I work for a company. It does many things. I am in a supporting role at this company. It is my job to help communicate what the people at my company do. I have worked there for almost a decade.
Sometimes the projects I work on are unquestionably evil.
To be clear, I don’t actually believe in “evil” in the biblical sense, what I mean is, not good. Bad. Wrong. Morally objectionable. I’m an atheist, so I have my own version of morality that’s pretty simplistic: don’t do fucked up things to other people if you can help it. Live and let live.
There are at least two sides to every story and sometimes I am working for the wrong side. This doesn’t generally bother me because both sides need to be heard. Sometimes the wrong side is interesting. If I didn’t do this job, someone else would. Most of the people I work with are what I would consider good people. But the company is basically evil.
Ideally, I would like to do something good or even neutral as a career. What I do now is serious, sometimes morbid and a lot of times, it helps people I don’t believe deserve help.
I think people underestimate how difficult it is to change jobs. I am too practical to jump ship without somewhere else to earn money to live. Doesn’t seem wise. Finding a job is hard enough while employed, apparently. At least that has been my experience. I know employers discriminate against those who don’t already have a job and that is scary. It’s a ridiculous situation.
We hear a lot about unemployment but sometimes I wonder how many people are stuck in jobs they really don’t like for whatever reason. Or jobs that treat them poorly. Or jobs that don’t increase wages to keep up with cost of living increases, resulting in the employee effectively becoming poorer and poorer every year. We don’t seem to hear much about that.
Instead I hear that I should be grateful just to have a job. In a way, I get what they’re saying. Being homeless would definitely be much worse. But in another way it feels like being told to grovel at the feet of your corporate masters for the privilege of them deigning to employ you in the first place. Because you are replaceable. Never forget it.
Writing to Write 