Category: Antiwork

“Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me and for the offer. I was excited to get into the pace of things. Regrettably, I cannot accept. Cost of living and housing qualification standards have made working at that wage unaffordable, stressful beyond necessity, and ultimately, unrewarding. I wish the numbers panned out differently, but these are our community’s material conditions and I cannot negotiate with reality. I would be really grateful if I were in consideration for other positions with higher compensation, I’m certainly qualified. It has been wonderful getting to know you and I hope we cross paths again soon!” I know, I’m way too nice to these people.

Those who have come before us were able to have well paying jobs, take a few vacations a year to Disney world or wherever, and still be able to afford shit on top of all that. Now it’s like we’re just living to work and that’s it. I’m a 28 year old man. I wanna be able to travel and do fun things and see the world and experience other cultures. I wanna go to school again and learn more than what I have. But there’s just not enough time and money in the day to do jack shit. Don’t get me wrong I like my job. I worked and fought to get this well paying job. But where does it end? I can’t be the only one thinking that the normal human experience now is just work and die.

When I was 19 I started working part time for Hallmark in the design & embroidery section of their warehouse. I was pretty excited about the opportunity as the job paid a few dollars over minimum wage, and at the time I was a dishwasher making min wage. ​ I was working nights as a dishwasher and mornings at Hallmark, and I told my boss I put in my two weeks at the dishwashing joint to work fulltime for him. ​ Well, they weren't stoked about my performance – and I get it, I wasn't catching on very quickly, I had a direct manager who didn't really like me either – but I was trying. Anyway, the day after I finished my previous job, my new boss fired me via email. Not even. The recruiter emailed me to tell me “I didn't need to come in anymore”. ​ Left a…