Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living

The line boss, he's a fool
Got a brand new flattop haircut
Lord, he thinks he's cool
One of these days I'm gonna' blow my top
And that sucker, he's gonna' pay
Lord, I can't wait to see their faces
When I get the nerve to say

Take this job and shove it
I ain't working here no more."

Sung by Johnny Paycheck, 1977

Going to work is a habit. COVID broke the habit.

Jobs are going begging.

Americans are hearing a policy debate over the enhanced federal and state unemployment benefits initiated back in March 2020. Unemployment insurance is an easy explanation for people not going back to work. People got paid to stay home, and they had school children at home to watch or home fix-up projects to do. The widespread expectation was that states that ended unemployment payments would have a big surge of people going back to work. It didn't happen.

Work is about money, but it is also about life.

People have gotten more fussy and demanding about their work. People can quit work feeling secure in the knowledge that they can find something else. A person helping me grow cannabis at my farm explained that he quit a job at Federal Express. He worked hard, unloading and re-loading trucks getting paid $17/hour. He worked alone, from 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. and didn't mind the hours or solitude because he listened to music on earphones as he worked. A supervisor noticed the earphones and said he couldn't wear them. The employee said it made the job enjoyable and didn't hurt anything. The supervisor said no. The employee quit. He said the supervisor later called repeatedly offering higher pay. The employee said no. Working alone, without music, "the job sucked."

Entry level jobs in fast food are advertising $15/hour, and more. School bus and delivery jobs pay more, and employers are begging people to apply.  Manufacturing jobs have signs offering a sign-up bonus, health benefits, and $17 an hour.  

Approximately five percent of American employees are quitting their jobs because they refuse to be vaccinated. They are in the news, sometimes described as heroes of conscience, and sometimes as stubborn, selfish fools. Police officers and nurses who quit will eventually find work again if they want it. The number of people saying they are quitting to avoid vaccination is not surprising or exceptional amid the overall national "I quit" movement. About 3% of all U.S. employees quit their jobs in September. I suspect many people who say they are quitting because of a COVID vaccination were half way out the door anyway, restless, and ready for a break. Nurses and police have been working extra hours under stressful conditions and get burned out. 

There is something else going on. It is an impression I have drawn from my own experience. Going to work is a habit, and when the habit is broken people who have the opportunity to drop out of the labor force sometimes do it. At age 63 I took a different kind of vacation, a full month off to visit the Amazon. It changed me in a way that long weekends and a one-week vacations did not. I lost the habit of being in a routine. I got into a new habit of reading at leisure. I liked it. I still loved my work, but putting on a suit and being engaged in markets and money seemed like a choice, not an inevitability. I got a taste of retirement and liked it. 

The shutdown in the spring of 2020 broke habits. Five million people left the workforce. They lost the nine-to-five routine of going to a job site. Maybe they discovered they liked spending days at home. Maybe they liked early retirement. Maybe they just wanted something new and on their own, where they don't show up as "employees" on someone else's books.

This isn't new. Artists understood it before labor economists did. Dolly Parton sang about it in 1980:

Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living
Barely getting by, it's all taking and no giving
They just use your mind, and they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it

Going to the office is a grind. But when routine is upset, one sees there is the alternative, out of the regular 9 to 5 workforce, turning a side-hustle into a new, better life:

Working 5 to 9, you've got passion and a vision
'Cause it's hustlin' time, a whole new way to make a livin'
Gonna change your life, do somethin' that gives it meanin'

Well you got dreams and you know they matter
Be your own boss, climb your own ladder
That moment's getting closer by the day

And you're in the same boat with a lotta your friends
Launching ideas you all believe in
The tide's gonna turn, and it's all gonna roll your way