doing your job

Well perhaps I shouldn’t have used the term low-income to describe my social milieu at the time I was trying to break into the white collar world, I think riff raff would have been a more accurate term, you know folks who drink a bit, have trouble putting the rent together, have cars that are always breaking down, sometimes don’t show up for work, just because. This as opposed to people who worked in offices, who had a spouse and kids, who dressed nice, used good grammar, probably went to church. Those were the people who were held up as morally superior, but turned out to be shockingly deceitful and underhanded.

But you’re right usually in the pop books, and certainly in the movies, the poor people are all upright and kindly while their rich counterparts are drinking champagne from each others slippers and are morally dissolute. If the girl (who is always, despite some charming quirkiness, pure at heart) has a choice between a rich and a poor suitor, she will always choose the guy whose clothes are dirty but his hands are clean, and the audience will arise crying and laughing and applauding as the essential goodness of human nature is affirmed once again.

That’s the way the real world works isn’t it? That’s why when we walk through a neighborhood of rich people we keep our eyes open and walk as fast as we can, whereas when we walk through a poor neighborhood, we stroll casually without a worry in our heads.

Likely it is that underdog thing. I think we all have it in us. I guess we all feel that fate has not treated us as kindly as we deserved to be treated, and that when we triumph despite those long unfair odds against us, why it will only be right.

Right, those employment agencies don’t charge the job seeker anything. If he doesn’t get a job no money changes hands. If he does, the employer pays the agency who pays Tamara a commission.

Apparently Tamara cared more about her career advancement than she cared about actually doing her job

See I think Tamara was doing exactly her job. If I own the agency I am concerned with the bottom line, not with how many people get good jobs. The employment agency is a bad example because it is kind of complicated. Let’s consider your dad’s butcher shop. Is his job to provide fine meats at reasonable prices or to pay the rent and be able to send his kids to college, even if one of them would rather found freeholds? At first glance it might seem that his job was the former, but if he doesn’t do the latter, he will be out of business and won’t be able to provide fine meats to anybody.

If he was really into providing fine meats at reasonable prices, he could raise the quality of his meats and lower his prices, but he would probably go broke. If he was really into paying the rent and sending his goofy son to Yale, he could buy cheaper meats and raise his prices, but if he had any competition he would likely run out of customers and also go broke.

Well that is sort of just capitalism 101 isn’t it? I guess what I am trying to say is that the real mission of the butcher shop (and the employment agency, and the paper mill), is to make money, and selling meat (or etc) is only a way to do that. The prime mission of all three is to make a profit, not to provide services. There, that has a nice commie ring.

See, in the commie world, making a profit is not important, so that the paper mills and agencies and butcher shops, are only concerned with providing services well, and since everything is run by incorruptible new men who are concerned only with the welfare of the people, everybody has a good job and goes home to a fine steak for supper and afterwards pens a letter to the local free newspaper on the finest of paper.

I’m going to end up on that, because I don’t want to discuss sausages, Polish or otherwise.