Help Wanted

 "We are at the mercy of whoever wields authority over the things we either desire or detest.  If you would be free, then do not wish to have or avoid things that other people control, because then you must serve as their slave." - Epictetus

I chose today's stoic quote to match today's blog post.  I'm straying off the normal topics today because I got irritated earlier, and it took me a while to figure out why that was.  It's because I was exposed to propaganda that I normally tend to avoid, and the more I thought about it, the more it pissed me off.

 Earlier today, my wife started reading out loud an article to me from her Yahoo!™ news feed.  The article was titled "Before you impulsively quit your job as part of the 'Great Resignation', do these four things."  I've linked it, just in case you have the stomach to read this low-effort propaganda piece.

I was hopeful the article would offer sound advice to help readers navigate the transition from the life of a wage-drone to having resigned.  Nope!  It was a legit psychological warfare piece to keep people slaving away at the same job - or maybe to switch jobs.  LOL.

So here are the four things this "Producer at CNBC" suggested - followed by my own comments in italic.  At the end I'll make a few observations about today's interesting dilemma with the work-force, the "why" of which were barely hinted at in the article.  The author probably has never worked an honest job in her life, but likely knows a lot of the jerks who do hiring and firing, so it would seem that she's giving them a little assistance with this piece.

1. "Cope during work" - She suggests taking a walk, doing some meditation, venting to a friend.

She's clearly taking the side of the employer here, not you - she is trying to make you choose inaction.  How about maybe you should just quit?  Life is short, and shortening it even further for a paycheck may not be worth it!  Your boss might be an incompetent jerk, and you are stressed out in a toxic environment - and the only redeeming feature of the job is a tiny paycheck every two weeks.  If you think you need to leave your job, maybe you should  ...Like right now.

2. "Know your 'Why'" - She suggests being honest with yourself about why you want to quit, and even write it down.

This is actually solid advice.  That said, if had taken the time to write down all the reasons that I left jobs, I likely would have left them even sooner than I did - at the first signs things were getting bad.  However, I think in this article that this advice is intended to manipulate your misgivings, and immobilize you into staying with that shit job.  So I'm calling BS on this "thing", even though it's OK to have a (+) and (-) column written down.  You should do this, and you should do this often.  And by the way, subjective judgement counts *a lot* in this case, because you are the one who has to deal with your work environment (as a peon) every day.

3."Create a Plan" - She suggests after knowing the "Why" in the previous step, to create an actionable plan - and to be intentional instead of impulsive.  Think of the things your next job must have that this job doesn't have.

Once again, this is solid advice - on the surface.  Here's the thing though:  This article is about the "Great Resignation", but then suggests finding a different plantation to be someone else's slave on.  What if you want to "resign" from the work-force altogether?  Isn't that what the "Great Resignation" is about??  

Maybe you don't want another job, even if it comes with better wages or benefits.  Maybe you want to be free from having a vicious boss, the grind of making money for other people, and you want to start your own business.  How odd that is never mentioned in the article.

4. "Search for a Job" - She suggests updating your resume, networking, and offers a couple of job-search websites.

"Search for a Job" doesn't sound much like a "resignation", does it???  Are we all Garth Brooks?  Going to retire 5-6 times?  This might be good advice for those who want to remain in the work-force and attempt to hang onto precarious jobs.  On the other hand, if you want to be part of the "Great Resignation", you ought to be saying goodbye to work, to the whims of companies, terrible policies, and brutal management.  All of that.  That's what "resigning" means, you effing moron.

OK, so now that I've briefly (sorta) popped the balloon of this pro-corporate piece of "business news", and improved my mood in the process...  I'd like to make a few other observations about this situation.

The Covid pandemic has caused people to re-assess their lives, and to examine what is important.  Up until the mandatory lock-down, many working-class people were on a hamster-wheel.  They busted their butt to make lots of money for their company, while getting paid barely enough to get by on.  Plenty of people juggled 2-3 part-time crappy jobs with no benefits, just to make ends meet - and I hate to break the news to you, but this is bad.  It's bad for the employee and it's bad for our country to allow this kind of exploitation.  The alternative to a shitty job was to live under a bridge, without healthcare - and feel free to starve to death.  

The lock-down inadvertently changed the relationship between employer and employed in a major way.  People were paid to stay home and not infect everyone - a great idea.   This probably did a great job of slowing down the initial spread of Covid - Not as good a job as halting international travel would have done, but a good enough job that it kept hospitals from being overrun with very sick people.  However there were some unintentional consequences...

When things *slowly* began opening up again, a lot of people were still unemployed, and the government saw to it that they didn't starve.  The government also saw to it that the unemployed didn't get kicked to the street, by halting evictions.  So probably for the first time in these people's lives, they weren't at the mercy of some fickle company deciding their fate on a whim.  And I'd assume that they really enjoyed that sense of security and time away from their capricious and casually cruel masters.

Recently, however, I get this sense that the media is trying to nudge the wage-slaves back out to the cotton fields: "OK, your little vacation is over now.  Get back to work."  And this is one of those things that I mentioned in another post, where I pointed out that many things have changed in subtle ways that are not knowable in advance.  What has changed is people's willingness to put up with working long hard hours for pathetic levels of pay and no healthcare benefits.  

Here is a link to the article for the above photo.  If you take time to read the article, it discusses the situation only at that one restaurant.  It *intentionally* avoids the sensitive topic that damn near every service-sector job sucks donkey balls.  It also avoids the fact that none of these jobs pay well enough to put up with those conditions.  Fast-food places are now offering $15-$20 hr, and still not getting enough help.  By the way, what ever happened to business owners whining that "We can't afford to pay our employees more than $7.50/hr or we will go out of business?" LOL.  I guess they *can* afford those better wages after all, can't they?  Does that make them liars?  Why yes.  Yes, it does.

Of course this one Burger King in Lincoln, Nebraska isn't the only place where this has happened.  The news isn't in the least bit interested in explaining the "Why" of this brand-new phenomenon:  Why are people opting to get off the work-wage-rent/mortgage hamster-wheel?  If you see those articles, it's  only going to be about health-care workers suffering burn out - and what that means for depraved, unvaccinated Covid patients and virtuous vaccinated Covid patients - both of whom require a ventilator, LOL.  Great vaccine, Pfizer!

Instead they write articles like the one up top, encouraging people to stay on the hamster-wheel - or maybe switch to a different hamster-wheel.  

There is a 1957 Science Fiction novel named "Atlas Shrugged", by Ayn Rand.  The theme of this fictional book is that business owners have been hobbled by government regulations, and their workers "looters" are robbing these business owners blind.  The business owners ("Atlas" - from Greek mythology, who holds the world on his shoulders) get fed up and go on strike - thus "Atlas Shrugs", allowing the world to fall from his weary shoulders.  Poor overworked souls.

 That book has been hugely influential over the decades.  However it seems the reality of Covid has turned the fantasy premise of this book upside-down.  Who really is Atlas?  People like Richard Branson, who owns Virgin Airlines and has his own hobby space company?  Or is it the people who actually service and fly the aircraft at Virgin Airlines who are expected to carry the world on their shoulders?  

The reality today is that workers are shrugging instead of owners - because they have less to lose.  This is leaving panicked business owners wondering who will do the work they need done, and getting psychological warfare articles written for them by people like this lady.  Interesting times, indeed. 

Maybe we're approaching the point they reached in the Soviet Union: "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay." hinting at low wages and low productivity - and followed by a collapse.

I don't know, I just watch the news and try to sort it out.  CNBC and Yahoo! News are not helping to decipher what is really going on in the world and the economy - that's the one thing that you can count on!