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Just like work is necessary and never ending, so are the memes and the sources of them online. You can say that it’s a certain kind of symbiotic ecosystem where one both empowers and leeches from the other and vice versa.

This time around, the memes are coming from @work_problems_, an Instagram page that is very appropriately dedicated to work memes with a following of nearly 11,000 people.

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Image credits: work_problems_

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Image credits: work_problems_

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Image credits: tylerhmead

The page popped up back in 2018 and has since then posted nearly 900 memes in image and video form.

Like its peers, the main overlying theme is humor and anti-work, but you will see glimpses of pain, wholesomeness and flat out savage stuff on there too.

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Image credits: SimpleJackCap

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Image credits: work_problems_

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Image credits: work_problems_

While it’s hard to pinpoint particular reasons as to why folks these days really, really, really hate work, reasoned deductions and speculations have been thrown out there on a number of occasions. Some of them are plain obvious, while other reasons do leave food for thought.

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Image credits: work_problems_

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Image credits: work_problems_

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Image credits: zigzagzulu

Back in 2017, Gallup concluded that of one bullion full time workers worldwide, only 15% of them were engaged at work. The metric is a bit better in the US with engagement reaching 30%, but in either case, 70% to 85% of them are not really all that much committed to the work they do.

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Image credits: PsychicxGoddess

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Image credits: work_problems_

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Image credits: work_problems_

Many folks just want a good job, but a lot of employers fail to deliver one. And millennials are getting one of the shortest straws out there.

Most of them come to work hyped up and ready to work only to have their souls crushed by old management practices and toxic work cultures.

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Image credits: __bhb__

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Image credits: work_problems_

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Image credits: itslaurentbtw

Gallup suggested that it’s time for organizations to start moving away from command and control management to coaches who’d focus on fostering performance.

This would mean getting rid of wasteful practices and, in turn, would satisfy an expectation most millennials have for jobs—opportunities for development.

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Image credits: work_problems_

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Image credits: work_problems_

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Image credits: feliciapaigexo

This is not to say that it’s necessarily personal development, but just progress in general. Progress for everyone and everything.

But the idea that employees don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses isn’t the only underlying problem. And no, it’s not just the jobs themselves—it can also be the employees that are the problem.

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Image credits: doctuh_p

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Image credits: work_problems_

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Image credits: work_problems_

Others suggest that, at least among millennials, some of the most common reasons why they hate their jobs include unrealistically high expectations for what their daily work lives might look like, impatience and frustration that career development doesn’t happen faster, and social media creating a distorted reality leading people into comparison rabbit holes.

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Image credits: work_problems_

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Image credits: work_problems_

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Image credits: Raynepotch

It’s not to say that employers aren’t at fault either—they do fail to provide new opportunities and compelling reasons for folks to stick around, but employees and employers ultimately have to work together for progress to happen at all.

And if you’re an employee, you can start with yourself.

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Image credits: work_problems_

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Image credits: TheHyyyype

The cliff notes of that would be losing the I hate my job mentality, lowering your expectations while increasing your standards, weighing your options, being patient, and, above all else, being kind to yourself. Only then can you start looking for opportunities that actually fit you and not make you compromise too much.