Of
late, the governor of this fair state has been threatening my livelihood
because he feels professors need to work more. My tenured and non-tenured
colleagues alike have fired back saying not only that proposed budget cuts
would irrevocably harm public education and Wisconsin as a whole, but that,
dammit, we do work hard! Prof after prof can be heard defending the job they
earned through years of study by listing all the arduous tasks they must
complete and the tremendous responsibilities they and other teachers have. It
was the same when Walker made earlier cuts to education and when he broke the public unions. Look at how hard our jobs
are! And frankly, for not much pay!
Look I'm on TV!
Now
I too, for the purpose of disclaiming what will follow, will assert that I do
work 40 hard hours a week. What I do in the classroom is just a tiny part of
the job description. Planning for those few hours a week involves: making
copies, building a distance learning site, composing assignments, writing
lesson plans, constructing handouts, researching and selecting updated reading
materials, and revising my syllabi. In addition I need to write and answer
dozens of e-mails every day. I am responsible for advising, counseling, and
writing rec letters for current and former students. I attend meetings, forums,
conferences and staff readings. I serve on committees. I submit my
own work for conferences and forums. I maintain a program of writing and publishing, because students should be taught by a writing teacher who is a
published writer. I do this while coping with a lifelong disabling illness, and
make less than 35K a year after taxes. I also keep a clean home, work out regularly, and take good
care of my pet. So there.
Having
said that…
What
if I didn’t? What if I had plenty of free time and felt my job was more fun
than work? What if I like to take naps and do so whenever I can? What if I
spend a considerable amount of time on Pinterest and watching American Horror Story and blogging? What
if I like to go out and throw my money away on frivolous entertainments? What
if I’m going to Vegas this spring with my husband where I plan to play the
slots and get polluted? What if Ozzy’s toenails sometimes get long and my end
tables get dusty? And what if, despite this sloth, I still think I need to be
paid more? What of it?????
I
am sick of conservative rhetoric that forces us all to defend how much of our
life is hard and miserable. Since when did our suffering become the only thing
that gives us value? It seems that even 40 hours a week isn’t enough for these
people anymore. My husband now works about 50, and my friend Kerry sometimes
reports a full 60 – and both of them are salaried. This because their employers
ask them to do two jobs not one. But should someone complain, we get bombarded
with examples in the media of even harder-driven slaves that we’re supposed to
look up to. I work 80 hours a week and I
go to school full time and pay my own tuition! I work 100 hours a week and I
don’t even have health insurance! And we all hang our heads in shame,
afraid to suggest that health and education should be a right whether you work
your ass into the ground or not. The story about the carless Detroit man who walks 21 miles to a job that pays him 10.55/hr was meant to be a critique of a
spotty public transportation system, but instead has been used to perpetuate
the idea that we have no excuse for not working or not working enough. This man
is a glorious example, right-wingers say, of an old-fashioned work ethic that us
whiners who demand good pay for a normal week of work have forgotten.
No
one points to the lack of public funding that made it hard for this man to
catch a bus – that would be entitled of us! No one points to the stinginess of
the employer for whom this man provides a needed service either. He’s a job
creator (ugh how I loathe that term), not someone who wants work done but doesn’t
want to pay what’s needed. You know what I’d like to see? A news story about a
boss who brags, My employees all drive Escalades! Or, I pay for a limo to
pick up all my employees! And for some news station to say all companies
should follow their example of the days when employers treated their employees
like damned human beings. But no one expects that. A generous college student
raised thousands to help this man out, so once again, middle class people came
together and covered what the rich won’t part with. Kind of like we do every
tax year.
Should
someone complain about their wages, or the amount of work they have to do, they
are instantly compared to that old myth: the lazy welfare turd who sits on the
couch all day watching soaps, eating Cheetos and smoking crack (arguably not
more dangerous or addictive than Cheetos). This unicorn dominates the
discussion much more than the fact that Americans work harder than anybody, and are
more productive than ever before. And should one dare to suggest that full time is MORE
than enough, and that one should receive higher pay for even – gasp – fast food work, then all hell
breaks loose. We all buy into it. Liberals too. It’s just not kosher to suggest
that the employers, on the whole, ask
too much.
Well
I’m suggesting it, and I’m not the first. During the great depression, the
Kellogg company’s owner WK Kellogg (for whom my junior high was named) and the
company president proposed lowering the work week to 30 hours in the interest
of decreasing unemployment and increasing the “mental income” of “the enjoyment
of the surroundings of your home, the place you work, your neighbors, the other
pleasures you have [that are] harder to translate into dollars and cents.”
Greater leisure, president Lewis Brown hoped, would lead to “higher standards
in school and civic . . . life” that would benefit the company by allowing it
to “draw its workers from a community where good homes predominate.” This is
from Jeffrey Kaplan’s great article titled “The Gospel of Consumption,” which
you should read.
Fewer
hours means less pay, and at the rate bosses pay these days, that’s a lot to
ask of society. Well guess what bitches. I’m proposing we all work less and get
paid the same. Yeah I said it, and I’ll say it again. I’m tired of being tired.
And yes, I like my sitting around time. If I worked an even 30, I could be more
involved in issues I care about, make my home look amazing, exercise my dog,
play games with my husband, read books, and write write write write write! And
I could sit around. And I would sit around. I wouldn’t smoke crack and eat Cheetos
or watch soaps (are there still soaps?), but I might smash some popcorn with a
stiff brew and some Judge Judy. (I find the show's courtroom depiction of the human condition frickin hilarious.) And
yes, I still want my 35K.
Why?
Because I’m not a machine, I’m a goddamned human. My life has value, regardless
of how much I produce. Just like colleges should not just turn out industry fodder, but new and greater knowledge, human beings are not made for just work.
Leisure, however you want to define it, is a human need. And not just for those
of us that suffer from a disability, for which sitting around time serves a
healing purpose. People need to waste time, just throw it away, on activities that
serve no purpose other than to make them smile (or not frown for a minute.) I
could argue that leisure activities usually equal purchasing and therefore are
good for the economy, but I won’t. People should be allowed to slack off,
lounge, play around, as much as they want. Working full time, especially when
you also have a million other things to get done, is not the ideal. Or it
shouldn’t be.
I
resent that the standard is being set by those who do absolutely nothing but
serve their employer because they have no real choice. I want to stand up
instead for the mother who stays home and enriches the life of her kid because
she collects disability. For the unemployed worker who takes long naps between
applications and filing for unemployment as a defense from sadness. For the working
middle classer who takes a long break to enjoy the sunshine and uses company
e-mail to organize a protest against iron ore strip mining in Northern Wisconsin. I defend you, lazy Americans. I defend your right to breathe.
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