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Antiwork

Do y’all know any good songs about how work is a soul-sucking nightmare?

Everything from the status of unemployment (i.e. jobless and seeking a new job), with the clock ticking on your ability to make rent and pay the bills and survive, the recruitment process and all its bullshit, CVs that will please the AI, cover letters that show off how enthusiastic and passionate and eager you are for this specific job at this specific place, the start at the new workplace, the time you spend getting used to it, the anxieties associated with moving if you've gone to work in a new town, let alone a new country, the difficulties of having any time or energy saved for the family, friends, loved ones, the unpaid overtime and expected wage theft, the weeks and the months and the years burning away into hours that someone else decides how they're spent, the expectations of loyalty that aren't reciprocated, the anxiety of exerting your rights…


Everything from

  • the status of unemployment (i.e. jobless and seeking a new job), with the clock ticking on your ability to make rent and pay the bills and survive,
  • the recruitment process and all its bullshit, CVs that will please the AI, cover letters that show off how enthusiastic and passionate and eager you are for this specific job at this specific place,
  • the start at the new workplace, the time you spend getting used to it, the anxieties associated with moving if you've gone to work in a new town, let alone a new country,
  • the difficulties of having any time or energy saved for the family, friends, loved ones,
  • the unpaid overtime and expected wage theft,
  • the weeks and the months and the years burning away into hours that someone else decides how they're spent,
  • the expectations of loyalty that aren't reciprocated,
  • the anxiety of exerting your rights and maybe having to pay for it later, the raised eyebrows if you take any paid sick days,
  • the expectation that you show initiative but not do anything your bosses wouldn't want you to, basically divining their needs and intentions
  • the layoffs and firings without cause and all those processes where all this effort and sacrifice and life that you've poured into that bottomless pit end up amounting to nothing as you feel like the ground gives way beneath your feet and you're suddenly put in Unemployment AGAIN and have to do the whole damn song and dance AGAIN
  • how this hollow cycle continues either for as long as you live, or long enough until you're incapable of more, and all the best hours of the best days of your best years have vanished into the ether, just so you can afford to live

It's intense, it's painful, it's relatable… I want to hear music about the pain, the anger, the stifling and suppression of one's best instincts.

And I haven't even talked about office drama and gossip and politicking and… ugh…

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