Good morning my Brothers and Sisters in the Working Classes. I recently came across the letter below and felt that it perfectly summed up my feelings about Corporate America and what it has done and is doing to our self respect and humanity. I don't know who the author is, and personally I suspect that the name given at the end is an alias, but still I couldn't help but share.
Dear Corporate Scumfucks,
Just in case you have any doubts this is not going to be the kind of open letter where I the author pretend that you lot have any redeeming values, nor pretend that I think you are good people who have simply lost your way. I pretty much think you are all a pack of rented assholes shitting all over the Working Classes and expecting us to pay for the privilege. But hey, as Oscar Wilde was reputed to have said, "The only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about." So I tend to imagine on the basis of that alone some of you might take an interest in this wee epistle if only in the hopes that I might mention one or two of you lot by name.
So, having gotten the pre-amble out of the way, you might be wondering why I, a lowly wage slave has taken time out of my busy day of enriching your coffers to pen this wee rant. Well the thing is that those who own, command, and benefit from the current status quo, are so well insulated from any opinion that is contrary to how they've decided things are, that I thought I would make an attempt, futile though it may be, to try and offer a perspective on life wholly at odds with the Fux News, Wrong Wing, warblegarble that normally fills your empty little heads. The points I'm going to make are in no particular order and will largely be written as they come to me. But my hope is that by the time I'm done there will be at least a wee bit of narrative flow.
Let me start by stating a fact. As plainly and brutally as I know how. It is perhaps the central fact of this letter and the one that you all do your damnedest to ignore or contradict. Ready? Here it is...
Your success and riches is built on the back of me and people like me.
Now I'm sure that right this second as the above words are bouncing around your air conditioned head you are preparing all kinds of rejoinders, counters, etc. Don't bother. Absolutely nothing you can say will make what I said above not true.
I don't care if you built your business by hand. I don't care if you took not a penny of money from the government and your family but rather did everything by the sweat of your own brow. The second, the very instant that you made the choice to hire an employee, the second that employee by their actions made money for you, you began to profit from the work of others.
And you know what? Strictly speaking there is not one damned thing wrong with that. But, here's where the problem comes.
We are sick and fucking tired of you people crying poverty and diminished situation, and carrying on about your trials and travails every time we have the audacity to think that maybe we should be paid more than subsistence level wages. We are beyond tired of seeing you with your homes, and cars, and multiple vacations a year have a fucking flip out because someone has dared to suggest that maybe raising the minimum wage to something a person might be able to actually live on rather than scrape by with is a good idea.
Every time we have to hear you pull that particular song and dance we are reminded of what that man walking out of a restaurant with a doggy bag said to the starving man when asked if he might share the contents of the bag, "Well no. No. I might want it later."
People who have more things, money, cars, homes, leisure time, than they reasonably know what to do with fearing the pinch of having to pay their employees a few more dollars because it might mean a little less money, a few less cars and homes, and a bit less leisure time for themselves cannot make these claims without sounding like the assholes that they are.
To be honest we are also more than a little bit sick and tired of the spin doctored freeze dried crap you lot like to fling around about how much a part of the "community" you are. You love to thump your chests and pat your backs and proclaim about how much money you donated last year, and about how you gave to this organization and that organization. Here's a novel idea. Truly. You want to be part of the community? You want to give back? You want to make things better in the places where you are doing business? I have a simple yet radical idea for you. You might want to brace yourself. Ready? Here it comes...
Pay Your Fucking Taxes!
It's just that simple.
Instead of demanding thousands and millions and billions of dollars in tax breaks, instead of requiring towns to damn near pay YOU for the privilege of you doing business there, just pay your taxes. Local, state, Federal. Just pay the fucking things. And then that money can be used to help feed the hungry, educate the masses, clothe the needy and so on and so forth. Now if you were to pay your taxes AND on top of that also give to charity? Well then that would be truly impressive. But so long as you continue to dodge as many taxes as you can the fact that you gave a thousand to charity while avoiding ten thousand in taxes isn't impressive it's asinine and aggravating.
Then there is the way you treat your employees on a day to day basis. First of all it is high past time that you accept a simple fact. The greater majority of us are not stupid. We are well aware that we have shitty jobs, for shitty pay, with practically no meaningful benefits. So drop the "Rah Rah ain't it great to be part of our "Team", aren't you proud to work for us BULLSHIT! We are not "Associates" we are not "Brand Ambassadors". What we are, are barely compensated wage slaves doing jobs that are usually below menial, in working conditions that are often borderline inhumane at worst and at best are usually mind numbingly tedious.
The fundamental rock bottom agreement is, we show up and do the job, and you pay us in a timely manner what we are owed. You don't have the right to expect anything beyond that, so stop trying to turn us into unpaid spokespeople for how fucking awesome you are. Because you are not awesome, you are assholes.
This brings me to another piece of the big picture that is your general assholishness. The double standard that you people have around money.
Pretty much as a matter of course any time you are having an interaction with an employee around trying to get them to change a behavior you don't like, you invoke money and the threat of the employee making less of it, or perhaps even none. Now in dire circumstances as a court of last resort sure I can see pulling out the old "Do X, or we'll cut your hours" or "Don't do Y, or you're fired." But when you go there at the first opportunity it smacks of gross manipulation via fear, which makes you a terrorist and a bully.
But more than that, when the first thing you do anytime you are not getting your own way is to threaten people's pay, you have None, as in ZERO right to bitch and whine and piss and moan about how the only thing that seems to motivate all of us is how much we are paid.
You've created the rules of the game so you really don't get to be surprised when we actually play by them.
That would be the real rules by the way, not the double standard bullshit rules that you cram down our throats.
This brings me to my final point before I end this letter and let us all go back to our tiny little lives.
When you have an employee that actually tries to do more than the bare minimum, and they get frustrated because their efforts are hampered by co (ha hah) "workers" who couldn't be bothered to give two shits if you gave them three shits for free, and then when the employee complains you tell them that putting up with such people is "part of the job", instead of trying to actually address the problem, you really don't get to act all butthurt and surprised when most of your wiser employees absorb this message and also start doing just what they need to do to get by and pick up a pay check.
Bottom line you all have created lowest common denominator jobs, so you have no right to be upset because you've got lowest common denominator employees.
Until next time Corporate America, eat shit and die.
Yours sincerely,
Ernest G. Twitwaffle Esquire.