American workers are not all right.

While news about "quiet quitters" spread like wildfire in 2022, things have actually gotten worse in America's workplaces since that viral trend lost steam. Engagement at work has hit an 11-year low, Gallup's long-running survey of US employees found — in February only 30% of US workers reported being fully engaged with their jobs. Plenty of ink has been spilled trying to understand the causes of this growing crisis. Is it remote work? Layoffs? An increasing lack of loyalty among employers?

One possibility that hasn't been as widely discussed is a fundamental problem with the work that people are being asked to do. For some people, their job can be a source of meaning and fulfillment, but for others, it's simply the thing that pays the bills. In a 2021 YouGov survey, only about half of Americans said they felt that their job made "a meaningful contribution to the world" — and the feeling was lowest among millennials and Gen Zers.

A 2021 survey by Pew Research looked at the question another way: It asked people from around the world what made their lives meaningful. In countries such as Italy, Spain, and Sweden, work ranked highly as a source of meaning. In Italy, work was the No. 1 source of meaning, with 43% saying they drew meaning from work. Spaniards ranked work higher than family. But in the US, only 17% mentioned work as a source of meaning. That was a sharp decline from when Pew asked the same question four years prior — a full one-third of Americans mentioned their jobs as a source of meaning in 2017, double the 2021 rate. Increasingly, it seems that more people feel like their jobs don't matter.

And when people feel like their jobs don't matter, they tend to feel unfulfilled by them. In the YouGov survey, 56% of people who said they found no meaning in their job also said they felt unfulfilled by it. By contrast, 88% of people who believed their job was meaningful said they felt fulfilled by it.

In other words, the work-engagement crisis might actually be a crisis of meaning.

---

Research has for decades found that job satisfaction and engagement track with whether someone can find meaning in their work. The American Psychological Association highlights findings that people who find their jobs meaningful are more engaged, show up to work more, and are healthier. A 2022 survey by Great Place To Work, a workplace-culture firm that measures employee well-being, found that staff retention and job satisfaction were higher at companies where employees felt their jobs had meaning. In particular, the survey found that millennials and women were three times as likely to stay at a job that they considered "more than just a job." Other research has found that employees, especially Gen Zers, are more likely to quit jobs they don't find meaningful.

Some jobs naturally lend themselves to a sense of meaning: In the YouGov survey, those who worked in healthcare, social assistance, or education were the most likely to say that their work was meaningful. In those fields, day-to-day tasks bear a significant impact on other people and the world at large. But other sectors struggle to instill in their staff that what they do all day matters: People in sales, media, communications, and real estate rated their jobs among the least meaningful.

Many in those industries have begun to refer to their work as "fake email jobs" — office jobs that largely involve sending emails without producing anything. One anonymous worker recently told the online news site Bustle about his "fake email job" as a video producer. "I've gone weeks doing nothing to see how far I could push it," he told the site. "The only reason I stopped is that I got bored, not because someone asked me to do something."

Working a useless job is a 'profound psychological violence,' Graeber wrote.

Other people have managed to juggle multiple full-time remote jobs thanks to the limited amount of work each job actually required. In some cases, people say the low effort required is a positive — who wouldn't want a steady paycheck with minimal work requirements? But others end up feeling frustrated and wish they could be doing something more productive.

The idea of meaningless work extends back much further than the fake-email-jobs meme. The academic David Graeber coined the term "bullshit jobs" in 2013 to describe jobs where, he wrote, "the person doing it believes it pointless, and if the job didn't exist it would either make no difference whatsoever or it would make the world a better place." In his 2018 book, Graeber outlined 21 occupational groups that he believed were useless based on surveys he conducted on how people felt about their jobs. The roles included positions in administrative support, sales, business and finance, and management. Working a useless job is a "profound psychological violence," Graeber wrote, one that removes any sense of dignity and fosters "deep rage and resentment."

Last year, Simon Walo, a postdoctoral student at the University of Zurich, looked deeper into Graeber's theory — did people who worked these "bullshit jobs" really feel worse about them than those in other occupations? He analyzed data from a 2015 American Working Conditions Survey and found that people working in certain positions did tend to feel worse about their jobs.

"Working in one of Graeber's occupations significantly increases the probability that workers perceive their job as socially useless (compared with all others)," Walo said.

But other researchers don't think that means those jobs are actually useless — the negative feelings stem more from a problem with the work environment than from the work itself, they argue. Brendan Burchell, a professor of social sciences at the University of Cambridge, coauthored a study in 2021 that critiqued Graeber's theory.

"We looked at that small number of people who felt that their job was useless, and we looked at what was causing it or what correlated," Burchell told me.

The study found that factors such as bad managers, how connected you are to coworkers, and whether your employer is providing a public good significantly influence whether your job feels meaningful. And Walo's study agreed: A poor work environment comes to bear on whether work feels useful.

---

Often, a lack of meaning on the job simply comes down to bad management. In Burchell's study, he and his coauthors compiled several years of survey results that focused on whether people felt they were doing useful work. They found that those who felt "respected and encouraged by management" were less likely to report their work as useless and that those who felt their jobs were useful said that they were able to contribute their own ideas at work. Other factors, like having enough time to get things done, being able to influence important decisions, and approving of the direction of the company also correlated with the feeling that a job was meaningful. On the flip side, people felt their jobs were useless when they didn't get the chance to use and develop their skills.

"People expressed the feeling that they were disrespected or not listened to by their manager," Burchell said. "We also found this response from people who are working under a lot of time pressure or in stressful jobs."

A UK biopharmaceutical worker who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his job oversees the safety of clinical trials at his company. His job is not meaningless — his work directly protects patients involved in clinical trials. However, there are many aspects of how the job is managed that cause him to feel that it's "pointless" and a "waste of time," he said.

"The company is out there to make money," he said, "and no matter what the people at the top of the pyramid say about patient safety, they are ultimately profit-driven."

Often, a lack of meaning on the job simply comes down to bad management.

Bureaucracy and paperwork eat up a large amount of his time, which he said often dilutes the meaning of his job or, on bad days, strips it away completely. Spending more time looking at data and less time looking at how his work is impacting patients takes away much of the meaning he wishes he could find in his job.

Clay Routledge, an existential psychologist and director at the Human Flourishing Lab, said that an employer's top priority should be making the work itself more meaningful for its staff, whatever their role or level. "A notable strategy for doing this is recognizing people's contribution to the company at every level. Managers should think about how their team members serve their customers or clients, and they can do that explicitly in job descriptions, company communications, and evaluations," he said.

When nothing changes, people start looking for the exits. A 2019 study found self-employed workers — who get to be more in control of their time and work — viewed their work as more useful to society than traditionally employed workers did. That could explain why more people are setting out on their own. From 2020 to 2023, the number of self-employed workers in the US rose by about 400,000. And Americans are filing 59% more applications to start businesses than before 2020.

"If you look at the paths people go down to pursue meaning, some of it relates to differences in personality: Some people are really career-ambitious, and their sense of self is very much tied to that," Routledge said. For others, their ambitions may lie elsewhere: creative endeavors, family, or community work, for instance. Working for yourself gives you more flexibility to pursue the things you actually find meaningful, Routledge said. It also allows you to ditch a toxic office environment.

Short of everyone quitting to become their own CEO, employers will need to figure out how to make work feel meaningful for their staff. As the Burchell study summarized, "If managers are respectful, supportive and listen to workers, and if workers have the opportunities for participation, to use their own ideas and have time to do a good job, they are less likely to feel that their work is useless." Without this kind of improvement, America seems doomed to a slow spiral of declining engagement.

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Molly Lipson is a freelance writer and an organizer from the UK.

• Warehouse work is physically taxing, with employees moving thousands of pounds per day.
• As Walmart automates distribution centers, new robots and forklifts are lightening the load.
• CFO John David Rainey says Walmart's labor-saving automation may add a decade to workers' careers.

Warehouse work is one of the most physically taxing jobs in the digital age.

That intensity has been well documented at Amazon, and now increasingly at Walmart as the world's largest retailer beefs up its e-commerce operation.

"So you take a distribution center today, one of our associates is walking up to 10 miles a day, lifting thousands of pounds, moving pallets and things like that," Walmart CFO John David Rainey said Tuesday at Bank of America's London Investor Conference.

And all that distance and weight really adds up over the course of a person's career, potentially forcing them to leave the workforce earlier than they might otherwise prefer.

Walmart typically employs about 1,000 workers at each of its 42 regional distribution centers, which are sprawling warehouses of up to 1.5 million square feet that support its 4,600 US stores.

Walmart is now adding automation to that fleet of facilities, and though some workers may worry about losing their jobs to machines, Rainey says retrieval robots and forklifts are actually lightening the load in a meaningful way for workers.

"The feedback that we get from many of our associates is that we add as much as 10 years to their career because of the less manual-intensive nature of this work," he said.

Now, instead of a worker jogging a 5K before lunch, picking orders across 26 football fields worth of shelves, a robot can make the trip.

Not only that, the retrieval robots learn how to navigate the route more efficiently, saving time on the next loop, Rainey said.

Taken together, these automations are driving a fourfold increase in how much stuff a distribution center can process with the same number of workers, Rainey said previously.

Walmart's situation closely resembles that of Amazon, which has doubled the number of robots deployed in its fulfillment centers and warehouses in the last three years, including a humanoid robot named Digit.

Walmart's Rainey would likely agree with Amazon's director of global robotics, Stefano La Rovere, who told CNBC that "robots and technology help our employees … by reducing walking distance between assignments, by taking away repetitive motions, or helping them to lift heavy weights."

"That's something that we're very focused on," Rainey said, "doing this automation in a very associate-friendly way that becomes a complement to what they're doing and actually enhances their overall job experience."

If you are a Walmart employee who would like to share your perspective, please contact Dominick via email or text/call/Signal at 646.768.4750. Responses will be kept confidential, but Business Insider strongly recommends using a personal email and a non-work device when reaching out.

• I was on summer break at the same time as my son, and I loved spending time with him.
• But I was also a single mom on a budget, and had to get creative about what we did.
• I couldn't afford summer camp or fancy vacations, but we spent plenty of time outside.

As a single mom, a big reason I became a teacher was so that I would be on the same schedule as my son. He would be at school while I would be at work, and I would be on break when he was.

I wanted to spend as much time with my son as possible, but I was also on a budget. The cost of childcare or summer camps would have been an additional expense I wanted to avoid. After the monthly bills, I didn't have a lot of money left over for extracurriculars or expensive trips during our summer breaks.

I had always worked hard to find a way for my son not to miss out on what I thought he deserved, like healthy meals or quality clothing and shoes. I got good at making my budget work for us and learned how to get the best deals on the things we needed, even if that required me to get creative.

As my son was getting older, I decided to extend these financial principles to our summers and figure out how I could provide him with camp-like experiences and summer vacations without really having the money to do so.

I looked at what we could do with the things we had

First, I figured out what we could do with what we already had, like inviting friends over for playdates or going to their houses for the same. I began to find that simply changing our scenery was enough to make ordinary everyday activities feel new and exciting. So, I expanded on this idea and started packing our dinners for evening picnics in the park.

To this day, my son looks back fondly on spreading the blanket out over the grass and unpacking the basket with delight. The dinner we would have had anyway was elevated into an event that cost no money at all.

I looked for free activities around town

After making our home life more eventful, I started thinking of what we could do around town for free. I already used the library as a resource during holidays, such as taking advantage of their trick-or-treating on Halloween.

A youth librarian once told me that when the school doors close for summer, the library doors open, which is why they offer extensive summer programming. Through our local libraries, my son attended bicycle rodeos, cooking classes, and even a dog circus, all for free. Going home with a new stack of books on whatever subject he was interested in at the time was a nice bonus, too.

We spent a lot of time outside

We spent mornings at the beach together, found hiking trails in our own backyard, and spent a lot of time outside together. Spending a lot of time in nature provided us with numerous benefits: an appreciation for where we lived, an education on the importance of protecting wildlife and our environment, and a sense of having been on a real adventure. It was also lovely to come home and take a nap or cuddle up on the couch to watch a movie after we had spent the first half of the day outdoors.

For experiences like fishing, going out on a boat, or sitting around a campfire, I looked to our friends and family. I never had to look far to find someone who was willing to provide a fishing lesson, take us out on their boat, or invite us over to sit around the fire pit and discover the thrilling combination of a roasted marshmallow, melted chocolate, and crunchy graham crackers.

I took friends up on generous offers to give my son summer vacations

In order to travel a little farther, I looked again to our loved ones. My grandmother, who was a snowbird and spent her summers up north, often invited me to spend a night or two at her beachside apartment a short drive away from us, so I accepted her offer. Packing our bags, sleeping somewhere else, and waking up to just be lazy really felt like being on vacation.

I also had an aunt who often invited us to stay with her at her lakeside cabin in Vermont. That ended up being our first big trip, and the only expense I had was purchasing the plane tickets. My son got to fly on a plane, go canoeing on the lake, and camp out in a tent. Our family's invitations removed the expense of lodging, so all I had to do was accept and cover the cost of getting us there.

While I could have remained fixated on saving money or feeling left out of expensive vacations that I saw others enjoying, I focused instead on what I could give my son with what we had available. And instead of sending him off to camp and hearing about his summer when he returned, I got to experience all of it by his side, and that is what I feel most grateful for.

• Someone has put their ultra-polished Cybertruck up for sale for $150,000. 
• Polishing the futuristic pickup to achieve a mirror-like sheen has become a trend among owners.
• Experts previously told Business Insider that while it's not illegal, it might not be safe either.

If you are considering dropping nearly $100,000 on a Cybertruck but are worried it isn't quite shiny enough, you can now buy a pre-polished version.

Someone has listed one for sale on the used car site Concierge Motors for $149,999.

It's unclear who is selling the vehicle, which is nearly double the price of a regular all-wheel-drive Cybertruck and comes with 1,500 miles on the clock.

Polishing the Cybertruck's stainless steel surface to a mirror-like sheen has become something of a trend among owners of Tesla's famously brutalistic truck.

Cybertruck owner Tyson Garvin previously told Business Insider that polishing his truck made it less of a fingerprint magnet, with the Cybertruck's brushed steel exterior notorious for smudging easily.

Turning a 600-horsepower pickup truck into a moving mirror has raised obvious safety concerns, with some social media users suggesting that the modifications may make the Cybertruck effectively invisible in some situations.

Experts previously told BI that polishing your Cybertruck in this way is unlikely to be illegal.

However, they warned that it wasn't the safest thing to do either, with the ultra-reflective surface less likely to pose a risk than the strong chance that other drivers may be distracted by the highly unusual vehicle.

The polished Cybertruck seems to be the latest to come onto the resale market, eight months after Elon Musk oversaw the first deliveries of the much-delayed vehicle at a glitzy event in Texas.

A top-of-the-line foundation series Cybertruck sold for $244,000 in February, more than $130,000 over its initial sticker price. Tesla charges a $50,000 resale fee for owners of foundation series Cybertruck models who sell within a year.

Tesla has endured a difficult production ramp with the Cybertruck, with Elon Musk admitting the company had "dug its own grave" with the vehicle's unique design.

The company does appear to have scaled up production of the pickup, with Musk telling shareholders earlier this month that Tesla was now producing around 1,300 Cybertrucks a week.

• Jonathon Yarton is a real-estate agent who helps buyers and renters find spots in the Hamptons.
• He says the rental market is booming and he sees premium rentals go for up to $1 million a month.
• His favorite village is Sagaponack, and he recommends Southampton for access to NYC and retirees.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jonathan Yarton, a 27-year-old real-estate agent from Rochester, New York. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I've been a real-estate agent in New York City, Long Island, and the Hamptons for five years. I'm also on the second season of the HBO show "Selling the Hamptons," and I'm the founder of Finding Space, a weekly newsletter of the trends I'm seeing in real estate.

Six months into my career, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. I started helping people find rentals in the Hamptons as a way to leave the city. I'm also familiar with the Hamptons from visiting with friends.

Two camps of people go to the Hamptons. Some go to retreat and get away from the world, and the other group goes to be around all the people. Both are valid reasons, but you should be informed before you visit, rent, or buy.

The rental market is on fire right now

Inventory for buyers is pretty low in the Hamptons. We're seeing a lot of the market move over $5 million, and I'm seeing more cash deals for those properties.

This summer's rental market is hotter than it's been in the last few years. I've rented to clients who have paid $50,000 for a month and clients who have paid over $100,000 for a month. The ultra-premium market can cost $1 million a month.

On the lower end, you do see people renting for just weeks. Due to the 5% tax on rentals under 30 days, we see people renting longer just to avoid that.

Once the borders opened back up after the pandemic, a lot of people ran to Europe. Now, I'm seeing a renewed interest in the Hamptons, even from people not based in NYC, which has been cool. I've even gotten some calls from clients in the UK.

Reality TV is giving international exposure to the Hamptons lifestyle, making people more curious to visit, but certain areas are better for visitors than others.

Sagaponack is my favorite spot

Sagaponack is quiet, the houses are gorgeous, the lot sizes are the biggest, it's the most low-key, and there isn't everyday traffic like in Southampton or East Hampton. Jimmy Fallon has a house out there, which put it on my radar.

Some of America's most private people live in Sagaponack. It's the kind of place where, if you're driving by, you'll miss it. It's not super lively, which is great for celebrities.

Sagaponack is my No. 1 recommendation if you want to be away from the crowds and remain exclusive while having access to the beach and East Hampton.

East Hampton has a bit more to do

People really gravitate toward East Hampton. There's just a little more life there, with restaurants, designer stores, and things to do.

Sag Harbor has an old fisherman-architecture vibe and feels a little more like a small town, which I love. There's something very charming about that, especially in the Hamptons, which can feel a little commercial. Every time I'm in Sag Harbor, I feel the local energy. The average house price depends but can range from $2 million to $25 million.

Amagansett is nice, too, but it's a little far out. Many people are looking for access, and access from Amagansett is tough, especially when you get onto the main strip headed toward Montauk.

In 2024, you would expect cell service to be top-notch, but it's not what you think it is. You really have to stick at your house out there. Some people love that.

If you're looking to rent in Amagansett, you should rent at a resort, and if you're looking to buy, you should buy something with a lot of amenities since you're farther away from the main activities.

Southampton is the best for retirees

Southampton has the name power and the big restaurants. It also has communities with pools, and your lawn, landscaping, and house color are all taken care of. Keeping up with an estate is a lot of work. In these communities, life becomes the vacation that you always wanted it to be.

Southampton is also a good option to be closer to NYC. For celebrities looking to make it a little faster to the Hamptons, Southampton is where they go; if they're looking for more activities but a little more off-the-beaten-path, East Hampton is where they end up.

These are the Hamptons hot spots for summer 2024

I always rave about this Mediterranean-inspired restaurant in East Hampton called Sí Sí. I love it. The food there is fresh, you get incredible sunsets, and then at night, it turns into a really fun party. It's absolutely one of the best places to be.

Then there's Gurney's in Montauk. It's well-known, and Sunday nights at Gurney's will always be popular. People like Surf Lodge in Montauk, too, but it's a hit or miss for me.

In Sag Harbor, the place to be is Le Bibloquet. People just eat that restaurant up. It's a staple out there.

Topping Rose in Bridgehampton is very nice for something a little more low-key. There's also this restaurant called Almond, with LGBTQ+ owners. As a gay man, when I was looking for a community out east, I found it at Almond, which was a very happy surprise.

Did you rent a house in the Hamptons this summer and want to share your story? Email Lauryn Haas at lhaas@businessinsider.com.

• Bernard Arnault's last visit to China drew large crowds and received social media coverage.
• LVMH, led by Arnault, has grown significantly in China since entering the market in 1992.
• LVMH's sales in China have declined recently due to a shift towards domestic brands and economic malaise.

Chinese customers are such big fans of luxury brands like Louis Vuitton that they reacted strongly to Bernard Arnault visiting their country.

When the CEO of French fashion house LVMH visited Beijing and Shanghai with two of his adult children last year, large groups of people came out to see him. A few of them asked him to bless their babies, he told Bloomberg in an interview.

"It was a little strange for me," he said.

During the same trip, Chinese social media was filled with details about what he ordered at a Cantonese restaurant in Shanghai. Local reports highlighted his tours of high-fashion malls in Beijing.

The French billionaire is one of the world's richest people, alongside Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Arnault is worth $205 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

LVMH's first venture in China dates back to 1859, when spirit company Hennessy made its initial shipment of cognac to the country. Louis Vuitton joined the market when it opened its first boutique in Beijing's Palace Hotel in 1992.

The company doesn't break out financial results by geography, but HSBC estimated that China was the luxury conglomerate's second-biggest market by sales last year.

Unlike other foreign companies that are cutting their presence in China because of geopolitical risks, some luxury companies are cementing themselves further. LVMH had 950 stores in China and employed 24,000 people as of 2019. It opened another 58 stores last year, per Bloomberg.

"We have significant growth with Chinese customers, which continues unabated," chief financial officer Jean-Jacques Guiony said in January following the company's 2023 earnings report.

But 2023 was rough for the company. The stock fell almost 30% over the year from its April high — a rout attributed to waning Chinese demand for luxury goods.

The trend has continued this year. LVMH reported in April that Asia's revenues outside Japan fell 6% in the first quarter compared with the same period a year ago. The slump hit Gucci owner and top rival Kering as well, as Chinese customers ditch foreign luxury for gold and domestic brands amid prolonged economic malaise.

• Celebrity real estate agent Josh Altman named five cities to buy homes in before the prices get too hot.
• He said home prices in Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando, Phoenix and San Diego could "skyrocket."
• These cities are "booming with economic growth" and have rising populations, he said. 

There are five US cities where home prices are poised to skyrocket, so people looking to get homes there should move fast, "Million Dollar Listing" celebrity realtor Josh Altman says.

Speaking to the personal finance website GOBankingRates in an article published on Tuesday, he said that predicting which cities would be good investments required examining their economic growth, population trends, and infrastructure developments.

The five cities handpicked by Altman are Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando, Phoenix, and San Diego.

"These cities are booming with economic growth, rising populations, strong job markets, and great affordability," he told the outlet. "We see huge potential here."

Atlanta

Atlanta has a population of about 510,000 as of 2023.

Most of its residents are millennials, with its residents' median age being 33.6 years.

The median value of a home in Atlanta is about $429,990, per May data from real estate site Redfin.

It also has a dynamic business environment, with a 2023 analysis from LinkedIn showing that Greater Atlanta had the highest number of people setting up their own businesses of all US cities.

Dallas

Dallas in north Texas has a population of about 1.3 million as of 2024.

As with Atlanta, most of its residents are millennials, with its residents' median age being 33.1 years.

The median home value in Dallas is about $499,900, per Redfin, and has increased 20.7% year over year.

Texas has received a large inflow of residents from other states, particularly California. Between 2021 and 2022, more than 668,300 people moved into Texas, according to state-to-state migration data from the Census Bureau.

Dallas' mayor, Eric Johnson, said in January that people are attracted to Texas by its relatively lower cost of housing and living and a better quality of life.

Pengyu Cheng, a tech company program manager, previously told BI that he moved to Texas from San Francisco with his wife and purchased a two-story home for $825,000.

He said this was a fraction of what they could have paid in California, where they were renting a two-bedroom home for $3,100 a month.

Orlando

Popular for its Disney World and Universal amusement park, Orlando has a population of about 330,000, a 5.43% increase from 2020.

The median age of its residents is 34.67, and homes have a median price of $407,440, per Redfin. The median price has risen 8.7% year over year.

The city is luring people from its pricier neighbor, Miami, particularly young people attracted by its lack of state income tax, good weather, and job opportunities.

Phoenix

Phoenix is the fifth-most populous city in the US, with nearly 1.65 million residents.

The median age of its residents is young, at 34.4 years old. Houses have a median cost of $461,000, per Redfin, a figure that has risen 5.5% year over year.

The city is hot, not just in terms of its climate but also in terms of an inflow of new residents.

Young, wealthy people are putting down roots here, attracted by the warm weather all year round and the bigger, more affordable homes.

San Diego

The quieter sibling of Los Angeles, the seaside city of San Diego has a population of about 1.4 million and is the US' eighth most populous city.

The median age of San Diego residents is 35.8 years.

Prices of homes in this city top this list, with the median being $980,000, a figure reflecting a 7.7% increase yearly, according to Redfin.

But it's also true that housing in San Diego trends toward the pricier end. San Diego, along with four other Californian cities, was marked as "impossibly unaffordable," according to the 2024 Demographia International Housing Affordability report.

If Altman's words ring true and prices here are set to spike more, serious buyers should lock their house purchases in soon.

Altman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

• I'm a 35-year-old American mom living in the UK. 
• I took my three kids to the US for the first time in eight years and they were surprised by things.
• They thought cars and meals were big, and that there was always too much ice in drinks. 

It has been nearly eight years since my three Welsh children have visited my family in the United States. Even though I would have loved to make the eight-hour plane trip with them more often, logistics, the pandemic, and cost have kept us away.

For months, we prepared for our monthlong trip, with the kids getting increasingly excited about the food and fun they would have with their grandparents in a foreign land. Even though you'd imagine the two countries to be very similar as they speak English, there are multitudes of differences.

From my adult perspective, I know that healthcare, education, salaries, and culture widely vary, but I was excited to see what differences they, as children, would notice.

Bigger cars and bigger roads

After landing in Washington, DC, and retrieving our bags, we entered the parking lot. The two older kids quickly observed that the cars weren't like the ones in the UK. There were Chevrolets, GMCs, Lincolns, and endless pickup trucks.

They were also much bigger. In the UK, it's twice as expensive to fill a car with gas, roads are much narrower and windier, and there is less parking, so smaller cars are often preferable.

My kids immediately noticed that, along with cars, the roads in the US are much bigger than in the UK.

In DC, they tried to figure out how overpasses worked, roads overlapping each other in a complicated shape. In the UK, motorways, equivalent to highways, converge at roundabouts.

Even though they had expected it, they found it funny Americans drive on the opposite side of the road.

They were surprised by AC

The UK rarely gets very hot. At most, there are four to six weeks of the year when the temperature rises above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. When it does, we just open all the windows, strip down to our select few summer clothes, and keep the curtains shut because very few homes have air conditioning. Those weeks are boiling hot, but we grit our teeth and bear it because they don't last long.

When we got to our hotel the night we landed, they asked me what the metal box contraption making noise was in the corner of our room. It was the air conditioning unit, which pushes cool air through vents.

Since we've been here, they have relished in the ability to cool off inside after playing in the heat.

They think the portions are too big and there's always too much ice in drinks

We have been out to eat, and when my parents get the kids drinks in the house, ample ice is in every glass of water, juice, or soda.

The kids both love and hate it. They enjoy sucking on the ice as a novelty, but they've been complaining that the freezing cold temperature of the drink hurts their teeth.

You might have a few cubes of ice in a restaurant in the UK, but I have never once been served a drink in someone's home with ice in it.

They also feel like the portions are way too big. Our first meal in the US was at Bob Evans. The kids each ordered a kid's meal with a side of pancakes to share. The food was served to us over several trips.

"Look how many pancakes there are," one of the kids said when the plate of four enormous pancakes with syrup and jam was put down in front of us.

At the gas station, they were amazed by the size of the chip bags, chocolate bars, and drink cups. "All the food is big," one of them whispered to me as he gazed at the shelves of food.

• China's leader, Xi Jinping, is urging his country's scientists to innovate in the tech sector.
• While praising China's progress overall, he also highlighted several pressing shortcomings in the country.
• He said China's innovation was "still relatively weak," and had a shortage of top talent.

China's leader, Xi Jinping, made several admissions of the country's shortcomings in its race to become the world's tech powerhouse, saying its innovation is "relatively weak" and that its scientists are overburdened.

To be sure, Xi's remarks on Tuesday at a national conference in Beijing lauded China's science industries overall.

But he also highlighted glaring challenges and pressed the country to focus on tech growth, which he said is now the "main battlefield of international competition."

"Although the country's science and technology development has made great progress, its original innovation capabilities are still relatively weak," Xi said.

Indeed, Xi mentioned innovation 55 times in his speech on Tuesday, emphasizing it while discussing artificial intelligence, quantum technology, biotech, and new energy.

And China's tech breakthroughs are too scattered across various companies and sectors for Xi's liking, with him saying they suffer a "low degree of organization and coordination" that needs addressing.

Core technologies are out of China's hands, Xi says

Key to his push for innovation is the idea of China becoming self-reliant — a common theme across all of his ideologies — especially as tensions with the West grow.

"The scientific and technological revolution and the wrestling between superpowers are intertwined," Xi said.

While he did not name the US, Xi said it was clear China would have to fix how "some key core technologies are controlled by others."

The comment comes as the US has threatened to expand sanctions on several Chinese chip firms linked to Huawei and blocked the sale of advanced semiconductors essential to developing artificial intelligence technology.

Last week, the US Treasury Department labeled China a "country of concern" and proposed new rules to limit international investment in "the next generation of military, intelligence, surveillance or cyber-enabled capabilities that pose national security risks to the United States."

Researchers still caught up in red tape

Xi also raised a shortage of manpower and top talent in the tech and science spaces. Researchers were still complaining of "heavy non-academic burdens" like red tape with publishing papers, busywork in official reports, and asking for resources, he said.

He added that China would have to "improve incentive systems" like better awards for science and tech and a more even wage system for employees and researchers.

While the US has been in the middle of its own technological boom, thanks in part to giants like OpenAI, Nvidia, Amazon, and Microsoft, Business Insider previously reported that bosses in China's tech sector are upping the pressure on workers following the loss of around $1.3 trillion in market value by the country's top five tech companies since 2021.

The Chinese government has been especially focused on developing artificial intelligence technology. BI previously reported that an April report by Microsoft indicated China-linked social media accounts plan to use AI-generated media to influence elections in the US.

With all said on Tuesday, it's clear Xi wants China to not just be a major player in the tech space but to dominate it.

"We must bolster our sense of urgency. We must go further with our efforts to innovate," Xi said. "To occupy the commanding heights of science and tech competition and future development."