Anyone who works for a living is part of the working class and bullshit like this only strengthens capitals grip by pitting workers against workers.
yup. It’s the epstein class we should be guillotining, not each other.
the epstein class are the ones who have the biggest fakest “email-jobs”.
True yes, but then there are workers much lower down with “email jobs” who spend a lot of time dealing with emails, while also dealing with lots of pressure, and stress, and low pay
e-mail centric even
The cunts who works at places like kalshi and such can 100% disappear with zero detriment to society. Those are the fucking fake-ass e-mail jobs, and to act like there’s no difference between some piece of shit pulling barely legal scams and someone in a public service position is fucking stupid.
I’ve turned down few job offers in my time because those would have me work on online gambling systems and shit.
I know people who still chose to work in there, whose motivation was something like “If I didn’t scam these people - someone else would have”. And what I think after all that - if person’s job is detrimental to society - this person doesn’t matter, even if they’re working hard, 9-to-5, all that shit.
Remember when covid happened and everyone had to stop working? Well not everyone, just everyone with bullshit jobs.
Everything was basically fine. The only real problems as far as i could tell were that we all thought we were going to die and were scared to go near our grandparents incase we killed them, and some lines stopped going up.
I wish we could do it again, share the “real jobs” out amongst everyone so we only had to work a couple days a week, only this time we can also not be terrified of apocalypse-movie scale of death.
The current cost of living crisis started because of the economic turmoil in COVID you refer to as “some lines stopped going up”. There have been other causes, but that was a huge chunk of it.
But sure “everything was basically fine” because you personally didn’t die, I guess
I admit I have a pretty juvenile understanding of economics. I meant the sewers still worked, the health care system mostly still worked even while overrun, trains still ran fine, food and supplies stabilised after the original panic-buying fuckup.
The fact that I personally didnt die was a bonus I’ll grant you that.
Ah well now I feel bad for being sarcastic which I probably deserve.
Well not everyone, just everyone with bullshit jobs.
What? A lot of people with real jobs got screwed over as well. E.g., most prominently restaurant workers. I personally know several people who lost their jobs or small businesses due to covid, including a pâtissière, local art gallery curator, club DJ, and bartender. They were all valuable members of the local community who were absolutely shit on by the pandemic.
Everything was basically fine. The only real problems as far as i could tell were that we all thought we were going to die and were scared to go near our grandparents incase we killed them, and some lines stopped going up.
Over seven million people died and are still dying, not to mention permanent conditions and long hospitalizations. And now we have an inflated, cancerous anti-vax movement, cost-of-living crisis, and generation of students who got fucked.
I’m happy it worked out for you, but the COVID-19 pandemic left a monstrous scar on the world. I can only hope our governments and people will be more prepared next time. We should not forget what was lost.
Yeah i think I didnt make it clear enough. The actual pandemic part was bad. People dying was bad. I havent lived through a different voluntary shutdown of society to use as an example instead.
A lot of manufacturing shut down for large parts of the pandemic. Hence the supply chain issues at the end of it
Yeah honestly EVERYONE should be able to enjoy Labor Day.
Fucking dammit thank you.
I’m glad to see this as the top comment
👆
Even car production workers?
yay labor day
White collar jobs are still jobs. If you have to trade hours of your life to afford the things you need to live you are part of the working class… That’s why it’s called the working class and not the blue collar class.
No, we need to divide society so we can keep everyone at each other’s throats!
White and blue coller also don’t make sense in the modern working world. With many tasks in a factory being automated out and many jobs in a business looking more like an office tasks with higher skill sets needed. Manufacturing requires alot more planning and less people on the floor handalling products.
If you punch a clock to pay your bills, you’re working class. Don’t let them turn us against each other.
So I’m a salaried engineer and can’t be part of the movement?
If you work in order to actually be able to to live, eat, and have shelter, you are working class.
The double-edged sword of western labor. Your options are:
-
Work hourly and get some middle manager rolling dice to see which hours/days you’re scheduled for every week, the day before the timesheet goes out.
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Work salary and get sucked into late night deployments, lunch meetings, and assorted overtime projects you don’t receive pay for.
They catch ya comin’ and they catch ya goin’
Is this an US-specific problem?
Monthly salaries with hourly compensation for overtime is a thing too
I’ve never heard of a job that paid on those terms. Historically, you’ve had hourly contracts on a fixed schedule, so you were functionally guaranteed a minimum number of hours. But modern service workers operate under Zero Hours contracts that don’t guarantee any kind of minimum.
Are you in the US? Because that’s what they were asking. Around here monthly vage with an hourly bonus for working over time is standard.
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while the comment stated A => B, you assumed the reciprocal B => A, thus making you wrong : you absolutely can be a salaried engineer and be working class
I think their point is we should be part of the movement. Although, IMO we should also recognize that there are definitely chose who have it worse
(I say “we” since I’m also a salaried engineer)
Yeah, as an hourly engineer that’s how I feel. When I was salary I still needed my ass in a seat if I wanted to eat, even if not being nickel and dimed on time in theory was nice (they eventually did switch to having us punch a clock though)
What makes you think us salary slaves aren’t working class? I still have to punch a clock every day to get my salary…
I’m bourgeoisie, can I still be part of the movement or do I have to divest first?
Look to what Engels did. There are plenty of class traitors throughout history.
Do you make enough from those investments to live off of them? If not, you’re not bourgeoisie.
It’s more a family business which I work at and get shareholder value from.
Thats petit bourgoise, thats different
No, by the very definition you are cosplaying as a poor. That might be worse.
Don’t put workers against workers.
Agreed. Unify, don’t divide, everyone who can have the day off should. There’s certain positions they have to keep operating but for them they should get time and a half for so.
I see no point in trying to pit us against each other. People with normal desk jobs aren’t inherently the problem.
Eh, I’ve worked pretty much all of those jobs and worked on stats; it’s true that these people aren’t the problem, but a lot of them aren’t helping either. They inherently don’t care as long as they’re comfortable.
They inherently don’t care as long as they’re comfortable.
Isn’t that just humanity?
Hah! Yeah, for the most part. My city has a great bicycle network and yet people are still burning gasoline to move just themselves around or to transport five bananas and a jug of milk from the store to their home that is five blocks away.
Have you ever said ‘Those jobs are never coming back’?
If you have, you’re part of the problem.
When did anyone say that?
When the buggy whip manufacturers went out of business
I got news for you buddy: our “fake email job” Tier One and Senior Technical Support agents were still sending emails and taking calls on Labor Day.
Someone had to because I work for an ISP and some of our customers rely on our service to call 911.
You can come back here and tell me their job is “fake” when you can explain how that’s unimportant and when you’ve sat on a phone trying to help a 60 year old Boomer troubleshoot their internet when all they wanna do is chew you out.
And and I know it’s “just a meme” but it’s a shitty meme that’s reinforcing all this “white collar; blue collar” bullshit to divide the Working Class while billionaires work to get rid of Labor Day altogether. Shame on you for perpetuating that.
Hey man he’s letting off steam about how his job is more physically demanding yet he gets less pay and benefits while middle class people benefit (even if it’s a little) from this system.
How about you not make it about how you feel and think about the guy working in the rain.
Both people have valid complaints. Empathy works both ways.
100%. The pedo elite are the only ones we should be looking at. Not up down or left and right. This guy probably just tired of seeing his bosses fuck around.
I never downplayed how shitty retail/fast food is. I used to work in a fucking Chick-fil-A. I know how shitty it is. But tech support is a different kind of shitty.
Not only is having a shitty day and a shitty job not an excuse to belittle and lash out against people who have nothing to do with it, it actively makes the problem worse by keeping us locked in stupid arguments that get us nowhere instead of standing in solidarity against the people actually responsoble for our jobs being shitty.
So I reiterate: shame on them for perpetuating this cycle instead of putting the blame and their anger where it actually belongs and therefore being part of the problem.
You’re the one that lashed out at something that’s not related to you. Shame on you for attacking someone lower. Stop move on.
I was called a essential worker during COVID and had to work every single day but throughout COVID and all this time post-COVID I haven’t gotten a single raise. How can my job be essential but not worth anything?
The job is essential, but you the person who does it are expendable.
In a capitalist system, labor is a commodity privy to supply/demand, and so since any person can fulfill the responsibility, the owners have ample supply of replacements, and you have no leverage over them to get higher compensation.
Me too! I work as flooring distributor yet we were consider "essential " so work without extra benefits or raise all through Covid.
Damn, there are a lot of upsetti comments over a shitpost.
As someone with a fake email job that used to work fast food, I didn’t do aaasnnyytthhiinngg on Monday and enjoyed the hell out of it, for my past self’s sake.
I took a couple extra days off too
This has to be the dumbest shit I’ve seen in a minute.
Americans will attack other workers for minor differences in lifestyle rather than attack their boss for failing to provide basic quality of life in exchange for full time work.
Just like the ruling class wants…
Office jobs are still jobs. If a business genuinely was wasting vast amounts of money on fake work, then these jobs would be eliminated already. They are gradually being automated away, same as physical labor, but they still exist because they are still important for production.
The target of your ire should not be this or that subsection of the working class, but instead the capitalist class.
A lot of jobs are pure bullshit jobs that only exist because the corporation needed to hire inorder to appear growing. They then do mass firings to appear like they’re cutting costs. It’s all smoke and mirrors for the shareholders.
That doesn’t make the people filling those roles not working class, in fact it highlights how disposable the working class is to the capitalist class, and further reinforces my point: capitalists are the enemy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
anthropologist David Graeber that postulates the existence of meaningless jobs which cause psychological harm. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless and becomes psychologically destructive (when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth) because workers are required to pretend their role is not as pointless or harmful as they know it to be.
I’m aware of Graeber’s work. I don’t really agree with much of his conclusions or analysis, as he is an anarchist and I’m a Marxist-Leninist, but we would agree that much of office work is indeed socially unproductive, if we were to pivot to a socialist economy. That being said, we exist in capitalism, and thus office workers are working class, regardless of how necessary the work they do is beyond helping generate profit.
Yeah, I’m an anarchist who generally does agree with Graeber, but I do think that it’s vital to understand that he did see office workers, including ones in bullshit jobs, as working class. He resented the bureaucracy not the bureacrat. And it’s important to note that plenty of office work isn’t inherently within his definition of bullshit jobs. Hell, I’d argue there’s a fair chance that the largest portion of people working bullshit jobs are in the category of “industry does more harm than good and the worker knows it”.
when paired with a work ethic that associates work with self-worth
This was an important part that shouldn’t be discounted since it was still at the core of the argument.
The word meaningless is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Is it meaningless to sort and file reports? In the grand scheme of things, and to society, maybe. But not to the company that’s paying you. They have value from it.
I’m not saying the companies are hyper efficient with only purposeful work. I’m saying that companies aren’t intentionally throwing out money on work that they know is useless. They’re too greedy for that.
Once a company reaches a certain size, being able to micro manage individual workloads to max efficiency become impossible and individual middle managers have an incentive to appear like their whole workforce is necessary.
They’re not intentionally throwing money away because to them, the appearance of growth has to come before actually growth. They consider useless hires the cost of doing business. And when it fails, “they can just make the though decisions” and do the layoff the shareholders want. Otherwise, how to do explain the waves of mass hirings and mass firings?
Right. But back to the context of this thread: they’re all given work and they’re all real workers, even if their work isn’t ultimately providing dollars to the balance sheet. They still have a value to the company.
And all workers should have labor day off.
The original comic is being needlessly divisive.
I doubt that. You could do the same thing with fake job postings if you really wanted, and it’s cheaper.
But let’s say you’re right. Those people would still be given lots of work and be busy, because if they were allowed to be not busy everyone else would see and not want to work.
They do do that with fake job listings.
Are you really going to gatekeep Labor Day, op?
No that’s what the middle class is doing, did you learn nothing?
The warehouse I work at gets Labor Day off every year.
Then the week after they basically have the grill going for 5 days straight for Employee Appreciation Week.
It’s pretty nice.
Sometimes.
Just because our cage is slightly nicer and we get fed slightly better slop doesn’t mean we’re not in this together.
Most of us are sticking with you … the real problem is the 1%
I mean y’all could stick it to the one percent by forgoing going to the store or eating out on labor day
That would change absolutely nothing for the 1%.
It’s like using paper straws to fight the climate apocalypse.
Lol “working class jobs”
You mean service industry jobs.
An even lower caste.
Not really so cut and dried. I know people with 9 to 5s that work just as hard as I do in the service industry, and get paid around the same. I definitely wouldn’t say they work email jobs, but they’re not in the service industry either.
