Categories: uncategorized
Date: 23 May 2005 17:14:08
Been meaning to blog about work and employment for ages now, mainly because I am currently deficient in both areas. Mostly this is down to ME/CFS inflicted partial incapacitation, but it's also because I really, honestly and genuinely, do not want a job. Of course this is a heresy in todays work obsessed market (UK PLC), which once was a society. That's ok, I get a perverse sense of satisfaction from being out-of-step, it's how I know I'm normal in my freakishness. Certainly a much better place to be than the freakish state which seems to pass as normality in our market. You may discern from this that I am a slacker, which would be an understandable conclusion to draw. But I'm not. No, really I'm not. In fact I work extremely hard at those things I consider to be life-enhancing and necessary for the continuation of healthy life on this planet. For example, last week I went for a walk in the evening and contemplated the play of light shining through the thousand shades of succulent foliage. It was both hard-work and rewarding. I guess having ME/CFS is a blessing in that it allows you the space and time to engage with your environment with all of your senses / faculties and thus you can reflect on the madness of the stressed masses as they pollutingly buzz around town like bees searching for non-existent golden nectar. Just a pity that their maniacal buzzing doesn't produce anything sweet or healthy. I've had many jobs and I'm surprised at the diversity I've found in my former bosses. Some of them have been mindless morons, unable to string two thoughts together or see that there might be a world 'out-there' which exists beyond, despite and regardless of whether sales happen to be up or down 0.014% this quarter. On the other hand, some of my former bosses have been idiotic, sadistic, slime-balls, corporate parasites unable to hold a conversation even with themselves as they play for time before their inevitable heart attack. Actually I've misused the word 'play' there. These people wouldn't recognise fun and pleasure if their sweaty, unironed, service-station-food-smelling clothes were soaked in it. That's just my experiences of bosses though, yours may be different, in fact I hope they are. I am of course fully willing to accept that there may even be bosses out there who are just normal, everyday, family loving, run-of-the-mill ignorami who sincerely believe they are doing something good. But evidence is not forthcoming. That's part of the reason why I don't want to be employed by anyone thank you very much. I'm really not in the mood to waste my life doing wasteful, unnecessary, unhealthy, psychologically damaging, mindless things in order to placate a low-life boss and get a pay packet. I'll let you know if my mood changes, 'till then keep bumbling your way towards the cliff edge. That's not to say I think work is unimportant, oh no, I'd hate for you to get that impression. I think it's vitally important. Too important to not do right. There's a big fallacy around that work should be painful and engaged in with gritted teeth. When you've toughed it out for 5 days you get 2 days parole, every 4-5 months you get a fortnight off for good behaviour and after 30 years you may get a reduction in your sentence and early release (the word release is telling here), if you genuinely accept that your chances of rehabilitation to the ranks of being a thinking, feeling member of the human race have disappeared over the horizon in your buzzing BMW with your 3rd wife and her fake-tan. In the words of Field Marshall Motgomery, "Fuck this for a game of soldiers." However, there's a different way. What...you thought I was *only* going to be deconstructive? Me? Never! Self-employment. It's the ultimate way of ensuring that you are never, ever down-sized, down-graded, economised, patronised, re-structured, re-located, under-valued, under-paid, over-worked, over-stressed, taken advantage of, or taken the piss out of. OK, so you may be skint, but at least you'll be skint on YOUR terms. You'll be free to go to the cinema on Tuesday afternoon. Free to charge what you like and work when you like with whom you like. Free to save your best work for those projects which really excite you. Free to read Nietzsche in bed at 10am on a Thursday. Oh course, all this freedom necessitates the need to be in control of your self. I guess after you've got used to the grind of having a job for a few years your identity becomes bound up with the "security" (I use the word advisedly) of that daily structure. Apparently having a lie-in on a weekday after having had a standard issue flat-pack 9-5 job for a few years can lead to depression and a sense of lostness. This is a good thing. In fact depression and lostness are very undervalued. Harken, for wise old sage sayeth, "It is better to be pissed-off than to be pissed-on." I guess this sense of lostness is because, maybe for the first time, you can actually hear clearly now that nasty buzz that's been mysteriously following you around has starting to fade. I guess the moral of this story is that if your work isn't also an act of self re-creation, then it's killing you. Time to stop banging your head against an already open window and let yourself be carried by the swirl of the next breeze, otherwise it's an undignified death on a hot, dusty windowsill.