work sucks

Retail is a physically grueling job, people don't think of it as such, all they see are smiling, faceless employees treating them with generic cheerfulness as they honor increasingly strange customer requests, but they are on their feet for anywhere from four to fourteen hours a day, they take at best thirty minutes of breaks during that time, and are doing everything from food prep, to light maintenance, their job can involve knives, stoves, and heavy things lifted without assistance regularly, it hurts to do.

My feet hurt, one of my knees periodically decides it doesn't want to bend anymore and complains with vigor when forced to do so anyway, there is a weird stitch in my back I get after standing for too long, I have a blister from a burn on my thumb that is annoying, after I work for a few hours there is... chafing. When I finish a busy shift at work all my body wants to do is sit still and let all my muscles lock right up. Also I smell pretty bad.

I know it seems odd, but I am not actually complaining right now, just stating facts, some of the above is entirely my fault, if my body is a temple it is one of the ones that have to be hidden in the sewers so that the authorities can't find it, I am literally eating a cheese ball right now as I write this.

And yet, my shift ended six hours ago and I am not asleep yet, I power through the day and still have energy to do other errands or just fuck around for a while before sleeping, some of that is by necessity as it really bothers me to do nothing in a day but wake up, go to work, and then go to sleep, but not all of it, I have reasonable endurance and as long as I don't need to be acrobatic or run fast, I can do things that require physical exertion even when I am not at work. In short, I am as healthy as someone who is unhealthy can be if that makes any sense.

I have a point I promise. But I want to digress, I watch a lot o TV(shocker) and on Hulu for a while they kept showing me an ad for a specific kind of cancer medication, lord knows why as I don't actually have cancer, but in the ad the patient is an elderly woman, perhaps in her sixties, talking about how the medication kept her from having to do chemo, it was accompanied by images of her enjoying life with her family, going on walks, having dinner together, and... working in what appears to be a hardware store.

I find it disgusting that we are supposed to believe that the optimal outcome for this elderly cancer survivor was to go back to work, and that is supposed to be a good thing.

If a shift fucks me up, what the hell must it be doing to her? Actually it's pretty easy to find out, go into a busy retail chain store or restaurant and look around, there are usually a few folks in that age group to be found, often not in supervisory positions but if you took the time to talk to them you might find they have been there a while, and know virtually all there is to know about the operation of the store, or at least their department. You would also find that they need this job, not because they get bored without working or some bullshit like that, but that they literally need it to eat, or to afford medication, perhaps cancer fighting drugs?

Survival isn't enough. There has to be more, there will be more for me, but what about them? How can we see that and think that things are working well? How did the ideal shift from retiring at 60 to a life of comfort to working until you die?

A casual observer of history and media can follow the chain I guess, but there is it happening, and then there is the perception, and the perception is that what we have now is the best of all possible worlds. An appalling late stage capitalist heaven that must be the best because it is what we have, and we have only the best right?

The best we can do is tell our elders to work until they die, and smile while doing it.