We Are the 85%!

Remember the “we are the 99%!” mantra of the Occupy movement? Maybe we should borrow (okay, scav) this.

85% hate our jobs according to a 2022 Gallup poll. This is an increase on the 80% I reported in my book, Escape Everything!, in 2016.

At the time, many people found my figure ridiculous. It wasn’t. It was found in research. And now similar research suggests the figure has increased.

Another way of putting it is that only 15% of people actually like their jobs. These will be people working (and doing well enough to survive or already independently wealthy) in the arts, people who make a genuine difference in direct social services, evil people at the top of the tree who do whatever the like, and (I would say) idiots in denial.

Anyway, I don’t have a job (so I’m in the 5% or something) but Escapologists who still work against their will could start saying:

“WE ARE THE 85%”

Put it on your protest signs. Wear it on a badge. Print it on the coffee cup you drink from in the office.

When people ask what it means, tell them.

Tell them about our magazine is you like. But mainly tell them what it means to be in the 85%. That you go to work not because you love it but because you have to.

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Issue 16. Shipping tomorrow.