10 Reasons Why It Hardcore Sucks Being an American Wage Slave

Certain things about being a wage slave in corporate America truly are unbearable, but some corporate induced insanity-as-initiatives are a far worse burden to bare then say, being pregnant for a solid five year stretch.  

So whenever you find yourself at work but not working, instead you're staring out some random window, no matter how small, or on YouTube watching a cat dressed as a great white shark riding on a Rumba chasing a duck, for no matter how long, on some level, not just wondering if life is passing you by but knowing that it is...

(Please, I just want my life back).

...also know that somewhere out there, underneath the same blue sky, is Munchausen Syndrome, simultaneously doing Google Image searches for nonsensical phrases, such as, "Rainbow Glitter Kitten Cookies Pork-chops" and muses over the divine chaos shown to her.

(That's fascinating).  

Riches and fame aside, let's focus on the impoverished and mundane instead, shall we?  Let us focus on the foolishness most of the working-poor of America have to endure just to make "an honest living".  Such madness and productivity do co-exist, in the work environments we all endure, environments that can destroy your spirit while it devours your soul.  Join me, in the hellish countdown of... 

...The Top 10 Reasons Why It Sucks To Be An American Wage Slave!

#1). EVERYBODY MUST BE SUPER DUPER HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY, ALL THE TIME!  (Or else).

Seriously, I've worked at real places, in America, that demand you be happy at work.  As a requirement.  No matter what kind of personal issues you might be facing, no matter how traumatic those issues may be.  To be positive was a required work performance, penalty of being written up or sent home for not being so.  Upper-management will tagline it "Positivity In The Workplace" and slap up motivational posters with additional buzzwords and will explain that only positive speech will create positive thought, with the true belief that this is a valid vehicle in achieving true happiness and maximum productivity.  Until the lowly beings at the bottom of the collective work totem pole start buzzing on their own, tossing about words like: Orwellian, draconian, totalitarianism, invasive, doublethink, and Thought Police.   

If you know the type of corporate induced forced happiness that I'm referring to, please believe me when I say, I certainly wish you did not.  And if you're still damned to a hell of false happy, just smile through the tears, blessed with the insight that hey, these cheap ass bastards aren't going to pay for your Prozac or group therapy anytime soon so how dare they underpay you while they overwork you and demand that you continue to whistle as you work while they strip every benefit and ounce of humanity you have left?  While the better off allude that you must be dumber, lazier, less deserving then they because you wear a name-tag, so why don't you just buck up Chuck and grab your bootstraps along with my venti macchiato?      

  

#2). Working Faster Means You're Working Harder!

The majority of tightfisted corporations I've worked for expect you to work really fast in general, and sometimes they'll sadistically increase your work load, job responsibilities, and output expectations on a contingency of remaining employed, all while denying you more time to do all this additional crap or offer you an increased financial compensation.  This creates a toxic atmosphere where nothing you do typically gets noticed unless it's a mistake, even though the rushed atmosphere itself tends to lend to the mistake making. 

The bigger mistake seems to be abusing your employees, stressing them out constantly, and asking them to deliver unrealistic results in the name of your bottom-line even if it's at their expense.

#3). The Constant Obsession With Appearances

It's definitely some type of deep seated high school carryover where everyone starts evaluating everyone else's appearance at work instead of assessing their character or abilities as a person and the contributions they make.  To judge someone on their clothes collection is a bit of an unfounded bias, yet despite the well worn adage of "clothes don't make the man", this is quickly buried under memo after memo of amended dress code restrictions.   

Upper-management neglects to know that the reason why your shirt has holes, and your pants have stains, is because you've been putting all your efforts and resources into your children, family, home, car maintenance, and gas to even get to work.  Can't they appreciate that you don't have lice or smell like ass and maybe, just maybe, pay you a livable wage to afford the type of outfits that they'd like to see you in?

Of course for the ladies, there's always the danger of looking too good.  Even in repeatedly worn rags or that unapproved hoodie (never-mind if you gave your actual winter-coat to your eldest child), you run the risk of getting pegged a ne'er-do-well or worse, the official office slut.  By males and females alike.

Equally just as there is the downfall for being the "wrong type of attractive" there's plenty of benefits for being the "right type of attractive", leading us to... 

#4). Who Made This Pretty Idiot My Superior?  

Just as one can be negatively judged for coming across too sexy or not sexy enough in the workplaces of corporate America, ironically, the right type of pretty and positivism can open doors for eye candy of either gender.  

We've all been there, having to report to a totally incompetent idiot, forced to carry out every demand of theirs, no matter how poorly executed just because someone in senior-management liked how their ass looked in khaki and rewarded them with a job that requires them to walk around.  A lot.  So your intellectual inferior becomes your supervisor due to your inferior sex appeal just like that on any given Sunday and they'll walk around the office grounds like 

And ladies, I'm sure you'll recall some studly idiot that rather to have stood there with his dick in his hand instead of doing something productive like you would have been doing had you gotten the promotion, not him, so you wouldn't be hovering there over his shoulder trying to score some aerial cleavage while showing you the wrong way to do something just because he gets to do everything that he wants 

#5). He Who Speaks The Loudest Is Heard Most  

It's been my experience that a female co-worker or manager can make the same suggestion three times in a row at a meeting or in a group-chat and go unheard, but as soon as a male makes that same suggestion, all of a sudden, everybody stops being deaf.  Or worse, she was heard, challenged, interjected, dismissed, and fifteen minutes later the same idea gets slightly reworded by her male counterpart and not only does everyone suddenly agree with whatever it is that he said...

...despite it actually being what she said first, the consensus is not just to merely hear what the male co-worker suggested to do or directed to do

 but to listen to his directive and follow it through.

Typically without question.

(Ah, the making of Yes Men).  

Most of corporate America's male upper-management mix seems to be populated by bros, ex-jocks or frat boys, and wannabe musicians, who are just as aspiring as "Yertle the Turtle" for status.

  

Typically these turtle climbing bros cooperate with each other just as much as they compete with one another.  These are the binge-drinking, coke lovers whose inspired ideas dictate much of your day.  Technically, even your life.   

  

This is the perpetual boys club that you cannot escape since every idea they have, is a good one, even if it's a bad idea.  

Like a 1980's Saturday morning cartoon lineup, things can get pretty predictable in these type of work environments where men engage exclusively in most interdepartmental communication and setting of administrative goals, creating a stiffing environment for the enlightened female worker drone or supervisor.  

In fact, it has been my personal experience that in these type of toxic corporate work environments, it's rare to see females in leadership roles in general and when the few that are happen to assert the authority they've been given, the male co-workers of the support staff will check them, accusing them of being  

BOSSY (even though...you're supposed to be a boss too)...

Or you get accused of being of being bitchy behind your back.

When you're really just being assertive.  And if you dare to be passionate in your assertiveness, as a female in upper-management you instantly get told to calm down because you're "being too emotional".    

This leaves every turtle-bro in the office wondering what your lady problem is.

While they fail to realize that maybe constantly being shot-down and seeing your ideas only get implemented if it comes out of another turtle-bro's mouth, when constantly getting physically evaluated, and deemed unsound emotionally, might just make a lady sick of being tossed under a bus and instead cause her to seemingly randomly demand one day that you 

--and when she does, it automatically gets chalked up to: "She must be on her period."

Meanwhile, it's back to business as usual after the periodical period assessment!  Which is really just more loudness. 

And nobody really knows what the fuck is going on.

#6). Corporate Copyright Infused Palette   

Maybe it's just the Lisa Quinn in me but I really am perplexed by how many places I've worked where whatever color or colors their logo had, tended to dominate and permeate the rest of the decor.  Got hunter green in the logo?--now that same exact shade is in the carpets and wallpaper.  Cat-puke orange?--here's your new polo in that same color.  This garish yellow?--we paint all of our buildings in this color and the floor tiles match as well, you're welcome!   

It's seriously bad enough that corporations have homogenized the cityscapes and landscapes of America with their information overload of logos, advertising, and store facades.  But then when you work for them, when you realize that the interior of the leviathan is just as horrid as their version of graffiti architecture is on the exterior...it gets...kinda depressing.

(McDonald's on Mars).

Color coordinating your interior design with your logo is sooo faux pas.  Please, just...

  

#7). Turn Off The Florescent Lights And Open Some Windows  

Speaking of architectural flaws, did you know multiple studies have determined that florescent lighting is actually bad for you?  Humans are sunlight based beings and the sun gives us full spectrum light whereas florescent lights do not.  Florescent lights have been linked to causing the following aliments:  

-Migraines

-Melatonin suppression

-Depression

-Endocrine disruption and poor immune system function

-Hormonal disruption

-Increases in breast cancer

-Anxiety disorders

In addition to poor lightening, we also have to contend with poor ventilation, something we're all exposed to daily.  Stagnant air can cause Legionnaire's disease and something called Sick Building Syndrome.  Constant circulation of stale canned air leads to horrible air quality which in turn leads to disease.

So maybe instead of running for cures, the corporations employing us should invest in office ergonomics better.  Of course to be held fiscally responsible, the powers that be would have to be held socially responsible and since it's legal in The States--albeit highly immoral--to take out "Dead Peasant Insurance" policies on unknowing employees (last I checked) it's doubtful their focus will change soon.  Meaning this for-profit medical system could be a far more darker quagmire then most could ever possibly envision.  I encourage you to learn and do more to change this horrific violation of the employer-employee social contract. 

I learned of the existence of "Dead Peasants" from the documentary 'Capitalism: A Love Story' and I do not care what you have heard or think you know about Michael Moore, you cannot hate the art just because you hate the artist, you always have to evaluate the art-form independent of its creator.  But scenes from this documentary explain, for me anyways, why this movie was pulled from theaters almost immediately upon its release.         

Certainly the 1% wants the 99% to remain passive, divided among themselves, and bamboozled.  They make a lot of money off of our endeavors, labor, escapes (movies/sitcoms/video games), and even death.  So no wonder they would allow toxic work environments to be replicated instead of phased out.  Which for me, makes the #1 bitch at the top even a bigger joke.  You invest little to improve working conditions or the quality of life for many, there's tons of data out there that prove your cost-effective lightening fixtures cause disease, cancer, anxiety, and depression and you want me to keep smiling or go home?!--if so, you can go to hell.  Because I bleed rainbows.     

 #8). 40 To 40+ Hour Work Weeks  

I'd rather make $40.00 an hour, so I only had to work 20 hours a week, so I'd have more free time so I could write, paint, and volunteer at the local battered women's shelter or just become more active in my immediate community in general.  I could go on and on about this but instead, since I read a really good article about this very topic this morning, I'm just going to say click here and please read it, share it even, because this madness has to stop.  We need liberty from meaningless overwork, so the work we choose to do becomes more meaningful.

Plus "working-poor"?!--you are kidding me, right?!--that is SO moronic, if you bother to get out of bed everyday to work a job, or sometimes THREE fucking jobs, to make ends meet and provide for yourself or your family, then you shouldn't BE poor and you AREN'T lazy, you're just MANIPULATED by a system that continues to benefit a few, while many suffer. 

It would be nice if some of our elected officials actually did THEIR JOB and protected the interests of the people instead of the corrupt interests of corrupt corporations!  

#9). You Can Be Fired At Any Time For Any Reason, Including NO Reason At All  

American laborers just don't have the same kind of protections that we used to.  Everything from call centers that won't let their agents drink water on the call floor to gas station attendants not being allowed to sit down at any point during the duration of their (sometimes double) shift, and other things even more degrading and dehumanizing are happening not only every day but probably a couple blocks away from you in that nice office building that would and/or should outrage and disgust you.  Anybody can be homeless in America, all it takes it lack of income.  It doesn't matter how successful, smart, accomplished, or hardworking you are, if you get laid off and income doesn't get to you in time to supplement that which was lost than, you are out of the game. 

Montana's the only "Just Cause Termination" state in the entire freaking union. 

But if you're "lucky" enough to be hoodwinked, I mean, hired, then you get to oppugn with:

#10). Soul Crushing Boredom All Day Long

Most jobs out there are repetitive, not very challenging, and mundane.  Any kind of stress you feel in these jobs are the direct result of people, be they verbally abusive customers or careless members of senior-management, not making things easier for you.  Most of the time, it is the people in senior-management that are to blame for why everything's so inept and unstructured at your job.  Senior-management and stockholders are why the pay and benefits are lousy or even why your job's getting outsourced.  But if you openly express these truths, you won't have a job for long, hence this awful self-perpetuating paradoxical cycle of numbers 1 through 10.

Scared employees make for silent citizens.

So don't dwell in a boring toxic Candyland of happy.  Rise above it.  Demand change.

The good news is though, with visionary sites popping up like Glassdoor and Kickstarter, we should hopefully be seeing some new corporate-employer action accountability when it comes to managerial reputations and new entrepreneurship that will literally rock our collective worlds.   

Remember, the revolution IS happening, right now, and it's communications based.  Stop being silent.  Stop being scared.  Future generations of Americans demand it.

Plus the end goal SHOULD be liberty from job-lock, don't fear automation when it comes, it might just be an end to the Work War and your wage slavery.

If you've had a wearisome day, I hope you can stop and enjoy these two songs for a moment and dream of a world with no red tape or logos.  Or even jobs.  A world, with a bit more...sunshine.