My Reaffirmation That I'm In The Wrong Business

I can't believe so many people are just happy to "have a job" and tell us to "be thankful."
Guess what ... these newspaper shitholes need reporters and copy editors and paginators to put out their product and to make sure the publishers get their trips to Hawaii and Jamaica and these corporate heads get their zillion dollar salaries.
We are providing a needed service for them. They are the lucky ones to have me willing to take it up the wazoo for them. Why I and others do it is beyond me.
I wish people would quit telling others to be thankful that they just have a job.
Yes getting laid off sucks and I'm sure I'll be soon to be in the unemployment line but I'll never be thankful just because I have this job because I am giving them a very very valuable service at least at this present time.

Pete had a legitimate point to make. Bank tellers have it better than we dp.

 

Then go be a bank teller.

 

Exactly. You must be a miserable person to be around at work, Fredrick. Just plain miserable.

If you don't feel respected, if you feel screwed at every turn, QUIT. It's obviously at an intolerable level. Find something else that won't make you crazy, for your own sake. Life is too short to rail at publishers all damn day.

 

If you're not thankful, you should be. You're not GIVING them anything. You're doing a job and they're PAYING you. They could choose to stop paying you or you could quit working for them. No matter what you think of it, the fact remains that hundreds of other folks would willingly take your place.

Especially those who'd be thankful to have a job.

 

Pete, does the Mrs, work for a bank that received bailout money? If so, I will expect a thank you card, since, as a taxpayer, she got it from me. ;D

Seriously, nice job on the donation.

 

Fuck the idea that you should just take your whipping and just be "happy to have a job." Fuck that.

That is all.

 

And I'm saying, do something about it instead of constantly bitching.

 

Nobody's saying you should take a whipping. But after 21 years in this business and 16 hours into unemployment, I know I'd be pretty thankful for a job right now.

 

I stand by what I said, regardless of whether that offends anybody. You're not running a charity operation. Your time and labor has value. Stop apologizing for it.

 

I figure there are four options (in any situation, regardless of profession):

1) Stay and make the most of it.
2) Stay and bitch about it.
3) Stay with some combination of the above.
4) Quit.

Or both.

 

or both?

 

Just wait until you've been unemployed, or underemployed and working only sporadically, for two years, and your unemployment benefits have run out.

Nobody is "happy" to just have a job, any job, just for the sake of having it, no matter what. But those who are telling people to be thankful to be working at all have been on the other side, sometimes for a looong time, and we are happier to have a job, than not.

I think that's what we mean.

And yes, that goes even for the $8.75-an-hour holiday temp job for which I've just gotten up and dressed...and which, frankly, I have been kind of enjoying, not so much because of the work itself as because I am, yes, happy to be working...

It's all about perspective, and it does make a difference, Fredrick. Fortunately, so far, you only have yours.

I am not offended, Waylon. But I've learned that my time/labor, or anyone's, only has value if somebody is willing to pay me for it, not just if I "demand" it, myself. In the work world, no one has intrinsic value, just because they exist, and would like a job, or would "insist" that we treated as we should be.

The employee is generally not in the position of power in such a relationship, no matter what we'd like to believe, and no matter what would be ideal.