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So you don’t like your job, probably hate your boss, think you should be paid more for all the hard work and overtime you put in, maybe your co-workers look like mindless drones these days and retirement seems a lifetime away (it is!) … but quitting isn’t an option, not when you would lose your health care and your apartment, the apartment that already costs more than you can believe. What’s a person to do?
Well, apparently, quit in place. Stop killing yourself. Stop sucking up to your boss. Refuse to take overtime. Slow down, relax, daydream a bit, take a long lunch break, sneak a joint in the john. It’s a brand new workplace. The go-go years have gone gone gone, good riddance. The company treats you like a robot, act like one. One pace, steady and slow as she goes. Do as little as possible, same as they would do for you. They’re no longer loyal to you employees, why be loyal to them? This is the New Work Ethic. Congratulations and welcome to your new cubicle.
Personally, I always believed in Quitting. Seemed like a good strategy. Course, apartments didn’t cost an arm and a leg back then and health insurance wasn’t in the cards. Pensions, 401-K’s, fergettaboutit. I was part of the gig economy decades before it had a name and by the time it did, I was self-exiled to the South End where employment was marginal to non-existent. So I did what the rest of us layabouts did down here, worked for myself. Sure, the boss was a jerk, but that’s the joy of self-employment, you can look him in the eye and tell him to go to hell. Won’t affect your wages one iota. And end of the day you can have a beer or two together, gripe about the same issues, maybe decide neither of you will work the next day.
I recommend it. But quitting in place. I dunno. Seems like the days would just be interminable, slowing down, dragging feet, avoiding work. You like that kind of job, maybe be a traffic sign holder, SLOW, STOP, for a construction company. Hours like years, days like a lifetime. Personally I like to work if I’m going to work, put a back into it, feel like it was worth the effort. Time flies even when it’s not much fun. But … don’t say you heard it from me. And whatever you do, don’t tell my boss.
