Saturday, December 17, 2011
WORK
Most people seem to accept IT and it's the reason why I've not been online that much of late. WORK - it's not that I'm for it or against it but as Beth once said a long time ago she doubts if when we're on our deathbeds and we look back we'll be happy with all those hours we put in. This social commentator handyman who used to come in, one day he says to me "ever wish you were fired?" and I go "yeah, maybe then you can finish that book you always wanted to read." Unless you're in business for yourself or doing your own entrepreneurial thing you're really not in control of your own life, the master of your own ship like today I have to go in late and some days you can't go for that long walk you planned or go up the line to Walmart. I'd like to hear libertarians who are all for Maximum Freedom explain this. Libertarianism is a pipe dream in so many ways and the fact that most folks have to get up at some ungodly hour and go in with their lunchpails means others are in control of us, we're working on their terms and again it's not a good or a bad thing, it is what it is but Maximum Freedom it ain't. WHO invented Work and why can't we change or shift the paradigm a little so as to have more leisure time to cultivate, oh I don't know Family Values which conservatives are so big on? My brother doesn't complain that much about work, his philosophy is work is supposed to suck that's why they call it work and if you want to get all theological about it you can blame Adam and Eve our first parents. I'm in a work frame of mind today, it's an old old topic around here so why not let it riff?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
If you like what you're doing, it isn't work.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm going on the same path as Shaw, but with a twist.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to clutter this up so I'm going to leave the political end out of it or at least keep it for another comment.
If you accept that we all have to have some kind of financial situation and it's a reality that we're going to have to work, then it just becomes a matter of finding what's good about what you do and embracing that part of it.
I mean, okay, so this job has no clinical challenge for me whatsoever and it's bogged down in paperwork and beaurocracy (word I cannot spell) and operates on a nursing paradigm that is purely out of 1958. All that shit frustrates me and makes me crazy. In a lot of ways I feel like it handcuffs me as a nurse because policies literally outlaw critical thinking and autonomy on the part of the nurses. Okay, so all that mess could make me hate this job.
But there's a lot to like about this job. I have great hours. I have superlative benefits. I get two breaks and a lunch every day. I have time to go pee. We have the best staffing of anywhere I've ever worked. I get more holidays than anyone except the fed folk round the corner. I don't bust my ass. I don't cry in the parking lot every day.
I work with a couple of good people. I also work with a lot of real assholes and people who don't deserve the title of nurse, but the good people are really good. We actually have the opportunity to laugh. (So far policy hasn't outlawed it.)
The folk I take care of are real special. You won't find them anywhere else but in another facility like mine. A few of them are horrible to work with and you really take risks of getting hurt, but most of them are as sweet as can be and you can really fall in love with a few. Many of them have no other family than us; if it wasn't for the care we give, they'd get none, and literally be dead. And the ones that have the capability do reciprocate, and that's really special. You won't find that anywhere else, you really won't. And they get better care than any other place I have ever worked, and that's a fact. So in a lot of ways I feel like the care I give is worth more than that I might give in other places.
I don't think work has to necessarily be a terrible thing or a drudge, I think it's all in terms of how you approach it. When you talk about other people being in control of us, that's very true and that's a terribly political statement, and there's a lot that could be said about that, but that really needs to be addressed separately from this approach.
You want to cultivate? Cultivate your mind by reading about libertarianism instead of simply coughing up half truths and misinterpretations about it.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't control your life then you're doing something wrong.
Soap you don't control your life either, most of us don't. Let me 'splain: Maximum Freedom doesn't exist, never has. It's in the Nature of Things, there's no escaping the Structure. For instance most of us can't retire until we're 62 or 65 or whatever the magical age is at the moment. HOW is that being totally autonomous soap and in control??? Not putting libetarianism down necessarily but Maximum Freedom, the ideal of libertarians the world over simply does not exist. You probably have to go into work today soap, again not a good or a bad thing but Max Freedom would be you get up in the morning and do whatever the hell you want with the rest of your day. Jerk off or read a book or visit a museum - your choice.
ReplyDeleteYou can do precisely that if you wish Z. What you're missing is the fundamental point of your very existence which is that if you so desire to live then you must take the necessary steps to acquire those things which will permit you do so.
ReplyDeleteHow you choose to live is soley up to you. You can work a 9-5 six days a week if you want. Or, you could start your own business and work whatever hours you desire. Or, you could grow your own food, kill your own animals for meat, wash your clothes and bathe in the river while living in a modest self made hut.
We're drones soap and that's the shattering truth:)
ReplyDeleteOkay so I was thinking about this on my way home from work.
ReplyDeleteLet's imagine a place where you work, where all the workers own the company. The president and big management get elected by the workers on an annual basis, and then workers have a group of representatives (say 1 for each 25 employees) that also get elected. Pay scales for all job positions are also voted on by all the workers.
The company is 'non profit' in that the disbursement of any profits at year end are divided 50% back into the company and the other 50% is equally divided among all the employees. Any debt that the company entails (say if like there's a massive machinery breakdown, or property taxes have gone up), if it is too much to be handled out of that 50%, comes out of the other 50%, and then whatever's left after that gets distributed.
Every employee therefore has a vested interest in making the company run as best as it possibly can. Because each person is a part owner of the company and shares equally in both profits and loss, each person has a motivation to do whatever they can to help ensure the success of the company. Because high management is elected on an annual basis, every person in the company has an equal opportunity to serve at this level if they so desire.
I should think that a company organized along these lines would have an energized, involved group of very committed people who all work towards the common goal of seeing THEIR company be a success. They would be empowered because they have the opportunity and ability to take part in decisions that affect the way the company is run, and they each have a personal stake and their own personal involvement in the bigger picture. This is a place where people really are in control of their own futures and their own lives insofar as work goes, where they are really in many ways working for themselves.
Doesn't that sound like a place you'd like to work?
Socialism.
"Doesn't that sound like a place you'd like to work?"
ReplyDeleteFuck no.
I've seen the work ethic of some of my colleagues. I'd rather stand on my own two feet thanks.
Z,
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna go out on a limb here and try to maybe elucidate on Soap.
I think basically what he's saying, and where maybe you're getting it confused, is that with libertarianism, you CAN do whatever you want, but you have to take responsibility for whatever consequences occur as a result.
Like for example. Don't wanna work? Don't. If you're not independently wealthy, you're still going to have to find some way to pay your bills. Or you can decide to take yourself off the grid, move into a non-electric existence (think solar or wind), composting toilets, wastewater recycling, freecycling, freeganing, growing your own food, giving up cable, computers, telephones and basically moving outside of society. You can do that, sure. Your choice.
Or you can just go be homeless and sleep under the bridge. Your choice.
I think that's what he's getting at. They're your choices, but you gotta take what those choices bring.
How'd I do, Soap?
I think you'd see work ethics change when people are DIRECTLY involved in things.
ReplyDeleteYour colleagues get paid the same whether they're slackasses or not. If what they did every day directly impacted their bottom line; ie, if their being slackasses dragged down the company, made it unsuccessful and then they would be losing money as a result, I think they'd have a new vantage point and a new approach to things.
Just a guess.
Damn fine job.
ReplyDeleteOn your other point Saty, there is an economic flaw in your theory and if I can find the debate on Mises.org between Walter Block (I think it was) and another guy whose name escapes me, in which it is pointed out I will post the link. The flaw is in effect an assumption of sorts on your part that the productivity level of each individual person is the same. The analogy would be akin to boats floating on water and a rising tide lifting them in unison. However, each individual worker operates at a different productivity level and even amongst a single worker/individual, their own productivity level does not remain constant or uniform from day to day or even within a month, year, etc. Therefore, as one worker's productivity level might rise, another's might fall. Any rise in productivity from individual workers is not and will not rise and fall as a constant bar on a chart but will instead consist of various peaks and valleys. Drones and robots we are not.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it matters that each worker's productivity isn't identical. I think the bigger point is that each worker is invested in working to their personal full potential because it's their company and they've got so much more control.
ReplyDeleteWorkers already are invested in any company they work for, because if the company doesn't do well, then they will either not have a job, or won't get raises, or may need to take a pay cut.
ReplyDeleteThe beauty in a system that rewards workers who do better than others is that there is an incentive to do so above just keeping ones job.
"I don't think it matters that each worker's productivity isn't identical. I think the bigger point is that each worker is invested in working to their personal full potential because it's their company and they've got so much more control."
ReplyDeleteI don't think that's the case at all. An individual would be less inclined to work to their personal full potential if there was the chance they could bank on others carrying the bulk of the load.
Conversely, an individual would have more incentive to work to their fullest potential if they knew that their individual productivity level were to be scrutinized and assessed on an individual case by case basis.
..the intricacies of the free market ...
ReplyDeleteIf you have a share in OWNERSHIP of the company, which is what I have been talking about all along if you haven't noticed, you're certainly more invested than if you're working for some owner asshole 1% who you never see because they're out on that yacht Lista talked about.
ReplyDeleteAnd certainly this system doesn't preclude your compatriots documenting your blatant slackassness and eventually voting you out.
ReplyDeleteHappens in medical practices where doctors each own a share.. if they suck they get voted out and their share bought out.
Most libertarians are not opposed to collective bargaining. I am not opposed to it on two conditions:
ReplyDelete1. It must be voluntary.
2. It must be strictly limited to the private sector.
Saty: "...and where maybe you're getting it confused is that with libertarianism you CAN do whatever you want."
ReplyDeleteNo Saty I understand libertarianism perfectly well, all I'm saying is that Maximum Freedom is a myth. A cat can wake up in the morning, get fed, go out and sleep the rest of the day and maybe catch a mouse, THAT'S Maximum Freedom. YOU however have to wait for your day off to do certain things that you like and that day off (many folks today get only one day off instead of the traditional two) is dictated by OTHERS. Maybe this is the way a business has to run but that's not the point. The point is you and I and our friend soap have at best Limited Freedom.
"Your colleagues get paid the same whether they're slackasses or not"
ReplyDeleteotherwise known as civil service.
I'll give Soapie a Christmas present and give the libertarian rebuttal to your comment in his place.
ReplyDeleteZ-man, you DO have the freedom to be like your cat and go catch your mouse, if that is what you want to do, but if you'd rather buy your mouse then you have to get a job that pays you so you can.
If your job gives you a stinky schedule, then you have the freedom to find a different job.
How'd I do, Soapster?
Saty, in your system of everyone owning everything, is anyone in charge, or is nobody in charge?
ReplyDeleteIt's 23 Dec 0745 and I have slept exactly two hours since Tuesday 0400.
ReplyDeleteSo you'll forgive me, Beth, if I direct you to go back and reread the first thing I wrote about this hypothetical company in this post.
It's all explained there. Go slow. Don't hurt yourself.
Sorry, I missed that part, forgive me. I just wanted to make sure that you believe someone had to be in charge.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about everyone owning everything that you don't understand is that ownership requires capital. Like the company I work for, the owners put up the funds to start the business, now of course the business pays for it itself, but if money was ever needed then they would have to put more money in. They take the risks, therefore they get the gains when there are gains.
ReplyDeleteSimply because the state exists Z doens't mean that you don't have the liberty to exercise your freedom. It simply means that you might pay dearly for it.
ReplyDeleteAs Patrick Henry so succintly stated:
"Give me liberty or give me death."
Beth, soap, point being missed here as usual and that point is that libertarians like Glenn Beck and yourself need to stop throwing around these airy concepts and theories like Maximum Freedom. Maximum Freedom was the Garden of Eden until things went bad. Now Beth and soap where in this thread did I say working on the Company's terms is necessarily a bad thing? All I said is that our lives are circumscribed in so many ways like having to get up early in the AM to go to work that phrases like Maximum Freedom make no sense. Better to say that we Americans still have alot of freedom but for libertarians like Beck to say they're for Maximum Freedom, well what is that exactly? please define.
ReplyDelete& Beth if I were to draw up a list of the pros and cons of Work on the positive side of the ledger I'd go with it gives structure to our lives and we get to meet new people and other things but speaking for me personally there are also some philosophical problems with Work perhaps not with you and that's fine. You know I work with people who do the exact same tasks day in and day out and they're fine with that but for me that's stultifying and also it ain't that easy to just pick up and find a new job when most jobs are the same.
ReplyDeleteJust a third point here. Read somewhere a couple years back this company or workplace decided to try an experiment. Let everyone work the hours, the schedule they want, what's best for them and you know something? nobody took advantage and it worked out pretty well, there was more productivity and satisfaction overall so maybe what I'm saying here is the old work paradigm or model needs updating or changing.
ReplyDelete