Working at a factory. For the first time, I was in proximity with and working together with people who actually did the labor of building the things that keep our society going. It helped open my eyes and realize my own internal bigotry against poor, working class people. These people were not rubes, their lives were a tapestry just as sophisticated as mine. The workers got payed decently well, but they were subjected to constant, slavish overtime requirements, and bizarre out-of-touch mandates from middle management who didn't seem to know what actually happened in the business they were nominally running. The factory was part of a business who was a subsidiary of a fortune 500 company, and they made absolute bank year over year... but none of that ever alleviated the sense of panic and impending doom that constantly permeated the factory. This was only a few years after 2008, and so most people there remembered the Bad Times, and so seemed eager to engage in hamster wheel of unending commodity production and capital growth. I have a lot of mixed feeling from that time, as I genuinely really felt exhilarated by the work of industrial production (and still do), but couldn't get over the aura of bad vibes that hung over the place. It was only after reading and watching more socialist content that I began to learn the words and concepts to describe what I experienced.
This sense of impending doom you describe is almost omnipresent in capitalist society. I’m not sure if it was always the case, but when I make the mistake of reading reddit, everyone there seems so depressed and hopeless, and they’ll get banned if they blame anyone except boomers or MAGA republicans (mention the bourgeoisie and you’re out). I worked as an assistant professor for years in a university overseas, and that sense of gloom was also present. The university itself was always on the ropes (it was not an ivy), and administrators were always hinting that we would lose our jobs if we failed to keep upgrading our degrees, although they never went through with firing anyone (unless you sexually harassed people, didn’t show up to class, or argued with your colleagues via email for years). I only felt comfortable there in my last few months after I told the administrators that I was quitting. It seems insane to quit a job like that (and I’m still unemployed going on eight years later) but the pay sucked and the boredom and repetitiveness was becoming unbearable.
Working at a factory. For the first time, I was in proximity with and working together with people who actually did the labor of building the things that keep our society going. It helped open my eyes and realize my own internal bigotry against poor, working class people. These people were not rubes, their lives were a tapestry just as sophisticated as mine. The workers got payed decently well, but they were subjected to constant, slavish overtime requirements, and bizarre out-of-touch mandates from middle management who didn't seem to know what actually happened in the business they were nominally running. The factory was part of a business who was a subsidiary of a fortune 500 company, and they made absolute bank year over year... but none of that ever alleviated the sense of panic and impending doom that constantly permeated the factory. This was only a few years after 2008, and so most people there remembered the Bad Times, and so seemed eager to engage in hamster wheel of unending commodity production and capital growth. I have a lot of mixed feeling from that time, as I genuinely really felt exhilarated by the work of industrial production (and still do), but couldn't get over the aura of bad vibes that hung over the place. It was only after reading and watching more socialist content that I began to learn the words and concepts to describe what I experienced.
This sense of impending doom you describe is almost omnipresent in capitalist society. I’m not sure if it was always the case, but when I make the mistake of reading reddit, everyone there seems so depressed and hopeless, and they’ll get banned if they blame anyone except boomers or MAGA republicans (mention the bourgeoisie and you’re out). I worked as an assistant professor for years in a university overseas, and that sense of gloom was also present. The university itself was always on the ropes (it was not an ivy), and administrators were always hinting that we would lose our jobs if we failed to keep upgrading our degrees, although they never went through with firing anyone (unless you sexually harassed people, didn’t show up to class, or argued with your colleagues via email for years). I only felt comfortable there in my last few months after I told the administrators that I was quitting. It seems insane to quit a job like that (and I’m still unemployed going on eight years later) but the pay sucked and the boredom and repetitiveness was becoming unbearable.