After finally getting fed up, I went on a 10 month campaign against mamagement calling out all the sexism, racism, poor management and absolute disrespectful treatment of apprentices and contractors. I made it very clear that the work culture was awful in every way.
I got predictably fired but I secretly was working with corporate to deal with the the awful HR manager who was enabling this work culture.
Without going into much details, After my company fired me, I put in a complaint to the government labour board over a wrongful termination case. A month later after my submitting my case to the labour board, the HR manager was forced into early retirement. A month after that I settled out of court and got my severance plus a little extra to cover lawyer fees.
My coworkers knew, most got upset at me for challenging authority, some respectfully supported me at an arms length and even fewer people actually supported me.
What was undercover hate wasn’t very hidden by the end of my time there. Although I doubt they fully knew how much I couldn’t stand them. I still had to maintain the peace somehow.
I’ve noticed personally just how different my mind works when I am constantly presented with data for my actions. Even though these random data points have no real affect on my life, I’m still drawn to having those numbers be bigger than before. From the votes I receive from a social media comment to the reactions from a meme posted in a discord server, all I want is more attention through a click of a button from someone else’s screen.
I hate it. It feels like my value is placed into a number. For me, I prefer my value to come from how I treat other people. I feel a far greater sense of self when I am able to put my time and effort into helping other people. I get to learn the inner workings of someone else and teach them to empower themselves. It feels rewarding when later on those people I helped express their gratitute and trust in me. That is far more rewarding compared to the quick hit from any brain chemistry when looking at a bunch of data points or a bunch of money.
Unfortunately, I can’t make money this way. Not in the way I want to learn, teach and empower other people. I’m terrified of going into a career that will destroy my innate desire to help others. I know it’ll wreck me in the process. Again.
Capitalism destroys everything it touches by sucking all the life, creativity and humanity out of it until there’s a empty shell left behind. An empty shell that looks like every other empty shell. All those empty shells can be counted, given a value and sold. Reducing us and the human experience to yet another data point.
I truly hope more people come to understand that these data points don’t have to put us in a competitions with each other. That our value as people can come from places that don’t have/need to be from a number value.
One day, our planet will die. One day the last historian will die and all that data and preserved knowledge will sit and decay. It’s human knowledge and it’s meaning has more value to humans than any other living creature on our planet.
Personally, I’d rather live a life where my actions are responsible for the wellbeing of myself, my community and the land under my feet. It doesn’t matter to me anymore if my value can’t be reduced to a number.