Wednesday, July 31, 2019I’m unemployed again.This time I’m not completely to blame – although internal politics at
my office played a significant part in their choice to chop my head off rather
than someone else’s.Sometimes, the universe lines up in such a way that things become inevitable.I’ve carried a target on my back for the last several years, in
particular with the change of ownership last year – but even more so when the
person who despises me most became by boss and tried at least twice to convince
the new owners I was expendable, and even incompetent.Over the last 32 years as a journalist, I always knew I was better respected
by the people I covered than the people employed me.But in the most recent case, I’ve become a non-entity entirely because the
new owners do not see people as people, but as pieces in a corporate machine,
easily replaced, more importantly, easily pressed to do more than we are
actually getting paid to do.The recent downsizing was number crunching, nothing personal on the
higher levels. The corporation clearly saw my salary as an issue but left the
choice for who got chopped on local bosses, and since my boss didn’t like me, I
was an easy choice.This was true of some of the others that were giving notice when I was,
old adversaries to the local bosses, who found this as a good opportunity to get
rid of those they disliked anyway.This trust in local bosses is not new.Managers historically in our society trust other managers regardless of
how incompetent or corrupt these managers are.Nobody takes workers seriously enough to actually listen to them,
unless these workers make a lot of noise the way I do.Although I have held this job for the last 27 years, I have been fired
before, a number of times, only in those instances, I deserved it, mostly for
challenging authority.Ironically, each of these events seemed to occur around the same time
in the decade, so that the current dismissal is a kind of anniversary of each
of my previous events, in 1969, 1979, and 1989. Some jobs I resigned before
they got the chance to fire me.Almost in every case, I caused my own demise by pointing out just how incompetent
the people who oversaw me were or challenged the corporation mentality that
made workers into machine parts and ignored our humanity.I remember how the vice president of Fotomat came to my booth to talk
to me after I wrote a long letter to the corporation criticizing the way they
did business, or how I got fired from the Garfield Dunkin donuts two weeks
before my wedding because the owner was a complete ass and had abused one of
the female workers – a similar situation got me fired from the cosmetic company
in the late 1970s. I quit my summer job the Garfield Two Guys store before they
could find an excuse to fire me. I had challenged them and could afford to,
then realized that some of the other workers were looking up to me – and were
risking their jobs because I became a kind of spokesperson for a righteous
cause, working people. I understood then, that rebellion comes with responsibility,
and while I was willing to pay the price, I could not afford to let others
suffer.When I wrote a letter to Tony Pro in 1978 about how our union rep was selling
out to management, I knew I risked my job. Tony Pro was on his way to jail but
took time to fire the union rep (maybe more than that), but I lost my job
anyway.I was a constant thorn in management’s side during each of my jobs,
because people became invisible, and it was important for someone like me to
remind these powerful people than workers are not machine parts, easily
replaced, they have families, and their lives are shattered by corporate
decisions.That may well be part of the reason I’m unemployed this time, too, since
my current boss decided to use the corporate system to try to get me fired –
unable to get the previous owners to do it – and I struck back, refusing to
recognize my boss’ claims.But I knew in winning, I was losing, and that the whole confrontation
with a corrupt local boss was unwinnable ultimately, and that eventually, I was
doomed.So, when the corporate downsizing came, I did not resist – it was the
least painful of potential events, and let me walk away with the same dignity I
always have in such situations, knowing that the victory of the petty local boss
will be temporary, and hollow. In the end, letting me and other rebels go also
stole the heart and soul of the business, and left a pack of self-serving
power-hungry wannabe bosses in place – each aching to be captain of a ship that
has already sprung so many leaks that it can do nothing but sink. It's easy to be a captain of a sinking ship. You need no compass to choose
a direction. The only direction is down.Now I know how it feels to be one of the survivors in the life boats
watching the Titanic sinking in the distance, saddened by the loss of life, and
the tragic loss of a noble ship, but relieved that I have finally managed to
escape relatively unscathed, and aware that for the first time in a long time,
I do not need to look over my shoulder to see who is taking aim at the target
on my back – having left the target on the deck of the ship, and the pack of
wannabe captains shooting themselves in their feet as the water rises up around
their necks.And while I may feel as if the row to shore is a long one, at least I
know I will eventually reach shore, maybe even before my former bosses meet
Davy Jones.
July 27, 2019Power never lasts.And the tighter you grip it the more it slips like sand
through your fingers and leaves your hands empty.This may take days or weeks or even decades, and so on days
like this, when it seems like the bad guys won, I tell myself they haven't.And for those of us who seem to have been exiled from the
kingdom, outcasts from what we thought was Arthur's perfect realm, we need to realize, too, that inside those noble
halls, those who remain hate each other as much as they ever hated us, and must
live with each other, hating each other, more than they ever hated or feared
us, sharks living among sharks, always fearful of teeth that might dig deep
into them they way their teeth once dug deep into us.We all lived in one big fish bowl where they feed on guppies
like us, but now that they have fed on the last of us, we feed on each other.This is poor satisfaction for those of us who spent decades
building our power right, brick by brick, instead of body by body, making
alliances rather than petty schemes. In the short view, good guys always seem
like suckers, having done things the way were taught to do them, living by some
moral code that avoided using and abusing others in our climb to the top.On days like this we need to tell ourselves that these
mountain climbers really aren't getting to the top of a mountain, but to the
top of a dung heap, their own petty egos painting it as something more, and
that those same egos will eventually bring about their downfall from even that
un-lofty height. We need to convince ourselves that we won even when it seems
we didn't, by retaining a moral highground they for all their ambition lack, and that even in
exile, we remain the ones who won, though at moments like this, we do not feel
like we have.We need to remind ourselves that sharks will remain sharks
even when the fish tank is empty of everything but sharks, and we must learn
patience, learn to heal ourselves, wait and watch for that day when these
sharks turn onto each other – knowing that it must come, knowing that sharks
must continue to feed, and in the end, must consume each other.On days like this, we need to remember that all power hungry
people carry inside them the seeds of their own destruction, weaknesses they
cannot see in themselves, either because their egos won't allow them to, or
they simply do not know themselves well enough to avoid their inevitable
demise, and that on some future day, the final grains of sand will slip out
from between their fingers, and when they open their hands, they have nothing.
