Staying Alive

I filed my geezer papers this week, which means I will receive my first pension payment in the bank late next month.  Boy, this makes me feel old.  I am sixty-one, which means I am taking it early at a reduced amount, that will remain reduced permanently, but for annual adjustments for inflation.  I really wanted to wait another four years till I was sixty-five, and eligible for perhaps sixty five dollars more a month.  But shit happened at work.

I have already blogged about the supervisor from hell.  This has to be the most upsetting person I have ever had as a supervisor so I had to plan carefully, while away in Costa Rica.  I had to make the decision.  I would see if I could survive on my reduced pension, without the additional eighteen hours a month at this position.  Even when it became clear that I could do this and still survive with dignity, it was still not an easy decision.  I have really enjoyed working at this site, where I was for more than eleven years.  I became incredibly fond of the clients and staff.  This would not be an easy desertion. 

I had to do it to survive.  I could not risk my mental health with a supervisor with zero compassion or empathy. 

I am glad I resigned.  Many other workers, thousands every day, have to make this often difficult decision.  There are many things that chain us to our livelihood, making it really hard for us to leave our employment or move on.  Being that it's our livelihood is the principal obstacle.  Our ability to survive, to eat, access shelter, services, clothing and transportation, is indelibly linked to our jobs.  That is our principal reason for having to work.  We otherwise die.  Especially with the hugely deteriorated state of social assistance services in Canada and other western democracies, and their nonexistence in many countries, this daily reality of work places a new emphasis on our lives being nasty, brutish, short and mean.

I am not saying that we shouldn't work.  Of course we should, otherwise our lives as a community, as a society would quickly grind to a halt.  It is concerning that our prior value in work lies in keeping our sorry ass alive with perhaps a nod and a wink given later to the social and redemptive value of our livelihood.

If there was a mandatory subsidy available to underemployed and underpaid workers, enough to keep our entire income up around the minimum living wage category, I wonder what would change?  If I had not had to wait to be eligible for my pension, if our government wasn't so mean-spirited about reducing the amount for early filers, if there was always something available to top everything up, if we, none of us, would ever again have to worry about going without shelter or food, or having to choose between the two, I wonder what would change?

I have spent my entire working life in low wage employment, and underemployment.  Many times I had to choose between housing and food in order to survive.  Instead of having to resort to the grinding humility of welfare or the poverty of near minimum wage work, I really wonder how different my life would have been had there been subsidies available, no questions asked, to guarantee that I would always have a decent standard of living, regardless of the crappy options available for employment.  I wonder what would have changed in my attitude towards my profession if, instead of having to do it every day to keep body and soul together, that, already assured of my basic needs being met, I could really devote my professional energies to the wellbeing of my clients, knowing that I was doing my part for the common good?

There is something inherently and unavoidably selfish about survival work.  The focus is so on the survival of the individual that there is often an inferior focus on the greater good that is being served through our efforts.  I know that I was not adequately prepared in school for working life.  I wonder what would change if in our schools, from an early age, children were prepared not to work and slave to keep themselves alive at meaningless occupations, but to value work as something that builds, develops and enriches the community and themselves also through their efforts.  Instead of a basic wage or salary at the end of the week or month to keep us alive, we would already be assured of our essential survival while being taught and educated to dedicate our lives, our energies and our talents to the welfare of society, which would be our own welfare as well?  That together, we all rise, without sacrificing, but guaranteeing and enhancing the value of the individual through the context of the collective.