[throwaw12]

> They feel like a big family

A lot of companies were like this in 1970-80s based on stories from my parents and grandparents.

People worked in the same company for 30-40 years, when they were sick their colleagues felt like friends and visited them, tried to help with whatever they could.

vs now.... I heard XYZ is sick today (they were sick once in a year), deadlines will definitely slip, give me this project, because it is impactful for me next promo

[kasey_junk]

lol. That is some really good history rewriting. My grandparents didn’t get sick days! If you were sick there was a good chance you lost your job (except my grandmother who was college educated and was a public school teacher).

None of them worked for the same firm for 30 years because they’d get laid off, or go on strike or the plant would shut down or the crop would fail and they’d have to go get a factory job.

This glory days nonsense was exclusively reserved for the upper class. It’s pure privilege to believe jobs were in some way better historically than they are now.

[trollbridge]

My grandparents (in the United States) all got sick days. One grandfather drove coal trucks in and out of an open pit coal mine. The other one was a letter carrier, and for a short while owned a dry-cleaning finishing business. (One reason they got out of owning their own business was the stress of things like how you don't get sick days when you are your own boss.)

My grandma who worked at an insurance office was likewise the same. They all got sick days, although it was a point of pride to hardly ever use them.

None of them were remotely upper class. My one side might have been middle class before the depression, though. The other side was so poor that it didn't make a big difference when the depression happened.

They worked in those jobs from WWII until they retired, longer than 30 years.

They were able to ensure their children went to college, except for one who enlisted in the Navy instead. And then they helped all of their children buy their own houses, eventually. They saved a lot and built big savings for retirement when rates were high in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Their children all have a Master's degree; their grandchildren all have a Bachelor's, one has a Master's, one has an M.D., so upward mobility really did exist back then. (The grandparents of my cousins were all solidly working class as well.)

[throwaw12]

if it helps, I am based in EU