Speaking As A Former, Nearly Lifelong "Good Worker" (the Capitals Are Potently Felt), I Wish I Had Been

Speaking as a former, nearly lifelong "Good Worker" (the capitals are potently felt), I wish I had been cognizant of what I was contributing to. Namely, not only increasingly awful and inhumane standards for all employees, but also my own incredibly painful and inevitable burnout. I have left every job I ever worked before now in a state of total exhaustion, both physically and mentally, often with long-term health problems and accident-proneness (and their related costs) to boot.

Because I was always this person at work, I have known many people who were the same. We were that first wave self-enforcing. We valued the same things about ourselves (work ethic, high standards, non-complaining, no breaks, etc). We shared the same fears with regard to upsetting management, namely losing our jobs, reduced hours, pay cuts. And I can say everyone I've known like this suffered for it.

I wish we (I) had known who to blame. I wish I had been better at saying 'no' to authority figures. I wish I had developed enough self-esteem that I could value myself outside of my work performance. I wish I had enough sense of self-worth to withstand the disapproval of an authority figure. I wish I trusted myself to fight back if punished passive-aggressively for refusal to do more than I was being paid for (a very common tactic). But I didn't.

I'm working on all of that now, but it was 2 decades of miserable work experience where I know for a fact I made work life harder for others. I genuinely regret that, but the point I want to make is that without fail, in every job, I was targeted by management. And pretty much immediately. Singled out, praised by comparisons to my coworkers, treated like a favorite, and then worked like a dog.

And the thing is, I knew it. I knew the praise was disingenuous and manipulative but it didn't matter. I didn't have what it took to withstand dislike or disapproval from a boss, and any positivity in my self-image was too (read: entirely) dependant on my work performance. Others who were the "Good Worker" had identical or similar reasons. Certainly none of us could afford the financial risk of a boss being displeased with us. It's a state of fear, stress, isolation and constant tension. And the expectations ALWAYS escalate. Dramatically. Quickly. And burnout is inevitable, often so severe that you have to leave the job because of health problems/injuries it gave you. Stomach ulcers, chronic back pain, knee injuries, plantar fasciitis, carpal tunnel, stress migraines--the list goes on.

I could write a whole dissertation about the vulnerabilities of being autistic or on the spectrum and discovering competency and self-esteem for the first time in a professional environment. I feel like that's another later to this fairly common story too. The added layers of vulnerability to manipulation, newness to praise, and the inability to stand up for yourself, speak quickly and smoothly in a loaded social exchange ("but I know I can count on you for...", etc) certainly exacerbates this situation tenfold. It also, far more than I probably realized, put a target on my head. But my coworkers who were on green cards, supporting families, trying to bring family members into the country, had babies on the way, etc. all had targets too. It's anyone they can get to give more than has been agreed upon.

This is a violent and common system. Your boss is being encouraged subtly to do this by their boss, and on and on to the top. Stand your ground. Do it for yourself and for all your coworkers who can't. Stand your ground, hold your boundaries, work harder at loving yourself than you do for any company. They'll take everything from you and leave you with nothing, and face no consequences. But the power to let them or not is yours.

There is a distinct technique used by capitalists to bypass the legal and contractual rights of workers which to my knowledge has no name currently - so I’m giving it one - Lunch Grinding.

Lunch Grinding is a manipulative erosion of worker rights both in and out of the workplace. It bypasses legal and contractual standards through informal social pressures which the bosses cannot be held directly accountable for.

Lunch Grinding is named after one of the most common examples. It begins by asking a few employees to skip lunch in order to finish a project. Workers who are already insecure about their position due to economic anxiety will see this as an opportunity to prove they are a good employee. Those who refuse to do so may receive blame for failing to finish the project on time.

The issue becomes compounded when the bosses begin to purposefully schedule less time to complete the same projects. A distinct class begins to appear ignoring their contractual right to a lunch break - who become hostile to those who refuse to work during lunch for being “lazy” or “the reason we didn’t finish on time.”

At this point the management no longer needs to influence anyone directly to work through lunch break, simply by keeping up the sense of constantly being a little late for the project they have ensured the lunch-grinders will apply pressure to their peers who aren’t working through breaks.

As workplace hostility increases towards the “unproductive” members who are expressing their formal right to a break - they will be replaced with new individuals who may not even realize they have the right to a lunch break because working through the hour has become normalized by their peers.

Thus formal written standards from contracts and legal code become functionally non-existent. After which a new standard will be identified by management for erosion some examples include:

+Accepting uncertain hours. +Working off-the-clock. +Staying “On-Call” at all times. +Finishing projects / responding to emails at home. +Never using time off or sick leave.

All of which are socially conditioned in the same format - starting with “The Good Worker” who does a little favor for their boss - and ending as a peer enforced pressure and a perpetual hostility from management claiming productivity isn’t as high as expected. 

imagine ur getting jumped by flat earthers and one of them say fuck it take him to the edge

good morning sickos let's get this child labor

yes i posted this on my other blog but you know what it goes here too

Please fucking lie to your employer. Like they don’t need to know your mental health issues or what drugs you do. Ffs

whenever management is like, ‘remember to think about your team mates and how calling out will affect them’ i’m just like, damn, maybe you should hire more people about it