[lbo-talk] Graeber

[123hop at comcast.net]

"It is not so much, they say, that they feel that anyone is treated this way 
because of prejudice, but that we are all fucking weird in the u.s. because 
we all go home and keep to ourselves after work, keep to ourselves during 
lunches and breaks. As one friend who spent a lot of time contracting said 
everyone is treated this way: full time workers don't invite contractors or 
newbie employees out to lunch, they don't check in to make sure you're 
comfortable, no one thinks to help you find things, no one says hello or 
goodbye. (this is true to my experience as well. there is perfunctory 
conversation but yes, I could die in my hotel room over the weekend and no 
one at the contract site would know.)" 

I came to the U.S. when I was nine....Bucharest, Paris, Los Angeles. I didn't know enough to understand what the differences were, but I thought I had landed on the moon. The streets were empty. No one and no place smelled like anything. No one was genuinely happy, though everyone was "nice." Everything was clean and newish, but there was something worrying about that. Would anything last very long? 

Perception was complicated by my parents' mantra that this was a very good place indeed....despite the fact that my mother had a complete nervous breakdown, that my father was working 60 hours a week, and that we had landed on the moon. 

Joanna