Americans in 2024: Overworked, Underpaid, and Fed Up
Our bosses make secret algorithms to price gouge us. Any surprise we're angry?
Working an hourly job can make you feel like a grain of sand on a beach. Just a speck. A tiny fleck. A single number in the line to infinity. The days of an hourly job are full of numbers.
You have an employee number, a social security number, and a date of birth. Corporate tracks your assigned numbers and everything you do.
They track your time. They track your movements.
If you’re a cashier, they track your speed. Same with stocking shelves — tracked. Same with fulfilling orders — tracked. These jobs entail constantly racing against the clock to get the job done fast enough. There’s always more to do; you’ll never finish all of it, and the time clock will be waiting for you tomorrow — tireless, cold, and rigid.
After working as a retail leader for two decades, I know this scenario well. Every day was a race against time. The tasks piled on, growing taller by the minute. Some days, we joked that we’d die under all the shipments of sweaters. Someone would …