Dadio has embarked on his literary war plan, "Operation: Lame Employer Shouldn't Piss off a Guy who Buys Ink by the Barrel."
One of my lame new norm America employers has totally broken my spirit. They don't care about their employees, make no bones about lack of empathy for said employees, and basically celebrate their own bad behavior. It's all so necessary for a new-norm America.
It's the Governor Scott Walker, Congressman Paul Ryan, Senator Ron Johnson, and Gubernatorial Candidate Mary Burke, quad-fecta new-norm Wisconsin Soviet-esque work scheme.
In the interest of disclosure, ol' Dadio is in no way a flaming union Democrat. Just the contrary fair reader. If anything at all, Dadio is a flaming free spirit Libertarian. A political and philosophical bent more often associated with Republicans.
Like I say, "Shouldn't have pissed me off." Bad behavior is bad behavior.
The new norm now not-so-new-norm part-time, non-benefited, work place does not function well if an employee stays longer than 15 months. It is at 15 months that the employer has the dilemma of trying to justify not even a nickle pay increase. The, too-busy-with-new-productions excuse for no breaks or no lunch times, no longer holds water by the 15 month mark.
With the realization of no hope, employees too dumb or desperate to flee before 15 months begin to reciprocate with minimum wage work out-put.
A truly disturbing trend is all too familiar. Seeing a couple young workers come through now and then that actually have a spirited outlook is not disturbing. But, over and over again, seeing their faces drain of hope by the end of the first week, is unnerving.
The employer has little tricks to nudge these stubborn and desperate workers out: They will tinker with work hours like a dope dealer trimming shards off a brick of has```hish with a razor blade; they will harass employees if they see them by the vending machines, if there are even any vending facilities at all; they will keep the employees standing throughout an entire 11 hour shift; they will forbid employees from bringing food or liquid to the work station, yet not let them go on break; they will forbid lunch and say it is just the nature of the business; they will complain if the employee goes to the restroom; they may confiscate work locker space; they will schedule the employee seven days a week, but only totaling 25 hours, and thereby wrecking the whole week for little pay; they will administer rules on a Seventh-Grade rubric as in requiring only baby-bottles allowed for drinking water; they will not call low-level supervisors, "supervisors," but rather "operators," thereby obfuscating responsibility; management will never have an information meeting; they will not fix broken work tools like jacks thereby making workers struggle with heavy production material; yet, high-paid mechanics who are pals of management will wander around with no tools and grins on their faces with the blessings of said management; the same management will hire their children, pals, and relatives, and promote them over you; and, said management will come out to the production floor now and then, grinning, telling stories, move a product a bit, and vanish back into the office bunker.
But, the aforementioned management will never discuss the reality of the desperate situation.
Once the realization of no-hope is absolute, the employee will start missing days, coming in late, stop pitching in, and probably start voicing discontent. Good workers are transformed into bad workers; and, management will pounce on the paradox. It is only a matter of time before said employee vanishes.
These jobs and employers lean on the excuse that these types of jobs are just temporary. They say, "People move on as they move up." But, there is no moving up in the new America. Many people, especially older people have to work these types of jobs for years.
Employers know workers have become conditioned to except this abysmal life. Many workers enter their 30s and have never had a real full-time job. New convoluted norms and mores (culture) blame the workers for their failure. It is a dandy strategy.
If you see yourself in the above essay, slip on the glass slipper, it will probably fit. But, your prince will never show up.
People who shower before work in lieu of after work have no idea what I am talking about. What side do you fall on?
I was writing a book about breaking workers' spirits. "Broken Spirit," found on cooldadiomedia.com and plunked on its own page. It all got tripped up about six months ago when I went 75-percent blind. Then, the Go Daddy Internet people who I do a lot of work with, changed their portals and I have had to move 7000 essays, pictures, and postings to Google BlogSpot and WordPress.
Be all that as it may, the new American work culture is so bleak, it's collective bad behavior just jumps right out of its own pants like projectile diarrhea. You'd think current employers would want to hide, camouflage, and obfuscate their latest shenanigans. Nope, it's low hanging fruit in this era of trying to survive as a worker.
My current employer of nine years has not pinched out a pay raise of even a nickle since 2007. Some of my co-workers were in Fifth Grade then. Turn-over is rampant. No pay increases, no breaks, no lunch, no benefits. The work crew changes over every five weeks. I usually look up from the production line and count a dozen people who have only been on the job for a couple weeks. Then, there is me.
Hours and hours of re-training new workers that will not stay longer than a month. It costs the product, it costs the customer, it runs off older surviving workers like me, and it is....., insane. All along the way, my employer crosses the fingers and hopes they will never have to give me a penny of pay increase for the trouble.
What's wrong with me? Why don't I quit too? Two-mile commute; my blindness has not caused my employer to even flinch; no one has been interested in hiring a guy with 50 years of work experience and three college degrees for awhile. At least in Janesville, Wisconsin, anyway. I might as well be an ape on a tire swing as far as Janesville is concerned. Janesville..., a tired city fraught with service jobs, nepotism, and a destroyed industrial base.
Where's this essay going Dadio? The good readers ask.
It's the little things that finish a guy off. It's what the Nazis, Communists, and Fascists did and still do. They took and take away the simple lives of the Jews, free spirited peoples', entertainers, arts culture, and countless other groups and their simple pleasures one by one. Eventually, they even took and take away the aforementioned beleaguered people's lives.
What a leap of connection it is then, when I mention that Human Resources came to me today, actually sat me down in a formal "sit-down," and took away my small work locker.
"Dadio!," you fair readers gasp. "Comparing a surrendered locker to the Holocaust?" Hear me out fine readers. It's the lowest end of tyranny. What's left..., they going to come and kill my kitten next?
After nine years of me having the same small place of respite to park a needed tool or two in (my own tools by the way), keep a soda bottle, and hang up my keys, room must be made to appease all the nieces, nephews, friends, and relatives as they come to work through the revolving employment door. They will work for a couple weeks, embarrass the management class they are related to, then move on, vanish, and/or miss work and get fired. Maybe, even get in a fight or two.
Really..., my locker? Just when I think they could not possibly have anymore tricks to break a blue-collar spirit, I never in a million years thought of confiscating a simple small work locker.
OK, after all these years, my good employer seems to want me gone anyway; so..., what the fuck! Their whole shtick falls apart if workers stay longer than a year and a half. These employers are just a microcosm of a greater pandemic of un-empathetic work places in the abysmal Janesville and Wisconsin and American, work culture.
Game on then good employer. The last straw has been laid on my back. "Cry Havoc and let Slip the Literary Dogs of War."
Just one caveat to those who have fired a lame work culture shot over my bow.
Never piss off an old man that buys ink by the barrel.
Note: This blog "Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit" - book version Category is a work in progress. These original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Broken Spirit Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
4 July 2014
Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit - Keep'm Standing
This entry was posted on 7/4/2014 1:31 AM and is filed under Broken spirit.
The production facility I work in gives me lots of fodder to put into instructions how to destroy workers. The joint is a bottomless pit of tricks encompassing a gamut of banal, inept, and intentional, institutionalized methods to "break workers' spirits."
Sometimes, I think I have seen it all in 50 years of working fifty or more crappy jobs in several parts of the state, country, and world. Many at the same time, hence, 50 in fifty years. Often I have worked three jobs at once. But, then, when I think I've seen and heard it all, something is presented to me that has been right under me nose for years. It just needed presenting by a different pair of eyes.
One day I was chatting with a fellow from the apprenticed end of the building. Those guys are union and get benefits - insurance; vacation; sick time; lunch time; and breaks. The production starts on their end and heads to us non-benefited rabble.
Before the production started up I mentioned how I never used the break room as no sooner a guy will pop in there to sit for a minute and try to eat a sandwich after five hours straight of production, management, or a minion thereof, will scramble in to shoo you out and back to the production floor.
The fellow I was chatting with has been at the place 30 years. He quietly observes the nuances of the blue-collar drama without fanfare.
He paused, smiled a faint smile and said, "Keep'm standing." Then he said, "It's been in the game plan for ever. Transcends decades, management, and employee turnover. Keep'm on their feet, it keeps 'em disoriented and disheveled. Do it long enough and they don't even realize they're being conditioned."
Then he smiled that little smile again, turned, and went back to work and vanished into the shadows of his big production machines.
"Keep'm stand'n," I thought....., It's been right under my nose for years. Just couldn't put it into words.
"Keep'm stand'n!
Fuck'n brilliant.
Note: This blog "Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit" - book version Category is a work in progress. These original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Broken Spirit Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
24 July 2013
Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit - Temporary workers by systemic coercion
This entry was posted on 7/24/2013 1:31 AM and is filed under Broken spirit.
Temporary workers by systemic coercion
Here's the skinny. American workers actually do crappy jobs..., for a bit anyway. The many employers make the environment so miserable, the workers get physically sick, tired, discouraged, and just start missing days. They last about a year. Thereby, employers never have to worry much about pay increases, should they even offer them anyway.
You want to talk about the tricks to make work miserable? Do you dare me? Can you handle it? Here we go..., spontaneous and unpredictable weekly hours; both night and day hours for any given employee; no performance reviews; no lunch; no breaks; no vacation; no sick time; and, damn sure..., no vacation time. And maybe devastating of all..., no hope.
So those aforementioned Americans quit or get fired and move to the next new norm American work place. If, they can even find one. It makes the rubric seem as though indeed, Americans won't do certain jobs.
Management does not even hide their lack of shame. Not long ago, I overheard a manager say, "Why don't we get some Mexicans, they will tough this formula out better than Wisconsin workers."
Wow, there it is. I am guessing this is a universal opinion that permeates a lot of management these days. Just a hunch.
So what does that really mean? Here's another skinny. Employers make the work place so miserable only desperate people trying to save their families and start a new life, "may risk" enduring the aforementioned poor conditions. Desperate people like say..., illegal aliens?
Ergo, "Americans won't do this type of work; but, immigrants seem to do it." Nice, neat, tidy, little circle, don't you agree? Banal collective genius on the part of employers and management.
You see, the myth is that "the job and the work" is sacred, perfect, and godly. We are Americans; we guide the world with our lofty work ethics. The work, the jobs, and we, are anything but lofty and ethical. The population at large is led by media and politicians, to only focus on the workers. The myth is also that the workers are the problem. This false premise, this false alternative, quickly leads to a spurious conclusion. The rotten work environment and rubric, the new and often not-so-new, pathetic American workplace paradigm is lost in the fog of cheap rhetoric. The real outcome for workers is cruel, heartless, and down right mean spirited..., for native born Americans, new Americans citizens, and illegal aliens. But because of clever analysis and down right horse manure, the truth remains hiding in plain sight.
Buffoons control the message.
If pundits, pontificators, and politicians had ever actually worked a real job, ever had to actually shower after work instead of before work, or even dared interview a real worker, the spurious absurdities would hit them in the face like projectile vomit.
But...,
Note: This blog "Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit" - book version Category is a work in progress. These original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Broken Spirit Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
18 July 2013
Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit - McDonaldization of the work force equals..., McJobs
This entry was posted on 7/18/2013 1:29 AM and is filed under Broken spirit.
Around 1993 sociologist George Ritzer coined one of my favorite phrases. He came up with the phrase, "the McDonaldization of Society." I wish I had thought of it. Basically, it uses the McDonald's template of having all the prices on the keys, giving the workers set steps to wait on customers and make the food, and even lighting up the pie keys on the cash register to remind the counter-person to ask if the customer wants dessert. The workers are to always be polite and quick but only polite enough so as not to take too long for each customer. Around 1991, Robin Leidner did a field study of McDonald's and actually worked the job and then wrote about it. She found much of the same rituals that Ritzer found.
The movie Falling Down took a shot at the ritualism trend. Michael Douglas played a laid off troubled character that had a bit of a dangerous tantrum when he could not get his hamburger the way he wanted it. He went into Whammy Burger and ordered breakfast. But their ritualistic computerized system had already switched to lunch. When the tormented character agreed to a hamburger, it looked nothing like the photo brushed picture on the wall.
Now all this is interesting and well and good except what if this robot type ritualized service spills over into the greater society? Wall-Mart stores all basically look the same. Cruise ships herd you about on the ship to their events and activities - one often does not even know they are on water. Suburban lawns are all cut the same and the houses only differ in design slightly, often for blocks or even miles. Stop and go lights are all set out of sync to facilitate "traffic calming" so none of us get anywhere too fast. Many retailers make you check yourself out at the cash register.
Old dead sociologist Max Weber called this "rationalization." That's a $50 academic word meaning we all muck about like robots. O'l Max also coined the term the "Iron Cage" of ritual. Believe it or not he came up with that over a hundred years ago. I believe the cynical term is best used when bureaucracy is so ritualized in its inept rules that it is to the detriment of an individual or even a whole group
The McDonaldization of Society compliments a derogatory little gem called "McJob."
I first ran into this nifty and handy little condescending term in the book, Generation X by Douglas Coupland. It has a publication date of 1991. Here is the definition used in the book:
"A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low-benefit, no-future job in the service sector. Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one."
There is just something pleasantly cathartic about this book and all its quirky little made-up terms.
But then it dawns on me this crass observation is a true reality to millions of beleaguered blue-collar workers in new norm out-sourced America...,
...., just another current systemic work condition to..., break workers' spirit.
Note: This blog "Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit" - book version Category is a work in progress. These original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Broken Spirit Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
16 July 2013
Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit - Institutonalized part-time work culture
This entry was posted on 7/16/2013 1:30 AM and is filed under Broken spirit.
It's no secret by now that Wisconsin's job situation became a train wreck after 2005. And as I pen this handy handbook in 2013, despite apologists' claims, it still is abysmal. Some of us have been literally screaming about it for over eight years now - to deaf ears; of course. But in the spirit of this handbook, the architects of this worker hell know damn well what is going on.
But by now the job distress has permeated the culture so profoundly, there are few left who can hawk perpetual optimism (that fake obfuscated happy talk apologists always belch - they usually don't actually work a real job) with a straight face. Be all that as it may, the real "job ethic" in this state has been exposed as...., naked. It can now be seen as the canard it actually is, and has been for years.
Oh fair readers, you do realize do you not, that I am making a distinction between a collective "job ethic," and that revered Wisconsin "work ethic" we all know and love with dreamy-eyed fondness? If you do not realize there is a difference, perhaps you should take a good look at yourself in the mirror and ponder if perhaps you might just be part of the banal problem.
I remember moving back to Wisconsin during the Clinton and Tommy Thompson years ( the "roaring Nineties" ) after my wife and I had a work foray in Texas. Jobs in Madison, Wisconsin, were especially abundant. It was true; you could start a job in the morning, quit at lunch, and have another one by afternoon break. But because I was just glad to be home again, I overlooked the ubiquitous poor wages and weekend hours that came with that job culture.
And the 1990s were indeed roaring in "university town" Madison if you woke up in the morning without a job and needed a minimum wage gig by noon. The running joke has always been, Madison has a whole cadre of lawn mower jockeys, cab drivers, and janitors with master's degrees. But, we all put up with it with a smile because that job market filled a need. It kept students busy, gave them some social work experience, and helped parents pay bills with an extra part-time job.
But, we workers have allowed, and the architects of misery have intentionally crafted, this abysmal "job ethic" and its part-time, benefitless job culture to become our standard ground level norm, despite better jobs being out there.
Drape that 1990s job template over today's employment wreckage. Madison still boasts more possibility of job offerings than the rest of the state. But is more than zero really a victory? Is the Packers beating the worst team in pro football du jour by two points really an excuse to party down? Is the Wisconsin Badgers beating a high school team 70 to 3 really something to be proud of? Had enough sports analogies? The economy actually is a game - a play house. And right now, all the game pieces and figurines are broken.
Back when I was young, a guy would work a crappy job to get by for awhile - it is what motorcycle fix'n, car repairing, partying young dudes often did and still do. And young women would take that low paying waitress job, the boring receptionist job, or work nights in the hospital to help send the kids to daycare, or pay for college, or both. For the guys at least, it was a right of passage - few thought it was odd back then, and few think it is odd today - especially in today's world; maybe it is even more mainstream behavior in this today's world of a person remaining on an adolescent track until they are 35.
But that chosen part-time job behavior in my youth was just that...often a chosen life style. Nowadays however, it has disturbingly become the norm for most of us all. We either can't find work at all, or, we have no choice but to accept some hell job we once would only take just to round up some funds to fix our favorite pickup truck. Especially, and I repeat "especially" for those of us over 50 years old we must now re-live that miserable job culture from our past we once just joked about.
T'ain't funny now...is it?
The once middle class, decent-benefited jobs at the automobile companies, and the many other industries Wisconsin had to boast, have been relegated to the "what used to be" category. Candidates and incumbents tout secret plans to bring us thousands of new jobs. Ah, perhaps you shouldn't have let them go to China in the first place. Good luck with the secret plans. It takes years to nurture a vibrant job culture - you can't replace something in a month that took 50 years to craft.
Back in the 1960s as the Wisconsin university system expanded and family farms deconstructed, farmers who once worked 14 hour days with no benefits, looked at new graveyard janitor jobs sporting bennies at "The UW" with love in their eyes. Now that trade has been deconstructed too. The University has been bringing in limited term employees ad nauseam for years. Further, remaining full-time positions are under budgetary siege. And, a new generation of beleaguered workers do not interpret emptying professors' trash cans with the same affection their grandfathers did.
Both the hinterlands outside the pearly gates of Madison, and the Emerald City of Madison itself have been geared up for years to segue right on into the "new norm" of a decimated work force. The part-time job template of misery has been on the reserve shelf waiting to play first string for years. Now it has been pulled out and dusted off. The fast-food-esque Mcjobs with little merit or future have been the option in Wisconsin at large and Madison for decades. Problem is now, it is probably the norm for the rest of our foreseeable lives.
Job (no pun intended) well done, Wisconsin. We now are all permanently sentenced to a new norm of jobs we once only took to work through college, party, pay extra bills, or fix up the old car.
A perfect culture to break worker's spirit.
Note: This blog "Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit" - book version Category is a work in progress. These original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Broken Spirit Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
10 July 2013
Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit - Cutthroat Networking
This entry was posted on 7/10/2013 1:31 AM and is filed under Broken spirit.
Dignity and empathy in the work place for all practical purposes, has become a social crime. If the worker is lucky enough to...work...he/she is to behave like a prostitute who sells their body for time worked. Working hard in hopes of a merit pay increase is futile. Working hard and fair is an altruism now reserved for dreamy-eyed, "perpetual optimist," foot soldiers that hope their good deeds will be remembered if the economy ever gets better - save your story for the Chinese, suckers. We now live in a "new norm" culture where if you are lucky enough to have a job, it is probably non-benefit; with no pay increases in the foreseeable future; less hours; minimum wage; seven-day a week work-weeks at four hours a day wrecking the whole week for 28 hours of pay; and, fraught with nepotism and "cutthroat networking."
Cutthroat networking pushes human resource departments to the limit by the hiring of friends and relatives or working for the same. Human Resources (another lovely obfuscated title no less) has just become a validation for behavior they once were set up to try to correct long before the "new normal" and its "cutthroat networking" has wafted onto the scene. Cutthroat networking is the favoring of relatives and friends – with Human Resource’s blessings. And what of it? Human Resource departments have been decimated by the economy too. They go along to get along - just like the rest of us.
A few years ago a trend started in some companies where as they would commission Human Resources to actually concoct various schemes to reward current employees for referring friends and relatives to job openings. It smacks of the roots to a creepy inbreed work culture. The phrase, "conflict of interest" means nothing in this new norm work hell.
We work in a cutthroat networking culture of, "every man for himself." Hire your drinking and smoking buddies, and relatives, and what the hell, fuck the rest of 'em. It is going to get worse for the rabble - us rabble. You know, the rabble that actually has to work in the looted society managed by the elite manipulators and apologists - perennial politicians, two-party paradigm hacks, economic ponzi goons, and thugs.
The fragile and rocky fair playing field groomed after World War II has been laid to waist by a hillbilly oligarchy, so to speak. Got no experience; got no education; no matter..., cousin Billy's second wife's sister needs a job. Hire Judy from accounting's 20 year old son. We can get him for a song. Screw the old bastards with the college degrees and long work history.
Cutthroat network yourself a job, unemployed/underemployed, disillusioned, "new norm" Joe-blow.
Cutthroat network a job, or perish.
Note: This blog "Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit" - book version Category is a work in progress. These original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Broken Spirit Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters
4 July 2013
Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit - The Rule of 168
This entry was posted on 7/4/2013 1:30 AM and is filed under Broken spirit.
"The Rule of 168."
There are 168 hours in a week and "new norm" jobs ruin every one of them. These jobs offer no pay increases in the foreseeable future (assuming you are lucky enough to even have a job any more). They boast less hours; no-benefits; no sick time; no vacation time; minimum wage; and, seven-days-a-week work at four hours per day wrecking the whole week for 28 hours of pay.
To add insult to injury, they bring you in to work different days each week; and, schedule you for different times each day. These kind of work places have you working such odd and disorganized hours it is hard to look for another job. Their erratic hours make it hard to work a second job if you need one and are lucky enough to find one. And most likely, they will post the upcoming work schedule late in the day just before the new week's regimen starts. Planning a life is not an option.
The American service economy that has replaced our once mighty manufacturing culture, is ripe for this type of behavior. It is beyond an accident and unintended consequences of a non-manufacturing economy. It is simply mean-spirited and banally evil. It has brought out the worst in Americans - employers and employees alike.
There are 168 hours in a week and these type of work places accommodating the "new norm" out-sourced America and their work hour rubric make sure every minute of every one of those is hours is fucked up.
Note: This blog "Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit" - book version Category is a work in progress. These original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Broken Spirit Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
2 July 2013
Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit - The shitty work schedule culture
This entry was posted on 7/2/2013 1:30 AM and is filed under Broken spirit.
Gone are the days of nine-to-five work days. That rubric I remember from my youth, used a no-weekend work format - unless of course you were a dairy farmer. In the last 35 years there has been a shift to the 24-hour a day, 365 day a year work schedule.
This new norm work world would even cause an old farmer used to 80 to 90 hours a week to look at this new norm system, shake his head and say, "That's crazy. Life's too short to work that many hours."
I remember back in the 1970s wishing I could find a restaurant open in the middle of the night. Be careful what you wish for. The new shitty-work-schedule-culture has transcended almost every industry in America. What's left of every industry, anyway. Of course nowadays, we are mostly a service economy of fast food, sports bars, big-box stores full of Chinese junk, health care, repair companies, and gas stations.
This giant service work culture is ripe for a systemic template of: No pay increases in the foreseeable future (assuming you are lucky enough to even find and have a job any more); less work hours; non-benefit jobs; no vacation time; no sick time; minimum wage; seven-day-a-week work week at four hours a day thereby wrecking the whole week for 28 hours of pay; and finally, relentlessly buying Chinese junk products probably for the rest of our lives.
This trend started in the 1960s with cautious gusto. The first wave had been the flooding of America in the 1960s with cheap products from Japan and Taiwan. Everyone had a transistor radio made in Japan. Japanese scooters and small motorcycles began to become ubiquitous on the roads. That first rubric was part of bringing the defeated Japanese economy after World War II, back into a happy world economy. We also did not want them to become Commies. The Cold War was in full gear.
The second wave rolled in in the 1980s manifesting itself in our jobs being shipped out of America, going overseas and Mexico. Products began showing up from China. The shift from a manufacturing American economy to a service economy notched up.
In the last 20 years, China and the peripheral countries like Pakistan, Vietnam, and India, flood big-box stores with products. Big-box stores have shuttered mom and pop shops in ever town in America. The difference in a vibrant downtown and a bleak one is if the community can sell to tourists and visitors, a culture of antique shops, craft shops, and nick-nack shops.
Therefore, there is now an entire generation of younger workers that have been conditioned from their first job to find nothing odd about working every weekend of their lives. They are in their thirties and never have worked a decent job with benefits. They have always worked mostly 30 hours per week if they work at all. They have never known any other culture. They have always come to work sick because if they call in sick, they don't get paid.
The over-lords of this system, quietly say the 40-hour work week with all its benefits was a necessary evil to facilitate World War II and the rebuilding of the free world in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. That's a stunning revelation.
This shitty-work-schedule-culture has of course had far leaching nuanced effects on our simple workaday life styles. In a culture where 5:00 p.m. means nothing any more, it is no longer known for the end of the work day, happy hours for the most part have become only the subject of urban legends. Weekend jaunts were something your grandparents did. Outings with friends and family are micromanaged to the point of ad nauseam because the players and actors in your clique all have to work late or get back to work tonight.
Add in the culture of instant information via satellite TV, cell phones, and Internet. Free time is spent on the gaming machines and video games. The days of real leisure are gone. I am sorry I ever wished for a society "more efficient."
This new systemic dysfunctional culture has matured after 40 years as a blue print, either intentional or through unintended consequences, to grind workers in the dirt. They can be molded and manipulated; simply giving them any kind of job will keep them benign, malleable, and catatonic. They are just glad to be getting a little cash.
The transition from a society where a worker had a chance of acquiring a decent job with benefits and a reasonable work schedule, then shifting to a shitty work culture has been subtle and nuanced, but also relentless. The one last straw to put on the camel's back is the fact that few of today's jobs pay enough to sustain a family; therefore, workers are forced to work more than one of these jobs at once. With, no hope of the situation ever changing in a life time.
It is a slam dunk to break even the strongest person's spirit.
Note: This blog "Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit" - book version Category is a work in progress. These original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Broken Spirit Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
26 June 2013
Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit - Intro - book version
This entry was posted on 6/26/2013 1:31 AM and is filed under Broken spirit.
A phrase you will never hear as a blue-collar worker: "We are strapped for operating funds, so we can't give you much, but, we will try to make life bearable here; we're in this together. Please don't give up."
Na, you'll most likely rarely hear that kind of message from the boss, you minimum wage toilers. I've lived it for 45 years. Wish I had a "happy talk" report to give you fair readers after all those miserable years, but...., nope!!
You're most likely used to the inspirational speakers and their shticks selling you, "perennial optimism." And it's your fault if you don't present as a, "good patient." Good patient as in someone with a happy demeanor even as they die of cancer. In the context of a job, the whole work rubric grumbles around you, wages, benefits, nepitism, the economy, et cetera, but you merrily toil on.
In almost 50 years of working in America and then some, I've never heard any thing even close to the opening paragraph. Instead, business owners, government agency management, upper management, lower management, and society in general come up with a compendium of totally-unnecessary work place hell rubrics.
One of my own favorite sayings in said blue-collar hell is, "This just isn't necessary." Half the crap and drama at blue-collar jobs are nonsense and unnecessary.
I am an employer's worst nightmare. I have actually owned a business. I've worked for an institution of 30,000 employees. I've worked for a mom and pop business with nine employees. I've been with companies in the throes of bankruptcy. Many of the companies I've worked for so long ago have vanished; owners and managers..., long dead. I have four college degrees and 50 years of work experience. Rarely called in sick in those 50 years; even despite all the challenges of an aging body. I can fix equipment that should have been relegated to the junk heap years ago. I've endured the stresses of several war zones as a soldier and later as a journalist; and, I've worked in the schizophrenic world of the American health care system. I've seen workers at their worst and their best.
You'd think I'd be an asset to any company or entity. Nope. I might as well be an ape on a tire swing.
I am a nightmare for the neo new norm work place because..., I've seen another world. I can see problems long before they happen. I can read managers and supervisor's petty games long before they are implemented. I've seen it all before; sadly, I've seen the same behaviors over and over.
These types of work places nowadays don't not want people that have seen how the greater system has worked and know how it works now. Guys that fall into that category are just a nuisance.
A few years ago, I bought into the go-to-college-as-an-old-guy-and-reinvent-yourself sales pitch. After four degrees, and working in Southern Wisconsin, I might as well be an ape on a tire swing. This in addition to nearly 50 years of constant working..., often for low wages, and little reward or benefit. But none-the-less, I have accumulated a mass of work and management experience. Reality: companies don't hire old people. But, the higher education pimps still want their pound of flesh after you graduate. Pay up underemployed sucker. Colleges are after all, businesses that only marginally have their customers' best interests in mind. Their job is to sell..., college degrees.
So unless you want to live in your car with your cat, you go to work in some low paying jobs not yet sent to China.
Human Resources departments once designed to protect workers and companies have for the most part collapsed in the "Great Recession." It is the wild west. Employees are on their own. Managers hired only because they are relatives or just plain no threat to upper management, make up rules as they go.
The end result? Employees just trying to get by and play the game as best they can are chewed up and spit out like a hillbilly chomping on persimmon seeds.
I've seen it all. If you are an employer and want to make your employees grovel and languish, just keep on 'a read'n....,
Note: This blog "Blue-collar new norm America: Dadio's handy manual to break workers' spirit" - book version Category is a work in progress. These original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Broken Spirit Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
