EFFORT POST
Fuuuuuuuuuck. Am I being too “all or nothing” about this?
After holding my third corporate job (for going on 6 months now), it’s all the fucking same. And it’s going to be damn hard to convince me otherwise. Always a fucking business started by some CEO whose parents are rich, and they say there’s an opportunity to make your way up the ladder and other opportunities for career growth (devoting your entire existence to capital in this squid game esque way is truly draconian but I digress), though funny how they don’t mention all the nepotistic hierarchies in between which are akin to high school cliques. Seems like such a brazenly obvious (and extremely normalized) pyramid scheme. But hey, you get nearly a six figure salary for producing 0 value to any humans whatsoever in the computer touching factory because someone is in the position to shuffle around capital. But don’t you talk about a raise unless it’s the year end! You have to know that you’re paid based on the very real idea of “market value.”
Then you have service workers, care takers, social workers and the like. Since those careers are not contributing to the L I N E in any meaningful way (though it’s becoming more common with the plague on humanity that is private equity), they pay a lot less. I don’t know if there is enough evidence to say that it’s a “punishment” by capitalists or whatever, but I’m starting to think that it really doesn’t matter.
You reframe it in both contexts though, and it’s exactly that. If you pay a computer-toucher significantly more than someone caring for humans in the world, the value judgment could not be more clear. I don’t know why I’m acting surprised, I lived through Covid and saw these people (who undeniably showed their importance) being shat on relentlessly. There’s stuff I’ve been trying to unsee for years and I just fucking can’t anymore. Talk about man-made horrors beyond your comprehension
I need to bite the bullet and get the fuck out but how the hell do you enter the biggest phase of change in your life when you follow the same patterns each and every day?
i'm one of those computer touchers and i do it for the high salary.
the corporate world is likewise horrendous for me (like it is for almost all neuro-diverse people) but i do it because the money i save after working there for 2 or 3 years affords me the freedom to leave when those patterns start to make me hate life.
i think i'm done doing it from now on because not only are we producing zero value, but i think we're actively hurting humanity and i've learned that my colleagues don't care so long as they can afford the mortgages on their houses (yes plural) and put their children into the best schools.
i find that as i keep progressing career wise the work gets more evil and my colleagues have even more shitty, privileged takes due to the disgustingly high salaries; so i searched and found another job that's as far away for corporate-hood as possible and hope to stay there for as long as i can. the pay is relatively shit like it is for the service workers (i'll be one of them), but i'll think i'll actually be helping humanity while getting to use almost the same skillset.
our system admires and rewards psychopaths, so it's unfortunately up to you to find ways of coping with it. in my case: i use talk therapy to help me identify the self-defeating patterns that cause me to feel like life is hopeless or stupid and redirect that angst/anger into something that helps me or at least minimizes the impact of those negative feelings; my career change is an action i'm taking to this end.
Graeber had a bit in Bullshit Jobs where he argued that soulless awful corporate jobs pay more specifically because of how awful they are as a way of compensating for it, meanwhile actually useful jobs where you make the world even a tiny bit better pay less because hey you're already doing good, and isn't that enough?
That’s surprisingly not a Graeber observation, it’s essentially common wisdom in the west. If you work as a teacher or social worker you will be told to your face this justification explicitly.
This is actually a mechanic for determining base mission pay in Shadowrun (though in Shadowrun you also get karma for good guy missions)
I agree but consider this about getting out: Whether you want to become a healthcare worker, an artist, a cook, or anything else that actually helps the people immediately around you, then increasingly you are going to have to operate under corporate management that somehow manages to corrupt the good left in these jobs. And that means you're going to feel less like you're helping, and then you're just working for another corporate master for even less pay.
Maybe it would ultimately be more comforting to find ways to use that extra $60,000 in the office job to support people organizing in your community, leftist groups working in other areas, etc. I don't know and I'm not going to judge you one way or another, it's just food for thought.
I hope you can find a happy and healthy balance with your work life soon.
I need to bite the bullet and get the fuck out but how the hell do you enter the biggest phase of change in your life when you follow the same patterns each and every day?
My M.O. is to throw myself right into the deep end and just deal with the consequences as they pop up. I've had a lot of good outcomes. But I've also accrued a fair amount of trauma pursuing those outcomes.
Corporate America is hellish for anybody except maybe sociopaths, but being in any way neurodivergent definitely makes it a hundred times worse.
It depends on what you mean specifically by ND as this is an umbrella term that encompasses every sort of atypicality in brain function, but let's just go with it:
I think it's about finding a niche. You know what you can't tolerate, and that's a critically important step. Honestly it's really overlooked when it comes to finding a career because it's at least as important for your job to be tolerable as it is enjoyable or rewarding or whatever.
I doubt it would be very commonplace but if you had a phobia of blood and you worked as a phlembotomist then you're doing to have a hellish time in your line of work. If you cannot tolerate seeing animals suffer then you're going to have a difficult time working as a vet. I suppose the seeing the neglect would be worse but I'm not sure. If you have very little patience then you're going to struggle as a childcare worker or a grade school teacher. And so on.
So maybe it's worth mapping out both your strengths/passions and your needs/conditions you can't tolerate. With this you would be able to form a picture and use that to figure out what best maps onto a suitable job for you. From there it's about qualifications, experience, and connections but a clear direction is going to make all of that so much easier.
Yeah every large corporation I’ve ever worked for is exactly how you described. That’s why I started my own company. I could not fucking deal with it.
rest in power
