Hey Stupid

I only work because I am too stupid to figure out a way not to. The truly smart manage to extract the necessities of their lifestyle without the degrading act of turning up for work. Some drive nice cars and live in big houses while others scratch an existence from their societies social security framework. This implies two things, if you are really smart you can figure out a way to extract a lot of cash out of the system with little effort or if you just smart enough you tailor your need to what society will give you without working for it. Hmm, sort of the same really.

There is also a lesser class who managed to gain employment but do not perform any useful function. The high priests of this class are select government or corporate bureaucrats and the like. The sort who actually create a kind of negative work. The destroyers of wealth. I guess litigation lawyers would also fall into this class. The sort of people who can go from year to year without having actually created something tangible. I really want to go into a rant about what wealth creation is but I will contain it.

Other mugs, such as myself, toil away to produce the wealth that supports the ones that have reached escape velocity. I have nothing against them except maybe a bit of envy. For a few short weeks a year I experience what it is like. This only makes it worse.

I am part of that large group that finds work interferes with our desired lifestyle and interests. The frustrated novelist, painter, carpenter, surfer, fisherman, adventurer, jeweller, preacher…..the list is never ending. We who reject our true calling in return for the cash to meet our desire for security and material wealth.

A few lucky people do have jobs that are so well suited to their personal needs and talents that they would do them even if they weren’t paid – mainly artists, writers and musicians – well, mainly, they don’t get paid and fall into smart group mentioned above.

There is another whole sad group of people who actually enjoy working on other peoples stuff. The sort that get in early, go home late, never take leave and are eager to get back to it after being forced to take time off. These are sad sad individuals. Obviously they have one of two things wrong with them, either they have no imagination or they are just ill. Like myself these are the sort that will keep on working until it is to late to stop.

Then there are those that must work to survive. Those who find themselves in a society where starvation is assured with out working sixty hours a week at the Nike factory or coffee plantation. These are the real wealth creators in the world. The rest of us are just amateurs. These are the people (including children) that allow us westerners to buy tens of thousands of hours of labour for our couple of thousand hours of our own. Haven’t you ever marvelled at how cheap things have become. Guess why.

In these countries investment in automation never happened because the labour is so cheap – you want a big hole, just hire 20 labourers for a few dollars. Why spend money on an excavator. The boot strap process that happened in the west with unionised labour and stronger working class influence on government never occurred in these places. While the west has nice diamond shaped societies (few rich, lots of middle and few poor) these countries have a very flat pyramid society with a stick pocking out of the top.

So we have the lucky leisure class (rich or poor), the happy-joy worker (rich or poor), the negative work creator, the automaton workaholic, the reluctant slave (me) and the true slaves. There are also the starving/near starving hoards that make up the other two billion souls on the planet but I don’t like to think about them too much.

I wonder if I could get government or corporate sponsored for a support group for my fellow stupid workers? Now there is a stupid idea.