More talk about labor apparently.

I don't have much tonight, It's weird, I have this feeling like I have so much to talk about, big important words and deep thoughts, but when it comes time to actually write, I can't articulate them, not even that, I can't even articulate a topic. I figure there must be something percolating in there that will come out at some point, it will likely be not as exciting as I think it might be.

In more mundane news I downloaded the new Doom game for Xbox One, it's pretty good and I rather like it but in another sign of getting old, I found I can't play it before bed because it stresses me out, not due to the horror or anything, but because the fast paced action an loud sounds gets me all wound up.

I've been feeling like I am getting old more often recently, I realized I am older than all but two of my coworkers, one of them is the owner, the other is a driver who only has a couple years on me.
It's something of a hit to my ego to realize I have seven or eight years on the store manager, and the new assistant manager who was hired just after me isn't even old enough to drink. She was talking the other day about "This show that was on when she was little" called Dave the Barbarian, my response was that the show was only ten or so years old, her response was that ten years ago she actually was little. That was enlightening.

I am not criticizing her by the way, she has more management experience in more trying circumstances than I do and fully deserves the position, just commenting on the age thing.

One thing I noticed which bothers me is how accepting the younger folks are about the idea of skipping breaks or other minor labor violations, at Levy we accepted it too, but the stand leads tended to be older and no one was happy about the situation, here it is not just accepted, but expected and many people don't even view it as a bad thing necessarily. This isn't a dig at my pace of business specifically mind you, I rather suspect it is the common view of the current generation entering the labor force as I saw this a bit in the younger crowd at Levy too.

It really bothers me that we are so accepting of the abuses that are routing on the job. I got into a fight with Zena the other day about it in a way, I was complaining, as I often do, about this kind of stuff and became a little upset when she kept bringing up her own work as an example of even more egregious problems along the same lines. At the time I thought I was upset because she was one-upping me without showing sympathy for my particular reactions as well as subtly implying that I shouldn't be complaining, like I am just a wuss and should suck it up.

I've been thinking about it a bit since though and I have kind of changed my mind there, her position is in an elementary school, and anyone who knows anything about teaching knows there are basically no labor rights followed in those positions.

I think that's where the problem began really, once we started accepting that some jobs don't need to be protected we started to get the idea that if those people can do without things like regular breaks or proper training and support, then other areas might not need them either, then those who decide these things began experimenting with what else they can get away with undermining. Unions have been pretty successfully demonized, there is a posting at my job that supposedly shows the chain of reporting for issues, but about halfway down turns into a series of bullet points about how unions might try to recruit you and why you should avoid them.

So we have been trained to think that breaks are for the weak, training is for the incompetent, and we have largely embraced the idea that the groups specifically formed to protect our rights on those fronts are no better than leaches getting in the way of the proper relationship between employee and employer.

All these complaints and it might be hard to believe me, but I actually do like my job for the most part, which is worse in a lot of ways, better than average is not a high bar to clear and my place clears it pretty easily, but better than average is a long way from ideal.

I suppose what bugged me about our conversation was less about feeling personally attacked, but rather about not feeling understood? Or maybe it is just feeling alone in my opinions about this stuff. Zena seemed to expect it as a matter of course and didn't seem properly aware, or upset about, it in my eyes.

Of course she does actually understand, and has made similar complaints herself in the past and probably just doesn't really see the point anymore, which is fair, and we have made up, it wasn't really a fight anyway, just an exchange of views with a disagreement.

Anyway, I guess that is where I'm at now.