In life, I have found, when someone has power, it's not necessarily a thing to honor or make them feel better about, it just means they get to do less. At work, I have found that a position of power gives you more sit-around-and-do-nothing time than any of the basic employees ever get. At work, we have a standard caste system, though not as harsh as Hinduism, it still stands strong.
You start off with a basic peon: minimum wage, and a basic shirt, I myself am one of these. Peons are usually around 15 to 18 years old, seeing as in the modern world, where everyone goes to college, being a peon at age 26 is rather pitiful, most "grown ups" tend to stay away from this position like the plague. But I really have nothing against the older peons I work with, they're a lot of fun, really. We (most usually) take orders from the promoted peons (AKA crew leaders) , who get paid more and wear striped shirts.
These promoted peons are usually the same age group as the normal peons, but you have to be at least 16. I used to think that you had to work a certain amount of time in order to get promoted to this level of inefficiency, but this was proven wrong to me various times when people who have been working less time than me, who have less experience than me and know less than me have been promoted for no apparent reason. But the truth is... the reason was apparent, in what I like to call the fourth level of inefficiency, which is second to the highest level, but we'll get to that later.
First, there is the matter of the third level of inefficiency. At this level, you get to wear whatever the hell shirt you want, sometimes the person holding this position where I work will even wear the lower peon clothes (I guess it's some kind of commie-turned-dictatorship thing where like.. the dictator acts like one of the lesser people). The third level of inefficiency (AKA assistant manager) is the first level with only one tenant. I find that I really don't know anything about the guy who has this position where I work, I guess it's because he usually works day shift. All I know is that he interviewed me. But I find I usually see him doing something with money, like counting it and sorting it. He's a really nice guy though, and he's been working in the same place for about 8 years now, he's twenty-something, and gets paid slightly more than anyone lower than him. Usually this person, when I see him working (summer and other various vacations), sits around fixing orders that the fourth level person has given. Funny Note: On his birthday, which was on a very busy Saturday, he randomly popped in and out of the store, fixed everything (because we were really really behind) and left. He did this about 2 or 3 times. Lately, I've been seeing a whole lot of this person, because the fourth level person is leaving, and he's going to take over her position. Oh yeah, I think he also does the schedule, because he's usually the one who yells at me for taking too many days off, or someone sent by him yells at me.
Level four (AKA manager), the dream job of everyone. White collar shirt, with a colorful tie, a steady work week, with steady pay, with just one catch... you can't have a fully functioning brain to hold this position, if you are found disobeying this, you will be shot, killed (incase you're bullet proof), stuffed, tagged, and sold at a hobby shop. At this prime and prideful position, you get the mastered yelling proficiency, which lets you yell 3 times a round, and lowers your THAC0 and AC to -5, at the cost of your brain, of course, so you never really know what you're yelling about, who you're yelling at, why you woke up in the morning, and why your head hurts so much. You are also prone to back aches, and at least one of every three yells must be used to whine and/or complain about something no one cares about, but everyone will do their hardest to pretend they care. Really. I'm sure you get the drift of this position. The current age of the nice old lady who holds this position is forty-something, but you would never guess judging by her actions, you'd think she's at least 80. She is the one who is usually most in charge of everything and everyone, though no one really knows why. She tells level two (the promoted peon, in case your attention span is wearing thin by this point) what a good job they're doing, and yells at level one (peon) to do a better job, and why arn't you more like level two?, you'll never get promoted doing it that way, you should be standing on your head while serving lemonade, that's too much ice cream, let me eat the excess, why are your drawers empty?, stand up straight, don't lean on the counter, wash your hands after fixing your hat, and NEVER NEVER NEVER put your hands in your pockets, etc... Everything she says gets ignored, or you just ask level three what the hell she meant by that, or if three isn't around, two is a good replacement. As I'm hoping you realize, the amount of work done as you digress up the levels of inefficiency goes down significantly with each pay raise, with one responsibility added, two taken away, and the power to tell someone lower than you to do something you're supposed to do heightened.
Level five (ownership, or in my workplace's case, operator) does nothing. He complains about how we never make any money, and takes too long to get things fixed, but he's the man we all look up to, for some odd reason. All I know is that he listens to good music, except Creed of course, Creed sucks.
So.. I hope you now realize my view on how the more power you have, the less you have to do in life. If this didn't explain it to you, and you just got a nice description of my workplace, fuck off, you shouldn'ta been here anyways.
Continuation - 8/1/01
So I was talking to my mom today about this whole thing I wrote, and we realize it needed something else to be pointed out, so here goes...
Level one, in case you havn't noticed, is the true under appreciated, overworked, underpaid, working class that so many anti-capitalists (Propagandhi, Bad Religion, my brother) are fighting for. Me and my mom realized that the only way to truly function well and to be efficient in every need is if you cancel out levels two through four, start your own damn business, and be your own peon. Basically, be level one and five, and maybe eventually hire someone to help you out, but you can never stop being a peon, otherwise you end up having a workplace like me. NOT GOOD! BAD! EVIL! Ahem...
