Application to play Sysiphus

Editors Note: Trying a new thing. All instances of swear words have been replaced with other words. The author is woefully unaware of our trick. Let us know if you it.

I don't know how many of you are on the hunt for a job. I'll say I am, but the truth is I am half-heartedly engaged in the process. It's not that I don't want to work, it's just that I don't really want a job.  If I, or anyone, is required to perform such a job, perhaps there should be some recompense in less hours?  I mean, robots can do our work anyway. 

Recently I got the chance to speak to my friend Linda, who is about my fathers age, about work. Labor. Her generation, and therefore my fathers, prided themselves on work. A good job, in a factory, marked your status in the community.

Even Norman Rockwell would find this quaint. A modern jaded hipster would find this the worst, hopeless conceit of a poor imagination. Not because we are afraid of work, but because the stable jobs are all low-wage unlivable jobs or high-stress paperwork jobs. Go on, read about the twenty hours staring at excel.

The truth is, the economy is sideways. The black-and-white Calvinistic, Austrian model of economics hasn't just been turned on it's ear, it's been kidnapped, gagged, and forced to inform people by the use of hoots, grunts, and interpretive dance.

Face it, the rules that applied back then simply don't anymore. Not in any meaningful way. Our parents, leaders, and corporate elite  haven't informed us that the rules have changed. Partially from ignorance.   But also, out of malice.

Job applications have certainly not changed for the better. They are, in all honestly, a hopeless  bureaucracy,designed to inhibit, deter and prevent you from getting a job.

In my father's day, you could walk in, ask for a job, and get one, or told to get lost. And, if so rebuffed,  you'd head down one door.  "Hitting the pavement" was the euphemism for what you actually did.   Now you apply on  for Internet websites, press submit. Answer 400 questions about your personality. And though there are no right answers, clearly I answer them wrong because I never get a call back. i just send my application into the either.

And call on an application? They don't really do that anymore. They will call you.

Sure they will. 

The worst so far, Qdoba. Do you really need to ask 300 questions. I go to Qdoba frequently, and the biggest question I have is: Can you find someone who can actually roll a borking burrito? fire the people who make those long personality tests, use that money to bus your burrito rollers to La Bamba for a day.

McDonald's was only slightly less aggravating. They ask a series of questions and you choose the question that most reflects your views. These are the same questions.  For example

"I am a hard worker" vs "I like to watch butterflies fly into my bosses nose." 

"OK" I clicked the former - though my boss has nose hairs you could land Apache gunships on.

"I am a lazy good-for-nothing slacker"  vs  "I eat baby dolphins because I hate life."

So now what?  Do I contradict myself or do I make Jack-the-ripper look like a children's educator?
Sure, it's a bit of hyperbole, but it still aggravates me. What does any of this have to do with pressing burgers and dropping fries in hot oil? 

I'll tell you what, I ain't no slacker. Baby dolphins be damned. 



Sparkfire kindly posted this  graphic. I know it's bogus  when it talks about farmers. "No Job Hunt. No Career improvement."


Nonsense. Farmer is one of the most important jobs. The plight of the farmer was not one of improvement, it was about the poor economic and political policies. Yes, being a feudal serf might have sucked. But barring disaster, a skilled farmer lived quite a good life in the US.

And besides, in this hyper-corporate project-based, intern-serfdom world. Maybe a stable job with consistent pay is just the thing we need. 

I tell you Zach Weiner is positively prophetic. I suspect he has a lot of Millennial friends less-than-employed. 

We are reaching the existential crisis of the Job Market.  On one hand, we have a a bunch of slack-jawed sociopaths babbling about "returns on investments", "10 percent improvement in process efficacy" and "item action productivity", on the other, we have an overabundance labor jobs (replaced by automation) and service jobs "not meant to be a living wage." On the third, yes, third hand, we have an ever-swelling, leviathan-like government bureaucracy that exists to leech off the low- and moderately-waged and make serfs of those at the bottom. And the fourth hand we have people who, by virtue of illness, disability, or plain orn'riness, refuse to have anything to do with this nonsense.

Yes, the current job market is basically a 4-armed tentacled monster. In my nightmares it has Newt Gingrich and Barack Obama's face, melded like a sick love child.

And it's not like the basic rules have changed. So why the horse and pony show? 

The massive tentacled beast destroying or economic possibilities does have some vestigial arms - farmers (often automated), medical technicians (rapidly becoming educated button mashers), the arts. Things that were, or are, still valued for producing. But the system doesn't like those arms. Bankers making money on bailouts hate to hear that maybe the guy that grows pumpkins is doing more for the country. At least the farmer isn't giving money to people who hate the US. 

At least you can become a plumber or tradesman, with years of schooling and byzantine apprenticeships.

The markets are being made to keep people out.

But that's another blog post (or two, if I talk about neo-cottage revolutions). I'm losing my point today. Forgive me.

If you are, or were, looking for a job in an old way, you are right-borked. Unless you know somebody. And I am not even kidding. 

That McDonald's job? I have applied at McDonald's before. That specific McDonald's, for a soul-sucking mcjob that I can work around my desire to not actually do that job. Something that lets me pretend that I will be an artist some day.

They have ignored my application, but a caseworker of mine works with  and knows the manager there. And he says he will hook me up.

Networking required for a "not a livable wage" job. This is madness. Absolute madness. Regulation and litigation have made companies terrified of just giving a job.

If I weren't already a little on the batshit side, this would be enough to make me so. 

If you can't talk to people and hob knob, you might as well enjoy mopping floors. It's not like starting a business is much an option. Even in the blog post above, he needed way more money than he new. if you are in poverty, how are you going to manage that?

Remember when we were told to get a good job and not to be an artist? Remember that? I sure as hell do.

That was before Patreon and Kickstarter made fools of all of us, except the damn fools that followed their dreams. It's a new world, and prescient as I might have been, I was sure dumb on that account.  

My FCC comment.

 In light of net neutrality (I.E. Comcast F*cking the Internet), I conntected the FCC and commented thus:

"Simply put, the telecoms, all of which are thinly-veiled actual monopolies, cannot be trusted with the Internet. They use strong arm tactics and bullying, both on providers like Netflix, and on customers attempting to extricate them from the service. In no way can we trust them to ensure the fast lane/slow lane service will be priced fairly.

Our Internet lags behind many other countries, only because the monopolies - sorry - telecoms do not want to provide better service. They want to profit, and ignobly. "Get the mostest and offer the leastest." It would be comical if it weren't so true.

When we came to this country, a man or woman could make good in this country by simply carving out a part of the public land. The Internet is the new frontier, and technology the way to freedom. My giving this power to the telecomonopolies, you are denying the will to prosper of the United States.  New blogs, new stores, new industry using the logistics and the easy messaging of the Internet to make money, for themselves and for the government.

How many Internet business will we lose because access is only by slow lane? How many subscribers will quit Netflix and use libraries to get movies? The unintended costs of letting telecomonopolies introduce lanes will be staggering as it deincentivizes Internet use and Internet commerce. Economically it will be a disaster. Does that matter to you? the GDP used to matter, does it anymore? What happened to being a country of producers?

The media is woefully inadequate and untrustworthy. Pictures of George Zimmerman were lightened. His 911 call, manipulated. An informed public cannot trust television and radio sources.  Several news agencies have outright said they are biased, and one even won a lawsuit, claiming they didn't even have to tell truth. But on the Internet, where information is free, the truth can be found. And even if it requires digging through stacks of useless cat pictures and diatribes, I do it gladly to find out facts - something other media outlets often lacks.

By giving in to the telecomonopolies, you are taking steps to ensure that we cannot find any truth but the one most well liked by the corporations. What's next, a firewall to prevent us from knowing things outside Oceania? That would certainly prevent the spread of crimethink.

If an appeal to your nobler capitalist side side does not dissuade you, let me then try your more ignoble, despotic side.

Fast, inexpensive Internet is literally circuses. Imagine, if you will, a society of people who have access to cat pictures all day. With the incredible amount of slacktivism today, don't you think it would be wise to let people speak out on the Internet. They will spend their time lamenting with Facebook E-cards and never be so idle as to pick up protest placard and brick.

Open up the internet, and we will immerse ourselves in hedonistic voyeurism, and leave you alone. Close it down, and our idle hands will have to find something to do. Maybe rallying against a corrupt government is just the thing to get us off our Netflix-deprived couch-sitting asses."

I am not a lawyer, my language may be colloquial - I am a blogger and would-be demagogue. But if enough us remind them that the internet is useful, as a tool of information for us, or, at the very least, an easy leash for our masters - they may realize what a terrible idea Comcasts lanes will be.

Go here:  http://www.fcc.gov/comments and comment on 14-28

An Addendum (in the Vernacular)

Warning -Edited for clarity, and now fucking long as hell. Seriously, take kitten breaks.

Hello, my friends. I am particularly unfriendly today, and so I am once again using Written Kitten to keep my blood pressure from spiking. The last thing anyone needs is a blood vessel bursting and spraying my computer screen crimson.

Whew. Alright.  *click*

 *click*

Ok, so long-time reader Chris sent me this, a well-written and worded rebuttal to this, a adequately written argument about why Gen Y is unhappy.

Yes, in true contrarian-anarcho-moderate style, they are both fucking wrong.

I will start with the cheeky coward who hides behind a funny/procrastination website.

*click*  *click*

Shit, did I just lose an hour?

Wait but why says

To get to the bottom of why, we need to define what makes someone happy or unhappy in the first place. It comes down to a simple formula:

It's pretty straightforward -- when the reality of someone's life is better than they had expected, they're happy. When reality turns out to be worse than the expectations, they're unhappy."

And continues to say:

"With a smoother, more positive life experience than that of their own parents, Lucy's parents raised Lucy with a sense of optimism and unbounded possibility. And they weren't alone. Baby Boomers all around the country and world told their Gen Y kids that they could be whatever they wanted to be, instilling the special protagonist identity deep within their psyches.

This left GYPSYs feeling tremendously hopeful about their careers, to the point where their parents' goals of a green lawn of secure prosperity didn't really do it for them. A GYPSY-worthy lawn has flowers. "

 

Alright. I don't deny that "Gen Y" was set up with some pretty damn high expectations. I would liken them to the first immigrants. Streets were supposed to be paved with fucking gold, and we were promised robots. Robot sex maid robots.

Seriously. Where are my sex-maid-robots? Thanks Obama!

Anyway, then goes on to blame Gen Y

GYPSYs Are Wildly Ambitious

GYPSYs Are Delusional

 GYPSYs Are Taunted

And adds what is obvious to fucking everyone:

Unfortunately, the funny thing about the world is that it turns out to not be that easy of a place, and the weird thing about careers is that they're actually quite hard. Great careers take years of blood, sweat and tears to build -- even the ones with no flowers or unicorns on them -- and even the most successful people are rarely doing anything that great in their early or mid-20s.

But GYPSYs aren't about to just accept that.

Fuck you. Fuck your fucking face. Die ina  fire of pink slips. We accept this. We accept that hard work gets you ahead. We accept work.

We are the janitors, the barristas, as Hotel Clerks, and the anarcho-moderate bloggers.

That's how post recession Amercia worked. Asshole.

 Mr. Weinstein posts as much:

You have no idea about student debt, underemployment, life-long renting. “Stop feeling special” is some shitty advice. I don’t feel special or entitled, just poor. The only thing that makes me special is I have more ballooning debt than you. I’ve tempered the hell out of my expectations of work, ... I’m still poor and in debt and worked beyond the point where it can be managed with my health and my desire to actually see the son I’m helping to raise."

And he's right, we aren't entitled. Just poor.  We are busting ass.

Most of us who got shit degrees (like yours truly) understand, by now that they "done fucked up." Philosophy, gender Studies, English. If you ain't teaching, you ain't doing. And those with Education degrees might not be teaching either.

We know that companies want STEM degrees. if we didn't know then, we know now, for sure.

But, a friend of mine who has a MATH degree raises chickens because he can't get a job. The fuck?

Adam Weinstein touches on the issue, that \the promises of a high technology and better science has been an increase of productivity, but the consequences of that - more idle time and greater wealth, have been sucked up by the wealthy.

American workers have changed from generation to generation: Since 1979, the alleged Dawn of the Millennial, the average U.S. worker has endured a 75 percent increase in productivity...while real wages stayed flat.

The problem is: Long ago the government realized that as long as they said the right thing, they weren't accountable to the citizenry. And then doing the right thing became more expensive than making laws.  And distracting, imprisoning, and impoverishing the masses was cheaper than educating, liberating, and enriching them.
When the government no longer feared the masses, they just decided to follow the money.

And the poor folk don't have any.

Last weekend my baby had a fever, and we contemplated taking him to the ER, and my first thought was - had to be - “Oh God, that could wipe out our bank account! Maybe he can just ride it out?” Our status in this Big Financial Game had sucked my basic humanity towards my child away for a minute. If I wish for something better, is that me simply being entitled and delusional?

No it isn't. And yes, it is (see below)

Anyway, I'm ranting. I really just wanted to share Mr. Weinstein's blog post.

Weinstein says:

The latter maxim lurks in the heart of every critique of millennials. It assumes that if we're worse off than previous generations, the fault is ours, and our complaints are so much white whine.

He's not wrong. American's love their "Prosperity Movement" That with a little elbow grease, we can make it after all.

He continues to discuss how awesome it was for our parents:

They had room to advance and buy things. Yes, even the creatives. I once listened to a professor, who is in his sixties, read us the first published piece he'd been paid for, in the late 1970s. A thousand words or so. The rate, he says, was something like two bucks a word. That's four times what the Village Voice pays today, even for an award-winning investigative cover story. It's geometrically greater than what most writers can earn today writing daily brilliance for nationally renowned publications online. And writing daily brilliance, which many of them do, is hard goddamned work.

The economy post WWI was AWESOME. The BEST EVAR, actually. and that economy isn't here anymore.

 And my rebuttal, to all this naval gazing:

"So what?"

Reality doesn't care if you are poor. It doesn't care if have ER bills. it doesn't care if you are worried about a stroke but can't afford an ER visit (my version - I don't have a baby). It is on the side of the winner. Lower your expectations, or don't.

This is why, my kiddos, while I do not advocate violence (They have more bullets than us), I do advocate that you do your best to win. To make yourself a success. You're poor, you're fat, you're struggling and you want things.

Well, then go out and get them. This isn't a "suck-it-up" post. The truth is suck-it-up and bust ass only works when the other side is playing fair.  And the other side of the 99%, the 1%, is and always will be playing dirty fucking ball.

And the refs we elect to stop it are in their pockets.

So what is the solution?  Weinstein touches on it

Take the system that siphons off our capacities for human flourishing in hopes that we get thrown a little coin of the realm in return. Take that system and blow it up, you cowards.

Right now money is valuable, and so the 1% have learned what rules to make and change and follow to get as much as they can. And never did we slap their hand and tell them to get out of the bank and give back those properties.

We never learned, it seems, that wealth will make more wealth- for the wealthy. Trickle down economics could have been stopped by a cursory reading of history. If the cost to make wealth is too great, via regulation, inflation, or bureaucracy, then only the wealthy and criminal will make money.

I don't know kiddos. Somewhere along the lines the Aristocracy realized it didn't need to hide. We had been given enough rope of liberty and democracy to hang ourselves.

What we need to do is create value that cannot be taken. Value that can be traded. A new currency for a digital age. I'm not offering examples. It might not be enough to just have a new currency. It might have to be a new system.

We live in a unique place to do that. We have anonymity of the Internet, we have ways to create value from nothing, and more and More of us have nothing to fucking lose. We are career-less, jobless, and homeless. So fuck it. Reach for the fucking stars, assholes. What will happen? Lose your Mcjob? Hah! Go to jail? Free housing and a free (to you) Education. So paint on building walls and rant in the street.

We are not new yuppies. We are new hippies. We aren't changing the world for the better because we have luxury and a good post WWII economy, We are changing the world because we have nothing and therefore nothing to lose.

I needed to repeat that.  having nothing means you have nothing to lose. So go out and be a dreamsmith. Paint yourself fucking green. Steal from dumpsters, build gardens in empty parking lots. Shit.

So do what helps you, and if helps your fellow man, awesome. I hope it does. I hope we start building a world out of the junk the 1% let's us have. And it will be much cooler than manicured golf courses.

Alright, I need a kitten break, kiddos. Good luck, and do something fearless.