i don't live in the margins, i am the margin.
every day, hundreds of people i've never met spend money betting that i will show up to work and make a profit for them. every day, myself and hundreds if not thousands just like me report to work across the nation and work hard enough to bring enough money in return for our own marginally live-able wages to make sure the corporation, that incorporated group of faceless, nameless shareholders, succeeds in producing a fraction of a percentage more in return for their sizable gamblings.
they're betting that not only will i do my job, but i'll do it again tomorrow. that even if somehow i don't show, someone else will to take my place, someone equally in need of that marginal hourly rate that probably won't put them ahead but just might keep them going from paycheck to paycheck.
and somewhere even deeper within this margin is that statistical anomaly that says the odds of me and all my fellow minions have that one chance in a million millions that we will all decide not to show up all on the same day. think of it, a corporation without employees. no one to sweep floors or run cash registers or direct customers to bathrooms or our adequate selection of imported drink coasters. no, probably less than one in a trillion trillions says there is no chance we will all just decide to call in, all on the same day. somehow, on a fluke, us thousands of workers for that one same multi-national corporation won't just say, "well, you know, we got the flu", or "something came up, i can't come in."
no strike, no advance warning, we just didn't feel like working today.
think of the stock dive. think of the panic, the sleepless nights. somewhere, someone else telling them that, you know, a company whose workers don't want to show up has substantially less market value. the retirement monies vested, the corporate creditors calling, saying "how are you going to pay your bills if your workers don't show?"
i live here. every day.
in this fraction of power, this feeling that says someone somewhere is expecting me to be there to show them the benefits of a specific dining set with 4 side chairs and a bench.
and i know i'm no god, but i'm god enough for me.
-s h
every day, hundreds of people i've never met spend money betting that i will show up to work and make a profit for them. every day, myself and hundreds if not thousands just like me report to work across the nation and work hard enough to bring enough money in return for our own marginally live-able wages to make sure the corporation, that incorporated group of faceless, nameless shareholders, succeeds in producing a fraction of a percentage more in return for their sizable gamblings.
they're betting that not only will i do my job, but i'll do it again tomorrow. that even if somehow i don't show, someone else will to take my place, someone equally in need of that marginal hourly rate that probably won't put them ahead but just might keep them going from paycheck to paycheck.
and somewhere even deeper within this margin is that statistical anomaly that says the odds of me and all my fellow minions have that one chance in a million millions that we will all decide not to show up all on the same day. think of it, a corporation without employees. no one to sweep floors or run cash registers or direct customers to bathrooms or our adequate selection of imported drink coasters. no, probably less than one in a trillion trillions says there is no chance we will all just decide to call in, all on the same day. somehow, on a fluke, us thousands of workers for that one same multi-national corporation won't just say, "well, you know, we got the flu", or "something came up, i can't come in."
no strike, no advance warning, we just didn't feel like working today.
think of the stock dive. think of the panic, the sleepless nights. somewhere, someone else telling them that, you know, a company whose workers don't want to show up has substantially less market value. the retirement monies vested, the corporate creditors calling, saying "how are you going to pay your bills if your workers don't show?"
i live here. every day.
in this fraction of power, this feeling that says someone somewhere is expecting me to be there to show them the benefits of a specific dining set with 4 side chairs and a bench.
and i know i'm no god, but i'm god enough for me.
-s h