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Antithesis of the romanticized blue-collar - not-so nuanced workplace manipulation - idiot naive pundits
This entry was posted on 12/22/2009 3:01 AM and is filed under Jobs from hell, Blue Collar, Meritless job culture, Shitty Work Schedule Culture.
There are those literary types that walk amongst us that would romanticize the "blue-collar" life. There are writers, bloggers, professors, politicians, and talk-show hosts all smitten with the image of the calloused-hands working Joe. They envision that all-American incredulous working dude. One small detail often left unmentioned is, few of the aforementioned perps have ever worked a dirty day in their lives. And to be fair, god knows former and current workers themselves take liberties with the telling of blue-collar urban legends.
Let me tell you fair readers something! After working nearly 45 years in just about every shitty blue-collar job known to mankind at one time or another, if I had to live my life over again, I would never work a day in my calloused-hands life at all! I would rather live on the beach down south in a tent and eat at the food bank.
So many people always say when they approach that time in life when the good lord is due to call them home, "Oh, I would not change a thing if I had life to live over." What ever dip shits!
Take the "new norm" work construct I languish in now. It is the antithesis of the romanticized blue-collar job.
In the loud production environment, idiots who somehow think they are in charge of something, holler from their loud work stations. They can't leave, the production is relentless - the machines grind on - one must stand their ground. Yet, crazy people holler across the work floor at some other worker with some made-up task of perceived self importance. I always just smile and shrug and point to my ear. Besides, I can't leave my station either.
People are self-centered. During production pauses, they will drag their empty packaging to the clean up area right in the path of other workers like some nursing home patient strolling down a corridor - in the fucking way.
Once in awhile, a self-important rube will cut loose from the production line in the fray. They will invariably invent some special useless task and pull some rookie worker off the line to help. This invariably causes the workers nearby to have to work to death beyond the usual bullshit.
Training in a place like said establishment is reactive supervision via scolding the workers for assuming unknown procedures (yet performed with good intentions doing the best they can) never clarified before hand by management.
Never mind libraries full of supervisional data suggesting it is best to use proactive supervision which instructs you as to what is expected before hand.
You won't get any breaks in a place like I am describing, unless of course you are a smoker. Then you will get several. Don't even bother trying to slide into the break room. If you do, some rube assistant will drag you back out to the floor before your break is over (if you are lucky enough to get one).
A refugee from a former well-paying, now closed down factory, who came to work for us, asked me one day, "Hey man, when do we get breaks around here?"
All I could do was laugh out loud and say, "If you don't smoke, never dude!"
Workers, usually young, who have let their drivers' licenses lapse will never be asked to drive in the wintry ice or the summer heat. No, they get to stay in the climate controlled building and rock on. Guys like me have to take up the driving slack for no extra pay - a guy who apparently naively thought doing the right thing and keeping a good driving record would be some how be rewarded in this society - I am a fool.
You won't find yourself being allowed to train for the next job up the totem pole - but when you are quizzed in a half-assed interview your lack of knowledge of the job will be used it against you.
The job will most likely be given to a friend of a manager. A term I call "cut-throat networking."
These friends and drinking buddies take liberties with the lateness and the sick days. Sometimes they realize what they have gotten themselves into and quit after a week or two. In the mean time, a loyal worker could have been well established in the job.
Do not ever anticipate a work review. If you do ever get one, every stupid excuse known to blue-collar logic will be pulled out of some supervisor's ass to justify not giving you a dime raise.
I don't need any lame excuses. I have been to 'Nam and Iraq. They talk to me like I just fell off a turnip truck. I can take it fools. Just tell me, ''The economy sucks man, there ain't no money."
Welcome to the "new norm" of cut-throat networking; minimum wages; part-time hours; non-benefit labor; sporadic work hours; ruined weekends; no vacations; no dignity; and the coup de grace - a wrecked home life.
Writers, bloggers, professors, politicians, talk-show hosts, embellishing workers, - naive,sentimental, blue-collar-smitten pundits all - you are fuck'n idiots.
Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
(each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan)
This week's Wisconsin military service person to remember is Marine Lance Corporal Richard D. Warner, age 22. The Wisconsin Department of Veteran's Affairs lists Warner's home town as Waukesha. Richard was killed from wounds he sustained while engaging the enemy in Babil Province, Iraq, on December 13, 2004. Lance Corporal Warner was in 1st Platoon, Company F, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve. He was a riflemen on a foot patrol when attacked by an improvised explosive device fired from a vehicle in Babil Province, Iraq. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel stated Warner was a graduate of Kettle Moraine High School and joined Fox Company in January 2002. His company consists of about 185 Marines and were based in Yusufiya, Iraq. The unit includes Golf Company from Madison. The 2nd battalion was activated in May of 2004 and then deployed to Camp Pendleton, California. They arrived in Iraq in September 2004 for a tentative seven month tour of duty. Lance Corporal Richard Warner was the 32nd Wisconsin military service person killed in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
94,902 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,316 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,374 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
933 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
317 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
603 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
31,603 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,683 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
101 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
16 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
139 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
17 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; and, icasualties.org.
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