Always reblog
As a former zookeeper we would hear this a lot. “If you don’t study hard you’ll end up cleaning poop for a living.” It’s the one time we’re allowed to go off on the visitors. I once heard my boss rant for five minutes at a lady, in front of her kids, about how he had a Master’s degree, how people literally worked there for free, and how dare she judge people without bothering to know anything about them. Later that day his boss came by and said, roughly, “She told us what happened. Thanks for not throwing anything this time.”
I can count on one hand the amount of times I have gone off on people, but employment snobbery gives me the rage. I was showing the new kid how to use the fry scoop at McDonald’s “.. like this, and then just sort of hold it perpendicular and give it one tap..”
And the new kid sniggered “isn’t perpendicular a bit of a big word for McDonald’s?”
Something in me was just so annoyed by this 16yr old who was learning to work right next to me and somehow felt above us? Fuck that shit. I pointed at the people just on the floor and went off, “she’s a 4th year law student, she’s the primary career for her terminally ill daughter, he raises 100,000 for charity every year, she manages 3 stores and more than £16mil in turnover a year. What the fuck do you do?”
He just sort of mumbled “I didn’t know”
“you shouldn’t have to know, you’re not better than us. So. You tap it once and then move it here to release…”
“I didn’t know.”
“You shouldn’t have to know,”
yes to all this because workers can be educated and intelligent, but also, even if workers are formally uneducated or dont know big words that doesnt mean they arent equally deserving of respect
Zookeepers bust their asses shoveling shit and feeding apex predators so you can stare at an elephant without flying to Asia or Africa.
Fast food workers bust their asses surrounded by hot ovens and boiling oil so you can get food quickly without having to make it yourself or even learn how.
Janitors bust their asses cleaning up the most vile things humans can do to a public room so you don’t have to tiptoe around human waste everywhere you go.
Mail carriers bust their asses going door to door in near-fatal heat/cold and have to deal with the possibility of getting attacked by your poorly-trained pets so you don’t have to drive to the post office every single day.
Warehouse workers bust their asses making sure YOUR latest Amazon crap doesn’t just disappear into thin air.
And retail workers bust their asses coddling and picking up after you like your parents because none of you know how to read a price tag or stop deliberately miss-shelving things you never wanted.
But sure, go ahead and act like you wouldn’t be dead in a week without these people.
As @beholdthemem said…
The idea of “doing something you love” is such a privileged concept, and unlikely to be achieved by most people, and in fact if we all quit our everyday jobs to go chase an imaginary dream, our society would fall apart. I learned this the hard way after 5-10 years of trying to find “my dream”… life had other plans.
Now I have a career in data analysis which isn’t my life’s purpose. I’m lucky enough to have a career which pays me well enough to do knowledge work rather than having to work in a physical job. And my “life’s purpose” is the stuff that happens around work. Capitalism tells you that stuff is worthless, but it’s not.
Dunno what I’m trying to get to here, but just a couple thoughts to add to the above.
