Ten Reasons Why Having a Job Sucks

I'm not an expert on having a job, but I've had about six years experience with it. Here are some of the "bad" things I've noticed with having a job and why you should strive to not have one:
1. You have to be there at a certain time. Why is that? And why should you let someone else decide what time you should start working. It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't. I think I should be able to work when I want an no other time than that.

2. You only get paid for how long you work, not for the work and value you create.
I've got a great quote from the movie Office Space for this one: "It's a problem of motivation. If I work my ass off and Inotech ships out a few more units, I don't see another dime! So where's the motivation?" Exactly. You could get all your work done in half the time that you're at work, but if you leave, you'll only get paid for half the time. That, to me, doesn't seem fair. You should be paid for the work you do, not the time you spend doing it.

3. Someone else is in control of your time.
When you go into work, I'm sure you have some authority figure telling you what you need to do, how you need to do it, and in what time frame it needs to be done. I don't know about you, but that is just bullshit. You should not be told how to spend YOUR life. It's not your boss's life. It's yours, so take control of it as soon as possible.

4. Low oppotunity for growth after a few months on the job.
You ever get a job, you learn the responsibilities, and you do them for years and years before you get some sort of promotion where you develop new responsibilities. And while you're waiting, you have to do the same responsibilities that you learned months or years ago and it's no challenge, and it seems to keep you bored. It's kind of a stagnation, if you will. Why would you ever want to be like a robot, just pounding away at meaningless autonomous labor?

5. You can get fired by saying one word. (No)
This is the thing that really gets to me. Let's say you worked for the past five years at a company. You've never caused a problem, you've always done what is asked of you. But one day, you're handed a project to do, and you just don't feel like doing it, so you say, "No." Then your boss hears about it, and now you're in his office and he's talking to you about "being a team player." He's threatening to fire you because you didn't do one thing. One thing. You've done thousands of projects in the past, but to your superior, that means nothing. The fact taht you've decided not to do one project is going to cause you to lose your job. Not fair, right?

6. Treated unfairly
Many people at work are treated unfairly. They lose a chance for a promotion based on some impartial person's decisiion. I'll give you an example. My old work had this guy who worked his ass off every day and every night. He would put in 50 hour weeks and work night shifts just to please his boss. He was hoping to get a job workling in the "Customer Service" section of the store. He worked and worked until he couldn't work anymore, but he kept going. When it was time to find out who got the job, he was denied and someone else got the job. The reason he didn't get the job, according to his superior, was that "he was too soft-spoken." Here's the kicker. The guy who got the job was even more soft-spoken than our hard worker. How is that fair? I'm sure the person who got the job was qualilfied, but he sure as hell didn't work as hard as Mr. Workaholic. And that's another reason.

7. Don't be your boss's "errand boy."
I remember that I had this sort of duty when I worked at BILO. My boss, a real asshole, as I'm sure you know, would often ask me to do little things around the store, like clean the floors of the whole store or move the parking lot to the back part of the store. And I did it, and I would come back and he would want more and more. And I was sick of it. Whenever something would go wrong, he would turn on me to do his dirty work and I never want to do anyone's dirty work again.

8. Company meetings
I'm sure you've all had those meetings where your company talks about mission statements and how to make the company better and how to give good customer service. Aren't those things just ridiculous? Who wants to spend their whole Friday afternoon listening to some moron drone on about some bullshit about time sheets and trash emptying? It's just not worth my time. Sorry, but it's true.

9. Watching the clock
Every employee I've ever known does not want to be at work. They're always watching the clock, seeing when the day will be over. It's not like they're actually happy to be there, they're just waiting for the day to be over. They're work resistant people. Believe me, I am like that, too, but I find that if I'm not so fixated on the passing of time, time passes by itself, more rapidly. But who wants to deal with time clocks and punch in, punch out, punch in on your break, punch off your break? Jesus, it's almost as if they don't trust us to work our shifts. Why would I want to feel like I"m not trusted? I guess this is a lack of trust between my superior and myself.

10. You are gambling.
Being employed may seem secure, but one day, if your boss is having a bad day, he can just fire you like a sack of potatoes, even if you're working as well as anyone there. If you rub your boss the wrong way just once, he could say, "Hey, I want you out of here!" If you insult your boss or tell him you're tired of being disrespected, you could be on the fence of going to the unemployment office. Why put all your eggs in an asshole's basket? You shouldn't live like that. Get your own job where you are in charge.

Well I hope you liked my article. I'll have more coming in the next week or so. Until next time, enjoy jobless happiness and don't succumb to social conditioning.