Damn' Straight, I Shouldn't Have to Work "Hard(er!)"

[TygrBright]

I posted this initially in September, 2010, but it seems like the right time to re-post it, in response to, well... you know.

Damn' straight, I shouldn't have to work "hard!"

Not when "hard" is defined by people who think that your ass is lazy if you're not gasping in misery at the end of the 10-hour work day.

Not when "hard" means standing on my feet on hard concrete surfaces without a break for hours, with a bare few minutes for lunch and bathroom breaks, and hot, smelly air choking me until the migraine is so bad I can hardly find my locker to pick up my purse at the end of the day.

Not when "hard" means that my "exempt" job "exempts" me from being paid overtime for the extra ten hours a week I routinely have to put in at a flickering computer monitor in an ergonomic nightmare of a chair, with sleazy supervisors telling me how lazy I am and denying me raises because the company's profit margin isn't inflated enough.

Not when "hard" means bending over in the hot sun, muscling a heavy piece of equipment intended to be operated by two people all on my own.

Not when "hard" means accepting shitty pay and constant disrespect, suspicion, and superior attitudes from people whose only "qualification" for the job is that their brother-in-law is a company Vice President.

Not when "hard" means getting a theoretical two weeks' vacation I never get to take because if I do, my job will have been disappeared by the time I get back, "re-organized" so that two even worse-paid part-time employees take over the work.

Not when "hard" means no benefits and barely enough pay to eat on and three months behind in the rent and no money to pay for the medication I need to keep breathing without wheezing constantly, but I'm still expected to be on-the-bounce, cheerful, willing to stay late and arrive early and take over the extra work required when a co-worker is out sick.

No, you fuckers, you're right. I DON'T want to "work hard," you piece-of-crap smug sleazy empty suited heartless amoral assholes. I DON'T want to "work hard" so that you can keep making payments on your Lexus and sneer at me because I'm behind on my mortgage and "not making good financial decisions."

I want to WORK.

I want to work with DIGNITY.

I want to work for a LIVING WAGE.

I want to work for the feeling that what I do is IMPORTANT and APPRECIATED and DECENTLY COMPENSATED.

THAT'S how I want to work.

That's what UNIONS used to be for: To keep you slimy, self-righteous, greedy, arrogant shitheels from being able to take advantage of my need for a job, my need to support myself and my family and feel like I'm pulling my own weight in the world by regarding me as a disposable commodity that can be pushed around, treated like crap, and ditched whenever your fucking profit margin drops below two hundred percent and your bonus or your stock options are in jeopardy.

And then you can justify your smarmy, hypocritical, vicious, parasitical behavior by sniffing superciliously about how I "don't want to work hard."

Damn'.

Fucking.

STRAIGHT!

furiously,
Bright