workplace resistance and civil disobedience

worked in an office sales/call centre environment for 6ish years, hated it, was always being called up for some dumb shit (taking 4mins too long to take a shit, etc), got fired eventually. was out of work for a year, now I'm running a small bar. it's hard work, but i enjoy it, and i get to play my own tunes 90% of the time. though i still take 4minutes too long on the crapper.

Great thread.

I browse a bit of net during the day but I don't ever have a dedicated lunch break so I feel ok about this.

I abuse the work photocopier out of hours for zine making purposes.

I also make covert sound recordings / foley sounds in our workshop for sampling.

My work PC has FLStudio installed on it.

But I work hard when needed and get everything done that is required of me (and more, usually).

Work wise I am stuck in a deep rut and I feel a change is around the corner soon though so looking forward to trying something new.

Archaeology is the only realm where you can both doss AND get accelerated arthritic decrepitude from working waste deep in water most of the year. Productivity is illusory, even in a commercial unit. If you're working with building developers or HSII, cups of tea all day, crosswords & deck chairs standard. The work gets done, sort of, but there's an endemic alcohol problem in the industry. Student labour probably averages 50£ a week (total piss take) so they endlessly carve through finds/context labels, then forget to label finds/context bags, leaving you with post- excavation chaos despite clear flow charts that they learn @ uni on day one. Still, it's massive fun when the site is pre-Roman, shit gets seriously weird eg: composite mummies in Scotland buried in the foundations of a house - initially, we thought this was one person, turned out to be assembled from multiple people/sexes. Far out!

Advocacy is a different world. Everything is time critical, wormholes for completely inadequate care-plans, doing a schizophrenic's home visit & arriving at a shutter island armed siege, pulling clients off consultants mid-meeting because a care-plan goes tits up. The Health ombudsman complaints submitted should be read out in the Commons to broaden the trauma from mistakes you can't believe are still being made in the 21st century. If the digging didn't pay what it does would def try to move into advocacy f.t., hugely rewarding work.

Enjoyed reading that @cwmbrancity

:   )

Unfortunately I'm self employed, so sticking it to the man with slacking off etc. means sticking it to myself. I still manage to do this quite regularly.

  On 9/25/2019 at 10:15 AM, Zeffolia said:

When I'm waiting for my code to compile I browse technology and science related news. 

C++ dev presumably?

  On 9/26/2019 at 8:32 PM, caze said:

Unfortunately I'm self employed, so sticking it to the man with slacking off etc. means sticking it to myself. I still manage to do this quite regularly.

C++ dev presumably?

ya I guess the fact that I said I have to wait for compilation instead of it being instant tipped you off.  C++ is still superior tho

  On 9/26/2019 at 1:24 PM, QQQ said:

worked in an office sales/call centre environment for 6ish years, hated it, was always being called up for some dumb shit (taking 4mins too long to take a shit, etc), got fired eventually. was out of work for a year, now I'm running a small bar. it's hard work, but i enjoy it, and i get to play my own tunes 90% of the time. though i still take 4minutes too long on the crapper.

used to work as a salesman* for a company whose USP was that it donated its revenue to charity, which was a bit of an oddity in the energy business. safe to say it became quite a cultish atmosphere where internal critique and differences of opinion weren't really allowed. i remember one employee leaving the lunch table close to crying cause she felt she wasn't welcome as a right wing voter.

either way there was this salespeople meeting when i said that when i had trouble motivating myself i'd like to envision people i could approach having (the swedish equivalent to) a $20 bill (our commission per sale) on their forehead. my boss just looked at me like i was the biggest jerk on the planet. i wish i'd had the guts to speak my mind about how we were all just here for the paycheck, charity and whatever noble purposes or not, and that we'd all quit this job if we had an option. went on to become manager myself lol. the things you do for money...

*approached people on the street. very soul sucking and degrading in hindsight. selling shit people don't want is the absolute worst

  On 9/27/2019 at 7:36 AM, splbt said:

i remember one employee leaving the lunch table close to crying cause she felt she wasn't welcome as a right wing voter

where can i apply?

you know, i didn't really mind that bit myself. liberal right wing swedes are roughly equivalent to obama/hillary voters though

Slightly off topic, but this vid reminded me of this thread. It's about the "slave" culture in silicon valley (specifically FB). Crazy stuff

if you think silicon valley is bad look up china's 996 system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system

996 means "9am to 9pm 6 days a week"

Something for the anti-capitalists to think about, I'd argue.

Capitalism and communism are two sides of the same coin

  On 9/27/2019 at 9:26 PM, drillkicker said:

Capitalism and communism are two sides of the same coin

lol

  On 9/27/2019 at 7:15 PM, goDel said:

Something for the anti-capitalists to think about, I'd argue.

what do you mean? it's a great example of unregulated capitalists exploiting the working class

  On 9/26/2019 at 1:24 PM, QQQ said:

worked in an office sales/call centre environment for 6ish years, hated it, was always being called up for some dumb shit (taking 4mins too long to take a shit, etc), got fired eventually. was out of work for a year, now I'm running a small bar. it's hard work, but i enjoy it, and i get to play my own tunes 90% of the time. though i still take 4minutes too long on the crapper.

had my best friend and one of my best regulars nearly fighting today.

i've gone from being civally disobedient to dealing with fuckers being civally disobedient. it's much more fun being on the other end tbh 

  On 9/28/2019 at 4:20 AM, Zeffolia said:

what do you mean? it's a great example of communists/socialists exploiting the working class

Fixt that for ya

As far as disobedience goes, I look out the window occasionally.

  On 9/28/2019 at 5:55 AM, goDel said:

  Quote

what do you mean? it's a great example of communists/socialists exploiting the working class

Fixt that for ya

lol that's an oxymoron.  how exactly are they communists/socialists if they exploit the working class through capitalism?

In what sense would you call it capitalism? It's a communist republic with some attempts to decentralize elements of their economy. If you want an example of non-capitalist society, China is still an interesting example.

  On 9/28/2019 at 6:16 AM, goDel said:

In what sense would you call it capitalism? It's a communist republic with some attempts to decentralize elements of their economy. If you want an example of non-capitalist society, China is still an interesting example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_market_economy

  Quote

The Communist Party of China maintains that despite the co-existence of private capitalists and entrepreneurs with public and collective enterprise, China is not a capitalist country because the party retains control over the direction of the country, maintaining its course of socialist development

996 is capitalism not communism, china is not socialist or communist they are state capitalist

Sorry, I just can't be bothered to get into another discussion about capitalism. What it is and isn't. From my perspective it's just tiresome how basically everything which is bad in societies is because of this vague notion of capitalism. While in reality, it's complete nonsense. This is a human rights issue. And China is well known for its human rights issues. And I'm sorry to say, but many of these issues simply stem it's communist nature. 996 hasn't got anything to do with capitalism. 

while i agree on the point i think you're making that crying ideology isn't going to change a thing, there is a case to be made that literally everything (and, thus, in one sense, nothing) is capitalism in the sense that capitalism is a maintenance of unequal distribution of power and wealth. paid work is capitalism, consumerism is capitalism, public services are in essence based on capitalist models of business. it's so deeply entrenched even socialist (and, to concede a point, communist) legislation and reforms are capitalism in the sense that they maintain the status quo of inequality. in that sense, everything which is bad in societies really is because of this vague notion of capitalism. like water to fish it's just as vague as it is ubiquitous. it's just that there are mediating factors. repression of human rights--ostensibly in the name of communism/politics/the state, while in reality it is in order to maintain power--is just one of them

Lol. China is more capitalist than most of Europe.. and I'd dare say US. It's very very far from any real communism or socialism.

I'm not saying that the communists don't exploit the masses, they have had historically huge human rights problems but calling China communist at this point is a joke.

If you want to see at least some level of real life communism then Cuba is a decent example I think. It also has all the classical problems of basically 100% state controlled economy.

my job is fairly unsupervised and set-your-own-goals so I waste between 1 and 3 fourths of the day just walking around and reading stuff on the internet