Time to Rethink Work
7 min readJun 21, 2021
I am clearly not the first person to say this or the first person to observe this, but maybe if enough of us point it out, we can pretend someone will listen?
This past year a lot of things have become very apparent:
- Republicans do not have humanity’s best interest in mind. Whether we’re talking income equality; taxing the super-rich; environmental regulations that ensure clean air or water or even the possibility of a livable planet; maternity or paternity leave or even education for children; workplace safety; healthcare so people don’t die broken and broke… The list is endless and the response from Republican politicians and their supports is often “I suffered so everyone else should suffer, too,” which is just mind-bogglingly selfish and unhinged to the rest of us.
- Far too many companies are invested in micromanagement and controlling the working lives of their employees than even saving money. (Don’t believe me? Think about how much a lot of these places pushing for everyone to get back in the office would save by not renting office space (or renting smaller office space), not paying for electricity and toilet paper and fancy conference room furniture and those ubiquitous stick pens that never write well but always seem to be floating around offices as if the walls breed them when no one’s looking.)
- Companies still need to pay for necessary equipment and software. Companies who do realize how much they can save and do agree to send people home for good are also suddenly thinking not paying for company computers or internet or even software is not going to bite them in the ass because the idea of not paying employees any more and also shoveling ALL of the expense of being a business off on them will work out in the long run. (I mean, sure, they’ll just fire the employee whose kid downloads a virus or whose teen gives away passwords out of spite or whose open network lets in malware or hackers or ransomware, but by then they’ve got a problem potentially much more expensive than just buying some bulk laptops and locking out installs by providing employees with what they need.) Can things still get by? Sure? Little harder. Yes.
So, if you do want employees back in the office, institute a WFH sick policy where they can call in sick but get paid if they are able to work from home.
- Retail and restaurant workers need better pay, better schedules, better healthcare options, and better treatment overall. It’s really time for people who eat out to stop thinking of the person waiting on the table as a lesser species who didn’t finish high school or is a “teenager” or some other judgmental bullshit and realize they’re A) The reason you don’t have to cook for your family tonight or your five business colleagues for lunch and can focus on your prestation and ass-kissing, how you’re able to have 15 friends celebrate your birthday or graduation or promotion without having to buy food for all of them. B) Often just as good at their job as you are at yours and just as professional and just as well suited. (And if they aren’t maybe they’re new to it or haven’t found their thing and you weren’t always “perfect” either so simmer down.) We used to have a family friend who was a prime example of this. In almost every other industry and situation, he seemed like a fish out of water but put him in a white dress shirt and over-long black apron and his casual nonsense turned into an expert on how the fish was prepared, which sauces went with what even if that wasn’t on the menu, the best wine pairing for everything ever served there, the latest seasonal vegetables, the chef’s newest passion, and could anticipate a group’s needs better than the group itself. He was there just as they thought to ask for a waiter without ever seeming to hover. He could make or break your business dinner. And if you didn’t tip him like you knew that, you better not bring your next clients back. C) Explain to your kid how they can’t have their favorite nuggets or fries again because no one is willing to work for those wages cooking and bagging them anymore. In other words, you value the food and you value having grocery stores and delivery, so pay the fucking people that make it happen and treat them like they’re human beings.
- Way too many people still think going to work when “a little sick is okay. It isn’t. And it’s time we say so. We’ve discovered that a huge swath of the workforce is capable of working from home whether they or their bosses like it. So, if you do want employees back in the office, institute a WFH sick policy where they can call in sick but get paid if they are able to work from home. (And if they have jobs they can’t do from home, they probably need more paid sick time anyway so they won’t be driving trucks, operating heavy machinery, watching children, or bringing your breakfast while sick or hopped up on cold medicine.) That’s the whole reason so many people come to work sneezing and coughing flu and colds and even Covid all over the place: they don’t feel sick enough to stay in bed or be in the hospital so they aren’t willing to use up their precious time off. In other words, employers, you’re the ones who created a system where 600,000 people had to die rather than miss a day of work (or their loved one couldn’t miss work and brought home the plague).
- Workers and employers are both figuring out workers have value. During the past year, a lot of people had time to evaluate what they’d been doing with their time and come to some conclusions about how they do and don’t want to spend their rest of their lives. For some, that meant going back to school or looking for more full-filling work. For some, that meant looking for a way to continue working from home (meaning switching jobs or quitting to look for another if their company insisted on a return to time wasted commuting). For some, that meant the opposite, including seeking a job with actual office hours instead of feeling always available and unbounded at home. Hopefully, this will mean workers will end up in more compatible work situations. (I can dream.) For some, that meant retiring early. For some, it meant eliminating some expenses so they could spent more time with their kids or other family members before it was too late. Too much free time gave people time to look at their priorities and a lot of them started to question the value society had been placing on work. Work is good and healthy, but should be balanced with other things. The US had, for all its listicles and products and Goopish Instagram posts about “balance,” forgotten what that meant.
- Employers aren’t happy about it. Seems everywhere you look there’s an owner or CEO complaining about people suddenly realizing that working themselves to death for low wages; being exploited so the people complaining can buy a fifth yacht or summer home; or doing nothing but work and still not surviving. Gee, Richy Riches, I can’t imagine how a global pandemic that caused the deaths of over 600,000 people in the USA alone might cause people to look at the people telling them to go back to work in unsafe conditions and noping the fuck out. Industries like retail and restaurants that had relied on paying people so little the workers still qualified for government assistance; that had relied on erratic schedules so people struggled to cobble together enough jobs to make ends meet; that had relied on not providing sick days or health insurance; that had no problem firing everyone when they had to close or pivot during a health crisis leaving even long-term employees to fend for themselves are the same industries posting signs berating people for “not wanting to work.” I’m about as shocked as I am when it rains in the rainy season. (Cue afternoon thunderstorm.)
- No matter how many signs they see around them that the workforce has had enough, CEOs and billionaire owners are banking on everyone forgetting all they learned and going back to their endless, exploited grind churning out money for those in power. Republicans are banking on that, too, which is why they have their memes about work ethic and the Boomers all complaining about “in my day” like they couldn’t buy a car and go to college on their part-time summer job at the malt shop. Don’t buy into their foolish lies. They don’t have anyone’s best interest at heart except their own. And every last one of them will happily go back to funneling bodies into the metaphorical furnace powering their economy if you let them.
