stegosaurus
stegosaurus
Post rating:
+++++
When I read Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher, I was expecting something like a Frankfurt School abstract examination of the totality of capitalist society, which is kind of how the book was marketed. But the book was way more concrete than I expected, and one of the book's concrete-ier chapters dealt with the audit, from Fisher's perspective of a minor functionary in a vast bureaucracy whose occasional byproduct is education.
I'm also a minor functionary, part clerk and part manual laborer, in a vast organization whose byproduct is the sorting and delivery of packages. Since my, ahem, work, is different, but the experience of the audit is ubiquitous, I have a slightly different perspective on what Fisher talks about in the concrete chapters of his book, and an experience a couple days ago allowed me to put together some things I'd been thinking about for a while but was unsure of.
The experience occurred during a pure audit situation, the ideal audit situation, when the auditors are present but their presence is unknown and things are truly proceeding as normal. I came back late from my pickup route to the sort, and missed the meeting where my manager told all of us "hey idiots, don't throw packages, don't cross the belt, if you see someone in a polo and khakis he's an auditor and you should cough cough, do what you do every single day." I was across the belt, and a huge package came down and there was only one person on the other side to handle it. The rule is that packages above 75 pounds have to be handled by two people, but honestly anything above 60 and sufficiently bulky can be basically unmanageable by one person at the speed at which the belt moves and given all the additional requirements of the sort (the requirement to place packages in 'walls' so they don't all fall over later, etc.). So, I crossed the belt. About two seconds later a pudgy middle aged man with a goatee and a partially shaved head (have you ever seen a white male police officer?), in telltale khakis and polos, materialized next to me. He took down my employee number by saying "hey, we're just checking training records, routine stuff, let me see your badge." After he took my number down, shaking from the rush of witnessing a blatantly unsafe act, he told me that I'd cost my entire workgroup an entire section of the audit and that I should, quote "never cross the belt, especially not during an audit. it's a major safety violation."
Fisher says that the audit is self-referential. No data from the audit is ever used outside of the audit, the set of procedures by which the data is collected have relevance only to the audit and not the thing that the process being audited is supposed to produce, and after the audit is done the data is discarded, the process resumes, with the only change being disciplinary actions, in the form of pay cuts, firings, demotions, or the increased arbitrariness and "scrutiny" of authority. At all major package companies this is so obvious not even the auditors themselves or my bosses even bother to appeal to the relevance of the audit to the actual process. Fisher's equivalent is his "laid-back" ex-hippie boss, who says "hey look, we've got to do this and it's bullshit, but we might as well go on with it and make things as easy as possible for ourselves." Fisher says that an attitude like this doesn't actually challenge the legitimacy of the audit at all, or even make it less effective, since its purpose is not to improve the process or, in my case, make anything safer. A short review of the idea of safety, which Fisher doesn't encounter but makes up the major component of my audit, will establish this.
Packages themselves are unsafe. Spilled dangerous goods, drill bits that dislocate shoulders when lifted, packages that adjust in transit and tumble down when the container is opened, slippery bullshit that crushes toes, etc. Driving is very unsafe, especially in our area, which includes mountainous areas with long driveways, unimproved roads and tons of crazy weather. And delivering is unsafe. People here frequently let huge dogs patrol their grounds like some sort of insane English lord on a quarter acre, in Oakland some routes are done out of armored cars instead of normal delivery trucks, and one dude got the police called on him when he was driving a rental vehicle, a white van of course, and someone thought it was suspicious that he was driving super slow in a deserted residential neighborhood in the early afternoon.
So all this is obvious. Leaving your house is dangerous. The question is not should we take any risks at all, do things that are inherently unsafe, because we have to. The question is how much should we risk to get the job done. Package companies have said, we can risk the health and safety of our workers to a pretty considerable degree to get the job done. We can give them guidelines, punish them if they do unsafe things, and give them seatbelts and purely cosmetic back braces but at the end of the day we have to get packages to where they need to be.
This is where the traditional socialist focus on things other than high wages puts itself head and shoulders above the grubby small-time crap that passes for militancy where I work. There is basically no amount of risk or injury that is defensible or reasonable in the face of about ninety five percent of the pure garbage we deliver every day.
A courier of very long standing snapped his leg on an icy driveway last year delivering a Kindle. He was well paid to do it and he recovered fully, generating thousands of dollars in extra business for insurance adjusters, surgeons, the guys who took over his route when he was gone, and Budweiser. So from the perspective of capitalism everything is working normally. But as soon as these benefits go away, and they are being eroded at non-union FedEx and at "Change To Win" UPS, the broken leg = delivered Kindle equation will appear even more absurd and grossly wasteful than it already is. Socialism's demand to not only compensate workers fairly but reduce the amount of time they spend working, period, is the only real answer here. And it's clear from the internal decisions of package companies that they are able to bear the reduction in work - or at least the reduction in the intensity of the work - that would make authentic safety possible. Let me explain how I know this.
Peak season, from Black Friday to Christmas, is really the happiest time of the year at any package company. Everyone gets Hours out the ass, management give almost free reign to employees, the audit is completely suspended (audits only happen during this time of the year, the slow time), and, most importantly, the intensity of work is reduced dramatically. The sort, which during slow times is compressed into a supercharged hour and a half to two hours at my station, is stretched to an almost criminally indulgent six or seven hours during peak season. We get way more packages but more people are working, and working longer, and as a result the time is much easier. Drivers don't have to worry about running their routes twice (once for priority packages and once for all the other ones), but instead just waltz into their area, deliver everything in a straight shot, and come back after a couple hours of overtime to a happy family and welcome rest. Management fawns over us for a month. We get donuts or bagels every day, crates of frozen turkeys and coolers filled with burritos appear spontaneously, customers leave us holiday cookies on their doorsteps, we do donuts in the parking lot in our huge trucks, and the checks are fat. It's labor aristocracy hog heaven.
Package companies are meticulously managed and this freedom would not be allowed if the company were not making enough money. But the point is that there is no reason why couriers must be rushed to, say, jog down an icy driveway instead of walk slowly, or why the sort has to be two hours instead of four, and conducted at a much safer, more leisurely pace. Or why the audit focuses on the individual actions of employees in a context created by the company to compel rule violations, corner cutting, and deliberate unsafety, and not the fact that delivering slave labor iPads or merger agreements is not worth any degree of risk to anyone whatsoever.
I'm also a minor functionary, part clerk and part manual laborer, in a vast organization whose byproduct is the sorting and delivery of packages. Since my, ahem, work, is different, but the experience of the audit is ubiquitous, I have a slightly different perspective on what Fisher talks about in the concrete chapters of his book, and an experience a couple days ago allowed me to put together some things I'd been thinking about for a while but was unsure of.
The experience occurred during a pure audit situation, the ideal audit situation, when the auditors are present but their presence is unknown and things are truly proceeding as normal. I came back late from my pickup route to the sort, and missed the meeting where my manager told all of us "hey idiots, don't throw packages, don't cross the belt, if you see someone in a polo and khakis he's an auditor and you should cough cough, do what you do every single day." I was across the belt, and a huge package came down and there was only one person on the other side to handle it. The rule is that packages above 75 pounds have to be handled by two people, but honestly anything above 60 and sufficiently bulky can be basically unmanageable by one person at the speed at which the belt moves and given all the additional requirements of the sort (the requirement to place packages in 'walls' so they don't all fall over later, etc.). So, I crossed the belt. About two seconds later a pudgy middle aged man with a goatee and a partially shaved head (have you ever seen a white male police officer?), in telltale khakis and polos, materialized next to me. He took down my employee number by saying "hey, we're just checking training records, routine stuff, let me see your badge." After he took my number down, shaking from the rush of witnessing a blatantly unsafe act, he told me that I'd cost my entire workgroup an entire section of the audit and that I should, quote "never cross the belt, especially not during an audit. it's a major safety violation."
Fisher says that the audit is self-referential. No data from the audit is ever used outside of the audit, the set of procedures by which the data is collected have relevance only to the audit and not the thing that the process being audited is supposed to produce, and after the audit is done the data is discarded, the process resumes, with the only change being disciplinary actions, in the form of pay cuts, firings, demotions, or the increased arbitrariness and "scrutiny" of authority. At all major package companies this is so obvious not even the auditors themselves or my bosses even bother to appeal to the relevance of the audit to the actual process. Fisher's equivalent is his "laid-back" ex-hippie boss, who says "hey look, we've got to do this and it's bullshit, but we might as well go on with it and make things as easy as possible for ourselves." Fisher says that an attitude like this doesn't actually challenge the legitimacy of the audit at all, or even make it less effective, since its purpose is not to improve the process or, in my case, make anything safer. A short review of the idea of safety, which Fisher doesn't encounter but makes up the major component of my audit, will establish this.
Packages themselves are unsafe. Spilled dangerous goods, drill bits that dislocate shoulders when lifted, packages that adjust in transit and tumble down when the container is opened, slippery bullshit that crushes toes, etc. Driving is very unsafe, especially in our area, which includes mountainous areas with long driveways, unimproved roads and tons of crazy weather. And delivering is unsafe. People here frequently let huge dogs patrol their grounds like some sort of insane English lord on a quarter acre, in Oakland some routes are done out of armored cars instead of normal delivery trucks, and one dude got the police called on him when he was driving a rental vehicle, a white van of course, and someone thought it was suspicious that he was driving super slow in a deserted residential neighborhood in the early afternoon.
So all this is obvious. Leaving your house is dangerous. The question is not should we take any risks at all, do things that are inherently unsafe, because we have to. The question is how much should we risk to get the job done. Package companies have said, we can risk the health and safety of our workers to a pretty considerable degree to get the job done. We can give them guidelines, punish them if they do unsafe things, and give them seatbelts and purely cosmetic back braces but at the end of the day we have to get packages to where they need to be.
This is where the traditional socialist focus on things other than high wages puts itself head and shoulders above the grubby small-time crap that passes for militancy where I work. There is basically no amount of risk or injury that is defensible or reasonable in the face of about ninety five percent of the pure garbage we deliver every day.
A courier of very long standing snapped his leg on an icy driveway last year delivering a Kindle. He was well paid to do it and he recovered fully, generating thousands of dollars in extra business for insurance adjusters, surgeons, the guys who took over his route when he was gone, and Budweiser. So from the perspective of capitalism everything is working normally. But as soon as these benefits go away, and they are being eroded at non-union FedEx and at "Change To Win" UPS, the broken leg = delivered Kindle equation will appear even more absurd and grossly wasteful than it already is. Socialism's demand to not only compensate workers fairly but reduce the amount of time they spend working, period, is the only real answer here. And it's clear from the internal decisions of package companies that they are able to bear the reduction in work - or at least the reduction in the intensity of the work - that would make authentic safety possible. Let me explain how I know this.
Peak season, from Black Friday to Christmas, is really the happiest time of the year at any package company. Everyone gets Hours out the ass, management give almost free reign to employees, the audit is completely suspended (audits only happen during this time of the year, the slow time), and, most importantly, the intensity of work is reduced dramatically. The sort, which during slow times is compressed into a supercharged hour and a half to two hours at my station, is stretched to an almost criminally indulgent six or seven hours during peak season. We get way more packages but more people are working, and working longer, and as a result the time is much easier. Drivers don't have to worry about running their routes twice (once for priority packages and once for all the other ones), but instead just waltz into their area, deliver everything in a straight shot, and come back after a couple hours of overtime to a happy family and welcome rest. Management fawns over us for a month. We get donuts or bagels every day, crates of frozen turkeys and coolers filled with burritos appear spontaneously, customers leave us holiday cookies on their doorsteps, we do donuts in the parking lot in our huge trucks, and the checks are fat. It's labor aristocracy hog heaven.
Package companies are meticulously managed and this freedom would not be allowed if the company were not making enough money. But the point is that there is no reason why couriers must be rushed to, say, jog down an icy driveway instead of walk slowly, or why the sort has to be two hours instead of four, and conducted at a much safer, more leisurely pace. Or why the audit focuses on the individual actions of employees in a context created by the company to compel rule violations, corner cutting, and deliberate unsafety, and not the fact that delivering slave labor iPads or merger agreements is not worth any degree of risk to anyone whatsoever.
swampman
swampman
Dont Mess With Sucess
Post rating:
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I'd bet the equation is closer to 120 broken legs = 4 million delivered kindles, I dont think that is fair but you can see how the owner of amazon, Jeff Amazon, would think it is
Ironicwarcriminal
Ironicwarcriminal
Post rating:
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cool thoughtful piece steg, have you read about the giant new amazon warehouses in England and the way they track their employees?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2286227/Amazons-human-robots-Is-future-British-workplace.html
daily mail of all places but it's interesting
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2286227/Amazons-human-robots-Is-future-British-workplace.html
daily mail of all places but it's interesting
drwhat
drwhat
mt.real
Post rating:
~
Ironicwarcriminal posted:cool thoughtful piece steg, have you read about the giant new amazon warehouses in England and the way they track their employees?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2286227/Amazons-human-robots-Is-future-British-workplace.html
daily mail of all places but it's interesting
it's nice that there are still places that when you take american work practices to people are shocked
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[account deactivated]
wasted
wasted
Post rating:
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discipline posted:when profit is wiped out of the picture we have a world where both quality of life and quality of goods are better for it
hope springs eternal
cars
cars
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating:
+
wow lf still exists
cars
cars
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating:
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anyway. reminds me of that Capitalists without Capital paper about rent extraction from slaves
stegosaurus
stegosaurus
Post rating:
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daddyholes posted:wow lf still exists
in what sense
cars
cars
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating:
~
i like to think that i'm cradling it and saying shh, baby, i'm here now. . . . . . .
is there a short history of what happened to lf classic, was there secret service involved
is there a short history of what happened to lf classic, was there secret service involved
gyrofry
gyrofry
Kurdt
Post rating:
+
It's kind of a long story but I'll give you the highlights. LF started as the lightly moderated political forum of Something Awful with a focus on Ron Paul. The name was a joke. It evolved. It was almost entirely people making fun of Ron Paul and his personality cult. Over time people started making effort posts about such things the nightmare that is our criminal justice system, social justice in general, as well as the ideas of Karl Marx. The lack of moderation was made up for by basically shouting people out of the forum who were stupid MRAs and concern trolls. Gradually the complexion of the forum shifted from liberal to socialist. SA being a comedy forum I guess you could say that the LF clique's philosophy was Groucho Marxism.
Eventually the admins and the FYAD* clique decided that LF was a "Retarded Forum for Faggots" because of the marxism, renamed it as such and appointed FYADers in charge who banned people for violating absurd rules like not putting a picture of Bart Simpson in every post or for whatever. They also created a new status called forum cancer that caused anyone who posted in LF to experience annoyances such as a changed avatar or a picture of the pokemon ponyta sometimes appearing whenever you hit the "submit reply" button.
Ultimately, they wound up deleting the forum outright. The trigger being a FYAD posting a threat against the presidents life and Lowtax getting a visit from the secret service. The LF community was misblamed. I was a fool and tried to kiss the asses of the mods to try to get them to undo what they did, changing the system from within. I wasn't really that much of an LF poster when it was on the forums but I did enjoy the prison thread and the other effort threads.
I wound up alienating both sides of the drama. My acount was made FYAD only so that FYAD could abuse me for a week. While FYADbanned, I made friends on IRC among the social justice posters who were still left and were having their own conflict with the mods. LF ultimately moved off site. Conflicts within the community caused the community to go through multiple incarnations. I was not really involved with it until "post garden." I had a rocky start as I was not really part of its evolution from liberalism to socialism.
*FYAD stands for Fuck You and Die. Its the "post whatever" forum for gross pictures and flame wars that has a cliquish culture with a nothing is sacred since of humor. They are loved by the admins and many of the moderators came from that clique.
Eventually the admins and the FYAD* clique decided that LF was a "Retarded Forum for Faggots" because of the marxism, renamed it as such and appointed FYADers in charge who banned people for violating absurd rules like not putting a picture of Bart Simpson in every post or for whatever. They also created a new status called forum cancer that caused anyone who posted in LF to experience annoyances such as a changed avatar or a picture of the pokemon ponyta sometimes appearing whenever you hit the "submit reply" button.
Ultimately, they wound up deleting the forum outright. The trigger being a FYAD posting a threat against the presidents life and Lowtax getting a visit from the secret service. The LF community was misblamed. I was a fool and tried to kiss the asses of the mods to try to get them to undo what they did, changing the system from within. I wasn't really that much of an LF poster when it was on the forums but I did enjoy the prison thread and the other effort threads.
I wound up alienating both sides of the drama. My acount was made FYAD only so that FYAD could abuse me for a week. While FYADbanned, I made friends on IRC among the social justice posters who were still left and were having their own conflict with the mods. LF ultimately moved off site. Conflicts within the community caused the community to go through multiple incarnations. I was not really involved with it until "post garden." I had a rocky start as I was not really part of its evolution from liberalism to socialism.
*FYAD stands for Fuck You and Die. Its the "post whatever" forum for gross pictures and flame wars that has a cliquish culture with a nothing is sacred since of humor. They are loved by the admins and many of the moderators came from that clique.
cars
cars
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating:
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thanks gyrofry, really makes methinks
jiroemon1897
jiroemon1897
YUNG JIRO AKA SHOWA STUNNA AKA
Post rating:
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Good shit man. Everything I'm going to say is pretty obvious to all of us here, but yeah, the whole damned if you do, damned if you don't situation with safety audits is hilariously bad, especially given that, like you said, the personal risk is never worth it for the worker, or at least it's only worth it so as not to get fired. So long as it's kept to an "acceptable" level, the worker's safety risk is obviously always worth it for the bigwigs, as it's their entire structural basis for profit.
It's always great knowing that the threat of punishment by your immediate superiors is constantly looming if you (for whatever craaazy reason) decide to not grossly break the rules you're continuously encouraged to ignore. On the off chance some auditor, who insultingly maintains a ridiculous sense of incredulity at the "atypical" extent of everyday disregard for company safety policy, comes by, well, they've got you there too. And, as it's the best way to totally skirt the issue altogether, why not treat the problem as an isolated instance of an individual lack of judgment, not as an issue of how both the specific location and the overall company are run? As you said, if we follow the logical conclusion of this problem, we wind up with something "radical" by asserting that companies absolutely can "endure" a reduction in profits (which may or may not be a reduction in productivity) to come closer to their own ideal safety standards.
What you said about the busiest period of the year being the most manageable is definitely true for me too. I've failed a few safety audits at my job, and like you said, they were all during typical "slow" days in which we were forced, for lack of people, to bust our asses and pick up the slack that is purposefully designed into the company's business model. On one occasion, not only did the auditor not come up to me directly to stop my safety violations then and there, but my manager only reprimanded me after my shift was over and I'd broken myself to reach their productivity, haha. On holidays other than the peak November-December season, days that are like a 9 out of 10 in terms of busyness, when it gets even worse and we're shortest on people, those auditors are nowhere to be found, because corporate knows that safety violations are all they'll find. Come Christmas, they actually schedule enough people and things are a lot easier, because that's the only time when it's more profit efficient to lessen individual workload to something nearly resembling their safety policy.
It's always great knowing that the threat of punishment by your immediate superiors is constantly looming if you (for whatever craaazy reason) decide to not grossly break the rules you're continuously encouraged to ignore. On the off chance some auditor, who insultingly maintains a ridiculous sense of incredulity at the "atypical" extent of everyday disregard for company safety policy, comes by, well, they've got you there too. And, as it's the best way to totally skirt the issue altogether, why not treat the problem as an isolated instance of an individual lack of judgment, not as an issue of how both the specific location and the overall company are run? As you said, if we follow the logical conclusion of this problem, we wind up with something "radical" by asserting that companies absolutely can "endure" a reduction in profits (which may or may not be a reduction in productivity) to come closer to their own ideal safety standards.
What you said about the busiest period of the year being the most manageable is definitely true for me too. I've failed a few safety audits at my job, and like you said, they were all during typical "slow" days in which we were forced, for lack of people, to bust our asses and pick up the slack that is purposefully designed into the company's business model. On one occasion, not only did the auditor not come up to me directly to stop my safety violations then and there, but my manager only reprimanded me after my shift was over and I'd broken myself to reach their productivity, haha. On holidays other than the peak November-December season, days that are like a 9 out of 10 in terms of busyness, when it gets even worse and we're shortest on people, those auditors are nowhere to be found, because corporate knows that safety violations are all they'll find. Come Christmas, they actually schedule enough people and things are a lot easier, because that's the only time when it's more profit efficient to lessen individual workload to something nearly resembling their safety policy.
Ironicwarcriminal
Ironicwarcriminal
Post rating:
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cars posted:wow lf still exists
Ironicwarcriminal
Ironicwarcriminal
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(Everyone Is In Brooklyn Now)
deadken
deadken
penitent
Post rating:
~
lf never existed
[account deactivated]
SariBari
SariBari
Post rating:
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Great post, need more like it. My first job post college was in manufacturing and one of the first things i was told to do was write/invent backdated safety protocols for the annual "major audit" by the company's biggest customer. What happened to the guy who posted here about seeing the horrors of modern day slaughterhouses?
babyhueypnewton
babyhueypnewton
Post rating:
~
Good post. I had similar experiences working at a non-profit which involved driving, lifting heavy things, and working the understaffed store. They "couldn't afford" healthcare, and I was supposed to feel good about putting myself in the line of fire because we were doing good things for homeless people and poor schools and whatever. Care about everything and everyone other than the working class, since they have the power to become organized and challenge the system. Wouldn't want to be 'dogmatic' or 'vulgar' in your marxism by actually talking about capitalism itself.
It's interesting how the general trends of capitalism (TFRP, monopolization, rent-seeking and fictitious capital over productive capital in crisis, the coercive laws causing mututally assured economic destruction) reproduce themselves in specific companies as they slowly die. I was reading about the comic book industry (despite not reading any comics beyond Watchmen), and the story of it's speculative bubble, collapse, and shambling corpse at present is a perfect portent into what's happening to the US economy right now. Found this blog:
http://www.milehighcomics.com/tales/cbg128.html
which is fascinating. The guy is a true Marxist when he's talking about comics (an ideological space where he's allowed to be, even if by accident), ignore his stuff about general economics.
The way you describe your company, and the way I observed mine, was they are all part of a dying economy in a dying empire. I dunno if you guys have a union, if so see seasons 2 and 4 of the wire. If not see seasons 1 and 3. If you are a labor aristocrat, see season 5.
It's interesting how the general trends of capitalism (TFRP, monopolization, rent-seeking and fictitious capital over productive capital in crisis, the coercive laws causing mututally assured economic destruction) reproduce themselves in specific companies as they slowly die. I was reading about the comic book industry (despite not reading any comics beyond Watchmen), and the story of it's speculative bubble, collapse, and shambling corpse at present is a perfect portent into what's happening to the US economy right now. Found this blog:
http://www.milehighcomics.com/tales/cbg128.html
which is fascinating. The guy is a true Marxist when he's talking about comics (an ideological space where he's allowed to be, even if by accident), ignore his stuff about general economics.
The way you describe your company, and the way I observed mine, was they are all part of a dying economy in a dying empire. I dunno if you guys have a union, if so see seasons 2 and 4 of the wire. If not see seasons 1 and 3. If you are a labor aristocrat, see season 5.
swampman
swampman
Dont Mess With Sucess
Post rating:
+
babyhueypnewton posted:Good post. I had similar experiences working at a non-profit which involved driving, lifting heavy things, and working the understaffed store. They "couldn't afford" healthcare, and I was supposed to feel good about putting myself in the line of fire because we were doing good things for homeless people and poor schools and whatever. Care about everything and everyone other than the working class, since they have the power to become organized and challenge the system. Wouldn't want to be 'dogmatic' or 'vulgar' in your marxism by actually talking about capitalism itself.
It's interesting how the general trends of capitalism (TFRP, monopolization, rent-seeking and fictitious capital over productive capital in crisis, the coercive laws causing mututally assured economic destruction) reproduce themselves in specific companies as they slowly die. I was reading about the comic book industry (despite not reading any comics beyond Watchmen), and the story of it's speculative bubble, collapse, and shambling corpse at present is a perfect portent into what's happening to the US economy right now. Found this blog:
http://www.milehighcomics.com/tales/cbg128.html
which is fascinating. The guy is a true Marxist when he's talking about comics (an ideological space where he's allowed to be, even if by accident), ignore his stuff about general economics.
The way you describe your company, and the way I observed mine, was they are all part of a dying economy in a dying empire. I dunno if you guys have a union, if so see seasons 2 and 4 of the wire. If not see seasons 1 and 3. If you are a labor aristocrat, see season 5.
Futhermore, katanas
dipshit420
dipshit420
political car tune
Post rating:
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roseweird posted:to be fair i am in queens
catchfuckingphrase
DildoMalone
DildoMalone
Post rating:
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i used to work at ups and when the safety guy came around i just told him to fuck off
[account deactivated]
Spatial_Reasoning
Spatial_Reasoning
Post rating:
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gotta get working on that controlling the means of production thing
swampman
swampman
Dont Mess With Sucess
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"the worker is never starved." perverse
stegosaurus
stegosaurus
Post rating:
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weird to think that this thread was posted seventeen years ago on this very day....
Red_Canadian
Red_Canadian
Post rating:
+++++
haha, this hits true to life, since i work at one of the companies mentioned in the original post. i'm constantly agitating, constantly going on about how this company makes billions in profit every quarter, while our hours are limited and all of the drivers are contractors, despite wearing uniforms and having the company name on the truck (so that any accidents don't result in vicarious liability charges).
we just got a 50 cent raise, which comes to around 15 bucks a paycheque. it's almost insulting.
luckily, my agitating (and co-conspirators) seems to have stayed silent, since i've been promoted and may even get another one, to a temp manager position. it'll suck to have to no longer be a wobb, but i still think i can do some good.
with my authority, i actually fill out audit type things everyday.
however, i explain why i'm doing them, and only mark people in negative ways if my supervisor was present at the time of infraction, or if they're new and it's not a big deal, so management thinks i'm still on the level.
you should have seen how frustrated they were when i volunteered to have a middle aged indian woman move to my line, after she injured her back slightly on a different one (so i could look after her and help her {there has been complaints that i do too much to help them}). that's not what frustrating them though, it was when i failed to notice any errors in her lifting, and marked the audit down saying so. i did this since i knew they were looking for paperwork to justify not paying injury if she was injured again, since they could say she was lifting improperly and we told her, really we did!
the best part was when i handed it in, and they were like, are you sure she was lifting correctly? like 100% sure she made no errors? for about like 5 minutes.
anyone working in a distribution warehouse needs that job, and i'll be damned if i help you eliminate people who get hurt.
we just got a 50 cent raise, which comes to around 15 bucks a paycheque. it's almost insulting.
luckily, my agitating (and co-conspirators) seems to have stayed silent, since i've been promoted and may even get another one, to a temp manager position. it'll suck to have to no longer be a wobb, but i still think i can do some good.
with my authority, i actually fill out audit type things everyday.
however, i explain why i'm doing them, and only mark people in negative ways if my supervisor was present at the time of infraction, or if they're new and it's not a big deal, so management thinks i'm still on the level.
you should have seen how frustrated they were when i volunteered to have a middle aged indian woman move to my line, after she injured her back slightly on a different one (so i could look after her and help her {there has been complaints that i do too much to help them}). that's not what frustrating them though, it was when i failed to notice any errors in her lifting, and marked the audit down saying so. i did this since i knew they were looking for paperwork to justify not paying injury if she was injured again, since they could say she was lifting improperly and we told her, really we did!
the best part was when i handed it in, and they were like, are you sure she was lifting correctly? like 100% sure she made no errors? for about like 5 minutes.
anyone working in a distribution warehouse needs that job, and i'll be damned if i help you eliminate people who get hurt.