The worker as tool.

My wife Alison wrote:

I have to be honest here. I do not greet people, smile and act friendly because I want to. I do it because it’s my job.

The honest part here is that it’s not me. I’m not really being the one who is friendly. Target is. That’s just how I feel.

No, I don’t hate them at all. I just don’t like them for real. And why should I? Normal people don’t genuinely like people they don’t know. So, you could say you “Target like them” or you “church like them,” like Rod and Todd say on the Simpsons.

So, when people are being friendly/aka doing their job well, you’re playing “Merchant and Customer.” But we’re really not all merchants, though, are we?

(That’s why I like the idea of collective-run companies, where the “associates” actually own parts of the company, and some–believe me–some of these companies they are all co-managers–for example the Erzgebirge wood toy collectives in Germany, which have been going on since the war). And in that case, you have a vested interest in knowing and being friends with people who patronize your business. It’s more of a win-win situation. Heck, even a little stock option that goes beyond a 401 K helps, a tiny bit.)

If you’re part of a big Corp, honesty has very little to do with it, and it becomes a condition of your mood–how well you play the game, or how full of spirit you are, how social you feel, or how well-conditioned-trained you are.

So, I don’t think it’s particularly “rude” on every customers’ part when they don’t respond in kind. It’s because it’s not natural. It’s like saying “you’re welcome” to one of those machines in Tokyo that’s always thanking you for patronizing him, whether “he’s” a door, or a bidet.

The game’s artifical, and I fully acknowledge it. I say “Yahtzee” because that’s what you say when you play the game. I don’t care how people feel about the game, whether it’s a good, wonderful thing, or a sad, empty thing–it’s still a game. You choose to play, and there are rational reasons on both sides whether or not to participate.

I do speak only for myself, and my husband (yeah, he’d agree, and we’d talk for two hours about it and write blog entries about it). We both work for big corps, and we’ve both worked for non-profits and other kinds of companies, and sometimes, it’s better for one’s sanity and happiness to just accept reality and not have to be confused about why people don’t react honestly, as themselves, in a, well, sort of a Disneyworld.

I think Alison really gets to the core of an important issue here. From an economic standpoint, in the capitalist corporation the worker is a tool on the same level as a wrench, a cash register, or an electric lift. The only difference is that the worker needs to be paid. But by contract the worker surrenders his part of responsibility in the act of production in exchange for that wage, meaning he is a mere tool in the act of production just like a wrench, a cash register, or an electric lift. The worker has no more decision-making power or rights to his production than a tool.

Being essentially tools with a wage, is it surprising if other people see us the same way? There is absolutely no authenticity in the capitalist work process, and everyone knows it.