One hour out of three is enough

[darkemeralds]

On my second day back to work, I've left the office at midday to let the washing machine repair guy into my house. (A broken washer is not what you want after a three week trip.) It was a pleasantly cool and cloudy ride home, and I really don't want to go back.

An extra-long staff meeting this morning had as its main topic "How can we be more efficient?"

One way might be to have shorter staff meetings, but that's just glib. What troubled me was the mention of "our ten hour workdays." It's not an official job requirement, just an insidious and constantly reiterated norm, that each of us will offer 25% extra time to our employer, gratis. It's the stressor I was so eager to take a vacation from.

So, "How can we be more efficient?" feels like code for "How can we get you guys to push that rock up the hill faster and more often for free?"

Yes, times are hard. Yes, this is the American way. Yes, I'm damned lucky to have a job at all, let alone a good one. But I'm on the verge of taking a big step down just to get out from under the Gaze of Disapproval.

I can't help it: offering up precious personal waking hours on the altar of the enterprise business system feels toxic to me--and all the more so because I managed to get away from it for three whole weeks.

Comments

[writerscramp]

Right? Like, how fucked up is it that comparing work situations becomes a sport in the Oppression Olympics, and that we're all feeling bad because other workers have it so much worse? Instead of linking arms together in solidarity and demanding better for everyone, bottom to top. (But not the topmost, because those assholes are already enjoying the fruits of our labor quite enough, thankyouverymuch.) The most evil thing that Corporate America ever did was to convince us that we need them more than they need us.

(Srsly. The fear that the proles will Rise Up is just about the only thing that makes the wealthiest 0.1%* break into a cold sweat. From a recent Alternet.org article: "...people are so desperate to hold onto what they have that they are too busy looking down to look up: 'As psychologists will tell you, fear of loss is more powerful than the prospect of gain. The struggling middle classes look down more anxiously than they look up, particularly in recession and sluggish recovery.' ")



*The top 20% control 84% of the wealth in the country. The top 0.1% control the highest percentage of that 84%. The top 400 income earners in the country control the highest percentage of that highest percentage.

[darkemeralds]

I have long known that there are real advantages to being a bit poorer, having a more basic job and fewer resources than I've eventually grown to have: you have less to lose, and therefore more freedom. Not as much to look anxiously down at when making decisions for radical change in your life.

If I had any doubts that the US is rapidly becoming a sort of massive banana republic, leaving it and participating for three weeks in the lives of Britons put those doubts to rest. We are third-world-ready around here. Sadly, we still have enough influence and power to be infecting Europe with our strip-mining economic policies. The conservatives in power in the UK are just slavering at the prospect of dismantling the NHS.