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@jackphoton

2 жыл бұрын

Making youtube videos. Host profits off your otherwise unpaid job with thousands of bosses telling you you're not doing your task/hobby/passion right.

@rockobrocko

2 жыл бұрын

brick labor, in July, in Oklahoma.

@Lethgar_Smith

2 жыл бұрын

I can remember a time when I thought if I could just make $5 an hour, I'd have it made.

@lennyo5165

2 жыл бұрын

@@Lethgar_Smith Me too, however it also depends upon your location. Here where I live in 1981 I had managed to work my way up to $5.20 an hour and that was a decent livable wage (not that I was in any danger of becoming wealthy). Adam was in New York state at that time with a much higher cost of living so $5.00 might have been bad for him I am not certain though.

@adminscottj

2 жыл бұрын

Debt Collector on the telephone. It was brutal being cursed at, yelled at, hung up on, ignored and of course since it's debt collection you have to track them down and then file against their paycheck/employer to get the debt. I recall seeing 5 dollar checks that bounced (there is enough wrong in writing a bad check so I get they were wrong to begin with) going to 800 dollars after the court/lawyer fees lawsuit etc. It was all done in-house via mail so it was mostly profit. All and all I found very few honest debtors. When I left there was one lady who I bought line and sinker her sob story of needing a payment plan and she would stick to it so I stopped her debt from getting worse. I gave her file to a trusted collector and to no surprise she never paid so it went to the courts.

My most tedious job was shovelling grain from one end of a boxcar to the other in order to reduce moisture content and reduce the risk of spontaneous combustion. Thousands of bushels. The next day, shovel it to the other end. This went on for weeks. I didn’t know who Sysiphus was at that time.

@atticstattic

2 жыл бұрын

That work had a lot more point to it than Sisyphus could have wished for.

@jakepullman4914

2 жыл бұрын

@@atticstattic Would be interesting to read a story where it turns out Sisyphus's work WASN'T pointless, and if he stopped something cataclysmic would happen.

@bboomer7th

2 жыл бұрын

@atticstatic; that is true.

@f.d.6667

2 жыл бұрын

@@jakepullman4914 The philosophical theory behind Sisyphos' work is that by becoming aware of the fact that the gods are playing with him by giving him a meaningless task, he grows bigger than the gods.

I'm an electrician by trade, I'd been self-employed for years. Then depression and anxiety hit. After 10 years I had to get back on the horse, I couldn't. I eventually took a job at a sweet factory, I spent 12 hours a shift tipping sweets into a machine, or 12 hours cleaning sweet moulds. Brain numbing work but it got me back into the "work ethic". After a year of that, I got back into the electrical work. Sometimes the most boring work in the world gives you time to think while getting paid. The worst job in the world has to be done by someone.

@bubblesculptor

2 жыл бұрын

I've been self-employed pretty much entire adult life. Once near the beginning I took a part-time job when I was struggling. Almost immediately I realized that the effort applied to that job would be 10x better applied to my own ventures. Definitely hasn't been easy but the satisfaction can't be beat.

@GKMess42

2 жыл бұрын

I appreciate this comment. It gives me perspective, especially where I'm at in my career.

@katydid5088

2 жыл бұрын

I resonate with this so much. I didn't know what I wanted to do out of high school. Thought I wanted to be a nurse and so I went through the paid training to be a Medical Aide and then a CNA for all different levels of care at a hospital. Psychiatrics, pediatrics, terminal illness and disease, mental healthcare. Turns out while I'm endlessly fascinated by medicine, sciences, and I had good enough interpersonal skills, and analytical skills (logical management is a huge part of any career but especially medicine), I was not a good fit. You can get paid well and not have to work AS much with specific specialties but the reality is you handle everyone on their worst days, all the time. While there's something to be said for not taking your work home with you. The reality check was a good thing. More than a few nurses I knew who had to retire from the stresses and injuries incurred on the job. Not something I would have found out without that observational experience. By the time it came to make my decision (I gave myself 2 years out of high school to test the water) I decided not to continue. Eventually, I settled for an accounting degree and working both as an employee and eventually on my own. Aside from a few other ventures as hobbies, I've been happy with my choice. Some people truly have the saving people bug and love the feeling of accomplishment for that work, my compassion and ,dare I say it, almost Savior- Syndrome like self flagellation that that job requires was not up to the task. I got my work done through out my career and was glad of a job well done, but my wages and the independence that type of money gave me was ultimately, I think, the benefit of choosing that path. I could do what I wanted with predictable hours and a certain amount of stability. There's rush season but nothing like the medical field. As honestly, the thing many medical types love, the changability and adrenaline rush from trying to save someone or getting them round the bend and seeing results from things like surgery or infectious disease recovery, or addiction and trauma, isn't my cup of tea. Especially people who deal with psyche patients or the disabled or mentally ill, that part was a tenuous cry or fear for my life career part of career searching. I could defuse patients,mostly, but dealing with that day in day out, it's not too much of a stretch to see why some people earn their reputation as Nurse Krattchett. I will caveat this statement with the fact I only knew ONE nurse who had a reputation for being genuinely brusque. However, that was because she was put in charge of the toughest patients; the one's who would self harm saying there's nothing wrong with them or that they were stuck in some version of their own reality. The, "A Beautiful Minds" delusion system, comes to mind. Although none of the excess intelligence or savauntism was present at times, I'm afraid. Those poor people would hurt themselves or others so often, it's a miracle that they survived long enough to be committed. Unfortunately, by family members or caretakers who had been abused,threatened, or just had so much depending on them (as their family member couldn't work and wouldn't accept treatment) that they themselves suffered. Mentally, physically, emotionally; it was both a blessing and a curse to get to know them. Especially because with ALL of them there was a list miles long about how many times they tried to step in and help or get support and treatment. When it finally got to the point it didn't seem like they could do anything anymore. They had to face getting their family committed. There's often a justifiable suspicion from social workers and the social media that they are just doing it to get out of caretaking. There's also a great deal of shame in admitting it to a Social Worker, as they have the attitude to assume patient competence and patient interests. It is a laudable goal and necessary. However, in most cases, as they exsist, the family has tried every intervention possible and it could reasonably be assumed that being committed to a care facility was better than leaving them to the streets or to their families over stretched resources.

@brighamcardon5076

2 жыл бұрын

@@katydid5088 mucho texto

@f.d.6667

2 жыл бұрын

Totally agree! I used to work as a spot welder and operator of a sheet metal stamping press. Tiring work, yes but after the bell rings you are free and your brain isn't fully exhausted... manual labor can help with depression as it functions as a pace-maker and it also triggers areas in the brain that make you happy. I believe that social media use, lack of sleep and the disappearing of manual jobs are the key factors for the depression epidemic the West is experiencing for quite some time now.

"hours and hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror." -Aviation maxim

Or on the flip-side, If you're the guy who does the tedious stuff really well, and doesn't complain, you become the guy who can be relied upon to do all the tedious jobs really well 😂

@danielabbey7726

2 жыл бұрын

Welcome to my world! 🤣

@firescale8912

2 жыл бұрын

At that point you have to make a decision. Are you: A. The person who stays doing that tedious work and steams internally about it or: B. Going to ask for more responsibility based on your proven work ethic and reliability. Choice is yours, always will be.

@GKMess42

2 жыл бұрын

@@firescale8912 that's a nice theory, until the "more responsibility" they give you is just the same stuff, repackaged. Keep asking for different tasks, keep being given the same stuff.

@GKMess42

2 жыл бұрын

Feel like I'm sitting there right now.

@joew717

2 жыл бұрын

yep

I work for a company that builds mobile walls for museums, trade-show displays, and pop-up stores. The cutting, gluing, sanding, and painting is all tedious work, but every few months I get to drive across the US to install them and that makes the whole job worth it

Picking vegetables for a truck farmer in July/August Texas heat. Learned really quickly what I didn’t want to do in life…

@Merennulli

2 жыл бұрын

100%. For me it was grounds maintenance, which included cutting the weeds on a 76° slope. Originally they were lowering lawnmowers with ropes tied around the safety bar, but the inherent stupidity of that gave way to climbing up and down it like a mountain goat with a weed eater in 90° sun. I ended up going into software development where the servers and I agree that AC is mandatory.

$50/day was surprisingly above minimum wage then. Inflation really creeps up on me. I will say, there is a difference between paying dues and being ground into the dirt for minimal pay. I can't speak to Adam's situation, but as a college student working at Walmart, I hit a point where I realized I was being abused and quit. You do have to put up with a lot paying your dues, but you also have to value yourself and weigh what you're going through against your alternatives.

@Merennulli

2 жыл бұрын

@@qwertmusic1644 It's not an inflation calculation. California minimum wage law at the time was $3.35/hr. For 12 hours that would be $40.20. The reason I said "inflation really creeps up on me" is that the value of $50 seems lower than it was for something during my lifetime.

I’ve always felt there’s a difference between “paying your dues” and being exploited. $50 and a guilt trip after 12 hours is exploitation.

@caligo7918

2 жыл бұрын

In Germany, a company trying to pull that level of exploitation, tends to get closed really fast. Mainly because the boss is in prison.

@danielled8665

2 жыл бұрын

Agreed, that was my first thought

@stefanhennig

2 жыл бұрын

@@caligo7918 not true. ask people in Germany who are self employed. or people who work in little startups. sorry, been there, done that.

@caligo7918

2 жыл бұрын

@@stefanhennig Self employment might have the hours, but you're not berating yourself for not wanting to add another two hours. Little Startups are basically group-self-employment. If i have to work 14 hour days in those as a non-founder, the project lead failed at his job.

@stefanhennig

2 жыл бұрын

@@caligo7918 you are 100% right, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

This is really interesting because I feel like practically everyone hits the wall of “work is actually time consuming and tricky when it wants to be” without ever imagining it would be, and it’s reassuring to know it’s a shared experience - even if the current system is still very exploitative

@lennyo5165

2 жыл бұрын

"even if the current system is still very exploitative" The system has always been exploitative this is not a recent development. The sad fact is that it is better today than it was in the past, what with labor laws and safety regulations. Long gone are the 10+ hour work days paying $6.00 or less a week often times paid in company specific currency. So that all your needs had to be bought through a company store. Hence giving all your income back to the company.

If an employer expects you to work below minimum wage that employer is the bad guy No excuses It’s not paying dues it’s being used

@SainnQ

2 жыл бұрын

There's something really perverted and sado-masochistic with this concept of "paying your dues" There might've been a time where it was an honest quid pro quo but that is not the case anymore for the vast majority of things and it's a great way to end up exploited. But hell, each to their own.

@lennyo5165

2 жыл бұрын

Back in the early 80s minimum wage was only $3.10 an hour. So unfortunately even the $50.00 a day job he spoke of made the cut at a 14 hour day.

@custos3249

2 жыл бұрын

@@SainnQ And if you think this is bad, you should see care fields, especially any involving psych. You're charged with ensuring harm doesn't come to people, not to mention you're to keep them alive, in contexts where they're freely allowed to attack you, and all you can do as they're trying to tear your face off is "block" (vaguely brushing off their assaults, because medication is abuse) and say "nice hands."

@maggierobertson2962

2 жыл бұрын

Younger generations have fallen victim to an "paying your dues" lie. It's a real kick in the teeth to toil for someone who will let you think it's an investment while never intended to move you up.

@malachiXX

2 жыл бұрын

One of the worst exploits of the system occurred in the 'co-op' program in Ontario. For those who don't know, companies would offer 6-month positions for students to work in their field gaining real work experience and a credit for the time spent. This was a job which you would work instead of going to class for that semester. The various companies would get a financial benefit from the government for participating in the 'co-op' program with local universities and colleges. The wage paid to the students was usually set by the industry standard minimum wage. One year, one company decided they were going to re-calculate the 'co-op' student wage by taking the average of all 'co-op' students payscales. Sounds fair doesn't it? Until you discover that they included medical students in their calculations. Medical 'co-op' students don't work for 1 semester at a time. They work for a full year. That skewed the numbers a little but what really was the dirty deal was that, at that time, medical 'co-op' students weren't paid a wage. Their work was entirely voluntary. When they included that in the calculations all 'co-op' wages dropped by $2.00 per hour. Unfortunately, the company making this stride forward in capitalism, had totally discounted the intelligence of the people they were trying to exploit and the; I'll call it, integrity, of the various schools. No school would entertain their offers for students, at the time, and so they had to either revert to their original pay scale or give back the government money they had received, since no one would participate with them in the program.

"Pay your dues" is code for "We have ingrained institutional exploitation of low-experience labor that wouldn't be legal in most industries in most countries"

I am working the closest thing to my dream job right now at a laboratory; it is 50% busy work, 7% sitting around, 33% regular work and 10% the cool work that you want to do and is a lot of fun

@rarewhiteape

2 жыл бұрын

Ooooh! Next month I am starting an entry level course in lab skills! I’m looking forward to a career change.

@scott2100

2 жыл бұрын

@@rarewhiteape the first three weeks at my job was just taking safety courses, classes never end. It is the most fulfilling job I have ever had by lightyears

@ElectroDFW

2 жыл бұрын

And two percent butterscotch ripple! 😉

As someone who still has a lot of trouble accepting that some jobs are just tedious until they aren't, I appreciated this. Thanks Adam!

Yes! All during my university teaching years, I would tell my physics students that, "Most of life is not hard. Most of life is tedious." I hope a few of them see this, as we all need to be reminded of this from time to time.

I know this'll probably get buried, but you know what helped me (far too late in my adulthood) wrap my head around getting good at tedium? Learning to lockpick as a hobby. The concentration, focus, and patience required to power through the tedium of single-picking a bucket of locks I found at my local re-home store is all worth the payoff of feeling that tensioning wrench just smoothly gliding into rotation when the lock core's tumblers all meet the shear-line. SO rewarding.

@rtd1791

2 жыл бұрын

I once dated a man who brought a lock to our first date so he could teach me how to pick it. I got it by the end of the date but doubt I could do it today.

Oiii, telemarketing was crushing. I remember working on a charity campaign and I was on the phone with an elderly woman with a grandson who had a similar condition. She was lonely and needed someone to talk to, so we were on the line for 5-10 minutes longer than average and I left with a $50 donation. I immediately got called into the boss' office and got scolded for not being able to make that into $200+. Meanwhile, he had a framed picture of his yacht hanging above his desk. Luckily, we got paid daily so I didn't have any obligations to show up the next day.

Adam gives me some of the best life advice honestly

Thanks Adam, I really needed to hear this right now.

Have done telemarketing, selling timeshares in Florida. Yes, it is BY FAR the worst job I've ever had. Thank you for being brutally honest with young people starting careers - this info is almost never discussed.

@ElectroDFW

2 жыл бұрын

Telemarketing, as an industry, shouldn't exist. Agree?

@danielabbey7726

2 жыл бұрын

@@ElectroDFW Must be profitable for it to exist, but it's a grueling job for anyone at the bottom of the food chain. The BS Artists who are good at it would be better in used auto sales or almost any other sales job.

@ElectroDFW

2 жыл бұрын

@@danielabbey7726 yes, the people who do it would be much better off in any other sales position. And B) just because it's profitable, doesn't mean it should exist. Case in point: Drug dealing is profitable.

Ah yes, taking the GEM car key home on my Friday always sucked. I bought my own key after a couple of those days. Worst was leaving my keys in a lock and having to announce over the radio, to like 200 people, that I lost my keys and if anyone found them to give a holler. I worked at the Zoo at the time. Not the best place to misplace your keys.

Adam is such a great story teller, he has such great energy and passion for what he’s talking about and his stories are always so interesting and entertaining. Myth busters was my childhood and I feel so nostalgic and at home when watching old episodes, really great warm feeling. Thank you Adam!

If a job is tedious, it should at least be well paid. There's a lot of abuse in the creative industries in general and film in particular due to the fact that there's are a lot of people who want to get a foot in the door at pretty much any pay. Other than imposing a decent minimum wage and enforcing it, there's probably not much to do about it.

@torrance409

2 жыл бұрын

Unions? Isn't that what unions do?

@cenciende9401

2 жыл бұрын

It's an issue which affects everything in second world america, all stemming from extreme wealth inequality and a broken government. Here I am in a first world country working part-time under the official poverty line for income with a car, 65" Samsung OLED TV, PS5, 49" super-ultrawide monitor for my gaming/work PC with a 1080Ti, a $1k audio headphone setup, even the pedestal fan in the room cost $200 etc, just got a $1k air bike for cardio workouts, and married too to a part-time uni student. I've worked full-time before and never will again, there's nothing left after work, barely enough time to eat a meal and watch a couple episodes of TV before falling asleep from exhaustion because you have no energy left, just to start again the next day, and the weekends you just spend trying to recover, it's not living. Here working full-time pretty much automatically means a lot of money just because of how many hours you're being paid, I dream of having that much money but really it's nothing when all that means is that you get to collapse into bed in a nicer room each night having done nothing you want to do in your life. It's actual mental torture for a creative person.

@vespiary2066

2 жыл бұрын

I was going to say, there is zero reason ILM in the 80s should pay people starvation wages at any tier.

As a kid my Dad said to me "All jobs are a balance between interesting tasks and dross as no one will pay you to do what people will do for free, the key is to get a higher percentage of interesting tasks than dross. Even if thats 51%-49% you're doing better than most. Just be sure to make up for the dross in your own time."

@jakobvanklinken

2 жыл бұрын

That's a really good insight, even though I can't imagine that I would be ready for that as a kid. It might have just sounded like "work is not fun" to me back then

@komi-sanmustbeprotected5665

2 жыл бұрын

You're Dad has good wisdom

Be careful. Tedious doesn't mean accepting being underpaid. No one cares about you like you do. Don't let people take advantage of your passion or condition.

In my experience with several tedious jobs is it's the people you work with that can make or break it. You get with a couple of people you can have a laugh with (while getting the job done) and it's not so bad. I think that's why telemarketing is so awful, you can't talk to the people you work with because you're always on the phone.

Adam, you also had a great story some time back about working backstage in a stage production, related to overpromising, and failing to deliver that I really liked. It was a good story on knowing your limits.

This broght back the memory of you putting your lip near a vacuum cleaner motor and it sucking it in. The look on that repairman's/Jamie's face was priceless. 😆

When I managed a patisserie this was how I rewarded and motived my team. If you did your assignment well and quickly then you'd get a chance to learn a new skill. There was so much repetition in that work. The largest your skill set the less you had to repeat tasks. It worked beautifully. You had to earn my time to teach you something new.

@AfiKreative

2 жыл бұрын

It'd be amazing if everyone in the Team had that mentality.

@maggierobertson2962

2 жыл бұрын

@@AfiKreative the truth is not everyone did. Some people just like to show up, do their work and leave. And that's ok, as long as the work was done well. But you don't get more out of a job than you put into it.

@AfiKreative

2 жыл бұрын

@@maggierobertson2962 Ah, so there are people like that too. Unfortunately, in my opinion, it is hard to have EVERYONE have a same mentality regarding this where they're eager for knowledge.

@kevinabate6056

2 жыл бұрын

@@maggierobertson2962 You get more out of a job than you put in when you're in charge, because those people that show up, do their work and leave aren't allowed to show initiative. I've ALWAYS been punished for showing initiative.

@maggierobertson2962

2 жыл бұрын

@@kevinabate6056 I've absolutely had that experience as well. Now as a parent I'm really more interested in getting in, getting the job done, and getting out. I have a whole other job waiting for me at home in the form of two small kids. My comment mentioning that some people weren't interested in going above and beyond to learn new skills wasn't a mark against those people. More just acknowledging that different people have different motivations in their work. One approach doesn't work for everyone.

Jeremy Clarkson once left the key in his pocket after driving a Range Rover to the top of a mountain in Scotland. He then got in the filming helicopter to fly back to the airport. The crew finally found out he had it as he boarded a flight to London. lol

Sound advice. Thanks for the video. I'm sure it'll help many young adults through career life. The advice I had a bit later in my career is; To find passion in anything that you do. No matter how little it is, OWN it! Eventually, you will find grit, you will find the 110% effort, you will find your true calling.

I think it will be really nice for any young model makers to hear about your experience as a younger man and i am just here because i am interested in your life (like i bet many of us are)

I understand and even admire the effort to help younger people at the start of their work life get over the tedium. Similarly, I think it is valuable to help people realise that however glamorous a person's chosen profession may appear, tedium and hard work are not just inevitable, but often come in large amount. However, I think we should also be in a position to be able to point out how much bullshit there is in work life - unnecessary, meaningless, and demeaning tasks people in a starting position are put to do. Without doing this, it's difficult to shake off the impression that what Adam is doing here, regardless of his intention to share and to be helpful, could end up perpetuating and normalising the bullshit aspects of many jobs.

@davidshi451

2 жыл бұрын

Good point. Adam doesn't mention it here, but in his book he writes about some of the terrible, exploitative workshops in New York that he worked at as a young man.

having been a phone drone on occasion to support my wife and two kids ... I really appreciate your comments. It's absolute HELLL.

Adam mentioned rewarding ppl that deal with tedious work well. always keep in mind that theres the inverse in management out there as well, ppl that'll just keep giving you the garbage, cause you "deal with it," when others dont or wont. I'm not saying dont try cause they exist, just be aware and learn to gage the difference.

I have, to use the common analogy, "paid my dues" and have elevated myself to "your Jamie's shop" situation where there is great pay & benefits, amazing team work & unity among staff, and a feeling of happiness at my job finally... and sometimes the tedium, hard lessons, tight deadlines, sudden shuffling of all of your tasks & expectations, and lengths of boredom can be mind numbing. Even the best jobs, the dream jobs as Adam said (regarding ILM), still have those tough times and boring moments to get the elation at the far end of a job expertly done on time and on budget. To get here though I did "have to pay my dues" because that gave me the experiences, skills, abilities and most of all the empathy to get where I am and be a part if the team I am now in. There is something about the hard times at first that gives a good person the empathy to make it into a team that helps others, brings each other up and results in "dream jobs" for the entire team.

Honestly, as a journalist (and eventual boss) I cannot remember and tedium. Every day was different and most very fulfilling. Writing about something different every day is amazing and such a learning curve. Even so-called grunt work like producing scripts for broadcast or going to check police logs was never boring or tedious… because they were always introducing something new.

Helpful advice and a welcome dose of reality, especially for someone who's very much in the "paying dues" stages of my career. There is unfortunately a period where, lacking experience and institutional knowledge, your only real selling point to an employer is being cheap, but it's nice to be reminded that this does eventually change. On the other hand, I have already learned that there's a difference between paying your dues and being exploited. I left my first industry job after six months. It became clear that the main reason they were willing to hire inexperienced employees is because the experienced ones knew better than to work there.

I agree, I worked for Telemarketer for half a day , we told lies, I didnt return after lunch. Ive done hot tar on flat roofs , not as bad

Being a dishy in a hotel kitchen... now sous chef in an award winning function centre!! Time difference. .. 45 years!!

9:40 I needed to hear that. Thank you.

Thank you for this channel! Keep up the good work Adam Savage, I’m happy to see you on this platform. I was devastated when myth busters was done, best show ever and I’m glad I found this channel! 👍

Even in my life of being young, dumb and passionate, I have made some work mistakes. Designing lights for a show and charging $100 and working for free to have "work experience". Big mistake was not taking or losing pictures of the work I have built. This was back before smartphones, so you had to plan on bringing a camera and hope that the pictures came out. Definitely try to find the positive in tedious tasks. As for me, right now I am doing anual lighting maintenance. It sucks after the 4th hour of the day, but I won't have to do it again for a couple of years and I don't have to fiddle with my focuses as much.

A great deal of our stupidity early in out careers is from being lied to our entire childhood by people who know nothing.

I think it is really important to see the results of the tedious. To see that the work had meaning and one can be proud of the result. When the tedious stuff is never ending and appears pointless it is quite depressing.

9:54. I get that damn feeling when I was newbie too. The people who knows what's to do, never mention any of the shit and then why newbie always has to be custodian of someone else shit.

Good words and stories. Accepting the fact that you need to do your job even when it is boring and tedious (perhaps especially then) is a vital step on the path to adulthood, and one that too many people want to skip. Thank you for your messages and your enthusiasm. Your videos are always entertaining and informative.

As someone looking into their first job... Huge thanks. Really inspiring advice.

I completely get the mindset of "paying dues", but when you are asking someone to work 12+ a day for less than a living wage, that's exploitation. Those kinds of employers get away with it because people will accept it, despite it putting them into poverty. They exploit the desperation and eagerness. It's akin to indentured servitude and should be stamped out.

@user-st7rq3sn7v

2 жыл бұрын

You're describing temp work..... All temp work requires volatile hours and reduced wage. The key is money management. Without the necessary skills and knowledge to spread your money around, all work is indentured servitude on a non-livable wage.

@custos3249

2 жыл бұрын

You're exactly right, but welcome to capitalism. As long as we keep voting between a false dichotomy, nothing will fundamentally change.

@cmdraftbrn

2 жыл бұрын

thats the film industry. you're there til the shoot is done.

@mycosys

2 жыл бұрын

@@cmdraftbrn the film industry does just fine in Australia with our decent minimum wages and high work standards

@Bad_Wolf_Media

2 жыл бұрын

Don't forget that the amount of money being paid isn't the same as it seems today. I don't know what year it was exactly, but Adam talked about late 80s, early 90s. So I looked: In New York in 1988, minimum wage was $3.35/hr, which would be the equivalent today of about $7.70. A 12-hour day at that 1988 rate would gross about $40, or about $47 for 14 hours. While these numbers sound like slave-labor rates now, $50/day, even for 14 hour days, was better than minimum wage. I absolutely guarantee there were people making less than that doing menial jobs in and around NYC at the time. This is not meant as a knock on Adam. He said himself that he know he had an entitled mindset back then. But trying to call it exploitation because you're looking at the situation in a 2021 context is just ludicrous.

As a former business owner, entry-level employee, and now manager, I really appreciate your answers here. $5/hr at a place with a good atmosphere and growth potential is very different from $5/hr at a place with no future that sucks the life out of you.

I've explained to every person I've trained that the work we do is boring, the outcome is interesting. This is why it is so important that we optimize the workflow. That way we get a consistent, good result despite being bored and ideally, we can get through it faster.

This reminds me of a time I did work experience for a medical researcher at a university. Boxes of vials of blood needing to be centrifuged and analyzed, large amounts of data needing to be transferred from one thing to another, and in comparison to fruit picking and/or services, that seems like one of the _better_ jobs out there. While I'm here, I may as well contribute my answer in my limited (and short) working career so far. As a volunteer, me and a few people worked on posting a newsletter; it was basically the process of putting newsletters in envelopes and putting stickers with names and addresses on them. It was the sort of repetitive stuff that makes you realize that repetitive and tedious processes are literally everywhere.

*I totally, TOTALLY agree with Adam on someone's ability to handle tedium as a key indicator for their employability bot even more as an indicator for future success in life.* I used to teach drawing and illustration to undergrad industrial and automotive designers. Some of the best illustration techniques require you to manage tedium. So I exposed my students to tedium occasionally. After one exercise (monochrome half-tones on Canson paper), a couple with slightly above-average drawing skills walked up to me and informed me that quit my course as they were basically geniuses and my assignments would on slow down the stellar career they were to start very soon. I guess they did eventually graduate - only to NEVER be heard of again.

You've now officially said the same thing that my octogenarian mom used to say, that "Most of life is boring". Which is true, but most people never really mention, but know inherently. I'm not sure where we got this idea that it's all supposed to be fun and exciting all the time. Most people eventually realize this key fact. Some somehow think other's lives must be incredibly interesting and exciting, and they're just among the unlucky few who got the boring one. Today I mopped out a dirty floor, planned out a wall I'm putting in my basement, cut out the 2x4s to the right length for the top and bottom plates, figured out where the studs were in the ceiling, drilled screws in for the top plate, re-drilled holes in the correct place for the top plate since I screwed up the first time, measured again for more pieces. Now I'm ready to bolt in the bottom plate to the cement and put in the studs. Was any of it interesting or exciting? No. But it _is_ satisfying once it's completed. But most of the whole process is dull and tedious, and sometimes frustrating. So it goes.

@rtd1791

2 жыл бұрын

Love this.

Amazing life advice in the first minute of this video!

Love the life advice Adam. Honestly

My buddy Jon worked for Brooklyn Model Works, so I visited a few times. He stayed quite a while; they made things like giant razors for commercials. It looked like an engaging enough workplace but the owner wasn't too forward thinking. Now Jon works with his friend Jocko, who was a Navy Seal and now some sort of KZread personality. He definitely learned how to make stuff.

The first industry job I worked (animation) resulted in a six-month contract made up almost entirely of 14+ hour days, and I wasn't credited for the work when all was said and done (I got paid, but my name wasn't in the credits).

This is so true. I was doing supports at current job at minimal wage for almost 1 year. We where understaffed and there are a lot of tedious things to do. I kept working hard and chase for the wage that I deserved. Now, 4 years later, I got to a high level title that I am not fully qualified for.

Thank you for being honest and real. Yeah, thinking back I don't think a lasted a week at the telemarketing job I had. It was brutal.

My worst job was working at a small web hosting/ISP company with a sister company in conference booking. We were two guys that did nearly all the admin, customer phone/mail support, internal IT for the sister company, with a splash of development thrown in (had some help from the developers now and then though). All on a shoestring budget. When my colleague quit, I was basically on my own and I was too inexperienced to see that it could never work. On top of that they took on a contract for regional phone support for a major airline (I stil wonder how they landed that deal), so I had to work nights on the call center location trying to set up their network/systems (it was in use daytime so I couldn't do much then). Later, one day I woke up in a cold sweat and figured this is killing me. So I quit, sold my appartment and went traveling around Australia for a year and a half. Best decision I've ever made.

I did telemarketing for as short a time as I could. I went from there to working in a feed mill and that was a huge improvement (despite there being no meaningful climate control and this being from late summer to early winter, because it was full time and didn't involve talking to people). Doing tech support was stressful but how bad it was depended entirely on proximity to the company who' products you are doing support for. You'd think working directly for the company would be better, but the problem is they can and do make changes at the whim of whatever executive is in charge of it, sometimes multiple times a day and sometimes doing things that they specifically told you they wouldn't. Working for an outsourcer means that the details of the work are set out in a contract and if the company wants to change it they have to adjust the contract and pay more if it means calls take longer. The company won't want to pay more, so they end up taking a long time to work out how they want to do the changes. This means changes are something that comes quarterly or less frequently for an outsourcer. The other advantage of working for an outsourcer is that they have multiple contracts and once they've found you they prefer to keep hold of you rather than getting rid of you (because it takes a long time to find any number of people who can continue to do this kind of work for more than a couple of hours). Not enough to pay you all that much, but enough to transfer you to a different contract if the one you're on ends.

Adam, Thank you for sharing this advice at this time. I know many people are in the scenario where they don't really care for their job right now, and are thinking about looking for new work. I work in IT, and have several friends who are looking for other jobs. Much of it has to do with the work required not matching the pay given. Most of us looking are at the early point in our careers, just a few years outside of college. We all believe there is something better out there, as far as job prospects. What your discussion brings to my realization is that most jobs will not be enjoyable. They sound fun at the surface, but there is always grueling work in-between. I just hope that all of us can find a career path with a job we genuinely enjoy, like you seem to have at least twice in your career. Thanks.

@chrisdaugherty8265

2 жыл бұрын

If you don’t mind me asking, what do you find tedious or boring about your IT job? I ask because I am getting back into the field in the next year. Look forward to hearing back from you.?

@GKMess42

2 жыл бұрын

@@chrisdaugherty8265 I've been at the same job for 6 years, in basically the same role. It's my first "real" job after college. I'm finding tedious is reviewing the same documentation every year or every 3-6 months to make sure it's accurate. Reviewing the same spreadsheets with security vulnerabilities every week. Having the same customer ask why something isn't running even though it is running and it's expected there'd be a few seconds delay in an automated notification. Much of my recent tasks has felt like fixing the same problem. Basically, every system gets updated and then by the time we get that done, we encounter a problem that required another new update. I know a lot of it is just me being burned out, but also feels like my company isn't investing in its people well. I've been job hunting too, just to see what's around, but so far no luck.

@chrisdaugherty8265

2 жыл бұрын

@@GKMess42 Thank you for your reply. To me, it sounds more like the company more than it is the job. I have been there, at a point, even a good job at a not so great company leads to misery. I hope you find what you are looking for, with IT there is so many avenues to pursue. Maybe a change of pace and specialize in another area like Linux, Security, Cloud, etc to spice things up. Take care.

Years of schooling so I can assemble the same set of parts every day

@ibreadman7

2 жыл бұрын

I suppose these days especially with so much info available on the net, the only thing college and university's would be good for is meeting people and making "real" connections (which in itself can be subjective especially in this era) unless whatever you are studying is rocket science or something like that. I could be way off the mark with this opinion though.

@mycarolinaskies

2 жыл бұрын

@@ibreadman7 college broadens perspective to see other options and opportunities. But a degree itself is meaningless within 5years of graduation even if you get a job in that field. But compared to never broadening perspective it also allows you to sort thru the BS the narrow minded accept as gospel. I read the other day a quote that essentially said, college students aren't brainwashed by their professors, they've just figured out they no longer care for their parents bullshit.

@ibreadman7

2 жыл бұрын

@@mycarolinaskies Although I’ve never been to college and still wonder if I should go (to study something like photography which is already an oversaturated industry) you make a great point and that quote makes total sense too

@chief_mourner

2 жыл бұрын

@@ibreadman7 same boat as you man

@ibreadman7

2 жыл бұрын

@@chief_mourner quite the boat to be on during these storms of confusion, sometimes it’s like the controls are inverted.

I worked on the Subway wrestler in the ring ad many years ago now.. We were setting up, tediously, in an area of the soundstage where the wrestling ring was and this guy is in the ring practicing getting beat up by this poly realistic sandwich. Tedium gave way to laughter

"You work hard and move up the ladder" *laughs in 2021*

@Chris-im3ys

2 жыл бұрын

Specifically when you're running the dollars through an inflation calculator

Love the videos. Wish they were captioned.

The worst part of a telemarketing job I had was the girl next to me who was there so she didn't lose her unemployment. You could press a button to skip the next call coming in so you could go to the john. She sat there, filing her nails and hitting the skip button over and over. I hated her as much as I hated the job...And as long as I'm busy, I don't mind boring stuff. It's the time when there are no customers and everything is clean already, that I cannot tolerate. Busy work is better than staring at the wall.

Lol I started out painting apartments in the early 90's for 5 bucks an hour which was good cause minimum wage was like 4 bucks they were on the second story and were 2-3 bedroom and we were painting by hand with a roller and brush and we had to do minimum of 3 a day after that I decided I wanted to work for myself

7:45 Y'know...that comment right there says a lot of good things about Jamie's management style. We've seem him be exacting and meticulous on MB, but I think that "I'm willing to do this damnably tedious job, too" attitude probably helped an awful lot. ...That, and he _does_ know how to have fun with his work, too.

9:10 The thing I've heard said many times is that if you don't value your time, don't expect others to do it either. Always ask for what you feel your time is worth.

best video yet Sir!!

Hey Adam have you ever heard of a go thru socket set they are my favorite kind of socket

I worked as a 'summer student' for an Oceanography firm. They wanted me to leach any residual contaminants out of plastic sample bottles by using ultra concentrated hydrochloric acid. They didn't have a dedicated fume hood, just told me to do it outside. I had a respirator, fortunately, and safety glasses, but not a face shield, and the light wind grabbed the white HCL vapour that came off the concentrated acid, and blew it into my face, where it promptly reacted with my skin moisture turning to pure liquid acid. I remember dropping everything and bolting for the water tap.

Yes, loads a of tedious stuff in any job. Also, Adam dude I am loving the hair!

I have payed and payed and payed my dues and it still hasn't payed off financially. I have seen others do the same and just move on to another industry.

My worst / most tedious / physically hardest job was as a metal polisher at an outboard motor factory. Besides breathing in aluminum dust, every morning I would wake up and have to pry my fingers open.

My worst job was working as a dishwasher in my university's cafeteria. Hands down. The pay was bad, we were never given breaks, constantly covered in gross food... Some of my most fondly remembered jobs are actually factory jobs. I worked 12 hour shifts at a granola bar packaging plant one summer and most of the other employees were immigrants from all over the world--Cambodia, Somalia, Eritrea, Russia, Mexico, Guyana, etc. Put the value of work into perspective because they all were so happy to have the job, even if it was repetitive and "boring." Another summer I spent in Alaska at a salmon packaging plant. Those were 16 hour shifts if the fish were coming in. It was the same story though, everyone from different walks of life working together for one simple goal. No office politics, no complaining over the minor things--if you couldn't hack it, you were sent home at your own expense, which involved having to call the bush pilot to come and fly you out which has to be one of the most embarrassing ways to get fired.

I've really had to deal with this for the last few months. Worked for four years to start a career in welding and a year into my first job (which is going well, but is manufacturing), I'm honestly a bit sick of it and burnout likes to peek around the corner every once in a while.

Your first question and answer should be played for all teenagers in high school. It's completely accurate that early on you have to learn how to handle tedious work because you're going to be doing some type of tedious work for the rest of your life whether you're doing it for a hobby or you're doing it for work. I can remember my first job as a Bag Boy for the local grocery store and I think it was a 1.85 per hour starting and we would get $0.25 raises at the three-month and six-month mark. But yeah even $5 an hour really was nothing in the 80s because I got a job making 13 bucks an hour busting my ass for Roadway loading trucks. It was the dirtiest work at ever done and I was actually glad to quit that job because we had regular mandatory 2 hour overtime on a regular basis after already working 10 hour shifts.

The tele-marketer scene in Good Omens came to mind when Adam said what he said about that job.

2:20 learn most abt employees during tedious jobs 2:30 even at ILM alot of tedious work Same anywhere really, just get good at tedious stuff, change perspective on it make it enjoyable and you can then enjoy it and then the more fun aspects of it too 3:40 same with mythbusters And adam savage also had done telemarketing, ppl just do things like hugh jackman gas station or school gym teacher life is life just chill and take things one at a time and be gracious And things will come as long as you cont to head towards goals as well

These Adam Talks videos are really close to what the old episodes of Still Untitled were like. Adam is consistent but the rest of Tested is vastly different than it used to be. It’s not necessarily positive or negative but man I miss the old Tested.

At the start of my apprenticeship we used to have to dig two months straight to build the foundation, sometimes in the rain, in the wind or in the blazing sun, I learned to crack jokes, sing songs and dance while we are at it, the boss didn't care as long as we get it done on time, and one more thing, always have a hearty lunch in the car to look forward to, didn't come to work to suffer 🤸🙃

This video was a test of my ability to withstand tedium and monotony. JUST KIDDING! Great video.

@tested

2 жыл бұрын

Phew.

The worst job I ever had may also have been the best. Substitute teacher with a permanent assignment to cover for a terrible teacher who had just left town without telling anyone (including his family). With a few exceptions, the kids were okay (and some were great). It was their parents and some among the school administration who made for some hellish days/weeks. The saving grace was that I actually helped most of the students.

I worked for 35 years as an electrician and I would never describe it as tedious or boring. Once I installed 1,200 2x4 light fixtures and I always found ways to make it fun and interesting. I feel sorry for all the people who find their jobs tedious and boring.

@mycarolinaskies

2 жыл бұрын

You were also making a lot more than the guys dropping 10,000 sprayer nozzles in bottles of Fantastic for 8hr shifts. $3.35 in 1985.

@vendter

2 жыл бұрын

@@mycarolinaskies So the amount of money you make determines how tedious the job is?

YES. Never take work keys home with you and don't even hang onto them a moment longer than you have to. Also make sure somebody knows you have turned it in and when lest somebody else tell the boss "Last time I saw those keys, that guy had them." while pointing at you. I'd almost avoid taking a key at jobs I have worked at times because of somebody else mis-placing it after I had been seen using it. If there's one takeaway for sure from this video, I feel like it's definitely got to be keys. I had to pay for a forklift ignition switch one time out of my paycheck, to later be razzed by the guy who had lost the key to it. They weren't paying me enough either, but I was trying to get into the industry, one I have since left for a multitude of similar reasons.

Both Big Time and Sledgehammer were similar videos but Sledgehammer won an award for best video if I recall.

Let's keep standing up for reasonable wages! Paying dues doesn't have to mean being taken advantage of!

I am pretty good at the tedious jobs I think. As long as I can listen to music or s podcast. I think I was better at those things when I was younger, maybe. I always seem to find a way to streamline and simplify those tasks so they take less time without costing accuracy, if possible, and once I find the most efficient way to do it I get into the rhythm of it and usually start to enjoy it knowing I'm doing the thing I have to do in the most thought out and considered way, so I'm not wasting my time when the task could be made shorter.

I often tell people at work that, yup, it sucks. But that is why they pay us to do it. If it were fun all the time we would have to pay to do it. They key is to take time and learn new skills to get the tedious stuff done. The learning adds a bit of fun (and, yes, some frustration too) to repetitive tasks.

2:58 FACTS 💯

I work in EMS, 90% of my job is tedium. Writing reports, but getting good at them allow me to knock them out quickly and effectively.

Good life lesson Adam.

Thanks Dad, nice talk.

lol the key mishap was totally not needed but seriously shows the human side for all of us. Me at 28, watched a builder powerwash the street before a sale. then right after lunch i rolled back to the job and parked just off the road, which through mud all over the road...hind sight, i should have parked down the road, away from the new home that was just closing fml

My most tedious job was converting digital forms, that were printed out and sent in by MAIL, back to digital forms.. I never ever got why it couldnt just be digital from the beginning.

In 1986, $50.00 a day for 14 hour days was just over minimum wage(3.35/hr back then). For that many hours, you weren’t entitled, you were right to leave.

The troubling part of the whole "paying your dues" by working for $4ph is that its exploitation. It excludes people from the trade that don't have the safety net of people that can support them. Look I get it, the business is wildly oversubscribed and when supply outstrips demand then that's naturally going to drive down pay rates as there will always be someone willing to work for less. Sure lower pay rates restricts the size of your applicant pool but it doesn't restrict it but it does so via the applicants background not talent.