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TygrBright

(20,733 posts)
Fri Jul 10, 2015, 04:02 PM Jul 2015

Damn' Straight, I Shouldn't Have to Work "Hard(er!)"

I posted this initially in September, 2010, but it seems like the right time to re-post it, in response to, well... you know.

Damn' straight, I shouldn't have to work "hard!"

Not when "hard" is defined by people who think that your ass is lazy if you're not gasping in misery at the end of the 10-hour work day.

Not when "hard" means standing on my feet on hard concrete surfaces without a break for hours, with a bare few minutes for lunch and bathroom breaks, and hot, smelly air choking me until the migraine is so bad I can hardly find my locker to pick up my purse at the end of the day.

Not when "hard" means that my "exempt" job "exempts" me from being paid overtime for the extra ten hours a week I routinely have to put in at a flickering computer monitor in an ergonomic nightmare of a chair, with sleazy supervisors telling me how lazy I am and denying me raises because the company's profit margin isn't inflated enough.

Not when "hard" means bending over in the hot sun, muscling a heavy piece of equipment intended to be operated by two people all on my own.

Not when "hard" means accepting shitty pay and constant disrespect, suspicion, and superior attitudes from people whose only "qualification" for the job is that their brother-in-law is a company Vice President.

Not when "hard" means getting a theoretical two weeks' vacation I never get to take because if I do, my job will have been disappeared by the time I get back, "re-organized" so that two even worse-paid part-time employees take over the work.

Not when "hard" means no benefits and barely enough pay to eat on and three months behind in the rent and no money to pay for the medication I need to keep breathing without wheezing constantly, but I'm still expected to be on-the-bounce, cheerful, willing to stay late and arrive early and take over the extra work required when a co-worker is out sick.

No, you fuckers, you're right. I DON'T want to "work hard," you piece-of-crap smug sleazy empty suited heartless amoral assholes. I DON'T want to "work hard" so that you can keep making payments on your Lexus and sneer at me because I'm behind on my mortgage and "not making good financial decisions."

I want to WORK.

I want to work with DIGNITY.

I want to work for a LIVING WAGE.

I want to work for the feeling that what I do is IMPORTANT and APPRECIATED and DECENTLY COMPENSATED.

THAT'S how I want to work.

That's what UNIONS used to be for: To keep you slimy, self-righteous, greedy, arrogant shitheels from being able to take advantage of my need for a job, my need to support myself and my family and feel like I'm pulling my own weight in the world by regarding me as a disposable commodity that can be pushed around, treated like crap, and ditched whenever your fucking profit margin drops below two hundred percent and your bonus or your stock options are in jeopardy.

And then you can justify your smarmy, hypocritical, vicious, parasitical behavior by sniffing superciliously about how I "don't want to work hard."

Damn'.

Fucking.

STRAIGHT!

furiously,
Bright

17 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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nikto

(3,284 posts)
1. You are cruel and have no compassion ...
Fri Jul 10, 2015, 05:14 PM
Jul 2015

... for our suffering Investor & CEO Class.

Obviously, you have no idea how difficult those 5-martini lunches can be.
And sometimes, they work so late that when they get to their favorite posh cafe,
the foie gras is all gone!

You clearly have no capacity to feel an investor's or CEO's pain when some mud splashes onto his/her Gucci shoes,
or they get a dangerous paper-cut from their portfolios.

Your total lack of caring for our self-sacrificing Investor-CEO-Class is so glaringly obvious ----Do you have any idea
how hard it is to find a good Lamberghini mechanic nowadays? I'm telling you, these people suffer!
They spend all day in a freezing, over-air-conditioned penthouse office scouring the world for locations with a decent supply of
children factory-workers paid under $2 per day,
all while putting up with a secretary who is small-breasted and isn't even that hot!!
You obviously have no idea how difficult that is!

Folks without a lot of money just have no idea of the intense pressures and expectations that come with all that ca$h.

Working people with families who are barely covering their bills have it so easy. They, from their easy positions
in life as low-wage workers, blithely evade the pressures and
sufferings of great wealth, and should be, on-their-knees thankful.

You obviously have no gratitude.


There is something clearly wrong with you.

And you know what?

I think it's the same thing that's wrong with me.

Fumesucker

(45,851 posts)
2. I'm as low as the heels of these alligator shoes
Fri Jul 10, 2015, 05:19 PM
Jul 2015

You don't know what it's like to have these millionaire blues

AZ Progressive

(3,411 posts)
4. What do you expect when Jeb is from a class that pretty much approves this
Fri Jul 10, 2015, 05:29 PM
Jul 2015


"you didn't work hard enough, work harder or I'll whip you!!!"

Fucking evil economic elites, pretty much the equivalent to the slavemasters of long ago.

bluesbassman

(19,310 posts)
5. The abuse, degradation, disrespect and hypocrisy will continue until morale improves.
Fri Jul 10, 2015, 05:47 PM
Jul 2015

Same as it ever was.

With a virtually unlimited labor pool, it would appear this is the new normal for the foreseeable future.

Right there furious beside you Bright.

 

heaven05

(18,124 posts)
9. Good for you in posting this unassailable truth
Fri Jul 10, 2015, 06:19 PM
Jul 2015

of the present "american way". Even superman would be embarrassed at the alluded to "heartless, amoral assholes" ruining peoples lives and health now in the name of capitalism and profit for the 1%, 5%, 10%. According to them "be damned everyone else" Unassailable truth!!!!!!!!!

yuiyoshida

(41,763 posts)
10. There is a term in Japanese that is "Karoshi"
Fri Jul 10, 2015, 06:22 PM
Jul 2015
which can be translated literally as "death from overwork". In Japan, Corporations have tried to stop people from this practice, and have fairly well succeeded...but it seems American employers who are Republicans would only love to see that here... if an employee dies on the job from overwork, NO BIG DEAL.. that will help the company keep that money, that they would have had to pay out, and forget the family getting that money. Republicans are so cold hearted they will surely find a loophole around that as well.

Karoshi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi

yuiyoshida

(41,763 posts)
14. Of course, like they did to imported
Fri Jul 10, 2015, 06:35 PM
Jul 2015

CHINESE workers who worked and died building the Railroad in the hot desert sun!


daredtowork

(3,732 posts)
16. I posted in some other threads regarding the decline of the middle class
Fri Jul 10, 2015, 06:46 PM
Jul 2015

One of the under-recognized saboteurs was how all tech work was exempted from labor law as "managerial" in order to give the "new economy" a boost. The government felt that "innovation" might be stifled if workers were protected by labor law. What resulted was 24/7 urgent deadlines and constant hiring by project. Since tech work became a significant part of "middle class" jobs - and that term extended to cover all sorts of jobs from hard core programming to data entry to social media marketing to business development and venture capital - a broad swathe of the middle "exempt" class got screwed. I remember when I graduated from college, I was told to focus on "exempt" positions because they were the "professional" ones that I could build a "career" on. But as middle class careers floundered, somewhere in the background lurked this lack of protection, this set of labor laws that were never reinstated even after the "new economy" was well-established and the people making money hand-over-fist no longer needed help with their "innovation".


Sneaky moves are made in small pockets of Washington, D.C. legal codes.

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