A New Day in the Work Farce
There’s a pattern emerging in the workplace, at least in some of them, mostly minimum wage jobs occupied by low income people or students. I can’t speak to all types of jobs, yet I do feel compelled to speak for so many people who are either currently looking for a job, or walking on eggshells at their current one. Somehow, I missed the memo where you can show up, never miss a shift, be on time and do a good job but still get fired over someone’s feelings or wokist view. In my case, it was to cover up shady goings-on in the workplace.
One can be summarily dismissed without question or just cause over a miscommunication or straight out lie. If the boss already “likes” one person better than another, they won’t bother to get both sides of an issue, they’ll just automatically side with the person they like better. Long ago, this might have meant the disliked person would be written up or have to speak with management. Today, it means the un-liked person gets fired. And these days, it doesn’t take much to be disliked.
It’s the worst possible time culturally for this kind of tripe to be going on, with homelessness on the rise and the line between the poor and everyone else blurring as much as peoples ethics, losing your job right now can land you on the streets if you don’t have anyone who can help you out, and guess what, helping one another has also fallen out of fashion, just like being a decent person.
I will only speak to my own experience, because, logic. I have had a huge variety of jobs, from building binary exploding targets to building rainbow wind ornaments, from mucking stables to making bagels and so many more. At the time I write this, I haven’t worked customer service in quite some time. I’d been doing freelance work which dried up a bit during the pandemic. I’d also lost my job due to the pandemic, so it took awhile to get on my feet and the experience was really isolating.
That isolation is why I was glad to get a job as a baker. I was on the clock by 4am with only one other person. Around 7:30am the people taking out deliveries would show up. After that, staff would start showing up to work at the attached café. I didn’t have to deal with customers, just other employees, and overall it was a good crew, just a couple of loose screws and as I’d come to find out, a couple of really shady people as well.
One thing I noticed was how sweet a particular man in a position of power was to some people while being extremely rude to others, like myself. He wasn’t overtly rude to men, but he did take them for granted and treated them like they were stupid. With me, an older, more zaftig woman, it was just rudeness. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt but others validated my experience. From the way people reacted to his rudeness towards me, I wanted to figure it out, maybe it was something I was doing, perhaps I could see this as an opportunity for self-evaluation.
Whenever I have some issue happening where I might be doing something non-productive I try to get to the bottom of it so I can improve. In this circumstance, while doing so, I noticed the stark contrast in the way the younger more fit girls were treated by that same man. He would sidle up to them, put his arm around their waist and pull them in even as they would slightly recoil. What made it creepy was his age, it wasn’t “fatherly” behavior if that’s what he was playing at.
I felt bad for these women, but what could I do? There was one in particular who I’d see him touch most frequently and most inappropriately. At one point, I tried to breach the subject with her. It’s a sensitive topic so I probably breached it with a bad segue, but her reaction was shocking while totally validating. She immediately got defensive and angry. She shifted the whole thing to me accusing her of getting “favoritism.” Believe me, honey, I don’t want that kind of favoritism. Still, I apologized to her and went about finishing up my day. Little did I know it would be my last shift. You see, she went straight to him, climbed into his lap and got me fired.
And here is where my point for this article comes up again, whatever happened to being reprimanded and given another chance? Whatever happened to the fairness of a person in power, like this man, hearing both sides of an issue rather than just going with the word of his favorite or of the most agreeable even when it’s non-productive, or of the one they find most attractive, like the girl who lets you touch her ass at work? I will say this, based on their reactions alone it was clear that a calling out had occurred. My immediate dismissal was proof I hit the nail on the head.
In the days following my liberation from the Bakery, people started finding out what had happened. That’s when I heard from several people that this man has a long standing reputation for “being handsy” with the girls and has been doing it for years. As to the woman directly involved, I only feel pity for her. She’s a 10 but apparently accustomed to using her looks for advantage, which in its manifestation gets her taken advantage of without her even realizing it. Sadder still, she could be keenly aware of it and just hasn’t found a better way to be.
So why am I sharing this story? Sure, it’s definitely a way for me to feel heard since I was never given that opportunity. Mostly though, it’s because I know there are other people out there who have had their livelihood torn out from under them over some contrived bullshit, for lack of a better word. For me this is closure and an open door to others who have been through or are going through the same, share your story, people need to know this is going on. It’s also just a really good way to put it down.
Current culture is no place to be poor, let alone homeless, but more and more people are closer and closer to being in a position where losing a job can result in devastating loss. There has to be a way to stop normalizing it being OK to fire someone just because you don’t like them or disagree with them on whether or not it’s OK for old men to touch young girls in the workplace. I know, file for unemployment, and while that is an option, it doesn’t help anyone in the long term, and I shouldn’t have to.
On a final note, if you are one of those people who has fired someone out of hand despite them being hard working and doing an excellent job. Or if you’re one of those people who rats out others and lies to get them fired just because they don’t act like the world revolves around you and your quirks and kinks, please know, there is a very special place in Hell for you.
