> Just snipping to save spacem though I really enjoyed reading this. Thank you.
Well, the overt hospitality is much appreciated. Lurkers note: for a warm welcome into the discursive smack-down of lbo-talk, take up a kelley_at_popculture.org thread.
Actually, it's sometimes terse but usually pretty civil around here; anyway, rudeness can always be shrugged off. What's scarier is the erudition and fair amount (it seems to me) of intellectual rigor - the very things that pump up the list's entertainment factor. And hey, what was somebody just saying about U.S. overpoliteness?
>><...> to neither bitch nor sympathize with the general bitching raises
>>suspicions that you're either (a) appalling enough to have genuinely
>>bought into whatever condescending corporate morale campaign is
>>currently being pitched; or (b) consciously identifying with the
>>boss's p.o.v. in anticipation of reward. Either way the offending
>>party cannot be trusted.
> Word.
> (b)is probably primary. I once asked my ex-fiance, a delivery truck driver,
> why he worked so damn hard. He confided that he hoped that maybe someday
> someone on his route would offer him a better job or recommend him to
> someone else.
> The fast food worker friend I mentioned? Her daughter got an after school
> job in a law office. She jokingly said, "Hey, maybe he'll see how great you
> are and take an interest. Pay your college tuition or something." It was a
> joke, but I think it was a serious hope/wish.
Yeah, the only workers I've ever known guilty of (a) have been college students making a few bucks between semesters, and in those cases it was usually relatives of higher management, who often ended up in the office anyway. But mocking poster-n-pizza morale programs is an essential camaraderie thing, and more fun than compulsory bitching.
The law office story is interesting. Especially the "or something." Working class families may not have a clue how applying to college works, much less actually surviving at one - mine didn't. Nor did I. Knowing even one college graduate who could have offered advice might have saved me, literally, years of figuring shit out as I fucked up along the way. (Jeff Schmidt writes about this in _Disciplined Minds_, a book I can recommend. I've seen Alfred Lubrano's _Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams_ at B&N, but haven't looked at it yet.)
> People believe that merit will be rewarded--that rigging the game otherwise
> is wrong. They believe in this very strongly. You have to. To believe
> otherwise is to admit you are fuxored.
> If you believe in merit, then doing anything to mess with that merit
> system--like sucking up to mgmt--is going to be sanctioned. This is
> bolstered by the anti-management sentiments: schmoozing is seen as how
> "they" operate, so it's important not to act like "them" --or at least to
> imagine you don't.
> <...>
> Poor kids are much more attached to "it's WHAT you know, not WHO
> you know." They have to be--they don't KNOW anyone. :)
Yeah, the much-abused merit system. That's practically an obsession in day-to-day conversations at work. The complaints are always about individual cases: X the kissass got the position that the very competent Y deserved, meanwhile can you believe I had to explain such-and-such again to our dumbass supervisor? Each time we're all scandalized, infuriated; nobody ever asks, "WHAT merit fucking system?" To make that logical (systemic) conclusion - that what we're seeing as unjust deviations are the norm, this is how bureaucratic hierarchy, or the company, or whatever REALLY OPERATES - is a hell of a thing. And yes, after looking it up at urbandictionary.com, fuxored is the thing you would be.
I want to say: Jeez, after whining about the same damn thing every day, you'd think people would put 2 and 2 together; so why don't they get it? But whenever I have my, like, daily freak-out over the latest Repug or xtrem xtian or Bush admin. outrage, my girlfriend will calmly remind me that yes, don't pop a capillary, of course they would do that. True. So why not accept the current regime as degree zero and take things from there, with a little more self-possession? Because, I guess, I'm reluctant to feel so damn estranged - not from the creeps in power, but from everyone who, in willful ignorance, supports the whole rotten system, which is a lot of people. I.e. reluctant to feel fuxored.
> <...>
>><...> And recall the
>>controversy over cult studs championing workplace resistance and
>>agency - so what, if organized revolt's been defused?
> :) do I have to recall that?
Heh.
>>OTOH, if
>>maintaining your own self-respect on the job is a struggle you know
>>intimately, anyone who suggests that you're a wholly-determined cog is
>>a boss, or some other kind of enemy.
> Word. It's great to read someone here that gets it!
Hell, it's only self-interest. It's too stressful to be contemptuous of, or condescending to, the people you work alongside everyday; anyway, it would require self-contempt, too. I already play serious mind games with myself to think, on the one hand, "We are all fuxored," and on the other, "Yeah, well at least I'M not a cog." I mean, how did I get to be the exception? Because I GET that we're all cogs? How's that work? It's my own particular game, and other people have theirs, revolving around sacrifices for their family or lover, or plotting a surprise burst of inane entertainment, or figuring chords of a song or planning a meal or fixating on some miserable abiding hatred or whatever, a bit or a lot of which comes out in their work. And that's one way how - sans democratic self-organization and instituted solidarity - you keep a scrap of your unfuxored self.
>>Also a potential enemy is anything that tempts you to make your hopes
>>less guarded.
> Can you expand on this? I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean. I
> think I do, but...
I was referring to union drives - trying to convince people they can fight their bosses, collectively and effectively. That's a dangerous thing to ask. It implies (a) the supposed fair system of merit in which they so fervently believe has broken, or never existed; and (b) fairness depends on their participation in a collective fight which could very well fail, leaving them estranged from their employer and maybe coworkers, or even unemployed. Oh, and obliged to continue the fight, because with these implications come responsibilities.
> One of the things I find interesting about hopes is how hard it is to deal
> with structural analyses.
> Fr'instance, when Nunya and the Walmart workers say, "there are no jobs," I
> suspect that some folks thought, "They're not really stuck. There are jobs
> at better paying retailers. If only people would leave the places that
> treat them poorly, then the competition would force firms to treat them
> better." Ehrenreich puzzles over this phenom in _Nickel and Dimed_. While
> she has some reasonable explanations, she doesn't quite 'get it.'
> For Walmart workers, going to another retailer is not really a better wage
> or better life. IT's just SOSDD--and it could be even worse elsewhere. A
> .50/hr or even $2/hr increase in wages doesn't get them out of low-wage work.
> Leaving Wally Whirled for another retailer is too uncertain. Things could
> improve elsewhere, but it may just get worse.
> Changing jobs means you lose the time you clocked at Wally Whirled for the
> meager bennies that you do get. Losing just a few months, let alone years,
> of tenure means losing first dibs on the coveted shifts, the more
> interesting tasks, and the leg up you've accrued simply be/c of the high
> turnover, and very important is probably losing "family" that you work with.
> So, when those workers responded to Michael, they said, "There are no
> jobs." Nunyua said, "We're stuck".
> What they're really saying is "Yeah, there are jobs at McDonald's or Home
> Depot. But leaving Wally Whirled means starting all over again and losing
> what little I've gained at Wally, for not that much more at another place
> that is basically the same thing. it's not better, not appreciably enough
> to make it worth the effort.
Prosaic hopes are one thing, e.g., considering the option of posting out of shipping to get a machine operator position, or working enough OT to afford the downpayment on a newer car: realistic, low-risk, known factors, and not emotionally devastating if they don't happen. Essentially, if you fail you lose nothing. But you're absolutely right - changing jobs is so uncertain, and the mass of lousy jobs so thoroughly lousy, but lousy in so many different ways, you may as well be stuck at one. The devil you know, etc. Little things take on huge significance at this end of the socioeconomic stick; a hard won battle over radio policy kept me at a job months after I realized I'd never move anywhere w/the company. And there are informal seniority and shift-swapping systems people arrange despite the lack of, or even contrary to, company policy - a little spontaneous, under-the-radar justice. These are the fleeting things that matter, and they exist on a scale that almost no one else sees; they vary shift-to-shift, dept-to-dept, and Wal-Mart X may be preferable to Home Depot Y.
Also, the memory of just one REALLY BAD previous job shouldn't be underestimated as a motivator to stay put (just as really bad jobs are usually staffed by people who've never tasted anything much better).
Last year, during several periods of intense dissatisfaction at work, I passed around an employment ad (run every Sunday) for the local Acme distributor - similar-type work, better benefits, much better pay after 90 days.
Zero interest. Finally someone explained why: "Great job, if you speak Spanish." A (predictably) racist reaction that I couldn't totally dismiss, since three of the four worst places I've worked in this county - a mattress factory, a pretzel factory, and a cannery - had workforces of almost entirely Spanish-speaking people, shouted at by a belligerent (white) management with a reckless disregard for worker safety (never mind comfort). Earsplitting machinery, lines insanely paced and poorly lit, packing shit everywhere, low-hanging cords, absurdly minimalist equipment training, ergonomic follies for workstations, PPE unavailable, etc. The memory of 2 months in the pretzel factory kept me in my next moderately shitty job for 3 yrs. [Trade secret: Mr. Salty and generic no-names are the same!]
> <...>
> This is something that you understand if you've moved up and out or if
> you've watched others do so. _YOU_ may get out, but your family and friends
> are still there. And even if all your family and friends get out, there
> will just be mo' po' motherfuckahs to take their place.
> It's right there, we have a wedge, in that space. But it's a damn
> depressing space that has to be negotiated pretty carefully!
Hmm. By "that space," do you mean a space where people's working experience allows them to see that what the system demands is not better educated or better trained muthahfuckahs, but po' muthahfuckahs, period? Just greet, fetch, and fuck whatever degree, skill, talent, or ability you got?
I wonder if you've had some experience getting a wedge in this space. I once badly botched an attempt defending unemployment insurance [!] to some guys I worked with. Anybody can get a job, they agreed; just look at the all the classified ads. Ergo, collecting unemployment was for lazy bastards. Naturally, their argument had racial overtones, which they made explicit. I'm crap at understanding economics, but I asked them why, first of all, the number of jobs available in an economy would exactly match the number of people who need jobs. It doesn't, they said, and waved the classifieds again. Yeah, I said, but then, what about all the unemployed people? Well, so there's your match, they agreed. Very pleased with themselves, too. Fucking beautiful, really; typed out, the thing now looks like an economics professor's joke.
My meaning, I guess, is that, in my experience, when making an abstract point - that capitalism depends on a class of people to screw, say - people always seem to be armed with an arsenal of justifications for why things MUST be the way they are - even (especially?) if they are the ones being screwed.
Anyway, I just wondered if you had better experiences with this sort of discussion, or some tips or something...
>>Probably the patron factor offers the retail/food service employers a
>>useful tool to divert or defuse worker disaffection.
> I don't think mgmt uses it purposefully. It's just there. The ease with
> which workers see patrons as enemies depends a bit on who the clientele
> are. In Vicki Smith's research, it was photocopy center workers. Their
> patrons were lawyers. The degradation they experienced at the hands of
> lawyers--for whom there is wider cultural antipathy already--was what made
> them side with mgmt. They already saw themselves as at war with the
> lawyers. Mgmt demands about how to do their jobs providing the
> psychological space to say, "there, take that. I got my orders. Your fancy
> suits and degrees and big words don't mean nothing against that!"
That's a weird one. Objectively, it's your employer who's exploiting you; subjectively, the patrons play the class card and push your buttons. Damn. I think I'd just quit.
> Similar findings are revealed in Robin Leidner's _Fast Food, Fast Talk_ a
> study of McDonald's workers. Leidner finds that workers protect themselves
> from the demands of their patrons by disengaging and taking on their role,
> actually enjoying routinized scripts because they protect them from the
> demands of patrons.
> This has always interested me because it's a micro-level analysis of how
> the material conditions of one's daily labor shape consciousness. Not
> determine it; shape it. One of the things Marx noted about alienation was
> this separation between the worker and the product of her labor. That was
> true for factory work. It's not for service work: you aren't separated from
> the people who consume the product/service you create.
Yeah, the micro-level's always fascinated me too, because it comprises the bulk of workplace talk, not to mention experience, and I've really not seen much written about it. There are some advantages of alienating labor - as a fairly well-read fellow delivery driver used to tell me, "I don't become what I do." Unlike professionals, or management. The most numbing job I've ever had was working in an iron foundry machine shop - learn how to work a piece in 30 seconds, hone your movements down to four seconds, and repeat for the next 2 weeks. I used to come home physically tired but creative as hell - bursting with ideas, all in a mad rush to get them on paper. (Painfully horny, too.) But it was a temporary effect; and all-too-clearly, it didn't work the same for people who'd put in 30 yrs.
Face-to-face scripted interactions make for a neatly pseudo-authentic producer/consumer money/social exchange, with the social content as bland and interchangeable as the food. Actually, I think there's a similar exercise for helping us dyspraxic and socially inept folks to better function socially - just master a few scripts and plug 'em in. Greatly reduces anxiety, and people on the receiving end barely notice.
>><...>
>>
>>There's also the compensating pleasure of doing a job well, or doing
>>it quickly, or efficiently, beating the clock or a personal best.
> Word, brother, word. This is how you can feel that doing your job well is
> so important. It's a MATERIAL analysis of the microlevel conditions of
> one's labor and how it shapes consciousness! THank you Thank you Thank you!
> It's not just sucking up. It's not just identification. It's survival. It's
> creative. It's about your dignity!
> this is another reason why I think it's important not to denigrate people's
> work or sneer at the idea that they get pleasure out of it.
Yeah, I go by the principle of what gets you through the day. For me, racking pallets in some methodical fashion that ends up looking very neat and tidy but for no compelling reason, might be what makes a (relatively) pleasurable day's work; and for you, a tolerable day might involve taking the long way to and from the racks to flirt with the maintenance crew, then catching up in a mad final rush - or not catching up, whatever - that's cool, too. Or vice versa. Neither's probably the most efficient use of time and energy; and sometimes, when I end up doing better work than the company deserves, I hate that my interests and its interests coincide - but oh well. It's not necessarily a habit.
>> But
>>here's another potentially self-defeating survival tactic; you'll
>>probably attract more responsibility for yourself, while raising the
>>bar for co-workers - who will rightly hold you accountable for it.
> heh. As a kid, I worked for a newspaper, delivering papers but also
> manually inserting the circulars into the paper. I would deal with the
> monotony by seeing how fast I could do it. I was quickly told to slow it
> down! I was ruining it for them! They needed the hours! ooops
Man, I've heard that one. American workers have no problems thinking collectively when it comes to avg. hrly. piece rates, it seems....
> I can only go by the couple of Walmart workers I know, but they mock the
> whole rah rah siss boom bah Wally Whirled foists on them. It's a joke.
> Something they just go through to get through.
Oh god. That's a relief to hear.
> I learned last night that a friend of my son's gf is going to move from a
> drug store job to one at Wally Whirled. She's doing so because her old mgr
> at the drug store is now a mgr at Wally Whirled. Anyway, we were visiting
> the old 'hood. The Wally Whirled thing came up-- I'd indicated that someone
> I knew wondered why people worked there if the wages stink. Unanimously,
> the response was, "They do. They pay the worst."
> funny thing is, contrary to Ehrenreich's claims, these kids _do_ know who
> pays better and who doesn't. E.g., Taco Bell is know to pay the best fast
> food wages. Wally the worst retail wages. Etc.
> Frankly, I think companies spend money on this crap, not so they can secure
> loyalty, but so they can imagine that they are "good" employers. It's as
> much for themselves as audience as it is for labor.
Yeah, oddly, they need to believe they're not ogres. BTW, do corporations still pay out the wazoo for those studies defining their "corporate culture"? I worked for the QVC dist. center 5 or 6 years ago, and they paid beaucoup bucks for a big fat "our ten corporate values" rollout, one of which was "Fun Along the Way," a notion which they proceeded to cram down our throats. They even had a carnival set up in the parking lot one day, w/a dunk tank and some famous Nascar uh, car. A new supervisor - she'd been there all of 2 days, and had been riding some people pretty vigorously - got volunteered as a pie-throwing target; after taking a few glancing hits, somebody she'd obviously pissed off took a pie, walked right up, and GROUND it into her face - hard. She came close to crying, I thought. They later tried management vs. labor relay competitions; we named our teams, and they printed up t-shirts. I submitted "Wanker Nation" just as a joke, but they approved it. I still have the shirt: "QVC" and underneath, "Wanker Nation." WTF?
> <...>
Wow. That's beautiful, that story of the bartender ripping off the mafia guy/owner who was ripping off the govt. A friend of mine, until recently employed by a mob-run string of hotels in Maryland, was full of stories like that. The outfit was scamming tourists - advertise one price, charge another, and sorry, we only take cash. Some boss's mom was doing two sets of books - one for the govt., one for real - and yeah, the same payday scenario: stacks and stacks of money all over her kitchen table. Meanwhile, my friend and his partner were scamming the new guy they worked for - young, and real cocky because he was "family" and therefore loaded without having to work for it. Then my friend's partner scammed my friend...
Like I said to my girlfriend the other day, watching the Sopranos: About every single character on this show is lying to themselves, lying to everybody else, and screwing over somebody they say they love.
-- Best regards,
DMC mailto:dclark at ptd.net