My Corona Diary (Take XXXII): The Hamster Wheel Needs You Again

<No Future (Hamster Wheel Style)

The Reckoner>

<i.>

Who didn't see this one coming? Now that the empty suits and the talking heads have convinced themselves that the demon of COVID-19 has been vanquished for good, and "the new normal" -- whatever the f#ck that means, however you define it -- is on its way back, it's time to cut off the unemployed, and shove them right back into the same old, same old, soul-sucking, spirit-crunching, sad sack shit McJob meat grinder that will eat you alive, one skimpy paycheck at a time. 

The hamster wheel needs you again, runs the argument among the two dozen states racing to yank the only lifeline that's kept many from eviction, homelessness, and total ruin. Sorry, but it's time to starve you into submission. We know you don't want really these dead end restaurant and retail jobs. Tough shit! The hamster wheel needs you again. Now get your ass back on it, and start running! Harder, faster! Harder, faster!

These impulses aren't exactly new. Funnily enough, we heard many of the same (rightist-fueled) plaints last year, as we noted in one of our previous diary entries, as you can see: https://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2020/05/my-corona-diary-take-iii-pandemic.html

Leading the charge to cut off the extra $300 federal supplement are Trump poodles like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who justified the rationale thusly: "“We reinstituted the job search requirement and now discontinued the added federal money, and the reason is simple: we’ve got almost half a million job openings in the state of Florida." 

Of course, he doesn't mention that most of those half a million openings are McJobs, which seem to be the only ones America knows how to create in abundance anymore. It doesn't help that the mainstream media constantly harps about the goodies that employers are rolling out to win jobless workers back, like 401(k) matches, and 10 to 20 percent raises -- as if those gestures alone would make up for all the crap that McJob shit workers often have to eat, without the cherry on top, to help go it down.

What the mainstream media reports don't mention is that the schedules are often part-time, with no health insurance, no way to build savings, and no stability, all for the joys of being treated little better than a widget, to be discarded at will, if conditions prove attractive enough. It's no accident that "flexibility" is such a persistent mantra for big and small businesses alike. 

I've seen how this mantra works in practice at places like Matthew's, our local grocery store, where it's not unusual for management to bounce people around at its whim. As many cashiers have told me, it's not unusual to close at midnight on Monday, but then have to come in, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, to open at 6:00 a.m. Tuesday. It's the worst of both worlds: on call status without on call pay, one of many dubious innovations that wound up baked into the system, as inequality grew wider and wider during the 1990s.

So where are the jobless funds going, if all those lazy ungrateful bastards would rather stay home and watch "Oprah," or some Investigation Discovery murder porn special? I'm not sure, but I'll give you a hint. 

It's not the army of part-timers I've seen walking in all kinds of weather to their shifts at Matthew's. If they're running away with the bank, I'm not seeing it, because they sure as hell aren't driving there. If you can't afford your own transportation, what else are you lacking? Plenty, I imagine. More than you could ever know.

<ii.>

In one sense, we should have seen this coming. America has always cultivated an ambiguous relationship with its unemployed, seesawing between romantic celebration (The Grapes of Wrath, "The Waltons"), ambivalent speculation (see any mainstream media op-ed page), and outright scorn (cue any Republican Governor, like DeSantis, above). 

At various times, our responses have wavered from exceptionalist bile (Alabama restaurant owner Jason Such: "There's no doubt about that. People just got lazy"), to pointed pragmatism (Alabama Arise policy analyst Dev Wakeley: "If you're looking at child care costs for one preschooler, you'd be paying literally your entire paycheck just to have somebody watch your child while you're at work. Expecting people to do that is just not based in reality").

What few appreciated, as the various stimulus measures, unemployment aid boosts, PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) and PUA (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance) measures rolled out, is the breather that they finally gave those feeling stuck on the hamster wheel, as the Eater and Flashpoint stories make clear (see below).

The Flashpoint article, in particular, cites quite a few interesting stories of workers like Terry, the former Lowe's stocker who wouldn't have found a better job without the enhanced aid. As he noted, PPP loans helped keep a family member's medical business alive, "and then all of a sudden came roaring back with demand." 

I've experienced similar moments. To some degree, I've been able to scale back my own various piecework efforts, and focus on projects that might provide a way out of that sordid, drain circling world. Both Squawker and I are getting more involved in self-publishing, including 'zines. I remember the excitement we both felt a couple months ago, at seeing $70 worth of orders come in for one of our projects, off of one review!

That's not going to help you build a boat, obviously, but it's heady stuff, anyway. Once you see what's possible, it makes you work harder to achieve it. Why would I want to dedicate so many pieces of my time and energy, so some megabully can grow ever more overweening, and all powerful? As time passes, I'm finding it harder to duck the question, let alone come up with a decent answer.

Even without the extra aid, however, the pandemic has prompted restaurant workers like Tara, in Washington, DC, to realize where their red lines lie. “I refuse to take [a job] that’s the minimum serving wage. I need a place that’s at least minimum wage plus tips,” Tara told Eater. “We are so sick and tired of [restaurant owners] assuming we want a handout. We want to work, but we also want to be treated like human beings. We haven’t been for way too long.”

If nothing else, read the Eater and Flashpoint pieces, which speak eloquently of the worst sorts of abuses: companies that post weekly schedules on a day's notice. Restaurants that overstaff, to water down their waitstaff's collective earning power. Workers forbidden to sit down during an entire shift.

Hence, the realization that hits workers like Diane: "I'm not lazy and avoiding work. I used these resources and time to cultivate a better life for myself. It's built a strong case for higher wages and universal income and I have no sympathy for employers who can't afford to provide better."

And therein lies the rub, as Shakespeare says. The megabullies that can't wait to reassert total supremacy over our lives aren't upset that the various added benefits, loans and stimulus checks didn't work. It's because they worked a little too well. 

It's the same realization that's powered various grass roots revolutions of the past, from '77 punk, to the dawn of pre-bling-bling hip, along with the political equivalents, from the Black Lives Matter protests, to the $15 minimum wage campaign, the rise of Bernie Sanders, and beyond. Everybody has their own decisions to make about what kind of resistance works best for them. 

But resist, we can, and resist, we must. If they really expect us to return to the hamster wheel, then let them hear us kicking and screaming, raising hell every inch of the way. Because it couldn't have happened to a "better" bunch of guys. --The Reckoner

"Don't be told what you want,

Don't be told what you need...

There's no future, no future,

No future for you..."

<"God Save The Queen">

>The Sex Pistols<

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before They Yank The Rug Out, Yet Again...)

Eater: 
Why Restaurant Workers Say They’re Not Returning to Work - Eater

Rolling Stone:
GOP Governors Compete To Make Life Worse For The Unemployed:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/republican-governors-federal-unemployment-benefits-1173976/

The Flashpoint:

The Pandemic Gave Retail Employees a Break - The Flashpoint (substack.com)

Yahoo.com
Economists: Rebounding Economy, 
Not Unemployment Benefits, Causing Staff Shortages:
https://www.yahoo.com/now/economists-rebounding-economy-not-unemployment-123400159.html