Wage Slavery Rule #1 — Vacations Are Suspect.
We earn our vacations. Some of us, though, are made to feel that we need to ask “pretty please?” before we will be permitted to take them.
Not all employers are like that, of course. Some are generous with vacation time. I’ve heard of employers, though, who make their workers jump through hoops before they can take their vacations. It’s of course reasonable that the employer insure that vacations are scheduled so that the work that needs to be done really does get done. In some cases, taking full vacations is frowned upon. In some cases, workers worry that taking a full vacation will cause them to be viewed as not fully committed to their jobs.
It’s become more and more common for workers to be called on vacation to help out with work matters. Again, this is reasonable in some circumstances. In a properly organized office, it should be a rare event for a worker to be called while on vacation. This sort of thing happens too often today. The entire point of a vacation is for the worker to be freed of worrying about workplace matters for a time.
Wage Slavery Rule #2 — Personal Stuff is Viewed as Yucky
It’s not hard to understand why people who work together sometimes fall in love with each other, is it? We spend a lot of time at the office. We get to kid around with others, to struggle to meet tough deadlines with others, to see how others hold up under pressure. We develop feelings for these others. Sometimes, we become friends. Sometimes, we become lovers.
Employers need to discourage this sort of thing in cases in which it could cause favoritism in the handing out of assignments or in the administration of rules. Too often the way of dealing with potential problems is to forbid all romantic relationships. That goes too far, in my view. It takes away a piece of our humanity for us to need to leave the romantic part of our personality at home, especially if we are in one of those jobs that require far more than 40 hours of work effort each week.
It’s not just romantic relationships that are viewed as problematic. Those seeking to achieve success in a corporate environment need to be viewed as fitting the corporate “mold.” It might be worth it financially to do what it takes to fit the mold. But there’s a price that is paid in terms of lost opportunities to develop your personality if you play a role for eight or ten hours per day.
Wage Slavery Rule #3 — Control is Always an Issue.
Sally works for a newsletter publisher. Sam does the same sort of work on a freelance basis. Who is paid more? It’s almost certainly Sally.
That shouldn’t be. There are all sorts of advantages to the employer in having work completed on a freelance basis. The biggest advantage is that he pays only for work needed and doesn’t have to pay for make-work projects assigned at times when there is not enough real work to keep a staff employee busy.
But freelancers are almost always paid less. Why? Part of it is that staff employees are more dependable. The employer knows that the staff employee is going to be there when needed and the employer knows what sort of job is going to be done by the staff employee. Those are legitimate reasons for the pay discrepancy. Part of the discrepancy, though, can be attributed to the fact that freelancers are just so darn free with their lances. Corporate employers like to be able to exercise control over their employees, and are willing to pay extra to be able to do it.
There’s nothing wrong with taking the deal. There’s nothing wrong with electing to get paid more in return for letting the employer call the tune on all sorts of matters. There’s a downside to it, however. Let the employer call the tune and you might not experience as much growth as your would if you were calling the tune. You might stagnate. It’s important to understand that giving up control over what sort of assignments you will work on (and over all sorts of other things) can hurt you down the line.
Wage Slavery Rule #4 — You Have to Buy at the Company Store.
Many companies frown on employees not using the firm’s product or the products of clients of the firm. Or apply subtle pressure on employees to support political leaders friendly with the industry, or company causes or charities. Or to go on company adventure weekends or buy the company stock and root for the home team. For the most part, this is no big deal. But the underlying thought–that when you sell your time you sell a bit of your freedom to make decisions about issues in your personal life as well — is unsettling.
I don’t expect the company I work for to share my tastes in food or music — I view the relationship as a business transaction, nothing more, nothing less. But prospective employees are well advised not to press the point over these “little things” when interviewing a new employer. Generally, pay is negotiable and not much else. So it’s almost always the employee who makes adjustments to fit the company profile, and rarely the other way around.
Many people have well-compensated and fulfilling jobs in the year 2007 in the United States. Exploitation of the type experienced in coal mines is a thing of the past for many of us, and we should be grateful for it. But the human spirit will always look for more — more significance, more accomplishment, more independence. One of the things that aspiring early retirees are seeking to obtain with the money they spend at The Freedom Store is a greater ability to call the shots about what cola they drink and what clothes they wear and what they do with their weekends.
Wage Slavery Rule #5 — Big Brother Is Watching.
When we have someone come in to clean our house or to repair something, I always offer them a soda or ask them if they need to make a telephone call or whatever. These people are workers, yes. They are human beings first. It’s very important that that always be kept in mind.
Most employers keep that in mind. Most of my employers were great in this regard; I have had lots of good work experiences. I have heard about things and seen things that are not so great, however. It pains me to see people tied to their cell phones. It’s not that it is a bad idea for employers to use cell phones to communicate with their employees. It’s that these things can be abused. The “checking up” can get to a point where it becomes degrading.
When I was a reporter, there were things that I had to do to get the job done well that my employer did not necessarily know about. Say that I was sent to cover a press conference. Maybe I would spend time talking to another reporter who would help me out somewhere down the line. Maybe I would spend time talking to a congressional aide even though there was no story that I was working on at the time that required such a conversation. If my editor had been using a cell phone to check up every three minutes on what I was doing, I wonder if I would have been able to make those contacts.
There are devices today that employers use to monitor their employees’ computer keystrokes. That’s sick. The employer has a right to determine whether the work assigned is being done properly. He does not have a right to be so invasive into the employee’s life that the employee feels that he is being treated like a machine rather than a person. We have privacy rights. We have personal space rights. We have breathing rights.
One problem is that the work world has become increasingly corporate over time. Sometimes it’s not the fault of the guy using the cell phone or the keystroke monitoring software. Sometimes that guy is being monitored too, and he’s just doing what he has to do to keep his job. The more corporate the world becomes, the less human it is. It’s not all bad news. We earn more today than we did when things were less corporate. But there has been a downside to the change.
Wage Slavery Rule #6 — There’s No Place Like Work.
We all need work to do. Work is one of the great joys of life.
We all also need a life outside of work. It’s not healthy to only work.
Many people today feel pressures to move up the corporate ladder so that they won’t become one of those people having their computer keystrokes monitored. Some feel that the way to keep moving up is to put just about all of their energies into the job. More companies encourage this sort of thing than was the case in an earlier day.
Some aspiring early retirees have come to hate work because of their feeling that their jobs do not leave them enough free time to have lives. I see that as an overreaction. I did want to escape some of the craziness of the modern-day corporate workplace. I did not want to give up the joy of work to do it, however. My view is that extremes of one kind lead to extremes of another kind, and that it is the healthy middle-ground that is the real prize.
Work is fun and fulfilling when taken in the right doses. Too much is bad and too little is bad too. I see the quest for early retirement as a quest for balance.