# Entitlement



## desiderata (Jul 19, 2019)

I have noticed an unearned sense of entitlement from some of those I associate with and part of society as a whole. What gives these people a right to push their agenda on you? Who made them masters? I have stood my ground countless times but I am tired now and try to let the bullets just bounce off me. It's apparent that I can't dodge all the bullets. 

Part of it is the times we live in. Part of it is what leadership and status have been granted and sets an example for others to follow. Whatever the case I hope good conscience rules the day.


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## David Baxter PhD (Jul 19, 2019)

What do you mean by "entitlement", @desiderata?

Can you give a couple of examples?


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## desiderata (Jul 20, 2019)

I use the word entitlement similar to "Having the right." My youngest son has used it a few times about his workplace and it's just stuck.
It may be out of context. I haven't looked it up. Sorry if misunderstood.
For example: Joe feels he is entitled or has the right to push his way around other people. The CEO of BigBank believes he is entitled to break the law and get away with it.


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## David Baxter PhD (Jul 20, 2019)

I think some people have always been that way. Narcissists for example (pretty much everything Trump does).

I don't know if it's getting worse or not. I know that some have accused millennials of being entitled but I think there are also many examples that would suggest that's not generally true, or at least that there are many exceptions to that generalization.


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## Daniel (Jul 20, 2019)

One theory is that in the "good old days" the business environment was more stable.  Therefore there was no desire for narcissistic leadership:



> Historically, narcissists in large corporations have been confined to sales positions, where they use their persuasiveness and imagination to best effect. In settled times, the problematic side of the narcissistic personality usually conspires to keep narcissists in their place, and they can typically rise to top management positions only by starting their own companies or by leaving to lead upstarts.
> 
> Narcissistic Leaders:The Incredible Pros, the Inevitable Cons


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## desiderata (Jul 20, 2019)

Yes, without trying to get political I know the U.S. president has enabled millions to act in ways that are shameful.


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## Daniel (Jul 20, 2019)

On the positive side, narcissism awareness has never been higher.


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## David Baxter PhD (Jul 20, 2019)

Daniel said:


> On the positive side, narcissism awareness has never been higher.



Good point. And we all get to see it in action daily if we can stomach seeing Trump's face any more or watching him in action.


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## Daniel (Jul 20, 2019)

Nancy Pelosi teaches us how to perfectly own narcissists like Donald Trump, therapist says | Salon.com

“Leave emotions out as much as possible,” she concludes.

She also emphasizes setting clear boundaries and sticking to them...

“When working with a gaslighter/narcissist, take control of the situation by giving him a “forced choice” – option A or option B. The gaslighter/narcissist will usually come up with their own option that suits them, but is to the detriment of everyone else. Repeat option A or B again. Repeat them again if the gaslighter tries to obfuscate. (This is called the “broken record” technique.) These are the options. Period. There is no wiggle room.”

Sarkis brings up a few other strategies, such as keeping communications brief...


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## desiderata (Jul 20, 2019)

Awareness is one thing, action is another.


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## Daniel (Jul 20, 2019)

But I think people have more courage to stand up to narcissistic behavior, e.g. bullying bosses, if they know what is going on.



> In fact, both TOTs [Terrible Office Tyrants] and toddlers have little sense of their impact on others. They have few inhibitions, an inability to soothe themselves, and limited awareness that they're even erupting into an infantile rage. Often, within minutes or hours, they can forget it ever happened! Always remember that behind your boss's emotional crash, there is really a toddler trapped inside who wants your time and attention. So always have a "pacifier" ready, such as: "That will be the first thing on my ‘to do' list tomorrow."
> 
> Each day, you have the opportunity to proactively manage the "toddlers" in your office by using humor, common sense, rational thinking, and by setting limits to bad behavior. If you choose not to learn effective coping techniques, then you will be an emotional punching bag for your boss (and/or co-workers).
> 
> ...


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## Daniel (Jul 22, 2019)

Why so many narcissistic men become leaders

Just as men display higher levels of confidence and self esteem than women do, men are also more narcissistic-–an extreme version of the same phenomenon. For example, the prevalence of clinical narcissism is almost 40% higher in men than in women. A recent meta-analysis of 355 studies and almost half a million individuals aged 8 to 55 years indicated that the gender difference in narcissism is among the highest difference found for any psychological trait.


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## desiderata (Jul 22, 2019)

I believe all men and women are _entitled_ or have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is when this entitlement is unwarranted, unearned, stolen at the expense of others less fortunate, misconstrued, and yes, abused by those with _narcissistic_ habits. Even though awareness has increased there is a huge swath of people who believe the earth is flat and believe they are entitled without hard work, compassion, intelligence, responsibility, sacrifice, and simply handed to them without these efforts. The proportions seemed to have tipped the scales in that direction causing an uneasy dysfunction of society that we are all a part of.


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## Daniel (Jul 22, 2019)

Income Inequality - Inequality.org

Over the past five decades, the top 1 percent of American earners have nearly doubled their share of national income. Meanwhile, the official poverty rate for all U.S. families has merely inched up and down. The official poverty rate understates the number of people in the world’s richest country who have trouble making ends meet. *An estimated 43.5 percent of the total U.S. population (140 million people) are either poor or low-income*...

One factor in the widening income divide is the decline of U.S. labor unions. As the share of the workforce represented by a union has declined to less than 11 percent since their peak in the 1940s and 1950s, those at the top of the income scale have increased their power to rig economic rules in their favor, further increasing income inequality...

To meet basic needs, low-wage workers have to spend nearly every dollar they earn, creating beneficial economic ripple effects. The wealthy, by contrast, can afford to squirrel away more of their earnings.


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## desiderata (Jul 22, 2019)

Assuming you are not an auto worker I applaud your post. My father worked at Chrysler until just past the age of 50. The "30 and out plan." He has been retired almost as long as he worked and still contributes to the UAW. I agree many unions became fat and corrupt but at the core solidarity is the key for leverage with the rich man. I suppose unions today need to reevaluate their strategy in order to survive in the world economy. I'm all for it.


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## Daniel (Jul 22, 2019)

A recent example is in my state of Arizona where the teachers protested and marched -- and stopped teaching for days -- until they finally got their demands for a much-needed pay raise.  Arizona has paid their teachers less than almost any other state.  Since the public would not stand up for the teachers, the teachers had to do it themselves.



> Assuming you are not an auto worker I applaud your post.



I can barely change a tire or change the oil in my car


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## desiderata (Jul 22, 2019)

A few years ago in my state of Wisconsin Scott Walker broke the teachers union. The teachers have survived and I am not sure of their current pay and benefit structure. They had the freedom of choice stripped from them. Although, I have seen more teachers in other states taking a stand for themselves. I forget the state but it was required that all teachers wear a Fitbit as part of their insurance plan. I'm all for someone tracking their fitness but to be forced into it and penalized for not meeting certain goals is not for a government to decide. It was later thrown out when the teachers settled with the state. I can still remember the governor signing the agreement as he was a large man in stature but definitely overweight. How hypocritical. 
I have always stood up for myself and question most everything. Not to find fault but a method of processing. Without being pushy I at least encourage my coworkers to stand together for who else will? Unfortunately many are too afraid to lose their jobs all the while big corporate feels entitled to ask for more. As far as my dad and the big 3 autoworkers of the day, many said they were over-paid and it was unfair. All I can say to that is good for them. They fell into a segment of time where this was possible.


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## Hickwillas34 (Jul 23, 2019)

associated with pride. Nowadays a lot of people have this kind of attitude.


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## Daniel (Jul 23, 2019)

On the plight of Amazon warehouse employees who are often fired for not meeting stringent quotas:



Amazon worker fired: Warehouse employee is out after trying to unionize - Vox

 “We have asked the company to provide air conditioning, but the company told us that the robots inside cannot work in the cold weather.”


On Prime Day, pilot union shows solidarity for Amazon strikers | Air Cargo World

"As we know firsthand, Amazon’s business model too often neglects the well-being of the workers who make the e-commerce giant so incredibly successful."


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## Daniel (Jul 23, 2019)

Amazon warehouse workers are getting fired by robots

Workers in the warehouse are encouraged to pack and scan orders at an “Amazon pace” — described as a speed in between walking and jogging.

Employees often process hundreds of orders an hour and skip toilet breaks, going to the toilet in bottles out of fear of being sacked for failing to “make rate.”

In 2017 it was reported that staff at Amazon warehouses were suffering from panic attacks and working long hours as they struggled to keep up with demand.


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## desiderata (Jul 24, 2019)

Here is a template of what I suggested to management in which I have received more negative than positive responses:
EI
Employee Involvement
"This is the participation of employees discussing, brainstorming, and suggesting ideas for improvement, goal setting, and planning in order to help an organization fulfill its mission and meet its objectives. This involvement is based on the thinking that people involved in a process who know it best are more motivated to help themselves and the organization continuously improve."


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## Daniel (Jul 25, 2019)

"Corporations are for profit, use them like they use you."

~ comment at YouTube


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## Daniel (Aug 17, 2019)

Why many employees feel devalued even in booming job market 
August 16, 2019

...For all the U.S. economy’s robust job growth, White and many people like him don’t feel much like beneficiaries of what is now the longest expansion on record. The kinds of jobs they once enjoyed — permanent positions, with stability, bonuses, pensions, benefits and opportunities to move up — are now rarer.

“It’s not as easy as it was,” White says.

White’s evolution from employee to contractor is emblematic of a trend in the American workplace a full decade after the recession ended: The economy keeps growing. Unemployment is at a half-century low. Yet *many people feel their jobs have been devalued by employers that increasingly assign a higher priority to shareholders and customers.*

Economic research, government data and interviews with workers sketch a picture of lagging wages, eroding benefits and demands for employees to do more without more pay. The loyalty and security that many say they once felt from their employers have diminished, and with it some measure of their satisfaction.

Experts point to a sea change in the American job experience that began decades ago but has grown more visible across a wider spectrum of jobs. They see a confluence of forces squeezing workers — from globalization and workplace automation to a decline of labor unions, fiercer price competition and a growing use of outside firms and contractors...

In some cases, work is further outsourced to still other companies. Sometimes, workers are hired as contractors, who are technically self-employed yet often report to the same workplace as full-fledged employees.

An example is the hotel industry. Weil’s research found that many major brands have sold nearly all their real estate and shifted to a franchise system. The properties — now owned by private equity firms, investor groups and real estate investment trusts — pay a franchise fee to brands such as Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt.

They often then contract with a third-party management company to run the hotel. That company might hire staffing firms to provide housekeeping, maintenance and food service. In some cases, Weil said, it’s possible that not a single worker in a Hilton hotel is actually a Hilton employee, though they must adhere to Hilton’s standards.

“You might have 10 different employers, sometimes with overlapping authority, all in that building,” he said.

Uber and Instacart are other examples of the fissured workplace. So are universities that increasingly rely on adjunct professors and distribution centers that depend on independent contractors.

Some workers, Weil said, aren’t even aware that their employer isn’t actually the company where they report to work every day. They might realize it only when they lose their job or are injured at work and learn that they aren’t protected by the employment rules and safety protections that traditional workers are...


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## Daniel (Sep 14, 2019)

50 Years Ago, Scooby Doo Was the Perfect, Weird, Hopeful Mystery Series 1969 Needed | CrimeReads

_Scooby Doo_ suggests to the youth of America an alternative path for resistance against a greedy grown-up world, one achieved by outsmarting the enemy, rather than either fighting it or protesting it.


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## GaryQ (Sep 15, 2019)

***** 50 years ago I was watching scooby doo :facepalm:


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## Daniel (Sep 15, 2019)

Right on :hippy:


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## Daniel (Dec 11, 2019)




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## Daniel (Jan 21, 2020)

Good news:

Delta Airlines gives employees enormous bonus
Jan 20th, 2020 

It’s a big company that turned huge profits, and executives decided to give every single employee an enormous bonus.

CNN reports Delta Air Lines is sharing $1.6 billion with its 90,000 employees. Each one will receive a check for 16.6 percent of their annual salary, which adds up to about two-months’ pay.

“Delta would be nothing without our 90,000 people,” CEO Ed Bastian commented on LinkedIn.

And it’s not the first time Delta has forked over a piece of the profits to its workers.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports this is actually the sixth year in a row – but Delta is not alone.

According to CNN, a 2018 University of Chicago study found that 38 percent of American workers said their company shared profits with its employees.

The average amount, however, worked out to about 5 percent of their annual pay.


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## Daniel (Feb 25, 2020)

Opinion: The Hidden Depression Trump Isn't Helping -- _NYTimes.com_
Feb. 8, 2020

More Americans die every two weeks from drugs, alcohol and suicide -- "deaths of despair" -- than died in 18 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq...

Important new research finds that 20 million Americans, particularly those with low levels of education, describe all 30 of the last 30 days as "bad mental health days."

...It is these working-class Americans, white and black alike, who have seen earnings collapse, family structure disintegrate and mortality climb. These Americans are earning less on average, adjusted for inflation, than their counterparts back in the 1970s.

"Our story of deaths of despair is essentially a long-run account of destruction of the working class," Deaton said.


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## David Baxter PhD (Feb 26, 2020)




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## Daniel (Mar 30, 2020)

Yes, America Is Rigged Against Workers
By Steven Greenhouse, _NY Times_ 

_No other industrial country treats its working class so badly. And there’s one big reason for that.
_
Aug. 3, 2019 -- The United States is the only advanced industrial nation that doesn’t have national laws guaranteeing paid maternity leave. It is also the only advanced economy that doesn’t guarantee workers any vacation, paid or unpaid, and the only highly developed country (other than South Korea) that doesn’t guarantee paid sick days. In contrast, the European Union’s 28 nations guarantee workers at least four weeks’ paid vacation.

Among the three dozen industrial countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States has the lowest minimum wage as a percentage of the median wage — just 34 percent of the typical wage, compared with 62 percent in France and 54 percent in Britain. It also has the second-highest percentage of low-wage workers among that group, exceeded only by Latvia.

All this means the United States suffers from what I call “anti-worker exceptionalism.”

Academics debate why American workers are in many ways worse off than their counterparts elsewhere, but there is overriding agreement on one reason: Labor unions are weaker in the United States than in other industrial nations. Just one in 16 private-sector American workers is in a union, largely because corporations are so adept and aggressive at beating back unionization. In no other industrial nation do corporations fight so hard to keep out unions.

The consequences are enormous, not only for wages and income inequality, but also for our politics and policymaking and for the many Americans who are mistreated at work.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com//opinion/sunday/labor-unions.html


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## Daniel (Apr 2, 2020)

'White-Collar Quarantine' Over Virus Spotlights Class Divide -- _NYTimes_
March 27, 2020

...In some respects, the pandemic is an equalizer: It can afflict princes and paupers alike, and no one who hopes to stay healthy is exempt from the strictures of social distancing. But the American response to the virus is laying bare class divides that are often camouflaged — in access to health care, child care, education, living space, even internet bandwidth...

Across the country, there is a creeping consciousness that despite talk of national unity, not everyone is equal in times of emergency.

“This is a white-collar quarantine,” said Howard Barbanel, a Miami-based entrepreneur who owns a wine company. “Average working people are bagging and delivering goods, driving trucks, working for local government.”

...A kind of pandemic caste system is rapidly developing: the rich holed up in vacation properties; the middle class marooned at home with restless children; the working class on the front lines of the economy, stretched to the limit by the demands of work and parenting, if there is even work to be had...


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## Daniel (Apr 2, 2020)

As Coronavirus Deepens Inequality, Inequality Worsens Its Spread -- _NYTimes_
March 15, 2020

“Pre-existing social vulnerabilities only get worse following a disaster, and this is such a perfect example of that.”

...Health organizations have said that people over 70 are at drastically greater risk of dying from the coronavirus.

But the research on chronic health conditions suggests that the threshold may be as low as age 55 for people of lower socioeconomic status...

When inequality is high, the cost of living tends to rise, forcing more lower-income families to live paycheck to paycheck. At the same time, the decline of labor unions and the rise of part-time work means that low-income workers have fewer protections.

As a result, crises like coronavirus can deepen the gap between the haves and have-nots...

When a health crisis hits entire segments of society, it can set off a cycle in which declining economic status leads to rising rates of chronic illness. That, in turn, further depresses productivity and raises health care costs, leading to more poverty, which leads to more disease.

According to a 2010 study by a British biological sciences journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, whole communities can become caught in a “disease-driven poverty trap” in which “the combined causal effects of health on poverty and poverty on health implies a positive feedback system.”

...Research conducted during an influenza outbreak in New Haven, Conn., found that the rate of infection nearly doubled in census areas where a high proportion of residents live below the poverty line.

Because diseases do not respect the barriers that separate rich from poor, health inequality is a problem for everyone. A study from Delhi, India, one of the world’s most economically polarized cities, found that its slums served as citywide accelerants for an influenza outbreak.

“Public health isn’t just about your own personal health, it’s about the health of the public at large,” Dr. Errett said. “If there’s one person who can’t get treatment, that person is posing a risk to everyone.”


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## Daniel (Sep 1, 2020)

https://deathsofdespair.princeton.edu/

https://youtu.be/jiPBEota8DI

Book: _Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism_


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## Daniel (Jan 6, 2021)

Google workers announce plans to unionize  - The Verge
Jan 4, 2021

Arranged as a members-only union, the new organization won’t seek collective bargaining rights to negotiate a new contract with the company. Instead, the Alphabet Workers Union will only represent employees who voluntarily join, as reported by the New York Times. That structure will also allow it to represent all employees who seek to participate — including temps, vendors, and contractors (known internally as TVCs) who would be excluded by labor law from conventional collective bargaining.


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