Breaking Up With Capitalism

Fuck Your Boss (Figuratively)

I’m pretty confident we’ve ALL been here - calling in sick to work and feeling even worse because, on top of the flu or sickness bug we’ve been plagued with, we also have to live with the guilt of knowing we’ve let our workplace down…

…BY BEING UNWELL?!

And that’s usually either due to the manager treating us like we’ve just lit their house on fire, or the fact that our workplaces reward people who don’t take any sick days and punish those who do.

The main issue I have with this is that we’re LITERALLY human beings. We get sick. We work CONSTANTLY. We work to live, and, in turn, we end up living to work.

By the time we get home in the evenings, we don’t feel up to seeing our friends or hanging out with our families because we’re exhausted. We only make enough money to pay our rent, and we consider going out and doing things on the weekend a ‘treat.’ Even weekends are tiring and often end up being rest periods before preparing to head back to work on Monday morning.

We live in a constant cycle of work → rest → yearn for a better life → work → rest → yearn → work → and the cycle continues.

Before temporarily heading to Greece, I managed a busy, NHS and private 5-surgery dental practice. And though I loved it (mainly cos my team were amazing), the stress was unbearable towards the end. Not just because of the fact that I was working long hours and had to be available for staff absences and other work-related tasks outside of my normal working hours, but because the culture was so money-centred that the obvious pay gap sucked the life out of me.

We didn’t have a staff room to eat lunch in because our boss wanted an extra surgery to make more money. My office was glass so I could be monitored, which meant that if staff needed to vent, they had to whisper and hold back tears to avoid patients seeing them struggle. Everything we did was about bringing in money for the business - money that the staff never saw.

My role as a manager at this practice helped me realise that it’s almost impossible to achieve equality in capitalism. Not only is it a system built for the patriarchy, meaning the gender pay gap and work inequality are still extremely prominent (even with women having entered the workforce fucking ages ago), but it’s also built purely to make the rich richer. Capitalism only works when people are being exploited.

At the dental practice, I witnessed dentists coming overseas from India to make a better life for themselves in the UK, working tirelessly on low salaries and having their visas threatened every time they refused to work overtime for free. I comforted crying nurses, witnessed receptionists being yelled at, and experienced my own fair share of days feeling completely undervalued and worthless.

You have to question why you feel guilty for taking a day off when the boss hops out of his brand-new sports car to tell you he can’t offer a pay rise right now because money is tight.

This experience led me to the conclusion that we all need to open our eyes to the glaringly obvious truth: we are being manipulated by our bosses.

Capitalism is not built for the people; it’s built for the rich. Your boss will continue to get richer, and you will continue to struggle and beg them for validation. They’ll go on ten holidays a year, while you feel guilty for even requesting annual leave.

You taking a day off for your mental health or requesting a work-from-home day is NOT an example of you being a bad employee; it’s an example of a manipulative system in which you are forced to feel guilty for being a human being and not a robot.

Because this is what they want - they want you to be a robot, and that’s why stingy business owners are now replacing humans with AI. They save money on an employee who doesn’t complain or ask for breaks and annual leave. Their desire for lifeless robots isn’t new - that’s what they were trying to shape you into by stripping away your humanity and making you feel guilty for being anything other than a good little worker.

You were always the lifeless robot to them. They’ve now replaced you with the cheaper option.

Even after leaving this job with the knowledge that I didn’t want to partake in this anymore, I still found myself in a similar situation. I started a new job last month for a company I’ve been dreaming of working for. A small business owned by a woman my age whose ethics aligned with mine (or so I thought).

The job was advertised as a flexible freelance position – my understanding from the multiple interviews and daily calls during my training period was that I could work from anywhere and work as many hours as I wanted to, as long as the work got done. The only things I had to be available for were a few calls per week, which I was fine with. I agreed on the set monthly figure of £1500.

I had assumed, given the figure and the very clear wording, that this was flexible on hours, and that the rate had been decided based on a workload of around 15 hours per week, give or take, depending on the week. I very quickly realised, however, that this was not the case AT ALL.

Instead, I was given tight deadlines almost immediately, along with a hefty task list for each day, meaning I had to be available Monday-Friday. I had a lot of calls every weekday (way more than the amount advertised), and on top of all that, I had to reshape the business to reduce customer churn.

Straight away, I was working a minimum of 7 hours per day. Some days, due to the tasks that kept piling up and the overwhelming workload, I was working up to 12 hours into the night. Calls were as late as 10pm, and some in the coming weeks were booked in for 1am.

The fee I was being paid BEFORE TAX and WITHOUT ANNUAL LEAVE was £1500 per month. For at least 35-40 hours per week, I was being paid less than £9.80 per hour. For reference, the minimum wage in the UK is £12.21, and this is for employed staff with annual leave and benefits.

I quickly noticed that I was being exploited and lied to.

pls never let me ugly cry over capitalism again :(

I mentioned to my boss a few times during the first two weeks that the workload seemed fit for a full-time position and that I was monitoring my hours, and she reassured me that it was flexible and I could work whenever I wanted. She’d then give me another list of things that needed to be done that day. Even when working 7 hours a day, there were still tasks I couldn’t fit into my schedule.

After my second week was over, I decided to mention it to her once more and tell her that I would need to do a breakdown and discuss the hours and/or pay. She agreed, and I sent over a document explaining that I could either continue working for the set fee for the workload it pays me for, which is 15 hours a week, meaning the workload would need to be significantly reduced, or that she’d need to pay me a suitable retainer that was not less than minimum wage.

I also checked in with the previous person in my role, and they confirmed they were employed full-time and were severely underpaid. The workload hadn’t changed, but the wording in the job ad had. It was the same full-time position the previous person had been doing, but it had been given a flexible label to make it more desirable.

And after realising this and saying I wouldn’t work until we had worked this out, I felt guilty.

Why did I feel guilty?!

I was being exploited and working for less than minimum wage BEFORE TAX, and I felt guilty?

It was absolute bullshit. It IS absolute bullshit. And when she started saying that my asking for a ‘pay rise’ early on had ‘blindsided’ her, I had to leave. It wasn’t a pay rise. I had been misled and mistreated, and I asked for the payment for the work I was actually doing as opposed to the work that was advertised.

I was made to feel guilty because bosses with capitalist mindsets DO NOT CARE ABOUT US. They care about money.

This boss does not pay the people she involves in her business, she does not reward those who work for her or who volunteer for her, and she does not care about anything but making money and hoarding it for herself.

How dare she make me feel guilty?

I’ve once again had to learn my lesson, and I’m begging you to do the same. If you work for someone, do not feel guilty for calling in sick. Do not feel guilty for asking for a pay rise. Do not feel guilty for hating your job.

We have to decentre capitalism and stop valuing ourselves based on how good a worker we are. We are not built for this lifestyle, and it is not benefiting us.

Don’t be a fool for capitalism. Your boss does not care about you; they’re manipulating you.

P.S. If anyone wants to start a vegan lesbian commune, I’m there.

P.P.S. Next time you feel guilty, remember that we’re sharing this world with a literal TRILLIONAIRE. Fuck capitalism.

P.P.P.S. As you’re now aware from that fun little exploitation story, I am currently JOBLESS AGAIN. Lmao (cry). If you like my work, I’d really appreciate your support (no presh) <3