Friday, September 23, 2005
WHAT IS YOUR WORK WORTH
Over the past few days there has been an ongoing conversation on this blog and at Telecasting.blogspot.com (My partner in crime, Chris Pace). Basically Tony Alva, Chris and I have engaged in that foolhardy pursuit - solving the worlds problems.
Chris nailed the crux of this particular biscuit when he talked about how in our economic driven society all equations come down to the same denominator - a person's worth. This is what I call the Caddyshack Syndrome.
As you may recall, Danny wants to go to college, but his parents have procreated away any chance of helping him do so. Danny decides to spend the summer as a caddy sucking up to Judge Smaels (brilliantly performed by the late Ted Knight, which exemplifies further the point that the world is indeed not 'fair', because in a 'fair' world Ted would have received at least an Oscar nomination for his efforts).
When Danny finally summons the courage to broach the subject of how he would like to go to college, but can't afford it, with the Judge, Smeals replies: "The world needs ditch diggers too, Danny."
Indeed the world does need ditch diggers. Have you ever dug a ditch? It sucks. We're talking back breaking, sweaty even in winter, bone weary work. Ditch diggers do not make very much money. Cotton pickers make less. Cotton picking is THE worst job EVER. Your fingers bleed, your back breaks from bending over all day; it sucks real hard.
At the same time, Levi's, a corporation that uses a metric shit-ton of cotton daily has a fleet of executives who get paid seven figures to take four months of vacation every year, lunch for hours at a time, and when they do show up at work, they sit in a cushy window office and do squat while their lower paid assistants do all the work that they, the execs, take credit for.
It's a unbalanced equation from hell, but it is our world. It always has been, and always will be. It's how we do, as it is currently popular to say.
Over the past few days there has been an ongoing conversation on this blog and at Telecasting.blogspot.com (My partner in crime, Chris Pace). Basically Tony Alva, Chris and I have engaged in that foolhardy pursuit - solving the worlds problems.
Chris nailed the crux of this particular biscuit when he talked about how in our economic driven society all equations come down to the same denominator - a person's worth. This is what I call the Caddyshack Syndrome.
As you may recall, Danny wants to go to college, but his parents have procreated away any chance of helping him do so. Danny decides to spend the summer as a caddy sucking up to Judge Smaels (brilliantly performed by the late Ted Knight, which exemplifies further the point that the world is indeed not 'fair', because in a 'fair' world Ted would have received at least an Oscar nomination for his efforts).
When Danny finally summons the courage to broach the subject of how he would like to go to college, but can't afford it, with the Judge, Smeals replies: "The world needs ditch diggers too, Danny."
Indeed the world does need ditch diggers. Have you ever dug a ditch? It sucks. We're talking back breaking, sweaty even in winter, bone weary work. Ditch diggers do not make very much money. Cotton pickers make less. Cotton picking is THE worst job EVER. Your fingers bleed, your back breaks from bending over all day; it sucks real hard.
At the same time, Levi's, a corporation that uses a metric shit-ton of cotton daily has a fleet of executives who get paid seven figures to take four months of vacation every year, lunch for hours at a time, and when they do show up at work, they sit in a cushy window office and do squat while their lower paid assistants do all the work that they, the execs, take credit for.
It's a unbalanced equation from hell, but it is our world. It always has been, and always will be. It's how we do, as it is currently popular to say.
Comments:
"...So I said, hey Lama, maybe a little something for the effort here and he said, 'In the next world you will achieve total enlightement'. So I got that going for me".
# posted by 
: 12:15 PM
: 12:15 PM
I would take it, put my own salary cap in place, and actually try to help some other people out.
I hate these discussions. They show too much of human nature, which is ultimately "take what you can and more if you can get away with it."
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I hate these discussions. They show too much of human nature, which is ultimately "take what you can and more if you can get away with it."
