like the ones who spend a grueling 6 years getting a 4-year degree in something like Gender Studies thinking the world automatically owes them a six-figure income and a nice home in Country Club Hills because they graduated.

e.conboy

With the attitude she has she may find herself in the Unemployment line. Grow up, Sweetie.

5JC

Used to be….

AZRobert

Taking Care of Business, by BTO, a song she should listen to for a Clue…
Maybe buy a guitar and learn three cords.

26Limabeans
MIRanger

Sounds like Brielle just needs to find a “Sugar Daddy” or “Sugar Momma” that keep her in the lap of luxury without spending the blood, sweat, and tears required out in the real world to earn such an income.
As a Young NCO and later Officer I made the decision to squander my money, and accept four hours of sleep was enough so that I could enjoy my life. I did save a good amount, and happily invested in housing (the government helped). Now that I am older, wiser, and retired I am buying back some of that time.

Anonymous

She can do:
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USAFRetired

Isn’t that why Saturday night was date night and Friday after work was to get together with friends.

Have the bills come in for insurance, health care and the like

Forest Bondurant
USMC Steve

Most of those whiny twerps cannot handle this adulting thing. Let us hope they never find time to reproduce.

5JC

Then I guess you are hoping to die young too. Without them filling the coffers there won’t be any SS check or even an economy.

Wilson

Of course the one pedantic “outdated 40 hour work week” contributor likely never got anywhere in his own life and is almost certainly white knighting hoping to get laid.

The sort of “guy” who laughs at military personnel only to cry “unfair” when he finds out how comfortably some military retirees manage to get by.

AW1Ed

Only 40 hours a week? For us flyers NATOPS stipulated an 18 hour required awake limit. After that a mandatory 12 hours of crew rest began.

If one wasn’t actually on the flight schedule all bets were off, though. The ASDO duty desk awaits and you think all those E-5 evals will write themselves?

As for the young lady she obviously needs a paycheck commensurate with what she thinks she deserves.

SFC D

Who among us did not get the same slap in the face when we reached adulthood? The difference is, most of us realized that if you don’t work, you don’t eat, let alone have fun. Poor girl. I can offer her a barren field.

Fyrfighter

Funny enough, I didn’t.. but then again, I was doing landscaping with my father after school / weekends since I was 10, and had a regular part time job from 14… And of course, now working a 56 hr week, with duty chief one weekend a month (and whenever the other chiefs are gone), my sympathy meter is pegged somewhere around zero…

SFC D

Yup, I was following my dad on construction jobs from 6th grade, worked maintenance at a ski area PT during high school, full time during summer and college breaks, I kinda knew what the reality was gonna be when I hit it. Still didn’t care for it, but it was a minor blow.

Green Thumb

Join the Infantry, Brielle.

Skivvy Stacker

Next thing you know she’ll break a nail and have to go to the Emergency Room.

JEEEZ.

OAM

Parenting fail personified.

fm2176

I’m worn out by the 40-hour work week… Okay, not so much. I’m pretty glad I took the retail route, where we’re constantly harangued about overtime (I guess it cuts into management’s bonuses) and forced to work only 40 hours a week. That 40-hour work week lets me live alright when combined with retirement and VA disability. Much better than my plans of becoming a cop, where the local PD works 12-on/12-off for 12 days (144 hours) with every other weekend off and makes nearly $3.50/hr. less.

I’m probably most vocal about the unsteady schedule. I opened the past two days, close tonight, mid-shift tomorrow, then another opening shift. If the opportunity ever arises, I’ll take a 10-hour day for four days a week and they can keep the hour lunch.

But yeah. No need or desire to watch the video. Money doesn’t grow on trees, and the point of college (for most people) is to be better qualified for full-time employment with potential for upward mobility. That’s hard to do when you’re unable to cope with being away from home for 55 hours a week, counting commute. I wish I had that schedule on Sand Hill (0330-2230 counting commute during the first few days of each Cycle) or even in TOG (0515-1800 average counting commute 2004-2008; 0330-2030 average counting commute in 2018).

Prior Service

I wish I could work a forty hour work week. Here are some stats, Brielle. Try being gone for 8.6 years of your last 35. Try working a three hour workday in garrison (sweet!) but then being gone for 150 days a year with hours more like 0500-2100 than 0900-1700. Try missing 4.9 years of your kids’ first 18 years. Try coming home so late your kids think you are in the field because they haven’t seen you in a week. Try driving home in rush hour traffic through forty stoplights. (Until I discovered a short cut three years into the tour that knocked off five of them.) try that, Brielle. Then post about it.

A Proud Infidel®️™️

Awwwww, poor widdwe snowflake need a *WAAAAAAAHH!*mbulance to come give her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and some yummy Kool-Aid while she gets a group hug while everyone sings “Kum-ba-yah”? Hell, try being an OTR Trucker and then tell me how bad a 9-to-5 job is, SHIT, I’m one of those who will want overtime to make better money! I’m sure that the left will go even harder to wimp as many people they can out even more than that!

Fyrfighter

Or a farmer, a rancher, farrier, etc…

5JC

Farmers and ranchers would be thrilled to have a 40-hour work week. Doctors and lawyers too.

Last edited 11 months ago by 5JC
A Proud Infidel®️™️

I grew up in the Midwest and have NEVER seen any Farmer or Stockman who worked any less than 70 or 80 hours a week, agriculture is a 24-hour job. One morning at 0200 you have to wake up and bring the rest of the hay in because there’s lightning on the horizon, and the rest of the day’s work follows, another morning you have to wake up at midnight to help a Mare give birth to a Foal, and so on. Hell, in OTR Trucking 40 hours is considered part time!

Last edited 11 months ago by A Proud Infidel®️™️
Odie

Drove OTR for many years. Nearly 40 hrs were spent each week waiting to load/unload.
Ahhh, produce haulers.

SFC D

They’d consider 40 hrs to be part-time.

5JC

Nurses typically work a 48 hour week. Cops normally work a second or third job to keep afloat and the often work 10-20 hours a week on top of 40+ overtime.

SFC D

MRS D is a pediatric RN, it’s not uncommon for them to have a 36-40 arrangement: 3 12 hr shifts (36 hrs), get paid for 40. Pretty awesome deal if you find it and don’t mind working 12’s.

UpNorth

My PD was on the 4-40 plan, 4 10 hour days a week. The last 4 or 5 years, in the summer, it usually worked out to 5 months or so, we had a minimum staffing requirement, so when ever the desk LT called because my shift was understrength, I went to work on OT. I worked 50 or 60 hours a week for about 4 or 5 months a year. Working 3rd shift was always busy, so the time went fast. I never realized how tired I was until my head hit the pillow.

rgr769

Son is a farrier (horse-shoer for the equine illiterate). He would love to trade places with her and stay out of the rain and sun while bent over some troublesome nag who needs shoes. He usually works six and sometimes seven days a week in the months where the weather is conducive to horseback riding.

A Proud Infidel®™

I’ve never seen a farrier who didn’t work his ass off for every buck he ever earned, it’s a tough and dirty job that many can’t handle!

Odie

I n used to work with an old farrier who woul shoe horses after working 8 hrs. 2 or 3 horses per night during the week, and sometimes on Saturday.

When I say old, one of his jobs growing up in Oklahoma, was shuttling studebakers from Tulsa area to Chicago. Route 66, no interstates. Speedometer disconnected to keep the miles off 😏 Hiring a 15 or 16 yo was cheaper than hiring a truck.

Stacy0311

She’s ONLY working 40 hours a week?
Must be nice

Warren Peece

Currently, I have a 56-58 hour work week, mandatory…. which means I work and the “good ole boys” work whatever. I’m good as I need the $…. but I gotta laugh at this….

ChipNASA

Brielle…Well there’s your first problem…..Parenting fail.

Second…go FIST yourself “Brielle”. I hear Only Fans is hiring.

Third…you’re an embarassment to HUMANITY.

Maybe you can hang out with these nice boys and convince them to assist you in finding you a nice scarf?

Maybe you can explain to them about your TikToktears and just how DREADFUL your existance is.

Maybe you go and talk to HAMASS and ‘splain about how unfair and difficult your life is so maybe they will lend you a shoulder to cry on.

I hear their underground facilities are very comfy and climate controlled.

deli rag.jpg
Devtun

Off topic, welp this might be the day a new Speaker is selected. Maybe partly out of sheer exhaustion, Rep Mike Johnson, of Louisiana appears to be getting enthusiastic backing from the GOP. The count is currently under way, and none yet has selected ‘Others’.

Devtun

By unanimous GOP vote Johnson is the new Speaker. Good luck. The SotH is considered by many the toughest job in DC. Especially a republican.

5JC

Republicans don’t have the hive mind like the Democrats do so it can get kind of dicey dealing with your own party.

SFC D

Maybe she should look into Only Fans. Set her own hours, work from home.

Hack Stone

Used to sleep til afternoon.
Waking up to easy tune.
My, my, how things have changed.
How things have changed.

Dennis - not chevy

I know “for example” is not proof and I know the next young ones I hand job applications to are going to cringe when I say the job is 40 hours a week.

I must, not in defense of college graduates, groan when I think of the veterans who act the same way. I once had a retired veteran ask me if the boss would give him time off every day during football season to coach his kid’s team. The company had three retired GI’s in a row leave their position as work leader when they found out work leader does not mean sit at a desk all day. Thankfully not all veterans are that way; but there are enough of us that are. I had a company refuse to hire me because I am a veteran. I was told to sue them. I didn’t. A job I have to sue to get is not a job I want.

I think what’s missing in the world is the starter job. A job like McDonalds or BK or KFC or etc where you get minimum wage, learn how to work, and look for something better. Or, the job one took after college or the military to make ends meet until there was a better opening. The person getting the starter job knew it was a starter job, the person hiring the employee knew it was a starter job, and the employees, after they left the starter job, knew it was a starter job. Now a days, folks want $20 an hour for what used to be a starter job.

Anonymous

Oh, boo hoo. /sarc
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A Proud Infidel®™

I loved the line from the linked article, “”Gen Z need to collectively move up into management positions and then collectively enforce the 4 day work week,” one commenter wrote.” YEAH, and I don’t want to hear these pampered candyasses bawl about how “unfair” it is that Blue Collar types like me make more money than they do when we work our asses off for it! I’ve worked 80 – 90 hours on some weeks and made bank on overtime while these kids, *chuckle* hey, some of them might actually wake up and those who don’t, well, they can just be entertainment when we laugh at them.
How do you know when a Blonde like Brielle has been on your computer?
There’s white-out on the screen.

rgr769

Wow! How difficult and stressful for her. As a litigation attorney, I was working for private practice law firms. I frequently had to work fifty to sixty hours a week to get in 40+ hours of billable time. Moreover, when I was in trial, I spent about seven to eight hours in the courthouse, and another three to four hours in the evening preparing for the next day of trial. Even with my later government lawer job, I spent over two hours a day commuting to and from the office. If I had an out-of-town court appearance, I would spend three five hours on the road, plus time in the courtroom or in a deposition.

Of course, in the Viet of the Nam, we humped a rifle and a ruck 24/7 for a year, or in my case fifteen months. So, wah wah, waah.

Devtun

In other news, Soup Sandwich congress-critter Jamaal Bowman being charged for pulling fire alarm.
Bowman violated DC code when he pulled fire alarm during vote: Prosecutors | Washington Examiner

A Proud Infidel®™

IMO that asswipe NEEDS to be held accountable for what he did, even a kindergartener knows not to pull a fire alarm like that!

UpNorth

Yup, he should be expelled from the House.

SFC D

Expelled from the house, the yard, the whole fookin neighborhood.

ChipNASA

Funny you should mention that. FuckBoi was a school principal so it’s not like he’s not familar with them. He’s a Shitbag Liar.

Odie

We shall see. This will be a good job for the speaker of the house to start laying law down and set examples.

Oh wait, he’s a republican. In my best rossana dannah impersonation…. never mind.

Hate_me

Can a sitting congressman be charged for anything less than a felony (or is it a felony?)? I’m pretty sure there’s an article that immunizes him from actual prosecution (I don’t agree with it, just saying that I think it’s there). Non-barracks lawyers?

He should still be censured, and shunned.

Hate_me

I know I once got caught pulling a fire alarm in the late 80s (I didn’t technically “pull” it, I just lifted the plastic casing around it – the alarm still went off).

I never got charged – but they called my parents and I got grounded. Granted, I was in elementary school and didn’t know that would set off an alarm – Bowman knew exactly what he was doing, even if his internal logic makes no external sense.

Forest Bondurant

He should also be charged with obstructing or impeding an official proceeding (18 USC 1512(c)(2) – the same charge used against defendants associated with January 6th. If so, there is a maximum penalty, including up to 20 years in jail.

Anonymous

Good.

jeff LPH 3 63-66

WYF, she complains about a 40 hour work week?? Wish I had that when I started working for United States Trucking armored cars when I started in 1970 till Brink’s did the merger after a couple of years in the early 1970’s. In the past, I keep forgetting to add US Trucking in. We had pick of runs for 6 months based on seniority. Best runs I liked were 40 to 40+. hours a week but their weren’t that many. I liked the shorter hours because I wasn’t married and liked to hit the gin mill after getting home. Worst was after we lost the Union, that was it and the company put you where they wanted to. I had a route to drive for around a year or two that consisted of a 14 hour day. I worked for ground operations out of the Brooklyn Navy yard and ground ops rented us out to Air courier Global services located at 580 5th Ave in Manhatten which took advantage of us in moocho OT since they didn’t pay for OT. Ended up buying a Hyunday with the bucks and had to rub it into their faces. That was the inbound EL AL flight coming in at JFK very early in the morning and after Customs cleared our material it was off to 580 5th Ave to drop off the load and then the had us doing delivery and pick ups.

fm2176

One of my good Army friends, now a CBP officer, got out after his first stint. We’d gone through OSUT together, and he stayed in the 101st, but a second deployment and a bad marriage saw him lose everything and decide to ETS. He ended up hauling trash out of NYC. He told me his downtime (unpaid, of course) was when he waited in a rat-infested alley for hours at a time to get his load of trash. He’d see his kids maybe once a week, and a year or two into my recruiting tour, I got a call from my previous 1SG, then a MEPS Counselor, saying he had someone on the phone who knew me. Sure enough, my buddy was reenlisting, albeit as an Abrams mechanic since Infantry wasn’t an option. He went to Stewart, and I opted for that as my follow-on assignment, living with his family for a while, especially after Afghanistan, though he ended up ETS’ing again after I left for Drill Sergeant duty.

A 40-hour week is easy. The commute is nothing, especially in today’s age of smart phones and ear buds–tune in and drop out if you want. I don’t miss my pre-Army days of 0730-1600 as a forklift mechanic, while moonlighting as a security guard for 22 hours over the weekend as well as working as an auto mechanic for a few hours every other weekend. I pulled my SS statements, and in 2001, working three jobs, I made around $21k.

Sailorcurt

The only people who complain about the “40 hour work week” are people in salaried positions. This is what is known as “first world problems”.

She gets paid what she gets paid no matter how much she works and views it as more of an entitlement than compensation for the value she provides her employer…so obviously she should be able to work less and still be “entitled” to the same pay and benefits, right?

BTW: 9am to 5pm is only 8 hours. I assume she takes a minimum of a 30 minute lunch break and probably at least two other 15 minute breaks during her day. That means she’s actually only working 7 hours a day or 35 hours a week already.

Sounds like a pretty sweet gig to me. Heck of a lot better than spending sunrise to sunset working in the fields trying to scratch out enough crops to survive the winter, or spending the same period carrying water and stoking fires and kneading dough and cleaning clothes by scrubbing them over rocks.

Civilization is taken for granted by those who’ve known nothing but luxury and leisure their entire lives.

Thunderstixx

Join the US Army, it’s only 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, weekends and holidays are unpaid but still worked, AND you now get to pay for your room and board.
Also, people try to kill you in horrific gruesome manners, you work in one of the most dangerous professions on Earth where training kills and maims more people each year than were killed in Afghanistan or Iraq in any given year.
It is also the best job you ever had, the adventure of a lifetime, a true honor and privilege and the people you meet will continue to be in your mind for the rest of your life as well as all the experiences you ever had while you were in the US Army.
People you have no idea about come up to you and thank you for your service, you are eligible for a free burial in a Veterans Cemetery near the city of your choice. You will rest beside men and women that also served, many of them served with distinction. That you served in peacetime or wartime matters not, you earned the right to be there.
You will be granted many extra opportunities through your service in financial areas, emotional support and healthcare that may save your life, several times, as in my case.
You also get to hang around places, like TAH, and talk all the trash you want !!!
Yep, join the US Army.

A Proud Infidel®™

Yeah, whatever happened to “BE ALL YOU CAN BE” or “Join the US Army, travel to faraway exotic lands, meet interesting people and kill them”?

NHSparky

40 hour week?
Bitch, I wish!!! Oh, and I’m on the road 46 weeks per year.
Gotta love giving you stank-ass hippies all that “green power” you love so much.