i am not an employee. it's just something i'm forced to do.

12/31/2021

it's challenging for a lot of people to play the roles that are required of us from the typical employer. to me this seems to have to do with the fact that we don't think of ourselves first as employees. my reason for living is not to work for someone else. the reason i work is not because i want to--it is because i have to in order to sustain myself since there are certain basic needs (all of them, in fact) that are not just granted to all of us free of charge. i pay for water and sewage, waste disposal, healthcare, electricity that is necessary to heat my home and store foods, groceries, and the internet that has also become a necessity if you want to be able to operate without more difficulty, especially during a pandemic. 

it's also challenging for me because i work at a job where i am constantly reminded of the exploitation of labor, and the people who are delegated to make sure that employees stay in line. most of the people we interact with have managerial or administrative roles. on one hand, this is why i try to be kind to the lowly employees who reach out to me--because their own company cares little for their well-being, and i don't want to treat them like nothing. they get enough of that as it is. but the application that i provide support for caters toward the needs and preferences of the employer, not the employee. sure there are certain things in it that are intended to make it easier for employees to accomplish certain things, but ultimately it is up to the employer to decide, for example, whether or not employees can request time off on a particular day, or what days everyone must be present because the real god of employees is the almighty dollar, and consumerism doesn't take time off. 

so it's hard to work for a company that has created a product that really just supports the wheels of capitalism, seeking to profit off of something that managers all have to do--scheduling--and focusing their biggest efforts toward the entities that can afford to pay them more. (we were told recently that they'll be prioritizing business accounts, and that free accounts will get deprioritized in terms of the order of answering people when it's busier.) 

it's also hard to work for a company that tries to act like it's progressive, but still generally follows suit of corporate america, which is fucking toxic. it's exhausting in that regard too, because there is this sense that i should feel lucky or grateful because of the raise i received, for example, when any decent company would have started me at $20/hour out the gate, perhaps more since i have two master's degrees and more years of working experience. instead, because i'm still learning and so accustomed to shittier employers, i made the mistake of asking for a wage that was too low, and am just now getting closer to where i would prefer to have started. (as a counselor, i was earning $27 an hour, but could never get consistent hours. with the most recent raise i was approved for, i will be earning $22 an hour, and the other job was from over 3 years ago, so with inflation, really i should be making $30 an hour. everyone should make at least $25 minimum. everyone deserves to live a life of dignity and enjoy a degree of luxury without overconsumption.)

i am still trying to figure out what to call my beliefs. i do feel strongly about the connections i have formed, and also want to provide support for the communities i feel kinship with--marginalized people, lgbtqia people, women...but i feel less interested in working to improve the surrounding geographic location where i reside, because i don't really feel a part of it. i reside here because it's cheaper, and because i settled into the area long ago, and my family is here, and they are important to me. the only reason this region is even tolerable is because there is a university here, and a larger town not too far away where there are conveniences i like to make use of from time to time (like movie theaters and tj maxx, but i don't want those to be just down the street from me; i don't want to live in a super developed area, and would prefer if i didn't have a neighbor for a mile). 

so i'm not sure what to consider myself. leftist, sure. but democratic socialist? i think that still makes the most sense to me. communism doesn't seem to allow for much luxury. i don't want everyone to be forced to have exactly the same things. but maybe my ideas of communism are not very educated. i know that the ideas of communism we're exposed to through the conventional white education is not accurate, and that while there are glaring issues with how communism was applied in other parts of the world, that does not mean the ideology is garbage altogether. most of the libertarians i've heard from just sound like right wingers light, so that does not seem to be for me either.  libertarians seem to favor the 2nd amendment like it's the most important one, and all the ones i know of are white people, so it's sus to me. i don't give a fuck about guns since no one in this country has ever actually used them to rebel against a government entity that was oppressing people. like the centers where they're detaining children near the southern border. and i'm just not a fan of things that were born out of racism. which really might mean i'm not a fan of most things in this country!

i like the idea of a democracy, but i have yet to see it actually in place anywhere. if democracy relies on representatives, then it isn't the true vote of the people. ranked choice voting on all issues would be closer to democracy. what we have is a republic, and i don't have much control over the candidates running for local office. nor do i have any easy way for details about those candidates to be accessible and thorough. i have tried multiple times to find out details about who's running for local elections--there isn't information. and with everything else that i struggle to keep up with, i'm not going to attend every town hall meeting that comes up. especially not during a pandemic in a town where the majority of people are acting as though there is no pandemic. but the point is that a lot of decisions are made that have nothing to do with my voice or vote. so that isn't democracy. and i don't know a place where people do actually get to have a say in any decision made that will affect everyone. 

so communist doesn't quite fit. communalist doesn't quite fit (i do value the individual as well as the community; i want the needs of different individuals to be met, and i don't think we all "need" to contribute in exactly the same ways, because we all have different abilities). anarchist definitely doesn't fit because i don't think people are smart enough to self-govern (even though that has a lot to do with the educational system, and an educational system that isn't born out of white supremacy may actually provide people with a better foundation to think critically and avoid herd mentality). how many people still think trump is a good leader for us? that tells me a lot about how people don't really get who has their best interest at heart. socialist doesn't quite fit either. feminist, yes, but that isn't really a way of structuring a society, is it? could it be? could we have an intersectional feminist society model? what would that look like? 

i still resent feeling at all like i am supposed to have some sort of loyalty to my job. again--i work because i have to. there is plenty of labor i would choose to do on my own; there are lots of labors of love that i engage with because i want to support my health and the relationships i value. but paid labor is something anyone who isn't independently wealthy is forced to engage with. so it really just drives me fucking crazy when employers act like it's any other case. on a recent job performance questionnaire, one of the items asked what motivates me to do my job. a paycheck. a paycheck is what motivates me to work, because i have to eat and pay bills and take care of my cats and all these things cost money. and it drives me nuts that anyone would say anything different. why else would we be giving up so much of our time to this endeavor? because we care about a restaurant being able to schedule their underpaid employees? because we care about a boss making more money during a pandemic? no. fucking no. and i have less and less respect for people who are tools in the machine of capitalism. i get playing along. but stop acting like a company is anything different than what it is--an entity that seeks to make lots of money. don't tell me on one hand that you want me to be an employee and then expect me to care about your personal life. that shit makes me bonkers. 

that's my rant about employment for the day. people who say they love their jobs--i wish i could do a survey to find out how many of them are neurotypical. and to find out what the lives of those people looks like outside of work, because i suspect they have full lives, fulfilling lives outside of work that motivate them to keep doing what they're doing because it affords the lifestyle they like to maintain. 

ultimately i want to be able to invest more of my time in my own business. i haven't done that. my employment for someone else takes up a lot of my time and energy, and i'm not going to beat myself up for not doing more during the holidays. but i do want to work even less for the company that hired me, and more for my own nonprofit organization, which was designed to actually be a force for good in the world. maybe that says a lot about me--that i value that type of organization over a software company, but that is how i feel, and it's linked with what i value, and my values are based on the importance of people, mental health, and us being able to live as authentically as possible. i have yet to meet an employer who supports that. 

i have twenty minutes before my short shift today. it's new year's eve. tomorrow i'm not doing a goddamn thing besides resting and taking care of myself. tonight too. and then sunday i'll be with my sister for the evening. not everybody's working for the weekend (since a lot of people have to work saturday and sunday), but this lady sure is. for now at least.