Stand-up comic explains that all employees work for money, sparking debate

Many people are shocked when someone says they just go to work to earn money and fulfill their basic needs. We are expected to love our jobs and not treat them as means of survival. For this reason, people were surprised when TikToker Ginny Hogan—who goes by @ginnyhogan on TikTok— said that she goes to her job because she has to and for no other reason. In the viral video, we see Ginny wearing headphones and walking down the street.

She says "that literally the craziest thing any boss ever does is assume that their employees are working for them for any reason other than money." Hogan is a standup comic and satire writer who writes for various publications such as the New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Cut, the New York Times, Cosmopolitan and McSweeney’s and her work is available on Amazon as well. She also has a newsletter, podcast and three books to her credit. The video has over 1.1 million views and is captioned the video, “Truly psychotic."

People on the video-sharing platform related to Hogan's point of view about capitalism. @sunsetter wrote, "That’s why I hate the question 'Why do you want to work for us.' The answer is 'to exchange my labor for money to live.'" @kissez61 shared, "My boss was shaking when I said I wouldn't volunteer my free time to 'help' the company out."

@strawberrynat commented, "'Why do you want this job?' I have bills to pay and a cat to feed." @paigerivera said, "They had a meeting where they said 'you don’t work this job for the money. You do it for the memories' Uhm no."

It is true that many people go to work to earn a living and while, many people do enjoy what they do, many jobs are a yet a way to earn a living. In another story, an employee claims to have found the "laziest way to get promoted and double your salary." TikTok user Avni—who goes by @yourtechgirly on TikTok—uploaded a video on June 19, sharing how one can double their salary.

In just two days the video has gained more than 300k views. "I was probably one of the literal worst employees of all time. I still got a $40,000 pay bump because I did this one thing right," she says in the video.

Avni continues, "I would document literally everything." She explains that she kept a list of any project she did at work and all the links to important work and even screenshots of Slack messages that took more than 5 minutes to write. It helped her discuss with her company how she had contributed to the growth and thereby, why she deserved a promotion.

She points out that this method is quite effective since the people who promote us are often not the ones who see our work daily. Therefore, having a record of our contributions helps. She concludes, "I promise you, you're literally going to double your pay by the end of the year with this strategy." We must realize that we do jobs to earn a living and we must also keep looking for innovative ways to get the best out of our jobs.