Page 7 of Rich and Bossy

If Paxton Briggs won’t do anything, there’s no hope. That’s where my opinion falls on this.

How the hell could he just not know? What a liar. His business is behemoth and growing all the time. It’s one of the largest companies in the world. You can’t tell me they got to that point without having a clue about major workplace policies.

I’m sure a lot of people would say,“Hey, why don’t they just go get another job if they don’t like it?”

Yeah, yeah, that sounds great in theory and all, but no matter how miserable the working conditions are, people need to work, they need to eat. They’re desperate. Rapid has literally bought every competing business in our state and rolled them all up into their company. So, it’s not like there are a lot of choices out here.

The post office headquarters are like over an hour away. The bus runs straight from the city to here at Rapid, so it makes it easy for people who don’t have a car to get here.

It’s not like a lot of the workers here have the highest levels of education, either. Most of them are lucky to have a high school diploma, but they work so hard. They work as hard as anyone else, and they deserve to be able to support a family for working that hard.

Not to mention, employment is tied to health insurance. There’s absolutely no way Cheryl, with a newborn in the NICU,could up and leave her job, and go without insurance until the next job benefits kicks in. The interim insurance programs they have for people in that situation are way too expensive for her to afford anyway, even if she wanted to. She could use FMLA, but it’s unpaid. She’d get evicted. She told me.

My heart breaks for her. This would never happen in Europe. Those people know how to treat workers. I talked to a friend in the UK, and I couldn’t believe the type of benefits they get. They take months-long vacations. Yes,months,as in plural. I’m sure not all the grass is greener on the other side, but it seems pretty dang green.

Fortunately, for me, I’ve never had to worry about any of that. Sometimes I almost feel bad, knowing how good I have it at work. No, my family’s not rich, but there was never a question of how I’d support myself while going to college. I work because I don’t want to be a mooch while living at home. I want to work for everything I have.

It was one thing in high school, but college is a different story. They don’t ask me to give them rent or food money, but I do it anyway because I wouldn’t feel right. I’m also not going to borrow a dime to go to school, just in case something happens and the economy goes down the tube.

I’ve seen way too many people with insane amounts of student loan debt. The crash in 2008 happened, and then the interest just kept piling on. Throw in Covid and you have a disaster on your hands.

No, I’m so lucky that I won’t have any loans either. For some people it’s impossible to chase their dreams without racking up a ton of them. For some people right now, it’s impossible to survive without debt. I know for a fact there are some people here living paycheck to paycheck, and putting bills on credit cards to make sure their kids eat.

My parents still handle my health care, since I’m still eligible, and it’s better coverage than Rapid provides. They handle a lot of things for me, until I graduate and land on my two feet in a career I want. I have a roof over my head, a decent car that gets me where I need to go with minimal maintenance needs and good gas mileage. I’m safe. I have security.

That’s what I want for other people, security and dignity. I can’t imagine the anxiety of not being secure.

How many people at Rapid don’t have that security? How desperate are they? So desperate they’ll pee in a bucket to avoid being written up at work, possibly fired.

Maybe I’m an idealist. People my age are supposed to be, aren’t we? We’re supposed to rage against the man, and not know anything because we haven’t lived in the real world yet, right? I think that’s an excuse to shut up people who have the energy to fight. People who haven’t been beaten down by reality yet.

I get the sentiment though. I get it, I want to have some humility, but I’ve seen this stuff happening with my own two eyes. It’s not right.

Nobody is going to convince me that’s just doing business as usual, and that it’s okay because it’s what’s best for the shareholders.

I thought this country was past all that when we passed labor laws. The days of sweatshops and treating poor people like dirt. These people will do anything, and I mean anything, to make some extra money they don’t need.

“Oh crap.” I look at my book, and I just read like four pages and didn’t retain a single word of it.

Should I go back to studying? Oh no, I continue the epic rant in my thoughts.

The fact that this asshole Paxton Briggs smirked like human resources would do anything when we complained. Like anyonereally thinks any kind of a whistleblower system for anything ever works. Oh no, it just identifies the troublemakers who won’t do what they’re told, and they get secretly, but legally shown the door.

There’s no way he can really be that naive. Right?

I’m sure I was an afterthought the second he got off the elevator.

I highly doubt he looked into any of our concerns. I would’ve heard about it from Paul Morrison, the manager of our warehouse. I wasn’t hauled into an office, so it means he forgot about me immediately. No, he didn’t forget. He just didn’t care.

“Here you go.” Mom sets a sandwich down.

I jolt again at the way she keeps ripping me out of my daydreams.

“Sorry. Sorry. You’re so jumpy.”

“No, Mom. I’m sorry. Seriously, I’m just a little on edge.” I was so busy feeling sorry for myself and fuming I forgot Mom went to make me a sandwich.

I glance down at it. Turkey and Swiss, my favorite, complete with a pickle spear and potato chips on the side.

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