Disclaimer: This post is not only about the employer/employee relationship, it is abstract. If a prospective employer is reading this remember that at this point I have not met you. As I will go into this is about where I have been. I actively want to be proven wrong on this.
I did a web search on: "can't have a healthy relationship with an employer". Instant gratification being what it is, I was shortly disappointed in the results. A long list of articles all to the tune of "how to improve your relationship with your boss" came up. Which is not what I meant at all by my search. I find the notion that it is the employee's job to make their relationship work is not a good metric of healthy relationships. It smacks of codependency and it stinks of desperation.
Maybe this is what we've come to. Perhaps our society is so overburdened with an obsession over money and employment that now employers have replaced men as patriarchs of the world. However it is not so for me. I desire an equal relationship. An equal relationship relies on trust. In an equal relationship an employer should express an equal desire for an employee to trust them. This is not my experience. In every job I have worked, and by the way that is many, the employer is not a leader in the modern context of the word. The employer is either a knight or a king. To put modern terms to it they are either a tool or the literal oppressor.
Which means I have to talk about totalitarianism. There are nice dictators. That's not to say that dictatorships represent an ideal, it is simply true that some people are nicer than others. Some dictators feed their people, while others do not. This is true of employers. I have worked for a few days for employers that do not pay their employees. That shouldn't be possible. I did not volunteer for these people, I worked for them and was promised a wage. I was not paid. This is how capitalism truly works sometimes. I find it true far too often that people work for nothing. I am not saying that I find a large trend of shorting wages illegally. I am talking about legal wage slavery. I have seen employers pay their employees just short of what they need to survive. This makes people work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
It is just so hard for me to hunt for work, running into these predators in the market. When I do meet an entity I perceive to be an exception recently I experience rejection. Which deepens my apathy towards the entire market. I am not interested in work out of a love of money. Frankly I find money entirely meaningless. A rich man and a poor man will both get sick, experience heartbreak and die. I like work, and I find it really unfortunate that I have to deal with employers to do work.
I don't know if this is representative of all relationships like this. From a scientific point of view I can't create a large enough sample size. I'm also a biased data collector given that I like myself. I also have struggled with my anger at past employers. It is only now that I try to separate out the abusers from the kind or indifferent. I have been hurt very deeply. It put me in the hospital, and I will never let someone in that position act like that again. Even if I cannot function and therefor cannot live. I would rather end myself than that. Of course it won't come to that. Despite my problems my family loves me. Despite my struggle they still have hope. So I keep trying to live up to their hopes for me. Hope is a powerful motivator.
I keep coming back to the analogy of a romantic relationship, because the parallels are so strong. Like a romantic relationship a work relationship is something I desire strongly. Like a bad relationship I have been intimidated into staying quiet and not expressing my true feelings because of fear of retribution. It's taken incredible courage in the face of my fear to even type this post. It will take ten times more to put it online. I'm not magnifying myself here, I'm admitting my fear. This is because oppression will continue until the oppressed say no. I did not shake off my chain of unhealthy romantic relationships until I told my prospective partners that I did not need them, nor would I ever. I have met a woman I love more than I could have imagined, and I had to look deeply at myself to do that. I plan to keep trying. I know that there are kind people out there. I sincerely hope some of them are hiring.
I did a web search on: "can't have a healthy relationship with an employer". Instant gratification being what it is, I was shortly disappointed in the results. A long list of articles all to the tune of "how to improve your relationship with your boss" came up. Which is not what I meant at all by my search. I find the notion that it is the employee's job to make their relationship work is not a good metric of healthy relationships. It smacks of codependency and it stinks of desperation.
Maybe this is what we've come to. Perhaps our society is so overburdened with an obsession over money and employment that now employers have replaced men as patriarchs of the world. However it is not so for me. I desire an equal relationship. An equal relationship relies on trust. In an equal relationship an employer should express an equal desire for an employee to trust them. This is not my experience. In every job I have worked, and by the way that is many, the employer is not a leader in the modern context of the word. The employer is either a knight or a king. To put modern terms to it they are either a tool or the literal oppressor.
Which means I have to talk about totalitarianism. There are nice dictators. That's not to say that dictatorships represent an ideal, it is simply true that some people are nicer than others. Some dictators feed their people, while others do not. This is true of employers. I have worked for a few days for employers that do not pay their employees. That shouldn't be possible. I did not volunteer for these people, I worked for them and was promised a wage. I was not paid. This is how capitalism truly works sometimes. I find it true far too often that people work for nothing. I am not saying that I find a large trend of shorting wages illegally. I am talking about legal wage slavery. I have seen employers pay their employees just short of what they need to survive. This makes people work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
It is just so hard for me to hunt for work, running into these predators in the market. When I do meet an entity I perceive to be an exception recently I experience rejection. Which deepens my apathy towards the entire market. I am not interested in work out of a love of money. Frankly I find money entirely meaningless. A rich man and a poor man will both get sick, experience heartbreak and die. I like work, and I find it really unfortunate that I have to deal with employers to do work.
I don't know if this is representative of all relationships like this. From a scientific point of view I can't create a large enough sample size. I'm also a biased data collector given that I like myself. I also have struggled with my anger at past employers. It is only now that I try to separate out the abusers from the kind or indifferent. I have been hurt very deeply. It put me in the hospital, and I will never let someone in that position act like that again. Even if I cannot function and therefor cannot live. I would rather end myself than that. Of course it won't come to that. Despite my problems my family loves me. Despite my struggle they still have hope. So I keep trying to live up to their hopes for me. Hope is a powerful motivator.
I keep coming back to the analogy of a romantic relationship, because the parallels are so strong. Like a romantic relationship a work relationship is something I desire strongly. Like a bad relationship I have been intimidated into staying quiet and not expressing my true feelings because of fear of retribution. It's taken incredible courage in the face of my fear to even type this post. It will take ten times more to put it online. I'm not magnifying myself here, I'm admitting my fear. This is because oppression will continue until the oppressed say no. I did not shake off my chain of unhealthy romantic relationships until I told my prospective partners that I did not need them, nor would I ever. I have met a woman I love more than I could have imagined, and I had to look deeply at myself to do that. I plan to keep trying. I know that there are kind people out there. I sincerely hope some of them are hiring.
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