Worst Decade Ever

[oliverson]

Looking back over my life of some 50+ years, I've seen both good times and bad times. Then I considered that the current decade has to be possibly the worst I can remember, and it's not even half-way through. Started off with Covid, then Brexit, then the destruction of contracting due to IR35 reforms in the private sector, and OMG then there's the rest. But what about the last decade? Financial crisis and austerity. What about the 80's and the miners strikes, power cuts, mass unemployment?

What do you consider the worst decade in your lifetime and why?

[dsc]

Looking back over my life of some 50+ years, I've seen both good times and bad times. Then I considered that the current decade has to be possibly the worst I can remember, and it's not even half-way through. Started off with Covid, then Brexit, then the destruction of contracting due to IR35 reforms in the private sector, and OMG then there's the rest. But what about the last decade? Financial crisis and austerity. What about the 80's and the miners strikes, power cuts, mass unemployment?

What do you consider the worst decade in your lifetime and why?

You could always be in Ukraine now and having a war on your hands...so perhaps it's not that bad? or perhaps the last 10-20yrs were exceptionally good, with uber low interest rates for the last however many years and uber high contract rates and now it's just...different?

I'm too young to remember any of the 80s, besides I wasn't born in the UK, so we had different issues on our hands, like trying to feck off from under the communist regime. Currently in the UK it's all going downhill to when I arrived around 2010, back then it was very much "the West", now it's all run down, tired, with no work and mediocre wages, coupled with the post Brexit issues and post Covid issues, but as I was lucky enough to be in contract all the time, I can't really say it's the worst decade (I'm sure it is for a lot of people though).

[Fraidycat]

What do you consider the worst decade in your lifetime and why?

Early 90s (1990 to 1994), although not a full decade were the worst. My sister got her house repoed went into negative equity and the bank chased her for decades for the shortfall.

We have not had such wide scale repossessions since. Instead a massive bull run in housing that has lasted 30 years, with only a relatively short downturn in 2008.

[sreed]

One for general?

[escapeUK]

If you thought that so far, wait till WW3 kicks off, and another market crash like 1929. You ain't seen nothing yet!

[northernladuk]

One for general?

Correct but I believe the double whammy of the functionality still being fubar'd and the chance of a mod putting down their can of special brew to do it isn't great either.

[malvolio]

That would be the 70s. Lots if good things personally but a decade of poor government on both sides and life dominated ( and generally f***ed up) by the unions, all under the cloud of the Cold War. If you weren't there you have no idea

[sreed]

2010-20 for me. Nothing spectacular just the drip-drip-drip feeling of everything slowly going to tulip. Like DSC said, it was just the all pervasive sense of decline in all spheres of life, disproportionately magnified by the explosion in use of social media.

2020 onwards - Covid was bad, but the explosion in remote/hybrid/flexible working and the rise of ChatGPT has been transformational for me as a generalist and a parent. I can live pretty much where I want in the country (power over housing costs) and still have decent access to the kind of jobs and pay I want, I can do a whole lot more reporting-wise than I could pre-copilot. All this while being able to drop my kids to school a few days a week.

[northernladuk]

2000-2010 for me personally. Travelling everywhere and anywhere for work was great when I was in my 20's early 30's but after coming out of a relationship halfway down the country left me homeless. Didn't want to go back to home town as there were no jobs and didn't have a base/friends anywhere so had a very lonely decade. Making new friends and a new life in a strange city you don't even work in is extremely difficult. It's OK saying you've got the freedom to go anywhere but sometimes too much choice with little benefit is harder than a tough choice between two things you want to do.

Never really been too bothered about the politics/state of the country etc. Just got on with it. If I had to pick a time I start worry about the country and other stuff around me I'd probably say it's 2020 onwards. You can pick on all the miners strikes etc and every thing that's happened from the 70's onwards but you could still go to big nightclubs, with a group of friends you spoke to face to face who would turn up when they said because there was no phones etc. Happy days.

[ladymuck]

The current decade definitely got off to a rough start. Gran died. Covid. Dad died. Other Gran died. Brother had to have heart surgery. Mum developed Alzheimer's.