Hello r/antiwork First time caller, long time listener,
I've been snooping around this sub for awhile. I've seen a lot of incredibly horrifying stories about experiences people have had with old jobs. It is because of you guys I've realized that any situation where you have an organization with more power than the people who run, there is a severe risk of injustice and oppression rising to intolerable levels. This classification applies to corporations, capitalist, and governments.
My story isn't as bad as some that I've seen on this sub. Less than a year ago, my profile was that of a fresh faced kid graduating a relatively unknown State university. Like many, I entered the corporate world despite severe misgivings partly because I could make great money working as a sales guy.
There you have it. The ugly truth. We all need money and in America you need lots of it. At this stage its not greed, its survival. Do you have any idea how much it cost to be born here? How much simple medical treatments are? How expensive housing has become? Last time I rode in an ambulance was when I had a panic attack, the hospital was five blocks away and the ride cost me $900. My best friend is loaded down with hundreds of thousands in student debt. Rent cost me > $2k a month and I live in what one would consider “an affordable city”. I live under the weight of the knowledge that any major medical emergency could bankrupt me. Student loans are structured as such that if my friend cannot afford to pay them back, they cannot be discharged through bankruptcy.
In late stage capitalism, no one can afford to be poor. So with no real good options, I chose to work the system, first by getting close to the bleeding heart of it. Sales.
Our client sold cybersecurity, Some of the best on the market. I was proud of what I sold for them, but then our own consulting company got acquired by an extremely large corporation. Like, did $50.56 BILLION in revenue large. My manager was good to us, and I wanted to believe him when he told us on team meetings that the merger would be a good thing. that our base pay would stay the same. that we'd get better benefits and compensation.
Merger happens. Our base pay is the same sure, but the commission structure was restructured in a way that essentially translated to a 25% pay cut. The benefits sucked worse than the small company we were originally a part of. No matching 401k. Despite being remote, our team was close, so I was a part of the conversation when some of the others shared that we were being grossly underpaid compared to the others in the industry. Quotas kept rising and the news of “The Great Resignation” rang silently in everyone's ears. Within the first three weeks of the new benefit structure being announced half the team left. Our fearless manager, who preached endlessly about how great being a part of this big name corporation was going to be suddenly left as well.
Around the turn of the month, I quit as well. I got a better offer from a mid-size firm somewhere else and this multi-billion dollar company couldn't even match my offer. I put in my two weeks and I worked through them to the end. Due to the transition our paychecks were going to take a longer period than usual to arrive, and today was supposed to be the day it was direct deposited and mine didn't arrive. I checked with my former co-workers who said they got theirs. I spent hours on hold on the phone with HR until I finally got someone with a thick accent on the line. After several “could you repeat that?” please's, I was informed a physical check had been sent to the wrong address, despite me double checking weeks before I left that the new HR team had my direct deposit information. I was told they would get back to me in 24 hours with an answer about what to do
Simple mistake? Deliberate snub? Does it matter? The CEO makes over $26 million a year and right now I'm down to less than half my savings waiting on this damn check. My story's not so bad, Food might get a little tight for the month, but it pisses me off. It pisses me off that people with so much power and resources have so much control over our lives, that they can do almost whatever they want while the best off of us workers scrape by and the worst off of us starve. A plurality of Politicians – that are supposed to be on our side are in their pockets spending their days creating loopholes and closing off opportunities for the rest of us when they aren't playing golf. No one should have this much control of another person's livelihood- especially in the richest democracy in the world.