/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18463786]

I don't want to go back to working in an office full-time lads.

Are there any books about the crushing nature of white collar work?

On the one hand my pathetically docile attitude - likely a result of my utter cowardice (it's no wonder really that I am a manlet manchild virgin) - means I could probably make decent money in a couple of years, but on the other it feels like I am selling myself out by being such a boring boomer. The ideal, as you all know, would be to lounge around in an apartment all day reading and waiting for your cute, maternal, understanding girlfriend to come home and justify your non-attachment to society. In reality rent is fucking expensive and house prices are a joke, so I don't want to spend the rest of my life paying half my salary to someone younger than me. Every day I worked in an office I felt as though I was becoming more and more the kind of person I viewed with derision in my teens and early twenties, like that one scene in Into the Wild where the main character sees his doppelganger through a window laughing and getting drunk in a suit at some corporate event.

Then again, working for the minimum wage is very depressing and insecure, and is only financially rewarding if you work forty-five to fifty hours a week which is unbearable and still doesn't pay that much. What the fuck. Whenever I read a biography of some modern writer and it says they worked in a corporate environment for a few years before "quitting to focus on their writing" I wonder how the fuck they managed that. How do they pay rent just "by writing"? Finally, I am not even a good writer, and I have fucked up my life so badly due to cowardice and indecision that I can't even present myself to "the reading public" or an audience now without fearing that they will judge me very negatively. At the moment I'm reading a book by a guy who is talking about his twenties and how he masturbated all the time, hated everything, loathed work, etc, and it is very relieving.

[Anonymous No.18463830]

Have you tried going back in time and to an alternate universe where you are born to rich parents who would send you to Yale and after graduation guarantee you a $700k a year salary in the family business?

[Anonymous No.18463848]

>>18463830
I genuinely think about time travel sometimes. The Uncle Rico character from Napoleon Dynamite is one of the most relatable characters for me, even though I laughed at him mockingly when I first saw the movie.

[Anonymous No.18463878]

>>18463786
just read marx dude
paris manuscripts are probably the most fitting to what you want

[Anonymous No.18463884]

>>18463786
Fight club by chuck pahlaniuk or however the fuck that's spelled

[Anonymous No.18463919]

Nobody cares. Just work.

[Anonymous No.18464246]

>>18463786
My company is doing a 3 in office, 2 from home schedule. Guess I should be thankful. Plus I have to wear a mask all day because I'm not vaccinated.

[Anonymous No.18464271]

>>18463786
>At the moment I'm reading a book by a guy who is talking about his twenties and how he masturbated all the time, hated everything, loathed work, etc, and it is very relieving.
Source ?

[Anonymous No.18464281]

Office. No office. To me, it’s all the same. All of it is mindlessly boring, totally pointless, essentially indentured servitude, and I believe I’m going to find it miserable either way.

[Anonymous No.18464295]

>>18463786
>Every day I worked in an office I felt as though I was becoming more and more the kind of person I viewed with derision in my teens and early twenties, like that one scene in Into the Wild where the main character sees his doppelganger through a window laughing and getting drunk in a suit at some corporate event.
Boy, can I sympathize with that. I hate who I am at work. Having to wear the mask is easily the worst part. I can’t do it anymore to be honest. If I can’t find a way out, I will probably kill myself. This life is so meaningless and boring, but the fact that I just have to repeat this cycle of waking up and wearing the mask to continue waking up and wearing the mask is the cherry on top.

[Anonymous No.18464315]

I had to go to the office Monday and Tuesday this week.
I couldn’t read all day. I managed to read for less than an hour last night and the night before after over a year of reading several hours a day.
I hate it

[Anonymous No.18464393]

>>18463848
>I genuinely think about time travel sometimes.
Don't just think about it, do it!

[Anonymous No.18464427]

>>18463786
Since this is /lit/, have you read 'Bartleby the scrivener'?

[Anonymous No.18465747]

I've thought about becoming an electrician but I think I'm too physically disabled to do that :(
t. not op

[Anonymous No.18465777]

>>18464281
Thats the spirit

[Anonymous No.18465804]

>>18463786
Gotta work hard to keep the death anxiety away, brother. Otherwise suicidal thoughts are gonna kill ya if not the suicide.

[Anonymous No.18465816]

What's the book you're reading?

[Anonymous No.18466021]

>>18463786
>don't like what you're doing
>keep doing it
lol

[Anonymous No.18466034]

>>18463786

Same. I dread the time when I have to return to office.

My physical condition went to shit and I gained a few kilograms so it's unconfortable now to go out. Starting to go back to office in a few months so I'll try to lose some weight 'til then.

Stay strong, nibba.

[Anonymous No.18466058]

Get an apprenticeship in a trade. Work with your hands, do something you can see and that's valuable to society. Join a union. You will feel a difference, and if you can get & survive in an office environment you're absolutely not "too autistic" to survive in the trades. This is the best advice you will get on 4chan.

[Anonymous No.18466061]

>>18465804
there is no death :)

[Anonymous No.18466072]

>>18464295
>Having to wear the mask is easily the worst part.
For you maybe

[Anonymous No.18466094]

>>18463786
Where do you live? How much money do you have? What are your skills/education? There's always a way out. Almost always.

[Anonymous No.18466114]

I'm working on my way out lads, hope everything goes well
>.t not op

[Anonymous No.18466118]

>>18463786

[Anonymous No.18466164]

>>18463786

[Anonymous No.18466199]

>>18466058
I want to do that but >>18465747

[Anonymous No.18466210]

>>18463786
I unironically am considering joining the Navy purely so that I can work on a ship and at least be, to some degree, active.

[Anonymous No.18466256]

Read this my nigga.

[Anonymous No.18466272]

I find working in an office pretty comfy, better than manual labour by a long shot.

[Anonymous No.18466294]

>>18466272
It depends for me. Not all manual labour is created equal.
Working in a nasty fuck steel mill with mega cancer air is awful and will probably kill you or give you mutant children.
Working at a ranch where the worst you'll deal with is actual shit, blood, and amniotic fluid, is pretty okay as long as you have a shower afterwards.

[Anonymous No.18466307]

>>18463786
>The ideal, as you all know, would be to lounge around in an apartment all day reading and waiting for your cute, maternal, understanding girlfriend to come home and justify your non-attachment to society.

I've lived this life before, it's not that great. It's good to have something to do, although it doesn't have to be office work.

You should just try to get a job where you can work remotely. It's the best of both worlds and more humane than office work. Then you can travel all you want as long as you have wifi and you can fuck off and read a little here and there while on the clock and also get a paycheck.

[Anonymous No.18466382]

>>18466256
even though the text is good, it's not going to help him.

[Anonymous No.18466404]

>>18466058
Funny but I went white collar to blue collar and found out immediately I was too autistic for it and in terrible shape too.

[Anonymous No.18466410]

It’s not about work broadly. It’s about work in so far as it imposes a sense servitude and purposelessness.

[Anonymous No.18467240]

I want to die.

[Anonymous No.18467279]

If you dont want to work, then you dont have to work.

You are jsut too scared of what you have to do and the options for those who do not want to work.
If you are a wage slave it is because you want to be a wage slave. Stop pretending otherwise.

[Anonymous No.18467451]

>>18463786
>Are there any books about the crushing nature of white collar work?
>t the moment I'm reading a book by a guy who is talking about his twenties and how he masturbated all the time, hated everything, loathed work, etc, and it is very relieving.
You're just going to read the book which already reinforces what you believe and change nothing about how you actually live your life. This is the system's greatest trick by selling books and ideologies to people who are discontent with the current system which satiates their desire for resistance with an illusory and false internal rebellion without any real action.

[Anonymous No.18467454]

>>18463786
Sounds like reading this could help anon.

[Anonymous No.18467487]

>>18466164
>Moishe

[Anonymous No.18467491]

>>18467451
What’s the solution

[Anonymous No.18467494]

>>18467491
Reading this.

[Anonymous No.18467505]

>>18467454
>>18467494
What’s the basic gestalt?

[Anonymous No.18467521]

>>18467505
It's about a hikikomori in early 2000s Japan. It follows his life over the course of about a year and deals with his relationships with his neighbour and a strange girl he meets one day, it explores themes like alienation, isolation, drug use as well as the darker sides of otaku life. It goes into some really dark places at parts but is overall very hopeful.

[Anonymous No.18467545]

>>18467491
Figure it out yourself

[Anonymous No.18467561]

>>18467521
Sounds interesting, thanks anon.

[Anonymous No.18467571]

>>18467561
You're welcome anon, hopefully you'll enjoy it.

[Anonymous No.18467679]

>>18463786
You are right, anon. Employment is in some ways more ignoble than slavery on account of its being voluntary. How some one can will to be servile is beyond understanding. Few realize the full reprehensibility of the employee's choice, which is this: that he chooses compensation over profit. The Gospels say, 'ye shall know them by their fruit', but the employee does not even have fruit. He chooses, in a sense, to be a non-entity. Some will stumble at the word 'profit', but first stop to consider whether compensation is nobler. The entrepreneur receives no 'compensation' for his work, but survives only on his profits, that is, his good fruits. The employee on the other hand has evaded the very problem of survival to begin with, like a true coward. He only ever thinks of 'being compensated', and resents even what he is given. Time, space, and life itself figure in his mind as compensation, he owns not a grain of these by himself, only thinking of how he can be granted more time and space 'to himself'. Life outside of employment is a limbo in which he drifts about in a guilt-ridden daze, without understanding or reason. The employee is never equal to his fellow man, or rather it is perhaps more accurate to say that he has no fellows -- for he is no man at all. How can a man who has evaded that primordial prerogative of man, to use his own understanding for the survival of himself and his flock, by yielding to the falsely easy way of servitude, stand next to a true 'master of affairs', without bending with shame? The employee rather finds peers with animals, who are wanting in understanding, relying on a sort of pre-existing design for survival which rules over them, just as servant man relies on profitable enterprises of others, and is too ashamed of himself even to rise to the occasion of understanding these bold and intrepid schemes. The meaning of life and its wonder, plain as day to the man of enterprise, the man who meets the world as its dynamic and powerful rival, surpasses the cowardice of the employee, who gropes about in the darkness of tasks whose purposes lie beyond him -- the majority do not realize that labor alone works nothing, yields no fruit, and that all the dignity of man lies with his understanding, and not his labor alone.

[Anonymous No.18467827]

>>18467487
We are all goys under capitalism.

[Anonymous No.18468031]

>>18467679
This is silly. If you start a business, you need to get employees.

[Anonymous No.18468115]

>>18467679
This is amazing, more like this? Books?

[Anonymous No.18468166]

>>18467491
Men's only political movement.

[Anonymous No.18468220]

>>18467279
>if you like don't do it bro lol
and then what? starve on the street when you can't pay rent? Languish in your parent's basement as a NEET?

Anybody with half a braincell can see that being a wageslave sucks. One doesn't have to read thousands of pages of Marx, Stirner, whomever (but it doesn't hurt) to recognize that this society is designed for the benefit of the bourgeosie and not us proles. But, what's the alternative if you just a regular Joe? How does one escape? Go full Ted and innawoods? Cope for twenty years and try to FIRE, hoping that no financial catrastophe happens? Work 24/7 on your seduction skills so you marry some rich widow (or sugar daddy)?


Does anyone have any fucking clue?

[Anonymous No.18468237]

>tfw sociopath
>thrive in office job
lmaoing

[Anonymous No.18468390]

>>18463786
Life Without Principle by Henry Thoreau

[Anonymous No.18468595]

>>18468220
Find a job that only works you 35 hours a week. I live in NYC and have worked relatively hard jobs (tech and consulting), what most people don't realize is how easy it is to demand worklife balance if you're willing to get fired and you communicate well. The difference between a 50 hour week and a 35 hour week is not 1 to 2 people, it's probably .2 in headcount, so if you only are willing to work 35 and you communicate well and actually do decent work, you can just coast. If they don't like it, they'll still need to find someone to replace you, so most companies keep dead weight.

To be fair, I'm not deadweight, but I put in no OT.

[Anonymous No.18468628]

>>18468595
35 hours is still a huge amount.

[Anonymous No.18468661]

>>18463786
Minimise your life. Work out what you really actually NEED and strip everything down to that. Find every way you can of doing things cheaper, use public libraries for books, cook your own food rather than get takeaways, etc. Save every penny you can.
Leave the city. Find a little country town where the rents are cheap, Get a simple job that has zero stress.
I opted out of society for five years and lived in the bush. Best thing i ever did.

[Anonymous No.18468666]

>>18468628
I read and write as much as I did in college at 35 hours. It's really not.

[Anonymous No.18468673]

>>18468666
Do not enjoy my own digits yikes

[Anonymous No.18468674]

>>18468661
I just don’t find this concept of going off-grid or dropping out or even living a rural life appealing. If it works for some people that’s all well and good for them but this doesn’t exactly tickle my fancy when I think about how I need to live for this all to be worth it. It’s a shame that it’s come to that.

[Anonymous No.18468688]

>>18468595
I went from working maybe 50 or 60 hour weeks to 30 or 35 and you’re right that it’s much better but I can’t say it’s at all enjoyable or better really. I still spend the majority of my waking hours basically hating myself and my life.

[Anonymous No.18468718]

>>18468666
To be able to live a fulfilling life, you need to work smart. Not mope, and learn how to remove distractions. It's not easy, but it's not extremly hard either. We're here for our fourscore and ten, might as well try to enjoy it even if it's only cope.
Mark Fisher has some insight, but he wasn't able to see that depression itself is a trap that can be avoided through some form of effort.

[Anonymous No.18468754]

>>18463830
That's unironically my older brother, though not in the east coast blueblood sense. My dad is currently grooming him to take over his cabinetry/contractor business he has built in the last 35 years that makes $400-700k in profit for him a year depending on the market. I was always seen as the "scholarly" type, parents think I will become a professor or some shit so I wasn't interested.
Fuck my life. I'm going to have to wagecuck some office job

[Anonymous No.18468797]

>>18468688
What's your work? I do bullshit coding and hate it but I have to do something in life.
>>18468718
I don't get it. 30-35 at a crap job that pays the bills with a wife and some good books is actually alright.

[Anonymous No.18468961]

>>18463786
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

[Anonymous No.18469000]

>>18468797
>I don't get it. 30-35 at a crap job that pays the bills with a wife and some good books is actually alright.
Just reread my post and realised it seems like a criticism, I was agreeing with you.

[Anonymous No.18469006]

>>18468754
If I was your father I would unironically pay for your existence. What's the point in being rich if you can't give your children a good life?

[Anonymous No.18469017]

>>18463786
I go to work and get paid to listen to audiobooks all day. If it wasn't for audiobooks I would have killed myself by now, but as it stands I'm fulfilling my lifelong dream of being paid to read books.

[Anonymous No.18469049]

>>18467571
Can you provide a download link?

[Anonymous No.18469073]

>>18464315
This is gonna be me soon and I’m dreading it
What was your favorite pandemic read?

[Anonymous No.18469876]

I stopped caring about the office and the commute once I lived in a city where I can just walk there or take a train. Now I enjoy it. I realized what I hate wasn't work itself but driving on freeways in traffic to some soulless and sterile office building everyday

[Anonymous No.18470690]

>>18468220
>slave for a year then move to indonesia and jsut dont live in Bali
>live in a chill monestary (Korea, Europe, India, SE-Asia etc.
>live in a poorer rural place in the US and work as a handy man
>exploit your family and relatives, and simply dont care that you are abusing them
>steal
>live like forest anon
idc, but there is certainly a way you can find of surviving without wage slaving. Stop believing their lies that you cant go without; you jsut cant get all the bribes wage slaving offers, but even that is often a lie in many cases.

[Anonymous No.18470840]

>>18470690
>slave for a year then move to [SEA]
I used to do this before FUCKING COVID. I swear it has ruined my life.

[Anonymous No.18470849]

>>18470840
you do the
>work for 2 months
>then spend half a year living in cheap but luxurious hotels
like all my friends seem to?

[Anonymous No.18471704]

>>18463786
Learn how to trade the S&P 500.
It suprises me that so many people dismiss daytrading because they think it's gambling or that you must spend 12 hours a day glued to a screen (you don't).

[Anonymous No.18471721]

>>18466272
Yes, office work is fine if you don't mind being a worthless automaton. I have more respect for plumbers and electricians than any office cuck.

[Anonymous No.18471738]

>>18470849
No, if I described it it would seem over the top artsy/aesthetic in a dirty hippie way.

[Anonymous No.18471746]

>>18468115
OP’s post sounds similar to distributism, so maybe The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc or Outline of Sanity by G. K. Chesterton.

[Anonymous No.18471749]

>>18469073
Either The Magic Mountain or Old Goriot.
I HATE IT TAKE ME BACK

[Anonymous No.18471781]

>>18463786
>OH NO I HAVE STABLE JOB I'M GOING INSANE AAAAAAAAAAAA

[Anonymous No.18471791]

Please, give OP more book recomendations. (And me)

[Anonymous No.18471827]

Life is boring and often soul-crushing. There will come a time of acceptance.

[Anonymous No.18471914]

>>18471738
cmon faggot. who cares.
I know people who joined NGOs jsut to get to the Phillipines, Oceania, Papa new guinea etc. to live in paradise but also "endure the struggle" etc.

/lit/ is full of asthetes.

[Anonymous No.18471922]

>>18471914
It was extremely /lit/. No charities in sight.

[Anonymous No.18471931]

>>18471922
i wont ask again.
give a 5 line summary already.
it cant be that contrived.

[Anonymous No.18471932]

>>18469049
It's on Libgen as a PDF.

[Anonymous No.18471945]

>>18471704

Show me your ways, master.

[Anonymous No.18471989]

>>18471827
Why would you conclude that?

[Anonymous No.18471997]

>>18471704
Almost no one who trades retail makes money. If you imply otherwise you’re simply lying.

[Anonymous No.18472004]

>>18468797
>What's your work? I do bullshit coding and hate it but I have to do something in life.
I’m a financial analyst. I’m probably going to kill myself soon if I’m being perfectly honest with you. I’m just not really interested in living this sort of life.

[Anonymous No.18472005]

Find something you actually enjoy doing. It’s not easy but it’s out there. You will naturally accel at it and become the shaper of your destiny. The overman.

[Anonymous No.18472061]

>>18472005
I don’t think I’m particularly talented at the only thing I enjoy doing and I wouldn’t know how to monetize it anyway.

[Anonymous No.18472442]

>>18466272

that's why you get a skilled trade instead of being a Polish day labourer

[Anonymous No.18472796]

>>18463878
He either hasn't fallen low enough, or rose high enough, in order to read Marx.
Lackeys in the purgatory cannot understand and agree with Marx. You either have to reach bottom, or to be so high in the sky, that it is obvious.

[Anonymous No.18472877]

>>18468718
could you elaborate on avoiding depression
t. moper

[Anonymous No.18473492]

>>18468718
I’m not sure I agree with the fulfilling life part but there are things I think I would like to achieve while I’m here. Right now, my single biggest distraction which I just can’t seem to remove is this place. I need to get rid of my phone and my computer of something.