Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations 275, 276

I once worked as a telemarketer, and it is an occupation so soul-numbing that it is hard to imagine that anything could make it worse.
Confessions of a Phone Solicitor
By Gail Collins
New York Times
Published: October 22, 2008







And your uncle who cheered at the end of Easy Rider? He insists that if he had to obliterate 40 years of his life punching a clock, why should you goddamn hippies have it any better?

This brand of puritanism has gained traction among the gullible masses, including those I count as friends. Around the same time I got fired from a start-up in Herndon—the second of my three stints—a wave of layoffs claimed several in my circle. Most of them stayed on unemployment for only a few scant weeks before getting another shit job they immediately began bitching about. When I asked why, they muttered various reasons like “not wanting to be on welfare” or “wanting to work for a living.” One even fretted about “what her parents would think.”

Given a choice between getting a check every week for doing nothing and getting a check every week for flushing 40 hours of the prime of their lives down the toilet, they chose the latter. I mean, what kind of self-hating, masochistic Protestant bullshit is that?
In defense of creative loafing
By Franklin Schneider
Washington City Paper
Posted: March 5, 2008
(thanks to Brian Dean)