By Don Hall

The Zoomers have a point.

College was supposed to get you the good jobs and the higher tax bracket. But unless you knew someone at the good jobs in the higher tax bracket, that MBA means jackshit.

Starting out in life at minimum wage was supposed to allow you to grow within the company and increase that wage with experience, but when the federal minimum wage hasn't been increased substantially in decades, the concept of moving up in the company is all but a vicious lie.

Becoming really masterful at a job is supposed to garner more security, but when so many employers are scared off by experience (re: hiring older workers who've been there) and prefer to hire inexperienced worker bees to keep wage costs down, the idea of even bothering with gaining experience is practically self-defeating.

Taking a trip in the Way Back Machine, I recall one of my first high school jobs at the Diamond Standard Station on 13th Street in Wichita.

The job was gas station attendant. As in car pulls up, I jump over, fill it up, check the oil and tires, clean the windshield. Yeah, I know those jobs don't really exist anymore. 

L.D. Diamond was the owner and my boss. A big man with blinding white hair in a pompadour, his skin a taut reddish brown from standing out in the sun all day, and a brusk air about him that signaled he was not in the mood for your bullshit.

"How much you wanna get paid?"

"I dunno. What do you usually pay?"

"Minimum wage is $4.25. If you're only willing to do the minimum, that's what I'll pay you."

"The minimum...?"

"On the other side, I'll pay you $10 an hour. But there are some rules. You show up on time, every time. No excuses. You show up in your uniform and it better be cleaned and pressed, every day. You work an eight hour shift but you don't leave if there's work left to be done. That work for you?"

I took the $10 an hour. He wasn't kidding about his expectations. I was late for work once and he read me the riot act, reminding me all day long about what a slacker I was for showing up late, and he docked my pay for a full day. I was never late again.

It was a solid high school job but what made it special was L.D. He taught me a few things that I needed to learn in terms of jobs in general. He was the kind of boss who expected big but paid big to get it.

The pandemic is now the go-to culprit for a lot of our current whining. Pandemic Fatigue. The almost comical rise in violent crime. Weight gain. Existential angst. Vaccines that magnetize your head.

If the year in lockdown had any affect on jobs and the workplace it was not that people got free money and stopped wanting to work. It was that the year gave so many of us a moment to reflect on our day-to-day lives and seriously consider what we're willing to give up for a wage.

I mean, that's the trade-off, yes? You give forty–fifty hours of your living, breathing time in exchange for money that you can use for rent, goods, and services. At its essence, that's the contract. Minimum wage should be only your pay if you're only willing to give the minimum effort and, if that's the case, shut the fuck up about your lousy salary.

Unfortunately, minimum wage for so many business owners is instead the least amount they can get away with before calling their business indentured servitude.

Workers have had more than a year to reconsider work-life balance or career paths, and as the world opens back up, many of them will give their two weeks' notice and make those changes they’ve been dreaming about.

“The great resignation” is what economists are dubbing it.

Surveys show anywhere from 25% to upwards of 40% of workers are thinking about quitting their jobs.

SOURCE

I'd argue this shift in perspective of a critical mass of people is the tipping point of true change in paradigm. The most effective form of protest is not marching in the streets en masse (which is great for visibility of the cause but traditionally pretty lousy at changing things) but simply opting out of a system you find objectionable.

This is a long overdue reality check. Again with the Way Back Machine, corporations used to reward employees for loyalty with corporate loyalty. Somewhen along the way, they stopped giving loyalty while still expecting it. Pensions were eliminated; 401Ks were instituted. Layoffs for employees with seniority, not out of ageism but because those older folks cost more to employ.

The labor force became nothing more than a financial liability all while promoting a faux familial corporate speak to cover up the apathetic view of the working class.

Dana and I finally got around to watching Nomadland the other night. She liked it more than I did but I'm coming around. My issue was that the character played by Frances McDormand was not someone beaten down by "the system" described above but someone who has chosen to live outside the margins.

When push comes to shove, her character has choices beyond checking out and living in a van. This bothered me initially—not much of a fan of the Gutter Punk Aesthetic—but I'm warming up to the idea.

The organ grinder makes his living because he has a monkey dressed in a vest and fez, to dance to the tune. The monkey gets peanuts, the grinder gets money. If the monkey decides to opt out of that equation, the grinder either finds another monkey or re-configures the arrangement.