* * * * *
“Rise up! Your employer is stealing your life!”
> It was during the years of office work that I caught on: I got two weeks'
> paid vacation per year. A year has 52 weeks. Even a comparatively
> unskilled, uneducated worker like me, who couldn't (still can't) do
> fractions or long division—even I had enough math to figure that two goes
> into 52 … how many times? Twenty-sic. [sic] Meaning it would take me 26
> years on the job to accumulate one year for myself. And I could only have
> that in 26 pieces, so it wouldn't even feel like a year. In other words, no
> time was truly mine. My boss merely allowed me an illusion of freedom, a
> little space in which to catch my breath, in between the 50 weeks that I
> lived that he owned. My employer uses 26 years of my life for every year I
> get to keep. And what do I get in return for this enormous thing I am
> giving? What do I get in return for my life?
>
> A paycheck that's as skimpy as they can get away with. If I'm lucky, some
> health insurance. (If I'm really lucky, the employer's definition of
> “health” will include my teeth and my eyes—maybe even my mind.) And, in a
> truly enlightened workplace, just enough pension or “profit-sharing” to
> keep me sweet but not enough to make life different. And that's it.
>
Amen! Now, only if my ex-boss [1] would get this message. Or perhaps not—he
may want to work himself to death serving his corporate masters. Nothing like
dying at work to show dedication, eh?
[1]
gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2002/01/10.1
Email author at
[email protected]
