Month: May 2022

For any amount of money. $15 an hour, what people wish was the minimum, let’s start there. I’d rather be fucking dead. 9-5 for double that, that doesn’t even work for me. I don’t need toys. I don’t want a bunch of money. The stuff does not make me happy. I like creating, and making art. Money allows me to pay the bills where I can do that without worrying, and gives me supplies, but who fucking cares? I’ll create art with mud and make music with rubber bands if I have to. Life sucks. We can’t change it. I’m at the end with all this shit. Winter is freezing, summer is boiling, and every morning I have to wake up it’s dark. And I get two hours to myself, and I have to do chores in my free time. Dishes done, laundry? Better watch an episode of some stupid…

Among other things, a discussion about the “domestic supply of infants” line from the recent Supreme Court draft brought this to mind. There seems to be a real concern among some powers that be that Americans should be popping out more kids even if they can't afford it. Or even especially if they can't afford it because a large, financially struggling workforce is a) more likely to take what it can get and b) less likely to be politically engaged. If corporations and the government won't ensure living wages and affordable healthcare, why bring forth more wage slaves and consumers for them? Even the current low birth rate gives some economists concern. Can you imagine the panic if there was a 10-15% drop for a few years? I can't see a nationwide general strike ever happening. But a social movement to refuse to reproduce unless conditions improve might be the…

I want to wake up to the sounds of the ocean waves crashing, not an alarm clock. I want to leisurely start my day — which has an agenda tailored to my pleasure: private pilates session, relaxing poolside, shiatsu massage — instead of constantly being told what to do at work. Then I doll myself up for my husband in the evening, with my most taxing decisions of the day being what to wear and whether to get my hair blown out at the salon rather than having to make decisions at work that effect the lives of others.

So, last Monday was my first day back to work, as a contract laborer, doing inbound customer service phone work. It's garbage work, and is completely exploitative, but it's what I can get right now, and trust me I'm constantly exploring other options. Now, back to my point, I came back on Monday of last week, after recovering from an insanely bad ear infection. Prior to being gone I had been trained to take a very specific type of phone call. In the company I work for that means, once you complete the upskill, your take mostly that kind of phone call and nothing else. I was on the third tier, basically. Upon coming back I was getting phone calls for the tier below, and thought it was weird, so I reached out to my “performance facilitator”. I was told that it appeared I was in the correct call queue,…

I worked for a local small business that treats employment like high school clique instead of a necessity to pay bills. So I accepted a job at a body jewelry shop exactly a month ago. It was a lot of daily expectations- answer the phone, answer online chats, print labels, pick and package orders, and help in-store customers. I did my best to remember everything but I did have to be reminded pretty regularly in my time there. All of my coworkers were a big friend group that had worked there for years and I immediately felt like they all didn’t like me. I received one warning from my boss my second week of working there, they said I wasn’t keeping up with my share of the work but I was literally doing the best I could. Well I got the stomach flu on Sunday and texted my boss to…

Follow up to this post. Sonic drive thru closed I went back yesterday after work and pulled into one of the stalls, pressed the magic red button and was greeted in the intercom with, “I’m sorry but we cannot serve customers today due to staffing shortages.” What I heard was, “We aren’t paying enough to hire decent staff.” Not sure how long this will last.