does anyone else get sick of answering that question?
i've been thinking about employment lately so that gets to be our topic for the week- career/job/something to keep one busy or whatever, and why people do the jobs they do. the point of most of my thinking has pointed out that the vast majority of employment positions today are purely superfluous, and don't provide much (if any) actual life-sustaining value. i excuse of course, doctors, ummm, doctors, farmers, and for some reason, movie stars from that generalization.
seriously, i work in hr. imagine trying to explain to a cave-person that i shuffle around papers with information about other employees...(i don't think i could even begin to explain employment, let alone a corporation).
or that my husband is a personal trainier. yes, he helps people be healthy - people like me who don't do any real manual labor for their sustenance, and need his help not to get fast food diseases like high blood pressure and atherosclerosis that they wouldn't get if they would go shovel some dirt or rake hay in the great outdoors instead of typing.
don't get me wrong, i love my job pushing papers, and i don't mean to be hypocritical - but i used to get paid for hard work, and i just can't help but notice that i've gotten in worse shape since i got my desk (as opposed to moving furniture at the job i used to have). i wonder what i'd do if our society hadn't turned in the direction it has. i know that i make lots of references to "back in the day" but the past just fascinates me. for thousands of years, humanity had so few employment options: serf, soldier, farmer, hooker, blacksmith, butcher, baker, candle-stick maker... you get the idea. notice how these are all what we'd call "blue collar jobs"?
it's like we've made our whole society into the aristocracy. back then, most people lived in shacks and wore fleas. now we've all got internet and a place with carpet, and if we hate a job and walk out, well, we could probably weasel our way into some government funds to tide us over until we get another job.
so i like the fact that our society lets people pay people for handling their funds and paying other people who help people that are in bad shape because of not working with their body get in better shape. (can anyone say run-on sentence?) i like that we have money instead of getting paid in sheep or clam shells. i like the way things are going - for the most part.
of course, then we get into unions and labor laws, and i go off on angry rants. i love what unions were able to do for the poor abused workers at factories back in the day. i hate that unions run practically every grocery store now and that joining them is mandatory, and then they tell people when and what for to strike.
i like that labor laws exist. i hate the loopholes, that they're so difficult to enforce, and that management, for the most part, doesn't care. has anyone out there ever worked somewhere that they got to take all the breaks they should have? i think that if i ever get high enough up in management again, that my budget will suck, but dammit everyone will follow the labor code with breaks at all the right times and overtime pay and the whole bit. dammit.
did i mention that we're in the middle of a who-gets-what-break-when conflict at my ymca? blah, i tell you - BLAH! if everyone would just follow the rules like they taught us in sesame street, everything would be hunky-dory and i'd skip off into the sunset, at least until i ran out of breath.
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6 comments:
Back in the day, we lived a lot fewer years, but thanks to improvements in technology and medicine we are living longer and longer; however the last few in that nursing home may be quite sad and lonely with our broken hips and limbs and few visitors.
I've had numerous jobs over the years, from dirt-poor farmer to semi-high powered TV Exec., from long distance truck driver/furniture mover to teacher (elementary and college), from gov't. lawman to salesperson (Taco Bell, fireworks stand, mini golf).
It's not funny how so many people with nonessential jobs (the essentials are food, clothing, medicine, shelter, sanitation, etc.) look down at farmers, truck drivers, grocery store employees, orderlies, nurses assistants, janitors, garbagemen, contractors, plumbers, etc. What would happen if all the truck drivers were to go on strike? There would be no food deliveries, no clothing deliveries, no big screen TV deliveries, etc. Everything we buy and covet comes via trucks and truck drivers.
But in my office high above the peons in both Los Angeles and in New York, all I heard was how the hicks in the sticks and little people don't matter. It's only those in N.Y., L.A., Chicago, and the top few markets that we, the network, give a damn about. These Ivy League legacies knew that I had clawed my way up from a dirt farm in South Texas through hard work and ridiculed my peculiar ways--and not loving cavier, patte, spending ridiculous amounts for potions my cat would find woefully inadequate, mocking people on the other side of the one-way glass, two-way mirror, or mirrored glass (I could never get the terminology correct), etc., was a black mark against me in their books, also being hetro did not endear me to many of the men directly above my position.
Occasionally, I would drive a group of executives over to program testing at each evening, and the uproar that happened when I pulled over to help an old woman with her flat tire was deafening. I woould hope that someone would be so kind if that was my mother or sisters who needed help, but they only screamed about my getting killed for my good deed. Hell, the sun was still up, and she was at least eighty.
Glad to be rid of the mindset of L.A., and the gridlock on the roads, I eventually returned to the family farm, but by then it was too far gone (in debt), so I did other jobs on the side--lawman, teacher, and assorted odd jobs, and still farmed full-time. Sometimes I wore my uniform and pistol while driving the tractor and doing farmwork.
Last spring, due to a second year of drought and owners who could get more money for their land by selling it for housing (I rented mostly), I was forced to quit. It will be interesting to see when we reach the tipping point where there are too many houses and buildings and not enough land and water to feed the world's population (over fishing is dangerously close already).
So, here I am in South Korea teaching English, so I don't have to see land that had been farmed by my family for generations turned into some tacky stripmall, mini-McMansions, or parking lot. Even here in South Korea though, I am looked at disapprovingly because I go out of my way to say hello to the old man who picks up the cardboard off the sides of the streets and because I always buy some cotton candy from the extremely old woman in the basement of Say Department Store who sells cotton candy and then give it away.
Shouldn't being a good and decent person, father, mother, brother, sister, friend, etc., matter more than some glorified and made up job title?
Dude, you've done A LOT of stuff. And I, for one, commend you.
"of course, then we get into unions and labor laws, and i go off on angry rants"
...and then...
"and that management, for the most part, doesn't care."
There's a link between those two quotes there, and not just in the old-time-scenarios-from-The-Jungle sense, either.
And I have to agree with mag here: john, you seem like you're living an interesting life.
ummmm... the angry rants are supposed to be about the fact that management doesn't care. did i not get that across very well?
I don't know. You mention aggressive organized labor taking over grocery stores and then turn your criticism to the heartless corporate machine. Maybe my sarcasm meter is broken?
(previous comment was mine and was deleted in favour of this clearer one)
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