It took me awhile to find this exchange I read last week. A college student at the Drucker B school (Claremont) was looking for Walmart employees to answer a "survey" about why they worked so hard for such little pay. She offered them $10, not just for answering the two questions, but for agreeing to respond to "deeper questions."
Nunya answered, articulating attitudes similar to those Michael reports. While I realize that these sorts of responses make it seem as if our efforts are hopeless, I disagree. Hope lies in Nunya's mocking, chortling retort, in her insistence on rescuing her dignity from a pummeling unwittingly dispensed by a B school student who probably didn't have any idea she'd insulted Nunya and others like her.
Nunya is not duped by Walmart's machinations alone. Nunya's response illustrates what Doug means when he insists that it is at our peril we ignore or simplify "the degree to which people are complicit in their own subordination, and even come to enjoy it. Or, worse, don't even experience (work) as a compulsion or a form of subordination, but a pleasure." I think the below gets at what's at the heart of this perpetual debate over how ideology works.
Here's the post from the B-school student:
"Dear Wal-Mart associates:
I am a business schoole stuent of Claremont Grauate Universitn in California, that is known as Drucker school. I am looking for someone who can help my assignment for my class that deals with employee motivation. I want to know why Wal-mart associates work well even though they earn low wages. I am going to pay you $10 through Paypal or check if you help me.
Please answer some questions below by e-mail if you help my assignment. I will ask deeper questions to some of the respondents. Those people are eligible to get $10.
rest at<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wal-Mart/message/2969> ------------------------------------------- Nunya Responded:
> "lmao @ you...you got a dumb assignment... "
Nunya gets pleasure out of putting the smack down on an
inhabitant of the Ivory Tower.
Nunya imagines herself superior to people who otherwise probably often
make her feel inferior--even though most probably have no intention of
making her feel this way at all.
Who can blame her? A graduate student appears to think that Walmart
workers must be studied like monkeys at the zoo. The b school student's
questions presume that what motivates professionals couldn't possibly
apply to those who work boring, menial jobs.
> "and you pay someone? well anyways... ill tell you for free..."
Pride and pleasure: "Look," says Nunya, "I don't need your steenkin' ten
bux to answer your insulting questions."
I doubt that it has escaped her attention that the grad student is making
respondents jump through hoops in the same way they are made to jump through
hoops at work.
Nunya refuses to be cast in this light: "I have some pride. You think that
what motivates me is money? That you're different? You think I'm an animal?
Think again."
Nunya refuses to reduce everything to the cash nexus.
> "i work good cause i take pride in what i do..."
Nunya rescues her dignity from someone who has insulted her.
She doesn't work hard because she's stupid, or trapped, or hoodwinked by
big, bad meany corporate propaganda. She's not so dumb that she sits through
the Walmart cheer, klewless.
She works hard because she _wants_ to. Who wants to view themselves as dupes,
fools, people forced to do something?
Too often, if you've never lived life as Nunya does, it seems unfathomable that
people really do find pleasure in their work.
Nunya's proud in spite of (and probably because of) a world that tells her
every loving minute that what she does is 'shit work.'
"and i dont make a low wage... see alot of us walmart employees havent been to collage.. so this is where sere stuck..."
This is rich. Nunya heaps derision on the b-school grad student, taking
on a lecturing tone, instructing a college student in a fact of life.
"See alot of us...." She might as well say, "Bless yo' heart..."
In Nunya's world, she's not making a low wage given her situation.
Not only that, she's stuck because she doesn't have a college degree. Nunya
gets a little more pleasure, below, when she points out just how worthless
that college degree is. Nunya's seen this kind of thing before. The educated
dumb. Dumb, as in: they ask dumb questions. Dumb as in: they don't "get it."
Dumb, as in: they're rude and don't even realize it. Dumb, as in: they lack
native intelligence.
"at walmart you got a family away from home... and some of us may live there..."
Nunya says nothing about the Walmart form of community foisted on her.
They've created their own community, their own solidarity in spite of
Walmart's idiotic games. These are the people she can probably count on
when times get rough.
What is not to love? Here is someone who insists on rescuing a sense of social
solidarity from the clutches of a world that tries to destroy it at every turn.
"the job sucks somedays ( a few days before inventory really bites if u work in sporting goods and have a bunch of lil lazy.. ne ways)and somedays it doesnt ( when you meet crazy loons wanting to by a gun) well there you go....( puts 2 cents in yer pocket)"
The social relationships, Nunya points out, are complicated, Peyton Place-like,
messy, catty, gossipy, and not everyone is like me, there are some bums among
us. Just like family! :)
Nunya followed up with a second post:
"oh and btw i thought this was funny...Shinichi Fujikawa... the collage student spelt that crazy name... but spelt school and student wrong lmao sorry.. "
Kelley