Antiwork

I don’t know if it is as widespread as I have experience. But a lot of people are presenting/defining themselves using their occupation or trade as a core element. Might be because I’m euro that I’m losing something here in terms of context. But what’s with Americans being laser focused on my professional occupation. Who gives a fuck what I do or how I pay for the stuff in my fridge? Guys have been less prone to the “What is it that you do” question than women but shit … it’s depresso espresso to see that your social interaction need to have this element included.

After Christmas break I thought I would start back assisting this person as their assistant. But they later informed me that we would be taking a break for the month and would like to “bump” my pay in the upcoming month. But in the meantime they still want me to do little tasks here and there. Like updating their website, posting on social media. They are trying to mentor me and help me get to my goals. They know that I live with my parents, so their excuse was “It’s not like you have any bills”. I work in the entertainment industry and this person is known. What would you do and how do I not burn any bridges?

this week i'm working 9.5 to 10+ hr shifts. i get off at 1:30 am this morning. i got scheduled for a mandatory training meeting at 8:30 am this morning. so i'll be trying to retain safety information on maybe 4 hrs of sleep, if i'm lucky. the meeting ends at 1:30 pm, and my next shift is at 4pm and ends again at 1:30. oregon law says there has to be 10 hrs between shifts, but maybe my employers get away with this as a mandatory meeting you clock in for, not a shift. I really don't know. I'm just exhausted and frustrated. I've been falling asleep at the wheel with these machines as it stands. Why the hell do I have to push myself so hard when its not even legal? (try and restrain yourself from making the sleep deprivation a contest, please. we're all human and all…

I was under the impression that “2 weeks of paid vacation time” a year meant that I’m legally allowed to be able to take the vacation time without having to trade shifts for every single day of the vacation. My current workplace is making it so that basically no one can use their vacation days. I can only trade days with a very small number other people of my same role (we’re short staffed of course ), so in order to take a week long break for example, I have to convince like 2 or maybe 3 other people to sacrifice their days off to work my five shifts, then when I come back I get to work 6 or 7 day weeks to make up for the days I got my coworkers to cover for me. Nobody’s happy about this, can someone tell me if this is even legal?!…

I feel like when layoffs start happening and other companies see this they can also make cuts too and not be the “bad guy” in these situations. I also feel like with the layoffs companies can continue to not give raises and/or meet employee demands. It seems like even competing companies “stick together” and gain leverage over workers and start to take back what we may have gained through covid workplace changes. So back to my initial question… how long till we losr any and all leverage we may have and are told to be lucky we have a job in these times?