Let’s Talk About Work and Laziness

Work Ethic

Let’s Talk About Work and Laziness

When I had access to a television I would watch Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs. I loved it because I could commiserate with the workers, they sucked it up and had a good attitude. They worked hard at it and made a living from it. I’m a big believer that someone else’s trash is someone else’s treasure.

Yet, somewhere along the way, these ideas came off the “rails” for me. Especially when I think about them in the context of safety, the need to work, and the religious construct of laziness.

My very first job at 16 years old was pumping gas at an old full-service Mobil gas station. New Jersey is a full-service state so gas station attendants would pump the gas for you. I worked part-time during school and on weekends.

It was a fun first job, I think the level of pay I got vs the responsibilities was perfectly matched. I started at $5.00 an hour back in 1986 and got a raise for my work ethic. What made me a star performer? I made sure all the money was face up and the register was neatly organized.

I had a great boss but he didn’t work very hard. He didn’t push us into overtime, his demands were simple. Show up, work, and go home. Working at the gas station through high school and the summer vacations were where I made some of my happiest memories.

The only downside to the job was coming home smelling like gas and working in all the bad weather. There were times when I worked in brutal cold and snow storms. People would pull up in rainstorms and honk at me to come out in the pouring rain to tell them the road they want is the next street.

Every so often I had a “Karen” come into the station. That Karen would become the talk of all the shifts and we’d make fun of her or him.

According to Mike Rowe, I worked a dirty job and if you were to ask me, at 16 if this was a good job, I’d say yes.

My father always said, “the world needs street sweepers too.” As a German, his view on work was deeply woven into the DNA of his family and culture. They would have local sayings about “schaffen.” He believed that every bit of work was important to a well-run and stable society, no matter how lowly.

He believed in an honest day’s work at a fair and livable wage. If you were sweeping the streets, you should be able to eat and have a safe place to live. Of course, his view was built on the welfare of the German government. Everyone had access to healthcare and there was help if you needed it.

In the United States? We have the “fuck you Jack, I got mine” attitude. People are working actively to take away any welfare we provide. So if you’re a street sweeper in the United States you get to bust your ass for minimum wage. You’ll probably be food insecure, have no healthcare, and live in an unsafe part of town.

The irony of all this is that street sweepers in the United States would vote against their best interests. They’d vote for a politician that will take away these welfare benefits from someone else because they’re perceived as lazy and not working as hard as they are to make a living.

They don’t realize they’ve been conned by the mega-corporations looking to pay you peanuts the whole time.

Laziness

All religions are wrong, they only exist to control the masses of humanity. To make sure they’re organized and aligned with whatever socio-cultural norm that they want to see reflected.

From the Christian perspective, how often have you recited the Lord’s Prayer?

Give us this day, our daily bread. Food, whether spiritual or physical food requires obedience to a divine being. This divine being doesn’t like lazy people, they’re not doing the lord’s work. Therefore lazy people are not in the good graces of the lord and are a threat to society at large.

We hear phrases like “idle hands are the devil’s playthings.” Sitting around doing nothing is inherently aligned with evil.

Sprinkle in words like hell, Jesus, and salvation to those phrases and it’s easy to see that laziness is a religious construct.

It’s completely made up just like all religions.

The worst part? We’ve built a global society on the premise that laziness is wrong, bad, and the devil’s plaything.

We’re working ourselves to death and consuming all the resources because some invisible sky bully has decided you should do this instead of resting.

Oh, I forgot, you get only one day of rest and you’re supposed to spend that day in worship of the invisible sky bully.

Give me a fucking break, please.

Mike Rowe released a “sweat pledge” on his website of 12 points to invigorate people into taking on blue-collar dirty jobs.

I fully support the trades and blue-collar labor because I believe, as my father did, that the world needs all kinds of people doing all kinds of jobs. I also believe in a livable wage, work safety, universal healthcare, and rest. I believe that we should work to live and not live to work.

On the surface, these 12 points seem fairly harmless, but they’re mega-corporation propaganda meant to divide blue and white-collar workers. They’re meant to set up a false dichotomy of “us against them.” Elites versus hard-working Americans.

It’s all bullshit, let’s go point by point.

Pledge #1 — I have nothing against this pledge except that it creates this association that America is the best for blue-collar workers. It’s not. Ask any blue-collar worker in Germany about how well they’re paid, how much vacation they get from day one of employment, and if their healthcare is free. Yes, I am grateful that I’m alive but America can do much better.

Pledge #2 — Ok, I get this. We all want to be happy but that’s something we as individuals need to figure out for ourselves and go get it. We have to build our lives into what works best for us. On the surface, I have no problem with this pledge but it’s chained together with the other pledges in a way that will serve the corporate overlords.

Pledge #3 — There’s no such thing as bad jobs? Ok Boomer. There are a lot of bad jobs out there. I’m sure the child laborers in East Asian factories will disagree. There are a ton of bad jobs out there that could be automated but cheap labor is easier to exploit.

Pledge #4 — This pledge is passion exploitation. When I graduated with my undergraduate in Civil Engineering I believed I’d do great things for society. Instead, I worked with angry white-haired old men that figured out ways to construct the minimum required infrastructure and pushed us to work overtime for free.

Pledge #5 — While I abhor debt too, why do you have to live in a tent and eat beans? Why is this ok? You shouldn’t have to starve, you should have access to healthy food. You should have a safe place to live, even if it’s a tiny home.

Pledge #6 — Here’s where this went off the rails for me in a big way. Why is the safety of the worker pushed onto the worker themselves? I’ve worked in construction and I’ve seen workers show up with substandard personal protection equipment (PPE) at job sites because they couldn’t afford quality ones. The company shirks its responsibility as the job giver to provide the worker with a safe environment and the equipment to do the job.

Pledge #7 — You’re going to do the shit job and like it, you slave. Where’s your dignity? Just because they pay you money doesn’t mean they own your morality and dignity. I’ve seen managers and companies turn a blind eye to illegal or unsafe work practices because it’s cheaper to get a replacement and throw you to the wolves.

Pledge #8 — It’s important to speak up but often dangerous to do so. It’s your right to speak up if what you’re doing makes you unhappy and can be fixed. A well-run and good company will make changes but too often, in my experience, they pay lip service and never change. Yes, it’s better to quit and move on in some cases. This pledge tells you not to complain and I think this is a dangerous pledge.

Pledge #9 — Guess who pays for your local library? You, the taxpayer. I love my library, it’s one of the greatest things ever created by our government. I too believe that you should continue to learn and grow, but I find it ironic that many voters will vote against funding libraries because it’s considered an “elitist government handout.” How wrong they are.

Pledge #10 — Ok, I have no issue with this pledge. You need to own up to your own choices.

Pledge #11 — I agree, that the world isn’t fair and I believe we should work hard to make it fairer for everyone. I don’t begrudge anyone’s success unless you allegedly force house cleaners to work 12 hours with no breaks.

Pledge #12 — Here’s the rub, the pledge that inspired this post. Yes, all people are created equal but he likes to put some people into the lazy box. Don’t be like those people, he warns you! Work your butt off!

Pledge #12 reinforces that religious doctrine, the opiate of the masses that Karl Marx alluded to. Laziness is evil.

People need rest. We are not machines. We can’t work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, without breaking down. We need time off to recover from the flu, childbirth, and other things.

Why the fuck are we working all the time to pay for things we don’t need or want. We’ve become mindless consumers and consume for no other reason but to consume.

The moment we want to take a break, we’re called lazy and forced back into conformity with the working herd.

This concept of laziness is not real. Non-modern societies focused on play more than work. Did they hunt for food and make sure everyone was fed, yes. Did they all take care of each other and make sure no old people were without shelter, yes.

Where did we go wrong?

Calling someone lazy is just someone trying to exercise control over you. They’re trying to make you do something you don’t want to do. They weave this control into the general societal narrative that there is no “bread for you to eat” if you don’t work.

You are evil if you don’t do something.

You’re created equal BUT…

Living in a tent and eating beans is OK.

Safety is your problem if you’re working on my job site.

Don’t like something? Shut up and suck it up buttercup.

Our modern interpretation of work is all wrong. It’s not sustainable and workers are opting out everywhere. Unions are on the rise and the corporate overlords are quaking in their boots because the propaganda isn’t working anymore.

If there was one silver lining in the pandemic it was this. People realized that there’s more to life than work. We, humans, are made to connect, socialize, and support one another. Religion is a farce and laziness doesn’t exist.

Our default mode is to be productive and creative. It’s to make music, laugh, and share meals. Our society and world could be so much better if we ditch the sweat pledges and the endless consumerism before it’s too late.