Corporate America (soul, hell)

[Lightkeeper]

What is Corporate America doing to us? I call on offices daily and have for years. The workplace has greatly changed in the last 15 years. People are confined in small cubicles, staring at computers and given boring repetitive work to do. They are told what to wear and are forced into employee reviews. Many people work 50 hour weeks. This looks like slave labor to me. I am one fortunate, because I have a home office and am free to roam and to wear what I want to wear. I can create on a daily basis. What is happening to our people. Maybe SpongeBob Square Pants is an omen that we will all be shaped like cubicles in the near future. Whatever happened to free enterprise? How long can we put up with these work standards?

[Jayhawker Soule]

A rather large number of the world's population would count a paid 50 hour week in a sanitary environment a significant improvement. It also compares rather well to the 60 to 72 hour weeks that characterized this country's sweatshops over much of our history. And, money aside, I can personally attest that 50 hours in a cubical with a computer beats the hell out of 40 hours in a US Steal Coke Plant or Blast Furnace area.

I sympathize with concerns about drudgery, but the good old days of "free enterprise", with its child labor, sweatshops, and union-busting thugs seems an unpleasant alternative.

[Lintu]

You should read The Overworked American by Prof. Juliet Schor...it talks about those issues.

[Feathers in Hair]

My dream is to be self-employed. I hope to be an author, but know that such things are ,if they ever come, a long time in coming. My massage therapy would be great to rely on, but there's such a full marked for MTs here in CR. I feel awkward, though, because it does feel like I'm being forced into working for a corporation, and my soul is feeling stifled.

And the Spongebob theory? Frightening!

[jewscout]

I'm with Deut on this one. While working a boring repetitive job can suck, at least we now have the luxury of being bored.

[Scuba Pete]

As I sit here on my couch with my laptop... I just had to adjust my pillow, but was able to manage, I have to say...

I LOVE WORKING FOR MYSELF.

My cat comes to jump on my lap just to purr, I get to do things with my kids when they want me to do them (like changing my daughter's tire last night at 1:00 in the morning).

I do have clients and sometimes I have to travel. Very often they even make me dive with them too! Those cretins!

But that is America. It is the land of opportunity. You don't even have to be particularly smart (as I constantly prove) though a modicum of luck is nice. You can go into work today and say:

"I'm mad hell, and I am NOT going to take this anymore!"

Or you can quietly give your employer of 15 years a 2 month notice and watch their mouths drop.

I did the latter, and have never looked back.