Very little is expected of you. Motivation comes from speakers. Help comes from books. Management comes from training programs and thinking is done by hats. You just need to punch in and out. You are paid enough to keep up with inflation but not enough to retire.
It is not a bad deal. And it’s not like you have seen better ones. But it leaves you strangely dissatisfied, like primates bred in captivity.
Between performance ratings and working on weekends, you realize the only one who can help you is yourself and off course, some friends. Breaking the perimeter of captivity will require some elaborate scheme, like Prison Break.
As in scripts, you need some lucky breaks, like jet packs in Super Mario. You need to swim against the tide of non-believers and nay-sayers into the pristine waters of realization.
And nothing works like Vindication:
Management would call it positive re-enforcement, we call it community. It is the reason why worker unions, fan clubs and tribute bands exist and thrive.
You don’t have to be Neo from The Matrix, just Peter Gibbons from Office Space will do. You don’t have to be weirdly unique either. Most of what we call unique is like a differently colored stick figure in a stock photo. You just have to be crazy enough to look beyond the cubicle and sane enough not to send out a farewell note laced with expletives.
__________________________________________________________
SlavesInc was launched in January of this year with a gusto I don’t remember having for anything else. Before Freshly Pressed or even my friends and acquaintances started reading the blog, Lorna was a regular visitor. Though there was no bogging down SlavesInc, Lorna’s comments greatly re-enforced my belief in the content of this site. It makes me think of all the blogs I have enjoyed reading but left without commenting. The writer would never know someone read the whole deal and appreciated it (I am talking pre Like-button era)
Now, Lorna has done me one better by nominating SlavesInc for ‘The Versatile Blogger Award’. This award follows a pass the baton routine. Besides being a major motivator and smile-inducer, The Versatile Blogger Award also makes you realize what was missing in school, college and now, at work.
Apart from the merriment, VBA comes with a set of customs:
- Copy and paste the Award Image to your “Acceptance Post” .
- Acknowledge the blogger who nominated you.
- Disclose 7 random facts about yourself.
- Notify the bloggers I nominate for this award
So here goes…7 random Slave’s facts:
- SlavesInc was originally intended to be a comic strip. (Watch this space)
- The sign-off ‘- J’ was meant to be a central character in a comic strip theme. Over 34 posts so far, it has come to become more of a pen name and it suits the look and tone of the blog
- The very first post, Morning High, was meant to be a one-off post on my older blog. But so enthralling were the results that I spun it off into a blog by itself
- Offline/in real life, I am a slave whose existence resembles though does not mirror the logs of SlavesInc
- Many of the posts are suggested by fellow slaves who see kinship in this account of their not-so unique multitude routine
- I am not a harrowed, stressed, diabetic desk monkey (yet). I work out and I carry 7-10 small but frequent meal containers to office
- But I am not the sporty-type either. I only learnt to ride a bi-cycle after I was 21 years old. Learnt it without falling down even once, long legs you see.
Nominations: I am guilty of not reading many blogs. Recently, I realized that I have not even subscribed to Lorna’s wonderful blog. So I am aiming for 10 but I may fall short:
Being single, being crazy and a lot of things in between
A beautiful collection of skillfully penned short short stories
A blog about Olive Oil! Delightfully celebrative and well written
Humble and humorous churnings from a veteran writer
A canoodling of smile-inducing doodles
A book in the making
Boring, Banal and not at all Bodacious
Aptly titled and ably worded, it is described as ‘pursuing a career in professional unemployment’ by the author himself.
A colorful log of a band on the road
A published author writes about living on different continents and reforestation
A photography blog that is a treat for the eyes and fodder for the mind
Earthy and likable accounts of an affable life
Reclusive but pleasing, rendered by the humble lead pencil
Okay, we actually have more than 10 so far and it has taken some doing. I will stop here since I would only want to mention blogs I can vouch for. Also, I am sticking to WordPress blogs.
Thank you fellow slaves and kind readers for your interest and thank you Lorna for supporting SlavesInc.
– J.
As you can see, I am fairly well delayed and slowly catching up with my missed reads. So I’ve found the checklist and now you make me work some more. What is a slave of a slave? Air or child? Anyhow, you re-energized my battery to sharpen my blog again, always healthier than getting caught staring at the new intern.
air or child?
haaa!
I prefer gumption to hurry, take your time
a little staring can be healthy but it may or may not be legal these days
Wow. Floyd and then Metallica too? If I could, I would have attended too. But somehow after Reload Metallica has lost it. IMO they are trying to relive their glory days instead of moving on and singing what they really feel like. In the first few albums, you can actually hear them growing up again. But now they… forget it.
Well here in Denver, I have missed Dimmu Borgir once. Hoping to catch Children of Bodom or possibly Slayer sometime.
Waiting for a rock concert in the Red Rocks amphitheater (http://www.redrocksonline.com/)
Death Magnetic was good and theyr in the Hall of Fame already so Load and Reload is sumtin all of us have to live with! 😀
Red Rocks amphitheater sounds good
Hey… And I nominate you for the award too (http://highoncoffee.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/award-time/). Keep the good work going on. And don’t worry too much about being a slave in the box. Remember – the very strings tied to your limbs are tied to someone else’s hand too.
Browsing through the rest of the comments… and looks like you like Metallica too…
I have a feeling….
30th Oct, Palace grounds, tickets in hand!
I like your string theory talk about an insight!
Thank you sir for the nomination
now…to see how I can pull off another acceptance post 😀
[…] to SlavesIncStrip for the first nomination. “J” was supposed to be a character in a comic strip, but channeled the spirit of the […]
Of all the posts to miss, I missed the one that the WordPress Overlords selected to be Freshly Pressed…go figure! I’m definitely checking that one out.
Great “Acceptance Post” my friend!
Thanks Lorna 🙂 took me an entire day to put it together!
the post was picked up 2 months after it was published a pleasant surprise if there ever was one
congrats!! i love your blog 🙂
thanks Whitney
🙂
it has been most satisfying putting this blog together
First congratulations and bravo on such a well-written acceptance. This post definitely shows your writing prowess and your humor. I’ve enjoyed reading your blog and will continue to do so as I love your musings about slavery in the 21st century. What you say is always on point and millions of slaves around the world will appreciate that a smart and witty fellow slave can make light of what it’s like to be incarcerated for 8 hours a day … plus commute.
And thank you for nominating me. I’ll try to make you proud 🙂
‘incarcerated for 8 hours a day … plus commute’
gotta write on the commute one of these days
Millions of slaves around the world is who I am hoping to reach out to (Kinda like the Metallica song: ‘Sanitarium’) !
Thanks Lafem 🙂
Oh please do a post on how one goes crazy inside the car while on the freeway wasteland. Please … you’d put a hilarious spin on that one for sure 🙂
Alrighty the commute it is then for the next post 😀
Thanks
🙂
I put in a lot of time for the visuals
If only school textbooks did the same, lol
Congrats! btw love the visuals 🙂