12 November 2012

Breaking free from Corporate America

Greetings, internet peoples! 

I didn't realize how long it had been since my last post, due to near assimilation by Life's mundane daily grind.  Due to recent events, I am feeling more free and alive than I have in a very long time.  I have finally realized that I had swallowed a lie.  The American Lie so many people see merely as "the way the World works" or an "unfortunate but necessary" way of life.  The lie that you have to "play the game" of work-place politics, that Money is the ultimate god, and we must give up everything - self-respect, quality of life, time for family and friends - in order to obtain more Money, so we can obtain the things "absolutely necessary" for life.  Things being the operative words.  Not essentials, but things.  A nicer car, because the one I have isn't shiny enough, or new enough.  A faster computer, because even though the one I have does everything I need, it's not as cool as someone else's computer.  A nicer house, even though the one I rent is more than I could ever need.

Yes, I am ashamed to admit it, I had begun to believe the filthy lie thrown in our faces all day, everyday, to CONSUME, OBEY, SUBMIT.  God bless Consumerism.

I have my job to thank for waking me up to this fact, setting me back on the path of living within my means, of being content with less, wasting less, and managing the things I have more responsibly.

In short, due to....things.....at work, I quit.  And with no job lined up, which is a first for me, and quite frankly, is a bit terrifying.  (And probably fairly irresponsible considering the economic state right now.)  But for the first time in 5 years, I am free from kissing up to "The Man" in order to preserve a way of life that is really not worth the daily sacrifice of self respect I was offering.  And now that I'm job searching, I've been listening to what other people say about their jobs, and am appalled to realize that most people are comfortable with dedicating over half of their waking life to professions that they don't like, that bore them, or they outright hate.  Because, God forbid we give up that second car, or that vacation property we'll probably never be able to enjoy, or that we not eat meat three times a day, or that we actually have to clean our own house instead of having a maid.

Frak a bunch of that!

I am aware I'm a bit of an idealist.  But the fact that people go to jobs they don't care about at all, that they dislike, or actually hate, and are totally okay with that, is abhorrent to my very being.  I understand we all have to pay bills and eat.  But seriously, why aren't more of us okay with making a little less money to do something we actually enjoy?  Have we really enslaved our sense of worth to the number of dollars we bring home?

Imagine a work force that was enthusiastic about what they did.  Who weren't merely doing time, watching the time clock, and waiting for that paycheck.  Imagine the improvement in the quality of, well, everything.  Work quality, customer satisfaction, home life, the effect on relationships.

In my case, I blame a large part of my issues at work on the corporate business structure.  I've worked for two corporations in my life.  And they were the two most horrific job experiences I have ever had.  The company I last worked for was so big, the people making the rules had hardly any clue how the rules they were making effected the lives of those of us on the "front lines".  Those who did understand the problems we were facing either didn't want to fight the corporate system to fix the problems, or had monetary reasons not to want to improve our issues - I mean, hey, who cares if you burn out a few employees, as long as the boss gets to take the yearly bonus home, and have a week long Caribbean vacation every year?  And the higher ups only see that the middle boss is making money.  They don't care about the bottom man on the totem pole.

So my current theory is small business is the way to go.  Theoretically, the manager of a smaller business is more closely connected to what's actually going on.  Often times, they either started the business, and are intimately aware of how things actually work, or they worked their way from the bottom up...and are intimately aware of how things work.  Plus, it supports local economy.  Not to say that there aren't bad work experiences to be had at a smaller business, but I strongly believe the corporate template is set up in such a way that it reduces people to cogs in a machine, churning out profit at the cost of the humanity of its workers.

So here I am.  Sticking it to The Man, and setting out to find a way to support myself, while not selling my soul to Consumerist, Corporate America.

I'll let you know how it goes.