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Posted by: guest78
« on: September 04, 2022, 01:56:24 pm »

How 'Quiet Quitting' Became The Next Phase Of The Great Resignation
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"Quiet quitting" is having a moment. The trend of employees choosing to not go above and beyond their jobs in ways that include refusing to answer emails during evenings or weekends, or skipping extra assignments that fall outside their core duties, is catching on, especially among Gen Zers.

Zaid Khan, 24, an engineer from New York, popularized this trend with his viral Tiktok video in July.

"You are still performing your duties, but you are no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentally that work has to be our life," Khan says in his video. "The reality is, it's not, and your worth as a person is not defined by your labor."

In the U.S., quiet quitting could also be a backlash to so-called hustle culture — the 24/7 startup grind popularized by figures like Gary Vaynerchuk and others.

"Quiet quitting is an antidote to hustle culture," said Nadia De Ala, founder of Real You Leadership, who "quietly quit" her job about five years ago. "It is almost direct resistance and disruption of hustle culture. And I think it's exciting that more people are doing it."

Last year, the Great Resignation dominated the economic news cycle. Now, during the second half of 2022, it's the quiet quitting trend that's gaining momentum at a time when the rate of U.S. productivity is raising some concern. Data on U.S. worker productivity posted its biggest annual drop in the second quarter.

So, why is this trend on the rise? Watch the video above to learn whether quiet quitting is hurting the U.S. economy and how it's being seen as part of the Great Resignation narrative.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVLiRWD3gAM
Posted by: guest78
« on: June 24, 2022, 11:49:42 am »

Even your boss wants to quit
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The Great Resignation is seeping into the corner office, with 70% of C-level executives telling Deloitte pollsters that they seriously might resign for a job that better supports their well-being.

Why it matters: If the boss who sets the rules is feeling burned out, it's no surprise that many of the rank and file are also restive.

    57% of employees in the Deloitte survey said they were fed up enough to quit too.

Driving the news: A report released today by Deloitte and market research firm Workplace Intelligence found that C-suite executives feel as frazzled and depressed as the workers who report to them. In a poll conducted in February...

    76% of higher-ups said the pandemic has negatively affected their overall health.
    81% said improving their own equilibrium is more important than advancing their career right now.

Some execs are pushing for changes. 83% said they'll expand their company's well-being benefits over the next 1-2 years, while 77% said companies should be required to publicly report "workforce well-being metrics."

Asked if they'd taken any steps to help staffers mellow out, 20% of C-suiters said they'd banned after-hours emailing, and 35% said they make employees take breaks during the day.

    35% send notes coaxing employees to take time off and disconnect — and 29% say they're trying to set an example by doing this themselves.

Yes, but: There's a big disconnect between how the higher-ups perceive their efforts and what workers say.

    84% of C-suite execs said they thought their workers were thriving from a mental health perspective — but only 59% of employees rated their own mental health as "excellent" or "good."
    91% of the honchos said they saw themselves as caring leaders — but just 56% of workers thought their bosses cared about their well-being.

"What we found was that the majority [of C-suite executives] want to do something about it, but they just haven't done something about it," Dan Schawbel, the founder of Workplace Intelligence, told Axios. "So it's been more talk and less action."

    The answer isn't just to tack on more mental health benefits but to reassess everything about how the workplace operates — including child care and remote work options, Schawbel said.

Between the lines: The Deloitte findings ring true to executive recruiters. "What we see is that people are resigning to try to find a better place, a better work-life balance, a better culture," Shawn Cole, founder of Cowen Partners, tells Axios. "That's the 'great reshuffle,' as we see it."

    Women executives have been hit particularly hard with job overload during the pandemic, and a disproportionate number are job-hunting — or stepping aside.
    A recent LinkedIn survey found that mid-level managers and directors want a four-day workweek even more than their reports.

But the "C-suite is an island" where corporate wellness policies — like unplugging and ignoring email — don't necessarily apply, Cole said.

    "To some extent, that's what they're paid for," he noted.
    "They really need to set boundaries for themselves" to stay happy and focused, Cole said.
    Finding a new job isn't always the answer: "The grass is not greener," particularly for a CEO.

What's next: C-suite burnout could potentially translate to more enlightened workplace benefits and policies — or not, as an economic downturn puts more focus on the bottom line.

Methodology: The Deloitte survey, conducted by email from Feb. 8-21, involved 1,050 C-suite executives in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia and an equal number of staff employees. Respondents were "provided with a small monetary incentive" for participating.
https://www.axios.com/2022/06/22/ceo-csuite-burnout-pandemic-great-resignation?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Posted by: Zea_mays
« on: March 14, 2022, 01:32:43 am »

More solidarity:

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Americans quit their jobs this summer at rate never seen before. Gen Z led the charge. The children of Occupy Wall Street — footsoldiers of the Third Force — went full Johnny Paycheck on their crappy minimum-wage employment.

“This is a fight response,” a career coach told The New York Times. When people are triggered, they go reptilian: fight or flight. And flight’s not an option when you’re cornered. Across a scorched-earth economic landscape employees looked their bosses in the eye, and their bosses blinked. Because the power dynamic was reversed and everyone knew it. For once it was the workers who had the leverage.
[...]
The way people were quitting — trumpeting their departures on social media — should have been a clue that this wasn’t about laziness. It’s the opposite of lazy to quit out loud. That is fury talking. It’s a statement that this is not about me.
[...]
The Mandarin word for it is “tang ping” — literally “lying flat.” Young Chinese, beaten down by an authoritarian system and yearning to live a more relaxed life, spread themselves against the earth like a measuring tape, becoming “the metric of all things,” as one protester put it in a social media post that was quickly deleted by the state. Clearly, the pushback against degrading overwork is not just a Western thing. Rather, it’s a sign, as one tang ping enthusiast put it, of a “global unraveling.”
Note: these anti-consumerist countercultures are fundamentally anti-Western, regardless of where they are taking place globally. Which civilization invented the commercial and industrial system that now exists in China? Which civilization is being rebelled against by both the Antiwork and Lying Flat countercultures? Hint: Western civilization.

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“I opt out.” Those are powerful words. Consider the mighty, status-quo-toppling impact of this passive gesture if everybody did it. The new activists have found magic in inverting the old mantra of the capitalist hustle.

Don’t just do something: stand there.

To do nothing, even for a short while, is an active rebuke of the creation of capitalist value.
[...]
And this has been the one upside of the otherwise grim blight on the world that is this pandemic: the disruption gave everyone time to reflect on their workaday routine. And a lot of people came to the same conclusion: Why the **** should I take the prime of my life and simply hand it over?
[...]
To be crystal clear here, this is not about not wanting to work. We humans are working dogs. We prefer to work than not to work, studies show.
[...]
And the average employee comes to understand: You do not own me, day and night. I give my service to you, on my terms.

So celebrate this moment of opportunity born of crisis. Maybe these are the first growing-pain heaves along the road to what a new definition of a successful life actually looks like.
https://www.adbusters.org/article/gen-z-will-you-whack-capitalism-into-a-new-orbit

Opting out of Western civilization isn't enough. To end it, you need to get to work for something to counter it.
Posted by: Zea_mays
« on: March 14, 2022, 12:54:53 am »

The question is, will this trend lead to permanent lifestyle changes after the pandemic is over?
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Focus on money lessened throughout the COVID-19 pandemic

A series of three studies examined the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on materialism, finding an overall decrease in the importance people place on money. This research was published in the journal Psychology & Marketing.

Materialism refers to “beliefs that link wealth and consumption with personal achievement and happiness.” Various studies have found negative associations between materialism and well-being. Higher media consumption enhances the advocacy of materialistic values. As well, in consumer-oriented societies, reminders about one’s mortality enhance materialism. Lockdown restrictions throughout the COVID-19 pandemic increased media consumption by up to 27%. News stories shared narratives about illness, death, and survival, increasing reminders of mortality. Thus, it could be possible that the societal and behavioral changes that emerged with the pandemic enhanced materialistic values.
https://www.psypost.org/2022/03/focus-on-money-lessened-throughout-the-covid-19-pandemic-62711

Regarding that last point, I've seen studies claiming that in non-consumerist societies throughout history, reminders of mortality and low materialist desire is correlated with religiosity.
Posted by: guest55
« on: March 13, 2022, 10:00:57 pm »

A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: ‘I Just Feel Lost’
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The number of men enrolled at two- and four-year colleges has fallen behind women by record levels, in a widening education gap across the U.S.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-university-fall-higher-education-men-women-enrollment-admissions-back-to-school-11630948233?st=8il0uebem3xdam8&mod=ffoct22
Posted by: guest55
« on: March 13, 2022, 08:22:58 pm »

The Age of the Influencer Has Peaked. It’s Time For the Slacker to Rise Again
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There are signs that our individualist culture of achievement and brand alignment has jumped the shark.

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Nirvana, patron saints of nineties slacker-dom.  Photo by Getty Images/Mark and Colleen Haywar
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It’s hard to remember a time when scrolling through Instagram was anything but a thoroughly exhausting experience.

Where once the social network was basically lunch and sunsets,
it’s now a parade of strategically-crafted life updates, career achievements, and public vows to spend less time online (usually made by people who earn money from social media)—all framed with the carefully selected language of a press release. Everyone is striving, so very hard.

And great for them, I guess. But sometimes one might pine for a less aspirational time, when the cool kids were smoking weed, eating junk food, and… you know, just chillin’.

Back in the 1990s, our heroes were slackers: the dudes and the clerks, the stick-it-to-the-man, stay-true-to-yourself burnouts we saw in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Slacker, and Reality Bites. In the latter, Winona Ryder’s character, Leilana, chooses the disillusioned musician (Ethan Hawke) over the TV exec (Ben Stiller), and it’s presented as an excellent choice. Nobody cool was trying to monetize their lifestyle back then, or rake in the brand endorsements. Selling out (remember that?) was whack.

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The cast of ‘Reality Bites,’ a celebration of slacker-dom.  Photo by Universal Pictures
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But somewhere in the early 2000s, the slacker of popular culture lost ground to the striver. I am not immune to this thoroughly aspirational mindset, and you probably aren’t either. Whether we have side hustles, personal brands, gig economy jobs, or entrepreneurial leanings (I’ve had all four), to survive in the modern economy is to aspire to something much greater than what we are.
9/11 ended the counter-culture, as it was intended to.
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The internet influencer is the apotheosis of all this striving, this modern set of values taken to its grotesque extreme: Nothing is sacred, art has been replaced by “content,” and everything is for sale. This is true even when the message is swathed in the language of counter-culture: Eco-conscious influencers see no issue in flying long-haul on free trips from brands. Yoga gurus who traffic in anti-consumerist spirituality promote tea brands owned by Unilever.
The devil\Yahweh is a much better "influencer" than any clown on social media could ever hope to be. This is why most 'influencers' are influenced fools themselves, and make choices they would never even have come up with by themselves. If they ever truly took the time to know themselves of course.... 
Perhaps a better title for this article would have been: The Age of the Westerner Has Peaked. It's Time For the Slacker to Rise Again ?
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But as anyone who has lived a few decades knows, youth culture swings like a pendulum. The buttoned-up post-World War II period gave way to the countercultural Free Love generation (arguably the original slackers, as they were the first to have middle class comfort to rebel against). Similarly, the 1980s excess of Gordon Gecko’s Wall Street set the stage for the slackers amid the economic recession of the 1990s, with their flannel shirts, skater culture, Beastie Boys and Nirvana records.

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Skater culture doesn’t strive.  Photo by Reuters/Lucy Nicholson
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Of course, it’s reductive to lump the experience of the billions of people living through those ages into one mostly American cultural trope. But there’s always something to glean from the dominant youth culture of an era. What was cool—what the kids were into—tells us something fundamental about what we valued. And seen through that lens, there’s a marked difference between today’s striving and the slacking of the 1990s.

And, in a modern aspirational marketplace so saturated that fake influencers are now posting advertising-like content that nobody even paid them for, there are signs that our individualist culture of achievement and brand alignment has jumped the shark. If the cycle of history is any guide, once our culture of striving flames out, it may well be time for the slacker to rise again.
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The Neoliberal Self


For the internet influencer, everything from their morning sun salutation to their coffee enema (really) is a potential money-making opportunity. Forget paying your dues, or working your way up—in fact, forget jobs. Work is life, and getting paid to live your best life is the ultimate aspiration.

This existence is perfectly aligned with what Will Storr, in his 2017 book Selfie: How the West became self-obsessed, described as the defining person of our age, the neoliberal self: “an extroverted, slim, beautiful, individualistic, optimistic, hard-working, socially aware yet high-self-esteeming global citizen with entrepreneurial guile and a selfie camera.” And while the generation most associated with this archetype—millennials—gets flack for their entitlement and unwillingness to work toward a typical middle class life, there are plenty of reasons millennials have so thoroughly embraced and innovated upon this neoliberal ideal.

“You can see why that happens in terms of the shrinking of middle class industries and the economy,” says Laurence Scott, author of Picnic Comma Lightning: In Search of a New Reality, an exploration of the nature of reality in the digital age, and a lecturer at NYU’s London campus. “Neoliberalism has hollowed out so many ways of [making a] stable income that it’s not surprising that the influencer economy has risen up in this really precarious economic climate for millennials.”

That neoliberal sensibility—emphasizing the importance of markets above the intervention of the state, and typified by the attitude that the tide of growth and globalization will lift all boats—has also given rise to the thoroughly modern affliction that we now call “millennial burnout.” A coinage by Anne Helen Petersen in her memorable piece for BuzzFeed, the idea is that all this self-optimization in the digital age is taking a toll, and leaving us with multiple afflictions, including “errand paralysis.”

Petersen argues that we’re obsessed with self-optimization because—post-financial crisis, saddled with student debt, with little hope of a pension—we simply have to be: “We couldn’t just show up with a diploma and expect to get and keep a job that would allow us to retire at 55. In a marked shift from the generations before, millennials needed to optimize ourselves to be the very best workers possible.”

The result is an economy where it’s more possible than ever to be your own boss, and a lot less possible to buy your own home. And one where it’s literally unimaginable that we’ll ever be able to stop working—at the end of the workday, or in the later years of our lives.

It’s enough to make you want to throw up your hands and admit defeat, if only for a moment of respite. And it’s easy to see how this exhaustion could precipitate the next cycle of slackerdom.

Scott first raised that idea in an interview on Russell Brand’s podcast. “The generation after [this one] may just look and think, ‘I cant believe there was that kind of economy and that’s how people were presenting themselves,'” he said. “There may be a slight distaste to it and reemergence of a slacker 1990s pendulum swing, rather than this quite needy attention-seeking.”
Entire article: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-age-of-the-influencer-has-peaked-it-s-time-for-the-slacker-to-rise-again?utm_source=pocket-newtab

I already feel this way. I believe the current culture is extremely sick and all "influencers" really do is spread the sickness around, at the cost of their own spirit obviously.

25 Years After Kurt Cobain: Where Is the Counterculture?
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What happens to the art isn't important. What's important is that it was being made. I remember that raw feeling of someone standing up for what they believe, and not caring what anyone thinks. I haven't felt that feeling in a while.
Quote
In 1991, Kurt Cobain was the definition of cool.

The Billboard charts that year were overrun by mainstream hits by Paula Abdul, Vanilla Ice, and Boyz II Men. Music was about looking good. And lip singing.

And then in September of 1991, Kurt Cobain and Nirvana came out with Nevermind, and it felt like the biggest **** you to mainstream culture.

I remember Kurt wearing a "Corporate Magazines Still Suck" t-shirt on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. And I remember thinking of all the other celebrities on the magazine that year, and how they must of worked so hard to project an image of "looking good."

I remember the band open-mouth kissing during the SNL credits just to "**** off the redneck homophobes" and how it probably did.

I remember that raw feeling of someone standing up for what they believe and not caring what anyone thinks.

I haven't felt that feeling in a while.
Entire article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/25-years-after-kurt-cobain_b_9619740

How I too long for days were people stop caring what everyone else thinks of them....

Posted by: guest55
« on: February 04, 2022, 01:42:38 pm »

Secretary Of Labor Reacts To Shocking Jobs Report
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United States Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh joined Chris Jansing to discuss the White House’ response to January’s surprising jobs number that showed 467,000 jobs were added, and how these positive results will impact the government’s strategy for tackling lingering inflation and supply chain issues. “This is a good report, it’s another sign of positive gain, but it’s saying that there’s a ‘but’,” says Walsh. “We still have a lot of work to do … the president has a plan to work and ease inflation across the country.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xtoiN3u58Y

How does adding jobs help the economy if no one wants to work the jobs you added? This is how ridiculous Western economics are. It's just all about numbers to these people....
Posted by: Zea_mays
« on: January 25, 2022, 01:20:41 am »

Why don't people want to work at terrible chain businesses? Because it's not worth being murdered by irate customers for minimum wage.

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Argument over BBQ sauce leads to teenage Wendy's employee being shot in head
https://cbsaustin.com/amp/news/nation-world/argument-over-bbq-sauce-leads-to-teenage-wendys-employee-being-shot-in-head-restaurant-shooting-investigation-police-phoenix-suspect-violence-handgun

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Police: McDonald's employee shot in argument over discount over french fries
https://krcgtv.com/news/local/police-mcdonalds-employee-shot-in-argument-over-discount


(See also, all the articles about employees being murdered for telling sub-humans to wear masks, etc.)
Posted by: guest55
« on: January 19, 2022, 07:30:44 pm »

Quote
Bungie, Sony, Obsidian & WB Devs Boycott! Rockstar REJECTS Red Dead Hope & EA Slams BF2042 Criticism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWJlJybTKFg

This type of stuff seems to be happening across the entire video-gaming industry at this moment:
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Battlefield 2042 Is So Deserted & Busted Even Cheat Makers & Sellers Are Abandoning The Game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3a_JIr1Awc

Video-gamers also seem to be the biggest part of the anti-NFT and CryptoLand demographic, which is interesting in itself....

Star Wars Battlefront 2 Is So Broken Players Can't Kill Each Other, EA & Dice Respond Months Later
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JghnxRfywe0
Posted by: guest55
« on: January 19, 2022, 12:08:05 am »

These Western corporations sure do have a lot of chutzpah!
Posted by: Zea_mays
« on: January 18, 2022, 12:56:02 am »

The reward for the essential workers who businesses call "heroes"? Homelessness.

Posted by: guest55
« on: January 18, 2022, 12:12:19 am »

Where are all the workers?
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Where have all the workers gone? It's a question that politicians, business owners, and economists are all asking. CNN Business’ Jon Sarlin dives into just what's behind the unprecedented labor market.
#CNN #News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phYWYtH4N60
Posted by: guest55
« on: January 11, 2022, 08:04:21 pm »

Japanese man who rents himself out to 'do nothing' for a living says he will 'reply to chitchat, but that's it'
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Shoji Morimoto works as a so-called "Do Nothing Rent-a-Man."
People hire the 38-year-old to join them in activities like eating, shopping, and going for walks.
"I don't make any special effort," he told CBS News, adding, "I reply to chitchat, but that's it."
https://www.businessinsider.co.za/japanese-man-shoji-morimoto-do-nothing-rent-a-man-chitchat-2022-1

And he comes with a mask attached:  ;)


So, uhhhmmm, I was reading in your resume that you don't actually do anything, is this correct?

Yes! This is correct!

You're hired!!! :D

Posted by: Zea_mays
« on: January 11, 2022, 11:53:53 am »

Another Wall Street article linking Lying Flat and Antiwork.

Will China embrace this and win the culture war? The US Antiwork "movement" doesn't have any big picture goals besides "have tolerable work conditions", whereas the Lying Flat movement is an entire worldview which is anti-consumerist.

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‘Lying Flat,’ ‘Antiwork’ And The ‘Great Resignation’ Spreads Worldwide As Young People Protest Against System

There’s a growing worldwide movement led by young people. Weighed down with overwhelming college debt, unable to find decent paying jobs (leading to the inability to purchase homes), stuck in low paying jobs with no future and being forced into the gig economy made Gen-Zs and Millennials feel misled and betrayed by their elders.

They were told if they went to school, followed all the rules, they’d live the American Dream—a nice large home in the suburbs with a white picket fence, or a cool New York City apartment, couple of kids, pets, fancy vacations and luxury automobiles. For many, this dream never materialized.
[...]
In the Great Resignation trend, roughly 40% of the jobs that people quit were in the restaurant, hotel, travel, bars, warehouses, manufacturing and healthcare sectors. These folks contend with long, constantly changing hours, rude customer behaviors, low wages and high stress. 
[...]
The younger generation may be the first group in modern history that won't do better financially than their parents. With tens or hundreds of thousands in student-loan debt, young adults find it almost impossible to purchase a home, get married and start a family. The debt burden, along with rising home prices and inflation, doesn’t leave them with sufficient funds to afford the lifestyle that Baby Boomers took for granted.

This is happening in China too. Multibillionaire Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, championed the work culture known as "996." This number refers to Ma’s belief that everyone in his company should happily work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. It's equivalent to America’s “hustle- ****,” rise-and-grind culture that resonated in the pre-pandemic time period.
[...]
President Xi Jinping is not too pleased with this trend, stating, “It is necessary to prevent the stagnation of the social class, unblock the channels for upward social mobility, create opportunities for more people to become rich, and form an environment for improvement in which everyone participates, avoiding involution and lying flat.” He is concerned that the lying flat is in direct conflict with the “Chinese Dream” or a “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/12/30/lying-flat-antiwork-and-the-great-resignation-spreads-worldwide-as-young-people-protest-against-system/

Only a traditionalist would reject an idealistic counterculture movement with the energy and promise for a real "national rejuvenation"...
Posted by: guest55
« on: December 26, 2021, 08:38:43 pm »

Ubisoft Devs Are Quitting At Such An Alarming Rate That Workers Call It "The Great Exodus"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL6zjPSix8I