Soapbox Time: The Value of An Hour

Have you noticed that corporate America is confused as to why it's having a problem filling open positions? I actually enjoy watching them flounder. The problem is that our society has taught us that "the job" is the end all/be all and it starts really early.  "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  "Keep those grades up or you'll not be able to get into a good college."  We were being groomed to enter into a contract with corporate America; a contract that is decidedly biased toward the corporation. 

What people are beginning to realize is that the job is a means to an end. The end all/be all is family. It's meaningful relationships. It's connections. It's quiet moments of peace. The end all/be all is actually living the hours of your life, which, sadly, are limited, rather than giving them over to a corporation that builds massive wealth by undervaluing how much an hour out of someone's LIFE TIME is really worth.  Multi-million dollar companies have decided that an hour of your life is worth $7.25? Or $10.00? $15.00 if you’re lucky, which is actually the new unspoken "minimum wage" for anyone with any education or experience? 

Really? Because I'm sure that at the end of this road, when you are on your deathbed, you'll be willing to pay far more for just one more hour.  Fathers who realize they never really knew their kids and no longer have an intimate relationship with their spouse. Women who have been forced to let others be the primary influence in their children's lives because "the job", and who still have to fill the "mom" role of running the household and taking care of everyone BUT herself. Those who were so focused on workplace success and promotion that they never bothered to build any lasting relationships outside of work. As a whole, we’ve been trained to "live" for Saturday and Sunday, if we're one of the lucky ones, because in the service industry, the actual backbone of these multi-million dollar corporations, a weekend off, or even two consecutive days, is a rare privilege, indeed. 

Even the meaning of the word "commerce" has changed over time, transformed and manipulated by the system. It once meant "social dealings between people", but now it means "the activity of buying and selling, especially on a large scale". So, are you really engaging in "commerce", or are you being a pawn in a game you can not win? Can you legitimately engage in "commerce" for $7.25 an hour?  Which is more important, watching your son make his first home-run or your daughter's dance recital or the $58 minus 60% taxes you'll make instead?

This isn't the way. We are moving from a monetary based society into something that more closely resembles the lives we lived prior to the industrial age. We're moving back to the basics, taking stock of what is really important. No longer are people willing to miss all the things that give life actual value for the almighty dollar, OR, they're learning how to earn that same dollar on their own terms. Sorry, “too big to fail corporations”, but your reign of control is ending.