And so it begins. It's another Monday. The worker finds himself up before the sun rises, every movement of his measured by a rush against the clock. His shift begins in two hours. It will be just like any other day in his life so far - 8 or more hours sitting at a desk, his keystrokes monitored by eyes thousands of miles away in another office, the artificial glow of fluorescent lighting overhead, the daily repetition of a task he often does dozens upon dozens of times each day. Each hour during the day crawls by at the pace of a snail. At times, he finds himself worrying about how he will pay his bills come next paycheck. They keep promising a raise, but he hasn't seen one for over five years now. He looks out the window to a park across the street - young couples stroll up and down the neatly maintained paths, bursts of color strewn at key points throughout the park. Off in the distance, a lone photographer capturing, in carefully timed movements, the images of a vibrant, warm spring afternoon. Near the stream, a lone artist sits, an easel in front of her, her hands moving gracefully as she captures a scene of unparalleled beauty. Feeling that familiar tug at the strings of his heart, the worker sighs and turns back to the glowing screen in front of him, the dry air scratching the back of his throat, the sounds surrounding him not that of happy kids or the sounds of nature, but the endless drone of ringing phones and of idle conversations that give him a grievous headache. He first thinks to himself of the dreams he had that never came true, and then mentally begins again a weekly ritual - the countdown to his precious few hours off with the arrival of Friday evening. He thinks of how exhausted he feels. He aches to find meaning in his life, to find a way to do the things which, when thought of, make his heart leap with joy and make him feel alive, engaged. A long week, indeed.
And it is here where I begin my dialogue. In every way, I can relate to that worker. I'm now him, only in my case, my view on one side of the building is a concrete highway. On another side, I cannot even see the windows - blocking my way is row after row of half-cubicles, all filled with people whose world consists of nightclubs, call center stories, idle chatter about sports teams they have no financial stake in, endless refrains of the same script used to greet incoming callers and the constant ringing of phones. When I am able to approach those windows...I can see some of the mountains west of the city, but most of it is blocked by drab buildings bearing the same colors - concrete gray or beige, with too few windows. Many of them have corporate logos on them, some of which may be familiar to you - Marriott, Shell, AAA. Similar to that anonymous worker in that anonymous office, I find myself in a position where the pay is not that great, yet the expectations are that of someone with double the responsibilities and double the pay. On warm days like that sunny, warm scene I described in a park, I too sit in an office that presents itself as monotonous. Any attempts at creativity or daring ideas are met by one single word: no.
I'm surrounded day in, day out, by people who talk of a better life. More often than not, though, that talk eventually steers back towards which call centers are the best, which ones pay the best. So far, I'm in my third call center job. The first one I walked away from, frustrated over missing pay, incessant monitoring for the most ridiculous of things in the world and a biased management system. The second I ran from after less than 3 hours on the job - the training was lackadaisical and very haphazard, the working space reeking of marijuana, the computer systems very outdated, the rigorous demands for what the job entailed very poorly matched by low pay and low hours and a staff which either seemed to be very apathetic or hostile in the most subtle of ways. And so far, this latest firm is no better, despite the claims of some that they treat you like a human being.
The hours, I suppose, aren't too bad. 40 hours a week...far different from what I previously had done as a Lyft driver on late nights. The location is at least close to where I live. And that right there is where the decent parts end. The pay, $10.00 an hour, still doesn't go far enough - not where bills are concerned. Not where the cost of food is concerned. Not where fuel is concerned. Not where much of anything is concerned, for that matter.
The job's requirements are rather mundane. Each day is almost laughably predictable and mundane, severe in it's very structure: access one system and check all of your cases there to see if anything can be closed. After that, check to see if there are any updates to another system. After that, triage new cases. After that, 20 cases from the vendor queue. After that, another 20 cases from the work in progress queue. After that? Close 5 cases. Considering how slowly both the company we contract for moves along with it's vendors, meeting that goal is often impossible, and any creative attempts to make the process easier are met with stern words of disapproval - it's in the realm of the client, we're told, but they want us to bend over backwards and still get it done even as we are stonewalled, we're told. I find myself more often than not bristling as this, especially considering the pay I receive for my efforts. I've encouraged others to fight for higher pay, but to no avail - I'm left as the only voice in meetings where we ostensibly are supposed to be allowed to voice our concerns, only to be told that it is not the right time or the right place for it. It begs then question: just when is a good time to do exactly that, then?
The question of time off, too, is laughable. The company itself doesn't allow for personal time off. Well, in a technical frame of reference, it does, but you're extremely limited on how and when - in theory, you receive up to 3 hours of paid time off per pay period. There, however, you have to ask for permission for it and hope that work force will grant it. Otherwise, you're expected to make up the time at night or earlier in the morning or risk receiving a write-up for your efforts. The fact alone that you should make sacrifices in exchange for time off for unplanned visits to your doctor, unplanned illnesses that can keep you in bed for at least a few days yet not bad enough to warrant a visit to your doctor, family emergencies, a trip to a vet's office or even something as mundane as renewing your driver's license or even a car breaking down is unheard of in my personal experiences. Most good companies in my experience allow for that kind of time off, with no asking of personal sacrifices in order to bill a client so that a man thousands of miles away can grow richer while playing golf or flying around the world in a private jet.
For at least eight divisions at my company, the restrictions on your schedule are even more limited. I understand that open enrollment is a big thing for HMOs each year. And for us, it boils down to this: either volunteer extra time to us for this period or it will be mandatory. This practice, I feel, is applied indiscriminately with no consideration for second jobs people may be holding - no consideration for anyone taking college courses as part of a degree program that could very well get them out of that cubicle filled hell - no consideration for anyone with kids and no babysitter at all. And all of it to benefit a man flying around the world in a private jet. I often curse the rigidness behind such a system.
Yes, I agree - at least I have a job. But...I even have criticism over the healthcare plans offered in exchange for working there. High cost plans with high deductibles, all offered to managers and regular employees alike, who all are making $10.00 an hour and try to get overtime in just to make ends meet. And during all of this, my anxiety grows. Stories spread everywhere I go of a Vice President for this anonymous company openly referring to workers in terms such as "Burger King babies". I see every day proof of how insecure these workers I sit next to truly are, whether it concerns the wages they earn, the uncertain schedules they are given, the pitiful health benefits they receive, the ease by which they can lose their very jobs over even a simple illness, the lack of a voice in almost all decisions, the constant monitoring by eyes half a world away, the gap between the rich man at the top and the poor at the bottom...it weighs on me. More than anywhere else, I have come to believe this: the call center, more than any other cubicle filled office space, is where dreams go to die. It is, even, where hope itself dies. And I strive every day to try and keep the candle flame of that hope alive.
And so it comes to this: I wish more and more that the people I work with would stand up and fight for themselves. I wish they would stand up and fight for a system in which they get treated as actual human beings with needs and dreams. I wish they would stand up and fight for the higher wages they seem to want...that they would stand up and fight for a more affordable health plan. A fairer schedule. Less rigid rules where creativity and feedback is truly honored. But...as I have seen myself for going on six months...this does not seem to be something that will ever happen. Because this is the new norm in America once more, and it likely will be this way for years to come, just as it was in the early Industrial Revolution, as it was in the late 19th century and as it was in the years directly preceding the Great Depression. Companies are no longer led by corporate statesmen who seek to champion the causes of economic equality, civic engagement, education or even a healthy, well paid motivated work force that can truly build a better society. They're led by men and women whose world consists of unfettered, obscene luxury, and the rest of us mere worker ants left to face a very dreary future. It is here that I leave off with these words from one of the greatest men in all of history:
"No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level - I mean the wages of decent living." - President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Monday, April 18, 2016
Sunday, January 17, 2016
The Battle For The American Soul
I'm angry. I'm very angry. It's been nearly three months since my last post, and a lot has unfolded since that time. In early November, I was facing the prospect of a new job. I was excited about the future I was pursuing at that time. And although it took a while, I now find myself involved with helping to get Senator Bernie Sanders elected as President. I thank the universe for that - whenever I meet up with the good people behind this campaign, the very same people involved with it almost day and night, I feel my hope rise up. I feel empowered by the positivity that I'm surrounded by. However, my anger towards the state of this country remains very real, and very powerful.
In the last three months, I've found myself horrified and angry numerous times. In the political realm, I have a lot of fury towards the conservatives in this nation. At rally after rally for each of the Republicans running, the open racism, the open displays of religious xenophobia, the open displays of homophobia, the love affair for the Second Amendment and the Second Amendment only, has left me horrified beyond words. At numerous rallies of the most prominent of all the Republican candidates, Donald Trump, I have watched with fury and horror as Latino-American protestors, Black Lives Matter protestors, Muslims and even liberal individuals were shoved, spit on, beaten, threatened and ultimately booted out in the most unceremonious of ways, with the entire crowd often cheering on this behavior. I find myself asking how this can possibly be the very same Republican Party that gave us men like Abraham Lincoln, men like Theodore Roosevelt, who once had the courage to first free the slaves, and then strive for racial equality until their last dying breath. I wonder how this can be the same Republican Party that once fought corporations inch by inch in a bitterly contested battle to uphold the nation's most economically vulnerable citizens into a much better situation - a situation where they would receive fair wages, fair working hours, actual benefits and a safe working environment, instead of the borderline slavery workers had endured for millennia beforehand.
Instead, what I now see is a party hell bent on ensuring minorities once again face the brunt of violence and slavery because their "God" has ordained that it be done. I see a party hell bent on slaughtering anyone not of a fundamentalist Christian belief. I see a party hell bent on making serfdom a very real concept in this world once more. I see a party hell bent on letting corporations destroy the one and only planet known to be able to sustain life, all the while assuming that Jesus will either come back and fix it almost instantly (while simultaneously murdering in cold blood anyone that these people disapprove of), or equally assuming that there is nothing wrong with our environment, that somehow it is all part of a natural cycle, that unheard of weather changes that are creating enormous threats to the long term survival of human civilization are somehow "normal". I see a party retracing the very steps of history itself, and more particularly the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. I see a party that doesn't seem to give a damn about the Constitution - it pays lip service to the Constitution, and that's it. If anything, I see the Republican Party as being more in admiration of the Articles of Confederation, under which the newly created United States nearly met it's demise had it not been for the Founding Fathers quite astutely seeing that we were on course for a civil war. And it angers me to see much of the country following in lockstep behind the Republican Party of today, it's endgame very likely ending in the permanent end of all life as we know it. And none of the party's followers seem to give a damn.
On a similar theme, the recent terrorist attacks within our own borders and elsewhere have left me greatly aggrieved. In early November, the world watched with horror as 128 people were slaughtered in cold blood on the streets of Paris, the perpetrators of the attack evidently being connected directly to ISIS. ISIS, a beast which we gave birth to in Iraq through arming the very same individuals who we abandoned yet again after we felt they were no longer necessary in our quest to seize yet more oil in lands half a world away in a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11. And yet, in that same nation, Iraq, many still unbelievably enough think that it was involved with the death and destruction wrought upon New York City, Washington D.C., and in the fields of Pennsylvania....a lie spread by an administration that helped to usher in unbelievable amounts of damage to our nation's own wellbeing, and our credibility at the international level. And all for the benefit of a few rich oilmen who refuse to believe that their products are killing the planet off one step at a time. At the same time, hundreds more died because of these same murderers in Lebanon. And again, the world wept.
On the heels of the Paris attacks came the blowback from an ongoing civil war in Syria. A civil war in which both sides, by every account, we financed, or more specifically our own domestic arms industry financed with glee, and all over the prospect of making money. The end result was tens of thousands of refugees with no training, no way to fight back...most of those refugees being widowed mothers and their children. In a gesture of humanitarianism, our government elected to bring 20,000 of those refugees here to the United States. Sound logic, given that we put them into a situation where they had nothing left over there aside from the possibility of a lifetime of violence, starvation and misery because of our weapons industry adding fuel to a fire we never should have been around in the first place. What was the reaction from the political right? Fuck them. Bomb them. Send them back over there, they don't belong here. Take care of our homeless veterans, fuck the refugees, they're all terrorists, or at least a few of them might be. All words coming from people who condemned homeless veterans of our own wars before as bums, as being guilty of stolen valor because they apparently did not fight the cartoonish stereotype depicted by G.I. Joe. Again, the racism and the infuriating refusal of the entire bulk of conservatives in this country made my blood boil. And the insinuations that every last goddamned one of those refugees, who we created through our oil industry's efforts to seize more oil and land for pipelines in the entire region, were little more than goat fuckers? The condemnation of their entire religion without even studying it in depth? The fury I still feel towards the insensitive bastards who spout such ignorant words is unheard of. I again have to wonder - is this truly the same party that once stood for equality for all?
On the heels of that came the Planned Parenthood shooting right by my home. All afternoon I heard the gunshots echo from Centennial. Every report that evening and since then has indicated that the terrorist behind the dozen plus wounded and the three dead there carried out that attack on purpose. Every report, every statement made by the terrorist himself, has shown that the bastard did it to prevent abortion. It has shown that he was inspired directly by the theocratic traitors within the ranks of the Republican Party and other similar conservative political parties. And, it seems, he was also very anti-government...a lunatic all too willing to murder his fellow Americans in defense of "his" country. Basically, a bum with a gun. And for the most part, the political right remained silent, or tried to classify this terrorist attack as a "bank robbery gone bad", or insisting that it all began at King Soopers nearby, and that Planned Parenthood was simply a place he chose to hole up at. Never mind any damn facts, either. Still others cheered him on, insisting that this was God's punishment for the aborting of a collection of fetal cells with no nerves, no sentience! Again, is this the same party that once stood for reason? The same party whose men worked within NASA to put men on the moon? My fury increased.
Since then, the continued, full-throated defense of our system of economic inequality has continued unabated. The promotion of war as the answer has gone unabated. The defense of a murderous cult posing as a legitimate religion has continued unabated. And, despite a few notable examples, the Democratic Party, for it's part, has shown itself to be a mere mockery of what it once accomplished under JFK, Truman, Johnson or even FDR himself. The establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, along with much of the remainder of her party, seems inclined to support the Republican Party's love of the Gilded Age through action, even if she now tries to decry them. Their defense of minorities and gays is, at best, a joke. And now, despite whatever the corporate media in this country may tell us, much of the country has coalesced into one of two camps - on one side, there are those of us who support Bernie Sanders of Vermont, one of the few lone figures who has tried with all of his might to fight private sector corruption and racism in this country for decades. On the other, Donald Trump seems to be the candidate that is attracting the most racist, close-minded, religiously biased segments of the entire nation. In other words, this year will be a battle for the American soul. And it is our final chance to grasp the straws of what could be either a golden future for not only our country, but our species, or march down the path to darkness and death. And it will be a long, drawn out battle between the two sides. That much is clear.
In the last three months, I've found myself horrified and angry numerous times. In the political realm, I have a lot of fury towards the conservatives in this nation. At rally after rally for each of the Republicans running, the open racism, the open displays of religious xenophobia, the open displays of homophobia, the love affair for the Second Amendment and the Second Amendment only, has left me horrified beyond words. At numerous rallies of the most prominent of all the Republican candidates, Donald Trump, I have watched with fury and horror as Latino-American protestors, Black Lives Matter protestors, Muslims and even liberal individuals were shoved, spit on, beaten, threatened and ultimately booted out in the most unceremonious of ways, with the entire crowd often cheering on this behavior. I find myself asking how this can possibly be the very same Republican Party that gave us men like Abraham Lincoln, men like Theodore Roosevelt, who once had the courage to first free the slaves, and then strive for racial equality until their last dying breath. I wonder how this can be the same Republican Party that once fought corporations inch by inch in a bitterly contested battle to uphold the nation's most economically vulnerable citizens into a much better situation - a situation where they would receive fair wages, fair working hours, actual benefits and a safe working environment, instead of the borderline slavery workers had endured for millennia beforehand.
Instead, what I now see is a party hell bent on ensuring minorities once again face the brunt of violence and slavery because their "God" has ordained that it be done. I see a party hell bent on slaughtering anyone not of a fundamentalist Christian belief. I see a party hell bent on making serfdom a very real concept in this world once more. I see a party hell bent on letting corporations destroy the one and only planet known to be able to sustain life, all the while assuming that Jesus will either come back and fix it almost instantly (while simultaneously murdering in cold blood anyone that these people disapprove of), or equally assuming that there is nothing wrong with our environment, that somehow it is all part of a natural cycle, that unheard of weather changes that are creating enormous threats to the long term survival of human civilization are somehow "normal". I see a party retracing the very steps of history itself, and more particularly the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. I see a party that doesn't seem to give a damn about the Constitution - it pays lip service to the Constitution, and that's it. If anything, I see the Republican Party as being more in admiration of the Articles of Confederation, under which the newly created United States nearly met it's demise had it not been for the Founding Fathers quite astutely seeing that we were on course for a civil war. And it angers me to see much of the country following in lockstep behind the Republican Party of today, it's endgame very likely ending in the permanent end of all life as we know it. And none of the party's followers seem to give a damn.
On a similar theme, the recent terrorist attacks within our own borders and elsewhere have left me greatly aggrieved. In early November, the world watched with horror as 128 people were slaughtered in cold blood on the streets of Paris, the perpetrators of the attack evidently being connected directly to ISIS. ISIS, a beast which we gave birth to in Iraq through arming the very same individuals who we abandoned yet again after we felt they were no longer necessary in our quest to seize yet more oil in lands half a world away in a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11. And yet, in that same nation, Iraq, many still unbelievably enough think that it was involved with the death and destruction wrought upon New York City, Washington D.C., and in the fields of Pennsylvania....a lie spread by an administration that helped to usher in unbelievable amounts of damage to our nation's own wellbeing, and our credibility at the international level. And all for the benefit of a few rich oilmen who refuse to believe that their products are killing the planet off one step at a time. At the same time, hundreds more died because of these same murderers in Lebanon. And again, the world wept.
On the heels of the Paris attacks came the blowback from an ongoing civil war in Syria. A civil war in which both sides, by every account, we financed, or more specifically our own domestic arms industry financed with glee, and all over the prospect of making money. The end result was tens of thousands of refugees with no training, no way to fight back...most of those refugees being widowed mothers and their children. In a gesture of humanitarianism, our government elected to bring 20,000 of those refugees here to the United States. Sound logic, given that we put them into a situation where they had nothing left over there aside from the possibility of a lifetime of violence, starvation and misery because of our weapons industry adding fuel to a fire we never should have been around in the first place. What was the reaction from the political right? Fuck them. Bomb them. Send them back over there, they don't belong here. Take care of our homeless veterans, fuck the refugees, they're all terrorists, or at least a few of them might be. All words coming from people who condemned homeless veterans of our own wars before as bums, as being guilty of stolen valor because they apparently did not fight the cartoonish stereotype depicted by G.I. Joe. Again, the racism and the infuriating refusal of the entire bulk of conservatives in this country made my blood boil. And the insinuations that every last goddamned one of those refugees, who we created through our oil industry's efforts to seize more oil and land for pipelines in the entire region, were little more than goat fuckers? The condemnation of their entire religion without even studying it in depth? The fury I still feel towards the insensitive bastards who spout such ignorant words is unheard of. I again have to wonder - is this truly the same party that once stood for equality for all?
On the heels of that came the Planned Parenthood shooting right by my home. All afternoon I heard the gunshots echo from Centennial. Every report that evening and since then has indicated that the terrorist behind the dozen plus wounded and the three dead there carried out that attack on purpose. Every report, every statement made by the terrorist himself, has shown that the bastard did it to prevent abortion. It has shown that he was inspired directly by the theocratic traitors within the ranks of the Republican Party and other similar conservative political parties. And, it seems, he was also very anti-government...a lunatic all too willing to murder his fellow Americans in defense of "his" country. Basically, a bum with a gun. And for the most part, the political right remained silent, or tried to classify this terrorist attack as a "bank robbery gone bad", or insisting that it all began at King Soopers nearby, and that Planned Parenthood was simply a place he chose to hole up at. Never mind any damn facts, either. Still others cheered him on, insisting that this was God's punishment for the aborting of a collection of fetal cells with no nerves, no sentience! Again, is this the same party that once stood for reason? The same party whose men worked within NASA to put men on the moon? My fury increased.
Since then, the continued, full-throated defense of our system of economic inequality has continued unabated. The promotion of war as the answer has gone unabated. The defense of a murderous cult posing as a legitimate religion has continued unabated. And, despite a few notable examples, the Democratic Party, for it's part, has shown itself to be a mere mockery of what it once accomplished under JFK, Truman, Johnson or even FDR himself. The establishment candidate, Hillary Clinton, along with much of the remainder of her party, seems inclined to support the Republican Party's love of the Gilded Age through action, even if she now tries to decry them. Their defense of minorities and gays is, at best, a joke. And now, despite whatever the corporate media in this country may tell us, much of the country has coalesced into one of two camps - on one side, there are those of us who support Bernie Sanders of Vermont, one of the few lone figures who has tried with all of his might to fight private sector corruption and racism in this country for decades. On the other, Donald Trump seems to be the candidate that is attracting the most racist, close-minded, religiously biased segments of the entire nation. In other words, this year will be a battle for the American soul. And it is our final chance to grasp the straws of what could be either a golden future for not only our country, but our species, or march down the path to darkness and death. And it will be a long, drawn out battle between the two sides. That much is clear.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)