Weird Articles

I keep coming across all these workplace articles. People complain about their job: work conditions, lousy coworkers, bad bosses, poor pay, long hours -stuff like that. At that point I expect the authors of the articles to have some useful advice about getting out of that bad situation -probably by leaving the job as fast as possible.

Nope. That’s not how things are treated in these new self-help pieces. They tell workers how to suck it up and keep plugging away at a crap job.

There are reasons to work bad jobs under horrible conditions. For me, it’s only acceptable if that’s how you keep your kids from starving. Even then, all your energies should be going towards finding something better as soon as possible.

People do some amazing things to keep working bad jobs. Some months ago I ran into a relative of mine working the front desk of a certain company. I asked her when she left her old job. She hadn’t. This was a second, almost full time job. She then mentioned that she probably wouldn’t have to take happy pills if she wasn’t working so much. This is a woman who survived cancer, only to go on and make her life a living hell.

I’ve seen people lose important relationships with loved ones because they were working 24/7. They didn’t even like their jobs all that much.

I guess we all make choices. Personally, I’d live full time in a tent before I gave up my life to make a few bucks from a bad job situation.

The workplace articles are pretty discouraging. True, worker’s rights are slipping, but that’s no reason not to fight the decline the whole way. We are supposed to be happy slaves. The whole situation makes me a little angry -and I’m not going to take happy pills about it either. Anger can be useful.

-Sixbears