Today I had a group interview for a casual (about 10 hours a week) supermarket job. I was half expecting everyone to be upbeat teenagers, but almost everyone there was visibly depressed and had some form of trade or degree. About half were already working 1-3 other casual jobs.
The interviewer seemed to expect us to compete for attention, but we all just spoke when directly asked questions which left a lot of unfilled silence. It was really comforting to see that everyone was demoralized and barely functioning in the interview, I expected to be the only one struggling to hold it together.
Ever get that feeling of dread that your life is totally empty and you're just wasting time until death?
Eli Sullivan
I actually felt way better about myself after the group interview, In a 1 on 1 interview I always feel like there's something wrong with me, everyone else being the same as me made me feel way more normal.
Hermit
A friend insisted I try Uber but it turns out my car is too old.
Landon Wilson
Super market jobs aren't gigs, they're treated as careers now.
No really I'd like to hear more, OP. Where is that supposed job at (downtown, suburbs, small town etc.) and what time of the day and outdoors weather conditions were present during the interview? I am merely asking this because I'd like to visualize the scene you were already starting to describe.
Mason Sanchez
Always. But maybe we can actually change to world for the better for the future generations somehow.
Guess that's true. But it's still depressing on a macro level that so many people now seem to suffer the same fate without it looking like to get any better.
James Bailey
I'm my own entrepreneur! With enough hard work and dedication, I'll develop the next big app and truly make it!
Asher Reyes
My life is totally empty, so yes.
Landon Hill
Not really surprising, the economy across the "west" is a lot shitty than the numbers would have you believe
Jaxon Young
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Owen Walker
Stop with the feels user, it hurts.
James Sanchez
My hometown, a small tourist town full of retirement villages, massive meth, youth unemployment and youth homelessness issues.
It was in the middle of the morning and it was completely overcast and grey, the temperature was pleasant but it was a little humid.
Cameron Lopez
What the fuck happened? Did porky just go into maximum overdrive a few decades ago?
Landon Campbell
Only if you suck my cock, and pledge 90% of profit to me Suck it
Look at that, pulled up by the bootstraps
Awww, thank you, now it's only mostly empty, and that helps a lot, looks like
You're a beautiful person who's above being alienated from your life, porky doesn't deserve you, remember that.
Jaxson Johnson
reagan/thatcher and the neoliberal revolution
Joseph Cook
Well, yes. Look up the rate of the profits the bourgeoise have been making and how much the average worker gets.
Glad I could make you feel a bit better. I'm not American and don't watch TV anymore but I was once at a friends and we vaped some weed and watched that show for a bit. My internal screaming must have been audible.
Carter Flores
Sounds like bit of an urban decay problem there. That coupled with a grey weather must have affected people's mood to a small extent. Did they call back?
aww you're too kind :ˇ) right back at ya!
I don't know, in my eurocountry it heavily depends on the location. In a small town, money you make from full time factory labor is so little you can barely sustain yourself, let alone other family members, but if you work in a big city factory full time doing manual labor, you could make the similar salary on par with school teachers and entry-level programmers.
Henry Morgan
Reminder that Peep Show is the greatest working explaining the two prevalent forms of alienation in modern society.
Hunter Howard
I had to watch it for economics class in high school, and it felt like having my hand stuck on a lit stove, it made it worse by the fact I could't say anything, and teacher occasionaly made comments like, "the system works" or "entrepeneurs drive the economy", "how long did he spend on that cuz it was stupid"
It used to be a fishing town, but as it became more touristy/retirement poorer renters got priced out. A lot of the houses are holiday houses, so most of the year they're empty while people are homeless.
Besides the meth, employment and homelessness problems it's completely fine, not run down at all except for 1 building that's falling apart in the middle of the CBD because the owners are too cheap to fix it.
Jeremiah Russell
Just general alienation: OR
Isaiah Gomez
How's the ocean, lake, pond, river look, user? I live in a midwest american small town, and I can't leave. All I have to look at is the horizon.
Alienation from our labor, our creations, our art, our lives.
Nathaniel Barnes
We're all going to make it, user!
Man, this just sounds fucking horrible.
Ian Rogers
The lake is a cesspool, locals cringe when they see tourists swim in it. The creeks which my parents used to swim in are now polluted and overgrown. The ocean is beautiful, the beaches are great, you can find spots which are absolutely stunning and just inconvenient enough that they aren't flooded with tourists. It's a really picturesque area.
And yeah, that's a better definition of alienation than the one I copied off google.
Jaxon Ward
I find Shark Tank to be the most realistic depiction of capitalism behind The Founder that I wonder how it keeps getting made. Framing that capitalism requires having to sacrifice part of your dream to cruel and selfish gods in order to succeed seems like it will back fire in the long term.
Thomas Williams
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Jason Campbell
Mostly because it's truthish that it's good propaganda, it's realistic in that it's terrible, but capitalism so entrentched in the american psyche that it is near impossible to imagine anything outside of it. So the next best choice is to sacrifice your dream on the alter of capital, which gives bourgie more profits, or be so crushed by the message that you become an obedient prole, which ends with more profits, all the while bourgie can make more money off of adds and cable subscriptions, all while just doing what they already do and filming it.
Julian Flores
To be fair, it's not only entrenched in the American psyche but the global one.
Bentley Hughes
Truth trips
Lincoln Bell
We're doomed. Capitalism will reign forever.
Levi Adams
Ugh. WTH am i supposed to say to that? I have basically my first real job interview next week and i cant give the honest answer.
That my dream job is guillotine repairman.
Robert Anderson
You're only adding to the problem with that attitude. People once believed in the absolute power of monarchs and couldn't imagine a world without them. There is hope for the future, user.
Liam Hall
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Isaac Peterson
good for you tbh
Kayden Campbell
Reminder that you are useless if you don't make me money for half of your time awake.
Mason Adams
Anyone much happier with their alienation now that left theory is in their lives? Knowing there is an alternative, just a little bit of hope, gives me zeal, college at least gives me some time to read theory before I die in the American Fascist coup led by 8/pol/ terrorists. I'd gladly die as cannon fodder now, since there's a cause worth being a martyr for.
Adam Ramirez
I had a boss who was like this, he thought labor laws were discriminatory against bosses and were essentially racism. My immediate thought was "Holy shit this must be what it's like to be a black person and heresomeone ask why there isn't a white history month." I was a sargonite liberal before that moment, I've never turned back, capitalism is just as regressive and shitty as monarchy.
Adrian Evans
Luckily, I work in a big factory so the boss is a faceless corp, and the people that they send to deal with us are middle managers who also hate their lives, or inspectors who don't say anything.
This is why I think working under a small business, like a landscaping firm fully illuminates the class dynamics between the bouj and the prole. The bouj is around you and he believes you're his friend somehow if you come to work everyday, yet he still expects you to bring a card for him on bosses' day.
Austin Gomez
You and me both, famrade. Despite pursuing one of the most classcucked majors currently available (CompSci), all I've really ever wanted is to help people. Now that I understand why terrible things happen, I'm much happier and more confident knowing where to direct my anger.
Bentley Harris
Had an interview myself yesterday. Haven't been able to get a job since finishing university. Sucks.
Parker Hill
What'd you interview for fam?
Lincoln Ross
Promise me user, you must use compsci for good. Do it for our holy martyr Salvador Allende if Paul Cockshott does not inspire you.
Dominic Flores
What, you mean it's not a default, autonomous function, like interior monologue and breathing?
But yeah, I just want to be useful, but the only cause worth pursuing will probably be comatose for our entir lives. We're kind of just there, in a bind, like a plane without wings or something.
Rate of profit tends to fall, ergo rate of exploitation tends to rise. Aside from capitalism's own crises, I'm fairly sure only externalities (i.e. new laws, war, opening of new markets, worker agitation etc.) can revert those trends, and temporarily, of course. There's a million such factors that could be used, but with socialism dead and social control refined almost to a science, Porky has his this shit locked down tight. So we're just kinda waiting for one of capitalism's recurring and inevitable crises to open up an opportunity, I suppose.
Explain please.
I dunno m8, yes that thing is horrible, but sacrificing part of your dreams is an inevitable part of life regardless. It's one of those human experiences that everyone has to come to grips with sooner or later.
Adrian Cox
Maybe it's because I've always been in the left, but it really provides no comfort to me. Sure, I think I now know why the world is the hellhole it is and how it could be improved, but at the same time, I now also know there's nothing I can do towards that. Maybe if I wasn't aware of the "why", I wouldn't feel this angst because hey it's just the world the way is and there's nothing to be done so no reason to fret. Then again, maybe I would fret even I thought there was no solution anyway because it's in my character.
I feel like this post has been utterly pointless.
Jaxson Smith
Well, communist movement suffered a heavy blow, most left-wing organisations dissolved. Porky started gaining little by little, until they felt untouchable and able to achieve a FULLY EXPLOITED SADISTIC GRIMDARK CAPITALISM
My dad unironically liked Shark Tank And I mean the *Canadian* version of the show where they had a literal human incarnation of the porky meme insulting people Gordon Ramsay-style
It's 21st century gladiatorial combat. People that aren't class conscious enjoy seeing inferiors ripped apart by supposed superiors
Julian White
...
Dominic Jenkins
Oh I don't know, finding a home and settling down, maybe working my way up to supervisor. Definitely not anything like personally manning a guillotine during a nationwide revolution, no sir nothing of the sort hahaha
Joshua Phillips
ideology is so much more powerful than either love of fellow humans, and marxist social and economic theory.
people exploit their own children and families and neighbours and friends in small businesses. we can never expect empathy to people they don't even know.
humans were a mistake.
Evan Reed
to one up that I was in a 4th year seminar on precarious work and about half the class thought 'shark tank' and 'entrepreneurship, you know like donald trump' were the only solutions. I few of us argued for socialism
Jack Gonzalez
Why do you enjoy other peoples misery? Does it make you feel better?
Gabriel Roberts
Can't speak for him, but knowing, that you aren't the only one who is just so destroyed, and empty feeling because of debasing yourself for porky, During interviews, you generally need to seem enthusiastic, and ready for the job, and they use a lack of this to not hire you, If nobody gives a shit about that, then porky can't use that to not hire you, and you don't feel so broken, because we're indoctrinated with a strive and succeed, be happy to get a job mentality, it's easy to blame yourself for your alienation, but knowing you're not alone is always helpful.
Isaiah Bell
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Sebastian Sullivan
It liberates you from guilt, because it proves it's not you, it's the world. You're not broken as a human being, it's other humans who are pushing down on you.
Hunter Gutierrez
nah man. I find that when we're cut off from the spectacle we regain our humanist footing pretty quickly. i'm not going to excommunicate my dad because he's still stuck in liberal thought patterns
Joshua Phillips
modern capitalist ideology is terrifying. society tells people they can achieve anything they want in life, thus giving them incentive to sell their time and bodies. if they fail to achieve their goals, society tells them that they simply aren't working hard enough, aren't sacrificing enough, etc, and the cycle starts over.
