This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

It started off as a quiet morning, but now I’m angry by 7:00 AM. I’ve been looking for a part-time job to keep my head above water. The first thing I read this morning is a man living in an affluent gated community worried about a homeless camp by his favorite grocery store. It’s not enough that he has everything he needs and lives in luxury, he’s worried people pushed the very edge of existence interrupting his view.

People living without air conditioning in the Arizona sun. Sleeping in tents that might be forced to move on a moments notice. He’s not worried about their struggle. He’s worried they might interfere with his perception of reality by daring to exist in his world. But in true Fox News ignorance, he implies this all started in 2020.

The numbers of Americans forced into homelessness has risen steadily since 2008. Remember? Back when the big banks tanked the economy with their shitty investments. The banks were bailed out but the people where not. And once you’re down, it’s damn hard to get back up. I know, I’ve been trying for 15 years now.

GM was allowed to dump their pension plan and thousands of retirees just like Joe Bighead lost their pensions. A billion-dollar environmental cleanup of a GM plant was pushed from GM to the taxpayer. Rising rents and not rising fast enough pay means working poor living their cars.  But Joe Big Head has all the answers, this is all Joe Biden’s fault.

You know, I keep hearing about a labor shortage…bullshit! There is an employer shortage. I started to fill out an application for a local (chain) fitness center. A part time job wiping down weight machines and sweeping the floor. What does the job pay? It doesn’t say. Do you know why it doesn’t say? Because the pay is shit. Then they wanted a brief essay on how my past employment related to this shit job.

Then they began asking inappropriate and illegal questions. Are you over 40 years old? What race are you? Gee, why do you ask? If you don’t intend on discriminating against me. Why do you ask which pronoun I prefer? Plain as an elephant’s trunk why you ask. By then I was pissed.

I once filled out a one-page application and was hired as a delivery driver. In three years, I was store manager. I managed a million dollars in inventory for a three-state territory. My customers included the United States Airforce and the Navy, Disney and Six Flags. I made my monthly sales quota for 48 months in a row. When I was promoted, the boss put the keys in my hand and said, “Run it like it’s yours.”

From there when the company was bought out, I was moved to a larger company creating 33% of the revenue in a four-person sales force. Do you what the boss used to say to me…Good Morning! He didn’t care about my age, race or pronoun, I was money. I lived in a large new home and drove new cars. I was the President of my Home Owners Association for four years running.

But how does my past experience relate to this shit job? It doesn’t. I told them I hoped they never find anyone to take their job. No one deserves a job like that. They’re only concerned with their corporate image. They want someone young, white, and vigorous. Old folks and darker complexions or out of the main stream, need not apply.

Many of these shit jobs ask. “Can you stand for long periods of time? Can you work a twelve-hour shift?” You see, to the corporate mindset sitting down is verboten. I worked in a corporate store carefully designed without anywhere for employees to sit down. Sitting down is a natural function of being a human being. Standing for long periods is destructive to your legs and knees. Ask me, how I know?

While managing this corporate store, I was told I could put in for raises for my employees after 90 days. I put in a recommendation for a .50 cent raise for a delivery driver. My phone exploded. Fifty cents! Are you crazy? He can have a nickel! No shit, a nickel. I told them I wouldn’t insult the man with a nickel. Almost two whole dollars a week, before taxes!

Point blank, they didn’t give a shit about the employees. And when another chain opened in town offering .25 cents more per hour. I lost half of my staff. All that money spent on training was for nothing. No Biggy the manger can work those hours. So, I was working 70 hours a week on my feet for 31 days in a row.

I was recently looking for a car battery and called two of their stores and neither one bothered to call me back. Surprise! You don’t give a shit about your employees, and they don’t give a shit about the job! There is no incentive or reward for doing a good job. I was in Walmart and asked where they kept the Alka seltzer. The employee answered, “I don’t know” and kept on walking.

Amazon has such a bad reputation for mistreating its workers they must post want ads under pseudonyms. I took a delivery job with another company using my own vehicle. After the first night, it was obvious the fuel allotment was $5.00 short of what it actually cost. Twenty-five dollars a week out of my own pocket, plus the wear and tear on my vehicle for free.

If that wasn’t bad enough. The job came with a condescending boss who felt it necessary to explain why we sweep the floor and why lock the door when we go home at night. The difference between a #6 rubber band and a #7 rubber band. Another job posted the work schedule online. A schedule that could change at a moments notice. Not a schedule, but an on-demand board. Somebody called out or quit, so now it’s your turn.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world….– Franklin Delano Roosevelt