EFFORT POST
Fuuuuuuuuuck. Am I being too āall or nothingā about this?
After holding my third corporate job (for going on 6 months now), itās all the fucking same. And itās going to be damn hard to convince me otherwise. Always a fucking business started by some CEO whose parents are rich, and they say thereās 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 donāt 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 donāt you talk about a raise unless itās the year end! You have to know that youāre paid based on the very real idea of āmarket value.ā
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 itās becoming more common with the plague on humanity that is private equity), they pay a lot less. I donāt know if there is enough evidence to say that itās a āpunishmentā by capitalists or whatever, but Iām starting to think that it really doesnāt matter.
You reframe it in both contexts though, and itās 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 donāt know why Iām acting surprised, I lived through Covid and saw these people (who undeniably showed their importance) being shat on relentlessly. Thereās stuff Iāve been trying to unsee for years and I just fucking canāt 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?
iām 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 iām done doing it from now on because not only are we producing zero value, but i think weāre actively hurting humanity and iāve learned that my colleagues donāt 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 thatās 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 (iāll be one of them), but iāll think iāll actually be helping humanity while getting to use almost the same skillset.
our system admires and rewards psychopaths, so itās 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 iām taking to this end.
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 youāre going to feel less like youāre helping, and then youāre 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 donāt know and Iām not going to judge you one way or another, itās 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. Iāve had a lot of good outcomes. But Iāve also accrued a fair amount of trauma pursuing those outcomes.
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 youāre already doing good, and isnāt that enough?
Was coming here to post this.
rest in powerThatās surprisingly not a Graeber observation, itās 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)
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 letās just go with it:
I think itās about finding a niche. You know what you canāt tolerate, and thatās a critically important step. Honestly itās really overlooked when it comes to finding a career because itās 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 youāre doing to have a hellish time in your line of work. If you cannot tolerate seeing animals suffer then youāre going to have a difficult time working as a vet. I suppose the seeing the neglect would be worse but Iām not sure. If you have very little patience then youāre going to struggle as a childcare worker or a grade school teacher. And so on.
So maybe itās worth mapping out both your strengths/passions and your needs/conditions you canāt 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 itās about qualifications, experience, and connections but a clear direction is going to make all of that so much easier.
Yeah every large corporation Iāve ever worked for is exactly how you described. Thatās why I started my own company. I could not fucking deal with it.
