I work in a gas station kitchen rn. Every job I’ve ever has had deadlines, but now things are really starting to click for me. I work with no one else, I have to cook food, restock food, prep for the next day, clean, document production, food waste, and temperatures, unload items that come on truck, order new food, and probably other things I’m forgetting. I also vape and work eight hours, so good luck getting all that done and finding time to eat something, have a smoke, and socialize with coworkers and customers. Somedays I get it all done when I’m in my routine, but good mf luck when something unexpected happens.
I feel like I’m playing a fucked up video game like my life depends on it, which it does cuz I have to pay rent. If I clock out early cuz I’m tired or if I clock out on time but didnt get something done it fucks my poor coworkers and I feel bad. If I clock out late cuz I didnt get something done my boss chews me out for getting overtime pay… I only work 40 hours a week, I shouldn’t feel this tired or stressed. I’d gladly take an extra hour or two a week, it would make me feel better and make me more money, but that’s not an option and I hear from coworkers that our boss gets a bonus for keeping overtime down.
I know there was a time in human history that we didn’t have to be this stressed. I’m not an agrarian or hunter-gatherer utopian tho, I just despise how little control I have over how it makes me feel. And this urgency, it fucks with your head, it conditions you to do everything faster, Faster, FASTER. We’ve created a new kind of human, homo capitalus and this human is a slave to efficiency and productivity for the sake of the profits of those at the top.
It feels like you don’t even have time to dream, let alone realize those dreams into existence. It brings to mind the lyrics of the song Piazza Fontana by Yu Kung, which is about the mf YEARS OF LEAD.
Perché la banca chiude gli sportelli Dio, come tutto vola così in fretta Risparmi e gente, tutto così in fretta
I don’t speak Italian, so maybe a good comrade could translate it better for us, but it roughly means:
“You have to do everything quickly, the bank is closing soon. God, why does everything go so fast? People and their savings - all so fast!”
Everytime I feel stressed at work, I think “God, why does everything go so fast?”
The chorus of the song continues:
bisogna piangere i sogni per capire che l’unica giustizia borghese si è spenta
Dreams have to be mourned to understand That the last bourgeois justice is dead
It’s amazing to me how music bridges the gap in language and emotional understanding. How can a song in a language I don’t speak make me cry? I know of course, because we are all human, we all have the same emotions in our hearts no matter when and where we are born. And I will never forget that anytime I meet someone different than me.
The song ends on a hopeful note at least. The final verse concludes:
ma non sentite il grido sulla barricata la classe operaia continua la sua lotta!
But can’t you hear the shout at the barricade? The working class continues its fight!
Never surrender what is in your hearts comrades, what brought you to a place like this website. We will win. Thank you for taking the time to read all of this, no worries if you didn’t have the time, everything goes so fast.
Now I need to walk my little furry companion, he’s been so patient and I love him.
Oh, here’s the link to Piazza Fontana, it’s a beautiful song.
I was thinking recently what it would be like if we replaced all aeroplanes with airships instead; like helium-filled zeppelins. If it meant saving the planet, surely everyone could tolerate a slower journey, after all, people used to spend days and weeks on ships travelling across the world.
The only real obstacle to this is the system’s incessant need to extract as much of everyone’s labour power as possible, not just over the course of a work day, but over their entire lives, meaning that any reduction in speed of travel, for instance, is intolerable, as it results in ‘wasted time’ that is not actively being spent on exploitation.
I have similar thoughts about cars. My poor mother is always telling her kids to “drive safe”. I was in a car accident recently, no one was hurt thank god, but dealing with repairs and the insurance companies has been a hassle. My sibs both live in cities about five hours away, and I always tell my mom how much better her anxiety would be if our family could travel on a well managed commuter train system. A better world is definitely possible, one where we worry less and are safer. But people are so disillusioned, they cant imagine a better world. Fuck, my older bro is a civil engineer and we had an infuriating conversation once about how he thought America was too big for trains to be viable unless we had a hyperloop
He’s a smart guy, so I wonder how such a miserable society beat someone down so much that they need to dream up fantasies to solve problems that can be fixed with what we already know works. I still have hope tho.
Tangentially, I wouldn’t mind a slower journey but I don’t get paid time off and therefore can’t afford to travel slow cause I can’t pay rent so I’d be even more stuck at home.