Punks at work

I work for a big health insurance company in the U$A, a Fortune 500 company, the kind that take tax payer money in exchange for providing a shitty level of care for members, and pocketing huge profits.

I went to college studied, Computer Science, I have a Bachelors in it, my idea was that I would stay in academia as long as I could. For a few reasons that never worked out, I was unemployed for 8 months after I graduated college and got by repairing computers for cash (enough to get to a few shows a month, pay big telco for internet, and food) I am still living with my parents at age 25. Shit was ok, until my parents threatened to kick me out unless I started paying rent. I have 0 friends so I had to get a job out of fear of ending up on the street. I ended up at a this company now, programming systems that review claims and short change people in legal but morally shady ways. I am not complaining about pay, I live comfortably enough (although still with my parents), I have enough money cause I don't spend much.

I don't dress or look like a punk, people probably think I act and look a nerd, so I never had any problems with people turning me down at interviews cause of appearance. Anyway working sucks, these people are like leeches they call me up at all hours of the day, on break, weekends, etc, cause they all have families and are scared of losing their jobs if something goes wrong. They use expressions like "we're under the gun", it makes me sick, i would quit but fear keeps me in the job. The worst thing is I can't relate to the people I work with at a social level, they are of a different age (i am the youngest person in my building), a different mindset.

I am looking for some earn a living, I am not really interested in computer science anymore, the realization that this subject is mostly about replacing humans to increase profit$ has killed it. I have no idea where to start, I've started reading books about jobs available but they mostly oriented towards people who don't care if they are complicit in wrong doing, or ignorant of it. I am ok with manual labor, but the pay is never a living wage. I am not creative enough to do something on my own. Sometimes having a conscience just leads to depression.

 

I dunno, man, builders often earn a fair amount as do refuse collectors (in the UK at least, dunno about in america), definitely far above the minimum wage.

 

Yeh, but I need to find something that really motivates me otherwise I just get bored too fast, also I'm pretty useless at web design/graphics but I can get most the other nuts and bolts done without much fuss.

 

Put that volunteer shit on your CV. Just write where you worked and what you did (including it was for free, I guess). If you know someone at the various places, so much the better - use them as a reference. If everyone you knew has moved on, no worries, at least there are no conspicuous absences on your CV. Best way to get a job is normally through someone you know. I mean, you can try the job centre but they've never done shit for me. If no joy, do some more free work that might get you in the right direction, got to be better than doing nothing?

Good luck, man. Not a good time to be unemployed in the UK...

 

It is on my CV, though admittedly its a recent addition. Also, you're fucking right about the jobcentre. They've just put me on stage 4 which means I've been unemployed so long that I MUST be really lazy. Now they find me interviews (which I have no trouble getting anyway) and penalize me if I don't go for them, regardless of how irrelevant and inconvenient the jobs actually are for me.

 

I don't know if someone's already said this, I haven't read over this thread in a while, but why not start your own business? I've got a bunch of friends, though mostly older punks, who've been able to make a living off self-owned businesses. Two guys I know have been running an independent record store, called Orange Monkey, with an awesome punk section for almost 17 years now, and a a couple people from a local punk band called The Rotten have been running a screenprinting business for a couple years, and doing fairly well at it as well.

 

I've been thinking I should get a screen printer (when I can afford it) and sell t-shirts/patches to keep me going...I'd probably also do up some tye-dye shirts and sell those as well

 

The two jobs in the antelope valley that are always hiring with bomb-ass pay and benefits are Lockheed-Martin and Northrup-Grummand (sp?). The kicker is, you'd have to choose between building parts for bomber planes (Lockheed) or building parts for tanks and missles (northrup). We are right by Edwards AFB...there's a large military presence here. I chose to ultimately keep my benefit-less minimum wage existence, and even move across the country (Florida in 3 days!) to work in a warehouse to avoid contributing to the american warmachine. Always stick to your principles, even when certain people are putting severe pressure on you to "grow up" and drink the kool-aid.

I need to get my ass back in school and get some real skills.

 

Screenprinting is fun, I did it a little in high school. I'd buy patches from you.

 

I would just like to add that I'm a vegan, and the job I just got consists of cutting meat and cheese for people all day. The irony right? Oh well, a jobs a job, and I can deal with it, except for impaling full chickens then putting them in the oven. It makes me feel like a fucking monster.

 

Re: good jobs for anarchist?

How about working in a position on an upper hierarchy, like working as a manager or supervisor of a restaurant? Is it against anarchism in itself?

 

Re: good jobs for anarchist?

try it and see how you survive the training you get from your company before they let you have your turn in upper hierarchy - i never done it myself but i know quite a number of people who made their "long march through the institutions" - and finally gave up after realizing that they were almost brainwashed to be able to take the next step towards "real responsibility"...
giving your personal style to dress and how to wear your hair might be a minor problem - but it's only the first step to create "success" and it won't be the last...
do something to earn your living, something that doesn't wears you out or turns you into something you won't recognize in the mirror some day - social work is fine, but it won't change a thing, so many social workers get burned out, but maybe it's a good way to learn to deal with people and get a deeper insight whats wrong with capitalism in real life.

 

Re: good jobs for anarchist?

But isn't it a contradiction to anarchy in principal?

 

Re: good jobs for anarchist?

i dunno, because i think it's not possible at all - given that someone who is more or less an anarchist has a certain mindset, one that doesn't makes him a complete and utterly deformed slave character accepting the slavers chain as soon as his personal one is a bit longer than others. some time ago a comrade and i planned to write an essay about "the culture of authority" - taking notorious culprits from the military, the political system and the capitalist economy.
most famous examples were some of the german "apo"-revolutionaries, at the end of the sixties many of them decided to "change the system from within". i guess it was kinda noble idealism because something similiar hasn't been tried before, breaking into economy and politics, reaching positions of power and using them for the cause - but it failed badly, and sometimes it even made the system even more adaptable and resilent against change.
i think part of it was the systems means of self-defence, this almost brainwashing corrupting of people step by step, pulling them into socalled practical constraints, waking up some unhealthy personal traits - at the end you always had a pitiful hypocrite adding his/her life lies to the gobbledigooks of the liberal media discussing the system faults... still promising betterments...
on the other side we had anarchists "leading" whole armies, collectives and movements - but authority is always difficult to deal with and these examples hardly fit into todays management job descriptions - it's a twosided thing and mostly it never ended very happy, just think of the spanish revolution that turned into a civil war with anarchists becoming ministers and generals of the republican state - what would have happened if they had won the war? we'll never know.

 

Re: good jobs for anarchist?

I just got a new job as a vegan/ vegetarian chef in a little small buiness resturaunt/ cafe. Stoked.

 

Isn;t that a position of a hierarchy? I'm just curious.

 

Re: good jobs for anarchist?

Well, does this mean that, anarchists in real life are always at the the most bottom part of the hierarchy of the workplace, and will always reject any offer of moving up in a hierarchy of a workplace? I'm just curious about how is it for an anarchists to be consistent in his/her principle in the real present world. If you do gain a position in an upper hierarchy in the real present world, how do you justify oneself being an anarchist and being in a position of an upper hierarchy?

 

i would say it depends what the job is - it may work with social or educational professions to climb up the hierarchy, but in business or industry? think of the growing esprit en corps in the economy, following leadership values and making up ridiculous theories about the right to decide for the strongest - and one has to prove to be strong first, not only in these weird "secret societies" they made up to spawn "the right spirit".

management training is gruesome, i heard some really strange things from courses one has to attent even at low-pay jobs like slaving for the evil clown, all about efficiency - but what about workers rights or care for the individual employee and his/her problems? if your not strong enough to support effiency and profit, how much of a career you will make? but you can always try out - i wouldn't see it only black and white in general and i guess you'll never get a serious answer to the question "how it is for an anarchist to"... you can get opinions, but no strict rules.

first point for every one is to earn a living - the next serious point everybody has to decide for him/herself: how far to go? personally i would have tried to make something out of my certificate for biology and music and work as a teacher - but activism and trouble with the authorities won't let me in germany and france - now i work as a carpenter in a almost non-hierarchical collective, the only authority is professional knowledge and ability, so i have to follow instructions of my comrades who are more experienced or knowledgeable, but we all get the same payment for the same number of hours, noone has the right to fire somebody and decicisions are discussed beforehand - not quite anarchist, but fine with me.

 

Re: good jobs for anarchist?

So Nike's CEO can be an anarchist?