The Optimism Delusion: is alternative possible?
My bubble has burst. I've quit another job. And it's leaving me asking a question I suspect some of you have already pondered: is the dream of an alterative to being a cog in the increasingly vicious capitalist wheel a mere illusion? Can we as courageous and imaginative and talented individuals really take on the system or create a new one? Is optimism a delusion? Have the others had it right all this time?
The fancy hotel, with the New York-style cocktail bar and on-trend tapas menu in the white linen-laid restaurant was a glamorous setting for all I won't settle for: greed, dishonesty and exploitation in a systemised way.
Whilst I will leave space for others to denounce my naivety, lack of sticking power and inability to negotiate the corporate world (for the fancy hotel is part of a group of fancy hotels, with a marketing team somewhere hundreds of miles away, and an impressive and no-doubt expesive HR portal where I must in my free time complete training modules to cover the company i the evet I make a mistake), I am skipping the self-flagellation stage.
It makes no logical sense to give up a high-paid job in which I felt exploited, to work in a low-paid job in which I feel exploited. It serves no good purpose to suffer personally simply to increase profits for faceless owners who do not know my name. The karma of assuring guests that of course I will receive the service charge when I will not receive the service charge is dangerous.
Whilst the details don't matter, my experience was of:
Deliberate understaffing (three staff where five are needed, or often, one person ruing etire front of house in a 150-cover bar and restaurant) that left staff metally and phsyically shattered, constatly apologetic to customers for the delays.
A promised promotion that I took on, only never to get the pay rise or paperwork, just the extra work.
My entire holiday allowance split into hours and allocated on days I was already working, ensuring I got no time off.
Sparkling wine sold as Prosecco.
Homemade cakes for afternoon tea the same industrially produced and additive-pumped confections the last two hotels I worked in served.
Service charges that weren't passed on fully to staff.
Contractual perks that never materialised.
Minimum wages for all staff even as our bar prices exceeded those of local alternatives by 50%.
Breaks auto deducted from wage packets, though rarely taken.
Early shifts followed by late ones leaving staff drained and unregulated.
Days off intetionally assiged non-consecutively, for the same reason.
And through it all, not just smiling, but remembering every little detail of guest preferences and exuding an ease and joy in being there that began to feel like a performance.
I am guilty as sin of one thing: glamourising the low-paid job as essentially a escape from the more brutal aspects of late capitalist employment practice. Let's add to that: minimising the psychological impact of being treated as disposable on a daily basis, simplifying the complexity of moving from management to a role without influence, denying the world of my truth my redering myself voiceless.
There is one power the minimum wage worker has: to find another minimum wage job in a matter of days. And hope.
Is it time for me to stop hoping?
I'll try to answer that later in this piece. I present now a blog within a blog...written with my old certainty and confidence, which today eludes me. Let's call this: