Don't Work for Others All Your Life

Probably the thing that sucks the most about not having enough money to quit working for someone else is...working with people. Why? Because up until the point you met them at work, all of your co-workers were total strangers, complete unknowns. Even after working with them for a while, you'll still know very little about them. Of course, some work places are more close and family-like, but hey! if you don't fit into their family, you're just not in the family, and probably should look for work elsewhere. I always wondered at employers who try to "foster a welcoming environment", and also speak of their hired help as "family".

 

Who believes this shit? That I could think of the people I don't know as family, at whim? "Well, if you get to know them you'll think of them as family", and hopefully, you can play along, or truly believe it. There is nothing wrong about this idea at all, only it makes me sick, only it is embarrassingly phony.  Because if you think this attitude will help you-that it's OK to play along with the charade as long as the checks arrive promptly on time-in the long run, you'll hate yourself for pandering to your employers' fantasies of a workplace Utopia. Because there is no such thing, ever, no matter who runs the place. It's only about making money, which is all about surviving this calamitous life we were all given. Everything else your employer tells you is just a reflection of his desire to have employees that get along with each other. Employers can start by paying their help well. Prosperity is the balm that heals all the problems associated with survival, and more: it is the thing that actually fosters a sense of solid, real community with others. Stop with this collectivist drivel! The only way anyone can truly love his work if he owns his work, if he is free to produce according to his ability and not his standing in office politics, if he works solely for himself, answering to no one but his customers, clients, God, and the Law. Anything else is essentially wage-slavery, and you better believe that there are a lot of petty tyrants in management who know this well, and use it to their advantage. 

Another thing we all encounter in the workplace is the sloth, shallowness, outright contempt for work and the discipline it requires, body odor and tasteless clothing, and idiotic, even evil opinions from co-workers. There are those, too, who are perfectly happy with being followers, as long as they have their steady work schedule, a cubicle, and a place to hang their family pictures. They are dull, incurious creatures incapable of being interesting at all. They are predictable, which is why they are so boring. 

These are the things you will likely encounter in the work place. Employers who think that their help should be more than help, that there is no "I" in team (despite the fact that a team consists of two or more sovereign individuals), are guilty only of wanting a labor force that works well together. This expectation should be reflected in the pay, but it rarely is. No one goes to work so they can be part of a family. Most people already have families, and not all of them are ideal. Most people go to work so they can survive. Others are also motivated by survival and self-improvement, which I am-and this goal can be achieved through the things we learn about ourselves through interacting with a group of strangers. Here is the lesson: don't work for others as a long term life strategy. Don't dream of a two week vacation in some exotic locale as the reward, and then go back to another year of the slow torture inflicted by co-workers. They care nothing for you, and can only hurt you. If they thought for one second that throwing you under the bus would further their careers, or give them pleasure, they would rush to do so, with a self-righteous smirk on their faces. 

Recently I took a job where everyone involved in hiring me were oh so chirpy and pleasant in a revolting, saccharine way. Have you ever been to a place where the employees are required to give you a friendly greeting as soon as you enter the store? Sounds right, who would argue against being friendly to customers? Only this friendliness is often not sincere, the cashier behind the register has had an entire shift of problem customers and has a slew of problems at home. She's complying because she thinks she has no choice. She's complying because she needs a paycheck. Such was the vibe I got when encountering the people at my new job, people saying my name as if they've known me all my life, acting as if me coming to them for a job is equivalent to a religious experience. Such chirpy-ness! Such fake love! (they even asked me what my favorite drink was, in one of their typically awkward "ice-breakers"). 

So don't get me wrong. I am not concerned about the phoniness, the hypocrisy and the saccharine chirping, but the expectation that I play along. As if the real reason we are all there is not to make money, but to be conforming and affirming to management's vision of an ideal Utopian workplace. They say it's about the bottom line, but it is not. It's about you validating these idiots as relevant to your life in any way other than they sign the checks.

Of course, there are exceptions to this; there are places to work where you are paid well and sincerely appreciated. They are the exception, not the rule. I have worked for people who sincerely cared about my well-being. I have worked at places where there were no petty politics at the water cooler, where the route to making more money, and hence prosperity, lies in creative productivity. Then I woke up from this dream.

Work for others long enough to save enough money to start your own business. Hire people based on their competence, not their chosen self-identity, skin color, or ideology. I've heard a lot of stuff from employers about how to make a work place environment better, a place where the employee wants to come every day and do the work. Possibly even have fun. None of this stuff ever has to do with higher than average pay and benefits, which would create just such an environment. So if you're an employer who is thinking about ways to save money, i.e., a typical, normal employer, it's natural to look at payroll as one way to do so. You can save money by paying the help as little as possible, and this is the natural inclination of all who are in business for themselves. They realize that there is only a slim chance that they can hire someone who'll accept low pay and like it, so they try to "improve the workplace environment" through means other than paying employees more cash. Also, the employers who think that people will accept low pay (because they have no other choice) are common, and they're right. Don't work for someone else all your life! Do you time in the trenches, survive, and open your own money-making enterprise. Pay your help well. Be prepared should you fail. That's the best advice I have. Embrace the truth. Eschew lies. Work for yourself, and avoid the burdens others place on you.