Working Class Readers discussion

I don't want to write my whole life story, but here is a quick, anecdotal blurb. I graduated in 2003, had no clue what to do, and went to a community college for electrical engineering because, what else to do? For 12 years, I was told that school mattered for the only purpose that I needed it to go to college ... so that I could be "free" by choosing whatever soul-crushing job I wanted to, working for some random employer.

I got a job as an hourly technician and quickly realized that I had been set up for a lifetime of disappointment. There was no freedom in my life. I lived for weekends and five vacation days a year (which also were my sick days). I was given a wage to work on products that I would otherwise never know or care about, yet I had to act like I lived and died for these goods. I had to wake up before the sun rose, every day, drive through mind-numbing traffic, take breaks at specified times, wasn't even allotted a chair (even cavemen could sit down), had insurance that covered almost nothing, yet the rates went up each year, watched the cost of living outpace my wages, and quickly realized that nobody had my back. Best of all, I lived in a world where there was a single, opaque window that kept the sunlight out as well as it kept our darkness in.

Then I got promoted to a salary Engineer position. I had finally made it! Then I realized that yes, although I could shift my hours around, each lunch when I wanted to (sort of), and received sick days, I was actually worked far more for less pay. That, and seniority no longer mattered, so the threat of layoffs could be used against all of us and nobody felt safe. Black Friday hit one day in 2012 and I saw 1/5th of the Engineering department get cut, including half of my team. I survived, but did I?

After 12 years, my wife and I decided that we had had enough of this 20th century American experiment. Everything in my life revolved around emptiness. My work did not lead to my survival but to the profits of some other guy. I wasted my time earning wages when I could have been working directly on my own livelihood. So we sold everything. Our four bedroom home (debt). The majority of our stuff. We packed up our SUV, drove to Alaska, and my wife picked up a teaching position in a rural village (a career with tangible results). We use wood for heat. We can hunt and fish for food. I just built a chicken coop out of scrap materials and we will be raising our own chickens (even in the -40 temperatures, they will be fine). Are we still working? Yes, but in a different sense. We don't work for wages but in order to teach a new generation and to implement critical thinking concepts, explore new avenues for growth, and to create an atmosphere of actual learning (openly encouraging questions).

Through all of that time, I recognized that there wasn't a whole lot of literature that spoke to my plight, and to the problems that others in the working class were facing (particularly the industrial segment). With this thought in mind, I set out to write a ludicrous and disheartening story that speaks to some of the pains that the lower classes are to endure.

Just published, the book is titled "Of Brick Windows and Broken Men", It is satire. It is serious. It explores the depths of malevolence that permeate the corporate world today. Finally, it questions how one is to survive in a world where we are not humans but "human resources". I will put the link to this story here, on Amazon. Feel free to check it out, review it, share it, or do nothing with it. It is just refreshing to find a communities and persons that speak to the same truths that I have long felt. Most of my coworkers hated their jobs, but still defended the system. I challenged the entire construct and I suppose that is why I left it in the dust. May this book be a small beacon of hope for those who are still trapped in the mire and looking to get out.

Of Brick Windows and Broken Men

Coincidentally, I worked for the Electrical Engineering Dept of a large medical lab in 1989. One of the reasons why I was hired was b/c a friend of mine who worked there was opposed to the lab's drug-testing policies & knew that I wd be too. Even tho I wasn't using drugs (illegal or legal) I had no intention of going along w/ any invasive testing. I was competent but I hadn't studied electrical engineering. I mainly ended up running 32 pair telephone cable & optical fiber but I'd also fix centrifuges by hitting them on the side. That actually worked.

Anyway, since we're on the subject of the rat race here I have amusing stories about that job. Here's a sample one: One of my coworkers had agreed to be on-call in exchange for something like $150 more a wk. He had to carry a beeper & be to the lab in a half hr of being beeped. W/ the extra money he bought a boat. The problem was that where he docked the boat was more than a half hr's drive away so he cdn't use it w/o risking being in violation of his on-call contract. I didn't work there for very long before I had a chance to go to Hawaii for free w/ my girlfriend so I quit. The coworker who was on-call cd've never done that, I cd afford a better life b/c I cd blow the job off on a whim.