Today was quite the rude awakening, my first day on the actual lot pumping gas, as to just how easy I've had it as a lone-wolf canner and working at various informal mom-and-pop outfits. I simply wasn't sufficiently prepared for a corporate environment, and now if I'm to keep this job I'll have to make those degrading concessions to a set of dehumanizing rules erected solely to benefit the upper-echelon shareholders and executives, and whatever sociopathic churl owns the whole thing. I don't like this one bit: I've despised corporations and the emergent corporate culture for as long as I've been aware of their existence, and now I'm forced by necessity to either toe the line or grovel in refuse eating garbage. Perhaps there really is no such thing as freedom, at least not if you don't want to starve by the side of a road.
I made the mistake of carrying my pepper spray canister to work, which I did without thinking. I carry it everywhere: one of the things you learn early living on the streets and in low-income housing projects, is that you need to always be ready to defend yourself and yours from thieves and thugs ... I've lost track of how many times I've been threatened or assaulted, or people have attempted to con me or have outright robbed me. Alas for my big mouth, it was discovered in a conversation with a co-worker that it was on my belt, whereupon he mentioned that I was violating a rule. Typically reflexively I flippantly scoffed at the rule on the basis that it's just another example of a corporation dictating unreasonable terms on employees. I objected even further, and in some indignation, when the assistant manager had her “little talk” with me about it and had me put it away. What right does a company have to disarm me out here in the Wild Wild West, where neighbors chuck furniture out their windows onto the street below and predatory jerks pick fights whilst standing in line waiting for free meals? What if I get assaulted on the way back home from work, and am unable to defend myself? My answer: maybe I should sue the employer who unmanned me. Naturally this didn't go over well with the assistant manager.
Predictably, I got sent home early. I'm still going to complete the idiotic Gas College tomorrow, and then I'll call the assistant manager to let her know whether or not I feel I'll be willing to work within the confines of a system that's as top-down and tyrannical as the government of Vichy France. Which means I'm going to have to do some bullshitting: apologize for having been so disgracefully individualistic and autonomous, and assure everyone that I'm just having kind of a tough time adjusting to a very different work environment, and I'm sure I'll learn and adapt and in the meantime my work ethic and performance will shine. Pfft! My inner Frenchman is aghast at the prospect, but it's a necessary bit of work politics if I'm to earn any money. For now; I fully intend to look for a job at another gas station, and to take it as soon as it's offered without giving even a half-hour's notice.
Because why should a company expect any loyalty out of me, when every policy and procedure clearly indicates that I'm viewed as a slacker, a moron, a thief, and someone always on the verge of wigging out on others without provocation? Any outfit that insists that I receive three days of training before I slide a damn credit card and cram a gas nozzle into a vehicle is almost going out of its way to demean the dignity and competence of its workers, don't you think? I must be flexible in my scheduling, I have to bend over backwards to be saccharine-sweet in my demeanor towards “guests”, it's imperative that I preen before a mirror and make sure my uniform and name tag are presentable and Army Strong, and I can't do any sitting down even though my legs are tired and not only is my lot clear but I've already changed out all the garbage and wiped down all the pumps ... what am I getting in return for all this? Minimum wage, and being surrounded by a bunch of wanna-be Stasi informants! Oh, and 10% off convenience store purchases!
Yeah, fuck this bullshit. I'm going to learn from this experience, but not the lesson Jacksons thinks it's going to impart to me. I'm going to learn to “hide [my] sword in a smile” as the Yakuza say. I'm going to despise my capitalist overlords and their soul-sucking system of exploitation and degredation, and I'm going to disdain my coworkers and immediate supervisors for being the brainwashed sell-out tools they are. It won't be hidden in a smile, but it certainly behooves me to learn to be less flamboyantly honest and passionate about my personal opinions; I'm just another factory hand in the Third Reich, so it'll be “Sieg Heil!” out loud and “Eat a dick!” muttered under my breath out in the smoking area. I must always remember: I'm not working for the company, I'm working for myself.
