Gmail cleanout part five.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s one that never made it to the GS front page\u2026and it\u2019s no mystery why.\u00a0 The sad thing is that the job I\u2019m bitching about is the same one I have today.\u00a0 So much for following my own advice, eh?<\/p>\n
A lot of these articles I’m digging up were written on the Metro, so they tend towards incoherent ranting.\u00a0 But the whole point of this Sunday series is to post the crazy shit clogging up my Gmail box, so here goes…
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This is from February of 2005:<\/p>\n
There is no doubt in my mind that, one day, my job will kill me.\u00a0 Every little thing, from waking to sleep, seems designed to chink away at my sanity, to drive me down, to create nothing but an emotional cloud that, ultimately, is intended to destroy any sense of free will and life.<\/p>\n
My commute lasts 35 minutes\u2026unless you\u2019re going in the morning or coming back in the evening with the hordes of morality slaves.\u00a0 Then it takes 70-90 minutes, sometimes more.\u00a0 A five mile ride from my house to the Metro station, during rush hour, can take 30-40 minutes.<\/p>\n
The work, itself, is inhumane and cruel.\u00a0 As painful as a fallen friend, as a treacherous lover, as a permanent injury.\u00a0 The blow, for many, is softened by various factors.\u00a0 Elements of the day that can be enjoyed, friendly co-workers, stolen moments online or abuse of the latest technology.\u00a0 All of this, I\u2019ve come to believe, is intentional.\u00a0 Beyond the brain-dead managers exists some illuminati, some great executive power that sees all through monitored emails and security cameras, that knowingly lets employees surf the net for four hours a day and rip their Netflix discs on the work computer and super-seed torrents of\u00a0 Star Wars<\/em>. All these things, loopholes and \u201cunmonitored\u201d activites that make people feel like they\u2019re getting away with something, sticking it to the man, are intentionally designed to trick employees into feeling a sense of purpose and individuality.\u00a0 The truth remains constant \u2013 the employees are still trapped at their job, bound by the time clocks, desperate for a paycheck that never, ever reflects what they do.\u00a0 They are treated like slow children, singled out for \u201cpromotions\u201d that aren\u2019t accompanied by raises, beat down, destroyed.\u00a0 There\u2019s no purpose to a job except to promote consumer culture.\u00a0 How is stealing printer paper and \u201cgetting away\u201d with internet surfing important when the real work serves no purpose except to keep you somewhere for eight or nine or ten hours a day?<\/p>\n
I ask myself:\u00a0 What is the root of this evil we serve?\u00a0 Is it money?\u00a0 That\u2019s the easy point.\u00a0 The undisciplined cynic always says it\u2019s the money.\u00a0 Yet everyone who makes money is dissatisfied. Everyone wants more money.\u00a0 Take my example.\u00a0 I\u2019m okay with what I make.\u00a0 I can afford extravagant vacations and Amazon binges.\u00a0 Someone who makes $7 an hour is envious of that, someone who makes $90,000 more than I do is also envious.\u00a0 The one can\u2019t afford to live, the other is tied down by a house, a car, a life, a wife.\u00a0 This is the story across the board.\u00a0 No one is happy with the money they have, or the job they do to make it, or their lives as they exist under that influence.<\/p>\n
The root of the problem is easy to see.\u00a0 It\u2019s ambition.\u00a0 Where would I be if I lacked ambition?\u00a0 It\u2019s dreams.\u00a0 How much better would life be if I had no desire?<\/p>\n
What if I was completely at peace with little to my name?\u00a0 What if my life were like this:<\/p>\n
A $350 a month apartment in some tumbledown exburb.\u00a0 When the walls get wet during the humid summers, cockroaches burst out of them.<\/p>\n
A $17.99 a month Netflix account.\u00a0 Hey, we all need luxury.<\/p>\n
TV, DVD, hotplate and space heater \u2013 hand me downs and\/or recovered from the Circuit City dumpster.\u00a0 (Really, stake out the dumpster for a month and see what I mean.)<\/p>\n
Couch, bed — $170, plus tax from the Used Hotel Warehouse<\/p>\n
Table for the TV \u2013 one of those big wooden spools from a construction site.<\/p>\n
Electricity \u2013 Well, if you live near a parking garage, bury an extension cord and run it to one of the disused outlets.\u00a0 You can unplug it on the way to work and put it back in on the way back.\u00a0 This plan also works with your neighbor\u2019s outdoor outlets, outlets in the hallway of your apartment building, etc.<\/p>\n
Water \u2013 Bottle drinking water from work, clean yourself up in the employee restroom.\u00a0 (I\u2019m amazed at how many jobs have shower facilities.)\u00a0 Do your laundry in the sink.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Food \u2013 Rice.\u00a0 Noodles.\u00a0 A ten pound bag of rice at the back alley, creepy, smelly Chinese store near my house will run you $7 bucks.\u00a0 Watch the supermarket\u2019s dumpster for expired foods if you want a high class Sunday dinner.<\/p>\n
Take that lifestyle and work at some local minimum wage job.\u00a0 Do the video store thing or the music store thing, whatever.\u00a0 Make $20,000 a year and live well.\u00a0 With rent and Netflix, life will cost about $4420 a year.\u00a0 Now, remove ambition.\u00a0 Remove any desire to be like your neighbor, to get a bigger TV, to have a reliable car, to move forward in life, to go into business for yourself, to travel or afford a lover or go out drinking on Friday nights.\u00a0 Take away all of the dreams and desires of the American future \u2013 the white picket fence and the two car garage, the nice clothes.\u00a0 Remove every once of that consumer culture and, no matter the money being made, there\u2019s a chance for happiness.<\/p>\n
The root of all evil is dreaming.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to these thankless jobs, managed by lunatics, just so we can make more money, and we\u2019re still living paycheck to paycheck\u2026and the jobs do nothing but clutch our souls and shatter our dreams, anyway.\u00a0 It takes monumental effort to achieve even the smallest things.\u00a0 Look to my friend who recently made a short film for $3500.\u00a0 Three grand!\u00a0 That should be a drop in the bucket.\u00a0 That should be on hand in savings. In 2005, three grand is nothing.\u00a0 Or so it should be, considering the cost of living and the relentless consumerist drive.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not.\u00a0 We\u2019re underpaid and overworked.\u00a0 That, then, leads to the second problem.\u00a0 Three grand is an alien sum, okay, but finding the time is even more difficult.\u00a0 Most Americans go four or five years at a job without even taking two weeks off.\u00a0 The average bereavement time is four days.\u00a0 The average annual leave is 80 hours.\u00a0 There are 5 paid holidays a year, on average.\u00a0 The average sick time per year is 40 hours.\u00a0 How many of you reading the above think, hey, Nacho, that\u2019s pretty generous?<\/p>\n
If you are thinking that, there\u2019s something wrong with you.\u00a0 Most of you also know well that the biggest chunk in there \u2013 the two weeks leave \u2013 can never be taken together, if at all.\u00a0 Your job, which consists of talking to sociopaths on the phone, copying papers for the boss at the copy machine that\u2019s closer to his office than yours, organizing endless pointless files and filling out forms that go off to some unexplored cavern in the bowels of the building is \u201ctoo important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Does anyone ever wonder about that?\u00a0 If you\u2019re so important, if you\u2019re so appreciated, then why are you making $30,000 a year?\u00a0 Less taxes.\u00a0 Less the ever-increasing medical insurance that\u2019ll drop you the moment you get really sick.\u00a0 Less your overwhelming college loans.\u00a0 Less the unsubsidized commute costs either in your car with gas prices rising or on a public transportation system that\u2019s not funded by the third of your paycheck that\u2019s going to the government?<\/p>\n
Why are we lying to ourselves?<\/p>\n
Now, I should be preaching to the choir.\u00a0 But I\u2019ll hear back from readers.\u00a0 I\u2019ve heard it before when I talk about this stuff over the bar table.\u00a0 I have a bad work ethic.\u00a0 I\u2019m wrong.\u00a0 I\u2019m off base.\u00a0 I\u2019m a hopeless cynic.\u00a0 I just haven\u2019t found the right spot on the career ladder.\u00a0 I just need to settle down with a good woman.<\/p>\n
A majority of my friends, and those readers I hear from, defend the workaday world, the 9-5 jobs, the thankless wage slave living.\u00a0 They defend living paycheck to paycheck and working five years in order to pull together a spare $3500 and a week off.\u00a0 People younger than me who have declared bankruptcy twice and have a divorce under their belts say that I\u2019m on the wrong footing and I should mend my ways and make peace with the wage slave world.\u00a0 People my age who have a 2005 car and a townhouse and monthly bills in the range of $3000 yet make $2200 a month at their 50 hour a week job say that I\u2019m crazy.\u00a0 People who have been \u201cpromoted\u201d five times yet still make the same as when they started at the job five years prior (oh, plus yearly 1% COLA increases) say that I\u2019m crazy.<\/p>\n
I enjoy the later group the most.\u00a0 Are you crazy, Nacho?\u00a0 I\u2019ve been promoted.\u00a0 I\u2019m doing okay.<\/p>\n
Yes, but, did you also get a raise?\u00a0 No\u2026 Then what\u2019s that mean, really?\u00a0 Hell, if that\u2019s what it\u2019s about, then I promote all of you.\u00a0 All of you reading this \u2013 you are now the assistant sub managers of division 12.\u00a0 I\u2019ll give you another promotion in a year.\u00a0 Oh, and, by the way, the government says that the cost of living increase should have been 2.2% this year, and that\u2019s lower than the actual percentage increase.\u00a0 You should have seen three or four percent if you wanted to actually keep up with things.\u00a0 Show of hands \u2013 how much more did you pay for commuting?\u00a0 How much more did your rent go up?\u00a0 How much more did your health insurance go up?<\/p>\n
And, in the longer run, how much did your company pay into your retirement?\u00a0 Do you have retirement?\u00a0 How much does it increase each year?<\/p>\n
Oh, are you a woman?\u00a0 You lot are doing better \u2013 you make 76% now of what a man in your position would make.\u00a0 (By the way, it\u2019s not a gender argument, it\u2019s based on \u201cperformance ability\u201d where you rank lower because you are \u201cunable to perform the same as a man,\u201d which falls under the government\u2019s \u201cnondiscriminatory business reasons\u201d for judging average annual pay.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry — if you don\u2019t have kids, or take more sick days than men do, then you\u2019re probably getting equal pay.)<\/p>\n
Oh, okay, I\u2019ll cave in to all those naysayers at the bar table.\u00a0 What can you do?\u00a0 You can\u2019t really give up and sleep on a rice mat in a cockroach apartment.\u00a0 Here I am mocking dreams and ambition and, truthfully, if you lacked such things, you\u2019d be a dangerous sociopath.\u00a0 So what\u2019s the point?\u00a0 Well, we\u2019re defeated.\u00a0 The first step is to admit our defeat. To stop, look and listen and realize that, yes, it\u2019s wrong, and we\u2019re trapped, and there\u2019s no real way out.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re ever given a psychological evaluation by the government and you answer \u201ctrue\u201d to the question \u201cDo you think you\u2019re an important person?\u201d then you\u2019ll be diagnosed with hypomania.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bit of a Catch-22 question, but it\u2019s also indicative of the world we live in.\u00a0 Where, despite this bizarre sick society around us, everyone is told that they\u2019re important.\u00a0 Is anyone told that they\u2019re normal?\u00a0 Because you are.\u00a0 You\u2019re just normal, perhaps even ordinary, and you\u2019re trapped.<\/p>\n
So realize that.\u00a0 The zen of humility in a lying, dying world.<\/p>\n
After that step, the next step is civil disobedience.\u00a0 I wrote an article about that long ago, and I\u2019ll return to it in a bit.\u00a0 How to stay an active and functional wage slave, but keep your personal world a bit more exciting while quietly fucking up everyone else in harmless (usually) and always amusing ways.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Nacho Sasha\u2019s \u201cHow to get ahead in life without really trying\u201d technique. After all, if you\u2019re defeated, then that means there\u2019s an adversary somewhere.\u00a0 Not the job.\u00a0 Not the consumer life.\u00a0 The advesary isn\u2019t the dogma\u2026 That\u2019s the mistake modern terrorists make.\u00a0 The old school terorirsts, the early IRA for example, in the brief years between the Easter Rebellion and the Free State, they understood that the advesaries, beneath the filth and lies, were individuals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gmail cleanout part five. Here\u2019s one that never made it to the GS front page\u2026and it\u2019s no mystery why.\u00a0 The sad thing is that the job I\u2019m bitching about is the same one I have today.\u00a0 So much for following …<\/p>\n