When I was little, I witnessed the adults in my life complain about their jobs. The economy. Hard times. Making ends meet. I watched people work themselves to the bone for scraps.
It angered me in a way a child cannot articulate. Phrases like “that’s stupid” or “why don’t they just pay more?” illustrate a lack of nuanced understanding of economics and the dynamics that lead to poverty.
I had internalized that being exploited and living paycheck-to-paycheck was simply “part of life, part of being a grown up;” it was something I had to get used to.
Life isn’t fair. Keep your head down. Work harder, and it’ll pay off.
In hindsight, being conditioned to accept the bare minimum in exchange for your hard work and time you’ll never get back took on a more sinister meaning: know your place.
But it isn’t enough to simply know your place — to know that nothing you do is ever good enough for whatever corporate entity is currently breathing down your neck.
If you are genuinely enthusiastic about the work you do, you might be quickly disillusioned.
Corporate executives are devoted to dehumanizing every aspect of interaction to maximize profit, with very little care for the workers at the bottom who seldom see even a fraction of the income they help generate.
People are walking coin purses meant to be wrung out and shaken, encouraged to spend what little they have on what they don’t need.
It is sickening how in all sectors of the market, in countless industries, how deceptive we are encouraged to be; anything to close a sale.
Anything to generate more money, no matter how much humanity is sacrificed in the process.
In a pragmatic sense, running any sort of successful business requires marketing strategies to turn a profit. It’s greed.
Many corporate executives have seemingly lost the ability to connect to the everyman in any meaningful way. They don’t know how the average working-class American functions or feels about anything.
They can dress it up however they want, but the insultingly low wages they offer, the high prices they charge, and the increasingly high demands they ask of employees they’re already underpaying speak louder.
And as I grow older, the revulsion I carry for such a work culture is nearly impossible to contain. It’s a problem I have, and I wish I could ignore it.
A lot of people express frustration about how hard it is to make ends meet, how little they earn from the professions they dedicate themselves to, or to the careers they love; how absurd the cost of basic necessities are, how difficult it is to imagine having a future in a world like this — and yet nothing changes.
My guess is that people are beaten down. They’re afraid to stand up, because no one will stand with them. In speaking out, all they’d be doing is jeopardizing their livelihoods.
This is hardly a novel observation. Worker’s rights groups have been fighting for better wages and working conditions for over a century.
It is also worth mentioning that not all professions and workplaces are toxic in this way. Many people I know are fortunate enough to work in positions where morale is high and the work is fulfilling despite the challenges that come with it. But far too many aren’t so lucky.
I don’t have a solution to offer. Truly. I am also tired, and doubtful that things will ever change I just know, through my daily interactions with people — the overwhelming majority being your average good, kindhearted folks — that we deserve far more than whatever this is.
